White cotton can normally only be made fire resistant by adding toxic flame retardants, but a new form could enable us to make inherently non-flammable cotton fabrics
Drone with sticky patches studies biodiversity by bumping into trees
A drone has revealed information on the animals inhabiting a tree’s canopy simply by brushing against branches and collecting loose particles of environmental DNA with its sticky surfaces
Gaining real-world industry experience through Break Through Tech AI at MIT
Taking what they learned conceptually about artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) this year, students from across the Greater Boston area had the opportunity to apply their new skills to real-world industry projects as part of an experiential learning opportunity offered through Break Through Tech AI at MIT. Hosted by the MIT Schwarzman College of […]
New technologies reveal cross-cutting breakdowns in Alzheimer’s disease
After decades of fundamental scientific and drug discovery research, Alzheimer’s disease has remained inscrutable and incurable, with a bare minimum of therapeutic progress. But in a new review article in Nature Neuroscience, MIT scientists write that by employing the new research capability of single-cell profiling, the field has rapidly achieved long-sought insights with strong potential for both […]
MIT engineers grow “perfect” atom-thin materials on industrial silicon wafers
True to Moore’s Law, the number of transistors on a microchip has doubled every year since the 1960s. But this trajectory is predicted to soon plateau because silicon — the backbone of modern transistors — loses its electrical properties once devices made from this material dip below a certain size. Enter 2D materials — delicate, […]
9 Trends That Will Shape Work in 2023 and Beyond
Amid a looming economic downturn, employers can expect another tumultuous year.
How Recruiters Can Make the Most of a Hiring Slowdown
Set your team up for success when hiring inevitably picks back up.
Helping Gen Z Employees Find Their Place at Work
Seven strategies to engage, support, and connect.
Metaverse Landlords Are Creating a New Class System
Virtual landowners have found a way to put their investments to work, but with unintended consequences.
It’s Getting Too Hot to Make Snow
Some ski resorts rely on machines to keep powder on the slopes. But snow guns guzzle water, are energy-intensive, and need cool temperatures to operate.
Quantum Startups’ Stock Market Dreams Are Decohering
A shortcut to going public, called a SPAC, helped early-stage tech companies raise money. Now some are suffering slumps.
Source: Twitter manager Siddharth Rao told employees that daily revenue was 40% lower than a year earlier and more than 500 top advertisers have paused spending (Erin Woo/The Information)
Erin Woo / The Information: Source: Twitter manager Siddharth Rao told employees that daily revenue was 40% lower than a year earlier and more than 500 top advertisers have paused spending — A senior Twitter manager told employees that the company’s daily revenue on Tuesday was 40% lower than the same day a year ago […]
After criticism from users, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky denies using customer projects to train the company’s generative AI services (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: After criticism from users, Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky denies using customer projects to train the company’s generative AI services — Adobe Inc. Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky said the company has never trained its generative artificial-intelligence services on customer projects …
As Apple shifts from China, experts worry India will struggle with iPhone production due to supply chain issues, labor woes, a lack of automation, and more (Patrick McGee/Financial Times)
Patrick McGee / Financial Times: As Apple shifts from China, experts worry India will struggle with iPhone production due to supply chain issues, labor woes, a lack of automation, and more — The tech giant increasingly finds itself beholden to America’s biggest geopolitical rival. But is diversification even possible?
Preparing to be prepared
The Kobe earthquake of 1995 devastated one of Japan’s major cities, leaving over 6,000 people dead while destroying or making unusable hundreds of thousands of structures. It toppled elevated freeway segments, wrecked mass transit systems, and damaged the city’s port capacity. “It was a shock to a highly engineered, urban city to have undergone that […]
Apple 14- and 16-Inch MacBook Pro and Mac Mini (2023): Specs, Release Date, Price
The company’s flagship laptops are more powerful than ever, and its tiny desktop computer is now cheaper.
The Collapse of the UK’s Electric Vehicle Champion
Britishvolt promised investors it would be the cornerstone of the country’s battery industry. Now it faces bankruptcy.
Big Tech’s Layoffs Highlight How the US Fails Immigrant Workers
Decades-old visa rules mean that job cuts disadvantage workers, companies, and perhaps the whole country.
Canalys: global smartphone shipments fell 17% YoY in Q4 2022, while FY 2022 shipments fell 11% YoY to fewer than 1.2B units, the lowest they’ve been since 2013 (Brian Heater/TechCrunch)
Brian Heater / TechCrunch: Canalys: global smartphone shipments fell 17% YoY in Q4 2022, while FY 2022 shipments fell 11% YoY to fewer than 1.2B units, the lowest they’ve been since 2013 — One of these days I’ll have some positive news to share about the global smartphone market. Today is not that day.
