Recommended from Around the Web (Week Ending August 15, 2015)
Tinder and the Dawn of the “Dating Apocalypse”
How dating apps are changing relationship dynamics.
—Will Knight, senior editor, AI
Machine Chic
Will wearable technology always look impossibly dorky?
—Will Knight
Don’t Hate the Phone Call, Hate the Phone
Why portability made the phone less desirable to use as a phone.
—Brian Bergstein, executive editor
Kodak’s First Digital Moment
How 24-year-old Steven Sasson invented digital photography in 1973—and then watched his employer Kodak squander his great idea.
—Tom Simonite, San Francisco bureau chief
The New England Journal of Medicine Fact-Checks the Republican Debate
Matthew Herper of Forbes summarizes the well-respected medical journal’s critique of certain health-care-related points Republican presidential candidates made during the first debate.
—Mike Orcutt, associate editor
Zirtual Founder: “The Numbers Were Just Completely F***ed”
A startup CEO explains how her company imploded in a matter of days.
—Megan Barnett, deputy editor
Millions of Shade Balls Protecting Los Angeles Reservoir
L.A. is using floating balls of black plastic to help keep water from evaporating.
—Linda Lowenthal, copy chief
Why Brutalist Architecture Is So Hard to Love
Modernist concrete buildings look good to architects and photographers, and they represent what was once the optimistic ideal of an honest, virtually unlimited material. But that doesn’t make people hate them any less.
—Linda Lowenthal
Keep Reading
Most Popular
Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.
And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.
The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers.
Plug-in hybrids are often sold as a transition to EVs, but new data from Europe shows we’re still underestimating the emissions they produce.
How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets
When wastewater surveillance turns into a hunt for a single infected individual, the ethics get tricky.
Google DeepMind’s new generative model makes Super Mario–like games from scratch
Genie learns how to control games by watching hours and hours of video. It could help train next-gen robots too.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.