Category: Uncategorized

You can read ebooks, write notes, or mark up PDFs on this new slate, but your wallet will feel a lot lighter.

These favorites from the second half of the year teach us about Ukrainian and Chinese-American cuisines, cocktails, and sourdough loaves.

From monsters to kittens to strategy games, these sets will liven things up on nights when everyone is tired of screens.

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: GitHub launches Copilot for Business, with corporate licensing and policy controls, for $19/user per month, and claims it won’t store or share companies’ code  —  GitHub Copilot, GitHub’s service that intelligently suggests lines of code, is now available in a plan for enterprises months …

Natasha Mascarenhas / TechCrunch: Airtable, a developer of cloud-based collaboration software last valued at $11B in 2021, lays off 254 staffers or around 20% of its workforce  —  Just days ago, Airtable published a memo about how laid off workers can use Airtable to search for jobs.  “It’s been an unwelcome theme of 2022—layoffs,” the […]

A deepfake detector designed to identify unique facial expressions and hand gestures could spot manipulated videos of world leaders such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin

With the platform looking a little the worse for wear after its recent acquisition by Elon Musk, Annalee Newitz tries the best alternatives, so you don’t have to

Koroush Shirvan, the John Clark Hardwick Career Development Professor in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE), knows that the nuclear industry has traditionally been wary of innovations until they are shown to have proven utility. As a result, he has relentlessly focused on practical applications in his research, work that has netted him […]

After more than 50 years in tech leadership, you might think that Jesus Sotomayor would be content to rest on his laurels. But he’s not. An advocate of lifelong learning, Sotomayor was recently awarded MIT Professional Education’s Professional Certificate in Digital Transformation after successfully completing five Digital Plus courses online in Spanish.  Now he has […]

Sponsor content from Deloitte.

A global pandemic. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Inflation. The first-ever serious challenge to the peaceful transfer of power in the United States. Forced to face a seemingly unending series of once-in-a-generation crises, how can the world continue to focus attention on goals around carbon emissions and climate change? That was the question posed by Philip […]

Self-doubt is a pervasive and often paralyzing concern, particularly for women. Here are three strategies to help you combat it.

How to protect your career — and your mental health.

From QAnon influencers to @catturd, the very online right sees exactly what they want to see in the CEO’s orchestrated disclosure.

Bloomberg: Sources: Dutch officials plan new controls on exporting chipmaking equipment to China as soon as January, potentially impacting ASML, following US curbs  —  Dutch officials are planning new controls on exports of chipmaking equipment to China, according to people familiar with the matter …

Rebecca Picciotto / CNBC: A US federal judge dismisses a proposed class action lawsuit against Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and others over promoting EthereumMax on social media  —  – A federal judge dismissed a proposed class action lawsuit by investors against the founders of a cryptocurrency …

Ezra Reguerra / Cointelegraph: Some NFTs minted on FTX are broken, showing only blank images, because metadata points to an FTX.US domain now used for a bankruptcy restructuring website  —  NFTs hosted on FTX platform were affected by the firm’s collapse, showing blank images instead of the original art.  —  191 Total views

Jorg Scholvin ’00, MEng ’01, PhD ’06 first set foot in a cleanroom midway through his undergraduate studies. It was the late 1990s and, as a computer science major, he’d registered for a fabrication class for a firsthand look at how a computer is assembled. “It’s amazing to see how it’s built,” he realized, “and […]

Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Plaid lays off approximately 260 employees, or 20% of its workforce, citing macroeconomic conditions; the company was valued at ~$13.4B in April 2021  —  CEO says the fintech company ‘hired and invested ahead of revenue growth’  —  Fintech decacorn Plaid is laying off 260 employees …

On cybercrime forums, user complaints about being duped may accidentally expose their real identities.

The company will also soon support the use of physical authentication keys with Apple ID, and is adding contact verification for iMessage in 2023.

The company plans to expand its Communication Safety features, which aim to disrupt the sharing of child sexual abuse material at the source.

Shawna Chen / Axios: Texas bans the use of TikTok on government-issued devices, becoming the fourth GOP-led state to do so, following South Dakota, South Carolina, and Maryland  —  A growing number of GOP-led states are barring state employees and contractors from using TikTok on government-issued devices …

Jordan Novet / CNBC: The Pentagon awards Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle a cloud-computing contract of up to $9B each through 2028 under the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability  —  – Of the four companies receiving cloud-computing contracts from the Pentagon, all of them had received requests for bids from the U.S. federal agency last year.

