The Download: A bid to treat blindness, and bridging the internet divide

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 first human test of a rejuvenation method will begin “shortly”

Life Biosciences, a small Boston startup founded by Harvard professor and life-extension evangelist David Sinclair, has won FDA approval to proceed with the first targeted attempt at age reversal in human volunteers.

The company plans to try to treat eye disease with a radical rejuvenation concept called “reprogramming” that has recently attracted hundreds of millions in investment for Silicon Valley firms like Altos Labs, New Limit, and Retro Biosciences, backed by many of the biggest names in tech. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

Stratospheric internet could finally start taking off this year

Today, an estimated 2.2 billion people still have either limited or no access to the internet, largely because they live in remote places. But that number could drop this year, thanks to tests of stratospheric airships, uncrewed aircraft, and other high-altitude platforms for internet delivery.

Although Google shuttered its high-profile internet balloon project Loon in 2021, work on other kinds of high-altitude platform stations has continued behind the scenes. Now, several companies claim they have solved Loon’s problems—and are getting ready to prove the tech’s internet beaming potential starting this year. Read the full story.

—Tereza Pultarova

OpenAI’s latest product lets you vibe code science

OpenAI just revealed what its new in-house team, OpenAI for Science, has been up to. The firm has released a free LLM-powered tool for scientists called Prism, which embeds ChatGPT in a text editor for writing scientific papers.

The idea is to put ChatGPT front and center inside software that scientists use to write up their work in much the same way that chatbots are now embedded into popular programming editors. It’s vibe coding, but for science. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

MIT Technology Review Narrated: This Nobel Prize–winning chemist dreams of making water from thin air

Most of Earth is covered in water, but just 3% of it is fresh, with no salt—the kind of water all terrestrial living things need. Today, desalination plants that take the salt out of seawater provide the bulk of potable water in technologically advanced desert nations like Israel and the United Arab Emirates, but at a high cost.

Omar Yaghi, is one of three scientists who won a Nobel Prize in chemistry in October 2025 for identifying metal-­organic frameworks, or MOFs—metal ions tethered to organic molecules that form repeating structural landscapes. Today that work is the basis for a new project that sounds like science fiction, or a miracle: conjuring water out of thin air.

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 TikTok has settled its social media addiction lawsuit
Just before it was due to appear before a jury in California. (NYT $)
+ But similar claims being made against Meta and YouTube will proceed. (Bloomberg $)

2 AI CEOs have started condemning ICE violence
While simultaneously praising Trump. (TechCrunch)
+ Apple’s Tim Cook says he asked the US President to “deescalate” things. (Bloomberg $)
+ ICE seems to have a laissez faire approach to preserving surveillance footage. (404 Media)

3 Dozens of CDC vaccination databases have been frozen
They’re no longer being updated with crucial health information under RFK Jr. (Ars Technica)
+ Here’s why we don’t have a cold vaccine. Yet. (MIT Technology Review)

4 China has approved the first wave of Nvidia H200 chips
After CEO Jensen Huang’s strategic visit to the country. (Reuters)

5 Inside the rise of the AI “neolab”
They’re prioritizing longer term research breakthroughs over immediate profits. (WSJ $)

6 How Anthropic scanned—and disposed of—millions of books
In an effort to train its AI models to write higher quality text. (WP $)

7 India’s tech workers are burning out
They’re under immense pressure as AI gobbles up more jobs. (Rest of World)
+ But the country’s largest IT firm denies that AI will lead to mass layoffs. (FT $)
+ Inside India’s scramble for AI independence. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Google has forced a UK group to stop comparing YouTube to TV viewing figures
Maybe fewer people are tuning in than they’d like to admit? (FT $)

9 RIP Amazon grocery stores
The retail giant is shuttering all of its bricks and mortar shops. (CNN)
+ Amazon workers are increasingly worried about layoffs. (Insider $)

10 This computing technique could help to reduce AI’s energy demands
Enter thermodynamic computing. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Three big things we still don’t know about AI’s energy burden. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Oh my gosh y’all, IG is a drug.”

—An anonymous Meta employee remarks on Instagram’s addictive qualities in an internal  document made public as part of a social media addiction trial Meta is facing, Ars Technica reports.

One more thing

How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral

Wikipedia is the most ambitious multilingual project after the Bible: There are editions in over 340 languages, and a further 400 even more obscure ones are being developed. But many of these smaller editions are being swamped with AI-translated content. Volunteers working on four African languages, for instance, estimated to MIT Technology Review that between 40% and 60% of articles in their Wikipedia editions were uncorrected machine translations.

This is beginning to cause a wicked problem. AI systems learn new languages by scraping huge quantities of text from the internet. Wikipedia is sometimes the largest source of online linguistic data for languages with few speakers—so any errors on those pages can poison the wells that AI is expected to draw from. Volunteers are being forced to go to extreme lengths to fix the issue, even deleting certain languages from Wikipedia entirely. Read the full story. 

—Jacob Judah

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.)

+ This singing group for people in Amsterdam experiencing cognitive decline is enormously heartwarming ($)
+ I enjoyed this impassioned defense of the movie sex scene.
+ Here’s how to dress like Steve McQueen (inherent cool not included, sorry)
+ Trans women are finding a home in the beautiful Italian town of Torvajanica

The Download: OpenAI’s plans for science, and chatbot age verification

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 OpenAI’s big play for science 

—Will Douglas Heaven

In the three years since ChatGPT’s explosive debut, OpenAI’s technology has upended a remarkable range of everyday activities at home, at work, and in schools.

Now OpenAI is making an explicit play for scientists. In October, the firm announced that it had launched a whole new team, called OpenAI for Science, dedicated to exploring how its large language models could help scientists and tweaking its tools to support them.

So why now? How does a push into science fit with OpenAI’s wider mission? And what exactly is the firm hoping to achieve? I put these questions to Kevin Weil, a vice president at OpenAI who leads the new OpenAI for Science team, in an exclusive interview. Read the full story.

Why chatbots are starting to check your age

How do tech companies check if their users are kids?

This question has taken on new urgency recently thanks to growing concern about the dangers that can arise when children talk to AI chatbots. For years Big Tech asked for birthdays (that one could make up) to avoid violating child privacy laws, but they weren’t required to moderate content accordingly.

