Articles by Technology Review from December 2020

Americas first confirmed wrongful arrest by facial recognition technology happened in January 2020. Robert Williams, a Black man, was arrested in his driveway just outside Detroit, with his wife and y...

A spacesuit is more like a miniature spacecraft you wear around your body than an item of clothing. Its pressurized, its decked out with life support systems, and its likely to look pretty cool. But s...

Valerie Fitzhugh has watched the news a lot more over the past four years, certainly more than she remembers doing at any other point in her life. In the first months of the pandemic, she kept hearing...

When Joe Biden takes over the US presidency on January 20, 2021, he intends to make climate change a centerpiece of his administration. As well as rejoining the Paris agreement, reinforcing the Clean ...

The consensus is that 2020 has been the worst. But there is reason to look back at this year and find the unexpected silver linings of quarantine, particularly when it comes to how we connect with oth...

In 2018, Sam Cole, a reporter at Motherboard, discovered a new and disturbing corner of the internet. A Reddit user by the name of deepfakes was posting nonconsensual fake porn videos using an AI algo...

This spring, while the US government was spinning its wheels on an official covid-19 response, countries around the world were rolling out national contact tracing apps. Beginning with Singapore in mi...

Earlier this month a mutated variant of the coronavirus was detected in the UK, setting off alarms across Europe and causing some countries to ban travelers from Britain. But its still not clear that ...

There are two stories you hear about making a living as an artist in the digital age, and they are diametrically opposed. One comes from Silicon Valley and its boosters in the media. Theres never been...

Experts are debating the pros and cons of covid-19 vaccine passports or other types of certification as they attempt to begin reopening public spaces. The idea seems simple on its face: those who can ...

On November 30, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lijian Zhao pinned an image to his Twitter profile. In it, a soldier stands on an Australian flag and grins maniacally as he holds a bloodied knife t...

Many companies expected 2020 to be a challenging year. They anticipated technological shifts that would affect their businesslike the transition from combustion to electric vehicles for automotive man...

In some stores, sophisticated systems are tracking customers in almost every imaginable way, from recognizing their faces to gauging their age, their mood, and virtually gussying them up with makeup. ...

In some stores, sophisticated systems are tracking customers in almost every imaginable way, from recognizing their faces to gauging their age, their mood, and virtually gussying them up with makeup. ...

In part-three of this latest series, Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review jump on the court to unpack just how much things are changing.  We meet: Donnie Scott, senior vice presi...

In part-three of this latest series, Jennifer Strong and the team at MIT Technology Review jump on the court to unpack just how much things are changing.  We meet: Donnie Scott, senior vice presi...

What seemed so impossible at the beginning of the pandemic is now real: vaccines are here, in record time. They bring much-needed hope to a holiday season shadowed by death and fear. While authorities...

When resident physicians at Stanford Medical Centermany of whom work on the frontlines of the covid-19 pandemicfound out that only seven out of over 1,300 of them had been prioritized for the first 5,...

A rising wave of covid-19 cases in the south of England starting in September caused genomic researchers to look more closely. What they found was disturbing: a new virus variant is causing half the c...

In the early 1970s, Steve Gorad 63 had a successful career as a clinical psychologist. He was in charge of the alcohol unit at Boston State Hospital and had a private practice, but he was restless. It...

Looking back to the start of the pandemic, I am struck by our communitys formidable strength. In March 2020, we did not know what it would take to sustain MITs great mission through this crisis. Since...

From the choir rehearsal in Washington to family gatherings in Chicago, numerous covid-19 superspreading events have seen one person infect many others. MIT researchers who studied about 60 such event...

In October, astrophysicist Andrea Ghez 87 became the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics and the 38th in the list of MIT graduates with Nobels to their names.  Ghez, a professor at UCL...

The search for extraterrestrial life has largely focused on Mars, but scientists at MIT, Cardiff University, and elsewhere reported surprising findings in September of what may be signs of life in the...

How did early humans prepare food before they mastered the use of fire? Research led by Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences professor Roger Summons has raised the intriguing possibility that th...

October 12, 2020Today I ate lunch outside in Cambridge with three of my friends, all fellow Course 16 seniors. Ive eaten countless lunches with them before: burritos in the Unified lounge, grain bowls...

Each year, the flu vaccine has to be redesigned to account for new mutations. Researchers at MIT and the Ragon Institute of MIT, Mass. General, and Harvard are hoping for a better way. The problem is ...

