Subrat Patnaik / Bloomberg: After a big decline in 2022, Meta’s stock has risen 72%+ since November 3, one of the S&P 500 Index’s best-performing stocks, adding $200B+ to its market cap — A spectacular turnaround in Meta Platforms Inc.’s stock is bringing back flashes of Big Tech heydays.
Sony announces a beta version of Discord for the PlayStation 5 in the US, Canada, Japan, and the UK, adds Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p, and more (Tom Warren/The Verge)
Tom Warren / The Verge: Sony announces a beta version of Discord for the PlayStation 5 in the US, Canada, Japan, and the UK, adds Variable Refresh Rate support for 1440p, and more — Beta testers will be able to join Discord voice calls on a PS5 console in the US, Canada, Japan, and UK […]
A look at OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition software Whisper, which can transcribe speech in more than 90 languages, outperforming humans in some of them (James Somers/New Yorker)
James Somers / New Yorker: A look at OpenAI’s open-source speech recognition software Whisper, which can transcribe speech in more than 90 languages, outperforming humans in some of them — ChatGPT is in the spotlight, but it’s Whisper—OpenAI’s open-source speech-transcription program—that shows us where machine learning is going.
We need to accept that deepfakes are here to stay in film and TV
Last week saw the launch of Deep Fake Neighbour Wars, the first ever deepfake comedy. We need to start talking about the legal and ethical implications of this technology, says New Scientist’s television columnist Bethan Ackerley
Pegasus review: Terrifying exposé of the world’s most powerful spyware
From French president Emmanuel Macron to ordinary whistle-blowers, the surveillance software Pegasus has been used to target thousands of people. Investigative journalists Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud tell its story and explain why no one is safe
Tweets reveal hardware stores cause disgust but hostels bring joy
A study of nearly 2 million tweets over one year suggests that people in San Francisco feel disgusted when at hardware stores and Londoners are most joyful at hostels or motels
How to Preorder Samsung’s Galaxy S23—and Which Model to Buy
Should you get the Ultra and enjoy the new 200-megapixel camera or stick with a smaller handset? We have recommendations.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, S23+, S23 and Galaxy Book3: Specs, Price, Release Date
There are three new phones—the Galaxy S23, S23+, and S23 Ultra—as well as five new laptops.
Noma Is Closing. Welcome to the End of Fine Dining
Prestige restaurants are often unsustainable, intense workplaces. It’s time for the culture around them to change.
Mark Zuckerberg says Meta’s management theme in 2023 is the “Year of Efficiency” and emphasizes the role of AI in driving the company forward (Taylor Hatmaker/TechCrunch)
Taylor Hatmaker / TechCrunch: Mark Zuckerberg says Meta’s management theme in 2023 is the “Year of Efficiency” and emphasizes the role of AI in driving the company forward — Meta is all-in on becoming a lean, mean cash-printing machine. — In its Q4 earnings call on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described …
Netflix says password sharing rules for the US are not set yet and removes from its US help page rules saying users must connect to primary Wi-Fi every 31 days (Emma Roth/The Verge)
Emma Roth / The Verge: Netflix says password sharing rules for the US are not set yet and removes from its US help page rules saying users must connect to primary Wi-Fi every 31 days — Based on info sourced from Netflix’s support pages, The Streamable reported on Tuesday details about its upcoming anti-password sharing […]
Meta increases its share repurchase authorization by $40B and says it bought back $27.93B in stock in 2022 (Jordan Novet/CNBC)
Jordan Novet / CNBC: Meta increases its share repurchase authorization by $40B and says it bought back $27.93B in stock in 2022 — – Meta Platforms increased its share purchase authorization by $40 billion. — The social networking company has sought to rein in costs as revenue growth has slowed in recent quarters.
Tweets reveal hardware stores cause disgust but motels bring joy
A study of more than 1.5 million tweets over one year suggests that people in San Francisco feel disgusted when at hardware stores and Londoners are most joyful at motels
MIT Solve announces 2023 global challenges and Indigenous Communities Fellowship
MIT Solve, an MIT initiative with a mission to drive innovation to solve world challenges, announced today the 2023 Global Challenges and the Indigenous Communities Fellowship. Solve invites anyone from anywhere in the world to submit a solution to this year’s challenges by 12 p.m. EST on May 9. The 40 innovators — including eight […]
Engineers invent vertical, full-color microscopic LEDs
Take apart your laptop screen, and at its heart you’ll find a plate patterned with pixels of red, green, and blue LEDs, arranged end to end like a meticulous Lite Brite display. When electrically powered, the LEDs together can produce every shade in the rainbow to generate full-color displays. Over the years, the size of […]
Physicists observe rare resonance in molecules for the first time
If she hits just the right pitch, a singer can shatter a wine glass. The reason is resonance. While the glass may vibrate slightly in response to most acoustic tones, a pitch that resonates with the material’s own natural frequency can send its vibrations into overdrive, causing the glass to shatter. Resonance also occurs at […]
Beware the Transition from an Iconic CEO
Disney, Starbucks, GE, and others have stumbled painfully when it comes to CEO succession.
