The Download: DeepSeek forces a reality check, and robotaxis’ future

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

AI’s energy obsession just got a reality check

Just a week in, the AI sector has already seen its first battle of wits under the new Trump administration. The clash stems from two key pieces of news: the announcement of the Stargate project, which would spend $500 billion—more than the Apollo space program—on new AI data centers, and the release of a powerful new open-source model from China.

Together, they raise important questions the industry needs to answer about the extent to which the race for more data centers—with their heavy environmental toll—is really necessary. 

If, in dissecting DeepSeek R1, AI companies discover some lessons about how to make models use existing resources more effectively, perhaps constructing more and more data centers won’t be the only winning formula for better AI. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.

Robotaxis: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025

If you live in certain cities in America or China, you’ve probably spotted driverless cars dropping off passengers. Perhaps you’ve even ridden in one yourself. That’s a radical change from even three years ago, when these services were still learning the rules of the road. And robotaxis could soon be operating in many more cities.

After years of beta testing, driverless taxis are now finally becoming available to the public. In more than a dozen cities worldwide, riders can summon one whenever they want. Now, the biggest players are ramping up for intense competition as they expand into new cities under regulators’ watchful eyes. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Robotaxis is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Review’s annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 DeepSeek’s AI model is sending US data to China
Which could open it up to a lot of scrutiny in the US. (Wired $)
+ The model’s popularity has made it a cyber attack target. (The Guardian)
+ The company was forced to limit the number of new users registering. (The Verge)
+ How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions. (MIT Technology Review)

2 DeepSeek’s success is emboldening other Chinese startups
Moonshot and Zhipu are among the firms racing to capitalize on the world’s attention. (FT $)
+ DeepSeek mania has gripped the world and shaken the markets. (404 Media)
+ The country is cheering on its homegrown success story. (Bloomberg $)
+ …And many Americans are impressed by it, too. (The Atlantic $)

3 Microsoft has entered the fray to buy TikTok
According to Donald Trump, at least. (WP $)
+ Microsoft had originally floated buying the app back in 2020. (Reuters)

4 Google Maps is changing the Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America
But users in Mexico will continue to see its original name. (CNBC)
+ Other countries across the world will be presented with both names. (Forbes $)

5 Scammers are using AI to create blackmail videos
The clips feature AI-generated news anchors reporting on sextortion cases. (Wired $)
+ An AI startup made a hyperrealistic deepfake of me that’s so good it’s scary. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Amazon is seeking permission to fly drones in the North of England
The retail giant is lagging behind other drone projects in the UK.(The Guardian)

7 This new fertility treatment could be a viable IVF alternative
As well as a much less painful, invasive procedure. (The Atlantic $)
+ This biotech CEO decided to take her own (fertility) medicine. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Yahoo is determined to become cool again
By capitalizing on our obsession with nostalgia. (Insider $)

9 The Pebble smartwatch is back
Almost a decade after Fitbit bought the company, it’s relaunching. (The Verge)
+ But it’s going to need a new name. (TechCrunch)

10 How to measure the shape of the universe
Subtle signals could help us to map it out. (Quanta Magazine)
+ Why is the universe so complex and beautiful? (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“It’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor!”

—OpenAI boss Sam Altman says he’s not worried at all by the success of open-source AI model DeepSeek R1 in a post on X.

The big story

Meet the divers trying to figure out how deep humans can go

February 2024

Two hundred thirty meters into one of the deepest underwater caves on Earth, Richard “Harry” Harris knew that not far ahead of him was a 15-meter drop leading to a place no human being had seen before.

Getting there had taken two helicopters, three weeks of test dives, two tons of equipment, and hard work to overcome an unexpected number of technical problems. But in the moment, Harris was hypnotized by what was before him: the vast, black, gaping unknown.

Staring into it, he felt the familiar pull—maybe he could go just a little farther. Instead, he and his diving partner, Craig Challen, decided to turn back. That’s because they weren’t there to set records. Instead, they were there to test what they saw as a possible key to unlocking depths beyond even 310 meters: breathing hydrogen. Read the full story. 

—Samantha Schuyler

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ How to make a tasty mocktail like a pro.
+ Happy birthday to the one and only Billy Ocean, who recently turned the ripe old age of 75.
+ Fans of video game Deep Rock Galactic are a rarity—a kind, welcoming and friendly gaming community.
+ Hongbao, the little red envelopes given out at Lunar New Year, have a long and fascinating history.

The Download: China’s DeepSeek, and useful quantum computing

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How a top Chinese AI model overcame US sanctions

The AI community is abuzz over DeepSeek R1, a new open-source reasoning model. 

The model was developed by the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, which claims that R1 matches or even surpasses OpenAI’s ChatGPT o1 on multiple key benchmarks but operates at a fraction of the cost.

DeepSeek’s success is even more remarkable given the constraints facing Chinese AI companies in the form of increasing US export controls on cutting-edge chips. But early evidence shows that these measures are not working as intended. Rather than weakening China’s AI capabilities, the sanctions appear to be driving startups like DeepSeek to innovate in ways that prioritize efficiency, resource-pooling, and collaboration. Read the full story.

—Caiwei Chen

Useful quantum computing is inevitable—and increasingly imminent

—Peter Barrett is a general partner at Playground Global, which invests in early-stage deep-tech companies

On January 8, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang jolted the stock market by saying that practical quantum computing is still 15 to 30 years away, at the same time suggesting those computers will need Nvidia GPUs in order to implement the necessary error correction. 

However, history shows that brilliant people are not immune to making mistakes. Huang’s predictions miss the mark, both on the timeline for useful quantum computing and on the role his company’s technology will play in that future.

