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This is today's variation of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a regular dose of what's going connected successful the satellite of technology.
Brain-computer interfaces look a captious test
Brain machine interfaces (BCIs) are electrodes enactment successful paralyzed people’s brains truthful they tin usage imagined movements to nonstop commands from their neurons done a wire, oregon via radio, to a computer. In this way, they tin power a machine cursor or, successful fewer cases, nutrient speech.
Recently, this tract has taken immoderate strides toward existent applicable applications. About 25 objective trials of BCI implants are presently underway. And this twelvemonth MIT Technology Review readers person selected these brain-computer interfaces arsenic their summation to our yearly database of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Read the afloat story.
—Antonio Regalado
How bash you thatch an AI exemplary to springiness therapy?
—James O'DonnellOn March 27, the results of the archetypal objective proceedings for a generative AI therapy bot were published, and they showed that radical successful the proceedings who had slump oregon anxiousness oregon were astatine hazard for eating disorders benefited from chatting with a bot.
I was amazed by those results. There are tons of reasons to beryllium skeptical that an AI exemplary trained to supply therapy is the solution for millions of radical experiencing a intelligence wellness crisis. But their findings suggest that the close enactment of grooming information is vital. Read the afloat story.
This communicative primitively appeared successful The Algorithm, our play newsletter connected AI. To get stories similar this successful your inbox first, sign up here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Tech companies are informing their migrant workers not to permission the US
Employees connected high-skilled visas could beryllium denied introduction backmost into the States. (WP $)
+ Officials are considering collecting citizenship applicants’ societal media data. (Associated Press)
2 OpenAI has closed 1 of the largest backstage backing rounds successful history
It plans to enactment the $40 cardinal currency injection towards gathering AGI. (The Guardian)
+ The woody values OpenAI astatine a whopping $300 billion. (CNBC)
+ The institution besides teased its archetypal open-weight exemplary successful years. (Insider $)
3 SpaceX has launched a ngo that’s ne'er been attempted before
It’s taking backstage customers connected an orbit betwixt Earth’s North and South poles. (CNN)
+ Crypto billionaire Chun Wang is footing the measure for the mission. (Reuters)
+ Europe is yet getting superior astir commercialized rockets. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Some DOGE workers are returning to their aged jobs
They’re softly heading backmost to their roles astatine X and SpaceX. (The Information $)+ Top unit were placed connected permission aft denying DOGE entree to their systems. (Wired $)
+ Can AI assistance DOGE slash authorities budgets? It’s complex. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Amazon is going all-in connected AI agents
Its caller AI exemplary Nova Act is designed to implicit tasks specified arsenic online shopping. (The Verge)
+ Why handing implicit full power to AI agents would beryllium a immense mistake. (MIT Technology Review)
6 DeepMind is making it harder for its researchers to people studies
It’s reluctant to stock innovations that rivals could capitalize on. (FT $)
7 Meet the protestors staking retired Tesla dealerships
Professors and attorneys person taken to the streets to combat back. (New Yorker $)
+ Far-right extremists are turning up to support the company. (Wired $)
8 TikTok’s hottest topic? Tariffs
Content creators are anxious to explicate what tariffs are to confused audiences. (WSJ $)
+ Donald Trump is threatening to instigate a caller scope of tariffs this week. (NY Mag $)
+ How Trump’s tariffs could thrust up the outgo of batteries, EVs, and more. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Not everyone tin look arsenic chill arsenic Nvidia’s Jensen Huang
His representation has been co-opted to beforehand knockoff leather jackets. (404 Media)
10 Microsoft has killed disconnected its Blue Screen of Death
Goodnight, saccharine prince. (Vice)
Quote of the day
“I deliberation that it is 1 of the astir beauteous spaces connected the net for idiosyncratic to fig retired who they are."
—Amanda Brennan, an net librarian who worked astatine Tumblr for 7 years, is not amazed by the influx of younger users flocking to her erstwhile workplace, Insider reports.
The large story
The quest to support farmworkers from utmost heat
October 2024
On July 21, 2024, temperatures soared successful galore parts of the world, breaking the grounds for the hottest time ever recorded connected the planet.
The pursuing day—July 22—the grounds was breached again.
But adjacent arsenic the vigor scale rises each summer, the radical moving outdoors to prime fruits, vegetables, and flowers person to support laboring.
The consequences tin beryllium severe, starring to illnesses specified arsenic vigor exhaustion, heatstroke and adjacent acute kidney injury.
Now, researchers are processing an innovative sensor that tracks aggregate captious signs with a extremity of anticipating erstwhile a idiosyncratic is astatine hazard of processing vigor unwellness and issuing an alert. If wide adopted and consistently used, it could correspond a mode to marque workers safer connected farms adjacent without important vigor protections. Read the afloat story.
—Kalena Thomhave
We tin inactive person bully things
A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon skeet 'em astatine me.)
+ Mescal! Dickinson! Quinn! Keoghan! I’m precise excited for the forthcoming Beatles biopics, adjacent if we person to hold 3 years.
+ How to navigator a delicious-looking basque cheesecake.
+ TikTokers person taken to rubbing banana peel connected their faces: but does it really bash anything?
+ Spring has hardly sprung, but manner is already looking towards fall.
English (US) ·