October 6, 2020My physics professor spilled his coffee today. A few comments popped up in the chatApparently todays topic is fluid dynamics, kidsand the professor was smiling. I was smiling, too, but ...

When is the last time you checked Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram? Last night? Before breakfast? Five minutes ago? If you do have a social-media habit, of course, you are not alone: about 3.5 billion ...

When covid-19 hit and the country enacted widespread social distancing measures, the nature of the traditional workplace seemed to change overnight. Technology was already changing the way we work. Th...

This story is one of a series about how hidden innovations produce the foods we eat at the prices we pay. It has been edited for length and clarity. As told to Krithika Varagur. We get our beans from ...

One cool fall night 10 years ago, Jessica Krieger went for a run to clear her head. Krieger, then an undergraduate in neuroscience, had just watched a documentary that showed the gruesome ways many an...

As a machine operator for the robotics startup FarmWise, Diego Alcntar spends each day walking behind a hulking robot that resembles a driverless Zamboni, helping it learn to do the work of a 30-perso...

We wont easily forget how we worried about food in the first days of the pandemic: empty shelves, scarce products, and widespread hoarding became an alarming reality around the world. While being reas...

Theres a long-running column in Cooks Illustrated called What is it? where we track down the origins of kitchen gadgets that our readers find in their attics or on dusty antique-store shelves. A recen...

Lab-grown meat, artificial human breast milk, genetically modified pigs, a cauliflower field farmed by robotsif thats the kind of science-fiction-y stuff you expect to read about in a special issue on...

Blockchain Chicken Farm, a new book from Oakland-based writer, designer, and scholar Xiaowei Wang, explores technology in rural China and the surprising ripple effects of the countrys food supply chai...

This story is one of a series about how hidden innovations produce the foods we eat at the prices we pay. It has been edited for length and clarity. As told to Krithika Varagur. The National Agricultu...

To portray meaningful relationships for a complex, three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper or a video screen, a map must distort reality … [A] single map is but one of an indefinitely l...

This story is one of a series about how hidden innovations produce the foods we eat at the prices we pay. It has been edited for length and clarity. As told to Krithika Varagur. Ive been a farmer for ...

Forty attorneys general representing both Republican and Democratic-led states and territories have filed a new antitrust lawsuit against Google claiming that the company has virtually untrammeled pow...

Forty attorneys general representing both Republican- and Democratic-led states and territories have filed a new antitrust lawsuit against Google claiming that the company has virtually untrammeled po...

The first covid-19 vaccine developed as part of Operation Warp Speed is likely to be authorized for emergency use this week in the US following an all-day meeting of federal medical advisors today, De...

Nine members of the US Congress have sent a letter to Google asking it to clarify the circumstances around its former ethical AI co-lead Timnit Gebrus forced departure. Led by Representative Yvette Cl...

Cloud computing is at a critical juncture. Millions of companies now use it to store data and run applications and services remotely. This has reduced costs and sped operations. But a new trend threat...

Nobel Prizes are rarely awarded without controversy. The prestige usually hatches a viperous nest of critics who deride the credentials of the winner, complain about the unmentioned collaborators whol...

So what happened?  Texas and nine other Republican-led states have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company has monopolized digital advertisingincluding through anti-c...

So what happened?  Texas and nine other Republican-led states have filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging that the company has monopolized digital advertising by means that include a...

Chinas Change 5 mission successfully delivered samples of lunar rock and dust to Earth on December 17. It marks the first time in 44 years that moon rocks have been brought back to our planet, since t...

Chinas Change 5 mission successfully delivered samples of lunar rock and dust to Earth on December 17. It marks the first time in 44 years that moon rocks have been brought back to our planet, since t...

Over the past year, weve seen a rise in robotaxis and autonomous vehicle use. Companies such as Waymo, Cruise, and Baidu have all made strong headway as industry pioneers. In China specifically, 2020 ...

On November 3, Tina Barton ran into a problem. It was Election Day in the US and Barton, a Republican, was city clerk for Rochester Hills, Michigan, a conservative-leaning community near Detroit. As s...

Were now six weeks out from Election Day and electors in every state followed the will of the voters and confirmed the victory of Joe Biden. But while the Electoral College made the results official, ...

By now, weve all heard some version of the story. On December 2, after a protracted disagreement over the release of a research paper, Google forced out its ethical AI co-lead, Timnit Gebru. The paper...

