Category: Uncategorized

These high-end cans look fantastic and sound great, but they don’t have noise canceling or advanced EQ.

Average sea surface temperatures have soared to record highs, and stayed there. It’s a worrying signal of an ocean in crisis.

Light-on-dark displays tap into society’s deepest fears about technology’s ills. But reducing screen light isn’t the same as putting your device away.

Viola Zhou / Rest of World: A profile of Liu Xiaoping, a dog food seller on Pinduoduo who coaches Chinese merchants on using legal action to fight Pinduoduo’s refund-without-return policy  —  A dog food seller known as “Lawsuit Bro” is leading the fight.  — A dog food seller on Pinduoduo has emerged as an unlikely […]

Steve Dent / Engadget: Sony reports 6.3M PS5 sales in Q4 2022, up from 2M in Q4 2021, taking FY 2022 to 19.1M and 38.4M since launch, and $29B revenue for FY 2022, up from $19.9B YoY  —  Now that it’s solved its supply shortages, Sony is seeing a lot of pent-up demand for PlayStation […]

Blake Brittain / Reuters: Filing: Triller agrees to pay Sony Music $4.5M+ to settle claims that Triller breached a contract covering its use of musicians’ songs on the platform  —  TikTok rival Triller Inc has agreed to pay Sony Music Entertainment (6758.T) more than $4.5 million to resolve claims that Triller breached …

The Covid-19 pandemic has reduced how often urban residents intersect with people from different income brackets, according to a new study led by MIT researchers. Examining the movement of people in four U.S. cities before and after the onset of the pandemic, the study found a 15 to 30 percent decrease in the number of […]

Maybe you can’t tell a book from its cover, but according to researchers at MIT you may now be able to do the equivalent for materials of all sorts, from an airplane part to a medical implant. Their new approach allows engineers to figure out what’s going on inside simply by observing properties of the […]

Earlier this month the company sought to remove videos of a YouTuber playing a new Zelda mod. It’s a move that goes against the spirit of interactivity that fuels the medium.

The streaming service doesn’t quite have Netflix’s back catalog, but it has a solid lineup.

Rohan Goswami / CNBC: Cloudflare reports Q1 revenue up 37% YoY to $290.2M vs. $290.8M est., a $38.1M net loss, and revenue guidance for Q2 and FY 2023 below estimates; NET drops 20%+  —  – Cloudflare issued muted guidance for the upcoming quarter and full-year that sent shares down as much as 25%

Mickey Djuric / Canadian Press: Canada’s Online Streaming Act passes final hurdle in Parliament; it requires streamers to support Canadian content and gives the CRTC regulatory power over them  —  OTTAWA – A federal bill that will force digital platforms like Netflix and YouTube to contribute financially to Canadian content is on the cusp of […]

The security issues raised by ChatGPT and similar tech are just beginning to emerge, but Rob Joyce says it’s time to prepare for what comes next.

A four-legged robot has been designed to imitate the bouncing and lunging motion of a seal on land, but struggles to turn while moving forwards

Meagan Simpson / BetaKit: Toronto-based Practice Better, which makes client management software for health and wellness professionals, raised $27M led by Five Elms Capital  —  Practice Better claims to have more than 10,000 customers in more than 70 countries.  —  Practice Better is the result of its founder …

As anyone who has ever unwound a string of holiday lights or detangled a lock of snarled hair knows, undoing a knot of fibers takes a lot longer than tangling it up in the first place. This is not so for a wily species of West Coast worm. Found in marshes, ponds, and other shallow […]

A series of conversations on what leaders need to know about the powerful technology.

Emerging AI applications, like chatbots that generate natural human language, demand denser, more powerful computer chips. But semiconductor chips are traditionally made with bulk materials, which are boxy 3D structures, so stacking multiple layers of transistors to create denser integrations is very difficult. However, semiconductor transistors made from ultrathin 2D materials, each only about three […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) today named Asegun Henry, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, as a 2023 recipient of its Alan T. Waterman Award. This award is the NSF’s highest honor for early-career researchers and provides funding for research in any science or engineering field.  This is the second year NSF has […]

Senior leaders can take in valuable employee input while maintaining decision-making authority.

Can we really have both purpose and profit in a firm?

Bloomberg: Sources: Germany is in talks to limit the export of chemicals used to make advanced chips to China, seeking to join US and EU allies in closing ranks on China  —  Germany is in talks to limit the export of chemicals to China that are used to manufacture semiconductors as Berlin steps up efforts […]

No matter what happens with generative AI, its disruptive forces are already beginning to play a role in the fast-approaching US presidential race.

This week on Gadget Lab, we dive into the market for male grooming products, scrotum deodorizers, and scented salves that target the nether regions.

Artificial intelligence can be a font of inspiration. Here’s how to use OpenAI’s AI chatbot the next time you’re spitballing ideas.

