The Download
What's up in emerging technology
Turns out CRISPR editing can also vandalize genomes
Robots that paint have gotten pretty impressive
China’s e-commerce explosion is creating massive cultural change in its rural areas
Microsoft wants the government to regulate face recognition software
America’s indictment of Russian hackers underlines the cyber risks facing US politics
Sept. 11-14, 2018
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From Our Current Issue
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.
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.
Business Impact
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.
Business Impact
A performance review from the future
MIT Technology Review envisions feedback for future workers.
Business Impact
Gary Reback: Technology’s trustbuster
Big-money politics is making it harder than ever to tame Big Tech.
Business Impact
A digital capitalism Marx might enjoy
The conflict between labor and capital has shifted in capital’s favor. But there are some ways labor could fight back.
Watch Video
More videos
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
Robots as nurses' assistants 00:36
Communicating with robots 01:35
Intelligent Machines
Next-Generation Robots Need Your Help 27:36
Manuela Veloso of Carnegie Mellon University provides a reality check on the capabilities of today’s AI systems, and provides a look ahead at where the field is headed next.
Intelligent Machines
Artificial intelligence and robots are transforming how we work and live.
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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.
by Martin Giles
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Data mining reveals fundamental pattern of human thinking
Word frequency patterns show that humans process common and uncommon words in different ways, with important consequences for natural-language processing.
by Emerging Technology from the arXiv
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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.
by Will Knight
Features
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.
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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
Connectivity
What it means to be constantly connected with each other and vast sources of information.
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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.
by Rachel Metz
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Meet Oasis Labs, the blockchain startup Silicon Valley is buzzing about
Combining software with something the company calls “trusted hardware” will vastly expand what smart contracts can do.
by Mike Orcutt
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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.
by Mike Orcutt
