AI companies are finally being forced to cough up for training data
But there’s a problem. AI companies have pillaged the internet for training data, and many websites and data set owners...
World
People can move this bionic leg just by thinking about it
Getting the neural interface hooked up to a prosthetic takes two steps. First, patients undergo surgery. Following a lower leg...
The Download: fish-safe hydropower, and fixing space debris
The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Apple is planning to...
How fish-safe hydropower technology could keep more renewables on the grid
Since many of those facilities were started up, there have been significant changes to environmental requirements, and some plants may...
The Download: AI video games’ research potential, and US government website redesigns
The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Trump-Biden debate conspiracies are...
How AI video games can help reveal the mysteries of the human mind
Spiers himself is interested in learning how people hunt, whether for food, clothes, or a missing pet. “We still use...
The Download: the future of music AI, and climate tech funding
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The Supreme Court ruled the White...
These climate tech companies just got $60 million
The challenge in cleaning up the process lies, at least in part, in the fact that lava-hot temperatures are required...
Training AI music models is about to get very expensive
Indeed, the tools will block a request if it names an artist. But the record labels allege that the safeguards...
The Download: Introducing the Play issue
To understand why, you need to consider the potential for conflict between China and Taiwan, and the fact that the...
Why China’s dominance in commercial drones has become a global security matter
Last week, my colleague James O’Donnell wrote about a report by the think tank Center for a New American Security...
Learning from catastrophe
Engineers are renowned clock-problem solvers. They’re also notorious for treating every problem like a clock. Increasing specialization and cultural expectations...
Inside the US government’s brilliantly boring websites
The US Digital Service (USDS) was set up “to deliver better government services to the American people through technology and...
Job title of the future: Space debris engineer
Engineering the ins and outs: Step one in reducing orbital clutter—or, colloquially, space trash—is designing spacecraft that safely leave space...
Puzzle Corner history
When Allan Gottlieb ’67 began editing the Puzzle Corner column in 1966, he was a junior at MIT, majoring in...
Artificial reefs could protect coastlines and marine life
What they propose is a series of vertical cylinders, each surrounded by four long, rudder-like slats. The engineers found that...
SuperLimbs for astronauts
It’s hard not to laugh at NASA’s blooper reel of astronauts falling and bouncing in slow motion on the moon....
Fighting fatphobia
Unshrinking joins the growing literature on anti-fat bias, including the work of sociologist Sabrina Strings, whose book Fearing the Black...
Depression is different for women. One-size-fits-all drugs aren’t helping.
Chen’s research suggests it doesn’t have to be that way. She investigates the interaction between sex differences, stress, and mental...
Stress test
Being one of those few women was not easy. In the 1960s and ’70s, when she continued at MIT for...