Here’s how to leverage it.
Category: Uncategorized
The Legendary Frank Drake Shaped the Search for Alien Life
The influential astronomer led the hunt for extraterrestrial signals and helped make the field of astrobiology what it is today.
Why Watching Decluttering Videos Feels So Good
Turns out there’s a neurological reason you can’t stop clicking on YouTube closet purges.
Netgear’s Nighthawk RAXE300 is Ideal for Gamer Families, But There’s a Cost
This Wi-Fi 6E router is a speedy and stable dream for gamers—but only if you can stomach or skip the subscriptions.
India says its central bank will prepare a whitelist of legal loan apps and the IT ministry plans to ensure that only approved apps are hosted on app stores (TechCrunch)
TechCrunch: India says its central bank will prepare a whitelist of legal loan apps and the IT ministry plans to ensure that only approved apps are hosted on app stores — India plans to mandate which loan apps are allowed on app stores in the country, the latest in a series of recent steps …
Robinhood launches Investor Index, updated monthly, to track the performance of the 100 most popular stocks in its app, weighting users’ “conviction” in them (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal: Robinhood launches Investor Index, updated monthly, to track the performance of the 100 most popular stocks in its app, weighting users’ “conviction” in them — Robinhood Markets is launching an index to track the favorite stocks of its millions of predominantly young, social-media-savvy customers.
FTX Ventures buys 30% of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital for an undisclosed amount; SkyBridge will use some of the funds to buy $40M in cryptocurrencies (Jamie Crawley/CoinDesk)
Jamie Crawley / CoinDesk: FTX Ventures buys 30% of Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital for an undisclosed amount; SkyBridge will use some of the funds to buy $40M in cryptocurrencies — SkyBridge will invest some of the funds into crypto assets for its balance sheet. — FTX Ventures, the investment arm …
Escape review: An account of the internet’s intimate early days
Escape, a thoughtful book by Marie Le Conte, recalls a time when people tended to organise themselves into small communities around blogs and other online hangouts. Should we go back?
Modeling the social mind
Typically, it would take two graduate students to do the research that Setayesh Radkani is doing. Driven by an insatiable curiosity about the human mind, she is working on two PhD thesis projects in two different cognitive neuroscience labs at MIT. For one, she is studying punishment as a social tool to influence others. For […]
The End of Kiwi Farms, the Web’s Most Notorious Stalker Site
Users harassed people for a decade. Then they messed with the wrong woman.
Queen Elizabeth II Has Died. Her Internet Legacy Will Live On
The UK’s tech-savvy head of state was queen of a thousand memes.
Juul Will Pay $438.5M for Its Role in Underage Vaping
The once dominant ecigarette company faces more legal challenges and FDA scrutiny after a probe into whether it deceptively marketed to children and teens.
DocuSign reports Q2 revenue up 22% YoY to $622.2M, vs. $602.7M est., and a full-year billings forecast of $2.55B to $2.57B, vs. $2.53B est.; stock jumps 18%+ (Brody Ford/Bloomberg)
Brody Ford / Bloomberg: DocuSign reports Q2 revenue up 22% YoY to $622.2M, vs. $602.7M est., and a full-year billings forecast of $2.55B to $2.57B, vs. $2.53B est.; stock jumps 18%+ — DocuSign Inc. rallied 17% after reporting quarterly sales that topped analysts’ estimates and raising its billings forecast …
The White House unveils its principles to enhance tech platform accountability and competition, including Section 230 reforms and robust data protections (Ben Brody/Protocol)
Ben Brody / Protocol: The White House unveils its principles to enhance tech platform accountability and competition, including Section 230 reforms and robust data protections — The White House on Thursday praised “bipartisan interest in Congress in passing legislation to protect privacy” …
A survey of ~4,000 Indian gig workers on Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, Amazon, and others: 42% say their income is flat, 47% have no insurance, and 51% can’t save money (The Economic Times)
The Economic Times: A survey of ~4,000 Indian gig workers on Swiggy, Zomato, Uber, Amazon, and others: 42% say their income is flat, 47% have no insurance, and 51% can’t save money — Gig workers in India are young, financially stressed, and largely uninsured, according to a new report.
New endowment fund will power student innovation at MIT Sandbox
Through a $1 million gift from Daniel Gilbert ’91 and his wife, Judy, the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program gained a permanent source of funding with the establishment of the MIT Sandbox Endowment Fund. The new fund allows MIT Sandbox to expand its entrepreneurship education offerings to MIT undergraduate and graduate students, bringing to life […]
MIT Spokes cycles across the country to teach STEM classes
Some students have jobs or internships over the summer. But members of MIT Spokes rode their bicycles 3,800 miles across the country to teach STEM classes at learning festivals, centers for adjudicated youth, summer schools, libraries, summer camps, and after-school programs. Spokes members Robert Henning ’20, Mariela Perez-Cabarcas ’22, Simone Lassar ’22, Maxwell Yun ’22, […]
Your Family Business Needs a Board
A guide to what it should do — and who should be on it.
