Category: Uncategorized

The open source protocol is finally here to ensure that your devices play nicely. Here’s how it could change the smart home scene.

Bloomberg: Amazon is discontinuing Glow, its video calling device aimed at kids, amid lackluster sales and a shift in consumer behavior, after debuting it last year  —  Amazon.com Inc. is discontinuing its pandemic-era kids’ video calling device amid lackluster sales and a shift in consumer behavior.

AI can use images from Google Street View and satellites to estimate building energy efficiency across entire cities. That could guide investments in reducing energy waste and fighting climate change

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Meta debuts Instagram ads on the Explore page and tests ads in profile feeds, letting creators earn extra income, and a shorter ad format for Facebook Reels  —  Following another quarter that saw marketers pull back on their ad spending, Meta today announced it’s increasing its ad load on Instagram with […]

A new study by researchers in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT provides evidence from both mouse models and postmortem human tissue of a direct link between two problems that emerge in Alzheimer’s disease: a buildup of double-stranded breaks (DSBs) in the DNA of neurons and the inflammatory behavior of microglia, the […]

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded grants to four MIT faculty members as part of its High-Risk, High-Reward Research program. The program supports unconventional approaches to challenges in biomedical, behavioral, and social sciences. Each year, NIH Director’s Awards are granted to program applicants who propose high-risk, high-impact research in areas relevant to the […]

History and the future joined forces on Friday at a campus event honoring Robert Robinson Taylor, MIT’s first Black graduate and the first accredited Black architect in the United States. The gathering also highlighted new collaborations between MIT and Tuskegee University. The event featured remarks from former White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, who is Taylor’s […]

B&W has taken its already excellent Px7 S2 cans and made a luxe version. Do the material and sonic gains justify the extra outlay? Oh yes.

Ron Miller / TechCrunch: Securiti, which helps companies manage data privacy, security, governance, and compliance, raised a $75M Series C, bringing its total funding to $155M  —  The combination of rapid data growth and expanding data regulations like GDPR and CCPA is putting a lot of pressure on companies to figure …

Hannah Miller / Bloomberg: Horizon Blockchain Games, which develops the Sequence developer platform, Niftyswap marketplace, and Skyweaver trading card game, raised a $40M Series A  —  Crypto winter has helped chill demand for nonfungible tokens, but that hasn’t stopped startups that use them from raising money.

The company is losing huge sums of money on cookie-cutter homes—suggesting a fundamental weakness in the US housing market.

The makers of some of our favorite gaming headsets have come up with equally impressive desktop speakers.

Reuters: Meta announces AITemplate, an open-source, PyTorch-based unified “inference” system for both AMD and Nvidia GPU hardware, helping code run 4x-12x faster  —  Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O)said on Monday it has launched a new set of free software tools …

Sponsor content from LinkedIn.

Microcontrollers, miniature computers that can run simple commands, are the basis for billions of connected devices, from internet-of-things (IoT) devices to sensors in automobiles. But cheap, low-power microcontrollers have extremely limited memory and no operating system, making it challenging to train artificial intelligence models on “edge devices” that work independently from central computing resources. Training […]

Six changes companies need to make now.

It was never guaranteed Detroit would become Motor City.

Kathryn Hardison / Wall Street Journal: South Korean company Naver agrees to acquire Poshmark for $17.90 per share, representing an enterprise value of ~$1.2B; Poshmark stock rose 14%+ after hours  —  The boards of both companies approved the transaction  —  Naver Corp. 035420 -1.53%▼ plans to acquire Poshmark Inc. …

We’ve got tips to help you cut through the clutter to find the real deals.

Major streamers are stepping back from the Twitch grind, and smaller ones fear the platform is more interested in removing features than growing audiences.

Tesla’s Optimus robot did not dazzle robotics experts and can’t yet walk. But if the project delivers, it could give the company an edge in manufacturing.

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Some YouTube users say the service is asking them to purchase a Premium subscription to watch videos in 4K, a feature that is currently free for all users  —  YouTube’s Premium paid subscription includes benefits like ad-free viewing, video and song downloads for offline consumption, and background plays.

Ephrat Livni / New York Times: US Treasury-led regulators release a report on digital assets calling on Congress to provide more resources to police crypto, regulate stablecoins, and more  —  The Financial Stability Oversight Council said that the growing crypto market could pose risks to the broader financial system.

