Manipulating the future

As robots evolve, society’s collective imagination forever ponders what else robots can do, with recent fascinations coming to life as self-driving cars or robots that can walk and interact with objects as humans do. These sophisticated systems are powered by advances in deep learning that triggered breakthroughs in robotic perception, so that robots today have […]

Engineered bacteria could help protect “good” gut microbes from antibiotics

Antibiotics are life-saving drugs, but they can also harm the beneficial microbes that live in the human gut. Following antibiotic treatment, some patients are at risk of developing inflammation or opportunistic infections such as Clostridiodes difficile. Indiscriminate use of antibiotics on gut microbes can also contribute to the spread of resistance to the drugs. In […]

Sources: China has approved the first batch of video game licenses since its freeze in July; it is unclear if games from Tencent and NetEase were approved (Zheping Huang/Bloomberg)

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Sources: China has approved the first batch of video game licenses since its freeze in July; it is unclear if games from Tencent and NetEase were approved  —  China has approved the first batch of new video game licenses since July, people familiar with the matter said …

Source: Apple will face an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks, in an investigation into music streaming triggered by a complaint from Spotify (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)

Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: Source: Apple will face an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks, in an investigation into music streaming triggered by a complaint from Spotify  —  Apple (AAPL.O) faces an additional EU antitrust charge in the coming weeks in an investigation triggered by a complaint from Spotify …

Sources and leaked docs: senior EU officials were targeted last year with Israeli spyware, including Belgian statesman Didier Reynders; NSO denies involvement (Reuters)

Reuters: Sources and leaked docs: senior EU officials were targeted last year with Israeli spyware, including Belgian statesman Didier Reynders; NSO denies involvement  —  Senior officials at the European Commission were targeted last year with spy software designed by an Israeli surveillance firm …

MIT announces five flagship projects in first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition

MIT today announced the five flagship projects selected in its first-ever Climate Grand Challenges competition. These multiyear projects will define a dynamic research agenda focused on unraveling some of the toughest unsolved climate problems and bringing high-impact, science-based solutions to the world on an accelerated basis. Representing the most promising concepts to emerge from the […]

A look at the regulations cities like New York, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and others are adopting as they increasingly use AI to provide public services (Jackie Snow/Wall Street Journal)

Jackie Snow / Wall Street Journal: A look at the regulations cities like New York, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Helsinki, and others are adopting as they increasingly use AI to provide public services  —  A look at what New York, London, Barcelona and other places are doing to establish regulations that other cities—and countries—may want to copy

Sources: beta versions of iOS 16, codenamed Sydney, are “chock-full” of references to Apple’s mixed-reality headset and its interactions with the iPhone (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)

Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Sources: beta versions of iOS 16, codenamed Sydney, are “chock-full” of references to Apple’s mixed-reality headset and its interactions with the iPhone  —  Apple is set to hold its developers conference virtually for the third year in a row.  Expect major iOS and watchOS upgrades, and perhaps some new Macs.

Coinbase “temporarily” disables the option to buy cryptocurrencies with the Unified Payments Interface in India; source: the issue is crypto is not legal tender (Apoorva Mittal/The Economic Times)

Apoorva Mittal / The Economic Times: Coinbase “temporarily” disables the option to buy cryptocurrencies with the Unified Payments Interface in India; source: the issue is crypto is not legal tender  —  US Co reached out to NPCI following regulator’s clarification on no UPI for cryptocurrencies in India …

A hacking group called NB65 claims it is using modified versions of Conti’s leaked ransomware to attack Russian entities, including the space agency Roscosmos (Lawrence Abrams/BleepingComputer)

Lawrence Abrams / BleepingComputer: A hacking group called NB65 claims it is using modified versions of Conti’s leaked ransomware to attack Russian entities, including the space agency Roscosmos  —  A hacking group used the Conti’s leaked ransomware source code to create their own ransomware to use in cyberattacks against Russian organizations.

A profile of Father Paolo Benanti, an engineer and ethicist who advises theologians and priests, including Pope Francis, on moral and ethical issues in AI (Madhumita Murgia/Financial Times)

Madhumita Murgia / Financial Times: A profile of Father Paolo Benanti, an engineer and ethicist who advises theologians and priests, including Pope Francis, on moral and ethical issues in AI  —  On February 26, two days after war broke out in Europe for the first time in decades, Father Paolo Benanti walked briskly through the […]

Architecture isn’t just for humans anymore

In a rural valley of northwestern Nevada, home to stretches of wetlands, sagebrush-grassland, and dozens of natural springs, is a 3,800-acre parcel of off-grid land known as Fly Ranch. Owned by Burning Man, the community that yearly transforms the neighboring playa into a colorful free-wheeling temporary city, Fly Ranch is part of a long-term project […]