I’ve been closely following developments in quantum computing as an investor, and it’s clear to me that useful quantum computing is inevitable and increasingly imminent. And that’s good news, because the hope is that they will be able to perform calculations that no amount of AI or classical computation could ever achieve. Read the full story.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 AI pioneers are clashing over its potential dangers  
Yann LeCun, Meta’s AI chief scientist, has branded experts’ grave warnings hypocritical. (FT $)
+ AI’s biggest cheerleaders tend to know the least about it. (Wired $)
+ How existential risk became the biggest meme in AI. (MIT Technology Review)

2 This surveillance tech could enable Donald Trump’s deportation plans
From mass biometric databases to phone jailbreaking tools. (NYT $)
+ It really doesn’t have to be like this. (The Atlantic $)
+ Trump has declared policing the US-Mexican border his “number one issue.” (FT $)
+ He’s ordered the end of the CBP One border migration app. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The European Union is watching Big Tech like a hawk
It’s concerned about disinformation spreading ahead of next month’s German election. (Bloomberg $)

4 Trump’s meme coins are bad news for the crypto industry
The community was hoping the President would legitimize cryptocurrency, rather than leaning into its scammier side. (WP $)
+ It’s a blow to the fans hoping he’ll ‘make Bitcoin great again.’ (The Guardian)
+ Trump’s biggest supporters stand to lose the most from his crypto grift. (Vox)

5 AI is helping to pin down what caused the Los Angeles wildfires 
Determining the truth could take months. AI is speeding that process up. (Wired $)

6 Elon Musk’s gaming skills are under fire
Hardcore gamers are questioning how he was seemingly playing during Trump’s inauguration. (NYT $)

7 The European Medicines Agency has had enough of X
And has moved to Bluesky instead. (Reuters)

8 Vietnam is deploying robots to help run its postal service
Including delivering parcels and sorting packages in warehouses. (Rest of World)

9 Startups are in for a rough year
Thousands of companies were funded between 2020 and 2021. Now, plenty are shutting down. (TechCrunch)
+ Gaming startups in the UK are struggling for cash. (BBC)

10 A newly-discovered asteroid turned out to be Musk’s Tesla Roadster
The car and its mannequin driver have been floating in space since 2018. (USA Today)
+ The world’s next big environmental problem could come from space. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I think within five years, nobody in their right mind would use them anymore.”

—Yann LeCun, Meta’s chief AI scientist, says he believes that the technologies powering the current wave of large language models will soon become obsolete, TechCrunch reports.

The big story

How culture drives foul play on the internet, and how new “upcode” can protect us

August 2023

From Bored Apes and Fancy Bears, to Shiba Inu coins, self-­replicating viruses, and whales, the internet is crawling with fraud, hacks, and scams.

And while new technologies come and go, they change little about the fact that online illegal operations exist because some people are willing to act illegally, and others fall for the stories they tell.

Ultimately, online crime is a human story. But why does it work, and how can we protect ourselves from falling for such schemes? Read the full story.

—Rebecca Ackermann

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ I can’t believe these albums were released 50 years ago: featuring Bob Dylan, Donna Summer, and The Boss.
+ What one man’s search for happiness taught him about himself.
+ More twins are being born than ever before—but why?
+ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on this day in 1756. Enjoy this stunning piano concerto in his honor!

The Download: OpenAI’s agent, and what to expect from robotics

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

OpenAI launches Operator—an agent that can use a computer for you

What’s new: After weeks of buzz, OpenAI has released Operator, its first AI agent. Operator is a web app that can carry out simple online tasks in a browser, such as booking concert tickets or filling an online grocery order. The app is powered by a new model called Computer-Using Agent—CUA for short—built on top of OpenAI’s multimodal large language model GPT-4o.

Why it matters: OpenAI claims that Operator outperforms similar rival tools, including Anthropic’s Computer Use and Google DeepMind’s Mariner. The fact that three of the world’s top AI firms have converged on the same vision of what agent-based models could be makes one thing clear. The battle for AI supremacy has a new frontier—and it’s our computer screens. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

+ If you’re interested in reading more about AI agents, check out this piece explaining why they’re AI’s next big thing.

What’s next for robots

—James O’Donnell

In the many conversations I’ve had about robots, I’ve also found that most people tend to fall into three camps. Some are upbeat and vocally hopeful that a future is just around the corner in which machines can expertly handle much of what is currently done by humans, from cooking to surgery. Others are scared: of job losses, injuries, and whatever problems may come up as we try to live side by side.

The final camp, which I think is the largest, is just unimpressed. We’ve been sold lots of promises that robots will transform society ever since the first robotic arm was installed on an assembly line at a General Motors plant in New Jersey in 1961. Few of those promises have panned out so far. 

But this year, there’s reason to think that even those staunchly in the “bored” camp will be intrigued by what’s happening in the robot races. Here’s a glimpse at what to keep an eye on this year. Read the full story.

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, looking across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Facebook and Instagram blocked and hid abortion pill posts
But Meta denies it’s anything to do with its recent hate speech restriction U-turn. (NYT $)
+ The company’s widespread changes are making advertisers nervous. (Insider $)
+ A contraceptive drug could act as an abortion pill substitute. (The Atlantic $)

2 Donald Trump’s staff are furious with Elon Musk 
His decision to trash talk the President’s new AI deal is ruffling aides’ feathers. (Politico)
+ For once, Trump doesn’t seem to want to wade in. (CNN)
+ Stargate’s newest data center will be built in the small Texan city of Abilene. (Bloomberg $)

3 Watch the Trump administration delete agency pages in real time
An agency GitHub records the documents, handbooks and bots as they’re deleted or amended. (404 Media)

4 Central Europe’s power grid is vulnerable to attack
Its facilities’ unencrypted radio signals leave it wide open to malicious interference. (Ars Technica)
+ The race to replace the powerful greenhouse gas that underpins the power grid. (MIT Technology Review)

5 OpenAI’s conversion to becoming a for-profit is under investigation
California’s attorney general wants to know more about its asset transfer plans. (The Markup)
+ One major obstacle is determining how much equity Microsoft would hold. (FT $)

