About: blatcho

Seven factors that set high-performing executive teams apart.

This week, we talk about how the two giants changed the digital—and IRL—retail landscape over the course of their decades-long rivalry.

Spycraft developed by defense contractors are now being sold to employers to identify labor organizing. Regulators must step up to protect workers’ privacy.

Newly released documents highlight the bureau’s continued secrecy around cell-site simulators—spying tech that everyone already assumes exists.

Bloomberg: a16z, Accel, Bain, Bessemer, Kleiner, and, sources say, Coatue and Tiger are increasingly buying startup shares on the secondary market, often at cheap prices  —  It’s a bargain-hunter’s dream, and for sellers it’s sometimes the only good option left.  —  Secondary markets …

Jon Porter / The Verge: Comcast-owned UK broadcaster Sky launches Sky Live, a camera designed to add social, fitness, and gaming features to its smart TVs, for £290  —  Comcast-owned British broadcaster Sky has launched a new camera that’s designed to add more social, fitness, and gaming features to its smart TVs.

Wall Street Journal: A look at TikTok’s effect on small businesses in the US, as the app has become “a billion-person focus group”, disrupting business cycles and corporate R&D  —  The social-media giant has become ‘a billion-person focus group,’ disrupting business cycles and upending corporate R&D

Never underestimate the power of a time crunch. In 2016, MIT classmates David Heller ’18, Shara Ticku, and Harry McNamara PhD ’19 were less than two weeks away from the deadline to present a final business plan as part of their class MAS.883 (Revolutionary Ventures: How to Invent and Deploy Transformative Technologies). The students had […]

Keep your phone, tablet, laptop, and other electronics running with these handheld power banks.

Curls and waves are beautiful. But when you want to smooth them out, these hot tools—irons, brushes, and combs—work wonders.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: NYC-based newsletter platform beehiiv raised a $12.5M Series A led by Lightspeed and says it has 7,500 active newsletters with 350M monthly impressions  —  The world took a double take at the potential of newsletters after Substack started to blow up a few years ago.

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: Apple patches three zero-days in its operating systems, including Operation Triangulation iMessage exploit described by Kaspersky earlier in June  —  Apple addressed three new zero-day vulnerabilities exploited in attacks installing Triangulation spyware on iPhones via iMessage zero-click exploits.

Chance Miller / 9to5Mac: Apple releases visionOS SDK, and says the company will open developer labs and applications for Apple Vision Pro developer kits next month  —  When Apple announced Vision Pro at WWDC, the company promised to make a robust set of tools available for developers.

Researchers at Microsoft say they have created elusive quasiparticles called Majorana zero modes – but scientists outside the company are sceptical

Robots that respond to a person’s movements in a fraction of a second could be used for a real-life fighting game

The Fannie and John Hertz Foundation has announced that it has awarded graduate fellowships to six students with ties to MIT. These prestigious awards provide each student with five years of doctoral-level research funding (up to a total of $250,000), which gives them flexibility and autonomy to pursue their own research interests, beyond the traditional […]

On Tuesday, May 23, the Manufacturing@MIT Working Group hosted its second annual symposium in Wong Auditorium, titled “Charting the Future of Production in a Time of Shifting Globalization.” Speakers covered topics including the history of labor markets, the future of digital production, global supply chains, China’s role, and effective regional initiatives, along with deep dives […]

Your brain is powered by 400 miles of blood vessels that provide nutrients, clear out waste products, and form a tight protective barrier — the blood-brain barrier — that controls which molecules can enter or exit. However, it has remained unclear how these brain vascular cells change between brain regions, or in Alzheimer’s disease, at […]

Five lessons from companies leaning into the creator economy.

Employees want more feedback but managers feel increasingly stretched thin. AI tools can help bridge the gap.

Seven best practices to help companies embrace religious diversity.

Modern Barrel’s Wi-Fi-enabled urn ingests a bottle of booze and spits out a barrel-aged version after a week.

Vehicles from Toyota, Honda, Ford, and more can collect huge volumes of data. Here’s what the companies can access.

As companies like Target face conservative backlash for their Pride merchandise, the LGBTQ+ TikTokkers who review it aren’t holding back.

Josh Dzieza / The Verge: A look at the vast and mostly hidden “tasker” underclass, including subject-matter experts, hired by companies like Scale AI to annotate data for AI training  —  As the technology becomes ubiquitous, a vast tasker underclass is emerging — and not going anywhere.

