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. Sam Altman says helpful agents are poised to become AI’s killer function Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has a vision for how AI tools will become enmeshed in our daily lives.  During a sit-down chat...

This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Batteries are on my mind this week. (Aren’t they always?) But I’ve got two extra reasons to be thinking about them today.  First, there’s a new special report from the International Energy Agency...

Eliminating carbon pollution from aviation is one of the most challenging parts of the climate puzzle, simply because large commercial airlines are too heavy and need too much power during takeoff for today’s batteries to do the job.  But one way that companies and governments are striving to make some progress is through the use of various...

A number of moments from my brief sit-down with Sam Altman brought the OpenAI CEO’s worldview into clearer focus. The first was when he pointed to my iPhone SE (the one with the home button that’s mostly hated) and said, “That’s the best iPhone.” More revealing, though, was the vision he sketched for how AI tools will become even more enmeshed in our...

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Inside the quest to map the universe with mysterious bursts of radio energy When our universe was less than half as old as it is today, a burst of energy that could cook a sun’s worth of popcorn shot...

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. Allow me to indulge in a little reflection this week. Last week, the divest-or-ban TikTok bill was passed in Congress and signed into law. Four years ago, when I was just starting to report...