6 WeRide has its sights set on becoming a driverless power player
The Chinese company has ambitious plans to expand all over the world. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, Tesla is issuing a safety update to 1.2 million cars in China. (Bloomberg $)
+ How Wayve’s driverless cars will meet one of their biggest challenges yet. (MIT Technology Review)

7 How fungi spores can help save endangered plants
But it’s a delicate balancing act. (Knowable Magazine)
+ Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The fight over our tech-addled attention span
It’s not that we can’t focus—it’s what we’re focusing on. (New Yorker $) 

9 TikTok is still MIA from US app stores
Opportunists are flogging iPhones with the pre-installed app for eye-watering prices. (Insider $)

10 How random is Spotify’s shuffle, really?
And can algorithms be depended on to deal in true randomness? (FT $)

Quote of the day

“I can’t imagine that I personally can make any difference in their wealth, power or influence. But I can’t be a part of offering them my life and my joy to then turn it back around and make money off of me.”

—Michael Raine, a 50-year old Facebook and Instagram user, explains to the Washington Post why he doesn’t want to contribute to the sprawling wealth of Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg any more.

The big story

How to stop a state from sinking

April 2024

In a 10-month span between 2020 and 2021, southwest Louisiana saw five climate-related disasters, including two destructive hurricanes. As if that wasn’t bad enough, more storms are coming, and many areas are not prepared.

But some government officials and state engineers are hoping there is an alternative: elevation. The $6.8 billion Southwest Coastal Louisiana Project is betting that raising residences by a few feet will keep Louisianans in their communities.

Ultimately, it’s something of a last-ditch effort to preserve this slice of coastline, even as some locals pick up and move inland and as formal plans for managed retreat become more popular in climate-­vulnerable areas across the country and the rest of the world. Read the full story.

—Xander Peters

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ How two enterprising actors staged a daring performance of Hamlet inside Grand Theft Auto
+ Warning: these movies are dangerous!
+ Madonna released Material Girl 40 years ago this week—and changed the face of pop forever.
+ And finally, what everyone has been dying to know—do dogs really watch TV?

The Download: US WHO exit risks, and underground hydrogen

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

This is what might happen if the US withdraws from the WHO

On January 20, his first day in office, US president Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization.

The US is the biggest donor to the WHO, and the loss of this income is likely to have a significant impact on the organization, which develops international health guidelines, investigates disease outbreaks, and acts as an information-sharing hub for member states. But the US will also lose out. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Why the next energy race is for underground hydrogen

It might sound like something straight out of the 19th century, but one of the most cutting-edge areas in energy today involves drilling deep underground to hunt for materials that can be burned for energy. The difference is that this time, instead of looking for fossil fuels, the race is on to find natural deposits of hydrogen.

In an age of lab-produced breakthroughs, it feels like something of a regression to go digging for resources. But looking underground could help meet energy demand while also addressing climate change. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.

Cattle burping remedies: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025

Companies are finally making real progress on one of the trickiest problems for climate change: cow burps.

The world’s herds of cattle belch out methane as a by-product of digestion, as do sheep and goats. That powerful greenhouse gas makes up the single biggest source of livestock emissions, which together contribute 11% to 20% of the world’s total climate pollution, depending on the analysis.

Enter the cattle burping supplement. DSM-Firmenich, a Netherlands-based conglomerate, says its Bovaer food supplement significantly reduces the amount of methane that cattle belch—and it’s now available in dozens of countries. Read the full story.

—James Temple

Cattle burping remedies is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Review’s annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Tech leaders are squabbling over Trump’s new Stargate AI project
Musk says its backers don’t have enough money. Satya Nadella and Sam Altman disagree. (The Guardian)+ It’s far from the first time Musk and Altman have clashed. (Insider $)
+ The scrap could threaten Musk’s cordial relationship with Donald Trump. (FT $)

2 Trump has threatened to withhold aid from California
He falsely claimed the state’s officials have been refusing to fight the fires with water. (WP $)
+ A new fire broke out along the Ventura County border last night. (LA Times $)

3 Redditors are weighing up banning links to X
In response to Elon Musk’s salute. (404 Media)
+ Not everyone agrees that the boycott will have the desired effect, though. (NYT $)

4 How right-leaning male YouTubers helped to elect Trump
Young men are responding favorably to content painting them as powerless. (Bloomberg $)

5 Why the US isn’t handing out bird flu vaccines right now
It’s not currently being treated as a priority. (Wired $)
+ How the US is preparing for a potential bird flu pandemic. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Why you might be inadvertently following Trump on social media
And why it may take a while for Meta to honor requests to unfollow. (NYT $)
+ The company has denied secretly adding users to Trump’s followers list. (Insider $)+ Handily enough, Trump has ordered the US government to stop pressuring social media firms. (WP $)

7 Investors’ interest in weight-loss drugs is waning
A disappointing trial and falling sales spell bad news for the sector. (FT $)
+ Drugs like Ozempic now make up 5% of prescriptions in the US. (MIT Technology Review)

8 A software engineer is trolling OpenAI with a new domain name
Ananay Arora registered OGOpenAI.com to redirect to a Chinese AI lab. (TechCrunch)

9 Macbeth is being turned into an interactive video game
The Scottish play is being given a 21st century makeover. (The Verge)

10 Why measuring the quality of your sleep is so tough
Not everyone agrees on what counts as good sleep, for a start. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“I acknowledge that this action is largely just virtue signalling. But if somebody starts popping off Nazi salutes at the presidential inauguration of a purported ‘first world’ country, then virtue signalling is the least I can do.”

—A Reddit moderator explains their decision to ban links to X in their forum after Elon Musk’s gestures at a post-inauguration rally this week, NBC News reports.

The big story

Welcome to Chula Vista, where police drones respond to 911 calls

February 2023

In the skies above Chula Vista, California, where the police department runs a drone program, it’s not uncommon to see an unmanned aerial vehicle darting across the sky.

