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.
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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.

The Download: how AI is changing internet search, and the future of privacy in the US

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 means the end of internet search as we’ve known it

We all know what it means, colloquially, to google something. You pop a few words in a search box and in return get a list of blue links to the most relevant results. Fundamentally, it’s just fetching information that’s already out there on the internet and showing it to you, in a structured way.

But all that is up for grabs. We are at a new inflection point.

The biggest change to the way search engines deliver information to us since the 1990s is happening right now. No more keyword searching. Instead, you can ask questions in natural language. And instead of links, you’ll increasingly be met with answers written by generative AI and based on live information from across the internet, delivered the same way. 

Not everyone is excited for the change. Publishers are completely freaked out. And people are also worried about what these new LLM-powered results will mean for our fundamental shared reality. Read the full story.

—Mat Honan

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.

What’s next for our privacy?

Every day, we are tracked hundreds or even thousands of times across the digital world. All of this is collected, packaged together with other details, and used to create highly personalized profiles that are then shared or sold, often without our explicit knowledge or consent.

A consensus is growing that Americans need better privacy protections—and that the best way to deliver them would be for Congress to pass comprehensive federal privacy legislation.

So what can Americans expect for their personal data in 2025? We spoke to privacy experts and advocates about what’s on their mind regarding how our digital data might be traded or protected moving forward. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

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.

How optimistic are you about AI’s future?

The start of a new year, and maybe especially this one, feels like a good time for a gut check: How optimistic are you feeling about the future of technology? 

Our annual list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies, published on Friday, might help you decide. Artificial intelligence powers four of the breakthroughs featured on the list, and I expect your feelings about them will vary widely. Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

This story is from the Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory is ready to transform our understanding of the cosmos

High atop Chile’s 2,700-meter Cerro Pachón, the air is clear and dry, leaving few clouds to block the beautiful view of the stars. It’s here that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will soon use a car-size 3,200-megapixel digital camera—the largest ever built—to produce a new map of the entire night sky every three days.

Findings from the observatory will help tease apart fundamental mysteries like the nature of dark matter and dark energy, two phenomena that have not been directly observed but affect how objects are bound together—and pushed apart. 

A quarter-­century in the making, the observatory is poised to expand our understanding of just about every corner of the universe.  Read the full story.

—Adam Mann

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory 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 A Louisiana man has died of bird flu
He’s the first person known to have died from the virus in the US. (WP $)
+ He was over 65 years old and had underlying health conditions. (NYT $)
+ The risk of a bird flu pandemic is rising. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Meta is shifting towards the right
Appointing Trump ally Dana White to its board is the latest in a string of political moves. (NYT $)
+ Mark Zuckerberg has overhauled Meta’s board in the last five years. (Bloomberg $)
+ The company recently donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. (WSJ $)

3 The Pentagon is blacklisting China’s biggest EV battery firm
CATL and other companies will be barred from doing business with it. (WP $)
+ The US is convinced they’re working with China’s military. (CNN)

4 Nvidia is working on a ‘personal AI supercomputer’
Project Digits will go on sale in May, priced at a whopping $3,000. (TechCrunch)
+ It’s based on a super secret chip, apparently. (VentureBeat)
+ CEO Jensen Huang has his sights set on humanoid robots, too. (FT $)

5 Doctors are turning to AI for note taking during appointments
It could save them hours each day—if it doesn’t mess up, that is. (FT $)
+ Artificial intelligence is infiltrating health care. We shouldn’t let it make all the decisions. (MIT Technology Review)

6 U-Haul is a treasure trove of personal user data
And hackers are exploiting it to dox or hack their victims. (404 Media)

7 New York drivers are already trying to evade congestion pricing
Subtly obscuring license plates can trick tracking cameras. (New York Post)
+ Reaction to the new charge is decidedly mixed. (NY Mag $)
+ Why EVs are (mostly) set for solid growth in 2025. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Frustrated workers are complaining about their bosses on LinkedIn
Try this at your own risk. (Insider $)

9 Men are notoriously poor at replying to text messages
And their failure to communicate could be making them lonely. (The Atlantic $)

10 You can now play Doom on a captch
What better way to prove you’re not a bot? (Vice)
+ Death to captchas. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“We have glitches that need stitches.”

—Tech entrepreneur Mike Johns describes his experience of becoming trapped in a malfunctioning self-driving car to the Guardian, nearly causing him to miss a flight.

The big story

What happens when your prescription drug becomes the center of covid misinformation

September 2021

By the time Joe Rogan mentioned ivermectin as one ingredient in an experimental cocktail he was taking to treat his covid infection, the drug was a meme. In the weeks leading up to the popular podcaster’s revelation, the drug had already become a flashpoint in the covid culture wars.

But Ivermectin isn’t some new or experimental drug: in addition to its use as an anti-parasite treatment for livestock, it’s commonly employed in humans to treat a form of rosacea, among other things. So for those of us who have been using it for years, its sudden infamy was unexpected and unwelcome. Read the full story.

—Abby Ohlheiser

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.)

