Author: InfoForTech

David Siegel SM ’86, PhD ’91, a computer scientist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, will serve as the next MIT Innovation Fellow during the 2026-27 academic year. Working with the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, Siegel will explore how artificial intelligence can accelerate scientific discovery at the Institute and beyond.“From the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing to the MIT Siegel Family Quest for Intelligence, David has been a superb thought partner for me and other Institute leaders on a range of very significant initiatives, so we’re delighted to have him join us now as an MIT Innovation Fellow,” says MIT President Sally…

The state now has illegal gambling charges underway against four of these businesses. Spencer Platt/Getty Images The state of New York continues to take action against prediction markets, arguing that they are running illegal gambling businesses. Today, the state’s Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Kathy Hochul announced a new lawsuit against the domestic branch of Polymarket. The duo are seeking a court order “stopping Polymarket from operating as an unlicensed gambling business in New York state,” according to the AG’s office. James also has a similar lawsuit underway against Kalshi that launched in July and…

Hello Cyber Builders 🖖This week, I have a simple suggestion: watch Bruce Schneier’s DEF CON talk.Bruce Schneier’s DEF CON 34 talk questions what we think we know about AI security. Here’s what stood out to me.If you are short on time, here are his four main arguments.First, AI is a powerful hacking tool. But hacking itself is nothing new. People have always found ways to bend or break the rules, long before computers existed. It is not just about software. Any system with rules can be hacked—think tax codes, financial regulations, or even democracy.The tax code works like an algorithm. Loopholes are…

Observability company groundcover Inc. today disclosed its first acquisition, picking up Kubernetes resource optimization startup Wand Cloud Ltd. for an undisclosed sum. Wand’s founders and employees are moving across to groundcover as part of the deal. The purchase is part of a push by groundcover toward what it calls autonomous infrastructure, with software taking action on production systems directly. The groundcover platform collects telemetry from applications and infrastructure. Under a bring-your-own-cloud model, the resulting production history stays inside each customer’s own cloud account. Engineers and artificial intelligence agents use the data to investigate problems and work out what changed. Wand’s technology…

When NASA’s Artemis II mission put humans at the far side of the moon for the first time in 44 years, it often felt like we were there in the capsule with astronauts Victor Glover, Christina Koch, Jeremy Hansen and Reid Wiseman. That’s almost entirely due to the frequent transmission of imagery from the flight, from live feeds to high-resolution photos that let us look at the moon and life in space like never before. But getting those photos and videos isn’t as easy as tossing a camera in a bag for an Earth-bound vacation. To capture the high-resolution images…

Amazon just drew a firm line in the sand against Meta’s ambitious new AI assistant, Muse. Meta built Muse to run digital errands for you, including browsing storefronts and making purchases on your behalf. But if you send Muse to Amazon.com, you hit a brick wall. Amazon blocked the bot outright, serving users a stark pop-up warning that unauthorized AI agents violate its terms of service. Amazon’s official grievance boils down to trust and transparency. The retail giant claims Meta never asked for permission, fails to identify Muse as a bot, and risks exposing customer login credentials. Meta quickly fired…

Cybersecurity researchers have disclosed Go-based malware distributed via two Go Modules and two Terraform providers, marking the first time threat actors are using the centralized repository hosted by HashiCorp as a distribution vector for malicious payloads. According to Aikido, the list of Terraform providers and Go modules is below – The malware deployed through these packages demonstrates overlaps with Graphalgo, a campaign that was first documented by ReversingLabs earlier this February and attributed to North Korean (aka DPRK) threat actors. As part of this effort, prospective developers are approached via social platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, or through job offerings…

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below belong solely to the author. Recently, we’ve been bombarded by apocalyptic news about the potential risks of artificial intelligence (AI), from fears that the technology could break loose and cause catastrophic damage to humanity to concerns that it could ultimately threaten our survival. Even two of the frontier model leaders, OpenAI and Anthropic, are calling for a slowdown in AI development now. I’m not convinced, however, that their change in tone has much to do with concerns about the future of the human race. It might instead have something to do with…

Meta knows you probably have some privacy concerns about its smart glasses.At its annual Meta Connect event today in Menlo Park, California, the company announced plans to incorporate its siloed AI processing scheme known as Private Processing into its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The feature, designed for WhatsApp last year, allows the glasses’ AI assistant to get to know you and fulfill your requests without Meta accessing any of your data.“Most of the time, glasses are helping you see well, protecting your eyes and complementing your look, and that’s it,” Meta wrote in its press release, perhaps somewhat underselling the…

The scholars explore these topics in “How AI Sees the City: Urban Visual Intelligence,” published this month by Routledge. The authors are Duarte, a principal research scientist and associate director of the MIT Senseable City Lab; Mazzarello, a research scientist and lead of MIT Senseable City Lab global initiatives; Carlo Ratti, a professor of the practice and founder and director of the MIT Senseable City Lab; and Fan Zhang, an assistant professor at the Institute of Remote Sensing and GIS at Peking University.“Great urbanists such as Kevin Lynch and Willian H. Whyte showed us the extraordinary value of ‘looking’ at…