Chula Vista is one of a dozen departments in the US that operate what are called drone-as-first-responder programs, where drones are dispatched by pilots, who are listening to live 911 calls, and often arrive first at the scenes of accidents, emergencies, and crimes, cameras in tow.

But many argue that police forces’ adoption of drones is happening too quickly, without a well-informed public debate around privacy regulations, tactics, and limits. There’s also little evidence that drone policing reduces crime. Read the full story.

—Patrick Sisson

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ If you were struck by the beautiful scenery in The Brutalist, check out where it was filmed.
+ This newly-unearthed, previously unreleased Tina Turner track is a banger.
+ What to expect from the art world in the next 12 months.
+ Let’s take a look at this year’s potential runners and riders for the Oscars.

The Download: AI’s coding promises, and OpenAI’s longevity push

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The second wave of AI coding is here

Ask people building generative AI what generative AI is good for right now—what they’re really fired up about—and many will tell you: coding.

Everyone from established AI giants to buzzy startups is promising to take coding assistants to the next level. Instead of providing developers with a kind of supercharged autocomplete, this next generation can prototype, test, and debug code for you. The upshot is that developers could essentially turn into managers, who may spend more time reviewing and correcting code written by a model than writing it from scratch themselves.

But there’s more. Many of the people building generative coding assistants think that they could be a fast track to artificial general intelligence, the hypothetical superhuman technology that a number of top firms claim to have in their sights.Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

OpenAI has created an AI model for longevity science

When you think of AI’s contributions to science, you probably think of AlphaFold, the Google DeepMind protein-folding program that earned its creator a Nobel Prize last year. Now OpenAI says it’s getting into the science game too—with a model for engineering proteins.

The company says it has developed a language model that dreams up proteins capable of turning regular cells into stem cells—and that it has handily beat humans at the task.

The work represents OpenAI’s first model focused on biological data and its first public claim that its models can deliver unexpected scientific results. But until outside scientists get their hands on it, we can’t say just how impressive it really is. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

Cleaner jet fuel: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025

New fuels made from used cooking oil, industrial waste, or even gases in the air could help power planes without fossil fuels. Depending on the source, they can reduce emissions by half or nearly eliminate them. And they can generally be used in existing planes, which could enable quick climate progress.

These alternative jet fuels have been in development for years, but now they’re becoming a big business, with factories springing up to produce them and new government mandates requiring their use. So while only about 0.5% of the roughly 100 billion gallons of jet fuel consumed by planes last year was something other than fossil fuel, that could soon change. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

Cleaner jet fuel is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Review’s annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 TikTok is back online in the US  
The company thanked Donald Trump for vowing to fight the federal ban it’s facing. (The Verge)
+ The app went dark for users in America for around 14 hours. (WP $)
+ AI search startup Perplexity has suggested merging with TikTok. (CNBC)
+ Here’s how people actually make money on TikTok. (WSJ $)

2 Trump’s staff has an Elon Musk problem
Aides are annoyed by his constant contributions to matters he has little knowledge of. (WSJ $)
+ A power struggle between the two men is inevitable. (Slate $)
+ The great and the good of crypto attended a VIP Trump party on Friday. (NY Mag $)

3 AI is speeding up the Pentagon’s ‘kill list’ 
Although the US military can’t use the tech to directly kill humans, AI is making it faster and easier to plan how to do just that. (TechCrunch)
+ OpenAI’s new defense contract completes its military pivot. (MIT Technology Review)

4 The majority of Americans haven’t had their latest covid booster 
Though they could help to protect you—and others. (Undark)
+ It’s five years today since the US registered its first covid case. (USA Today)

5 Europol is cracking down on encryption
The agency plans to pressure Big Tech to give police access to encrypted messages. (FT $)

6 This Swiss startup has created a powerful robotic worm
Borobotics wants to deploy the bots to dig for geo-thermal heat in our gardens. (The Next Web)

7 Thousands of lithium batteries were destroyed in a massive fire
The world’s largest battery storage plant went up in flames in California. (New Scientist $)
+ Three takeaways about the current state of batteries. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Amazon’s delivery drones struggle in the rain
Two drones crashed after flying through light rain in Oregon. (Bloomberg $)

9 A Ring doorbell captured a meteorite crashing to Earth 
It’s the first known example of a meteorite fall documented by a doorbell cam. (CBS News)

10 AI is coming for your wardrobe
A wave of new apps will suggest what to wear and what to pair it with. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“TikTok was 100x better than anything you’ve created.”

—An Instagram user snaps at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the wake of TikTok’s temporary US blackout over the weekend.

The big story

Running Tide is facing scientist departures and growing concerns over seaweed sinking for carbon removal

June 2022

Running Tide, an aquaculture company based in Portland, Maine, hopes to set tens of thousands of tiny floating kelp farms adrift in the North Atlantic. The idea is that the fast-growing macroalgae will eventually sink to the ocean floor, storing away thousands of tons of carbon dioxide in the process.

The company has raised millions in venture funding and gained widespread media attention. But it struggled to grow kelp along rope lines in the open ocean during initial attempts last year and has lost a string of scientists in recent months, sources with knowledge of the matter tell MIT Technology Review. What happens next? Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Why not cheer up your Monday with the kings of merriment, The Smiths?
+ This is fascinating: how fish detect color and why it’s so different to us humans.
+ The people of Finland know a thing or two about happiness.
+ It’s time to get planning a spring getaway, and these destinations look just fabulous.

The Download: how to save social media, and “leftover” embryos

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

We need to protect the protocol that runs Bluesky

—Eli Pariser & Deepti Doshi

Last week, when Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta would be ending third-party fact-checking, it was a shocking pivot, but not exactly surprising. It’s just the latest example of a billionaire flip-flop affecting our social lives on the internet. 

