“MIT is a place where dreams come true,” says César Terrer, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Here at MIT, Terrer says he’s given the resources needed to explore ideas he finds most exciting, and at the top of his list is climate science. In particular, he is interested in […]

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the United States-led invasion of Iraq. Code-named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” by the George W. Bush administration, the goal was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, topple Saddam Hussein, and remake Iraq into a democracy. Two decades later, U.S. troops are still on Iraqi soil and that nation is ravaged […]

A new research collaboration with The Bahrain Institute for Pearls and Gemstones (DANAT) will seek to develop advanced characterization tools for the analysis of the properties of pearls and to explore technologies to assign unique identifiers to individual pearls. The three-year project will be led by Admir Mašić, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, […]

As technology becomes more powerful and affordable, your company is only limited by its imagination.

Leaders often want to give workers autonomy, but struggle to give up control.

A study of 42 leveraged buyouts produced surprising findings that should guide policy reforms.

Universities boost revenue by partnering with unregulated, for-profit providers. But when a boot camp went bust, some students took the fall.

Open source intelligence researchers are verifying and debunking opaque claims about who ruptured the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

A set of Soyuz spacecraft coolant leaks hints that Roscosmos is struggling as the space agency loses international partnerships and funding.

Yoshihiro Sato / Bloomberg: Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance data: chip exports to China and Hong Kong fell 31.3% YoY in February, the worst decline since 2009 and above January’s 27.1% fall  —  Taiwan’s exports of integrated circuit chips to China and Hong Kong fell for a fourth month in February as Washington-Beijing tensions simmer …

Bryce Elder / Financial Times: OpenAI’s GPT-4 failed a CFA Institute exam, the finance world’s self-styled toughest test, scoring eight out of 24, despite the answers being available online  —  Artificial intelligence versus arbitrary irrelevance  —  It’s an algorithmic mystery box that inspires fear, awe and derision in equal measure.

ABC News: An interview with Sam Altman on OpenAI’s GPT-4, how “people should be happy” that OpenAI is a “little bit scared of” its tools, misinformation, rivals, and more  —  “This will be the greatest technology humanity has yet developed,” he said.  —  OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks with ABC News, Mar. 15, 2023.

Words have always played a central role in Barry Duncan’s life. He’s worked in bookstores for more than 40 years, reads often, and has tried his hand at writing novels, children’s books, song lyrics, and plays. But it wasn’t until he stumbled onto the book “An Almanac of Words at Play” that Duncan realized words […]

Headphone jacks might be endangered, but they’re not gone. Here are our favorite smartphones that still let you plug and play.

We like HDR-pimped pics, but this latest camera controversy outlines how computational photography could set us down a dicey path.

Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg: Sources: Netflix’s ad-supported tier reached about 1M MAUs in the US after its second month, and the company has hit its forecasted deliveries to advertisers  —  Good afternoon from Los Angeles.  It’s good to be home and I hope your March Madness bracket is doing better than mine.

Faiz Siddiqui / Washington Post: Amid mounting safety concerns about Tesla’s FSD, ex-staffers blame Elon Musk’s erratic leadership, cost-cutting measures like removing radar, and more  —  Tesla’s campaign to deliver a fully autonomous vehicle has suffered amid mounting safety concerns — and the boss’s Twitter distraction

Natasha Lomas / TechCrunch: UChicago researchers launch a free app to help artists prevent AI models from stealing their “artistic IP”, by adding imperceptible “perturbations” to their art  —  Generative art’s style mimicry, interrupted  —  The asymmetry in time and effort it takes human artists …

Instant photography has never been more fun with this antidote to the Instagram era.

Type Ia supernovas are astronomers’ best tools for measuring cosmic distances. In a first, researchers recreated one on a supercomputer to learn how they form.

Don’t drink and tweet.

Abner Li / 9to5Google: Researchers detail a recently fixed aCropalypse vulnerability in Google Pixel’s Markup tool that lets some screenshots be retroactively unredacted or uncropped  —  Besides the Samsung Exynos modem issue, Android 13 QPR2 with the March 2023 security update fixes a vulnerability with the Pixel’s Markup screenshot tool.

Anna Tong / Reuters: Replika and Character.AI, who offer AI companions, are no longer allowing adult content, angering some users who have become deeply involved with their chatbots  —  After temporarily closing his leathermaking business during the pandemic, Travis Butterworth found himself lonely and bored at home.

Cameron Kaiser / Ars Technica: A look back at PLATO, an educational computer system released in 1960 that some consider a precursor to graphics, touchscreens, messaging apps, games, and more  —  Forums, instant messaging, and multiplayer video games all started here.  —  Bright graphics, a touchscreen, a speech synthesizer …

Its digital chassis is an internet-connected platform for the whole car, and the tech giant has General Motors, Jeep, Mercedes, and many more on board.