Keep Your Employees From Defecting – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM KPMG
Sponsor content from KPMG.
AI system makes models like DALL-E 2 more creative
The internet had a collective feel-good moment with the introduction of DALL-E, an artificial intelligence-based image generator inspired by artist Salvador Dali and the lovable robot WALL-E that uses natural language to produce whatever mysterious and beautiful image your heart desires. Seeing typed-out inputs like “smiling gopher holding an ice cream cone” instantly spring to […]
5 Steps to Restore Trust in U.S. Health Care
The pandemic exposed major weaknesses and undermined public faith in the system.
Mysten Labs, which is developing the Sui blockchain, raised a $300M Series B led by FTX at a $2B+ valuation; all five founders worked at Meta’s crypto unit (Ryan Weeks/The Block)
Ryan Weeks / The Block: Mysten Labs, which is developing the Sui blockchain, raised a $300M Series B led by FTX at a $2B+ valuation; all five founders worked at Meta’s crypto unit — – Mysten’s Series B round values the company at over $2 billion, giving investors equity and token warrants.
Welcome to Apple’s Dynamic Island
This week, we round up all the biggest announcements from Apple’s iPhone (and Watch) launch event.
How to Hide the News Widgets in Windows 10 and 11
Microsoft’s news algorithm leaves a lot to be desired. Here’s how to turn it off and reclaim that space.
Rurbanization: Why It’s Time to Make Cities More Rural
Enough with the urban vs. rural binary. Bringing agriculture into cities can have huge benefits beyond healthy food.
Russia’s trade minister Denis Manturov says Russians will be able to buy the iPhone 14 despite US sanctions thanks to the country’s parallel import scheme (Reuters)
Reuters: Russia’s trade minister Denis Manturov says Russians will be able to buy the iPhone 14 despite US sanctions thanks to the country’s parallel import scheme — Russians will have the chance to buy the new Apple iPhone 14 despite the U.S. tech company having left the country thanks …
Apple’s state-backed Chinese data center partner, Guizhou Cloud Big Data, says lockdowns have paralyzed the city of Guiyang, stopping workers from seeing family (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: Apple’s state-backed Chinese data center partner, Guizhou Cloud Big Data, says lockdowns have paralyzed the city of Guiyang, stopping workers from seeing family — China’s latest Covid lockdown has virtually paralyzed a city of 6 million that houses much of the country’s electronic information …
Studies of autism tend to exclude women, researchers find
In recent years, researchers who study autism have made an effort to include more women and girls in their studies. However, despite these efforts, most studies of autism consistently enroll small numbers of female subjects or exclude them altogether, according to a new study from MIT. The researchers found that a screening test commonly used […]
Despite the recent downturn in the cryptocurrency market, Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch has 30 crypto startups, up from 25 in its Winter 2022 batch (TechCrunch)
TechCrunch: Despite the recent downturn in the cryptocurrency market, Y Combinator’s Summer 2022 batch has 30 crypto startups, up from 25 in its Winter 2022 batch — Crypto and web3 stands out in the Summer 2022 batch — Crypto founders have heard the saying a thousand times in the past few months …
Apple’s Killing the Password. Here’s Everything You Need to Know
With iOS 16 and macOS Ventura, Apple is introducing passkeys—a more convenient and secure alternative to passwords.
Everything Apple Announced: iPhone 14, Apple Watch Ultra, and More
Wednesday’s iPhone launch event saw the release of four new iPhone models, plus an Apple Watch built to take a beating.
Apple’s New ‘Ultra’ Watch Goes Toe-to-Toe With Garmin
Saddled by still-mediocre battery life, the Apple Watch Ultra isn’t a true competitor to the reigning king of premium wearables. But it’s getting much closer.
GameStop partners with FTX on “e-commerce and online marketing initiatives” in the US and reports a Q2 net loss of $108.7M, up from $61.6M YoY; stock up 10%+ (Melissa Repko/CNBC)
Melissa Repko / CNBC: GameStop partners with FTX on “e-commerce and online marketing initiatives” in the US and reports a Q2 net loss of $108.7M, up from $61.6M YoY; stock up 10%+ — – GameStop said quarterly sales declined and losses widened, as its cash pile shrank and inventory swelled.