Zuckerberg isn’t the only social media CEO careening all over the road: Elon Musk, since buying Twitter in 2022 and touting free speech as “the bedrock of a functioning democracy,” has suspended journalists, restored tens of thousands of banned users, brought back political advertising, and weakened verification and harassment policies. 

Unfortunately, these capricious billionaires can do whatever they want because of an ownership model that privileges singular, centralized control in exchange for shareholder returns. The internet doesn’t need to be like this. But as luck would have it, a new way is emerging just in time. Read the full story.

Deciding the fate of “leftover” embryos

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a piece about IVF embryos. The goal of in vitro fertilization is to create babies via a bit of lab work: Trigger the release of lots of eggs, introduce them to sperm in a lab, transfer one of the resulting embryos into a person’s uterus, and cross your fingers for a healthy pregnancy. Sometimes it doesn’t work. But often it does. For the article, I explored what happens to the healthy embryos that are left over.

These days, responsible IVF clinics will always talk to people about the possibility of having leftover embryos before they begin treatment. But it can be really difficult to make these decisions before you’ve even started treatment, and some people can’t imagine having any left over—or how they might feel about them. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This article first appeared in The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, and read articles like this first, sign up here.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: Palmer Luckey on the Pentagon’s future of mixed reality

Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, has set his sights on a new mixed-reality headset customer: the Pentagon. If designed well, his company Anduril’s headset will automatically sort through countless pieces of information and flag the most important ones to soldiers in real time. But that’s a big “if.”

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we’re publishing each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The Biden administration won’t force through a TikTok ban
But TikTok could choose to shut itself down on Sunday to prove a point. (ABC News)
+ A Supreme Court decision is expected later today. (NYT $)
+ Every platform has a touch of TikTok about it these days. (The Atlantic $)

2 Apple is pausing its AI news feature
Because it can’t be trusted to meld news stories together without hallucinating. (BBC)
+ The company is working on a fix to roll out in a future software update. (WP $)

3 Meta is preparing for Donald Trump’s mass deportations
By relaxing speech policies around immigration, Meta is poised to shape public opinion towards accepting Trump’s plans to tear families apart. (404 Media)

4 An uncrewed SpaceX rocket exploded during a test flight
Elon Musk says it was probably caused by a leak. (WSJ $)

5 The FBI believes that hackers accessed its agents’ call logs
The data could link investigators to their secret sources. (Bloomberg $)

6 What it’s like fighting fire with water
Dumping water on LA’s wildfires may be inelegant, but it is effective. (NY Mag $)
+ How investigators are attempting to trace the fires’ origins. (BBC)

7 The road to adapting Tesla’s charges for other EVs is far from smooth
But it is happening, slowly but surely. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Donald Trump isn’t a fan of EVs, but the market is undoubtedly growing. (Vox)
+ Why EV charging needs more than Tesla. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Bionic hands are getting far more sensitive
A new study is shedding light on how to make them feel more realistic. (FT $)
+ These prosthetics break the mold with third thumbs, spikes, and superhero skins. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Gen Z can’t get enough of astrology apps
Stargazing is firmly back ein vogue among the younger generations. (Economist $)

10 Nintendo has finally unveiled its long-awaited Switch 2 console
Only for it to look a whole lot like its predecessor. (WSJ $)
+ But it’ll probably sell a shedload of units anyway. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“Going viral is like winning the lottery—nearly impossible to replicate.”

—Sarah Schauer, a former star on defunct video app Vine, offers creators left nervous by TikTok’s uncertain future in the US some advice, the Washington Post reports.

The big story

After 25 years of hype, embryonic stem cells are still waiting for their moment​

August 2023

In 1998, researchers isolated powerful stem cells from human embryos. It was a breakthrough, since these cells are the starting point for human bodies and have the capacity to turn into any other type of cell—heart cells, neurons, you name it.

National Geographic would later summarize the incredible promise: “the dream is to launch a medical revolution in which ailing organs and tissues might be repaired” with living replacements. It was the dawn of a new era. A holy grail. Pick your favorite cliché—they all got airtime.

Yet today, more than two decades later, there are no treatments on the market based on these cells. Not one. Our biotech editor Antonio Regalado set out to investigate why, and when that might change. Here’s what he discovered.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ If you’re planning on catching up with a friend this weekend—stop! You should be hanging out instead.
+ David Lynch was a true visionary; an innovative artist and master of the truly weird. The world is a duller place without him.
+ The very best instant noodles, ranked ($)
+  Congratulations to the highly exclusive Cambridge University Tiddlywinks Club, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary.

The Download: China’s marine ranches, and fast-learning robots

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

China wants to restore the sea with high-tech marine ranches

A short ferry ride from the port city of Yantai, on the northeast coast of China, sits Genghai No. 1, a 12,000-metric-ton ring of oil-rig-style steel platforms, advertised as a hotel and entertainment complex.
 
Genghai is in fact an unusual tourist destination, one that breeds 200,000 “high-quality marine fish” each year. The vast majority are released into the ocean as part of a process known as marine ranching.

The Chinese government sees this work as an urgent and necessary response to the bleak reality that fisheries are collapsing both in China and worldwide. But just how much of a difference can it make? Read the full story.

—Matthew Ponsford

This story is from the latest print edition of MIT Technology Review—it’s all about the exciting breakthroughs happening in the world right now. If you don’t already, subscribe to receive future copies.

Fast-learning robots: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025

Generative AI is causing a paradigm shift in how robots are trained. It’s now clear how we might finally build the sort of truly capable robots that have for decades remained the stuff of science fiction.

A few years ago, roboticists began marveling at the progress being made in large language models. Makers of those models could feed them massive amounts of text—books, poems, manuals—and then fine-tune them to generate text based on prompts.

