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 happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies?
When Xander first met Moxie, she taught him how to calm down when he was anxious or mad. Six years later, ...
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Humanoid robots usually elicit more cringe than awe: They stumble, kick children, and despite advances are still worse at using their hands than my toddler. It...
AI notetaking hardware has taken off over the past couple of years, with credit-card-sized devices, pendants, pins, and even transcribing earbuds all promising to capture your meetings and turn them into summaries and action items. Now, a whole wave of wearables — rings especially — are betting peop...
Meta released Glimmer this week, an open-weight AI model anyone can download and run on their own hardware — a contrast to Muse Spark, the company’s more powerful model that stays locked behind its own APIs. The release landed alongside a letter from Mark Zuckerberg arguing AI should be “for everyon...
The following essay, originally titled “Guaranteeing Agency in the Age of Neural Prosthetics,” was selected as one of three finalists in MIT’s 2026 Envisioning the Future of Computing Prize. Its author, Strahinja Janjušević, SM ’26, who studied computer science and cybersecurity at the US Naval Aca...