The Download: how China’s regulating robotaxis
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. How China is regulating robotaxis Not many technologies have had such a roller-coaster ride in the past year as robotaxis. In just a few months they went from San Francisco’s new darling to a national scandal after a car operated by Cruise, one of the leading companies in the business, was involved in a serious accident. Other than rebuilding the public trust that was lost last year, robotaxi companies are also struggling to find a realistic business model. […]
How China is regulating robotaxis
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Not many technologies have had such a roller-coaster ride in the past year as robotaxis. In just a few months they went from San Francisco’s new darling to a national scandal after Cruise, one of the leading companies in the business, was involved in a serious accident. This morning, I published a story looking at where the industry is going in the new year. Other than rebuilding the public trust that was lost last year, robotaxi companies […]
The Download: disputes over green mining, and what’s next for robotaxis
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. This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future In June last year, Talon, an exploratory mining company, submitted a proposal to Minnesota state regulators to begin digging up as much as 725,000 metric tons of raw ore per year, mainly to unlock the rich and lucrative reserves of high-grade nickel in the bedrock. Talon is striving to distance itself from the mining industry’s dirty past, portraying its plan as a clean, friendly model of […]
What’s next for robotaxis in 2024
In 2023, it almost felt as if the promise of robotaxis was soon to be fulfilled. Hailing a robotaxi had briefly become the new trendy thing to do in San Francisco, as simple and everyday as ordering a delivery via app. However, that dream crashed and burned in October, when a fatal accident in downtown San Francisco involving a vehicle belonging to Cruise, one of the leading US robotaxi companies, ignited distrust, casting a long shadow over the technology’s future. Following that death and another accident, the state of California suspended Cruise’s operations there indefinitely, and the National Highway Traffic […]
This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future
Minnesota’s Highway 210 threads through the tiny towns of Aitkin County, a poor and sparsely populated stretch of forests, lakes, and wetlands that reaches just into the northeastern corner of the state. A short drive off the highway, due south past the Tamarack Church, delivers you to Jackson’s Hole, the last remaining business in the unincorporated community of Lawler. A little before noon on a Tuesday in late June, several dozen people from across the region filed into the barn-red, century-old town store turned saloon. They settled into seats around folding tables in the rear banquet room, where deer horns […]
Why does AI being good at math matter?
This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here. Last week the AI world was buzzing over a new paper in Nature from Google DeepMind, in which the lab managed to create an AI system that can solve complex geometry problems. Named AlphaGeometry, the system combines a language model with a type of AI called a symbolic engine, which uses symbols and logical rules to make deductions, writes my colleague June Kim. You can read more about AlphaGeometry here. This is the second time in recent months […]
The Download: hope for new long covid treatments, and the future of chiplets
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. Scientists are finding signals of long covid in blood. They could lead to new treatments. The news: For tens of millions of people, a case of covid is the beginning of a chronic and sometimes debilitating illness that persists for months or even years. Now, new research suggests that faults in a certain part of the immune system might be at the root of some long covid cases. How they did it: A team of researchers compared protein […]
Three technology trends shaping 2024’s elections
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. The Iowa caucuses on January 15 officially kicked off the 2024 presidential election. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—the biggest story of this year will be elections in the US and all around the globe. Over 40 national contests are scheduled, making 2024 one of the most consequential electoral years in history. While tech has played a major role in campaigns and political discourse over the past 15 […]
Scientists are finding signals of long covid in blood. They could lead to new treatments.
For many people, covid is an illness that blusters in and out of our lives as cases spike and recede. But for tens of millions of others, a case of covid is the beginning of a chronic and sometimes debilitating illness that persists for months or even years. What makes individuals with long covid different from those who get infected and recover? According to a new paper, an often overlooked part of the immune system is unusually active in these people. A team of researchers from Switzerland compared protein levels in blood samples taken from patients who had never had […]
The Download: gene-edited pig liver transplants, and AI to fight apartheid
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-dead man was attached to a gene-edited pig liver for three days Surgeon Abraham Shaked thinks he has probably carried out more than 2,500 liver transplants. But in December 2023, the team he oversees at the University of Pennsylvania did something he’d never tried before. Working on the body of a brain-dead man, they attached his veins to a refrigerator-size machine with a pig liver mounted in the middle of it. For three days, the man’s blood […]