The sun is out, the flowers are budding, and it’s time to revel in your new running shoes and sleeping pads.
Category: Uncategorized
Digital Culture Is Literally Reshaping Women’s Faces
The internet has led to the rise of a ‘hyper-modern’ pan-Asian beauty ideal.
Starling Bank CEO Anne Boden steps down, replaced by COO John Mountain as interim CEO; Starling, which has raised over $1B, reports £453M in FY2023 revenue (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)
Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Starling Bank CEO Anne Boden steps down, replaced by COO John Mountain as interim CEO; Starling, which has raised over $1B, reports £453M in FY2023 revenue — Anne Boden nearly lost a grip on Starling Bank years ago when the neobank was in the middle of a coup effort led by […]
Sam Altman says he has “many concerns” about the EU’s proposed AI Act and OpenAI “will try to comply, but if we can’t comply we will cease operating” (Financial Times)
Financial Times: Sam Altman says he has “many concerns” about the EU’s proposed AI Act and OpenAI “will try to comply, but if we can’t comply we will cease operating” — ChatGPT chief Sam Altman voices ‘many concerns’ over bloc’s planned legislation
Exploring the links between diet and cancer
Every three to five days, all of the cells lining the human intestine are replaced. That constant replenishment of cells helps the intestinal lining withstand the damage caused by food passing through the digestive tract. This rapid turnover of cells relies on intestinal stem cells, which give rise to all of the other types of […]
Superconducting ‘fluxonium’ is the longest lasting qubit ever
A fluxonium qubit can keep its most useful quantum properties for about 1.48 milliseconds, drastically longer than similar qubits currently favoured by the quantum computing industry
Sam Altman’s World Tour Hopes to Reassure AI Doomers
On a stop in London, the OpenAI CEO called for balanced regulation and warned of the risks of deepfake disinformation.
China Hacks US Critical Networks in Guam, Raising Cyberwar Fears
Researchers say the state-sponsored espionage operation may also lay the groundwork for disruptive cyberattacks.
Elementl, which offers data orchestration services based on Dagster, raised a $33M Series B led by Georgian, bringing its total funding to $48.8M (Frederic Lardinois/TechCrunch)
Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch: Elementl, which offers data orchestration services based on Dagster, raised a $33M Series B led by Georgian, bringing its total funding to $48.8M — Elementl, a startup that is building a data platform based on the popular Dagster orchestrator, today announced that it has raised a $33 million Series B round […]
5 Best Multi-Tools (2023): Leatherman, Victorinox, and Ones to Avoid
Become a jack of nearly all trades with the right multi-tool in your glove box or pocket.
Sony announces a handheld device, known as Project Q, with an 8-inch screen for streaming games from a PS5 via Remote Play over Wi-Fi, launching later in 2023 (The Verge)
The Verge: Sony announces a handheld device, known as Project Q, with an 8-inch screen for streaming games from a PS5 via Remote Play over Wi-Fi, launching later in 2023 — Sony has officially confirmed it’s working on a PlayStation handheld to make it easier to play your PS5 games.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement on Twitter Spaces suffers crashes, feedback glitches, and audio failures (Kevin Breuninger/CNBC)
Kevin Breuninger / CNBC: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement on Twitter Spaces suffers crashes, feedback glitches, and audio failures — – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement plans evening were derailed by massive technical glitches on Twitter that prevented him from declaring his candidacy.
Bendy solar panels are just as good as regular ones
Existing solar cells are normally only used on flat, static surfaces to avoid them cracking, but now there is a flexible alternative with the same energy-generating efficiency
Helping robots handle fluids
Imagine you’re enjoying a picnic by a riverbank on a windy day. A gust of wind accidentally catches your paper napkin and lands on the water’s surface, quickly drifting away from you. You grab a nearby stick and carefully agitate the water to retrieve it, creating a series of small waves. These waves eventually push […]
MIT community members who work to eradicate sexual violence recognized at 2023 Change-Maker Awards
On April 24, MIT celebrated outstanding students and employees at the annual Change-Maker Awards for their diligent work to eradicate sexual misconduct and support survivors. These architects of positive change exemplify one of MIT’s core values: striving to make our community a more humane and welcoming place where all can thrive. Hosted by MIT Violence […]
When to Give Employees Access to Data and Analytics
Five criteria to determine when — and to what degree — to democratize data.
Azeem on AI: Are Large Language Models the Future of the Web?
Is AI the future of the Web?
