This article is from The Technocrat, MIT Technology Review’s weekly tech policy newsletter about power, politics, and Silicon Valley. To receive it in your inbox every Friday, sign up here. Recently, I drove from Washington, DC, to New York and passed through Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey on the way while scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Crossing all those state lines got me thinking about Montana and its recent ban on TikTok, the massive social media app owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. Are we really proceeding down a path where I might have to delete and re-download certain […]

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. A brain implant changed her life. Then it was removed against her will. Sticking an electrode inside a person’s brain can do more than treat a disease. Take the case of Rita Leggett, an Australian woman whose experimental brain implant designed to help people with epilepsy changed her sense of agency and self.  Leggett told researchers that she “became one” with her device. It helped her to control the unpredictable, violent seizures she routinely experienced, and allowed her […]

This article is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here. Ian Burkhart sustained a severe spinal cord injury while he was on vacation at 19 years old. “It left me as a quadriplegic,” he says. “I had a little bit of movement in my arms, but nothing in my hands.” He wanted something that could give him more independence. And that’s how he came across a clinical trial for a brain implant that would change his life. Experimental brain-computer interfaces are being trialed to help treat paralysis […]

Sticking an electrode inside a person’s brain can do more than treat a disease. Take the case of Rita Leggett, an Australian woman whose experimental brain implant changed her sense of agency and self. She told researchers that she “became one” with her device. She was devastated when, two years later, she was told she had to remove the implant because the company that made it had gone bust.  The removal of this implant, and others like it, might represent a breach of human rights, ethicists say in a paper published earlier this month. The issue will only become more […]

The automotive industry is rapidly changing as connected and autonomous vehicles — enabled by AI and machine learning — are transforming transportation to create a seamless and personalized customer experience. The modernization of systems and software is steering vehicles to be more intelligent than ever, improving driving experiences and propelling operational efficiencies. From simulation testing on the factory floor to lifecycle predictive maintenance, connected vehicles drive success in an increasingly competitive landscape.  The new age of connectivity has pushed original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to rethink how they develop vehicles that can take advantage of data, automation, and connectivity and meet […]

The e-mobility revolution is in high gear. Automakers are promising to launch dozens of electric models over the next decade. In August 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden set a target for 50% of new car sales to be electric vehicles (EVs) by 2030. And electric car registrations in Europe increased from 3.5% in 2019 to almost 18% in 2021, according to the European Environment Agency. Policy changes are driving the increasing popularity of e-mobility—the use of electric vehicles, such as cars, trucks, and buses, that obtain energy from a power grid. New policies include California’s Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) regulation, […]

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. IBM wants to build a 100,000-qubit quantum computer What’s happening: Last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor containing 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years. Why it matters: The project is part of IBM’s plans to push quantum computing into the […]

Sitting in a booth in a hotel lobby in Brooklyn, I stared down the lineup of sliders, each on a separate bamboo plate. On the far left was a plant-based burger from Impossible Foods. On the right, an old-fashioned beef burger. And in the middle, the star of the show: a burger made with lab-grown meat.  I’m not a vegan or even a vegetarian. I drink whole milk in my lattes, and I can’t turn down a hot dog at a summer cookout. But as a climate reporter, I’m keenly aware of the impact that eating meat has on the […]

Late last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor that contained 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years. IBM made the announcement on May 22 at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. The company will partner with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago in a $100 million dollar initiative to push quantum computing into the realm of full-scale operation, where the […]