MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. In January, Elon Musk’s SpaceX filed an application with the US Federal Communications Commission to launch up to one million data centers into Earth’s orbit. The…
As the war in Iran continues to engulf the Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, one of the most visible global economic ripple effects has been fossil-fuel prices. In particular, you can’t get away from news about the price of gasoline, which just topped an average of $4 a gallon in the…
When Zeus, a medical student living in a hilltop city in central Nigeria, returns to his studio apartment from a long day at the hospital, he turns on his ring light, straps his iPhone to his forehead, and starts recording himself. He raises his hands in front of him like a sleepwalker and puts a…
For decades, artificial intelligence has been evaluated through the question of whether machines outperform humans. From chess to advanced math, from coding to essay writing, the performance of AI models and applications is tested against that of individual humans completing tasks. This framing is seductive: An AI vs. human comparison on isolated problems with clear…
Earlier this month, Microsoft launched Copilot Health, a new space within its Copilot app where users will be able to connect their medical records and ask specific questions about their health. A couple of days earlier, Amazon had announced that Health AI, an LLM-based tool previously restricted to members of its One Medical service, would…
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 Thursday, a California judge temporarily blocked the Pentagon from labeling Anthropic a supply chain risk and ordering government agencies to stop using its AI. It’s the latest development in the month-long…
After operating in secrecy for years, a startup company called R3 Bio, in Richmond, California, suddenly shared details about its work last week—saying it had raised money to create nonsentient monkey “organ sacks” as an alternative to animal testing. In an interview with Wired, R3 listed three investors: billionaire Tim Draper, the Singapore-based fund Immortal…
“Think of this as a human body,” says Javier González. In front of me is essentially a metal box on wheels. Standing at around a meter in height, it reminds me of a stainless-steel counter in a restaurant kitchen. It is covered in flexible plastic tubing—which act as veins and arteries—connecting a series of transparent…
This week I reported on some rather unusual research that focuses on the brain of L. Stephen Coles. Coles was a gerontologist who died from pancreatic cancer in 2014. He had spent the latter part of his career specializing in human longevity. And before he died, he decided to have his brain preserved by a…
I live in a dense city with plentiful public transportation options and limited parking, so I don’t own a car. I’m often utterly clueless about the current price of gasoline. But as the conflict in Iran has escalated, fossil-fuel prices have been on a roller-coaster, and I’ve started paying attention. In the US, average gas…