With thousands of developers, publishers, authors, designers, production houses and distributors, Microsofts Xbox gaming platform is a complex ecosystem of relationships. Collaboration across this eco...

Thousands of companies and governments are racing to discover whether they have been hit by the Russian hackers who reportedly infiltrated several US government agencies. The initial breach, reported ...

This MIT Technology Review Insights report is part of a series examining the degree to which business preparedness, particularly in technology strategy, contributed to corporate resilience during the ...

This MIT Technology Review Insights report is part of a series examining the degree to which business preparedness, particularly in technology strategy, contributed to corporate resilience during the ...

This MIT Technology Review Insights report is part of a series examining the degree to which business preparedness, particularly in technology strategy, contributed to corporate resilience during the ...

Californias exposure notification system launched statewide on December 10, which means that almost half of all Americans now live somewhere covered by an app that will warn them if theyve been close ...

As covid-19 has taken over the US, medical providers have looked for any possible way to keep people home and out of hospitals without compromising care. Were only now coming to grips with the uninten...

A few times a week, Vincent Buyssenss students in Antwerp, Belgium’s Thomas More University College get on Instagram while hes lecturing about creative strategy. They swipe through stories, add ...

Deep learning is an inefficient energy hog. It requires massive amounts of data and abundant computational resources, which explodes its electricity consumption. In the last few years, the overall res...

Many of the most successful and widely used machine learning models are trained with the help of thousands of low-paid gig workers. Millions of people around the world earn moneyon platforms like Amaz...

Many of the most successful and widely used machine-learning models are trained with the help of thousands of low-paid gig workers. Millions of people around the world earn moneyon platforms like Amaz...

A genetically modified salmon will become the first GM food animal to go on sale in the US, according to its maker, AquaBounty, possibly launching an era of steaks and chops from creatures with modifi...

When covid-19 began to race around the world, countries closed businesses and told people to stay home. Many thought that would be enough to stop the coronavirus. If we had paid more attention to pigs...

A covid-19 chart thats been shared thousands of times is dramatizing just how well vaccines against the disease can work and how we might get out of pandemic hell. Today, advisers to the US Food and D...

Ive often been told, The data does not lie. However, that has never been my experience. For me, the data nearly always lies. Google Image search results for healthy skin show only light-skinned women,...

The pandemic made for a lot of differences in this years US elections, including vastly expanded access to mail-in ballots and early voting. That upended the Election Day rituals many Americans had be...

SpaceX today pulled off the first ever high-altitude (well, high-ish) flight of Starship, the rocket the company hopes will one day take humans to the moon and Mars. Although the spacecraft failed to ...

SpaceX today pulled off the first ever high-altitude (well, high-ish) flight of Starship, the rocket the company hopes will one day take humans to the moon and Mars. Although the spacecraft failed to ...

SpaceX today pulled off the first ever high-altitude (well, high-ish) flight of Starship, the rocket the company hopes will one day take humans to the moon and Mars. Although the spacecraft failed to ...

What happened: The US Federal Trade Commission has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook for its anticompetitive conduct and unfair methods of competition. That includes its 2012 acquisition of ...

The European Medicines Agency, which has been evaluating covid-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and BioNTech, says it was hit with a cyberattack.  Just days after a coronavirus vaccine from Pfizer ...

Facebook said on December 3 that it would remove posts with false claims or conspiracy theories about whats in the covid-19 vaccines that everyones counting on. In the face of rumors suggesting that B...

When NASA finally gets back to the moonprobably not till sometime after 2024it will start the groundwork for the first extraterrestrial colony in the history of human civilization, and for future miss...

As a reporter who can code, I can easily collect information from websites and social media accounts to find stories. All I need to do is write a few lines of code that go into the ether, open up webs...

Scientists have long seen lithium-metal batteries as an ideal technology for energy storage, leveraging the lightest metal on the periodic table to deliver cells jam-packed with energy. But researcher...

Scientists have long seen lithium-metal batteries as an ideal technology for energy storage, leveraging the lightest metal on the periodic table to deliver cells jam-packed with energy. But researcher...

The news: The UK started vaccinating its population against covid-19 today, becoming the first country to start distributing the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, less than a week after it approved it. It is b...

Digital contact tracing apps first emerged early in the pandemic. Theyd let you know if youd been around anyone who had tested positive, and they worked on a regular personal smartphone. So far, they ...

The news: A capsule containing the first rock samples from the asteroid Ryugu returned to Earth on Sunday, December 6, in perfect condition, according to researchers. The samples were gathered after a...