Hebbia, a startup founded by Stanford AI researchers that’s developing AI-powered search tools, has raised a $30M Series A led by Index Ventures (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: Hebbia, a startup founded by Stanford AI researchers that’s developing AI-powered search tools, has raised a $30M Series A led by Index Ventures — Hebbia, a startup developing AI-infused search tools, today announced that it raised $30 million in a Series A round led by Index Ventures with participation from Radical […]
J-WAFS awards $150K Solutions grant to Patrick Doyle and team for rapid removal of micropollutants from water
The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) has awarded a 2022 J-WAFS Solutions grant to Patrick S. Doyle, the Robert T. Haslam Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT, for his innovative system to tackle water pollution. Doyle will be working with co-Principal Investigator Rafael Gomez-Bombarelli, assistant professor in materials processing in the […]
How to Build a Career in a New Industry
Reinventing yourself doesn’t have to mean starting from scratch.
The Costs of Being a Perfectionist Manager
Managing your high expectations can actually improve your team’s performance.
The New Rules of Work Clothes
People’s tolerance for discomfort — and conformity — has changed.
Banning Phones in Class? Not So Fast
Tech dependence is following many students back to school—but waging a war against devices helps no one.
How Drought and War Are Really Affecting the Global Food Supply
Blistering temperatures and the invasion of Ukraine have fed fears of global shortages—but some regions are suffering much more than others.
Octopus Energy Is the Answer to a Broken, Inefficient Market
The British utility company is environmentally friendly and has great customer service. Why can’t they all be like this?
How Minecraft’s ban on NFTs impacted the play-to-earn Critterz NFT community, some of whom bought in for thousands of dollars and earned hundreds per month (Neirin Gray Desai/Rest of World)
Neirin Gray Desai / Rest of World: How Minecraft’s ban on NFTs impacted the play-to-earn Critterz NFT community, some of whom bought in for thousands of dollars and earned hundreds per month — Kids in the Philippines were earning hundreds of dollars from a play-to-earn Minecraft game, until new rules sent the community into a […]
PolyAI, which uses AI to handle call center calls, raised a $40M Series B led by Georgian at a $300M post-money valuation, bringing its total funding to $70M (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)
Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: PolyAI, which uses AI to handle call center calls, raised a $40M Series B led by Georgian at a $300M post-money valuation, bringing its total funding to $70M — Is it possible to build a voice assistant for the call center that can pick up on indirect questions to figure out […]
A wave of foreign buyers are planning to acquire fast-growing British tech companies, including Micro Focus, Avast, and Darktrace, thanks to a weakened pound (Alexandra Muller/Bloomberg)
Alexandra Muller / Bloomberg: A wave of foreign buyers are planning to acquire fast-growing British tech companies, including Micro Focus, Avast, and Darktrace, thanks to a weakened pound — A wave of foreign buyers is coming after British technology companies, threatening to rob the UK market of what little exposure it still has to high-growth […]
Turning carbon dioxide into valuable products
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a major contributor to climate change and a significant product of many human activities, notably industrial manufacturing. A major goal in the energy field has been to chemically convert emitted CO2 into valuable chemicals or fuels. But while CO2 is available in abundance, it has not yet been widely used to […]
Collaborative machine learning that preserves privacy
Training a machine-learning model to effectively perform a task, such as image classification, involves showing the model thousands, millions, or even billions of example images. Gathering such enormous datasets can be especially challenging when privacy is a concern, such as with medical images. Researchers from MIT and the MIT-born startup DynamoFL have now taken one […]
Internal memo: Instagram plans to eventually eliminate its existing Shopping page and will test a simpler and less personalized page over the next few months (Sylvia Varnham O’Regan/The Information)
Sylvia Varnham O’Regan / The Information: Internal memo: Instagram plans to eventually eliminate its existing Shopping page and will test a simpler and less personalized page over the next few months — Instagram is planning to drastically scale back its shopping features, the company told Instagram staffers on Tuesday …
Google confirms the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro will run on a new “Tensor G2” SoC (Kyle Bradshaw/9to5Google)
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google: Google confirms the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro will run on a new “Tensor G2” SoC — Ahead of October’s Pixel 7 launch event, Google has confirmed that their next series of phone will run on the second-generation “Tensor G2” chip. — Last year, the “Google Tensor” …
So, You Want Twitter to Stop Destroying Democracy
Telling people to quit the platform is less effective than stopping influential elites from using the site in harmful ways.
The Tricky Ethics of Being a Teacher on TikTok
Some educators believe social media can help them engage with students, but it also raises questions around classroom privacy.