To Regulate Big Corporations, Understand How They Got That Way
Big isn’t categorically bad, but it should invite public suspicion and scrutiny.
Generative AI Systems Aren’t Just Open or Closed Source
Conversation around generative AI tends to focus on whether its development is open or closed. It’s more responsible to envision releases along a gradient.
BMW i5 Electric: Price, Range, Release Date
The i5 has at last arrived with a good range, impressive speed, and even in-car gaming to banish charging boredom. But there’s an issue if you’re in the UK.
New Alzheimer’s Drugs Offer Subtle Benefits—With Real Risks
Antibody treatments clear amyloid protein from patients’ brains, slowing the progression of their disease but potentially inducing deadly swelling.
Figure, which is developing a humanoid robot that recently took its first step, raised a $70M Series A led by Parkway, following a self-financed $100M seed (Brian Heater/TechCrunch)
Brian Heater / TechCrunch: Figure, which is developing a humanoid robot that recently took its first step, raised a $70M Series A led by Parkway, following a self-financed $100M seed — I spent a bit of time at Figure’s Sunnyvale offices during a recent visit to the South Bay. The firm is currently in that […]
Istanbul-based AI marketing startup Insider raised $105M at a $2B valuation, up from $1.22B during its $121M Series D in March 2022, taking its funding to $274M (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: Istanbul-based AI marketing startup Insider raised $105M at a $2B valuation, up from $1.22B during its $121M Series D in March 2022, taking its funding to $274M — Insider, a Turkish artificial intelligence-backed marketing platform, was valued at almost $2 billion in a funding round …
US filing: South Korea, Samsung, and SK Hynix ask the US to review its chip subsidy criteria, concerned over the impact on limiting chip investment in China (Soo-Hyang Choi/Reuters)
Soo-Hyang Choi / Reuters: US filing: South Korea, Samsung, and SK Hynix ask the US to review its chip subsidy criteria, concerned over the impact on limiting chip investment in China — South Korea has asked Washington to review its criteria for new semiconductor subsidies, concerned over the impact of rules …
Tiny diamond rotor could improve protein studies
Many of the biological materials that researchers are most interested in studying, including those associated with major diseases, don’t lend themselves to the conventional methods that researchers typically use to probe a material’s structure and chemistry. One technique, called magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance, or MAS-NMR, has proven highly successful as a way of determining […]
A better way to match 3D volumes
In computer graphics and computer-aided design (CAD), 3D objects are often represented by the contours of their outer surfaces. Computers store these shapes as “thin shells,” which model the contours of the skin of an animated character but not the flesh underneath. This modeling decision makes it efficient to store and manipulate 3D shapes, but […]
Chinese Labs Are Selling Fentanyl Ingredients for Millions in Crypto
And it’s happening in plain sight.
Tokyo-based taxi-hailing app Go says it raised ~$72M from Goldman Sachs at a ~$1B valuation and commands 70% of the Japanese market, outpacing Uber and Didi (Takashi Mochizuki/Bloomberg)
Takashi Mochizuki / Bloomberg: Tokyo-based taxi-hailing app Go says it raised ~$72M from Goldman Sachs at a ~$1B valuation and commands 70% of the Japanese market, outpacing Uber and Didi — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has made Japan’s leading taxi-hailing provider, Go Inc., a unicorn with its biggest startup investment in the country.
There’s Finally a Way to Improve Cloud Container Registry Security
“Container registries” are ubiquitous software clearinghouses, but they’ve been exposed for years. Chainguard says it now has a solution.
The 15 Best Shows on Apple TV+ Right Now
From Silo to Ted Lasso, here’s everything you need to be watching on the streamer.
