Stories from Around the Web (Week Ending May 24, 2013)
Inside Google’s Secret Lab
A bit light on detail and insight, but they got more out of Google than anyone else has.
—Tom Simonite, IT editor
Revenge, Ego and the Corruption of Wikipedia
A deliciously twisted story of one author’s efforts to manipulate his own page, and those of his rivals, on Wikipedia; the piece raises questions about impartiality and oversight on the online encyclopedia.
—Will Knight, online editor
Who’s Your Daddy? The Perils of Personal Genomics
Turns out the most common finding from 23andMe tests is not health-related.
—Tim Maher, managing editor
Julius Genachowski Leaves the FCC
A smart give-and-take with pointed, direct questions.
—Brian Bergstein, deputy editor
Disconcerting Robot Detects Depression
This report explains “virtual therapists,” software that analyzes a subject’s body language to augment psychiatric diagnoses. Watch a short video showing the virtual therapist interact with patients.
—Kyanna Sutton, senior web producer
New “Cloned Video” GIFs from Erdal Inci
A really creative and interesting use of the phenomenon that is the animated gif.
—Emily Dunkle, user interface designer
A Face in the Crowd: Say Goodbye to Anonymity
This fascinating 60 Minutes story on facial recognition software talks about commercial and government applications and shows eerie new software in action.
—David Sweeney, marketing communications manager
The One-Person Product
An insider’s view of the growth of Tumblr. Refreshing to read after all the speculation about how Yahoo! will mess it up.
—Brent Turner, chief digital officer
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.
OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora
The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.
Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.
Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.
This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language
A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.
Stay connected
Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review
Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.