+ RIP the bar cart, we barely knew you.
+ If you’ve ever wondered what happens to your unclaimed luggage, now you’ll finally have an answer.
+ This motorbike-sized tuna is a thing of beauty.
+ Happy birthday to the one and only Michael Stipe, who turned 65 over the weekend.

The Download: our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025

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.

Introducing: MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025

Each year, we spend months researching and discussing which technologies will make the cut for our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list. We try to highlight a mix of items that reflect innovations happening in various fields. We look at consumer technologies, large industrial­-scale projects, biomedical advances, changes in computing, climate solutions, the latest in AI, and more.

We’ve been publishing this list every year since 2001 and, frankly, have a great track record of flagging things that are poised to hit a tipping point. It’s hard to think of another industry that has as much of a hype machine behind it as tech does, so the real secret of the TR10 is really what we choose to leave off the list.

Check out the full list of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, which is front and center in our latest print issue. It’s all about the exciting innovations happening in the world right now, and includes some fascinating stories, such as:

+ How digital twins of human organs are set to transform medical treatment and shake up how we trial new drugs.

+ What will it take for us to fully trust robots? The answer is a complicated one.

+ Wind is an underutilized resource that has the potential to steer the notoriously dirty shipping industry toward a greener future. Read the full story.

+ After decades of frustration, machine-learning tools are helping ecologists to unlock a treasure trove of acoustic bird data—and to shed much-needed light on their migration habits. Read the full story. 

+ How poop could help feed the planet—yes, really. Read the full story.

Roundtables: Unveiling the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025

Last week, Amy Nordrum, our executive editor, joined our news editor Charlotte Jee to unveil our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 in an exclusive Roundtable discussion. Subscribers can watch their conversation back here. And, if you’re interested in previous discussions about topics ranging from mixed reality tech to gene editing to AI’s climate impact, check out some of the highlights from the past year’s events.

This international surveillance project aims to protect wheat from deadly diseases

For as long as there’s been domesticated wheat (about 8,000 years), there has been harvest-devastating rust. Breeding efforts in the mid-20th century led to rust-resistant wheat strains that boosted crop yields, and rust epidemics receded in much of the world.

But now, after decades, rusts are considered a reemerging disease in Europe, at least partly due to climate change. 

An international initiative hopes to turn the tide by scaling up a system to track wheat diseases and forecast potential outbreaks to governments and farmers in close to real time. And by doing so, they hope to protect a crop that supplies about one-fifth of the world’s calories. Read the full story.

—Shaoni Bhattacharya

The must-reads

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

1 Meta has taken down its creepy AI profiles 
Following a big backlash from unhappy users. (NBC News)
+ Many of the profiles were likely to have been live from as far back as 2023. (404 Media)
+ It also appears they were never very popular in the first place. (The Verge)

2 Uber and Lyft are racing to catch up with their robotaxi rivals
After abandoning their own self-driving projects years ago. (WSJ $)
+ China’s Pony.ai is gearing up to expand to Hong Kong.  (Reuters)

3 Elon Musk is going after NASA 
He’s largely veered away from criticising the space agency publicly—until now. (Wired $)
+ SpaceX’s Starship rocket has a legion of scientist fans. (The Guardian)
+ What’s next for NASA’s giant moon rocket? (MIT Technology Review)

4 How Sam Altman actually runs OpenAI
Featuring three-hour meetings and a whole lot of Slack messages. (Bloomberg $)
+ ChatGPT Pro is a pricey loss-maker, apparently. (TechCrunch)

5 The dangerous allure of TikTok
Migrants’ online portrayal of their experiences in America aren’t always reflective of their realities. (New Yorker $)

6 Demand for electricity is skyrocketing
And AI is only a part of it. (Economist $)
+ AI’s search for more energy is growing more urgent. (MIT Technology Review)

7 The messy ethics of writing religious sermons using AI
Skeptics aren’t convinced the technology should be used to channel spirituality. (NYT $)

8 How a wildlife app became an invaluable wildfire tracker
Watch Duty has become a safeguarding sensation across the US west. (The Guardian)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Computer scientists just love oracles  
Hypothetical devices are a surprisingly important part of computing. (Quanta Magazine)

10 Pet tech is booming
But not all gadgets are made equal. (FT $)
+ These scientists are working to extend the lifespan of pet dogs—and their owners. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“The next kind of wave of this is like, well, what is AI doing for me right now other than telling me that I have AI?”

—Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, tells Wired a lot of companies’ AI claims are overblown.

The big story

Broadband funding for Native communities could finally connect some of America’s most isolated places

September 2022

Rural and Native communities in the US have long had lower rates of cellular and broadband connectivity than urban areas, where four out of every five Americans live. Outside the cities and suburbs, which occupy barely 3% of US land, reliable internet service can still be hard to come by.

The covid-19 pandemic underscored the problem as Native communities locked down and moved school and other essential daily activities online. But it also kicked off an unprecedented surge of relief funding to solve it. Read the full story.

—Robert Chaney

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.)

+ Rollerskating Spice Girls is exactly what your Monday morning needs.
+ It’s not just you, some people really do look like their dogs!
+ I’m not sure if this is actually the world’s healthiest meal, but it sure looks tasty.
+ Ah, the old “bitten by a rabid fox chestnut.”