Apple has agreed to hire a third-party firm to conduct an audit of its US labor practices, according to an investor coalition that has pushed for the assessment (Noam Scheiber/New York Times)
Noam Scheiber / New York Times: Apple has agreed to hire a third-party firm to conduct an audit of its US labor practices, according to an investor coalition that has pushed for the assessment — The tech giant will assess its compliance with its official human rights policy, according to a federal filing.
Researchers demonstrate how threat actors can abuse GitHub Codespaces’ port forwarding feature to host and distribute malware and malicious scripts (Bill Toulas/BleepingComputer)
Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer: Researchers demonstrate how threat actors can abuse GitHub Codespaces’ port forwarding feature to host and distribute malware and malicious scripts — Researchers have demonstrated how threat actors can abuse the GitHub Codespaces’ port forwarding’ feature to host and distribute malware and malicious scripts.
Web3 promises to reclaim the internet from tech giants – will it work?
There’s a lot of hype surrounding the idea of a decentralised version of the internet that would give more power to ordinary users. Here’s what it would take to make it happen
Will we ever see commercial plane flights without human pilots?
Many planes have autopilots, but they can only be used in certain circumstances. Now Airbus is testing one that can choose the nearest safe airport, land a plane and even taxi to the terminal if pilots are incapacitated
ChatGPT detector could help spot cheaters using AI to write essays
A tool called GPTZero can identify whether text was produced by a chatbot, which could help teachers tell if students are getting AI to help with their homework
Karenna Groff ’22 Named NCAA Woman of the Year
MIT graduate student Karenna Groff ’22 of Weston, Massachusetts, a member of the MIT women’s soccer team, was named the NCAA 2022 Woman of the Year at the NCAA Convention in San Antonio, Texas. The most prestigious honor awarded annually by the NCAA to a female student-athlete, Groff is the second MIT student-athlete to win the […]
Compassion in the details
The late MIT Professor Angelika Amon, renowned for her groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of how chromosomes are regulated and partitioned during cell division, was also beloved among the MIT community for her kind and supportive mentorship of students. An engaged and valued member of the MIT community, Amon passed away in late 2020 after […]
Christopher Walsh, influential chemical biologist and former department chair at MIT, dies at 79
Christopher T. Walsh, a highly influential professor of chemical biology who was a former MIT faculty member and Department of Chemistry head, died on Jan. 10 at the age of 79. At the time of his death, Walsh was the Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School, but […]
Connect Your Sustainability Goals to Your Business Performance – SPONSOR CONTENT FROM BEARINGPOINT
Sponsor content from BEARINGPOINT.
4 Ideas to Beat the New Year Doldrums
Studies have found January to be the least-productive month of the year.
Money, Flexibility, Development? Figuring Out What Employees Really Value
A conversation with HBS’s Amy Edmondson and INSEAD’s Mark Mortensen on thinking beyond stock options, bonuses, and remote work privileges.
Life as a 21st-Century Trucker
Technology, corporate greed, and supply-chain chaos are transforming life behind the wheel of a big rig. I went on the road to find exactly how.
Q&A with ex-Facebook CSO and Stanford Internet Observatory professor Alex Stamos on overestimating mis- and disinformation’s impact, Brazil, Gamergate, and more (Peter Kafka/Vox)
Peter Kafka / Vox: Q&A with ex-Facebook CSO and Stanford Internet Observatory professor Alex Stamos on overestimating mis- and disinformation’s impact, Brazil, Gamergate, and more — “Resist trying to make things better”: A conversation with internet security expert Alex Stamos.
Crypto prices are recovering in January so far: bitcoin is up 26%, including 22% in the past week, to over $20,000, ether is up 29%, and meme coins are rising (Reuters)
Reuters: Crypto prices are recovering in January so far: bitcoin is up 26%, including 22% in the past week, to over $20,000, ether is up 29%, and meme coins are rising — Bitcoin is on the charge in 2023, dragging the crypto market off the floor and electrifying bonk, a new meme coin.