Elliptic: some Chinese chemical suppliers accept cryptocurrency for fentanyl ingredients and the majority use “three specific exchanges” based outside of China (Andy Greenberg/Wired)
Andy Greenberg / Wired: Elliptic: some Chinese chemical suppliers accept cryptocurrency for fentanyl ingredients and the majority use “three specific exchanges” based outside of China — And it’s happening in plain sight. — Fentanyl has long been one of the most dangerous wares …
Samsung demos multiple OLED panels, including a long rollable display and one that measures heart rate, blood pressure, and stress levels from a user’s finger (Jon Porter/The Verge)
Jon Porter / The Verge: Samsung demos multiple OLED panels, including a long rollable display and one that measures heart rate, blood pressure, and stress levels from a user’s finger — The Rollable Flex is an interesting new flexible screen from Samsung Display that can be unrolled from just 49mm to 254.4mm, over five times […]
Q&A: How studying Portuguese helps to look at life through a different lens
Theo St. Francis is an MIT senior majoring in aeronautics and astronautics. He is graduating this month with a concentration in Portuguese, and has visited Brazil with the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives’ Global Teaching Labs. This year, St. Francis was the recipient of the Global Languages Margarita Ribas Groeger Distinguished Scholar award. In […]
Ethereum closed a big security hole with its energy-saving update
At least one cryptocurrency based on the old version of Ethereum is still vulnerable to a software flaw that enables attackers to steal funds
AI passed an advertising Turing test for the first time
AI-generated ads fooled marketing experts and outperformed typical US print ads on a test that measured creativity and potential to spur emotional responses
Exploring new methods for increasing safety and reliability of autonomous vehicles
When we think of getting on the road in our cars, our first thoughts may not be that fellow drivers are particularly safe or careful — but human drivers are more reliable than one may expect. For each fatal car crash in the United States, motor vehicles log a whopping hundred million miles on the […]
What Does It Actually Take to Build a Data-Driven Culture?
Lessons from Kuwait’s Gulf Bank.
Where to Focus Your Company’s Limited Cybersecurity Budget
Three cybersecurity investments to target.
The Entrepreneurial Journey of China’s First Private Mental Health Hospital
After its successful initial public offering (IPO), how will the mainland’s first private mental health hospital group grow?
The Dire Defect of ‘Multilingual’ AI Content Moderation
Social media companies claim new language models can remove harmful content in every language. But those systems’ shortcomings can have vast consequences.
Sources: in 2020 and 2021, Binance commingled customer funds with revenue; a source says the sums ran into billions of dollars in Silvergate-held accounts (Reuters)
Reuters: Sources: in 2020 and 2021, Binance commingled customer funds with revenue; a source says the sums ran into billions of dollars in Silvergate-held accounts — The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, commingled customer funds with company revenue in 2020 and 2021 …
How NASA Plans to Melt the Moon—and Build on Mars
Scientists are testing ways to construct buildings on Mars and the moon without hauling materials from Earth. One possible solution: 3D printed melted regolith.
30 Best Mac Apps You Should Download Now (2023): Free and Paid
Polish that Apple on your desk with these tasty apps for writing, organization, security, and more.
Building AI responsibly matters more than competition, one company cannot fulfill AI’s potential alone, and global cooperation, especially US-EU, will be key (Sundar Pichai/Financial Times)
Sundar Pichai / Financial Times: Building AI responsibly matters more than competition, one company cannot fulfill AI’s potential alone, and global cooperation, especially US-EU, will be key — Fulfilling the technology’s potential is not something that one company can do alone — The writer is CEO of Google and Alphabet
US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy releases a 19-page report arguing social media can have a “profound risk of harm” for kids and teens and calls for action (New York Times)
New York Times: US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy releases a 19-page report arguing social media can have a “profound risk of harm” for kids and teens and calls for action — Dr. Vivek H. Murthy urged immediate action from policymakers, tech companies and parents to safeguard against potential harms.
Researchers use AI to identify similar materials in images
A robot manipulating objects while, say, working in a kitchen, will benefit from understanding which items are composed of the same materials. With this knowledge, the robot would know to exert a similar amount of force whether it picks up a small pat of butter from a shadowy corner of the counter or an entire […]
26 Best REI Anniversary Sale Deals: Tents, Camp Chairs, and More
The sun is out, the flowers are budding, and it’s time to revel in your new running shoes and sleeping pads.
Gene Therapy in the Womb Is Inching Closer to Reality
Treatment in utero could cure diseases before birth. Recent advances in lab animals may bring medicine closer to achieving it—but this field is still in its infancy.
Leaked EU Document Shows Spain Wants to Ban End-to-End Encryption
In response to an EU proposal to scan private messages for illegal material, the country’s officials said it is “imperative that we have access to the data.”
Google expands its AI-based flood forecasting service Flood Hub to 80 countries, up from 20, offering forecasts up to 7 days in advance to 460 million people (Yossi Matias/The Keyword)
Yossi Matias / The Keyword: Google expands its AI-based flood forecasting service Flood Hub to 80 countries, up from 20, offering forecasts up to 7 days in advance to 460 million people — Flood Hub is expanding to 80 countries, providing forecasting up to 7 days in advance of a flood to 460 million people.