Sources: Google Brain and DeepMind have been forced to work together on a project known as Gemini to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4, after Bard’s stumble (Jon Victor/The Information)

Jon Victor / The Information: Sources: Google Brain and DeepMind have been forced to work together on a project known as Gemini to compete with OpenAI’s GPT-4, after Bard’s stumble  —  OpenAI’s success in overtaking Google with an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot has achieved what seemed impossible in the past …

WeMeta: the median price per square meter of land in Decentraland has dropped from ~$45 in 2022 to $5 in 2023, as the hype around the metaverse has receded (Meghan Bobrowsky/Wall Street Journal)

Meghan Bobrowsky / Wall Street Journal: WeMeta: the median price per square meter of land in Decentraland has dropped from ~$45 in 2022 to $5 in 2023, as the hype around the metaverse has receded  —  Disney and Microsoft both closed projects tied to the digital realm this month  —  Watch: What’s the Future of […]

Google launches an Ads Transparency Center, showing all the ads from verified advertisers on its platforms, in the formats, the regions, and the dates they ran (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch: Google launches an Ads Transparency Center, showing all the ads from verified advertisers on its platforms, in the formats, the regions, and the dates they ran  —  Google is launching a new ad transparency center that will let users search for verified advertisers and their campaigns across …

School of Engineering welcomes new faculty

The School of Engineering is welcoming 11 new members of its faculty across six of its academic departments and institutes. This new cohort of faculty members, who have either recently started their roles at MIT or will start their new roles within the next year, conduct research across a diverse range of disciplines. Their areas […]

Boosting passenger experience and increasing connectivity at the Hong Kong International Airport

Recently, a cohort of 36 students from MIT and universities across Hong Kong came together for the MIT Entrepreneurship and Maker Skills Integrator (MEMSI), an intense two-week startup boot camp hosted at the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node. “We’re very excited to be in Hong Kong,” said Professor Charles Sodini, LeBel Professor of Electrical Engineering […]

A US court rules bZx protocol meets the definition of a general partnership and finds token holders of the DAO liable for losses from a $55M hack in 2021 (Sam Reynolds/CoinDesk)

Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk: A US court rules bZx protocol meets the definition of a general partnership and finds token holders of the DAO liable for losses from a $55M hack in 2021  —  Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are beginning to look like general partnerships in the eyes of U.S. courts.

The UK CMA launches an in-depth probe, which can take up to six months, of Broadcom’s $69B VMware acquisition, after Broadcom failed to address concerns (Reuters)

Reuters: The UK CMA launches an in-depth probe, which can take up to six months, of Broadcom’s $69B VMware acquisition, after Broadcom failed to address concerns  —  Britain said it would investigate Broadcom’s (AVGO.O) acquisition of VMware (VMW.N) in depth after the U.S. chipmaker offered …

Goldman Sachs research: generative AI could increase annual global GDP by 7% over a 10-year period and expose 300M full-time jobs to automation globally (Delphine Strauss/Financial Times)

Delphine Strauss / Financial Times: Goldman Sachs research: generative AI could increase annual global GDP by 7% over a 10-year period and expose 300M full-time jobs to automation globally  —  Technology could boost global GDP by 7% but also risks creating ‘significant disruption’  —  The latest breakthroughs in artificial intelligence …

New algorithm keeps drones from colliding in midair

When multiple drones are working together in the same airspace, perhaps spraying pesticide over a field of corn, there’s a risk they might crash into each other. To help avoid these costly crashes, MIT researchers presented a system called MADER in 2020. This multiagent trajectory-planner enables a group of drones to formulate optimal, collision-free trajectories. […]

Micron reports Q2 revenue of $3.69B, vs. $3.71B est., down from $7.79B YoY, and a record net loss of $2.31B due to an inventory write-down of $1.43B (Jeremy C. Owens/MarketWatch)

Jeremy C. Owens / MarketWatch: Micron reports Q2 revenue of $3.69B, vs. $3.71B est., down from $7.79B YoY, and a record net loss of $2.31B due to an inventory write-down of $1.43B  —  Chip company writes off more than $1.4 billion in inventory as sales get chopped in half and memory-chip market melts down …

A US federal judge finds Google flouted a court order requiring it to save records of employee chats in antitrust litigation over its Play Store policies (Malathi Nayak/Bloomberg)

Malathi Nayak / Bloomberg: A US federal judge finds Google flouted a court order requiring it to save records of employee chats in antitrust litigation over its Play Store policies  —  Alphabet Inc.’s Google flouted a court order requiring it to save records of employee chats in antitrust litigation …

Cerebras open sources seven GPT-based LLMs, ranging from 111M to 13B parameters and trained using its Andromeda supercomputer for AI, on GitHub and Hugging Face (Mike Wheatley/SiliconANGLE)

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Cerebras open sources seven GPT-based LLMs, ranging from 111M to 13B parameters and trained using its Andromeda supercomputer for AI, on GitHub and Hugging Face  —  Artificial intelligence chipmaker Cerebras Systems Inc. today announced it has trained and now released seven GPT-based large language models …