Now, two developments over the last week show how quickly things are changing in the US and how this issue is becoming a new battleground, even among parents and child-safety advocates. 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.

TR10: Commercial space stations

Humans have long dreamed of living among the stars, and for two decades hundreds of us have done so aboard the International Space Station (ISS). But a new era is about to begin in which private companies operate orbital outposts—with the promise of much greater access to space than before.

The ISS is aging and is expected to be brought down from orbit into the ocean in 2031. To replace it, NASA has awarded more than $500 million to several companies to develop private space stations, while others have built versions on their own. Read why we made them one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year, and check out the rest of the list.

The must-reads

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

1 Tech workers are pressuring their bosses to condemn ICE 
The biggest companies and their leaders have remained largely silent so far. (Axios)
+ Hundreds of employees have signed an anti-ICE letter. (NYT $)
+ Formerly politically-neutral online spaces have become battlegrounds. (WP $)

2 The US Department of Transport plans to use AI to write new safety rules
Please don’t do this. (ProPublica)
+ Failure to catch any errors could lead to civilian deaths. (Ars Technica)

3 The FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking federal agents
But free speech advocates claim the information is legally obtained. (NBC News)
+ A judge has ordered a briefing on whether Minnesota is being illegally punished. (Wired $)

4 TikTok users claim they’re unable to send “Epstein” in direct messages
But the company says it doesn’t know why. (NPR)
+ Users are also experiencing difficulty uploading anti-ICE videos. (CNN)
+ TikTok’s first weekend under US ownership hasn’t gone well. (The Verge)
+ Gavin Newsom wants to probe whether TikTok is censoring Trump-critical content. (Politico)

5 Grok is not safe for children or teens
That’s the finding of a new report digging into the chatbot’s safety measures. (TechCrunch)
+ The EU is investigating whether it disseminates illegal content, too. (Reuters)

6 The US is on the verge of losing its measles-free status
Following a year of extensive outbreaks. (Undark)
+ Measles is surging in the US. Wastewater tracking could help. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Georgia has become the latest US state to consider banning data centers
Joining Maryland and Oklahoma’s stance. (The Guardian)
+ Data centers are amazing. Everyone hates them. (MIT Technology Review)

8 The future of Saudi Arabia’s futuristic city is in peril
The Line was supposed to house 9 million people. Instead, it could become a data center hub. (FT $)
+ We got an exclusive first look at it back in 2022. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Where do Earth’s lighter elements go?
New research suggests they might be hiding deep inside its core. (Knowable Magazine)

10 AI-generated influencers are getting increasingly surreal
Featuring virtual conjoined twins, and triple-breasted women. (404 Media)
+ Why ‘nudifying’ tech is getting steadily more dangerous. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

“Humanity is about to be handed almost unimaginable power, and it is deeply unclear whether our social, political, and technological systems possess the maturity to wield it.”

—Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei sounds the alarm about what he sees as the imminent dangers of AI superintelligence in a new 38-page essay, Axios reports.

One more thing

Why one developer won’t quit fighting to connect the US’s grids

Michael Skelly hasn’t learned to take no for an answer. For much of the last 15 years, the energy entrepreneur has worked to develop long-haul transmission lines to carry wind power across the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southwest. But so far, he has little to show for the effort.

Skelly has long argued that building such lines and linking together the nation’s grids would accelerate the shift from coal- and natural-gas-fueled power plants to the renewables needed to cut the pollution driving climate change. But his previous business shut down in 2019, after halting two of its projects and selling off interests in three more.

Skelly contends he was early, not wrong. And he has a point: markets and policymakers are increasingly coming around to his perspective. 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.)

+ Cats on the cover of the New Yorker! Need I say more?
+ Here’s how to know when you truly love someone.
+ This orphaned baby seal is just too cute.
+ I always had a sneaky suspicion that Depeche Mode and the Cure make for perfect bedfellows.

The Download: why LLMs are like aliens, and the future of head transplants

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.

Meet the new biologists treating LLMs like aliens  

How large is a large language model? We now coexist with machines so vast and so complicated that nobody quite understands what they are, how they work, or what they can really do—not even the people who build them.

That’s a problem. Even though nobody fully understands how it works—and thus exactly what its limitations might be—hundreds of millions of people now use this technology every day. 

To help overcome our ignorance, researchers are studying LLMs as if they were doing biology or neuroscience on vast living creatures—city-size xenomorphs that have appeared in our midst. And they’re discovering that large language models are even weirder than they thought. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish 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.

And mechanistic interpretability, the technique these researchers are using to try and understand AI models, is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2026. Check out the rest of the list here!

Job titles of the future: Head-transplant surgeon

The Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero has been preparing for a surgery that might never happen. His idea? Swap a sick person’s head—or perhaps just the brain—onto a younger, healthier body.

Canavero caused a stir in 2017 when he announced that a team he advised in China had exchanged heads between two corpses. But he never convinced skeptics that his technique could succeed—or to believe his claim that a procedure on a live person was imminent.

Canavero may have withdrawn from the spotlight, but the idea of head transplants isn’t going away. Instead, he says, the concept has recently been getting a fresh look from life-extension enthusiasts and stealth Silicon Valley startups. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review magazine, which is all about exciting innovations. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.

The must-reads

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

1 Big Tech is facing multiple high-profile social media addiction lawsuits 
Meta, TikTok and YouTube will face parents’ accusations in court this week. (WP $)
+ It’s the first time they’re defending against these claims before a jury in a court of law. (CNN)

2 Power prices are surging in the world’s largest data center hub
Virginia is struggling to meet record demand during a winter storm, partly because of the centers’ electricity demands. (Reuters)
+ Why these kinds of violent storms are getting harder to forecast. (Vox)
+ AI is changing the grid. Could it help more than it harms? (MIT Technology Review)

3 TikTok has started collecting even more data on its users
Including precise information about their location. (Wired $)

4 ICE-watching groups are successfully fighting DHS efforts to unmask them
An anonymous account holder sued to block ICE from identifying them—and won. (Ars Technica)

5 A new wave of AI companies want to use AI to make AI better
The AI ouroboros is never-ending. (NYT $)
+ Is AI really capable of making bona fide scientific advancements? (Undark)
+ AI trained on AI garbage spits out AI garbage. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Iran is testing a two-tier internet
Meaning its current blackout could become permanent. (Rest of World)

