Bloomberg: A profile of FTX co-founder and CTO Gary Wang, a roommate to Sam Bankman-Fried at MIT who is cooperating with the US, as insiders say he may have key insights — They’d come a long way together, from teenage mathletes to MIT frat brothers to crypto billionaires.
Sources: spooked by a growing regulatory crackdown, US banks are backing away from crypto companies and re-evaluating their exposure, no matter how small (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal: Sources: spooked by a growing regulatory crackdown, US banks are backing away from crypto companies and re-evaluating their exposure, no matter how small — SEC and banking overseers step up scrutiny following collapse of FTX — Crypto’s Crash Has Been Swift but Largely Self-Contained. Here’s Why.
A year on from Meta hyping the metaverse in a dystopian Super Bowl ad, enthusiasm for a virtual future has evaporated and Meta is now more focused on efficiency (Jemima Kelly/Financial Times)
Jemima Kelly / Financial Times: A year on from Meta hyping the metaverse in a dystopian Super Bowl ad, enthusiasm for a virtual future has evaporated and Meta is now more focused on efficiency — Enthusiasm for a virtual future is draining away — and so is investment — Remember when we were all going […]
We don’t need ‘miracle’ green technologies to save the planet
A focus on revolutionary solutions like carbon capture and geoengineering is slowing the uptake of existing answers to the problems of climate change, air pollution and energy security, says environmental engineer Mark Jacobson
How to pull carbon dioxide out of seawater
As carbon dioxide continues to build up in the Earth’s atmosphere, research teams around the world have spent years seeking ways to remove the gas efficiently from the air. Meanwhile, the world’s number one “sink” for carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is the ocean, which soaks up some 30 to 40 percent of all of […]
The East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment Created a Perfect TikTok Storm
The social media platform helped push the story into the mainstream while also fueling misinformation and conspiracy theories.
8 Best Movies on Hulu This Week
From Fresh to Heat, these are the films you need to watch on the streaming service right now.
Elon Musk’s New Twitter Superpower Is Dangerous
Musk has given himself an even bigger bullhorn to annoy users and spread disinformation on the platform.
Twitter updates its policies to allow cannabis ads targeting US states where cannabis is legal, promoting brands or providing info but not offering direct sales (Sara Fischer/Axios)
Sara Fischer / Axios: Twitter updates its policies to allow cannabis ads targeting US states where cannabis is legal, promoting brands or providing info but not offering direct sales — Twitter on Wednesday updated its advertising policies to allow cannabis ads to run on its service in states where cannabis is legal, in accordance with […]
Twilio reports Q4 revenue up 22% YoY to $1.02B, vs. $1B est., active customer accounts up 13% YoY to 290K+, and authorizes a $1B share buyback; TWLO jumps 12%+ (Chris Ciaccia/Seeking Alpha)
Chris Ciaccia / Seeking Alpha: Twilio reports Q4 revenue up 22% YoY to $1.02B, vs. $1B est., active customer accounts up 13% YoY to 290K+, and authorizes a $1B share buyback; TWLO jumps 12%+ — Twilio (NYSE:TWLO) shares soared nearly 10% in extended-hours trading after the cloud communications software company reported …
Shopify reports Q4 revenue up 26% YoY to $1.73B, vs. $1.65B est., GMV up 13% YoY to $61B, vs. $59.2B est., and forecasts a Q1 2023 revenue growth below est. (Lucy Papachristou/Bloomberg)
Lucy Papachristou / Bloomberg: Shopify reports Q4 revenue up 26% YoY to $1.73B, vs. $1.65B est., GMV up 13% YoY to $61B, vs. $59.2B est., and forecasts a Q1 2023 revenue growth below est. — Shopify Inc. tumbled in after-hours trading after giving a sales outlook for the start of the year that fell short […]
Bone conduction headphones make your own voice sound less weird
Listening to a recording of yourself speaking can be unnerving – but headphones that alter the sound can make your voice seem more familiar and may help us understand schizophrenia hallucinations
Fully autonomous F-16 fighter jet takes part in simulated dogfights
An F-16 fighter jet controlled by AI has taken off, taken part in aerial fights against other aircraft and landed without human help
Four faculty receive MIT SHASS Research Fund awards for 2023
The annual MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (SHASS) Research Fund supports research in the Institute’s humanities, arts, and social science fields that shows promise of making an important contribution to the proposed area of activity. The four recipients for 2023 are: Volha Charnysh, assistant professor of political science, plans to apply her […]
In visit to MIT, FedEx founder Frederick Smith shares thoughts on innovation
On Jan. 26, the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics (CTL) hosted FedEx founder and executive chair Frederick W. Smith for an intimate, one-on-one conversation with Yossi Sheffi, director of CTL and professor of civil and environmental engineering. Their talk, titled “50 Years of Delivering Innovation,” centered on the evolution of the supply chain and […]
Democratizing education: Bringing MIT excellence to the masses
How do you quantify the value of education or measure success? For the team behind the MIT Institute for Data, Systems, and Society’s (IDSS) MicroMasters Program in Statistics and Data Science (SDS), providing over 1,000 individuals from around the globe with access to MIT-level programming feels like a pretty good place to start. Thanks to […]
Organizational Agility Starts with Learning and Career Growth – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM LINKEDIN
Sponsor content from LinkedIn.