The news: A capsule containing the first rock samples from the asteroid Ryugu returned to Earth on Sunday, December 6, in perfect condition, according to researchers. The samples were gathered after a...

On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, Timnit Gebru, the co-lead of Googles ethical AI team, announced via Twitter that the company had forced her out.  Gebru, a widely respected leader in AI e...

On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, Timnit Gebru, the co-lead of Googles ethical AI team, announced via Twitter that the company had forced her out.  Gebru, a widely respected leader in AI e...

The vaccines are coming. The UK became the first country in the West to approve a covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on December 2, specifically the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, which has completed Ph...

The vaccines are coming. The UK became the first country in the West to approve a covid-19 vaccine for emergency use on December 2, specifically the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, which has completed ph...

The rise of technonationalism. Diverging regulatory regimes. The spread of walled gardens. Polarization like nothing weve seen before. The confluence of several trends is poised to completely fragment...

Miriam was only 21 when she met Nick. She was a photographer, fresh out of college, waiting tables. He was 16 years her senior and a local business owner who had worked in finance. He was charming and...

On December 2, the AI research community was shocked to learn that Timnit Gebru had been fired from her post at Google. Gebru, one of the leading voices in responsible AI research, is known among othe...

The news: Facebook will remove false claims that have been debunked by public health experts about covid-19 vaccines, it has announced. In a post, the company outlined how Facebook plans to apply its ...

Data collected by the European Space Agencys Gaia observatory has been used to create the most detailed 3D map of the galaxy ever made. The new data set could help scientists unravel many mysteries ab...

In late March, Claire Rezba heard about the tragic death of Diedre Wilkes. Wilkes, a 42-year-old mammogram technician, had died alone of covid-19 in her home, her four-year-old child near her body. Re...

Each innovation challenges the norms, codes, and values of the society in which it is embedded. The industrial revolution unleashed new forces of productivity but at the cost of inhumane working condi...

As businesses of all sizes welcome a fearful and anxious workforce back to the office, they are simultaneously challenged with ensuring a safe work environment. The stark reality facing business owner...

Facial recognition technology is being deployed in housing projects, homeless shelters, schools, even across entire citiesusually without much fanfare or discussion. To some, this represents a critica...

Facial recognition technology is being deployed in housing projects, homeless shelters, schools, even across entire citiesusually without much fanfare or discussion. To some, this represents a critica...

On December 5, Earth is getting a delivery of something literally out of this world: some small grains and dust snatched up from an asteroid 180 million miles away. Once safely back on Earth, the frag...

When Gabrielle Diamond and her boyfriend, Brian Cox, showed up for eviction court on October 15, they were more than a little nervous.  The two had been renting a bedroom in transitional housing ...

President Trumps conspiracy-theory-fueled plan to overturn his defeat in the 2020 elections targeted six states that President-elect Joe Biden narrowly won: Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan,...

The news: The UKs regulator has approved Pfizer/BioNTechs vaccine, making it the first country in the world to provide emergency authorization for a covid-19 vaccine. The UK had already signed an agre...

The first lab-grown, or cultured, meat product has been given the green light to be sold for human consumption. In the landmark approval, regulators in Singapore granted Just, a San Franciscobased sta...

An official with the US covid-19 vaccine initiative says anyone in the country who wants a vaccine will be able to have it by June, seven months from now. The confident projection was made by retired ...

China has just landed a new spacecraft on the surface of the moon. The mission, Change 5, will collect lunar rocks and soil to bring back to Earth, as part of Chinas first-ever sample return mission.&...

As covid-19 cases spiral out of control in the US, states are scrambling to fight the virus with an increasingly stretched arsenal. Many of them have the same weapons at their disposal: restrictions o...

For all of its upheaval, the deadly 2020 coronavirus pandemicand efforts to stop ithas taught a valuable lesson: organizations that invest in technology survive. IT infrastructure initiatives put in p...

When Mastercard wanted to improve the speed and security of credit card transactions, when Baylor College of Medicine was scaling up its human genomic sequencing program, and when toymaker Spin Master...

For years DeepMind has notched up a streak of wins, showcasing AIs that have learned to play a variety of complex games with superhuman skill, from Go and StarCraft to Ataris entire back catalogue. Bu...

Last decades clean-tech gold rush ended in disaster, wiping out billions in investments and scaring venture capitalists away for years. But a new investment boom is building again, this time around a ...