For the first time, artificial intelligence has been used to control the super-hot plasma inside a fusion reactor, offering a new way to increase stability and efficiency
Leaders Don’t Have to Choose Between Compassion and Performance
How to deliver results while also supporting your employees’ needs.
Micromobility Will Change Our Cities (with Horace Dediu)
Micromobility analyst Horace Dediu tells us how the new transport tech stack will change cities.
3 Ways Hospitals Can Boost Worker Engagement
A study of more than 80 hospitals in Victoria, Australia, found greater engagement improved patient outcomes and reduced costs.
Is Firefox Okay?
Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining. What it does next is crucial for the future of the web.
The Elusive Hunt for a Robot That Can Pick a Ripe Strawberry
It’s a tricky, delicate task that combines machine vision and robotics. Progress has been slow, but entrepreneurs and farmers continue to invest.
Serious, Salty Trouble Is Brewing Under Antarctic Glaciers
Alarming new research suggests warm seawater is rushing under the ice, perhaps doubling the rate of melting.
Digital security company Elm, owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, rises 30% in its Riyadh trading debut to $44.30 after raising $820M in its IPO (Farah Elbahrawy/Bloomberg)
Farah Elbahrawy / Bloomberg: Digital security company Elm, owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, rises 30% in its Riyadh trading debut to $44.30 after raising $820M in its IPO — Elm Co., a digital security firm owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, surged 30% in its trading debut.
UK-based mobile-only bank Atom Bank raises £75M+ at a £435M valuation, after raising £40M in April 2021, as the startup plans its IPO (Oliver Smith/AltFi)
Oliver Smith / AltFi: UK-based mobile-only bank Atom Bank raises £75M+ at a £435M valuation, after raising £40M in April 2021, as the startup plans its IPO — Round sees the bank valued at £435m ahead of listing. — After shifting to a 4-day working week last month, lender Atom Bank has raised …
Chinese online streaming service Bilibili plans to hire 1,000 censors after the death of a 25-year-old worker; Bilibili had 2,413 censors at the end of 2020 (Cissy Zhou/Financial Times)
Cissy Zhou / Financial Times: Chinese online streaming service Bilibili plans to hire 1,000 censors after the death of a 25-year-old worker; Bilibili had 2,413 censors at the end of 2020 — Content monitoring team to be increased 40% amid debate on overwork — Chinese online video streaming service Bilibili plans …
3 Questions: New changes to MIT’s Covid-19 strategy
With the Covid-19 Omicron surge largely behind us and the corresponding steep drop in the Covid-19 positivity rate on campus, MIT has begun loosening some Covid-19 related restrictions. Perhaps most notable is the move from mandatory to optional testing for all faculty and employees, and the drop from twice-a-week testing to once-a-week testing for students […]
Size matters in particle treatments of traumatic injuries
Traumatic injuries are the leading cause of death in the U.S. among people 45 and under, and such injuries account for more than 3 million deaths per year worldwide. To reduce the death toll of such injuries, many researchers are working on injectable nanoparticles that can home in on the site of an internal injury […]
The US Watches Warily for Russia-Ukraine Tensions to Spill Over
Conversations with more than a dozen senior cybersecurity leaders in both the public and private sector outline the major areas of risk.
The Best Theragun (and Other Great Massage Guns)
Therabody’s percussive therapy devices help soothe achy muscles. Here’s our guide to its lineup—and some cheaper alternatives.
The Best Way to Learn Online? Be a Lurker
The internet has made me immune to a coherent narrative. In order to truly understand anything, I’ve taught myself to read networks.