Your Strategy Needs a Story
A well-told story can help employees and other stakeholders understand how your business works and where it’s heading.
How to Help Your Team Learn in the Flow of Work
Learning doesn’t have to be formal, structured, or scheduled to be effective.
The Scramble to Save Twitter’s Research From Elon Musk
Fearing the company’s new management, researchers frantically completed studies on misinformation and algorithmic bias, then rushed to publish them online.
What to Look for When Buying a Security Camera (2023): Tips and Risks
Eufy’s recent scandal shows it’s not so much about the data breach but about how a company responds. Here are a few ways to shop smart.
11 Best Presidents’ Day Mattress Sales (2023): Hybrid, All-foam, and Buying Advice
Beds are expensive, but the right one can mean the difference between feeling refreshed or grumpy. These ones are discounted.
How BandLab, a music production app and social network for creators, woos users through its SongStarter AI tool, which generates royalty-free instrumental ideas (Catherine Wang/Forbes)
Catherine Wang / Forbes: How BandLab, a music production app and social network for creators, woos users through its SongStarter AI tool, which generates royalty-free instrumental ideas — A scion of Malaysia’s richest family, Kuok Meng Ru transformed his love of classic rock and blues into a music empire.
An in-depth look at how OpenAI’s ChatGPT decodes input queries to produce a “reasonable continuation” of the text, the underlying dataset, neural nets, and more (Stephen Wolfram Writings)
Stephen Wolfram Writings: An in-depth look at how OpenAI’s ChatGPT decodes input queries to produce a “reasonable continuation” of the text, the underlying dataset, neural nets, and more — It’s Just Adding One Word at a Time — That ChatGPT can automatically generate something that reads even superficially …
After a series of disastrous bets and a market downturn, SoftBank’s future rests on a successful Arm IPO and turnaround at the mostly dormant Vision Funds (Kana Inagaki/Financial Times)
Kana Inagaki / Financial Times: After a series of disastrous bets and a market downturn, SoftBank’s future rests on a successful Arm IPO and turnaround at the mostly dormant Vision Funds — Chip designer now accounts for a bigger percentage of the technology group’s net asset value than Alibaba
ChatGPT AI passes test designed to show theory of mind in children
Comprehending that other people might think differently from you is a form of intelligence known as theory of mind – what does it mean that the artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT can do as well on tests of it as a 9-year-old child?
Engineers discover a new way to control atomic nuclei as “qubits”
In principle, quantum-based devices such as computers and sensors could vastly outperform conventional digital technologies for carrying out many complex tasks. But developing such devices in practice has been a challenging problem despite great investments by tech companies as well as academic and government labs. Today’s biggest quantum computers still only have a few hundred […]
Dating Apps Crack Down on Romance Scammers
Our manufactured love holiday might have you feeling more vulnerable than usual. Here’s what to look out for.
Audiobook Narrators Fear Apple Used Their Voices to Train AI
After a backlash, Spotify paused an arrangement that allowed Apple to train machine learning models on some audiobook files.
A Novel Male Birth Control Could Be an ‘On-Off Switch for Sperm’
A new compound halts sperm in their tracks. It’s fast-acting, temporary, hormone-free, and highly effective—in mice.
Descartes Systems Group, a Canada-based logistics and supply chain software provider, acquires US-based logistics automation provider GroundCloud for ~$138M (Charlize Alcaraz/BetaKit)
Charlize Alcaraz / BetaKit: Descartes Systems Group, a Canada-based logistics and supply chain software provider, acquires US-based logistics automation provider GroundCloud for ~$138M — Descartes aims to apply GroundCloud’s safety content, compliance solutions across more industries.