7 Don’t believe the humanoid robot hype
Even a leading robot maker admits that at best, they’re only half as efficient as humans. (FT $)
+ Tesla wants to put its Optimus bipedal machine to work in its Austin factory. (Insider)
+ Why the humanoid workforce is running late. (MIT Technology Review)

8 AI is changing how manufacturers create new products
Including thinner chewing gum containers and new body wash odors. (WSJ $)
+ AI could make better beer. Here’s how. (MIT Technology Review)

9 New Jersey has had enough of e-bikes
But will other US states follow its lead? (The Verge)

10 Sci-fi writers are cracking down on AI
Human-produced works only, please. (TechCrunch)
+ San Diego Comic-Con was previously a safe space for AI-generated art. (404 Media)
+ Generative AI is reshaping South Korea’s webcomics industry. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Choosing American digital technology by default is too easy and must stop.”

—Nicolas Dufourcq, head of French state-owned investment bank Bpifrance, makes his case for why Big European companies should use European-made software as tensions with the US rise, the Wall Street Journal reports.

One more thing

The return of pneumatic tubes

Pneumatic tubes were once touted as something that would revolutionize the world. In science fiction, they were envisioned as a fundamental part of the future—even in dystopias like George Orwell’s 1984, where they help to deliver orders for the main character, Winston Smith, in his job rewriting history to fit the ruling party’s changing narrative.

In real life, the tubes were expected to transform several industries in the late 19th century through the mid-20th. For a while, the United States took up the systems with gusto.

But by the mid to late 20th century, use of the technology had largely fallen by the wayside, and pneumatic tube technology became virtually obsolete. Except in hospitals. Read the full story.

—Vanessa Armstrong

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.)

+ You really can’t beat the humble jacket potato for a cheap, comforting meal. 
+ These tips might help you whenever anxiety strikes. ($)
+ There are some amazing photos in this year’s Capturing Ecology awards.
+ You can benefit from meditation any time, anywhere. Give it a go!

The Download: chatbots for health, and US fights over AI regulation

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.

“Dr. Google” had its issues. Can ChatGPT Health do better?  

For the past two decades, there’s been a clear first step for anyone who starts experiencing new medical symptoms: Look them up online. The practice was so common that it gained the pejorative moniker “Dr. Google.” But times are changing, and many medical-information seekers are now using LLMs. According to OpenAI, 230 million people ask ChatGPT health-related queries each week.  

That’s the context around the launch of OpenAI’s new ChatGPT Health product, which debuted earlier this month. The big question is: can the obvious risks of using AI for health-related queries be mitigated enough for them to be a net benefit? Read the full story. 

—Grace Huckins

America’s coming war over AI regulation  

In the final weeks of 2025, the battle over regulating artificial intelligence in the US reached boiling point. On December 11, after Congress failed twice to pass a law banning state AI laws, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order seeking to handcuff states from regulating the booming industry.  

Instead, he vowed to work with Congress to establish a “minimally burdensome” national AI policy. The move marked a victory for tech titans, who have been marshaling multimillion-dollar war chests to oppose AI regulations, arguing that a patchwork of state laws would stifle innovation.

In 2026, the battleground will shift to the courts. While some states might back down from passing AI laws, others will charge ahead. Read our story about what’s on the horizon. 

—Michelle Kim

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

Measles is surging in the US. Wastewater tracking could help.

This week marked a rather unpleasant anniversary: It’s a year since Texas reported a case of measles—the start of a significant outbreak that ended up spreading across multiple states. Since the start of January 2025, there have been over 2,500 confirmed cases of measles in the US. Three people have died. 

As vaccination rates drop and outbreaks continue, scientists have been experimenting with new ways to quickly identify new cases and prevent the disease from spreading. And they are starting to see some success with wastewater surveillance. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou 

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things health and biotech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

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

1 The US is dismantling itself
A foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck its standing in the world. (Wired $)  
+ We need to talk about whether Donald Trump might be losing it.  (New Yorker $)

2 Big Tech is taking on more debt to fund its AI aspirations
And the bubble just keeps growing. (WP $)
+ Forget unicorns. 2026 is shaping up to be the year of the “hectocorn.” (The Guardian)
+ Everyone in tech agrees we’re in a bubble. They just can’t agree on what happens when it pops. (MIT Technology Review)

3 DOGE accessed even more personal data than we thought 
Even now, the Trump administration still can’t say how much data is at risk, or what it was used for. (NPR)

4 TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new US entity 
Ending years of uncertainty about its fate in America. (CNN)
+ Why China is the big winner out of all of this. (FT $)

5 The US is now officially out of the World Health Organization 
And it’s leaving behind nearly $300 million in bills unpaid. (Ars Technica) 
+ The US withdrawal from the WHO will hurt us all. (MIT Technology Review)

6 AI-powered disinformation swarms pose a threat to democracy
A would-be autocrat could use them to persuade populations to accept cancelled elections or overturn results. (The Guardian)
+ The era of AI persuasion in elections is about to begin. (MIT Technology Review)

7 We’re about to start seeing more robots everywhere
But exactly what they’ll look like remains up for debate. (Vox $)
+ Chinese companies are starting to dominate entire sectors of AI and robotics. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Some people seem to be especially vulnerable to loneliness
If you’re ‘other-directed’, you could particularly benefit from less screentime. (New Scientist $)

9 This academic lost two years of work with a single click
TL;DR: Don’t rely on ChatGPT to store your data. (Nature)

10 How animals develop a sense of direction 
Their ‘internal compass’ seems to be informed by landmarks that help them form a mental map. (Quanta $)

Quote of the day

“The rate at which AI is progressing, I think we have AI that is smarter than any human this year, and no later than next year.”

—Elon Musk simply cannot resist the urge to make wild predictions at Davos, Wired reports. 

One more thing

ADAM DETOUR

Africa fights rising hunger by looking to foods of the past

After falling steadily for decades, the prevalence of global hunger is now on the rise—nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Africa’s indigenous crops are often more nutritious and better suited to the hot and dry conditions that are becoming more prevalent, yet many have been neglected by science, which means they tend to be more vulnerable to diseases and pests and yield well below their theoretical potential.

