A look at Worldcoin, which reorganized under parent company Tools for Humanity and lets users sign up via iris scans for a global ID and financial services (Connie Loizos/TechCrunch)

Connie Loizos / TechCrunch: A look at Worldcoin, which reorganized under parent company Tools for Humanity and lets users sign up via iris scans for a global ID and financial services  —  Fake virtual identities are nothing new.  The ability to so easily create them has been both a boon for social media platforms …

A look at the rise and fall of Dubai-based ride-hailing firm Swvl, the Middle’s East first $1.5B Nasdaq-listed unicorn, now worth ~$9M after a 99%+ stock drop (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: A look at the rise and fall of Dubai-based ride-hailing firm Swvl, the Middle’s East first $1.5B Nasdaq-listed unicorn, now worth ~$9M after a 99%+ stock drop  —  In July 2021 the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, was briefly lit up in brilliant red, with animated electronic text scrolling …

The FBI acknowledges for the first time it bought US location data, director Christopher Wray says for a national security pilot project that’s no longer active (Dell Cameron/Wired)

Dell Cameron / Wired: The FBI acknowledges for the first time it bought US location data, director Christopher Wray says for a national security pilot project that’s no longer active  —  Rather than obtaining a warrant, the bureau purchased sensitive data—a controversial practice that privacy advocates say is deeply problematic.

Sources: Anthropic, which focuses on researching AI safety, raised $300M led by Spark Capital at a $4.1B pre-money valuation, after Google invested $400M (Kate Clark/The Information)

Kate Clark / The Information: Sources: Anthropic, which focuses on researching AI safety, raised $300M led by Spark Capital at a $4.1B pre-money valuation, after Google invested $400M  —  Spark Capital is leading a $300 million investment in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic, one of the primary startup challengers to OpenAI …

Sources: Uber is exploring whether to spin off its Uber Freight logistics arm, likely via an IPO, to focus on its growing ride hailing and food delivery units (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sources: Uber is exploring whether to spin off its Uber Freight logistics arm, likely via an IPO, to focus on its growing ride hailing and food delivery units  —  Uber Technologies Inc. is exploring whether to spin off its Uber Freight logistics arm in a sale or as a separate publicly traded company …

Working to make nuclear energy more competitive

Assil Halimi has loved science since he was a child, but it was a singular experience at a college internship that stoked his interest in nuclear engineering. As part of work on a conceptual design for an aircraft electric propulsion system, Halimi had to read a chart that compared the energy density of various fuel […]

A profile of former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, who was criticized for the company’s slow move into AI, cloud, and data analytics, as she releases a book on her life (Anjli Raval/Financial Times)

Anjli Raval / Financial Times: A profile of former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, who was criticized for the company’s slow move into AI, cloud, and data analytics, as she releases a book on her life  —  The former IBM chief executive’s new book sheds light on her background, her working life — and her call […]

Sources: after postponing construction at the end of 2022, Intel seeks an extra €4B-€5B from Germany to build its chip plant, taking the expected cost to ~€30B (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Sources: after postponing construction at the end of 2022, Intel seeks an extra €4B-€5B from Germany to build its chip plant, taking the expected cost to ~€30B  —  Intel Corp. is seeking an additional 4 billion to 5 billion euros in subsidies from the German government …

Panic launches Catalog, a curated game store for its handheld Playdate console with 16 titles, and raises the device’s price by $20 to $199 starting in April (Andrew Webster/The Verge)

Andrew Webster / The Verge: Panic launches Catalog, a curated game store for its handheld Playdate console with 16 titles, and raises the device’s price by $20 to $199 starting in April  —  As part of a showcase event, Panic announced that Catalog, a game store for its Playdate handheld, would be launching today.

Gabriela Schlau-Cohen: Illuminating photosynthesis

During photosynthesis, chlorophyll in plants absorbs packets of energy called photons from the sun’s rays. This energy is then transferred to a series of other chlorophyll molecules organized by protein scaffolds, funneling the energy into the next stage of photosynthesis. Those early light-harvesting stages of photosynthesis involve repeated excitation of pigments, as photons are passed […]

Sources: EU regulators asked Twitter to hire more moderators and fact-checkers over concerns that Twitter aims to use more volunteers and AI to monitor content (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: EU regulators asked Twitter to hire more moderators and fact-checkers over concerns that Twitter aims to use more volunteers and AI to monitor content  —  Regulators are concerned that platform aims to use more volunteers and artificial intelligence to monitor content

Source: Silvergate is in talks with FDIC officials about ways to avoid a shutdown, including lining up crypto-industry investors to help shore up its liquidity (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: Source: Silvergate is in talks with FDIC officials about ways to avoid a shutdown, including lining up crypto-industry investors to help shore up its liquidity  —  US regulators have been sent to the headquarters of Silvergate Capital Corp., as the troubled crypto-friendly bank looks for a way to stay in business.