A US jury convicts Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin for his role in a $90M insider trading scheme that hacked companies to get non-public financial data (Sean Lyngaas/CNN)
Sean Lyngaas / CNN: A US jury convicts Russian businessman Vladislav Klyushin for his role in a $90M insider trading scheme that hacked companies to get non-public financial data — A federal jury in Boston has convicted a prominent Russian businessman for his alleged role in a $90-million insider trading scheme …
GlobalFoundries reports record Q4 revenue, up 14% YoY to $2.1B, net income up 1,453% YoY to $668M, and FY 2022 revenue up 23% YoY to $8.1B; GFS closes up 8.44% (Dan O’Shea/Fierce Electronics)
Dan O’Shea / Fierce Electronics: GlobalFoundries reports record Q4 revenue, up 14% YoY to $2.1B, net income up 1,453% YoY to $668M, and FY 2022 revenue up 23% YoY to $8.1B; GFS closes up 8.44% — As recent earnings reports showed how many semiconductor designers struggled during the latter half of 2022 …
Stuffed dead birds made into drones could spy on animals or humans
Flapping-wing drones camouflaged with the bodies of taxidermy birds could help study flocks of wild birds or enable military spy missions, but they’re not yet the most efficient flyers
Gough Map: New technology uncovers secrets of rare Bodleian artefact
The Gough Map, thought to be Britain’s oldest, has been revealed in unprecedented detail thanks to cutting-edge 3D technology more commonly used in computer games and CGI
Meet the socially savvy AIs beginning to understand human intentions
For artificial intelligence to move to the next level, it needs to understand the goals and beliefs of others – a skill once thought to be out of its reach. But new research shows emotionally smart machines are on the way
Responsive design meets responsibility for the planet’s future
MIT senior Sylas Horowitz kneeled at the edge of a marsh, tinkering with a blue-and-black robot about the size and shape of a shoe box and studded with lights and mini propellers. The robot was a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) — an underwater drone slated to collect water samples from beneath a sheet of Arctic […]
MIT efforts support earthquake relief for communities in Turkey and Syria
The catastrophic earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6 has left more than 41,000 people dead, and many more still not counted under the rubble. More than a million people have been left homeless in Turkey alone. Bilge Yildiz, MIT professor of nuclear science and of materials science and engineering, was born and […]
MIT community members elected to the National Academy of Engineering for 2023
Seven MIT researchers are among the 106 new members and 18 international members elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) this week. Fourteen additional MIT alumni, including one member of the MIT Corporation, were also elected as new members. One of the highest professional distinctions for engineers, membership to the NAE is given to […]
Video Quick Take: Emerson’s Elizabeth Adefioye on Aligning Employee and Corporate Cultures – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM EMERSON
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Ask Your Team “What Are You Stuck On?”
This simple question can reduce procrastination, build trust, and uncover disengagement on your team.
The Subtle Art of Disagreeing with Your Boss
A conversation with George Mason University’s Todd Kashdan on pushing back against the consensus.
Bitcoin Investors Are Plotting a Major Coup
A group of activist shareholders at the world’s largest bitcoin investment trust claim they lost billions as the market tanked. Now they want to take control.
TikTok’s De-Influencers Tell You What Not to Buy
The latest trend to hit the video-sharing site is a backlash against hauls and self-serving recommendations.
Dating Apps Have a Filter Bubble Problem
If you’re desperately scrolling, it’s not your fault. The recommendation system for love needs a major reboot.
US financial regulators are rapidly closing crypto’s key routes to the banking system, accelerating since FTX collapsed, pushing the industry to the fringes (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: US financial regulators are rapidly closing crypto’s key routes to the banking system, accelerating since FTX collapsed, pushing the industry to the fringes — Crypto’s free pass is getting yanked as the most powerful US financial regulators rapidly close key doors to the country’s banking system.
A look at Eric Schmidt-backed startup Ishtari, which uses machine learning to virtually assemble and test war machines from computer models of each component (Will Knight/Wired)
Will Knight / Wired: A look at Eric Schmidt-backed startup Ishtari, which uses machine learning to virtually assemble and test war machines from computer models of each component — The former Google CEO is on a mission to rewire the US military with cutting-edge artificial intelligence to take on China.
Beijing’s IT bureau plans to support AI startups building ChatGPT-like models and says 1,048 core AI companies, or 29% of China’s total, are located in Beijing (Reuters)
Reuters: Beijing’s IT bureau plans to support AI startups building ChatGPT-like models and says 1,048 core AI companies, or 29% of China’s total, are located in Beijing — China’s capital Beijing will support leading enterprises in building large artificial intelligence (AI) models that can challenge ChatGPT …
‘Loverwatch’ Left Me Wishing For a Third First Date
Overwatch 2’s new limited-time dating sim lets you romance Mercy or Genji, but I want so much more.
Twitter’s API Crackdown Will Hit More Than Just Bots
By shutting off its free API, the social network will stop researchers from getting access to crucial data to track hate speech and disinformation.