Meet the company keeping its eye on the skies for satellite makers and even the U.S. Space Force

With more active satellites than ever orbiting Earth—more than 8,300 at last count—helping them dodge space junk and avoid collisions is an increasingly important sector of the space industry. El Segundo, California-based Slingshot Aerospace aims to be the definitive source for information on space situational awareness. “We are building the common operating picture for space,” says Audrey Schaffer, the company’s VP of strategy and policy. By pulling in data

How this company’s manufactured virus improves immunotherapy safety

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have revolutionized the pharmaceutical industry—they are used in immunotherapy to treat numerous illnesses, with high potency against emerging viruses. Since 2016, about 70% of all mAbs have been grown in the cell lines of Chinese hamster ovaries, which produce humanlike antibodies.

To make sure that no trace of these host cells remains in the final product, drug manufacturers rely on “spiking” studies that use live infectious viruse

How Runway is pushing synthetic video toward reality

In the space of just a year, text-to-video AI has improved hugely in the quality and usability of its output—so much so that synthetic video seems less like a gimmick and more like an eventuality. The New York-based startup Runway has made huge strides on the quality of video its models produce based on text prompts and other input.

In February 2023, Runway released its Gen-1 model, which could apply the composition and style of a sample image to an existing video. In March i

How Anthropic has doubled down on AI safety

Anthropic, which was formed by a group of safety-conscious defectors from OpenAI, spent 2023 establishing itself as one of just a handful of envelope-pushing developers of commercial AI models.

The company raised almost $7 billion in 2023 (from Amazon and Google, among others), and last October it told investors that it was generating revenue at a $100 million annualized run rate. In July, the startup launched the second major release of its LLM, dubbed Claude 2, with improved perfo

How Metaphysic.ai

During the 2023 strike, Hollywood actors demanded assurances that their digital likenesses not be used without their consent and without compensation. Metaphysic remains one of the leading tech companies providing movie studios and production houses with AI tools to manipulate (to age or de-age, for example) the faces of actors, but in September 2023 the company launched a new platform to give actors control over their digital likeness.

The platform, called Metaphysic Pro, can store

How a new generation of Apple Vision Pro apps will  empower frontline workers

Forward-thinking companies recognize that digital investment must go further than machines and materials. To gain a competitive edge, they must focus on employees too.

A majority (86%) of manufacturing executives believe that smart factory solutions will be the primary drivers of competitiveness in the next five years. But it’s not just machines that are getting smarter. It’s people too. Already manufacturers are anticipating that the industrial metaverse could lead to

TikTok catapulted Lil Nas X and Oliver Anthony to fame. It’s now an essential tool for music promotion

For much of the year, TikTok has been on the defensive.

On March 13, 2024, the House of Representatives voted to approve a bill that would force the short-form video app to be sold off from its Chinese parent company to non-Chinese owners or face a ban in the U.S. The Senate will still have to vote on the legislation, which received broad bipartisan support due to beliefs that TikTok creates risks to national security.

Meanwhile, Universal Music Group, one of the biggest record

The rise of China Inc. is crucial to understanding the controversy with TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance

Does the Chinese government have officials inside TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, pulling the strings? And does the storing of data from the popular social media app outside of China protect Americans?

These questions appear to dominate the current thinking in the U.S. over whether to ban TikTok if its owner, Chinese technology giant ByteDance, refuses to sell the platform.

But in my opinion – forged through 40 years as a scholar of China, its political economy

TikTok creators—especially those from marginalized groups—say a ban would hurt them financially and socially

Alex Pearlman shut the door on dreams of a standup comedy career almost a decade ago, pivoting from the stage to an office cubicle where he worked a customer service job.

Then he started posting random jokes and commentary about pop culture and politics on TikTok. Just over 2.5 million followers later, he quit his nine-to-five and recently booked his first nationwide tour.

Pearlman is among the many TikTok creators across the U.S. outraged over a bipartisan bill passed by

How AI messed with our human research, and what we learned

All levels of research are being changed by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). Don’t have time to read that journal article? AI-powered tools such as TLDRthis will summarise it for you.

Struggling to find relevant sources for your review? Inciteful will list suitable articles with just the click of a button. Are your human research participants too expensive or complicated to manage? Not a problem – try synthetic participants instead.

Each of these tools sug


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