The Download: Introducing our TR35 list, and the death of the smart cityRhiannon Williams
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. Introducing: Our TR35 list of innovators for 2022 Spoiler alert: our annual Innovators Under 35 list isn’t actually about what a small group of smart young people have been up to (although that’s certainly part of it.) It’s really about where the world of technology is headed next. As you read about the problems this year’s winners have set out to solve, you’ll also glimpse the near future of AI, biotech, materials, computing, and the fight against climate […]
Indigenous mattersPeter Dizikes
MIT will be taking several new measures to support its Indigenous community and advance scholarship on the history of Native Americans and the Institute, President L. Rafael Reif announced in April. In the spring of 2021, the Institute launched 21H.283 (The Indigenous History of MIT), a class that explores the ways MIT’s history intersects with the history of oppression Native Americans have faced. MIT’s third president, Francis Amasa Walker, served as US commissioner of Indian affairs in the 1870s and was a staunch advocate of the unjust reservation system. And through the Morrill Act, Massachusetts used proceeds from the sale of […]
MIT’s new design hubPeter Dizikes
The MIT Morningside Academy for Design, an interdisciplinary center that aims to build on the Institute’s leadership in design-focused education and become a global hub for design research, thinking, and entrepreneurship, will launch in September 2022, President L. Rafael Reif announced in March. The academy, which will be housed in the Metropolitan Warehouse with the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), will create and administer academic and research programs across MIT, especially between SA+P and the School of Engineering. It will encourage design work at MIT to grow and cross disciplines in engineering, science, management, computing, architecture, urban planning, and […]
Toronto wants to kill the smart city foreverKarrie Jacobs
In February, the city of Toronto announced plans for a new development along its waterfront. They read like a wish list for any passionate urbanist: 800 affordable apartments, a two-acre forest, a rooftop farm, a new arts venue focused on indigenous culture, and a pledge to be zero-carbon. The idea of an affordable, off-the-grid Eden in the heart of the city sounds great. But there was an entirely different urban utopia planned for this same 12-acre plot, known as Quayside, just a few years ago. It was going to be the place where Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation arm of […]
The online vigilantes solving local crimes themselvesSonia Faleiro
One evening last summer, my family was enjoying a picnic in the park near our house in London when two dogs attacked our blind 15-year-old Jack Russell terrier, Zoey. They pounced on her, locking their jaws. As my husband threw himself on the dogs, I begged the owner to intervene. He refused—until he realized I was calling the police. Only then did he restrain his animals, one of which had started to chase my four-year-old daughter. A few hours later Zoey was dead, leaving us devastated. We felt even worse when the police didn’t attempt to track down the owner […]
How bike parking pods could make US cities better for cyclistsJake Blumgart
In 2015, Brooklyn resident Shabazz Stuart regularly biked to his job at a local business improvement district. Then his bicycle was stolen—the third case of two-wheeled larceny he’d experienced in five years. The theft sent him back to mass transit while he saved up money to buy a replacement. It also put him on a new career path. Paying hundreds or thousands of dollars to replace a bike can be a painful inconvenience for more privileged New Yorkers, but for working-class riders—especially delivery workers—it can be economically devastating. Thinking about the larger implications of his experience gave Stuart a business […]
Public transport is ditching cash—but here’s why that’s okRachel del Valle
There are still parts of Philadelphia’s SEPTA transportation system that accept tokens. But today, in nearly every major American city, you’ll see transit riders tapping their way onto buses and subway platforms using their phones. The shift has been swift. Like so many things consumers brushed off as needlessly complicated before the pandemic—QR codes, order pickup at retail stores, grocery delivery—contactless transit fare collection has proved its convenience and been normalized. What will this change mean for less-privileged riders—those without smartphones or credit cards? Perhaps not much. Cash is likely to remain in some corners of transit systems, says Candace […]
The world will need dozens of breakthrough climate technologies in the next decadeVarun Sivaram
We’re living in a pivotal decade. By 2030, global emissions must fall by half, mostly through massive deployment of commercial solutions such as wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles. But emerging climate technologies must come to market during this decade too, even if they don’t make much of a dent in emissions right away. The International Energy Agency forecasts that roughly half the reductions needed to cut emissions to nearly zero by 2050 must come from technologies that are not ready for the market today because they’re too expensive to manufacture, haven’t been tested at scale, or both. Only […]
Computers will be transformed by alternative materials and approaches—maybe sooner than you thinkPrineha Narang
In less than a century, computing has transformed our society and helped spur countless innovations. We now carry in our back pockets computers that we could only have dreamed of a few decades ago. Machine-learning systems can analyze scenes and drive vehicles. And we can craft extraordinarily accurate representations of the real world—models that can be used to design nuclear reactors, simulate myriad greenhouse-gas emission scenarios, and launch a probe on a nine-year trip to study Pluto in an all-too-brief high-speed fly-by. We fundamentally owe these capabilities to our ability to build progressively better computing devices—the transistors and other components […]
Rewriting what we thought was possible in biotechMarzyeh Ghassemi
Have you heard? The tech in biotech is nailing it. Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) can now figure out who has a condition (perhaps better than your doctor can), establish a medical checklist to diagnose you, and help target likely treatments. AI models can help design drugs or find a new purpose for existing ones. At home, just ask your AI assistant—Siri, Alexa, Cortana, or many chatbots—to answer medical questions or talk to you about your day. Those assistants might also have access to information from the smart devices in your home—your scale could work with your Fitbit […]