Now the question is whether researchers, governments, and farmers can work together in a way that gets these crops onto plates and provides Africans from all walks of life with the energy and nutrition that they need to thrive, whatever climate change throws their way. Read the full story.

—Jonathan W. Rosen

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 only thing I fancy dry this January is a martini. Here’s how to make one.
+ If you absolutely adore the Bic crystal pen, you might want this lamp. 
+ Cozy up with a nice long book this winter. ($)
+ Want to eat healthier? Slow down and tune out food ‘noise’. ($)

The Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise

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.

Yann LeCun’s new venture is a contrarian bet against large language models    

Yann LeCun is a Turing Award recipient and a top AI researcher, but he has long been a contrarian figure in the tech world. He believes that the industry’s current obsession with large language models is wrong-headed and will ultimately fail to solve many pressing problems.  

Instead, he thinks we should be betting on world models—a different type of AI that accurately reflects the dynamics of the real world. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that he recently left Meta, where he had served as chief scientist for FAIR (Fundamental AI Research), the company’s influential research lab that he founded. 

LeCun sat down with MIT Technology Review in an exclusive online interview from his Paris apartment to discuss his new venture, life after Meta, the future of artificial intelligence, and why he thinks the industry is chasing the wrong ideas. Read the full interview. 

—Caiwei Chen

Why 2026 is a hot year for lithium

—Casey Crownhart

In 2026, I’m going to be closely watching the price of lithium.

If you’re not in the habit of obsessively tracking commodity markets, I certainly don’t blame you. (Though the news lately definitely makes the case that minerals can have major implications for global politics and the economy.)

But lithium is worthy of a close look right now. The metal is crucial for lithium-ion batteries used in phones and laptops, electric vehicles, and large-scale energy storage arrays on the grid. 

Prices have been on quite the roller coaster over the last few years, and they’re ticking up again. What happens next could have big implications for mining and battery technology. Read the full story. This story first appeared in The Spark, our newsletter all about the tech we can use to combat the climate crisis. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.  

The must-reads

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

1 Trump has climbed down from his plan for the US to take Greenland 
To the relief of many across Europe. (BBC)
+ Trump says he’s agreed a deal to access Greenland’s rare earths. Experts say that’s ‘bonkers.’ (CNN)
+ European leaders are feeling flummoxed about what’s going on. (FT $)

2 Apple is reportedly developing a wearable AI pin
It’s still in the very early stages—but this could be a huge deal if it makes it to launch. (The Information $)
+ It’s also planning to revamp Siri and turn it into an AI chatbot. (Bloomberg $)
+ Are we ready to trust AI with our bodies? (MIT Technology Review)

3 CEOs say AI saves people time. Their employees disagree.
Many even say that it’s currently dragging down their productivity. (WSJ $)
+ The AI boom will increase US carbon emissions—but it doesn’t have to. (Wired $)
+ Let’s also not forget that large language models remain a security nightmare. (IEEE Spectrum)

4 This chart shows how measles cases are exploding in America
They’ve hit a 30-year high, with the US on track to lose its ‘elimination status.’ (Axios $)
+ Things are poised to get even worse this year. (Wired $)

5 Your first humanoid robot coworker will almost definitely be Chinese
But will it be truly useful? That’s the even bigger question. (Wired $)
+ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says Europe could do more to compete in robotics and AI. (CNBC)

6 Bezos’ Blue Origin is about to compete with Starlink
It plans to send the first ‘TeraWave’ satellites into space next year. (Reuters $)
+ On the ground in Ukraine’s largest Starlink repair shop. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Trump’s family made $1.4 billion off crypto last year 
Move along, no conflicts of interest to see here. (Bloomberg $)

8 Comic-Con has banned AI art
After an artist-led backlash last week. (404 Media)
+ Hundreds of creatives are warning against an AI future built on ‘theft on a grand scale’. (The Verge $)

9 What it’s like living without a smartphone for a month
Potentially blissful for you, but probably a bit annoying for everyone else. (The Guardian)
+ Why teens with ADHD are particularly vulnerable to the perils of social media. (Nature) 

10 Elon Musk is feuding with a budget airline 
The airline is winning, in case you wondered. (WP $)

Quote of the day

“I wouldn’t edit anything about Donald Trump, because the man makes me insane.”

—Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tells Wired why he’s steering clear of the US President’s page.   

One more thing

BOB O’CONNOR

How electricity could help tackle a surprising climate villain

Cement hides in plain sight—it’s used to build everything from roads and buildings to dams and basement floors. But it’s also a climate threat. Cement production accounts for more than 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions—more than sectors like aviation, shipping, or landfills.

One solution to this climate catastrophe might be coursing through the pipes at Sublime Systems. The startup is developing an entirely new way to make cement. Instead of heating crushed-up rocks in lava-hot kilns, Sublime’s technology zaps them in water with electricity, kicking off chemical reactions that form the main ingredients in its cement.

But it faces huge challenges: competing with established industry players, and persuading builders to use its materials in the first place. Read the full story.

—Casey Crownhart

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.)

+ Earth may be a garbage fire, but space is beautiful. 
+ Do you know how to tie your shoelaces up properly? Are you sure?!
+ I defy British readers not to feel a pang of nostalgia at these crisp packets.
+ Going to bed around the same time every night seems to be a habit worth adopting. ($)

The Download: Trump at Davos, and AI scientists

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.

All anyone wants to talk about at Davos is AI and Donald Trump

—Mat Honan, MIT Technology Review’s editor in chief 

At Davos this year Trump is dominating all the side conversations. There are lots of little jokes. Nervous laughter. Outright anger. Fear in the eyes. It’s wild. The US president is due to speak here today, amid threats of seizing Greenland and fears that he’s about to permanently fracture the NATO alliance.

But Trump isn’t the only game in town—everyone’s also talking about AI. Read Mat’s story to find out more. 

This subscriber-only story appeared first in The Debrief, Mat’s weekly newsletter about the biggest stories in tech. Sign up here to get the next one in your inbox, and subscribe if you haven’t already!

The UK government is backing AI that can run its own lab experiments

A number of startups and university teams that are building “AI scientists” to design and run experiments in the lab, including robot biologists and chemists, have just won extra funding from the UK government agency that funds moonshot R&D.  