Twitter expands a beta test of Safety Mode, which temporarily blocks accounts using harmful language in replies, to 50% of users in the US and 5 other markets (Sarah Perez/TechCrunch)
Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: Twitter expands a beta test of Safety Mode, which temporarily blocks accounts using harmful language in replies, to 50% of users in the US and 5 other markets — Twitter is broadening access to a feature called Safety Mode, designed to give users a set of tools to defend themselves …
The European Commission approves plans for a €6B satellite internet system to rival SpaceX and others, despite previous objections from its internal watchdog (Andy Bounds/Financial Times)
Andy Bounds / Financial Times: The European Commission approves plans for a €6B satellite internet system to rival SpaceX and others, despite previous objections from its internal watchdog — Brussels seeks standalone coverage despite internal watchdog previously raising doubts over proposals
Akamai says it will acquire cloud hosting company Linode, which positions itself as an AWS alternative for SMBs and independent developers, for $900M (Kyle Alspach/VentureBeat)
Kyle Alspach / VentureBeat: Akamai says it will acquire cloud hosting company Linode, which positions itself as an AWS alternative for SMBs and independent developers, for $900M — Akamai Technologies announced today it has reached an agreement to acquire infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform provider Linode …
RoboKrill is a one-legged robot that mimics the way krill swim
A robot with appendages that mimic the swimming legs of krill could one day be used to study these key marine food sources or explore hard-to-reach places
Facebook policy to stop vaccine misinformation only worked temporarily
Between November 2020 and February 2021, Facebook introduced policies to cut down on misinformation related to covid-19 vaccines, but they only worked for about six months
AI can erase tattoos from photos to help face recognition systems
Tattoos can hinder face recognition software, but deep learning algorithms can be trained to remove them, which reduces the rate of errors
We Need Universal ESG Accounting Standards
A new initiative, the International Sustainability Standards Board, holds promise.
How to Make Venture Capital Accessible for Black Founders: An Entrepreneur’s Dilemma
Can an entrepreneur find a way to help other Black founders connect with VC funding?
5 Challenges of Hybrid Work — and How to Overcome Them
Strategies to improve communication, coordination, connection, creativity, and culture.
Driving While Baked? Inside the High-Tech Quest to Find Out
There is no scientific way to tell if you’re stoned behind the wheel. That’s a problem for police—and you. One company is aiming to fix that.
LinkedIn profiles show TikTok has hired over 190 European content moderators from Accenture and others since January 2021, as its European business explodes (Cristina Criddle/Financial Times)
Cristina Criddle / Financial Times: LinkedIn profiles show TikTok has hired over 190 European content moderators from Accenture and others since January 2021, as its European business explodes — Short-form video app hires hundreds to help curb spread of harmful content — TikTok has poached hundreds of content moderators …
After India banned Sea’s lucrative Free Fire game, the Singapore-based company lost $16B+ in market value, its largest-ever daily drop (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg: After India banned Sea’s lucrative Free Fire game, the Singapore-based company lost $16B+ in market value, its largest-ever daily drop — Sea Ltd. lost more than $16 billion of value in its biggest daily market drop after India abruptly banned its most popular mobile gaming title.
A key EU lawmaker steering negotiations over the Digital Services Act says she is “optimistic we can make a deal before the end of June” (Foo Yun Chee/Reuters)
Foo Yun Chee / Reuters: A key EU lawmaker steering negotiations over the Digital Services Act says she is “optimistic we can make a deal before the end of June” — European Union lawmakers and countries could reach a deal by the end of June on proposed tech rules forcing online platforms to better police […]
Eddie Glaude Jr.: “We must run toward our fears”
At this year’s annual MIT celebration of the life and work of Martin Luther King Jr, keynote speaker Eddie S. Glaude Jr., the James S. Donnell Distinguished University Professor at Princeton University, invoked King’s memory in an impassioned appeal for confronting the realities of the United States’ history and the country’s racist beliefs and actions, […]
Study: Higher minimum wages raise voter turnout
Many states across the U.S. have raised the minimum wage in recent years. Such measures do not only affect low-wage workers’ pocketbooks, however. As a study by MIT political scientists shows, higher minimum wages also make people more likely to vote in elections. The study found that in New York City, increases in the minimum […]
Nurturing human communities and natural ecosystems
When she was in 7th grade, Heidi Li and the five other members of the Oyster Gardening Club cultivated hundreds of oysters to help repopulate the Chesapeake Bay. On the day they released the oysters into the bay, the event attracted TV journalists and local officials, including the governor. The attention opened the young Li’s […]
Tech Companies’ Super Bowl Ads Leaned Into Dystopia
If Sunday’s Big Game commercials had any message, it was that corporations have a disconcerting vision for our future.
20 Xbox Series X/S Tips to Level Up Your New Console
From setting up remote play to automatic sign-on with your favorite controller, here’s how to get the most out of your shiny new toy.
The Science of Heartbreak
Death and disease increase after divorce. Journalist Florence Williams, mourning the end of her own marriage, investigates why.
