Get help, even if you’re off the grid.
10 Best Smart Home Lighting (2023): Decorative Panels, LED Strips, and Ambient Lamps
Add some color to your life, find accent lighting to match your mood, and transform the feel of your home with these decorative devices.
A Teenager Solved a Stubborn Prime Number ‘Look-Alike’ Riddle
In his senior year of high school, Daniel Larsen proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers—strange entities that mimic the primes.
Europe’s rapid delivery market has consolidated down to three companies: Getir, the largest player that operates in seven European countries, Flink, and Gopuff (Morgan Meaker/Wired)
Morgan Meaker / Wired: Europe’s rapid delivery market has consolidated down to three companies: Getir, the largest player that operates in seven European countries, Flink, and Gopuff — Rapid grocery delivery apps are leaving the continent, putting the Turkish startup on top. But, its reign is anything but stable.
A look at VR support groups and communities helping members process cancer diagnoses and death, question their marriages, turn over childhood traumas, and more (Hana Kiros/MIT Technology Review)
Hana Kiros / MIT Technology Review: A look at VR support groups and communities helping members process cancer diagnoses and death, question their marriages, turn over childhood traumas, and more — Welcome to “Death Q&A,” a space with a unique combination of anonymity and togetherness, where avatars discuss what weighs on them most heavily.
Touchscreen Macs will help Apple further unify its software and services, keep up with a touch-first generation, and pick up a bigger piece of the PC market (Mark Gurman/Bloomberg)
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg: Touchscreen Macs will help Apple further unify its software and services, keep up with a touch-first generation, and pick up a bigger piece of the PC market — Apple’s upcoming move to Macs with touch screens is about the future of its user base. Also: The company kicks its in-house technology […]
A profile of, and interview with, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis on AGI, “not moving fast and breaking things”, launching the Sparrow chatbot in 2023, and more (Billy Perrigo/TIME)
Billy Perrigo / TIME: A profile of, and interview with, DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis on AGI, “not moving fast and breaking things”, launching the Sparrow chatbot in 2023, and more — Demis Hassabis stands halfway up a spiral staircase, surveying the cathedral he built.
TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms expect age verification measures in the UK’s Online Safety Bill to reduce user numbers, hitting ad revenue (Financial Times)
Financial Times: TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms expect age verification measures in the UK’s Online Safety Bill to reduce user numbers, hitting ad revenue — UK’s Online Safety Bill requires stronger age verification measures for platforms including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat
China’s central bank says Ant Group and 13 other firms “have basically completed business rectification” under financial regulators’ guidance and supervision (Coco Feng/South China Morning Post)
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post: China’s central bank says Ant Group and 13 other firms “have basically completed business rectification” under financial regulators’ guidance and supervision — Chinese financial technology giant Ant Group and 13 other platform companies “have basically completed business rectification” …
Apple Is Reportedly Testing MacBooks With Touchscreens
Plus: Samsung sets a date for the next Galaxy Unpacked, Xbox gets a power-saving mode, and the right-to-repair fight rages on.
7 Best Chef’s Knives for Your Kitchen (2023): Affordable, Japanese, Carbon Steel
It’s the indispensable multi-tool of the kitchen. We sliced and diced our way through meats and veggies to find today’s best blades.
Russian Ransomware Gang Attack Destabilizes UK Royal Mail
Plus: Joe Biden’s classified-documents scandal, the end of security support for Windows 7, and more.
Internal messages: Twitter intentionally suspended access to third-party clients last Thursday; staff questioned when an explanation will be provided publicly (Erin Woo/The Information)
Erin Woo / The Information: Internal messages: Twitter intentionally suspended access to third-party clients last Thursday; staff questioned when an explanation will be provided publicly — The mysterious outage of Tweetbot and other third-party Twitter clients that began Thursday night was an intentional suspension …
SIA says chip companies proposed 40+ projects across the US worth ~$200B since 2020, as the US realizes that chips are now as central to modern economies as oil (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal: SIA says chip companies proposed 40+ projects across the US worth ~$200B since 2020, as the US realizes that chips are now as central to modern economies as oil — Recent shortages and fears of China’s ambitions to dominate the industry have led to a frenetic effort to rev up U.S. production
How Elon Musk’s Twitter moderation cuts boosted hate speech outside the US and Canada, where 75%+ of the service’s 280M DAUs live, including in Japan and India (Washington Post)
Washington Post: How Elon Musk’s Twitter moderation cuts boosted hate speech outside the US and Canada, where 75%+ of the service’s 280M DAUs live, including in Japan and India — With 75 percent of its audience outside the U.S. and Canada, the impact of Elon Musk’s moderation cuts has been great elsewhere
AI Is Taking On Ever-Larger Puzzles
Machine learning has already proven useful, but its real-world applications are just beginning.