MIT sophomores connect with alumni mentors in professional and leadership development program

Team Training Workshop (TTW) is the cornerstone event for students in MIT’s Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP), bringing students and alumni mentors together over three exciting sessions for an experiential learning experience that feels like summer camp. UPOP is a yearlong academic course for MIT sophomores that aids their professional development and helps them prepare […]

Strengthening trust in machine-learning models

Probabilistic machine learning methods are becoming increasingly powerful tools in data analysis, informing a range of critical decisions across disciplines and applications, from forecasting election results to predicting the impact of microloans on addressing poverty. This class of methods uses sophisticated concepts from probability theory to handle uncertainty in decision-making. But the math is only […]

Venti Technologies, which develops autonomous vehicle tech for industrial and logistical hubs, raised a $28.8M Series A led by LG Technology Ventures (Ingrid Lunden/TechCrunch)

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: Venti Technologies, which develops autonomous vehicle tech for industrial and logistical hubs, raised a $28.8M Series A led by LG Technology Ventures  —  We are still likely many years away from wide-scale deployment — let alone adoption — of fully autonomous vehicles on our streets …

CWA files NLRB charges alleging that Apple fired five union organizers in Kansas City in retaliation, the first such charges the union has filed against Apple (Lauren Kaori Gurley/Washington Post)

Lauren Kaori Gurley / Washington Post: CWA files NLRB charges alleging that Apple fired five union organizers in Kansas City in retaliation, the first such charges the union has filed against Apple  —  The workers, who were disciplined and fired for attendance-related issues, believe they were let go because of their union organizing

Alibaba plans to reorganize its businesses into six independent entities and devolve operational decisions to each unit’s CEO, in its biggest restructuring ever (Zhou Xin/South China Morning Post)

Zhou Xin / South China Morning Post: Alibaba plans to reorganize its businesses into six independent entities and devolve operational decisions to each unit’s CEO, in its biggest restructuring ever  —  Alibaba Group Holding will overhaul its sprawling operations, as China’s largest technology conglomerate undertakes …

New additives could turn concrete into an effective carbon sink

Despite the many advantages of concrete as a modern construction material, including its high strength, low cost, and ease of manufacture, its production currently accounts for approximately 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Recent discoveries by a team at MIT have revealed that introducing new materials into existing concrete manufacturing processes could significantly reduce […]

Filing: a federal judge grants the US government’s request to temporarily halt Voyager’s bankruptcy plan, putting its proposed ~$1B sale to Binance.US on hold (Jeremy Hill/Bloomberg)

Jeremy Hill / Bloomberg: Filing: a federal judge grants the US government’s request to temporarily halt Voyager’s bankruptcy plan, putting its proposed ~$1B sale to Binance.US on hold  —  A federal judge granted the US government’s request to temporarily halt Voyager Digital Ltd.’s bankruptcy plan …

Binance CEO CZ says CFTC’s complaint contains “incomplete recitation of facts” and Binance does not agree with “characterization of many of the issues alleged” (Binance Blog)

Binance Blog: Binance CEO CZ says CFTC’s complaint contains “incomplete recitation of facts” and Binance does not agree with “characterization of many of the issues alleged”  —  Today, the CFTC filed an unexpected and disappointing civil complaint, despite our working cooperatively with the CFTC for over two years.

Germany-based OQmented, which is developing laser beam scanning tech for displays in AR/MR glasses, raised a $20M Series A from Sharp Devices Europe and others (Fiona Alston/Tech.eu)

Fiona Alston / Tech.eu: Germany-based OQmented, which is developing laser beam scanning tech for displays in AR/MR glasses, raised a $20M Series A from Sharp Devices Europe and others  —  The German firm’s ultra-compact MEMS-based laser beam scanning projection display systems for AR glasses has come into focus as tech giant Sharp invests

A portfolio that’s out of this world

At age 9, Ezinne Uzo-Okoro SM ’20, PhD ’22 was preoccupied with down-to-earth problems, such as devising an alternative to her father’s messy, paper Filofax organizer, and fixing the unreliable electric service plaguing her home of Owerri, Nigeria. Could she have imagined a path-breaking, 17-year career at NASA, followed by a position as the nation’s […]

Sources: Jack Ma returned to China after more than a year; sources: China Premier Li Qiang urged Ma to return since late 2022 to allay private sector fears (Reuters)

Reuters: Sources: Jack Ma returned to China after more than a year; sources: China Premier Li Qiang urged Ma to return since late 2022 to allay private sector fears  —  Alibaba (9988.HK) founder Jack Ma has returned to China, ending a stay overseas of more than a year that industry viewed as reflecting …

Ammo maker Nammo says its growth is hit by a TikTok data center using all spare electricity, as energy demand from data centers and others grows in the Nordics (Richard Milne/Financial Times)

Richard Milne / Financial Times: Ammo maker Nammo says its growth is hit by a TikTok data center using all spare electricity, as energy demand from data centers and others grows in the Nordics  —  Norwegian group Nammo blames ‘storage of cat videos’ for threatening its growth as data centre corners spare electricity