The Download: mining metals with plants, and our dystopian future 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 plants could mine metals from the soil Nickel may not grow on trees—but there’s a chance it could someday be mined using plants. Many plants naturally soak up metal and concentrate it…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: mining metals with plants, and our dystopian future

Plus: Telegram is planning to moderate private chats for the first time

The Download: mining metals with plants, and our dystopian future 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 plants could mine metals from the soil Nickel may not grow on trees—but there’s a chance it could someday be mined using plants. Many plants naturally soak up metal and concentrate it…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: mining metals with plants, and our dystopian future

Plus: Telegram is planning to moderate private chats for the first time

How plants could mine metals from the soil Nickel may not grow on trees—but there’s a chance it could someday be mined using plants. Many plant species naturally soak up metal and concentrate it in their tissues, and new funding will support research on how to use that trait for plant-based mining, or phytomining.  Seven phytomining projects just received $9.9 million in funding…

MIT Technology Review

How plants could mine metals from the soil

Phytomining could unlock the nickel soaked up and held inside certain plants.

Integrating security from code to cloud The Human Genome Project, SpaceX’s rocket technology, and Tesla’s Autopilot system may seem worlds apart in form and function, but they all share a common characteristic: the use of open-source software (OSS) to drive innovation. Offering publicly accessible code that can be viewed, modified, and distributed freely, OSS expedites developer productivity and creates a collaborative…

MIT Technology Review

Integrating security from code to cloud

In today’s open-source software environments, businesses need to embrace a new approach to security.

Integrating security from code to cloud The Human Genome Project, SpaceX’s rocket technology, and Tesla’s Autopilot system may seem worlds apart in form and function, but they all share a common characteristic: the use of open-source software (OSS) to drive innovation. Offering publicly accessible code that can be viewed, modified, and distributed freely, OSS expedites developer productivity and creates a collaborative…

MIT Technology Review

Integrating security from code to cloud

In today’s open-source software environments, businesses need to embrace a new approach to security.

Integrating security from code to cloud The Human Genome Project, SpaceX’s rocket technology, and Tesla’s Autopilot system may seem worlds apart in form and function, but they all share a common characteristic: the use of open-source software (OSS) to drive innovation. Offering publicly accessible code that can be viewed, modified, and distributed freely, OSS expedites developer productivity and creates a collaborative…

MIT Technology Review

Integrating security from code to cloud

In today’s open-source software environments, businesses need to embrace a new approach to security.

Integrating security from code to cloud The Human Genome Project, SpaceX’s rocket technology, and Tesla’s Autopilot system may seem worlds apart in form and function, but they all share a common characteristic: the use of open-source software (OSS) to drive innovation. Offering publicly accessible code that can be viewed, modified, and distributed freely, OSS expedites developer productivity and creates a collaborative…

MIT Technology Review

Integrating security from code to cloud

In today’s open-source software environments, businesses need to embrace a new approach to security.

Integrating security from code to cloud The Human Genome Project, SpaceX’s rocket technology, and Tesla’s Autopilot system may seem worlds apart in form and function, but they all share a common characteristic: the use of open-source software (OSS) to drive innovation. Offering publicly accessible code that can be viewed, modified, and distributed freely, OSS expedites developer productivity and creates a collaborative…

MIT Technology Review

Integrating security from code to cloud

In today’s open-source software environments, businesses need to embrace a new approach to security.

The Download: greenhouse gases, and how AI could affect inequality https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeS7XzmzFXao6hExSKpGwtOv_pdKgDcIsWlIGqNsVGYxHT_fO4ymMezzOA62qSbZzLtYBEDHmheaMMBbyOMrg3Xqpxccw-bSldiG-89yTF3YN6QJ6fxoOlgetOfmYz0mZg0Za1d-sVwy-wmyQ8HpmgW-KXr?key=c0HSKZDR8SrJW3zfMF-hWw 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 brief guide to the greenhouse gases driving climate change Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is used in high-voltage equipment on the grid. It’s also, somewhat inconveniently, a monster greenhouse gas. Greenhouse gases are those…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: greenhouse gases, and how AI could affect inequality

Plus: the US has accused Russia of meddling ahead of the Presidential election

A brief guide to the greenhouse gases driving climate change This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. For the last week or so, I’ve been obsessed with a gas that I’d never given much thought to before. Sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) is used in high-voltage equipment on the grid. It’s…

MIT Technology Review

A brief guide to the greenhouse gases driving climate change

There’s more to global warming than just carbon dioxide.

The Download: climate tipping point alarms, and AI’s vision of the 3028 Olympics 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 UK is building an alarm system for climate tipping points The news: The UK’s new moonshot research agency just launched an £81 million ($106 million) program to develop early warning systems to…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: climate tipping point alarms, and AI’s vision of the 3028 Olympics

Plus: Clearview AI has been hit with another fine

The UK is building an alarm system for climate tipping points The UK’s new moonshot research agency just launched an £81 million ($106 million) program to develop early warning systems to sound the alarm if Earth gets perilously close to crossing climate tipping points. A climate tipping point is a threshold beyond which certain ecosystems or planetary processes begin to shift from one stable state to…

MIT Technology Review

The UK is building an alarm system for climate tipping points

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency is providing £81 million to get scientific teams looking for telltale signs of spiraling climate shifts.