How Apple built a supply chain in China over two decades, spending billions and embedding staff in factories, creating a dependence before US tensions escalated (Patrick McGee/Financial Times)
Patrick McGee / Financial Times: How Apple built a supply chain in China over two decades, spending billions and embedding staff in factories, creating a dependence before US tensions escalated — The company spent two decades and billions of dollars building a supply chain of unprecedented sophistication. Now, a reckoning is coming
Mathematical trick lets hackers shame people into fixing software bugs
Security researchers who find a flaw in software normally privately inform the developers of it in the hope of prompting a fix, but now a mathematical trick can let them apply public pressure without releasing dangerous details of the bug
7 Best Portable External Storage Drives (2023): SSDs, Hard Drives, Rugged
Need an ultrafast drive for video editing or a rugged option to back up your photos in the field? We’ve got a solution for every situation.
DaVinci Resolve Speed Editor Review: The Wheel of (Saving) Time
Video editing gets a lot faster when you’ve got a wheel.
The Tonga Eruption Is Still Revealing New Volcanic Dangers
One year later, researchers are marveling at the power of the Hunga Tonga explosion—and wondering how to monitor hundreds of other undersea volcanoes.
An overview of the ML software development industry over the past decade: a decline of Nvidia’s CUDA monopoly, PyTorch overtaking Google’s TensorFlow, and more (Dylan Patel/SemiAnalysis)
Dylan Patel / SemiAnalysis: An overview of the ML software development industry over the past decade: a decline of Nvidia’s CUDA monopoly, PyTorch overtaking Google’s TensorFlow, and more — Over the last decade, the landscape of machine learning software development has undergone significant changes.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid are straining its mobile network, leading to a global hunt for equipment like batteries to keep the system online (William Mauldin/Wall Street Journal)
William Mauldin / Wall Street Journal: Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid are straining its mobile network, leading to a global hunt for equipment like batteries to keep the system online — Telecom operators and internet providers scour suppliers for better batteries, generators — Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid …
Some US universities, including Alabama’s Auburn University and the University of Oklahoma, are banning TikTok on their Wi-Fi networks, annoying some students (Sapna Maheshwari/New York Times)
Sapna Maheshwari / New York Times: Some US universities, including Alabama’s Auburn University and the University of Oklahoma, are banning TikTok on their Wi-Fi networks, annoying some students — The school’s prohibition brings a geopolitical fight front and center for TikTok’s biggest fans: young Americans.
The Essentials: Managing Projects
Habits, tools, and tactics that will help you deliver results.
How Successful Women Sustain Career Momentum
Three strategies, based on interviews with 37 senior leaders.
40 Ideas to Shake Up Your Hiring Process
Innovative approaches that your company may not have considered.
Robots With a Human Touch? Yes, Please
To succeed in home settings, domestic mechanical assistants will need humanoid attributes.
Twitter Is a Megaphone for ‘Sudden Death’ Vaccine Conspiracies
By reinstating banned accounts and selling blue checks, Musk has supercharged “the most dangerous” Covid disinformation.
All the Data Apple Collects About You—and How to Limit It
Cupertino puts privacy first in a lot of its products. But the company still gathers a bunch of your information.
After North Korea’s Lazarus Group moved ~41K ETH, worth ~$63.5M, stolen from the Harmony bridge hack, Binance and Huobi freeze 124 BTC linked to the hackers (Ezra Reguerra/Cointelegraph)
Ezra Reguerra / Cointelegraph: After North Korea’s Lazarus Group moved ~41K ETH, worth ~$63.5M, stolen from the Harmony bridge hack, Binance and Huobi freeze 124 BTC linked to the hackers — In a recent tweet, on-chain crypto detective ZachXBT said that the hackers have been moving $64 million in the last weekend. — 75 Total […]
Taiwanese government data: integrated circuit chip exports rose 18.4% YoY in 2022, down from 27.1% YoY growth in 2021 and 22% YoY growth in 2020 (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: Taiwanese government data: integrated circuit chip exports rose 18.4% YoY in 2022, down from 27.1% YoY growth in 2021 and 22% YoY growth in 2020 — Taiwan’s exports of integrated circuit chips rose in 2022 for a seventh consecutive year, further solidifying the economy’s leadership status …
Shiba Inu developers plan to launch Shibarium, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, in the coming weeks, focusing on the metaverse and gaming applications (Shaurya Malwa/CoinDesk)
Shaurya Malwa / CoinDesk: Shiba Inu developers plan to launch Shibarium, an Ethereum Layer 2 network, in the coming weeks, focusing on the metaverse and gaming applications — Ecosystem tokens shiba inu, leash and bone will serve as the the upcoming Ethereum-based blockchain. — Upcoming layer 2 network Shibarium …