Twitter reverts a change that left blank spaces in place of deleted embedded tweets and says it is exploring “different options” (Emma Roth/The Verge)

Emma Roth / The Verge: Twitter reverts a change that left blank spaces in place of deleted embedded tweets and says it is exploring “different options”  —  Twitter says it’s exploring ‘different options’  —  Twitter has confirmed it reversed a change that altered the appearance of deleted tweets embedded …

Meta’s civil rights team made progress in its first year, including removing sensitive ad targeting categories, but experts say it needs to be empowered to act (Issie Lapowsky/Protocol)

Issie Lapowsky / Protocol: Meta’s civil rights team made progress in its first year, including removing sensitive ad targeting categories, but experts say it needs to be empowered to act  —  Like everyone, Roy Austin Jr. saw President Trump’s Facebook post that went up in the summer of 2020 — the one where he threatened […]

Sources: Meta chose a Qualcomm chip for the second version of its Ray-Ban smartglasses, after struggling to develop its own custom chip codenamed Brasilia (The Information)

The Information: Sources: Meta chose a Qualcomm chip for the second version of its Ray-Ban smartglasses, after struggling to develop its own custom chip codenamed Brasilia  —  In late 2021, a team of Meta Platforms employees building a key chip for the second version of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses was notified …

How Brazilian singer Anitta’s fans gamed Spotify’s algorithm to make her song top the charts by switching accounts after 20 streams, creating playlists, more (Marília Marasciulo/Rest of World)

Marília Marasciulo / Rest of World: How Brazilian singer Anitta’s fans gamed Spotify’s algorithm to make her song top the charts by switching accounts after 20 streams, creating playlists, more  —  Fans skirted terms and conditions, but a strategy from the singer’s team came close to the streaming platform’s limit.

Inside the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, which felt confusing and disjointed, as the cultural spotlight on Ethereum left Bitcoin feeling a little stale (Ryan Broderick/Fast Company)

Ryan Broderick / Fast Company: Inside the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, which felt confusing and disjointed, as the cultural spotlight on Ethereum left Bitcoin feeling a little stale  —  What happens when you’re no longer the hot young cryptocurrency?  That’s the question hanging over the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami this week.

Samsung’s reputation has taken a hit in South Korea, where three major carriers have halved the price of Galaxy S22, amid reports of hobbled device performance (Byungwook Kim/Reuters)

Byungwook Kim / Reuters: Samsung’s reputation has taken a hit in South Korea, where three major carriers have halved the price of Galaxy S22, amid reports of hobbled device performance  —  Samsung Electronics’ (005930.KS) flagship Galaxy S22 smartphone has taken a battering from reports of hobbled performance …

Despite China’s private sector crackdown in 2021, two unidentified Tencent executives still earned ~$200M each; Tencent’s shares dropped 19% in 2021 (Zheping Huang/Bloomberg)

Zheping Huang / Bloomberg: Despite China’s private sector crackdown in 2021, two unidentified Tencent executives still earned ~$200M each; Tencent’s shares dropped 19% in 2021  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. doled out more than $200 million apiece to two unidentified executives in 2021, even as it cut founder Pony Ma’s compensation …

FactSet: revenue growth for China’s tech giants is slowing; the average target for Meituan’s shares fell 20%+ in March, while Tencent and JD’s shares fell 10%+ (Clarence Leong/Wall Street Journal)

Clarence Leong / Wall Street Journal: FactSet: revenue growth for China’s tech giants is slowing; the average target for Meituan’s shares fell 20%+ in March, while Tencent and JD’s shares fell 10%+  —  Beijing’s anti-Covid measures are likely to exacerbate a slowdown in revenue growth for companies including Alibaba and Meituan

Finding the questions that guide MIT fusion research

“One of the things I learned was, doing good science isn’t so much about finding the answers as figuring out what the important questions are.” As Martin Greenwald retires from the responsibilities of senior scientist and deputy director of the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), he reflects on his almost 50 years of […]

New tool reveals how immune cells find their targets

The human body has millions of unique B and T cells that roam the body, looking for microbial invaders. These immune cells’ ability to recognize harmful microbes is critical to successfully fighting off infection. MIT biological engineers have now devised an experimental tool that allows them to precisely pick out interactions between a particular immune […]

Leveraging science and technology against the world’s top problems

Looking back on nearly a half-century at MIT, Richard K. Lester, associate provost and Japan Steel Industry Professor, sees a “somewhat eccentric professional trajectory.” But while his path has been irregular, there has been a clearly defined through line, Lester says: the emergence of new science and new technologies, the potential of these developments to shake […]