Help the whole family catch more z’s with soothing background noise.

Plus: A SpaceX supplier ransom, critical vulnerabilities in dozens of Android phones, and more.

Inside Higher Ed: A group of librarians argue the Internet Archive is a library, saying that the four major publishers’ lawsuit threatens the development of digital collections  —  A lawsuit against the Internet Archive threatens the most significant specialized library to emerge in decades, say a group of current and former university librarians.

Tom Warren / The Verge: An interview with Microsoft CVP of Design and Research Jon Friedman about the company’s vision for Microsoft 365 Copilot, Bing AI lessons, AI ethics, and more  —  Copilot is more than just a chatbot.  Microsoft is slowly building an AI assistant that it has dreamed about for years.

Wall Street Journal: Some US TikTok creators contemplate what to do if the app that created their business opportunities is banned, like moving to Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts  —  The platform created business opportunities for some users.  Now, they’re planning for what might come next

Botanists and community stewards are using patches of native flora as blueprints to revive tropical dry evergreen ecosystems from near-extinction.

The crisis exposed Big VC’s flaws. It’s time to rethink venture capital’s power—and reimagine investment in innovation.

When SVB collapsed, entrepreneurs who feared losing everything spent nerve-wracking days crafting backup plans, seeking new funds, and pleading with politicians.

Maria Bustillos / The Nation: A look at four publishers’ lawsuit against the Internet Archive, which hinges on defining the legal ownership of ebooks, ahead of oral arguments on March 20  —  Or that they haven’t already started to pollute Google searches.  And if publishers win their lawsuit against the Internet Archive …

Charlotte Alter / TIME: Sources: effective altruism leaders were warned of Sam Bankman-Fried’s issues in 2018 and 2019, but they dismissed claims and threatened those raising concerns  —  Leaders of the Effective Altruism movement were repeatedly warned beginning in 2018 that Sam Bankman-Fried was unethical …

Financial Times: Some investors are concerned SVB’s collapse and its rescue by the US government, after Silicon Valley investors’ lobbying, could lead to tougher tech regulation  —  Late last Saturday night, Jason Calacanis, a prominent internet entrepreneur and investor, hit the caps button on his keyboard …

Methods to generate the random numbers we need for secure communications are all flawed in some way, but quantum computers that exist today could produce random numbers that can’t be faked

From You to Wednesday, these are our picks for the best streaming titles to binge this week.

The next phase of tech capitalism will demand more, not less, of your humanity.

Rock your inner jock with a pair of sturdy, sweatproof, and tangle-proof headphones. Here are our favorites.

Financial Times: How tech from Synthesia, an AI startup backed by Kleiner Perkins and GV, is being used to make deepfake news videos promoted by Venezuela’s government  —  UK tech company developed software used in fake news videos promoted by authoritarian government  —  As Venezuela prepared for carnival season …

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: After SVB froze its deposits, HR software startup Rippling raised a $500M Series E at an $11.25B valuation, same as Series D, taking its total funding to $1.2B  —  As a serial entrepreneur who has famously endured some ups and downs, Parker Conrad has nearly seen it all.  Or so he […]

Hailey Fuchs / Politico: Source: TikTok is paying dozens of creators to visit DC next week and lobby lawmakers against a forced sale, ahead of CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony on March 23  —  The influential social media app TikTok is flooding the nation’s capital with influencers next week as part of an 11th hour […]

MIT Professor Marin Soljačić and four additional MIT alumni — Vanderlei Salvador Bagnato PhD ’87, Turan Erdogan ’87, Harold Metcalf ’62, and Andrew Weiner ’79, SM ’81, ScD ’84 — are among 17 recipients of the 2023 Optica Awards. Optica, formerly known as OSA, announced the awards, which celebrate those in the optics and photonics field […]

In work that could lead to important new physics with potentially heady applications in computer science and more, MIT scientists have shown that two previously separate fields in condensed matter physics can be combined to yield new, exotic phenomena. The work is theoretical, but the researchers are excited about collaborating with experimentalists to realize the […]

MIT’s commitment to undergraduate financial aid will remain strong for the 2023-24 academic year, increasing to an estimated budget of $164.1 million. The increase will offset a 3.75 percent rise in tuition and changes in housing, dining, and other estimated costs. The estimated average MIT scholarship for students receiving financial aid next year is $61,247. […]

Silicon Valley Bank illustrates why payroll shouldn’t be stored in an institution vulnerable to bank runs.

Sector specialization comes with steep risks — and high upside.

Your strategy should be driven by relationship-building — not shiny new tech.

Pro-Russia groups are gaming Facebook’s review process, and moderators are stuck in the middle.