Brad Stone / Bloomberg: In his new book The Coming Wave, DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman proposes a “modern Turing test” for AI, seeking to find “artificial capable intelligence”  —  A new book floats a provocative idea for testing whether machines are capable of human-like intelligence.

K.J. Yossman / Variety: Filing: Embracer paid ~$395M for the rights to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit in 2022, far below ~$2B estimates; Amazon reportedly paid $250M for TV rights  —  Embracer Group, the Swedish gaming conglomerate that snapped up the rights to “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” …

Recent U.S. elections have raised the question of whether “microtargeting,” the use of extensive online data to tailor persuasive messages to voters, has altered the playing field of politics. Now, a newly-published study led by MIT scholars finds that while targeting is effective in some political contexts, the “micro” part of things may not be […]

Charlie Farquhar entered college intending to major in history, but quickly pivoted after taking an introductory chemistry course and becoming fascinated by chemistry’s biomedical applications.   “I’m interested in how these small chemicals and molecular interactions can make really large-scale changes in the body,” says Farquhar, noting that the practice of chemistry itself is similar. […]

Games for every console, plus DLC and freebies—all in one spot.

From Silo to The Crowded Room, here’s everything you need to be watching on the streamer.

Rescue teams are scrambling to find the sub, which has gone missing near the wreckage of the Titanic, before those aboard run out of oxygen.

Xinghui Kok / Reuters: Letter: Grab CEO tells staff the company plans to cut 1,000 jobs, or 11% of its workforce, citing the need to manage costs and ensure more affordable services  —  Singapore-based Grab Holdings (GRAB.O), Southeast Asia’s leading ride-hailing and food delivery app, is cutting 1,000 jobs or 11% …

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: Twitch will require streamers to add new content labels for streams containing sexual themes, graphic violence, drugs use, gambling, or “significant” vulgarity  —  Twitch is rethinking the way it flags mature content, swapping its existing toggle for a more granular set of topic-specific labels.

Sean Hollister / The Verge: How Big Telecom lobbied US lawmakers to squeeze out new municipal networks, ensuring much of President Biden’s $41.6B broadband funding goes to big corporations  —  President Joe Biden’s internet access plan will hand $41.6 billion to internet service providers.  In many places, that money will get funneled into private hands.

Mining cryptocurrencies like bitcoin could be done using quantum computers, cutting their electricity use by 90 per cent

A centimetre-sized robot with a soft body and metallic scales inspired by pangolins can stop bleeding or destroy cells from inside the body using heat

Christopher Voigt, the Daniel I.C. Wang Professor of Biological Engineering, has been named the new head of the Department of Biological Engineering effective Aug. 1. “Professor Voigt is truly a pioneer in the field of synthetic biology. His research is incredibly interdisciplinary, so he has extensive experience working across a diverse range of fields and […]

Eminent theoretical physicist and Dirac Medalist Roman Jackiw, MIT professor emeritus and holder of the Department of Physics’ Jerrold Zacharias chair, died June 14 at age 83. He was a member of the MIT physics community for 54 years. A leader in the sophisticated use of quantum field theory to illuminate physical problems, his influential […]

Sponsor content from Workday.

Ten questions to ask yourself before taking the leap.

How should Elon Musk approach long-term strategy to turn around Twitter?

Tell summer to go to … Well, at least keep from overheating indoors—or outdoors—with the right tips and gear.

There’s so much potential for the government to use technology to improve the lives of citizens. It starts with acknowledging the importance of training.

Apple’s laptops are expensive, and you’ll have to make some hard choices to pick the right one. Let us help.

Kenza Bryan / Financial Times: Aviva, Fidelity, and other big institutional investors are increasingly pressuring tech companies to prevent AI misuse, concerned about potential liability  —  Financial firms worried about liability for human rights issues associated with the burgeoning technology

Ashley Carman / Bloomberg: Source: Spotify plans a more expensive “Supremium” tier with HiFi audio, audiobooks, and more, launching outside the US later in 2023; Premium costs $9.99/month  —  Spotify Technology SA is planning a more expensive subscription option that’s expected to include high-fidelity audio …

Alexander Osipovich / Wall Street Journal: Crypto exchange EDX Markets, backed by Citadel, Fidelity, and Charles Schwab, quietly began executing trades in recent weeks, offering a noncustodial service  —  EDX Markets won’t directly handle customers’ digital assets or directly serve individual investors

Researchers attached pill bugs and chitons to a robot arm to show how creatures might work with machines, but it isn’t clear how useful this would be

Protect your eyes in style while you lounge, run, paddle, or work on your computer outside.