Category: Uncategorized

Practice them until they become habits.

Russian antiwar activists placed their faith in Telegram, a supposedly secure messaging app. How does Putin’s regime seem to know their every move?

Whether you spend it in nature’s backyard or yours, we’ve found discounts on Patagonia clothing, camping gear, and tents.

Former president Trump tried and failed to ban the app. Now US lawmakers from both parties are preparing legislation they say can finish the job.

Tom Warren / The Verge: Sony announces a beta version of Discord for the PlayStation 5 in the US, Canada, Japan, and the UK, adds Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p, and more  —  Beta testers will be able to join Discord voice calls on a PS5 console in the US, Canada, Japan, and UK […]

Subrat Patnaik / Bloomberg: After a big decline in 2022, Meta’s stock has risen 72%+ since November 3, one of the S&P 500 Index’s best-performing stocks, adding $200B+ to its market cap  —  A spectacular turnaround in Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock is bringing back flashes of Big Tech heydays.

Last week saw the launch of Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, the first ever deepfake comedy. We need to start talking about the legal and ethical implications of this technology, says New Scientist’s television columnist Bethan Ackerley

James Somers / New Yorker: A look at OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition software Whisper, which can transcribe speech in more than 90 languages, outperforming humans in some of them  —  ChatGPT is in the spotlight, but it’s Whisper—OpenAI’s open-source speech-transcription program—that shows us where machine learning is going.

A study of nearly 2 million tweets over one year suggests that people in San Francisco feel disgusted when at hardware stores and Londoners are most joyful at hostels or motels

From French president Emmanuel Macron to ordinary whistle-blowers, the surveillance software Pegasus has been used to target thousands of people. Investigative journalists Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud tell its story and explain why no one is safe

There are three new phones—the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra—as well as five new laptops.

Should you get the Ultra and enjoy the new 200-megapixel camera or stick with a smaller handset? We have recommendations.

Emma Roth / The Verge: Netflix says password sharing rules for the US are not set yet and removes from its US help page rules saying users must connect to primary Wi-Fi every 31 days  —  Based on info sourced from Netflix’s support pages, The Streamable reported on Tuesday details about its upcoming anti-password sharing […]

Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: Mark Zuckerberg says Meta’s management theme in 2023 is the “Year of Efficiency” and emphasizes the role of AI in driving the company forward  —  Meta is all-in on becoming a lean, mean cash-printing machine.  —  In its Q4 earnings call on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described …

Prestige restaurants are often unsustainable, intense workplaces. It’s time for the culture around them to change.

Jordan Novet / CNBC: Meta increases its share repurchase authorization by $40B and says it bought back $27.93B in stock in 2022  —  – Meta Platforms increased its share purchase authorization by $40 billion.  — The social networking company has sought to rein in costs as revenue growth has slowed in recent quarters.

A study of more than 1.5 million tweets over one year suggests that people in San Francisco feel disgusted when at hardware stores and Londoners are most joyful at motels

Take apart your laptop screen, and at its heart you’ll find a plate patterned with pixels of red, green, and blue LEDs, arranged end to end like a meticulous Lite Brite display. When electrically powered, the LEDs together can produce every shade in the rainbow to generate full-color displays. Over the years, the size of […]

MIT Solve, an MIT initiative with a mission to drive innovation to solve world challenges, announced today the 2023 Global Challenges and the Indigenous Communities Fellowship.  Solve invites anyone from anywhere in the world to submit a solution to this year’s challenges by 12 p.m. EST on May 9. The 40 innovators — including eight […]

Disney, Starbucks, GE, and others have stumbled painfully when it comes to CEO succession.

If she hits just the right pitch, a singer can shatter a wine glass. The reason is resonance. While the glass may vibrate slightly in response to most acoustic tones, a pitch that resonates with the material’s own natural frequency can send its vibrations into overdrive, causing the glass to shatter. Resonance also occurs at […]

New research suggests that exclusive support from female investors may be a mixed blessing because it can make it harder to raise additional rounds of financing.

You don’t have to follow their lead. Here’s how to set boundaries.

Data gaps, funding cuts, and shyness about sex let gonorrhea gain drug-resistance. There are no new treatments yet.

True Anomaly, a startup backed by US senator JD Vance’s VC firm, plans to launch prototype pursuit satellites on a SpaceX flight later this year.

Students from top schools used to waltz from Silicon Valley internships into lucrative jobs. Now, some are reconsidering their options.

Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg: A look at Spanish-language livestreaming growth on Twitch; the platform’s audience for Spanish, its fastest-growing language, grew sixfold from 2019 to 2022  —  Samantha Rivera was studying engineering in Mexico in 2020 when a group of friends convinced her she could draw an audience …

Nilay Patel / The Verge: An interview with Chris Miller, a Tufts professor and author of the book Chip War, on EUV lithography, ASML’s role in global chip manufacturing, TSMC, and more  —  Professor Chris Miller’s new book Chip War explains the complicated global politics inside your iPhone.

Ashley Gold / Axios: A report by the White House’s NTIA describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation to improve competition and choice  —  A new Biden administration report describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation …

Yes, they’re problematic. They can also reflect an alternate reality that feels eerily close to the truth.

Forget about patchy internet connections and dead spots with one of these WIRED-tested mesh systems.

Enigma Labs launches a project to crowdsource and quantify data about “unidentified aerial phenomena.”

TJ Denzer / Shacknews: EA Q3: revenue up 5% YoY to $1.88B, vs. $2.5B est., net income up 209% YoY to $204M, net bookings down 9% YoY to $2.34B, and lowers FY guidance; stock drops 5%+  —  The game publishing giant reduced its full year revenue expectations by about half a billion dollars in its […]

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Microsoft disabled multiple fraudulent, verified Microsoft Cloud Partner Program accounts for creating malicious OAuth apps used to steal customers’ emails  —  Microsoft has disabled multiple fraudulent, verified Microsoft Partner Network accounts for creating malicious OAuth applications …

Sylvia Varnham O’Regan / The Information: Sources: Meta executives are debating whether to relax the company’s long-standing opposition to sharing ad revenue with creators, as it seeks to boost Reels  —  When Wall Street analysts dial into an earnings call tomorrow with Mark Zuckerberg, they’re likely to pepper the Meta Platforms CEO …

A vine-like segmented robot that is attracted to heat could be used to autonomously extinguish fires without the need for costly and complex electronics

San Francisco officials have called for a slower, more considered expansion of the use of autonomous vehicles, which have blocked traffic and hampered emergency services

On Jan. 18, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced its 2022 fellows, those it recognizes “for significant contributions in areas including cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, mobile computing, and recommender systems among many other areas.” Included in the crop of new fellows were six distinguished scientists with ties to MIT. Constantinos Daskalakis, the Armen Avanessians (1982) […]

A major aspect of sustainability — a core component in many MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) courses — is considering the future effect of any given business practice or product. Sustainability was top-of-mind for Skylar Tibbits, associate professor of design research and director of MIT’s design major and minor programs, and Jeremy Carmine […]

The chemical industry is the world’s largest industrial energy consumer and the third-largest source of industrial emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2019, the industrial sector as a whole was responsible for 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. And yet, as the world races to find pathways to decarbonization, the chemical industry […]

BetterUp’s Gabriella Rosen Kellerman and the University of Pennsylvania’s Marty Seligman on finding new paths to good ideas.

You never know when an opportunity will arise.

How can platform companies, like Airbnb, reduce bias online?

A tiny Scottish village is betting its future on rocket launches. But the plan may threaten the fragile landscape—and a tenacious billionaire’s ambitions.

Michael King / Search Engine Land: An in-depth analysis of Yandex’s leaked source code shows 17,854 ranking factors, scraping Google, Bing, YouTube, and TikTok, “Vital Hosts” boosts, and more  —  Yandex isn’t Google, but there is a lot SEOs can learn about how a modern search engine is built from reviewing this codebase.

Jay Peters / The Verge: Instagram launches Notes, its AIM-like text status feature, in Europe and Japan, delayed to comply with local laws, expanding on Asia, North America, and LatAm  —  Instagram Notes, the social network’s recently launched text status feature that reminds me of the AOL Instant Messenger away messages …

Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times: Spotify reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to €3.2B and a €270M loss, up from €39M YoY, as operating costs rose 44% YoY; paying subscribers were up 10M to 205M  —  Music streaming group adds subscribers but is hit by rise in operating expenses  —  Spotify’s losses ballooned …

Artificial intelligences need specific training to excel at a task, but now a more generally intelligent one from DeepMind has performed as well as humans in a virtual world test

Since arriving at MIT in fall 2019, senior Sherry Nyeo has conducted groundbreaking work in multiple labs on campus, acted as a mentor to countless other students, and made a lasting mark on the Institute community. But despite her well-earned bragging rights, Nyeo isn’t one to boast. Instead, she takes every opportunity to express just […]

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Payment card services company Marqeta agrees to acquire New York-based fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223M, plus $52M subject to a milestone  —  Marqeta has agreed to acquire two-year-old fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223 million in cash …