The Download
What's up in emerging technology
Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter will now let you transfer data between their services
State-sponsored trolling is rampant throughout the world—including the US
Boozy bots could serve you up your next cocktail
Big names in AI vow not to build autonomous weapons
A new Twitter bot helps track wildfires
Sept. 11-14, 2018
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From Our Current Issue
Connectivity
This man’s quest to understand memory starts with obsessive bodycam recording and brain-wave tracking
By-products include striking short films that speed up and slow down along in response to body signals.
Intelligent Machines
Facebook’s AI tourist finds its way around New York City by asking for help from another algorithm
AI algorithms can learn to navigate in the real world using language—and that might help make chatbots and voice assistants smarter.
Intelligent Machines
The US may have just pulled even with China in the race to build supercomputing’s next big thing
The two countries are vying to create an exascale computer that could lead to significant advances in many scientific fields.
Connectivity
Bitcoin’s inherent economics could keep it from ever being very important
A new analysis shows how the cost of securing Bitcoin will constrain its growth.
Rewriting Life
Inside the effort to print lungs and breathe life into them with stem cells
Martine Rothblatt wants to end transplant shortages with 3-D-printed lungs.
News
35 Innovators Under 35
Better gene editing. Cheaper solar cells. Stretchable electronics. And smarter robots. Meet Jonas Cleveland, CEO of COSY, and the rest of our 2018 list of 35 Innovators Under 35.
Watch Video
More videos
Robots as nurses' assistants 00:36
Next-Generation Robots Need Your Help 27:36
Access to broadband is as important as access to water and electricity 01:15
We shouldn't preserve "willy nilly" the cost of production 01:00
Coffee-fetching robots 02:08
Automating things on wheels 00:50
Humans versus machines: Chopin edition 02:06
Teaching systems to dance 01:44
3-D printed potato chips 01:15
Communicating with robots 01:35
Intelligent Machines
Robots as nurses' assistants 00:36
These robots are trained to work with nurses to help make decisions in the best interests of patients. Julie Shah, Associate Professor in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, demonstrates.
Sustainable Energy
Can we sustainably provide food, water, and energy to a growing population during a climate crisis?
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California’s plan to integrate the West Coast grid is a great idea—that could easily backfire
The state leading the clean-energy charge could wind up importing coal power from Wyoming.
by James Temple
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An advanced civilization could resist the accelerating expansion of the universe
And Earth-bound astronomers should be able to tell if someone is out there doing it, a physicist says.
by Emerging Technology from the arXiv
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We still have no idea how to eliminate more than a quarter of energy emissions
Air travel, shipping, and manufacturing are huge sources of carbon that we lack good options for addressing.
by James Temple
Features
Connectivity
Forget about VR in the living room; this summer it’s on waterslides and in arcades
VR technology hasn’t been a hit with consumers, so companies are taking it everywhere from specially built arenas to airports.
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SPONSORED
From the age of perplexity to the era of opportunities
Finance for Growth
by Francisco Gonzalez
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SPONSORED
Undoing Aging with Molecular and Cellular Damage Repair
Since the dawn of medicine, aging has been doctors’ foremost challenge.
by Aubrey D. N. J. de Grey
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SPONSORED
Human Legacies When Robots Rule the Earth
Machines have been displacing humans on job tasks for several centuries, and for seventy years many of these machines have been controlled by computers.
by Robin Hanson
Business Impact
How technology advances are changing the economy and providing new opportunities in many industries.
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MIT Technology Review’s new design—and new mission
Tech journalism shouldn’t just explain technology, but seek to make it more of a force for good.
by Gideon Lichfield
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Fukushima’s nuclear signature found in California wine
The Japanese nuclear disaster bathed north America in a radioactive cloud. Now pharmacologists have found the telltale signature in California wine made at the time.
by Emerging Technology from the arXiv
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IBM thinks blockchains can help reduce carbon emissions
It’s turning carbon credits into crypto-tokens—part of a scheme to create a massive marketplace of novel digital assets.
by Mike Orcutt
