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. A brain implant changed her life. Then it was removed against her will. Sticking an electrode inside a person’s brain can do more than treat a disease. Take the case of Rita Leggett,…

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. Ian Burkhart sustained a severe spinal cord injury while he was on vacation at 19 years old. “It left me as a quadriplegic,” he says. “I had a little bit of movement in my arms, but nothing in my hands.” He wanted something that could give...

Sticking an electrode inside a person’s brain can do more than treat a disease. Take the case of Rita Leggett, an Australian woman whose experimental brain implant changed her sense of agency and self. She told researchers that she “became one” with her device. She was devastated when, two years later, she was told she had to remove the implant because the company that made it had gone...

The e-mobility revolution is in high gear. Automakers are promising to launch dozens of electric models over the next decade. In August 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden set a target for 50% of new car sales to be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030. And electric car registrations in Europe increased from 3.5% in 2019 to almost 18% in 2021, according to the European Environment Agency. Policy...

The automotive industry is rapidly changing as connected and autonomous vehicles — enabled by AI and machine learning — are transforming transportation to create a seamless and personalized customer experience. The modernization of systems and software is steering vehicles to be more intelligent than ever, improving driving experiences and propelling operational efficiencies. From simulation...

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. IBM wants to build a 100,000-qubit quantum computer What’s happening: Last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor containing 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental…

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Sitting in a booth in a hotel lobby in Brooklyn, I stared down the lineup of sliders, each on a separate bamboo plate. On the far left was a plant-based burger from Impossible…

Late last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor that contained 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years. IBM made the announcement on May 22 at the G7 summit in Hiroshima,...

For years, we’ve debated the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) for society, but it wasn’t until now that people can finally see its daily impact. But why now? What changed that’s made AI in 2023 substantially more impactful than before? First, consumer exposure to emerging AI innovations has elevated the subject, increasing acceptance. From songwriting and composing images in ways...

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. Everything you need to know about the wild world of alternative jet fuels  The aviation industry is responsible for about 3% of all human-caused global warming. One way it hopes to reduce that…

China Report is MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology developments in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Last week, I told you about my adventure at Tencent’s customer service center. But the quest to get my QQ account back wasn’t the only reason I went to Shenzhen. While I was in China,…

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. The future of flying might depend on french fries, trash, and sunlight. Aviation accounts for about 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, and once you add in other polluting gases, the industry is responsible for about 3% of 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. Food delivery by drone is just part of daily life in Shenzhen —Zeyi Yang In a buzzy urban area in Shenzhen, China, I watched as a drone descended onto a pickup kiosk to…

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. It feels as though a switch has turned on in AI policy. For years, US legislators and American tech companies were reluctant to introduce—if not outright against—strict technology regulation. Now both have started begging for it. Last week, OpenAI CEO...

My iced tea arrived from the sky. In a buzzy urban area in Shenzhen, China, sandwiched between several skyscrapers, I watched as a yellow-and-black drone descended onto a pickup kiosk by the street. The top of the vending-machine-size kiosk opened up for the drone to land, and a white cardboard box containing my drink was placed inside. When I had made the delivery order on my phone half an...

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. AI regulation is hot. Ever since the success of OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT, the public’s attention has been grabbed by wonder and worry about what these powerful AI tools can do. Generative AI has been touted as a potential...

Meta has built AI models that can recognize and produce speech for more than 1,000 languages—a tenfold increase on what’s currently available. It’s a significant step toward preserving languages that are at risk of disappearing, the company says. Meta is releasing its models to the public via the code hosting service GitHub. It claims that making them open source will help developers...

Brain signals can be used to detect how much pain a person is experiencing, which could overhaul how we treat certain chronic pain conditions, a new study has suggested. The research, published in Nature Neuroscience today, is the first time a human’s chronic-pain-related brain signals have been recorded. It could aid the development of personalized therapies for the most severe forms of...

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 FDA just approved rub-on gene therapy that helps “butterfly” children The news: Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration approved sales of the first gene therapy that is directly applied to…

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. I recently published a short story about new policies recently announced by Google and Twitter that allow the companies to remove inactive accounts. Google said the decision was based on security...

Antonio Vento is 13 years old. He’s a tiny figure in bandages who doesn’t walk and, until recently, couldn’t see more than shadows. He has dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, an inherited disease that makes his skin so fragile that kids with the illness are called “butterfly children.” But now, thanks to a novel gene therapy squirted onto his skin and dripped into his eyes, things are...

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. Your digital life isn’t as permanent as you think it is Earlier this week, Google announced its intention to start deleting personal accounts that haven’t been active in over two years in December.…

Robyn Caplan understands the fragility of digital memories intimately. After tragically losing both of her parents during the covid pandemic, Caplan treasures the digital possessions she inherited. She cherishes her mom’s iPad, access to her dad’s email inbox, and message threads with both of them. It allows her to see the world through the eyes of her parents, she says.  After Caplan...

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. What if I told you there’s a group of people who think death is morally bad—that we have a moral duty to find ways to slow or reverse aging? Who seek to create a new state with its own laws that expedite the development of longevity drugs,...