17 Best Deals: Headphones, Gaming Gear, and Switch Games
These great discounts will help you start the year right.
A look at Congo’s Virunga National Park, which is running a Bitcoin mine that uses power from a hydro plant to pay salaries and build infrastructure projects (Adam Popescu/MIT Technology Review)
Adam Popescu / MIT Technology Review: A look at Congo’s Virunga National Park, which is running a Bitcoin mine that uses power from a hydro plant to pay salaries and build infrastructure projects — In an attempt to protect its forests and famous wildlife, Virunga has become the first national park to run a Bitcoin […]
How All-In, a podcast moderated by Jason Calacanis and his billionaire pals that often tops tech-podcast charts, gives an insight into Twitter under Elon Musk (Nitish Pahwa/Slate)
Nitish Pahwa / Slate: How All-In, a podcast moderated by Jason Calacanis and his billionaire pals that often tops tech-podcast charts, gives an insight into Twitter under Elon Musk — On Nov. 7, about a week after Elon Musk took over Twitter and laid off half the staff, a company vice president offered a group […]
Hackers are exploiting a critical remote code execution vulnerability in unpatched versions of the Control Web Panel, a widely used interface for web hosting (Dan Goodin/Ars Technica)
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica: Hackers are exploiting a critical remote code execution vulnerability in unpatched versions of the Control Web Panel, a widely used interface for web hosting — A patch was released in October, but not all servers have installed it. — Malicious hackers have begun exploiting …
The Key to California’s Survival Is Hidden Underground
The state is ping-ponging between severe drought and catastrophic flooding. The solution to both? Making the landscape spongier.
‘Immer, Zlaz’ Reveals the Private Life of a Sci-Fi Genius
Writer Warren Lapine’s latest project is a collection of letters Roger Zelazny wrote to his friend Carl Yoke.
AI Isn’t Hollywood’s Villain—It’s a Flawed Hero
Far from ushering in the death of cinema, AI can help film the “unfilmable” and make cinema more collaborative.
Sources: DOJ cleared its antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to oversee probes involving Google; Google had sought his recusal, citing his work with Yelp and others (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal: Sources: DOJ cleared its antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter to oversee probes involving Google; Google had sought his recusal, citing his work with Yelp and others — Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter’s involvement had been paused and the Alphabet unit sought his recusal
Strava users say the rollout of its first price hike in over a decade has been unnecessarily convoluted and confusing (Victoria Song/The Verge)
Victoria Song / The Verge: Strava users say the rollout of its first price hike in over a decade has been unnecessarily convoluted and confusing — No one likes price hikes, but Strava’s messy rollout has left many customers wondering what’s happening to their subscription. Here’s what’s actually happening …
With the value of next-gen Bitcoin mining rigs down an estimated 85%, some crypto lenders flooded with repossessed rigs are keeping them running for the income (David Pan/Bloomberg)
David Pan / Bloomberg: With the value of next-gen Bitcoin mining rigs down an estimated 85%, some crypto lenders flooded with repossessed rigs are keeping them running for the income — Crypto lenders have repossessed so many Bitcoin mining rigs they’re resorting to plugging them in and extracting tokens themselves.
3 Questions: What to expect from respiratory illnesses, including Covid-19, this winter
Levels of respiratory illness are rising in the Boston area and elsewhere. Here, MIT Medical Director Cecilia Stuopis provides recommendations for keeping yourself and others healthy during the winter months. Q: Rates of Covid-19 and other respiratory illnesses are back on the rise. Should I be concerned? A: While everyone should take additional precautions, people […]
Aligning Your Philanthropic Operating Model with Your Goals
A framework to help funders understand who they are and what kind of impact they aspire to have.
Is It Time to Shake Up Your WFH Routine?
Small tweaks can make a big impact.
Tulsa’s Big Bet on Remote Workers
A program paid workers $10,000 to relocate to Tulsa. And two recent studies suggest the investment was worth it.
ChatGPT Has Investors Drooling—but Can It Bring Home the Bacon?
The loquacious bot has Microsoft ready to sink a reported $10 billion into OpenAI. It’s unclear what products can be built on the technology.
In the Fight Against Scams, ‘Cyber Ambassadors’ Enter the Chat
Police in the Indian state of Telangana have found a novel way to help people avoid getting swindled online: grassroots education.
The Overwatch League Ruled Esports. Then Everything Went Wrong
Activision-Blizzard’s ambitious, much-hyped initiative has stalled. Recent upheavals reveal the instability of esports—and a murky future for the league.