The competition, set up by ARIA (the Advanced Research and Invention Agency), gives a clear sense of how fast this technology is moving: The agency received 245 proposals from research teams that are already building tools capable of automating increasing amounts of lab work. Read the full story to learn more. 

—Will Douglas Heaven 

Everyone wants AI sovereignty. No one can truly have it.

—Cathy Li is head of the Centre for AI Excellence at the World Economic Forum

Governments plan to pour $1.3 trillion into AI infrastructure by 2030 to invest in “sovereign AI,” with the premise being that countries should be in control of their own AI capabilities. The funds include financing for domestic data centers, locally trained models, independent supply chains, and national talent pipelines. 

This is a response to real shocks: covid-era supply chain breakdowns, rising geopolitical tensions, and the war in Ukraine. But the pursuit of absolute autonomy is running into reality: AI supply chains are irreducibly global. If sovereignty is to remain meaningful, it must shift from defensive self-reliance to a vision that balances national autonomy with strategic partnership. Read the full story.

Here’s how extinct DNA could help us in the present—and the future

Thanks to genetic science, gene editing, and techniques like cloning, it’s now possible to move DNA through time, studying genetic information in ancient remains and then re-creating it in the bodies of modern beings. And that, scientists say, offers new ways to try to help endangered species, engineer new plants that resist climate change, or even create new human medicines.  

Read more about why genetic resurrection is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year, and check out the rest of the list.

The must-reads

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

1 The White House wants Americans to embrace AI
It faces an uphill battle—the US public is mostly pretty gloomy about AI’s impact. (WP $) 
+ What’s next for AI in 2026. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The UN says we’re entering an “era of water bankruptcy” 
And it’s set to affect the vast majority of us on the planet. (Reuters $)
+ Water shortages are fueling the protests in Iran. (Undark) 
+ This Nobel Prize–winning chemist dreams of making water from thin air. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How is US science faring after a year of Trump?
Not that well, after proposed budget cuts amounting to $32 billion. (Nature $)
+ The foundations of America’s prosperity are being dismantled. (MIT Technology Review) 

4 We need to talk about the early career AI jobs crisis 
Young people are graduating and finding there simply aren’t any roles for them to do. (NY Mag $)
+ AI companies are fighting to win over teachers. (Axios $)
+ Chinese universities want students to use more AI, not less. (MIT Technology Review)

5 The AI boyfriend business is booming in China
And it’s mostly geared towards Gen Z women. (Wired $)
+ It’s surprisingly easy to stumble into a relationship with an AI chatbot. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 Snap has settled a social media addiction lawsuit ahead of a trial 
However the other defendants, including Meta, TikTok and YouTube, are still fighting it. (BBC)
+ A new study is going to examine the effects of restricting social media for children. (The Guardian)

7 Here are some of the best ideas of this century so far
From smartphones to HIV drugs, the pace of progress has been dizzying. (New Scientist $)

8 Robots may be on the cusp of becoming very capable
Until now, their role in the world of work has been limited. AI could radically change that. (FT $)
+ Why the humanoid workforce is running late. (MIT Technology Review)

9 Scientists are racing to put a radio telescope on the moon 
If they succeed, it will be able to ‘hear’ all the way back to over 13 billion years ago, just 380,000 years after the big bang. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Inside the quest to map the universe with mysterious bursts of radio energy. (MIT Technology Review) 

10 It turns out cows can use tools
What will we discover next? Flying pigs?! (Futurism)

Quote of the day

“We’re still staggering along, but I don’t know for how much longer. I don’t have the energy any more.”

—A researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration tells Nature they and their colleagues are exhausted by the Trump administration’s attacks on science.  

One more thing

Palmer Luckey on the Pentagon’s future of mixed reality

Palmer Luckey has, in some ways, come full circle.  

His first experience with virtual-reality headsets was as a teenage lab technician at a defense research center in Southern California, studying their potential to curb PTSD symptoms in veterans. He then built Oculus, sold it to Facebook for $2 billion, left Facebook after a highly public ousting, and founded Anduril, which focuses on drones, cruise missiles, and other AI-enhanced technologies for the US Department of Defense. The company is now valued at $14 billion.

Now Luckey is redirecting his energy again, to headsets for the military. He spoke to MIT Technology Review about his plans. Read the full interview.

—James O’Donnell

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 want to skip around every single one of these beautiful gardens.
+ Your friends help you live longer. Isn’t that nice of them?!
+ Brb, just buying a pharaoh headdress for my cat.
+ Consider this your annual reminder that you don’t need a gym membership or fancy equipment to get fitter.

The Download: digitizing India, and scoring 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.

The man who made India digital isn’t done yet

Nandan Nilekani can’t stop trying to push India into the future. He started nearly 30 years ago, masterminding an ongoing experiment in technological state capacity that started with Aadhaar—the world’s largest digital identity system. 

Using Aadhaar as the bedrock, Nilekani and people working with him went on to build a sprawling collection of free, interoperating online tools that add up to nothing less than a digital infrastructure for society, covering government services, banking, and health care. They offer convenience and access that would be eye-popping in wealthy countries a tenth of India’s size. 

At 70 years old, Nilekani should be retired. But he has a few more ideas. Read our profile to learn about what he’s set his sights on next.

—Edd Gent

Embryo scoring is slowly becoming more mainstream

Many Americans agree that it’s acceptable to screen embryos for severe genetic diseases. Far fewer say it’s okay to test for characteristics related to a future child’s appearance, behavior, or intelligence. But a few startups are now advertising what they claim is a way to do just that.

This new kind of testing—which can cost up to $50,000—is incredibly controversial. Nevertheless, the practice has grown popular in Silicon Valley, and it’s becoming more widely available to everyone. Read the full story. 

—Julia Black
Embryo scoring is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Check out what else made the list, and scroll down to vote for the technology you think deserves the 11th slot.

Five AI predictions for 2026

What will surprise us most about AI in 2026?

Tune in at 12.30pm today to hear me, our senior AI editor Will Douglas Heaven and senior AI reporter James O’Donnell discuss our “5 AI Predictions for 2026”. This special LinkedIn Live event will explore the trends that are poised to transform the next twelve months of AI. The conversation will also offer a first glimpse at EmTech AI 2026, MIT Technology Review’s longest running AI event for business leadership. Sign up to join us later today! 