An algorithm usually used to design profitable airline routes can plan the optimal approach to adding cycle lanes while staying within council budgets

More than 70 MIT students, faculty, staff, and alumni gathered in MIT’s Killian Court recently to “Stand Up and Be Counted (for Women’s Health),” with a strong representation of individuals concerned about gynecology disorders such as endometriosis and adenomyosis. An estimated 20-25 percent of MIT women — about 2,000-2,500 total — are affected by one or more menstrual disorders in ways […]

The 2022–23 school year is underway, and MIT’s instructors and teaching assistants are back in the classroom and laboratories. Each time they supplement their in-class lecture with a video, organize a new learning exercise, or even post their syllabi on Canvas, Sheryl Barnes hopes MIT Open Learning’s Residential Education group made their jobs easier. “Faculty […]

Since 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a global increase in the number of people wearing masks to limit the spread of illness. Now, new research co-authored by MIT scholars suggests that, in China at least, wearing masks also influences how people act. The research, conducted across 10 studies focused on deviant behavior — […]

Help the whole family catch more z’s with soothing background noise.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Immerok, which is building an Apache Flink-based cloud service for data streaming, raised a $17M seed led by CUSP Capital, 468 Capital, and others  —  In 2011, the Apache Software Foundation released Flink, a high-throughput, low-latency engine for streaming various data types.

Ivan Levingston / Bloomberg: A profile of Checkout.com founder and CEO Guillaume Pousaz, who owns 60% of the $40B London-based payments company and has begun investing in fintech startups  —  A college dropout from Switzerland has amassed a $14 billion fortune to become one of the country’s richest people by creating a rising star in […]

We tried the new hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions of Kia’s most popular car and found the brand is still very much on a roll.

Hulu’s Reboot and HBO Max’s Irma Vep update showbiz satire for the binge-watching era.

Mike Calia / CNBC: Kim Kardashian settles with the SEC for $1.26M after not reporting a $250K payment to promote EthereumMax on Instagram and won’t promote crypto for three years  —  – Kim Kardashian agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle SEC charges for failing to disclose a payment she received for touting […]

The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has named MIT President L. Rafael Reif as the winner of its 2022 Simon Ramo Founders Award. Reif, who has served at MIT’s president for more than 10 years, is being honored “for pioneering leadership to reimagine and advance higher education, university-based entrepreneurship, the future of computing, the future […]

Elizabeth Dwoskin / Washington Post: From shutting down services only in Texas to letting users opt out of hateful content, tech companies are gaming out responses to the state’s social media law  —  Experts said the measure, which bars companies from moderating content, could prove challenging for platforms to deal with

Grace Browne / Wired: A look at the AI chatbots designed to improve mental health, like Wysa and Woebot, which have millions of users despite scant research to support their efficacy  —  With human therapists in short supply, AI chatbots are trying to plug the gap—but it’s not clear how well they work.  —  Bots […]

Kadhim Shubber / Financial Times: Sources: Celsius founder Alex Mashinsky withdrew $10M from the crypto lender weeks before the company froze user accounts; a source says ~$8M was used for taxes  —  Scrutiny of Alex Mashinsky grows after crypto lender was left with hole in balance sheet  —  Celsius Network founder Alex …

Neural networks can use self-supervised learning to figure out what matters. This process might be what helps humans do the same.

From using less mobile data to live captions for videos, these settings will make your phone run more smoothly.

For the Ragnarok sequel, Santa Monica Studio incorporated regular feedback from disabled gamers, hosted public conversations on social media, and more.

Zecharias Zelalem / Context: The UN Food Programme and the WHO say a nearly two-year internet and phone shutdown in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is hampering aid delivery and health monitoring  —  As fighting rages on in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region, one of the world’s longest telecommunications shutdowns is hampering aid deliveries …

Amy Forliti / Associated Press: JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a US lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped her in 2018  —  Chinese billionaire and JD.com founder Richard Liu agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a former University of Minnesota student who alleged he raped […]

Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg: Tencent is no longer China’s most valuable company after its shares dropped 64% since Jan. 2021, wiping $623B in market value, more than any other firm globally  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its title as China’s biggest company to liquor giant Kweichow Moutai Co., the latest sign …

Juncal Arbelaiz Mugica is a native of Spain, where octopus is a common menu item. However, Arbelaiz appreciates octopus and similar creatures in a different way, with her research into soft-robotics theory.  More than half of an octopus’ nerves are distributed through its eight arms, each of which has some degree of autonomy. This distributed […]

Ryan Gajewski / The Hollywood Reporter: Bruce Willis refutes a report that he sold his digital likeness rights to Deepcake, which confirms and says the company created his “digital twin” for 2021 ads  —  Recent reports claimed that the star had become the first Hollywood figure to sell his rights to a company …

Plus: Intel’s new app syncs PCs and mobile phones, and Apple slows down iPhone production.

Plus: CIA failures allegedly got US informants killed, a former NSA worker is charged under the Espionage Act, and more.

Don’t let busted pipes or an overflowing washing machine dampen your day. These WIRED-tested smart water sensors can reduce the risk of damage to your home.

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Symantec details an ongoing campaign by the Witchetty hacking group, potentially tied to a China-backed threat actor, that hides malware in a Windows logo image  —  Security researchers have discovered a malicious campaign by the ‘Witchetty’ hacking group, which uses steganography to hide a backdoor malware in a Windows logo.

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: Stadia was doomed from the start because Google knows next to nothing about gaming and no one wants to invest in services they don’t trust Google to keep around  —  There’s a lot of chatter right now about the “surprise” shutdown of Stadia, Google’s game-streaming service.