For Female Founders, Fundraising Only from Female VCs Comes at a Cost
New research suggests that exclusive support from female investors may be a mixed blessing because it can make it harder to raise additional rounds of financing.
How to Work with a Workaholic Colleague
You don’t have to follow their lead. Here’s how to set boundaries.
Layoffs Broke Big Tech’s Elite College Hiring Pipeline
Students from top schools used to waltz from Silicon Valley internships into lucrative jobs. Now, some are reconsidering their options.
Enter the Hunter Satellites Preparing for Space War
True Anomaly, a startup backed by US senator JD Vance’s VC firm, plans to launch prototype pursuit satellites on a SpaceX flight later this year.
The Last Drug That Can Fight Gonorrhea Is Starting to Falter
Data gaps, funding cuts, and shyness about sex let gonorrhea gain drug-resistance. There are no new treatments yet.
An interview with Chris Miller, a Tufts professor and author of the book Chip War, on EUV lithography, ASML’s role in global chip manufacturing, TSMC, and more (Nilay Patel/The Verge)
Nilay Patel / The Verge: An interview with Chris Miller, a Tufts professor and author of the book Chip War, on EUV lithography, ASML’s role in global chip manufacturing, TSMC, and more — Professor Chris Miller’s new book Chip War explains the complicated global politics inside your iPhone.
A look at Spanish-language livestreaming growth on Twitch; the platform’s audience for Spanish, its fastest-growing language, grew sixfold from 2019 to 2022 (Cecilia D’Anastasio/Bloomberg)
Cecilia D’Anastasio / Bloomberg: A look at Spanish-language livestreaming growth on Twitch; the platform’s audience for Spanish, its fastest-growing language, grew sixfold from 2019 to 2022 — Samantha Rivera was studying engineering in Mexico in 2020 when a group of friends convinced her she could draw an audience …
A report by the White House’s NTIA describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation to improve competition and choice (Ashley Gold/Axios)
Ashley Gold / Axios: A report by the White House’s NTIA describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation to improve competition and choice — A new Biden administration report describes Apple and Google as “gatekeepers” of mobile app stores and suggests legislation …
Spotted a UFO? There’s an App for That
Enigma Labs launches a project to crowdsource and quantify data about “unidentified aerial phenomena.”
6 Best Mesh Wi-Fi Routers (2023): For Large Homes and Small Budgets
Forget about patchy internet connections and dead spots with one of these WIRED-tested mesh systems.
An AI Filter Revealed My Secret Self
Yes, they’re problematic. They can also reflect an alternate reality that feels eerily close to the truth.
Sources: Meta executives are debating whether to relax the company’s long-standing opposition to sharing ad revenue with creators, as it seeks to boost Reels (Sylvia Varnham O’Regan/The Information)
Sylvia Varnham O’Regan / The Information: Sources: Meta executives are debating whether to relax the company’s long-standing opposition to sharing ad revenue with creators, as it seeks to boost Reels — When Wall Street analysts dial into an earnings call tomorrow with Mark Zuckerberg, they’re likely to pepper the Meta Platforms CEO …
Microsoft disabled multiple fraudulent, verified Microsoft Cloud Partner Program accounts for creating malicious OAuth apps used to steal customers’ emails (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Microsoft disabled multiple fraudulent, verified Microsoft Cloud Partner Program accounts for creating malicious OAuth apps used to steal customers’ emails — Microsoft has disabled multiple fraudulent, verified Microsoft Partner Network accounts for creating malicious OAuth applications …
EA Q3: revenue up 5% YoY to $1.88B, vs. $2.5B est., net income up 209% YoY to $204M, net bookings down 9% YoY to $2.34B, and lowers FY guidance; stock drops 5%+ (TJ Denzer/Shacknews)
TJ Denzer / Shacknews: EA Q3: revenue up 5% YoY to $1.88B, vs. $2.5B est., net income up 209% YoY to $204M, net bookings down 9% YoY to $2.34B, and lowers FY guidance; stock drops 5%+ — The game publishing giant reduced its full year revenue expectations by about half a billion dollars in its […]
San Francisco is getting cold feet about self-driving car tests
San Francisco officials have called for a slower, more considered expansion of the use of autonomous vehicles, which have blocked traffic and hampered emergency services
Vine-like robot that ‘grows’ towards heat could put out fires
A vine-like segmented robot that is attracted to heat could be used to autonomously extinguish fires without the need for costly and complex electronics
Six with ties to MIT honored as 2022 ACM Fellows
On Jan. 18, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced its 2022 fellows, those it recognizes “for significant contributions in areas including cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, mobile computing, and recommender systems among many other areas.” Included in the crop of new fellows were six distinguished scientists with ties to MIT. Constantinos Daskalakis, the Armen Avanessians (1982) […]
To decarbonize the chemical industry, electrify it
The chemical industry is the world’s largest industrial energy consumer and the third-largest source of industrial emissions, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2019, the industrial sector as a whole was responsible for 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. And yet, as the world races to find pathways to decarbonization, the chemical industry […]
Blue-sky thinking and the next 150-year chair
A major aspect of sustainability — a core component in many MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) courses — is considering the future effect of any given business practice or product. Sustainability was top-of-mind for Skylar Tibbits, associate professor of design research and director of MIT’s design major and minor programs, and Jeremy Carmine […]
How to Quit — and Leave the Door Open to Coming Back
You never know when an opportunity will arise.