A look at the growing social media dubbing industry, which is helping MrBeast and other YouTubers reach global audiences and monetize videos in many languages (Rest of World)

Rest of World: A look at the growing social media dubbing industry, which is helping MrBeast and other YouTubers reach global audiences and monetize videos in many languages  —  MrBeast and PewDiePie are part of a booming business that localizes social media videos for fans around the world.

MIT Cheney Room reopens with fresh and enhanced programming

The Margaret Cheney Room celebrated its reopening last month after significant updates and remodeling over the last several months. The celebration was led by Lauryn McNair, assistant dean of LBGTQ+ Women and Gender Services, and attended by MIT Chancellor Melissa Nobles, Provost Cynthia Barnhart, and numerous students, staff, and alumni. In 1884, MIT founded the […]

Nanotube sensors are capable of detecting and distinguishing gibberellin plant hormones

Researchers from the Disruptive and Sustainable Technologies for Agricultural Precision (DiSTAP) interdisciplinary research group of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART), MIT’s research enterprise in Singapore, and their collaborators from Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory have developed the first-ever nanosensor that can detect and distinguish gibberellins (GAs), a class of hormones in plants that […]

Many VCs question whether generative AI startups, currently attracting huge valuations, will make enough money, fearing a repeat of the crypto investment hype (George Hammond/Financial Times)

George Hammond / Financial Times: Many VCs question whether generative AI startups, currently attracting huge valuations, will make enough money, fearing a repeat of the crypto investment hype  —  Silicon Valley VCs fearing a repeat of falling crypto values warn against pouring cash into hype-fuelled start-ups

YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram helped Monu Manesar, an Indian cow vigilante wanted in connection to two murders, thrive despite violent and Islamophobic posts (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram helped Monu Manesar, an Indian cow vigilante wanted in connection to two murders, thrive despite violent and Islamophobic posts  —  Killings prompt scrutiny of companies’ handling of influencer whose accounts thrived years with violent and anti-Muslim posts

After Instagram added a prompt to cross-post on Facebook, sources say at Meta’s request, some young adults express surprise that their posts are on Facebook (New York Times)

New York Times: After Instagram added a prompt to cross-post on Facebook, sources say at Meta’s request, some young adults express surprise that their posts are on Facebook  —  Teenagers and young adults are flummoxed.  The reason it keeps happening involves an online prompt and product design.

At an all-hands last week, Sundar Pichai defended Google Cloud’s new desk-sharing policy; an exec says ~35% of staff are in the office at least four days a week (Jennifer Elias/CNBC)

Jennifer Elias / CNBC: At an all-hands last week, Sundar Pichai defended Google Cloud’s new desk-sharing policy; an exec says ~35% of staff are in the office at least four days a week  —  – Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed employee criticism of the cloud unit’s new desk-sharing policy at an all-hands meeting last week.

Source: Twitter broke on Monday after the only site reliability engineer assigned to the project for migrating to a paid API made a “bad configuration change” (Platformer)

Platformer: Source: Twitter broke on Monday after the only site reliability engineer assigned to the project for migrating to a paid API made a “bad configuration change”  —  The high cost of cutting expenses  —  Twitter’s website is breaking in novel new ways — and while the company managed …

Sources: The White House has given feedback on a draft bipartisan bill and is considering asking Congress for more legal powers to police apps like TikTok (David McCabe/New York Times)

David McCabe / New York Times: Sources: The White House has given feedback on a draft bipartisan bill and is considering asking Congress for more legal powers to police apps like TikTok  —  In a strategy shift, the Biden administration is increasingly pointing to Congress to give it more legal power to deal with TikTok […]

Learning to compute through art

One student confesses that motors have always freaked them out. Amy Huynh, a first-year student in the MIT Technology and Policy Program, says “I just didn’t respond to the way electrical engineering and coding is usually taught.” Huynh and her fellow students found a different way to master coding and circuits during the Independent Activities […]

Daniel Hastings named American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics president-elect

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) announced Wednesday that MIT professor Daniel Hastings has been elected president-elect of the organization. Hastings, the associate dean of engineering for diversity, equity, and inclusion; head of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics; and the Cecil and Ida Green Education Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, will be […]