Category: Uncategorized

An 8-gram actuator – a device that converts energy and signals into movement – that operates as artificial muscles lifted 8 kilograms while maintaining human-like hand movements

New Scientist interviewed James Lovelock to discuss Gaia’s Novacene and our new AI overlords, microwaving hamsters for science and why Elon Musk’s Mars mission is ‘crazy’.

Launched in 2020, the MIT Mobility Initiative (MMI) is a unique cross-Institute initiative aimed at convening key stakeholders to drive innovation, while providing unbiased strategic direction to guide a deeper collective understanding of mobility challenges, and shape a mobility system that is sustainable, safe, clean, and accessible. “The mobility system is undergoing profound transformation with […]

Mixed appraisals of one of the internet’s major resources, Wikipedia, are reflected in the slightly dystopian article “List of Wikipedia Scandals.” Yet billions of users routinely flock to the online, anonymously editable, encyclopedic knowledge bank for just about everything. How this unauthoritative source influences our discourse and decisions is hard to reliably trace. But a […]

A framework to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

Sponsor content from Deloitte.

Five strategies for embedding sustainability into your business — and making it a competitive advantage.

The state plans to roll out “biosimilars” that mimic brand-name versions at a dramatically reduced price.

Democratic senators lacked actionable gun data for their negotiations—so they passed mental health reform instead.

Carbon dioxide emissions aren’t the only way aviation warms the planet. Exhaust contains a host of polluting particles, from soot to nitrogen oxides.

MK Manoylov / The Block: Unstoppable Domains, which offers NFT domains as a personal identifier across Web3 apps, raised a $65M Series A led by Pantera Capital at a $1B+ valuation  —  – Unstoppable Domains announced Wednesday that it raised $65 million in a Series A funding, reaching a $1 billion valuation.

Stefanie Marotta / Bloomberg: Shopify misses as Q2 revenue grew 16% YoY to $1.3B and GMV reached $46.9B, up 11% YoY; SHOP drops 6%+, after crashing 14% on Tuesday due to layoffs  —  Shopify Inc. slumped in premarket trading after the company kicked off earnings season for e-commerce firms with a result that missed analysts’ […]

Chris Stokel-Walker / Gizmodo: Internal TikTok PR documents suggest responses to difficult questions, including downplaying AI, links to ByteDance, and “the China association”  —  Leaked documents detail what TikTok tells the media—and what it doesn’t.  —  Leaked documents from within TikTok reveal …

MIT scientists have created the first completely digitally manufactured plasma sensors for orbiting spacecraft. These plasma sensors, also known as retarding potential analyzers (RPAs), are used by satellites to determine the chemical composition and ion energy distribution of the atmosphere. The 3D-printed and laser-cut hardware performed as well as state-of-the-art semiconductor plasma sensors that are […]

The company’s second fully electric car was designed from the ground up to be purely battery-powered, but its sub-300-mile range comes up short.

The company is raising the prices of its VR headsets by $100, creating another potential barrier to mass adoption of the technology.

Daniel Rubino / Windows Central: Microsoft’s Q4 Surface revenue increased 10% YoY, driven by commercial PC sales, as Windows OEM revenue declined 2% YoY due to PC production shutdowns in China  —  Production shutdowns hampered commercial PC sales, but Microsoft’s Surface met expectations due to enterprise purchases.

Emily Baker-White / BuzzFeed News: Four former ByteDance employees say the company promoted pro-China content to Americans in its now-defunct news app TopBuzz; ByteDance denies the claims  —  Former employees claim the company placed pieces of pro-China content in its now-defunct US news app, TopBuzz, and censored negative stories about the Chinese government.

In the battle over digital ownership, both NFT Worlds and Microsoft-owned Mojang claim to be putting players first.

Feeding robot works out when people are ready for their next mouthful by watching for social signs, which could make it easier to socialise for those who can’t use their arms

Tom Ivan / Video Games Chronicle: Microsoft reports Q4 gaming revenue down 7% YoY to $259M, impacted by an 11% YoY revenue drop for Xbox hardware and a 6% YoY drop for Xbox content and services  —  MICROSOFT’S GAMING BUSINESS HAD ITS SECOND-BEST FOURTH QUARTER ON RECORD  —  The Xbox division reportedly generated record …

Computers are sometimes kept disconnected from the internet, or “air gapped”, to avoid remote hackers gaining access to steal data, but now there is a way to use a hard drive cable to transmit information via radio waves

More than a decade ago, Ted Adelson set out to create tactile sensors for robots that would give them a sense of touch. The result? A handheld imaging system powerful enough to visualize the raised print on a dollar bill. The technology was spun into GelSight, to answer an industry need for low-cost, high-resolution imaging. […]

A conversation about facing one of our biggest fears.