The must-reads

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

1 Europe is trying to build its own DeepSeek
That’s been a goal for a while, but US hostility is making those efforts newly urgent. (Wired $)
+ Plenty of Europeans want to wean off US technology. That’s easier said than done. (New Scientist $)
+ DeepSeek may have found a new way to improve AI’s ability to remember. (MIT Technology Review $)

2 Ship-tracking data shows China is creating massive floating barriers
The maneuvers show that Beijing can now rapidly muster large numbers of the boats in disputed seas. (NYT $)
+ Quantum navigation could solve the military’s GPS jamming problem. (MIT Technology Review)

3 The AI bubble risks disrupting the global economy, says the IMF
But it’s hard to see anyone pumping the brakes any time soon. (FT $)
+ British politicians say the UK is being exposed to ‘serious harm’ by AI risks. (The Guardian)
+ What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)

4 Cryptocurrencies are dying in record numbers
In an era of one-off joke coins and pump and dump scams, that’s surely a good thing. (Gizmodo)
+ President Trump has pardoned a lot of people who’ve committed financial crimes. (NBC)

5 Threads has more global daily mobile users than X now
And once-popular alternative Bluesky barely even makes the charts. (Forbes)

6 The UK is considering banning under 16s from social media 
Just weeks after a similar ban took effect in Australia. (BBC)

7 You can burn yourself out with AI coding agents 
They could be set to make experienced programmers busier than ever before. (Ars Technica)
+ Why Anthropic’s Claude Code is taking the AI world by storm. (WSJ $)
+ AI coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Some tech billionaires are leaving California 
Not all though—the founders of Nvidia and Airbnb say they’ll stay and pay the 5% wealth tax. (WP $)
+ Tech bosses’ support for Trump is paying off for them big time. (FT $)

9 Matt Damon says Netflix tells directors to repeat movie plots
To accommodate all the people using their phones. (NME)

10 Why more people are going analog in 2026 
Crafting, reading, and other screen-free hobbies are on the rise. (CNN)
+ Dumbphones are becoming popular too—but it’s worth thinking hard before you switch. (Wired $)

Quote of the day

‘It may sound like American chauvinism…and it is. We’re done apologising about that.”

—Thomas Dans, a Trump appointee who heads the US Arctic Research Commission, tells the FT his boss is deadly serious about acquiring Greenland. 

One more thing

BRUCE PETERSON

Inside the fierce, messy fight over “healthy” sugar tech

On the outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia, a new kind of sugar factory is taking shape. The facility is being developed by a startup called Bonumose. It uses a processed corn product called maltodextrin that is found in many junk foods and is calorically similar to table sugar (sucrose). 

But for Bonumose, maltodextrin isn’t an ingredient—it’s a raw material. When it’s poured into the company’s bioreactors, what emerges is tagatose. Found naturally in small concentrations in fruit, some grains, and milk, it is nearly as sweet as sucrose but apparently with only around half the calories, and wider health benefits.

Bonumose’s process originated in a company spun out of the Virginia Tech lab of Yi-Heng “Percival” Zhang. When MIT Technology Review spoke to Zhang, he was sitting alone in an empty lab in Tianjin, China, after serving a two-year sentence of supervised release in Virginia for conspiracy to defraud the US government, making false statements, and obstruction of justice. If sugar is the new oil, the global battle to control it has already begun. Read the full story. 

—Mark Harris

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.)

+ Paul Mescal just keeps getting cooler.
+ Make this year calmer with these evidence-backed tips. ($)
+ I can confirm that Lumie wake-up lamps really are worth it (and no one paid me to say so!)
+ There are some real gems in Green Day’s bassist Mike Dirnt’s favorite albums list.

The Download: the US digital rights crackdown, and AI companionship

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 it’s like to be banned from the US for fighting online hate  

Just before Christmas the Trump administration dramatically escalated its war on digital rights by banning five people from entering the US. One of them, Josephine Ballon, is a director of HateAid, a small German nonprofit founded to support the victims of online harassment and violence. The organization is a strong advocate of EU tech regulations, and so finds itself attacked in campaigns from right-wing politicians and provocateurs who claim that it engages in censorship. 

EU officials, freedom of speech experts, and the five people targeted all flatly reject these accusations. Ballon told us that their work is fundamentally about making people feel safer online. But their experiences over the past few weeks show just how politicized and besieged their work in online safety has become. Read the full story. 

—Eileen Guo

TR10: AI companions

Chatbots are skilled at crafting sophisticated dialogue and mimicking empathetic behavior. They never get tired of chatting. It’s no wonder, then, that so many people now use them for companionship—forging friendships or even romantic relationships. 

72% of US teenagers have used AI for companionship, according to a study from the nonprofit Common Sense Media. But while chatbots can provide much-needed emotional support and guidance for some people, they can exacerbate underlying problems in others—especially vulnerable people or those with mental health issues. 

Although some early attempts to regulate this space are underway, AI companionship is going nowhere. Read why we made it one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year, and check out the rest of the list.

And, if you want to learn more about what we predict for AI this year, sign up to join me for our free LinkedIn Live event tomorrow at 12.30pm ET.

Why inventing new emotions feels so good  

Have you ever felt “velvetmist”?  

It’s a “complex and subtle emotion that elicits feelings of comfort, serenity, and a gentle sense of floating.” It’s peaceful, but more ephemeral and intangible than contentment. It might be evoked by the sight of a sunset or a moody, low-key album.  

If you haven’t ever felt this sensation—or even heard of it—that’s not surprising. A Reddit user generated it with ChatGPT, along with advice on how to evoke the feeling. Don’t scoff: Researchers say more and more terms for these “neo-­emotions” are showing up online, describing new dimensions and aspects of feeling. Read our story to learn more about why. 

—Anya Kamenetz

This story is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive the next edition as soon as it lands (and benefit from some hefty seasonal discounts too!)