A deepfake detector designed to identify unique facial expressions and hand gestures could spot manipulated videos of world leaders such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin

Despite recent claims of vehicles having full automation, it is no more possible to buy a truly self-driving car now than it was 15 years ago. Will private cars that never need a driver ever reach the market?

A simple robot has sensors that can detect when they are damaged, stop the robot, self-heal and instruct the robot to start moving again

MIT professor Michael Birnbaum strives to prepare his students for success, from day one of graduate school through embarking on an enriching career path. For the thoughtfulness and depth of his feedback, the variety of different career paths he exposes students to, and his far-reaching inclusiveness within both his lab and his greater department, he […]

Since 1901, MIT has offered a graduate program unlike any other at the Institute. The Naval Construction and Engineering program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering educates active duty officers in the U.S. Navy, U.S Coast Guard, and foreign navies. Every year, the U.S. Navy chooses 10 officers to enroll in the program, which is […]

The “production as a service” model enables firms to contract with independent factory operators on an as-needed basis.

It takes dedication — but it doesn’t have to take a lot of time.

Nearly 20 years ago, scientists developed ways to stimulate or silence neurons by shining light on them. This technique, known as optogenetics, allows researchers to discover the functions of specific neurons and how they communicate with other neurons to form circuits. Building on that technique, MIT and Harvard University researchers have now devised a way […]

Sponsor content from Zoho.

Financial Times: Sources: FTX reached the late stages of talks with Taylor Swift over a $100M+ sponsorship deal, supported by Swift fan SBF, who faced opposition from FTX execs  —  Negotiations between singer-songwriter and Sam Bankman-Fried’s crytpo group collapsed this spring

Andrew Romero / 9to5Google: Telegram partners with Fragment to let users create an anonymous number to join the service, removing the need for a SIM card, and expands security features  —  For years, apps like Telegram and Whatsapp have restricted access to users who could sign up using a SIM card and phone number.

Pew Research Center: A survey of 19 developed nations: 57% say social media has been good for democracy, 35% say it has been bad; in the US, 34% think it has been good for democracy  —  Most think social media has made it easier to manipulate and divide people, but also say it informs and […]

Searching the internet can reveal information a user would rather keep private. For instance, when someone looks up medical symptoms online, they could reveal their health conditions to Google, an online medical database like WebMD, and perhaps hundreds of these companies’ advertisers and business partners. For decades, researchers have been crafting techniques that enable users […]

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Loft Dynamics, which makes a VR training simulator for helicopter pilots, has raised $20M in a round led by Craft Ventures, Sky Dayton, and Up Partners  —  Loft Dynamics, a Swiss startup creating virtual reality (VR) simulation technology for helicopter pilots, has raised $20 million in funding …

Disgruntled former staff allege they were not given the severance packages they were promised. The mountain of litigation could cost Twitter millions.

Don’t worry if you skipped the Cyber Monday madness. Some of the company’s best gear is on sale right now.

America’s most popular music streaming service is adding the ability to turn down the vocals and sing along.

Kif Leswing / CNBC: Apple, AMD, and Nvidia have all indicated plans to buy chips from TSMC’s planned Arizona fabs  —  – Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at an event in Arizona on Tuesday, ahead of remarks expected by President Joe Biden later in the day, where Cook confirmed Apple will buy chips built in […]

Jason McMaster / VentureBeat: GameOn, which develops the AI chatbot ChatOS, used by major sports brands to connect with fans, raised a $35M Series B, bringing its total funding to $54M  —  Chat platform developer GameOn has raised $35 million in Series B funding.  Mirae Asset Venture Investment, Mighty Capital …

Sponsor content from Workday.

Today’s protests in Iran have been cited as the biggest threat the Islamic Republic has faced since it seized power in 1979. Ignited over the regime’s mandatory veiling of women and the recent death of Mahsa Amini while in morality police custody, the uprising is rooted in the Iranian people’s long struggle for freedom, says […]

A prototype heat pump that uses water and sound to cool is three times as efficient as previous comparable designs

But lagging technology can make them a weak link.

A conversation with Georgetown’s Ella Washington about how to make real progress on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Catherine Shu / TechCrunch: Singapore-based Osome, a “super app” for corporate services, raised a $25M Series B, after a $16M Series A in June 2021, and says it serves 11K+ companies  —  Osome is a financial admin platform that helps business owners with administrative tasks like payroll, accounting and tax reporting.

The UK grime rapper transformed #Merky into a music label, a book imprint, and advocacy campaigns—something that may be impossible in the new Twitter era.