It’s one thing to use AI to create sentences on a screen, but another thing entirely to use it to coach a physical robot in how to move about and do useful things. Now, roboticists have made major breakthroughs in that pursuit. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

Fast-learning robots is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Review’s annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 US regulators are suing Elon Musk  |
For allegedly violating securities law when he bought Twitter in 2022. (NYT $)
+ The case claims that Musk continued to buy shares at artificially low prices. (FT $)
+ Musk is unlikely to take it lying down. (Politico)

2 SpaceX has launched two private missions to the moon
Falling debris from the rockets has forced Qantas to delay flights. (The Guardian)
+ The airline has asked for more precise warnings around future launches. (Semafor)
+ Space startups are on course for a funding windfall. (Reuters)
+ What’s next for NASA’s giant moon rocket? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Home security cameras are capturing homes burning down in LA 
Residents have remotely tuned into live footage of their own homes burning. (WP $)
+ California’s water scarcity is only going to get worse. (Vox)
+ How Los Angeles can rebuild in the wake of the devastation. (The Atlantic $)

4 ChatGPT is about to get much more personal
Including reminding you about walking the dog. (Bloomberg $)

5 Inside the $30 million campaign to liberate social media from billionaires
Free Our Feeds wants to restructure platforms around open-source tech. (Insider $)

6 How to avoid getting sick right now
You probably already own one of the best defenses. (The Atlantic $)
+ But coughs and sneezes could be the least of our problems. (The Guardian)

7 The US and China are still collaborating on AI research
Despite rising tensions between the countries. (Rest of World)

8 These startups think they have the solution to loneliness
Making friends isn’t always easy, but these companies have some ideas. (NY Mag $)

9 Here are just some of the ways the universe could end
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. (Ars Technica)
+ But at least Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Technology Review)

10 AI is inventing impossible languages
They could help us learn more about how humans learn. (Quanta Magazine)
+ These impossible instruments could change the future of music. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“If you can get away with it when it’s front-page news, why bother to comply at all?”

—Marc Fagel, a former director of the SEC’s San Francisco office, suggests the agency’s decision to sue Elon Musk is intended as a deterrent to others, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The big story

I took an international trip with my frozen eggs to learn about the fertility industry

September 2022

—Anna Louie Sussman

Like me, my eggs were flying economy class. They were ensconced in a cryogenic storage flask packed into a metal suitcase next to Paolo, the courier overseeing their passage from a fertility clinic in Bologna, Italy, to the clinic in Madrid, Spain, where I would be undergoing in vitro fertilization.

The shipping of gametes and embryos around the world is a growing part of a booming global fertility sector. As people have children later in life, the need for fertility treatment increases each year.

After paying for storage costs for six and four years, respectively, at 40 I was ready to try to get pregnant. Transporting the Bolognese batch served to literally put all my eggs in one basket. Read the full story.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ We need to save the world’s largest sea star!
+ Maybe our little corner of the universe is more special than we’ve been led to believe after all.
+ How the world’s leading anti-anxiety coach overcame her own anxiety.
+ Here’s how to keep your eyes on the prize in 2025—and beyond!

The Download: the future of nuclear power, and fact checking Mark Zuckerberg

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

What’s next for nuclear power

While nuclear reactors have been generating power around the world for over 70 years, the current moment is one of potentially radical transformation for the technology.

As electricity demand rises around the world for everything from electric vehicles to data centers, there’s renewed interest in building new nuclear capacity, as well as extending the lifetime of existing plants and even reopening facilities that have been shut down. 

Efforts are also growing to rethink reactor designs, and 2025 marks a major test for so-called advanced reactors as they begin to move from ideas on paper into the construction phase. Here’s what to expect next for the industry. 

—Casey Crownhart

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, looking across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

Mark Zuckerberg and the power of the media

On Tuesday last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is done with fact checking in the US, that it will roll back “restrictions” on speech, and is going to start showing people more tailored political content in their feeds. While the end of fact checking has gotten most of the attention, the changes to its hateful speech policy are also notable.

Zuckerberg—whose previous self-acknowledged mistakes include the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, and helping to fuel a genocide in Myanmar—presented Facebook’s history of fact-checking and content moderation as something he was pressured into doing by the government and media. The reality, of course, is that these were his decisions. He famously calls the shots, and always has. Read the full story.

—Mat Honan

This story first appeared in The Debrief, providing a weekly take on the tech news that really matters and links to stories we love—as well as the occasional recommendation.
Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Friday.

Here’s our forecast for AI this year

In December, our small but mighty AI reporting team was asked by our editors to make a prediction: What’s coming next for AI? 

As we look ahead, certain things are a given. We know that agents—AI models that do more than just converse with you and can actually go off and complete tasks for you—are the focus of many AI companies right now. Similarly, the need to make AI faster and more energy efficient is putting so-called small language models in the spotlight. However, the other predictions were not so clear-cut. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.

To witness the fallout from the AI team’s lively debates (and hear more about what didn’t make the list), you can join our upcoming LinkedIn Live this Thursday, January 16 at 12.30pm ET. James will be talking it all over with Will Douglas Heaven, our senior editor for AI, and our news editor, Charlotte Jee.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 China is considering selling TikTok to Elon Musk
But it’s unclear how likely an outcome that really is. (Bloomberg $)
+ It’s certainly one way of allowing TikTok to remain in the US. (WSJ $)
+ For what it’s worth, TikTok has dismissed the report as ‘pure fiction.’ (Variety $)
+ Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, is dealing with an influx of American users. (WP $)

2 Amazon drivers are still delivering packages amid LA fires
They’re dropping off parcels even after neighborhoods have been instructed to evacuate. (404 Media)

3 Alexa is getting a generative AI makeover
Amazon is racing to turn its digital assistant into an AI agent. (FT $)
+ What are AI agents? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Animal manure is a major climate problem
Unfortunately, turning it into energy is easier said than done. (Vox)
+ How poop could help feed the planet. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Power lines caused many of California’s worst fires 
Thousands of blazes have been traced back to power infrastructure in recent decades. (NYT $)
+ Why some homes manage to withstand wildfires. (Bloomberg $)
+ The quest to build wildfire-resistant homes. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Barcelona is a hotbed of spyware startups
Researchers are increasingly concerned about its creep across Europe. (TechCrunch)

