The Download

What's up in emerging technology

Intelligent Machines

The AI Issue

Despite the worries, AI is still in its infancy. Here’s what we really need to focus on.
Connectivity

Who Is Thinking About Security and Privacy for Augmented Reality?

While the technology and applications underlying AR are rapidly advancing, little thought has been given to how these systems should protect users.
Connectivity

Can Microsoft’s “Hologram” Maker Become the New Sears Portrait Studio?

The volumetric videos could one day take those awkward family photos to a whole new level.
Intelligent Machines

New Twists in the Road to Quantum Supremacy

Quantum computers will soon surpass conventional ones, but it will take time to make the machines useful.
Rewriting Life

Tracking the Cost of Gene Therapy

Though expensive now, prices could get cheaper for more common diseases.
Intelligent Machines

Don’t Let Regulators Ruin AI

Tech policy scholar Andrea O’Sullivan says the U.S. needs to be careful not to hamstring innovation.
Intelligent Machines

Fiction That Gets AI Right

What to watch and read before the robots take over.
Intelligent Machines

How to Root Out Hidden Biases in AI

Algorithms are making life-changing decisions like denying parole or granting loans. Cynthia Dwork, a computer scientist at Harvard, is developing ways of making sure the machines are operating fairly.
Intelligent Machines

The Dangers of Tech-Bro AI

Tabitha Goldstaub, a cofounder of CognitionX, which helps companies deploy AI, says that diversifying the field is necessary to make sure products actually work well.

From Our Current Issue

November/December 2017

Advances in artificial intelligence are about to force all of us to confront questions about privacy, inequality, employment—and what it really means to be human.

Is AI Riding a One-Trick Pony?

Just about every AI advance you’ve heard of depends on a breakthrough that’s three decades old. Keeping up the pace of progress will require confronting AI’s serious limitations.

Inside the Moonshot Effort to Finally Figure Out the Brain

AI is only loosely modeled on the brain. So what if you wanted to do it right? You’d need to do what has been impossible until now: map what actually happens in neurons and nerve fibers.
Content Hub

The Bridge to Digital Transformation: The Move to a Software-Based Network Strategy

Presented in partnership with VMware

Custom Research Report

Finance and HR: The Cloud’s New Power Partnership

In partnership with Oracle

View from the Marketplace

The Customer Engagement Revolution

Great experiences require a new approach to data management.

In partnership with Couchbase

View from the Marketplace

Technology Moves to the Head of the 21st Century Classroom

In partnership with VMware

Watch Video

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Tracking Emotions Through Facial Expressions 03:16

Are Hurricane Risk Models Dangerously Out of Date? 25:32

CRISPR Decoded 02:22

Blockchain Decoded 01:58

This Is How You'll Actually Use AR at Home 00:46

Q&A with Tim Cook 02:24

Blood-Delivering Drones 04:23

Why I Left the Hospital System and Started Working in Telemedicine 04:03

Turning Flood Water into Drinking Water 03:27

Tracking Emotions Through Facial Expressions 03:16

A startup moves to release its facial coding software for education and other apps. Reporting by David Talbot, MIT Technology Review

More Videos

Features

Intelligent Machines

We Need Computers with Empathy

An emerging trend in artificial intelligence is to get computers to detect how we’re feeling and respond accordingly. They might even help us develop more compassion for one another.

by Rana el Kaliouby

Connectivity

Smartphones Are Weapons of Mass Manipulation, and This Guy Is Declaring War on Them

Tristan Harris thinks big tech is taking advantage of us all. Can its power be used for good?
Rewriting Life

How to Spend $1,900 on Gene Tests Without Learning a Thing

Science and marketing clash in the “jungle” of direct-to-consumer DNA apps.

Business Impact

How technology advances are changing the economy and providing new opportunities in many industries.

All Topics

  1. In These Small Cities, AI Advances Could Be Costly

    A new MIT study finds that larger cities are more resilient to technological unemployment.
    by Elizabeth Woyke

  2. How Tweets Translate into Votes

    Twitter can’t win you an election, right? Wrong, say political scientists who have measured its effect for the first time.
    by Emerging Technology from the arXiv

  3. The Secret Betting Strategy That Beats Online Bookmakers

    A team of researchers found a way to make money legally from online bookies. But then their troubles began.
    by Emerging Technology from the arXiv
More from Business Impact

50 Smartest Companies 2017

Explore the 50 smartest companies in depth, including the full list and stories that examine how this group is combining important technologies and smart business strategies to best the competition.

See the Collection

Connectivity

What it means to be constantly connected with each other and vast sources of information.

All Topics

  1. This Is the Reason Ethereum Exists

    The world’s second-most-valuable cryptocurrency is also its most interesting—but in order to understand it, you must first understand its origins.
    by Mike Orcutt

  2. Can Microsoft’s “Hologram” Maker Become the New Sears Portrait Studio?

    The volumetric videos could one day take those awkward family photos to a whole new level.
    by Rachel Metz

  3. Help Us Find the Young Innovators Who’ll Shape the Future

    Nominations for the 2018 list of 35 Innovators Under 35 are now open.
    by Timothy Maher
More from Connectivity

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2017

These breakthrough technologies will affect the economy and our politics, improve medicine, or influence our culture. Some are here now; others will take a decade to develop. But you should know about all of them right now.

See the List

Internet of Things: A World on the Move

Sponsored by Siemens

  1. If Only a Simple Gadget Rating Could Save Us from Cyberattack

    Suggestions that a security score be awarded to connected devices is a lovely idea that would be almost impossible to implement.
    by Jamie Condliffe

  2. Botnets of Things: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2017

    The relentless push to add connectivity to home gadgets is creating dangerous side effects that figure to get even worse.
    by Bruce Schneier

  3. Personal AI Privacy Watchdog Could Help You Regain Control of Your Data

    If regulators aren’t going to help consumers make sense of what companies are doing with their data, maybe artificial intelligence can.
    by Mike Orcutt
More in Internet of Things: A World on the Move

November 6-9, 2017

Cambridge, MA

Discover the emerging technologies that will change the world.

Meet the people and companies shaping our future. From next-generation brain interfaces to the impact of social media on society and much more, this is the tech conference you must not miss.

Register Now

AI Meets CRM: Transforming Customer Experiences

Sponsored by Salesforce

  1. Transform Customer Experiences by Harnessing the Power of AI in CRM

    Companies are using AI to build personalized and dynamic experiences to engage both internal and external audiences.
    by MIT Technology Review Custom

  2. Artificial Intelligence for Everyone: A Next-Generation Experience

    Organizations today are challenged with mining, analyzing and putting to good use the vast amounts of data now flooding in from multiple checkpoints. How to utilize that data to get closer to internal and external customers?
    by MIT Technology Review Custom

  3. Customer Data Meets AI

    A new day is dawning for the customer experience, driven by the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automated technologies to CRM data. The potential exists to transform the customer’s experience by providing service in a more predictive and intuitive way than ever before.
    by MIT Technology Review Custom
More in AI Meets CRM: Transforming Customer Experiences

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Innovations, Ideas, and Insights

Provided by BBVA

  1. 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

  2. Our Extended Sensoria. How Humans Will Connect with the Internet of Things

    Mark Weiser predicted the Internet of Things in a seminal article in 1991 about how people would interact with networked computation distributed into the environments and artifacts around them.
    by Joseph A. Paradiso

  3. Interstellar travel and post-humans

    The stupendous time-spans of the evolutionary past are now part of common culture.
    by Martin Rees
More in Innovations, Ideas, and Insights