Reuters: Stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse offers to buy Danish investment management software company SimCorp for €3.9B in cash; SimCorp had €561M in 2022 revenue  —  Stock exchange operator Deutsche Boerse (DB1Gn.DE) on Thursday announced a 3.9 billion euro ($4.31 billion) …

Benjamin Mayo / 9to5Mac: Apple reports European MAUs for its App Stores: iOS has 101M, iPadOS has 23M, macOS has 6M, tvOS has 1M, and watchOS, Books, and Podcasts have under 1M each  —  In order to comply with the European Digital Services Act, Apple has been forced to reveal the number of monthly active […]

When manipulating an arcade claw, a player can plan all she wants. But once she presses the joystick button, it’s a game of wait-and-see. If the claw misses its target, she’ll have to start from scratch for another chance at a prize. The slow and deliberate approach of the arcade claw is similar to state-of-the-art […]

Allocating land for people to use is one of the most powerful tools a government can have. A newly published study by an MIT scholar now identifies the extent to which state land distribution can be a politically charged act. The research, focused on Kenya in recent decades, challenges some conventional wisdom while bringing new […]

The law says you can’t falsely claim that celebrities are paying for Twitter Blue.

UK antitrust authorities have blocked its $69 billion deal to acquire Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard.

The legislation would insert the government into online platforms’ age-verification efforts—a move that makes some US lawmakers queasy.

Darrell Etherington / TechCrunch: Meta says time spent on Instagram grew 24%+ since Reels launched thanks to AI recommendations, and expects Reels to be revenue-neutral by year end or early 2024  —  Meta shared some updated engagement info around its platforms on its Q1 2023 quarterly earnings call on Wednesday …

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Google says it plans to add E2EE to Google Authenticator “down the line”, after researchers warned that its new feature to sync 2FA codes is not E2E encrypted  —  On Monday, Google Authenticator launched the ability to sync 2FA codes to your Google Account.

Sara Merken / Reuters: Harvey, which builds generative AI tools for law firms, raised a $21M Series A led by Sequoia with participation from the OpenAI Startup Fund and others  —  With more and more lawyers at major law firms using fast-advancing generative artificial intelligence tools, legal AI startup Harvey …

Hormones released by the stomach, such as ghrelin, play a key role in stimulating appetite. These hormones are produced by endocrine cells that are part of the enteric nervous system, which controls hunger, nausea, and feelings of fullness. MIT engineers have now shown that they can stimulate these endocrine cells to produce ghrelin, using an […]

In 2017, astronomers captured the first image of a black hole by coordinating radio dishes around the world to act as a single, planet-sized telescope. The synchronized network, known collectively as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), focused in on M87*, the black hole at the center of the nearby Messier 87 galaxy. The telescope’s laser-focused […]

Sponsor content from GEP.

What voice should society have in governing the new technologies that firms create?

Lending to mid-market companies has fallen nearly 60% over the last year.

If your wearable struggles to make it through the day, these power-saving tips can help.

GOV.UK: The UK CMA blocks Microsoft’s $68.7B Activision acquisition, citing concerns about competition and innovation in the UK gaming market; Microsoft plans to appeal  —  The CMA has prevented Microsoft’s proposed purchase of Activision over concerns the deal would alter the future …

Dan Strumpf / Wall Street Journal: Experts say 5G’s next iteration, 5.5G, could help autonomous cars, drones, and more, but everyday users may not see many applications beyond faster speeds  —  Mobile companies say an upgrade is coming in a couple of years that will boost connection speeds amid flagging consumer interest

The AI-powered chat interface transformed the second-place search engine into a trendsetter. Now the company is integrating ads and working on accuracy.

Coastal lands are subsiding and losing elevation—a “hidden vulnerability” that’s making rising seas all the worse.

An experimental update to Ethereum, the world’s second-biggest cryptocurrency, has led to a dramatic reduction in the energy used to secure the currency and verify transactions

New York Times: A look at the mounting US pressure on Binance: the DOJ’s money laundering division leading its criminal investigation, CZ hiring Latham & Watkins, and more  —  The scrutiny on Binance, the giant cryptocurrency exchange, has sent new tremors through a market that is still bruised by the implosion of FTX.

Millimetre-sized robots made of iron oxide and packed with yeast speed up fermentation of beer by swimming around in the fermenting container and can be removed with a magnet, eliminating the need for filtering out yeast

As a person with a mixed-race background who has lived in four different cities, Amelia Dogan describes her early life as “growing up in a lot of in-betweens.” Now an MIT senior, she continues to link different perspectives together, working at the intersection of urban planning, computer science, and social justice. Dogan was born in […]

The cybercriminals behind the Gootloader malware have found clever ways to avoid detection. But researchers are using those same mechanisms to stop them.