7 Mastodon’s founder doesn’t want to follow in Mark Zuckerberg’s footsteps
Eugen Rochko has restructured the company to ensure it could never be controlled by a single individual. (Ars Technica)
+ He’s made it clear he doesn’t want to end up like Elon Musk, either. (Engadget)

8 Spare a thought for this Welsh would-be crypto millionaire
His 11-year quest to recover an old hard drive has come to a disappointing end. (Wired $)

9 The unbearable banality of internet lexicon
It’s giving nonsense. (The Atlantic $)

10 You never know whether you’ll get to see the northern lights or not
AI could help us to predict when they’ll occur more accurately. (Vice)
+ Digital pictures make the lights look much more defined than they actually are. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“Cutting fact checkers from social platforms is like disbanding your fire department.”

—Alan Duke, co-founder of fact-checking outlet Lead Stories, criticizes Meta’s decision to ax its US-based fact checkers as the groups attempt to slow viral misinformation spreading about the wildfires in California, CNN reports.

The big story

The world is moving closer to a new cold war fought with authoritarian tech

September 2022

Despite President Biden’s assurances that the US is not seeking a new cold war, one is brewing between the world’s autocracies and democracies—and technology is fueling it.

Authoritarian states are following China’s lead and are trending toward more digital rights abuses by increasing the mass digital surveillance of citizens, censorship, and controls on individual expression.

And while democracies also use massive amounts of surveillance technology, it’s the tech trade relationships between authoritarian countries that’s enabling the rise of digitally enabled social control. Read the full story. 

—Tate Ryan-Mosley

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Before indie sleaze, there was DIY counterculture site Buddyhead.
+ Did you know black holes don’t actually suck anything in at all?
+ Science fiction is stuck in a loop, and can’t seem to break its fixation with cyberpunk.
+ Every now and again, TV produces a perfect episode. Here’s eight of them.

The Download: IVF embryo limbo, and Anthropic on AI agents

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Inside the strange limbo facing millions of IVF embryos

Millions of embryos created through IVF sit frozen in time, stored in cryopreservation tanks around the world. The number is only growing thanks to advances in technology, the rising popularity of IVF, and improvements in its success rates.

At a basic level, an embryo is simply a tiny ball of a hundred or so cells. But unlike other types of body tissue, it holds the potential for life. Many argue that this endows embryos with a special moral status, one that requires special protections. 

The problem is that no one can really agree on what that status is. To some, they’re human cells and nothing else. To others, they’re morally equivalent to children. Many feel they exist somewhere between those two extremes.

While these embryos persist in suspended animation, patients, clinicians, embryologists, and legislators must grapple with the essential question of what we should do with them. What do these embryos mean to us? Who should be responsible for them? Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

Anthropic’s chief scientist on 5 ways agents will be even better in 2025

Agents are the hottest thing in tech right now. Top firms from Google DeepMind to OpenAI to Anthropic are racing to augment large language models with the ability to carry out tasks by themselves. 

In October, Anthropic showed off one of the most advanced agents yet: an extension of its Claude large language model called computer use. As the name suggests, it lets you direct Claude to use a computer much as a person would, by moving a cursor, clicking buttons, and typing text. Instead of simply having a conversation with Claude, you can now ask it to carry out on-screen tasks for you.

Computer use is a glimpse of what’s to come for agents. To learn what’s coming next, MIT Technology Review talked to Anthropic’s cofounder and chief scientist Jared Kaplan. Here are five ways that agents are going to get even better in 2025.

—Melissa Heikkilä & Will Douglas Heaven

Small language models: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025

Make no mistake: Size matters in the AI world. When OpenAI launched GPT-3 back in 2020, it was the largest language model ever built. The firm showed that supersizing this type of model was enough to send performance through the roof. That kicked off a technology boom that has been sustained by bigger models ever since.

But as the marginal gains for new high-end models trail off, researchers are figuring out how to do more with less. For certain tasks, smaller models that are trained on more focused data sets can now perform just as well as larger ones—if not better. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

Small language models is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Review’s annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Blue Origin’s rocket launch has been cancelled 
Its engineers were unable to fix an issue with the New Glenn rocket’s vehicle subsystem. (BBC)
+ It’s also likely that ice blocked an essential vent line designed to expel gas. (Ars Technica)
+ The company is yet to announce a rescheduled launch date. (The Verge)

2 How is Donald Trump planning to save TikTok, exactly?
It’s unclear whether his supposed deal-making prowess will hold any sway here. (WP $)
+ TikTok founder Zhang Yiming might have a few ideas. (WSJ $)
+ It looks as though the US Supreme Court is leaning towards banning the app. (Forbes $)
+ The depressing truth about TikTok’s impending ban. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The Biden administration’s final chip export curb is here
The policy is designed to make it harder for China to circumvent restrictions. (FT $)
+ Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan won’t be restricted under the new rules. (CNN)
+ Nvidia thinks all these sanctions are only backfiring on the US. (Quartz)

4 Big Tech’s leaders are lining up to attend Trump’s inauguration
Silicon Valley’s sucking up continues. (Bloomberg $)
+ Mark Zuckerberg appears to be doing his best to secure an invite. (NYT $)
+ He seems to be entering ‘Founder Mode’ in a bid to impress Trump. (The Verge)

5 AI financial advisers are going after broke young people 
Its money management tips come with a hefty price tag. (Wired $)

6 Neuralink has implanted a brain device in a third person, according to Musk
Ahead of its plans to insert up to 30 devices this year. (Fortune $)
+ Beyond Neuralink: Meet the other companies developing brain-computer interfaces. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The future of self-driving cars is cleaved in two
Companies are divided over whether we’ll hail or own future autonomous vehicles. (NY Mag $)
+ How Wayve’s driverless cars will meet one of their biggest challenges yet. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Smartwatches are out, old-school watches are in
It’s hard to beat a wristwatch when it comes to luxury status symbols. (The Guardian)

9 Notre-Dame cathedral is full of hidden speakers
And you can fit out your home with them too—for a price. (FT $)

10 How to free up space on your iPhone
Don’t be afraid to purge those ancient duplicate photos. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“I’m worried about everything.”

