If y’all have been around for a while, you know that I love writing about batteries (see exhibits A, B, and C). Using chemical reactions to store energy is handy and scaleable, and there are about a million ways to do it, which is why batteries have basically become synonymous with energy storage.  But more groups are starting to think outside the battery. In an effort to cut costs and store...

From generating artworks to creating sustainable supply chains, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a critical tool in a myriad of economic sectors worldwide. As global enterprises increasingly use AI to gain a competitive edge, governments are also working hard to fuel innovation and growth with AI.  In recent years, Asian countries have stepped up efforts to support the rapid...

The urgency of the global transition to a net-zero economy, focused on solutions that enable the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, cannot be overstated. As both the engine of global economic growth and substantial emissions generator, industry has a unique responsibility and opportunity to lead this process. And while the energy and petrochemicals sectors have understandably been a central...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Sam Altman invested $180 million into a company trying to delay death When a startup called Retro Biosciences eased out of stealth mode in mid-2022, it announced it had secured $180 million to…

China Report is MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. As I often say, the American people and the Chinese people have much more in common than either side likes to admit. For example, take the shared concern about how much time children and teenagers…

When a startup called Retro Biosciences eased out of stealth mode in mid-2022, it announced it had secured $180 million to bankroll an audacious mission: to add 10 years to the average human life span. It had set up its headquarters in a raw warehouse space near San Francisco just the year before, bolting shipping…

Forget about He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who created gene-edited babies. Instead, when you think about gene editing you should think of Victoria Gray, the African-American woman who says she’s been cured of her sickle-cell disease symptoms.  This week in London, scientists are gathering for the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing. It’s gene editing’s big event,...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. This geothermal startup showed its wells can be used like a giant underground battery In late January, a geothermal power startup began conducting experiments where it pumped water deep below the desert floor…

In late January, a geothermal power startup began conducting an experiment deep below the desert floor of northern Nevada. It pumped water thousands of feet underground and then held it there, watching for what would happen. Geothermal power plants work by circulating water through hot rock deep beneath the surface. In most modern plants, it…

I recently tried on a Cartier Tank watch and a slew of Tiffany bracelets, watching the metal and diamonds shine in the dim light. I wasn’t at a store, though; I was in my bed, barefoot and in sweatpants, using an AR experience on Snap that let me see how the jewelry looked on my wrist. The Cartier and Tiffany AR campaigns are the latest in a series of collaborations Snap is making with brands...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How to log off As soon as I wake up, I grab my phone to check any messages that have arrived overnight and thumb through news alerts before scrolling quickly through Twitter and…

The US government had a hand in creating some of the most iconic inventions of the last century, from personal computers to modern GPS. Now, it’s making a similar push for energy. The agency behind those breakthroughs was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. Founded in 1958 as part of the Department of Defense, DARPA funded research and shepherded defense-related...

This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. If you use Google, Instagram, Wikipedia, or YouTube, you’re going to start noticing changes to content moderation, transparency, and safety features on those sites over the next six months....

Tech Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more here. As soon as I wake up, I grab my phone to check any messages that have arrived overnight and thumb through news alerts before scrolling quickly through Twitter and Instagram. At work, I’m tethered to Slack and email, apart from the...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The inside story of how ChatGPT was built from the people who made it When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, with zero fanfare, in late November 2022, nobody inside the company was prepared for a…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. This week, I’ve been working on a big story about a controversial treatment that creates babies with three genetic parents. The “three-parent baby” technique was thought to help parents avoid passing diseases…

One of the earliest stages in the process of identifying a potential new drug is to expose cells to the compound in a lab dish and scour microscope images to see the effects. Biologists who do this work tend to focus on a few select features that could indicate the drug is working—a cluster of fluorescently labeled proteins, for example, or a decrease in the number of dividing cells. The...

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT, with zero fanfare, in late November 2022, the San Francisco–based artificial-intelligence company had few expectations. Certainly, nobody inside OpenAI was prepared for a viral mega-hit. The firm has been scrambling to catch up—and capitalize on its success—ever since. It was viewed in-house as a “research preview,” says Sandhini Agarwal, who works…

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Three-parent baby technique could create babies at risk of severe disease When the first baby born using a controversial procedure that meant he had three genetic parents was born back in 2016, it…

When the first baby born using a controversial procedure that meant he had three genetic parents was born back in 2016, it made headlines. The baby boy inherited most of his DNA from his mother and father, but he also had a tiny amount from a third person. The idea was to avoid having the…

Last September, researchers in the UK launched a high-altitude weather balloon that released a few hundred grams of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, a potential scientific first in the solar geoengineering field, MIT Technology Review has learned. Solar geoengineering is the theory that humans can ease global warming by deliberately reflecting more sunlight into space. One possible means...

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. It’s official—after over a month of open voting, hydrogen planes are the readers’ choice for the 11th item on our 2023 list of Breakthrough Technologies!  I’d like to thank the academy, and all…

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. These companies want to tackle food waste with microbes Some people might look in a grocery store’s dumpster and see garbage. But others are starting to see dollar signs. New facilities are popping…

Some people might look in a grocery store’s dumpster and see garbage. But others are starting to see dollar signs.  New facilities are popping up in the US to help tackle food waste using a process called anaerobic digestion, which uses microbes to break down organic materials. Divert, a company working to address food waste, announced today that it’s received a $1 billion funding...