The must-reads

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

1 Ads are coming to ChatGPT 
For American users initially, with plans to expand soon. (CNN)
+ Here’s how they’ll work. (Wired $)

2 What will we be able to salvage after the AI bubble bursts? 
It will be ugly, but there are plenty of good uses for AI that we’ll want to keep. (The Guardian) 
+ What even is the AI bubble? (MIT Technology Review)

3 It’s almost impossible to mine Greenland’s natural resources 
It has vast supplies of rare earth elements, but its harsh climate and environment make them very hard to access. (The Week)

4 Iran is now 10 days into its internet shutdown
It’s one of the longest and most extreme we’ve ever witnessed. (BBC)
+  Starlink isn’t proving as helpful as hoped as the regime finds ways to jam it. (Reuters $)
+ Battles are raging online about what’s really going on inside Iran. (NYT $)

5 America is heading for a polymarket disaster 
Prediction markets are getting out of control, and some people are losing a lot of money. (The Atlantic $)
+ They were first embraced by political junkies, but now they’re everywhere. (NYT $)

6 How to fireproof a city 
Californians are starting to fight fires before they can even start. (The Verge $)
+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Stoking ‘deep state’ conspiracy theories can be dangerous 
Especially if you’re then given the task of helping run one of those state institutions, as Dan Bongino is now learning. (WP $)
+ Why everything is a conspiracy now. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Why we’re suddenly all having a ‘Very Chinese Time’ 
It’s a fun, flippant trend—but it also shows how China’s soft power is growing around the globe. (Wired $) 

9 Why there’s no one best way to store information
Each one involves trade-offs between space and time. (Quanta $)

10 Meat may play a surprising role in helping people reach 100
Perhaps because it can assist with building stronger muscles and bones. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“That’s the level of anxiety now – people watching the skies and the seas themselves because they don’t know what else to do.”

—A Greenlander tells The Guardian just how seriously she and her fellow compatriots are taking Trump’s threat to invade their country. 

One more thing

KATHERINE LAM

Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there

Gavesh’s journey started, seemingly innocently, with a job ad on Facebook promising work he desperately needed.

Instead, he found himself trafficked into a business commonly known as “pig butchering”—a form of fraud in which scammers form close relationships with targets online and extract money from them. The Chinese crime syndicates behind the scams have netted billions of dollars, and they have used violence and coercion to force their workers, many of them trafficked like Gavesh, to carry out the frauds from large compounds, several of which operate openly in the quasi-lawless borderlands of Myanmar.

Big Tech may hold the key to breaking up the scam syndicates—if these companies can be persuaded or compelled to act. Read the full story.

—Peter Guest & Emily Fishbein

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.)

+ Blue Monday isn’t real (but it is an absolute banger of a track.) 
+ Some great advice here about how to be productive during the working day.
+ Twelfth Night is one of Shakespeare’s most fun plays—as these top actors can attest. 
+ If the cold and dark gets to you, try making yourself a delicious bowl of soup. 

The Download: cut through AI coding hype, and biotech trends to watch

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 coding is now everywhere. But not everyone is convinced.  

Depending who you ask, AI-powered coding is either giving software developers an unprecedented productivity boost or churning out masses of poorly designed code that saps their attention and sets software projects up for serious long term-maintenance problems. 

The problem is right now, it’s not easy to know which is true. 

As tech giants pour billions into large language models (LLMs), coding has been touted as the technology’s killer app. Executives enamored with the potential are pushing engineers to lean into an AI-powered future. But after speaking to more than 30 developers, technology executives, analysts, and researchers, MIT Technology Review found that the picture is not as straightforward as it might seem. Read the full story. 

—Edd Gent

Generative coding is one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Learn more about why that is, and check out the rest of the list! 

This story was also part of our Hype Correction package. You can read the rest of the stories here.

The biotech trends to watch for in 2026

Earlier this week, MIT Technology Review published our annual list of Ten Breakthrough Technologies. 

This year’s list includes tech that’s set to transform the energy industry, artificial intelligence, space travel—and of course biotech and health. Our breakthrough biotechnologies for 2026 involve editing a baby’s genes and, separately, resurrecting genes from ancient species. We also included a controversial technology that offers parents the chance to screen their embryos for characteristics like height and intelligence. Here’s the story behind our biotech choices.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter all about the latest in health and biotech. Sign upto receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: What’s next for AI in 2026

Our AI writers have made some big bets for the coming year—read our story about the five hot trends to watch, or listen to it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The must-reads

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

1 Minnesota shows how governing and content creation have merged
In another era, we’d have just called this propaganda. (NPR)
+ MAGA influencers are just straight up lying about what is happening there. (Vox) 
+ Activists are trying to identify individual ICE officers while protecting their own identities. (WP $)
+ A backlash against ICE is growing in Silicon Valley. (Wired $)
 
2 There’s probably more child abuse material online now than ever before
Of all Big Tech’s failures, this is surely the most appalling. (The Atlantic $)
+ US investigators are using AI to detect child abuse images made by AI. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Grok is still being used to undress images of real people. (Quartz)
 
3 ChatGPT wrote a suicide lullaby for a man who later killed himself
This shows it’s “still an unsafe product,” a lawyer representing a family in a tragically similar case said. (Ars Technica)
+ An AI chatbot told a user how to kill himself—but the company doesn’t want to “censor” it. (MIT Technology Review)
 
4 Videos emerging from Iran show how bloody the crackdown has become
Iranians are finding ways around the internet blackout to show the rest of the world how many of them have been killed. (NBC) 
+ Here’s how they’re getting around the blackout. (NPR) 
 
5 China dominates the global humanoid robot market 
A new report by analysts found its companies account for over 80% of all deployments. (South China Morning Post) 
+ Just how useful are the latest humanoids, though? (Nature)
+ Why humanoid robots need their own safety rules. (MIT Technology Review)
 
6 How is Australia’s social media ban for kids going? 
It’s mixed—some teens welcome it, but others are finding workarounds. (CNBC)
 
7 Scientists are finding more objective ways to spot mental illness 
Biomarkers like voice cadence and heart rate proving pretty reliable for diagnosing conditions like depression. (New Scientist $)
 
8 The Pebble smartwatch be making a comeback
This could be the thing that tempts me back into buying wearables… (Gizmodo)
 
9 A new video game traps you in an online scam center
Can’t see the appeal myself, but… each to their own I guess? (NYT $)
 
10 Smoke detectors are poised to get a high-tech upgrade 
And one of the technologies boosting their capabilities is, of course, AI. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“I am very annoyed. I’m very disappointed. I’m seriously frustrated.” 

—Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla tells attendees at a healthcare conference this week his feelings about the anti-vaccine agenda Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been implementing, Bloomberg reports.

One more thing

ARIEL DAVIS

How close are we to genuine “mind reading?”

Technically speaking, neuroscientists have been able to read your mind for decades. It’s not easy, mind you. First, you must lie motionless within a fMRI scanner, perhaps for hours, while you watch films or listen to audiobooks. 

If you do elect to endure claustrophobic hours in the scanner, the software will learn to generate a bespoke reconstruction of what you were seeing or listening to, just by analyzing how blood moves through your brain.

More recently, researchers have deployed generative AI tools, like Stable Diffusion and GPT, to create far more realistic, if not entirely accurate, reconstructions of films and podcasts based on neural activity. So how close are we to genuine “mind reading?” Read the full story.

—Grace Huckins

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.)

+ Still keen to do a bit of reflecting on the year behind and the one ahead? This free guide might help!
+ Turns out British comedian Rik Mayall had some pretty solid life advice.
+ I want to stay in this house in São Paolo.  
+ If you want to stop doomscrolling, it’s worth looking at your sleep habits. ($)

The Download: spying on the spies, and promising climate tech

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.

Meet the man hunting the spies in your smartphone

In April 2025, Ronald Deibert left all electronic devices at home in Toronto and boarded a plane. When he landed in Illinois, he bought a new laptop and iPhone. He wanted to reduce the risk of having his personal devices confiscated, because he knew his work made him a prime target for surveillance. “I’m traveling under the assumption that I am being watched, right down to exactly where I am at any moment,” Deibert says. 

Deibert directs the Citizen Lab, a research center he founded in 2001 to serve as “counterintelligence for civil society.” Housed at the University of Toronto, it’s one of the few institutions that investigate cyberthreats exclusively in the public interest, and in doing so, it has exposed some of the most egregious digital abuses of the past two decades.

For many years, Deibert and his colleagues have held up the US as the standard for liberal democracy. But that’s changing. Read the full story.

—Finian Hazen

This story is from the latest issue of our print magazine. If you subscribe now to receive future copies when they land you’ll benefit from some big discounts, and get a free tote bag! 

Three climate technologies breaking through in 2026  

—Casey Crownhart 

Happy New Year! I know it’s a bit late to say, but it never quite feels like the year has started until the new edition of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list comes out. 

For 25 years, MIT Technology Review has put together this package, which highlights the technologies that we think are going to matter in the future. This year’s version has a bunch of climate and energy picks including sodium-ion batteries, next-generation nuclear, and hyperscale AI data centers. Let’s take a look at what ended up on the list, and what it says about this moment for climate tech. 

This story ran in The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about the technologies we can use to combat climate change. Sign up to get it in your inbox first every Wednesday. 

And, if you’re keen to learn more about why AI companies are betting big on next-gen nuclear, join us for an exclusive subscriber-only Roundtable event on Wednesday January 28 at 2pm ET. 

The must-reads

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

1 AI companies are now deeply entwined with the US military
And it looks like they’re only set to get closer. (Wired $)
+ Three open questions about the Pentagon’s push for generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Grok will comply with local laws, X has said
A global backlash over users creating ‘undressing’ images of real people seems to have forced its hand. (BBC)
+ So far there’s no evidence it’s actually following through on that promise though. (The Verge)
+ Elon Musk could stop it all instantly if he                         wanted to. (Engadget)

3 The risks of using AI in schools outweigh the benefits
According to a sweeping new study by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education. (NPR)
+ AI’s giants are trying to take over the classroom. (MIT Technology Review)  

4 Trump is imposing new tariffs on high-end chips
They’re pretty narrow though, and leave plenty of room for exports to China. (WP $)
+ Zhipu AI says it’s trained its first major model entirely on Chinese chips. (South China Morning Post)

5 A UK police force blamed Microsoft Copilot for an intelligence error 
After spending weeks denying it was using AI tools at all. (Ars Technica)
+ Worried about police and lawyers using AI? Well, judges are at it too. (MIT Technology Review) 

6 Inside the compounds where the fraud industry makes its billions
The details are grim—for example the fact workers struck a gong every time they scammed someone out of $5,000. (NYT $)
+ Inside a romance scam compound—and how people get tricked into being there. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Bandcamp has banned purely AI-generated music from its platform 
It’s the first online music platform to take this step. (Billboard)
+ Can AI generate new ideas? (NYT $)

8 Remember Havana Syndrome? The US may have found the device that causes it
It was acquired for millions of dollars under the last administration, and it’s still being studied. (CNN)

9 This study failed to prove social media time causes teens’ mental health issues
It’s a common assumption, but there’s still remarkably little evidence to back it up. (The Guardian)

10 The UK is planning to build a record-breaking number of wind farms
Its government is pushing for the vast majority of the country’s electricity to come from clean sources by 2030. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“Women and girls are far more reluctant to use AI. This should be no surprise to any of us. Women don’t see this as exciting new technology, but as simply new ways to harass and abuse us and try and push us offline.”

—Clare McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University, tells The Guardian she fears that the use of AI to harm women and girls is only going to grow. 

One more thing

DANIEL STOLLE

Inside the little-known group setting the corporate climate agenda

As thousands of companies trumpet their plans to cut carbon pollution, a small group of sustainability consultants has emerged as the go-to arbiter of corporate climate action.

The Science Based Targets initiative, or SBTi, helps businesses develop a timetable for action to shrink their climate footprint through some combination of cutting greenhouse-gas pollution and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. After years of small-scale sustainability work, SBTi is growing rapidly, and governments are paying attention. 

But while the group has earned praise for reeling the private sector into constructive conversations about climate emissions, its rising influence has also attracted scrutiny and raised questions about why a single organization is setting the standards for many of the world’s largest companies. Read the full story.

—Ian Morse

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 leaders of Japan and South Korea drummed up a viral moment with a jam session this week. 
+ Struggle during the cold, dark winter months? Here’s how to make things easier for yourself. 
+ If you like getting lost in the depths of Wikipedia, Freakpages is for you. 
+ From Pluribus to Stranger Things, we really can’t get enough of hive mindsin stories lately. ($)