A Deeper Understanding of Creativity at Work
BetterUp’s Gabriella Rosen Kellerman and the University of Pennsylvania’s Marty Seligman on finding new paths to good ideas.
Addressing Racial Discrimination on Airbnb
How can platform companies, like Airbnb, reduce bias online?
The Spaceport at the Edge of the World
A tiny Scottish village is betting its future on rocket launches. But the plan may threaten the fragile landscape—and a tenacious billionaire’s ambitions.
An in-depth analysis of Yandex’s leaked source code shows 17,854 ranking factors, scraping Google, Bing, YouTube, and TikTok, “Vital Hosts” boosts, and more (Michael King/Search Engine Land)
Michael King / Search Engine Land: An in-depth analysis of Yandex’s leaked source code shows 17,854 ranking factors, scraping Google, Bing, YouTube, and TikTok, “Vital Hosts” boosts, and more — Yandex isn’t Google, but there is a lot SEOs can learn about how a modern search engine is built from reviewing this codebase.
Spotify reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to €3.2B and a €270M loss, up from €39M YoY, as operating costs rose 44% YoY; paying subscribers were up 10M to 205M (Anna Nicolaou/Financial Times)
Anna Nicolaou / Financial Times: Spotify reports Q4 revenue up 18% YoY to €3.2B and a €270M loss, up from €39M YoY, as operating costs rose 44% YoY; paying subscribers were up 10M to 205M — Music streaming group adds subscribers but is hit by rise in operating expenses — Spotify’s losses ballooned …
Instagram launches Notes, its AIM-like text status feature, in Europe and Japan, delayed to comply with local laws, expanding on Asia, North America, and LatAm (Jay Peters/The Verge)
Jay Peters / The Verge: Instagram launches Notes, its AIM-like text status feature, in Europe and Japan, delayed to comply with local laws, expanding on Asia, North America, and LatAm — Instagram Notes, the social network’s recently launched text status feature that reminds me of the AOL Instant Messenger away messages …
DeepMind AI is as fast as humans at solving previously unseen tasks
Artificial intelligences need specific training to excel at a task, but now a more generally intelligent one from DeepMind has performed as well as humans in a virtual world test
Paying it forward
Since arriving at MIT in fall 2019, senior Sherry Nyeo has conducted groundbreaking work in multiple labs on campus, acted as a mentor to countless other students, and made a lasting mark on the Institute community. But despite her well-earned bragging rights, Nyeo isn’t one to boast. Instead, she takes every opportunity to express just […]
ChatGPT Is Making Universities Rethink Plagiarism
Students and professors can’t decide whether the AI chatbot is a research tool—or a cheating engine.
How to Extend Your Eero Mesh With Amazon Echo Speakers (2023)
You can now use select Alexa speakers to expand the Wi-Fi coverage of your routers. Let us walk you through how.
Payment card services company Marqeta agrees to acquire New York-based fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223M, plus $52M subject to a milestone (Mary Ann Azevedo/TechCrunch)
Mary Ann Azevedo / TechCrunch: Payment card services company Marqeta agrees to acquire New York-based fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223M, plus $52M subject to a milestone — Marqeta has agreed to acquire two-year-old fintech infrastructure startup Power Finance for $223 million in cash …
The US NLRB says comments by Apple executives and policies imposed on employees violate workers’ rights, after a 2021 complaint by former employee Ashley Gjøvik (Josh Eidelson/Bloomberg)
Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg: The US NLRB says comments by Apple executives and policies imposed on employees violate workers’ rights, after a 2021 complaint by former employee Ashley Gjøvik — Comments by Apple Inc. executives and policies imposed on employees have been deemed illegal by US National Labor Relations …
Sources: the US Department of Commerce told some companies it would no longer grant licenses to export US technology to Huawei, as it moves toward a total ban (Demetri Sevastopulo/Financial Times)
Demetri Sevastopulo / Financial Times: Sources: the US Department of Commerce told some companies it would no longer grant licenses to export US technology to Huawei, as it moves toward a total ban — White House moving closer to imposing total ban on sale of American tech to Chinese company — The Biden administration …