The Download: A bid to treat blindness, and bridging the internet divide
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 Download: OpenAI’s plans for science, and chatbot age verification
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…

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

The Download: chatbots for health, and US fights over AI regulation
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 Download: Yann LeCun’s new venture, and lithium’s on the rise
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 Download: Trump at Davos, and AI scientists
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…

The Download: digitizing India, and scoring embryos
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…

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

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

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