A look at Tencent’s short-video service WeChat Channels, called “the hope of the company” by founder Pony Ma, as the tech giant tries to build its own TikTok (Josh Ye/Reuters)
Josh Ye / Reuters: A look at Tencent’s short-video service WeChat Channels, called “the hope of the company” by founder Pony Ma, as the tech giant tries to build its own TikTok — On a hot summer’s day last year, the 90’s boy band Backstreet Boys clambered on to a stage in Pennsylvania and belted […]
Twitter users say Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and other third-party apps are broken, possibly due to Twitter’s API being down; Twitter has offered no explanation (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Twitter users say Tweetbot, Twitterrific, and other third-party apps are broken, possibly due to Twitter’s API being down; Twitter has offered no explanation — The past several weeks since Elon Musk’s takeover have seen Twitter in turmoil as rapid changes hit the platform …
Sources: Chinese authorities plan to allow Didi’s ride-hailing and other apps back on app stores as soon as next week, another sign of the loosening crackdown (Reuters)
Reuters: Sources: Chinese authorities plan to allow Didi’s ride-hailing and other apps back on app stores as soon as next week, another sign of the loosening crackdown — Chinese authorities are set to allow Didi Global’s ride-hailing and other apps back on domestic app stores as soon as next week …
Computers that power self-driving cars could be a huge driver of global carbon emissions
In the future, the energy needed to run the powerful computers on board a global fleet of autonomous vehicles could generate as many greenhouse gas emissions as all the data centers in the world today. That is one key finding of a new study from MIT researchers that explored the potential energy consumption and related […]
The Gas Stove Culture Wars Have Begun
US politicians are battling over banning the appliance. Around the globe, gas stoves are emitting chemicals that harm the environment and people’s health.
2022 Wasn’t the Hottest on Record. That’s Nothing to Celebrate
Last year was one of the warmest measured, say NASA and NOAA. It would have been even more sweltering if not for La Niña, which will soon fade away.
How to Download Videos to Watch Offline (2023): Netflix, YouTube, Hulu, and More
Losing your internet for a few hours? Here’s how to keep watching media from the likes of YouTube, Netflix, and Prime to pass the time.
Meta sues to ban Voyager Labs from using Facebook and Instagram, alleging the investigative software firm created 38K+ fake accounts to scrape 600K+ users’ data (The Guardian)
The Guardian: Meta sues to ban Voyager Labs from using Facebook and Instagram, alleging the investigative software firm created 38K+ fake accounts to scrape 600K+ users’ data — The social media giant launched an investigation into Voyager’s use of fake accounts after a Guardian investigation
The SEC charges Genesis and Gemini with the unregistered offering and sale of securities to retail investors through a Gemini crypto lending program (Sarah Wynn/The Block)
Sarah Wynn / The Block: The SEC charges Genesis and Gemini with the unregistered offering and sale of securities to retail investors through a Gemini crypto lending program — – The SEC charged both Gemini and Genesis with unregistered offering and sale of securities to retail investors, some of who were in the U.S.
Sources: Google and Nvidia told the FTC that the Activision Blizzard deal could give Microsoft an unfair advantage in cloud, subscription, and mobile gaming (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: Sources: Google and Nvidia told the FTC that the Activision Blizzard deal could give Microsoft an unfair advantage in cloud, subscription, and mobile gaming — Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Nvidia Corp. have expressed concerns to the Federal Trade Commission about Microsoft Corp.’s acquisition …
Should schools ban ChatGPT or embrace the technology instead?
School districts and universities are banning the ChatGPT AI that writes in a human-like fashion, but some teachers say a better approach may be to incorporate it into the curriculum
2022-23 Takeda Fellows: Leveraging AI to positively impact human health
The MIT-Takeda Program, a collaboration between MIT’s School of Engineering and Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company, fuels the development and application of artificial intelligence capabilities to benefit human health and drug development. Part of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health, the program coalesces disparate disciplines, merges theory and practical implementation, combines algorithm and […]
Holding information in mind may mean storing it among synapses
Between the time you read the Wi-Fi password off of a café’s menu board and the time you can get back to your laptop to enter it, you have to hold it in mind. If you’ve ever wondered how your brain does that, you are asking a question about working memory that researchers have striven […]
Enabling advanced studies in Turkey with MIT OpenCourseWare
About two years ago, a group of medical students at Ege University Faculty of Medicine in Turkey began meeting to study single variable calculus. None of the students had taken a course in this subject before. But with the guidance of lectures, slides, and other freely available resources on MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), they soon advanced […]
Managers, Stop Distracting Your Employees
Four strategies to keep you from unintentionally sabotaging your team’s productivity.
A Better Approach to After-Action Reviews
Three myths that impede their proper use — and three strategies to help your team make the most of the practice.
10 Ways to Boost Customer Satisfaction
Takeaways from an analysis of millions of consumer data points.