Coming soon: Our 2024 list of Innovators Under 35 To tackle complex global problems such as preventing disease and mitigating climate change, we’re going to need new ideas from our brightest minds. Every year, MIT Technology Review identifies a new class of Innovators Under 35 taking on these and other challenges.  On September 10, we will honor the 2024 class of Innovators Under 35.…

MIT Technology Review

Coming soon: Our 2024 list of Innovators Under 35

This year’s innovators are finding smart ways to address climate change and wrest control of AI.

The Download: election tech fears, and AI for teachers https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXf8YxY-uH9NqcAWwE3aKct9GZBiAJRE4WtEVzmQ4y-BJgermoO-_nU8IlMyJRf-AAcALG-9d2ngpgdrsW7wiLC71vpkMkUS09M5ZbH68PIAlN11buowuRcSYGi5VZ45t2ZGMwLuVLnFWH3kNKguhrNtojyG?key=sHPWFHHuj-Omn69qSlU6fg 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. AI’s impact on elections is being overblown —Felix M. Simon is a research fellow in AI and News at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; Keegan McBride is an assistant professor…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: election tech fears, and AI for teachers

Nvidia is widening the scope of its ambitions

AI’s impact on elections is being overblown This year, close to half the world’s population has the opportunity to participate in an election. And according to a steady stream of pundits, institutions, academics, and news organizations, there’s a major new threat to the integrity of those elections: artificial intelligence.  The earliest predictions warned that a new AI-powered world was, apparently, propelling us…

MIT Technology Review

AI’s impact on elections is being overblown

And the focus on AI is distracting us from some deeper and longer-lasting threats to democracy.

The Download: how to prove you’re human, and replacing the grid’s gas https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXdKZhHdebsqwz5-eEJrXHjMvlHyr8tTiYPWrNtuVbpWBV8_AV9UWluXvctStMmQodLiPmvWzzvJSOD36SZL5prEe6JW-wTg3XKbfl3WruLwxea3RKFOVo4W62y58BTQOIIlfds4UGFeVwGQsowoJqyejnWF?key=icQFqMkOfvZijzq9nRVhYA 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 “personhood credentials” could help prove you’re a human online As AI models become better at mimicking human behavior, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real human internet users and sophisticated systems…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: how to prove you’re human, and replacing the grid’s gas

Plus: X users in Brazil have been banned from the platform

How “personhood credentials” could help prove you’re a human online As AI models become better at mimicking human behavior, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between real human internet users and sophisticated systems imitating them.  That’s a real problem when those systems are deployed for nefarious ends like spreading misinformation or conducting fraud, and it makes it a lot harder to trust what you encounter…

MIT Technology Review

How “personhood credentials” could help prove you’re a human online

A system proposed by researchers from MIT, OpenAI, Microsoft, and others could curb the use of deceptive AI by exploiting the technology’s weakne...

The race to replace the powerful greenhouse gas that underpins the power grid The power grid is underpinned by a single gas that is used to insulate a range of high-voltage equipment. The problem is, it’s also a super powerful greenhouse gas, a nightmare for climate change. Sulfur hexafluoride (or SF6) is far from the most common gas that warms the planet, contributing around 1% of warming to…

MIT Technology Review

The race to replace the powerful greenhouse gas that underpins the power grid

Sulfur hexafluoride is crucial for high-voltage equipment, but it can trap heat in the atmosphere for 1,000 years or more. And emissions are on the...

The Download: monkey names, and smart masks for health monitoring https://lh7-rt.googleusercontent.com/docsz/AD_4nXeQ6_pbg-0DUgRizeTmmRZ_oZeQEZ2rhr-iEU34fJ8eg-igsYPs0wdwtMZot7HaOunw3oCZR-mZvIPc8UFqVd_CoXjyYAPGlHSLdwE_rGJiQXmBR_qWjEZJbwPlVu61FbffoKHlVE1EidB2ym-GpaC-VLw?key=Ks03EX8arReALXlHNbIHWQ 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 machine learning is helping us probe the secret names of animals The news: Do animals have names? It seems so, after new research appears to have discovered that small monkeys called marmosets…

MIT Technology Review

The Download: monkey names, and smart masks for health monitoring

Plus: Silicon Valley is shaken by what's happening to Telegram's founder

A new way to build neural networks could make AI more understandable A tweak to the way artificial neurons work in neural networks could make AIs easier to decipher. Artificial neurons—the fundamental building blocks of deep neural networks—have survived almost unchanged for decades. While these networks give modern artificial intelligence its power, they are also inscrutable.  Existing artificial neurons, used in large language models like GPT4, work…

MIT Technology Review

A new way to build neural networks could make AI more understandable

The simplified approach makes it easier to see how neural networks produce the outputs they do.