Tech Innovation

Global sustainability models are broken

Global sustainability models are failing. They’ve been designed to showcase ethical trade and environmental responsibility, but they fundamentally misunderstand how global supply chains operate—especially the critical, unseen work at the beginning of essential value chains such as critical minerals.  For decades, these models have burdened African merchants, miners, and farmers—the backbone of global industries from … Read more

Democrat lawmakers question DOGE’s access to personal data

Democrat lawmakers are increasingly trying to use their oversight authorities to get answers about the level of access that the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has to Americans’ sensitive information. The DOGE team has been tasked by President Donald Trump with shaking up government operations and slashing spending across the federal agencies. The level of … Read more

How Increasing Inputs Has Made Artificial Intelligence More Capable

For most of artificial intelligence’s history, many researchers expected that building truly capable systems would need a long series of scientific breakthroughs: revolutionary algorithms, deep insights into human cognition, or fundamental advances in our understanding of the brain. While scientific advances have played a role, recent AI progress has revealed an unexpected insight: A lot … Read more

Chinese Companies Use Legal Threats to Halt Foreign Research

A little over a year ago, a group of researchers at Sheffield Hallam University in England published a report documenting a Chinese clothing company’s potential ties to forced labor. Members of the British Parliament cited the report ahead of a November debate that criticized China for “slavery and forced labor from another era.” But Smart … Read more

Breaking negative thought patterns could ward off anxiety, depression

Nipping negative repetitive thinking in the bud has the potential to stave off numerous mental health disorders. Think Eeyore and Piglet. Cheerful Piglet is a chronic worrier, coping with anxiety; glum Eeyore mulls over everything that might go wrong, sinking into depression. But both struggle with repetitive negative thoughts. People who think this way often … Read more

To keep hardware safe, new ‘Oreo’ method cuts out the code’s clues

Caption:Oreo’s “masked address space” re-maps code from randomized virtual addresses to fixed locations before it’s executed within the hardware, making it difficult for hackers to trace the program’s original locations through hardware attacks. Credit: Alex Shipps/MIT CSAIL, with elements from Pixabay Imagine you’re a chef with a highly sought-after recipe. You write your top-secret instructions … Read more

The Download: offshore rocket launches, and how DOGE plans to use AI

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 dream of offshore rocket launches is finally blasting off Want to send something to space? Get in line. The demand for rides off Earth is skyrocketing, with launches more than doubling over … Read more

I tried the Galaxy S25’s Drawing Assist, and it beats Pixel Studio

Samsung is no stranger to AI-powered image generation. It’s launched more art-based tools in the last year or so than Apple and Google combined. And yet, its first two efforts felt pretty disappointing. Samsung’s Portrait Studio felt too limited, only pulling one face at a time from your images and casting it against a dull, … Read more