—Jeff Bezos describes his (well-placed) nerves to Ars Technica ahead of his rocket company Blue Origin’s first orbital launch—which was later called off over technical issues.

The big story

AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened?

April 2024

When police departments first started buying and deploying bodycams in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a decade ago, activists hoped it would bring about real change.

Years later, despite what’s become a multibillion-dollar market for these devices, the tech is far from a panacea. Most footage they generate goes unwatched.  Officers often don’t use them properly. And if they do finally provide video to the public, it usually doesn’t tell the complete story. 

A handful of AI startups see this problem as an opportunity to create what are essentially bodycam-to-text programs for different players in the legal system, mining this footage for misdeeds. But like the bodycams themselves, the technology still faces procedural, legal, and cultural barriers to success. Read the full story.

—Patrick Sisson

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ The first big fashion trend of 2025? We’re all going basic.
+ Spoilers ahead—this list of the best film endings is great fun—including that infamous lingering final shot from Psycho.
+ If parts of your life could be better, it’s time to embrace the tiny changes that can make a real difference.
+ This Brazilian banana bread recipe sounds beyond delicious.

The Download: what’s next for AI, and stem-cell therapies

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

What’s next for AI in 2025

For the last couple of years we’ve had a go at predicting what’s coming next in AI. A fool’s game given how fast this industry moves. But we’re on a roll, and we’re doing it again.

How did we score last time round? Our four hot trends to watch out for in 2024 pretty much nailed it by including what we called customized chatbots (we didn’t know it yet, but we were talking about what everyone now calls agents, the hottest thing in AI right now), generative video, and more general-purpose robots that can do a wider range of tasks.

So what’s coming in 2025? Here are five picks from our AI team.

—James O’Donnell, Will Douglas Heaven & Melissa Heikkilä

This piece is part of MIT Technology Review’s What’s Next series, looking across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future. You can read the rest of them here.

Stem-cell therapies that work: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2025

A quarter-century ago, researchers isolated powerful stem cells from embryos created through in vitro fertilization. These cells, theoretically able to morph into any tissue in the human body, promised a medical revolution. Think: replacement parts for whatever ails you. 

But stem-cell science didn’t go smoothly. Even though scientists soon learned to create these make-anything cells without embryos, coaxing them to become truly functional adult tissue proved harder than anyone guessed. Now, though, stem cells are finally on the brink of delivering. Read the full story.

Stem-cell therapies is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, MIT Technology Review’s annual list of tech to watch. Check out the rest of the list, and cast your vote for the honorary 11th breakthrough—you have until 1 April!

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Meta will no longer employ fact-checkers 
Instead, it will outsource fact verification to its users. (NYT $)
+ What could possibly go wrong!? (WSJ $)
+ The third party groups it employed say they were blindsided by the decision. (Wired $)

2 American workers are increasingly worried about robots
The wave of automation threatening their jobs is only growing stronger. (FT $)
+ Will we ever trust robots? (MIT Technology Review)

3 NASA isn’t sure how to bring Martian rocks and soil to Earth
It’s enormously expensive, and we can’t guarantee it’ll contain the first evidence of extraterrestrial life we hope it does. (WP $)
+ NASA is letting Trump decide how to do it…(NYT $)

4 Meta has abandoned its Quest Pro headset
What does this tell us about the state of consumer VR? Nothing good. (Fast Company $)
+ Turns out people don’t want to spend $1,000 on a headset. (Forbes $)

5 The man who blew up a Cybertruck used ChatGPT to plan the attack
He asked the chatbot how much explosive was needed to trigger the blast. (Reuters)

6 Hackers claim to have stolen a huge amount of location data
It’s a nightmare scenario for privacy advocates. (404 Media) 

7 A bitcoin investor has been ordered to disclose secret codes
Frank Richard Ahlgren III has been sentenced for tax fraud, and owes the US government more than $1 million. (Bloomberg $)

8 The world is far more interconnected than we realized
Networks of bacteria in the ocean are shedding new light on old connections. (Quanta Magazine)

9 The social web isn’t made for everyone 
Its constant updates are a nightmare for people with cognitive decline. (The Atlantic $)
+ How to fix the internet. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Is Elon Musk really one of the world’s top Diablo players?
His ranking suggests he plays all day, every day. (WSJ $)

Quote of the day

“We have completely lost the plot.”

—A Meta employee laments the company’s decision to hire new board member Dana White, 404 Media reports.

The big story

How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play

June 2024

To make them feel alive, open-world games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are inhabited by vast crowds of computer-controlled characters. These animated people—called NPCs, for “nonplayer characters”—make these virtual worlds feel lived in and full. Often—but not always—you can talk to them.

After a while, however, the repetitive chitchat (or threats) of a passing stranger forces you to bump up against the truth: This is just a game. It’s still fun, but the illusion starts to weaken when you poke at it. 

It may not always be like that. Just as it is upending other industries, generative AI is opening the door to entirely new kinds of in-game interactions that are open-ended, creative, and unexpected. The game may not always have to end. Read the full story.

—Niall Firth

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)

+ Why Feathers McGraw is cinema’s most sinister villain, bar none. ($)
+ Intrepid supper clubs sound terrible, but these other travel trends for 2025 are intriguing.
+ Steve Young is a literal pinball wizard, restoring 70-year old machines for the future generations to enjoy.
+ It’s time to pay our respects to a legend: Perry, the donkey who inspired Shrek’s four-legged sidekick, is no more.