A robotic shoulder that stretches, presses, and twists lab-grown human tendon tissue could pave the way for more successful tissue grafts. Though the field of tissue engineering is still mostly experimental, skin cells, cartilage, and even a windpipe grown from samples of human cells have been implanted in patients so far.  But growing usable human tendon cells—which need to stretch and twist—has proved trickier. Over the past two decades, scientists have encouraged engineered tendon cells and tissue to grow and mature by repeatedly stretching them in one direction. However, this approach has so far failed to produce fully functional tissue […]

Thank you for joining us on “The cloud hub: From cloud chaos to clarity.” Watch Bill Mew, digital ethics campaigner and CEO of CrisisTeam.co.uk talk to Vishal Salvi, SVP & CISO at Infosys, and Ameya Kapnadak, chief growth officer and head of consulting at Interbrand India, about why brands need to implement a well-defined, evolving cybersecurity strategy to ensure continued brand trust—and how they can quantify the risk. Click here to continue. Thank you for joining us on “The cloud hub: From cloud chaos to clarity.” Watch Bill Mew, digital ethics campaigner and CEO of CrisisTeam.co.uk talk to Vishal Salvi, […]

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Inside Charm Industrial’s big bet on corn stalks for carbon removal In recent weeks, a crew of staffers from a company called Charm Industrial have been working on the edge of Kansas corn fields, moving rolled bales of stalks, leaves, husks, and tassels up to a semi-trailer. Inside, a contraption called a pyrolyzer uses high temperatures in the absence of oxygen to break down the plant material into a mix of biochar and bio-oil. This oil is pumped […]

In recent weeks, a crew of staffers from a company called Charm Industrial have been working on the edge of Kansas corn fields, moving rolled bales of stalks, leaves, husks, and tassels up to a white semi-trailer. Inside, a contraption called a pyrolyzer uses high temperatures in the absence of oxygen to break down the plant material into a mix of biochar and bio-oil. The former will eventually go back into fields, adding carbon and nutrients to the soil.  But the company pumps the oil down EPA-regulated deep wells used for industrial waste, or into salt caverns left behind by […]

Charm Industrial has gained attention for its unusual approach to storing away carbon dioxide: converting plant matter into bio-oil that it then pumps into deep wells and salt caverns. (See related story.) But the San Francisco startup is now exploring whether that oil could be used to cut emissions from iron and steelmaking as well, pursuing a new technical path for cleaning up the dirtiest industrial sector. The iron and steel industry produces about 4 billion tons of carbon emissions each year, accounting for around 10% of all energy-related climate pollution, according to a 2020 report by the International Energy […]

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The dark secret behind those cute AI-generated animal images Another month, another flood of weird, wonderful and cute images generated by an artificial intelligence. In April, OpenAI showed off its new picture-making neural network, DALL-E 2, which could produce remarkable high-res images of almost anything it was asked to.  Now, just a few weeks later, Google Brain has revealed its own image-making AI, called Imagen. And it performs even better than DALL-E 2: it scores higher on a […]

Another month, another flood of weird and wonderful images generated by an artificial intelligence. In April, OpenAI showed off its new picture-making neural network, DALL-E 2, which could produce remarkable high-res images of almost anything it was asked to. It outstripped the original DALL-E in almost every way. Now, just a few weeks later, Google Brain has revealed its own image-making AI, called Imagen. And it performs even better than DALL-E 2: it scores higher on a standard measure for rating the quality of computer-generated images, and the pictures it produced were preferred by a group of human judges. “We’re […]

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The walls are closing in on Clearview AI Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI has been fined more than $10 million by the UK’s data protection watchdog for collecting the faces of UK citizens from the web and social media. The firm was also ordered to delete all of the data it holds on UK citizens. The move by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the latest in a string of high-profile fines against the company as […]

Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI has been fined almost $10 million by the UK’s data protection watchdog for collecting the faces of UK citizens from the web and social media. The firm was also ordered to delete all of the data it holds on UK citizens. The move by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the latest in a string of high-profile fines against the company as data protection authorities around the world eye tougher restrictions on its practices. The ICO found Clearview AI had been in breach of data protection laws, collected personal data without people’s consent […]

Earlier this month, DeepMind presented a new “generalist” AI model called Gato. The model can play the video game Atari, caption images, chat, and stack blocks with a real robot arm, the Alphabet-owned AI lab announced. All in all, Gato can do 604 different tasks.  But while Gato is undeniably fascinating, in the week since its release some researchers have gotten a bit carried away. One of DeepMind’s top researchers and a coauthor of the Gato paper, Nando de Freitas, couldn’t contain his excitement. “The game is over!” he tweeted, suggesting that there is now a clear path from Gato […]