A video and images show the ability to interact with Android apps on a Pixel running Android 13 from a Windows 11 PC and a Chromebook via a special web app (Kyle Bradshaw/9to5Google)
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google: A video and images show the ability to interact with Android apps on a Pixel running Android 13 from a Windows 11 PC and a Chromebook via a special web app — Google has been preparing a way to stream apps and notifications from your Pixel phone to your Chromebook or […]
Sources: Intel is close to a deal to buy Israeli chip company Tower Semiconductor for nearly $6B (Wall Street Journal)
Wall Street Journal: Sources: Intel is close to a deal to buy Israeli chip company Tower Semiconductor for nearly $6B — U.S. semiconductor giant continues spending to expand its manufacturing operations — Intel Corp. is close to a deal to buy Israeli chip company Tower Semiconductor Ltd. for nearly $6 billion …
Samsung has adopted Google Messages as its default messaging app in the US, starting with the Galaxy S22 series (Ben Schoon/9to5Google)
Ben Schoon / 9to5Google: Samsung has adopted Google Messages as its default messaging app in the US, starting with the Galaxy S22 series — Messaging on Android has been a mess for years, but the tide is finally changing. With Google Messages bringing enhanced RCS messaging to virtually any Android user that wants it, there’s […]
Drones armed with a small microwave weapon can shoot down other drones
A compact weapon that generates a beam of microwaves can knock out electronic devices without causing harm to people
How NFL’s Digital Athlete uses AI to reduce concussions and injuries
The National Football League (NFL) has developed an artificial intelligence tool to try and reduce injuries in American football games.
A new atlas of cells that carry blood to the brain
While neurons and glial cells are by far the most numerous cells in the brain, many other types of cells play important roles. Among those are cerebrovascular cells, which form the blood vessels that deliver oxygen and other nutrients to the brain. Those cells, which comprise only 0.3 percent of the brain’s cells, also make […]
Mathematician George Lusztig receives Wolf Prize
George Lusztig, the Abdun-Nur Professor of Mathematics at MIT, has been awarded the prestigious 2022 Wolf Prize in Mathematics for his work on geometric representation theory and algebraic groups. The Israel-based Wolf Foundation cited the American-Romanian mathematician “for groundbreaking contributions to representation theory and related areas.” Lusztig is known for his work on representation theory, in […]
Countries Will Need a More Nimble Response to the Next Pandemic
They can start preparing now by developing these five capabilities.
How to Overcome Return-to-Office Resistance
Start by understanding the reasons people don’t want to come back.
Managing Anger, Frustration, and Resentment on Your Team
Four strategies to help managers respond with compassion.
NYC-based Viam Robotics, still in stealth mode, raises a $30M Series A led by Tiger Global for its “standardized building blocks” approach to robotics (Mike Oitzman/The Robot Report)
Mike Oitzman / The Robot Report: NYC-based Viam Robotics, still in stealth mode, raises a $30M Series A led by Tiger Global for its “standardized building blocks” approach to robotics — Viam Robotics announced the close of a $30 million Series A round led by Tiger Global, with participation …
South Africa-based Stitch, which enables businesses to build, optimize, and scale financial products using its APIs, raises a $21M Series A (Tage Kene-Okafor/TechCrunch)
Tage Kene-Okafor / TechCrunch: South Africa-based Stitch, which enables businesses to build, optimize, and scale financial products using its APIs, raises a $21M Series A — Open finance continues to be a significant theme in the world of fintech as businesses tap APIs to access customers’ financial accounts and provide …
Canada-based 7shifts, which provides employee scheduling and workforce management software to restaurants, raises an $80M Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (Charles Mandel/BetaKit)
Charles Mandel / BetaKit: Canada-based 7shifts, which provides employee scheduling and workforce management software to restaurants, raises an $80M Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 — Startup says it added more than 10,000 restaurants to its platform last year. — On the heels of what it called a significant year of growth …
First-ever Climate Grand Challenges recognizes 27 finalists
All-carbon buildings, climate-resilient crops, and new tools to improve the prediction of extreme weather events are just a few of the 27 bold, interdisciplinary research projects selected as finalists from a field of almost 100 proposals in the first MIT Climate Grand Challenges competition. Each of the finalist teams received $100,000 to develop a comprehensive […]
Solar-powered system offers a route to inexpensive desalination
An estimated two-thirds of humanity is affected by shortages of water, and many such areas in the developing world also face a lack of dependable electricity. Widespread research efforts have thus focused on ways to desalinate seawater or brackish water using just solar heat. Many such efforts have run into problems with fouling of equipment […]
How to Set Up Lock Screens on All Your Devices
Your lock screen stands between your private data and unwelcome visitors—make sure you set it up correctly.