Four strategies for managers.

As the buy-one-give-one socks company evolves, it must find the right pace of growth for its business and its social mission.

Liron Shapira / @liron: [Thread] A look at Helium, a network of 500K+ crypto mining hotspots, which raised $365M from a16z and others and generates an estimated $6.5K/month in revenue  —  .@Helium, often cited as one of the best examples of a Web3 use case, has received $365M of investment led by @a16z. Regular folks […]

Loop wants to rebuild the world with ecological structures made of fungal mycelium. Its proof of concept? Living coffins.

Are there carcinogenic red dyes in your canned soup, or is it just a little too salty? Yuka can tell you, but you may not like what you find.

Scientists are developing vaccines to target the virus family that spawned Covid-19. Their efforts could thwart future variants, or even new related viruses.

Researchers have gathered 1500 images of mosquitoes – both squished and not – for training AI. Their goal is to build a smartphone app that can track the insect

Kadhim Shubber / Financial Times: Lawyers in the Celsius bankruptcy are examining Tether recovering an $840M USDT loan, highlighting an uncertain area of bankruptcy law for crypto companies  —  Case is a major test of how US insolvency rules will apply in digital asset sector  —  Stablecoin issuer Tether faces scrutiny …

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Spotnana, which offers cloud-based enterprise tools for booking and managing travel, raised a $75M Series B, following a $34M Series A in September 2021  —  Spotnana, a self-proclaimed “travel-as-a-service” platform that targets corporations, travel management firms, and other technology companies …

The MIT spinout Ori attracted a lot of attention when it unveiled its shapeshifting furniture prototypes in 2014. But after the founders left MIT, they faced a number of daunting challenges. Where would they find the space to build and demo their apartment-scale products? How would they get access to the machines and equipment necessary […]

The ChronoSwoop company has appeared out of nowhere and dropped an addictive new app, with “Swoop left/Swoop right” functions.

Certain chips have caught up with demand, thanks to stockpiling and reduced consumer spending, but the semiconductor supply chain is still snarled up.

Devin Coldewey / TechCrunch: Instagram’s new TikTok-like UI, which has only partially rolled out, lifts some dark patterns from TikTok, like no longer being able to quickly mute videos  —  I, of all people, got a fresh new user interface in Instagram the other day.  Although the company has not rolled it out to all […]

Kelcee Griffis / Bloomberg Law: Apple reaches a deal to settle a patent case with Koss, which in 2020 alleged that the AirPods violate five Koss’ patents; terms of the deal were not disclosed  —  Apple Inc. dodged a patent-infringement trial over its AirPods after reaching an agreement with headphone maker Koss Corp. to settle […]

Sarah Butler / The Guardian: Amazon UK plans to raise its monthly Prime subscription price by £1 to £8.99 and by £16 to £95 annually starting on September 15, the first increase since 2014  —  Monthly subscription to increase by 12.5% to £8.99 in latest sign of rising delivery costs

Members of the MIT engineering faculty receive many awards in recognition of their scholarship, service, and overall excellence. The School of Engineering periodically recognizes their achievements by highlighting the honors, prizes, and medals won by faculty working in our academic departments, labs, and centers. Regina Barzilay of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science […]

Six simple habits to help ease your mind and body.

You can’t always control your first reaction — but you can manage your second.

A “last hired/first fired” approach disproportionately impacts women and people of color.

Big vessels spew sulfur, which brightens clouds to produce long “ship tracks.” These emissions cause environmental damage—but also help cool the planet.

WIRED spoke with EA’s director of inclusive design about the business case for diversity, and how they rolled out Battlefield 2042’s first nonbinary character.

Yogita Khatri / The Block: Bitfinex and Tether partner with P2P infrastructure developer Hypercore to launch the Holepunch protocol and peer-to-peer encrypted video calling app Keet  —  – Bitfinex and Tether have launched Keet: a peer-to-peer video calling app.  — The two companies have invested $10 million to date …

Dan Taylor / Tech.eu: London-based Altruistiq, which offers SaaS tools to help companies analyze and reduce their carbon emissions, raised a £15M seed led by Molten Ventures  —  Eschewing the carbon counting and trading, London’s Altruistiq is going it’s own way and targeting the traditional bad actors …

Bloomberg: Apple announces a rare retail discount for the iPhone 13 Pro series, select AirPods, and Watches in China between July 29 and August 1  —  Apple Inc. announced a rare retail promotion in China on Monday, offering four days of discounts on its top-tier iPhones and related accessories in advance …

Even if you’re not a developer, this reasonably priced, user-repairable Linux laptop from HP has plenty of attractive features.

From smart collars to dog backpacks, we’ve had our furry best friends try it all. These gadgets lead the pack.