MIT Technology Review Narrated
Welcome to MIT Technology Review Narrated, the home for the very best of our journalism in audio. Each week we will share one of our most ambitious stories, from print and online, narrated for us by real voice actors. Expect big themes, thought-provoking topics, and sharp analysis, all backed by our trusted reporting.
Episodes
March 19, 2025 • 28 mins
An intelligent digital agent could be a companion for life—and other predictions for the next 125 years.
This story was written by Kara Platoni and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com.
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March 12, 2025 • 30 mins
Startups in Latvia and other nearby countries see the mobilization of Ukraine as a warning and as inspiration. They are now changing consumer products—from scooters to recreational drones—for use on the battlefield.
This story was written by Peter Guest and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com.
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March 5, 2025 • 11 mins
At its best, AI search can better infer a user’s intent, amplify quality content, and synthesize information from diverse sources. But if AI search becomes our primary portal to the web, it threatens to disrupt an already precarious digital economy.
Today, the production of content online depends on a fragile set of incentives tied to virtual foot traffic: ads, subscriptions, donations, sales, or brand exposure. By shielding the w...
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February 26, 2025 • 39 mins
“Electroceuticals” promised the post-pharma future for medicine. But the exclusive focus on the nervous system is seeming less and less warranted.
This story was written by Sally Adee and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com.
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February 19, 2025 • 18 mins
As the climate changes, genetic engineering will be essential for growing food. But is it creating a race of superweeds?
This story was written by Douglas Main and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com.
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February 12, 2025 • 17 mins
Tech companies have been funneling billions of dollars into quantum computers for years. The hope is that they’ll be a game changer for fields as diverse as finance, drug discovery, and logistics.
Those expectations have been especially high in physics and chemistry, where the weird effects of quantum mechanics come into play. In theory, this is where quantum computers could have a huge advantage over conventional machines.
But whi...
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February 6, 2025 • 25 mins
We’re making more data than ever. What can—and should—we save for future generations? And will they be able to understand it?
This story was written by Niall Firth and narrated by Noa.
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January 29, 2025 • 20 mins
More than 60 companies now produce organs on chips commercially, focusing on five major organs: liver, kidney, lung, intestines, and brain. They’re already being used to understand diseases, discover and test new drugs, and explore personalized approaches to treatment. Could this be the end of animal testing?
This story was written by Harriet Brown and narrated by Noa.
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January 22, 2025 • 24 mins
Figuring out how the human body can withstand underwater pressure has been a problem for over a century, but a ragtag band of divers is experimenting with hydrogen to find out.
This story was written by Samantha Schuyler and narrated by Noa.
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January 14, 2025 • 17 mins
Palmer Luckey, the founder of Oculus VR, has set his sights on a new mixed-reality headset customer: the Pentagon.
His company Anduril Industries, which focuses on drones, cruise missiles, and other AI-enhanced technologies for the US Department of Defense, announced it would partner with Microsoft on the US Army’s Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), arguably the military’s largest effort to develop a headset for use on ...
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January 8, 2025 • 34 mins
Podcaster Joe Rogan, former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and football quarterback Aaron Rodgers are all helping revive AIDS denialism—a false collection of theories arguing either that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS or that there’s no such thing as HIV at all.
These ideas were initially promoted back in the 1980s and ’90s by a cadre of scientists from unrelated fields, as well as many science-adjacent figures and self-...
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January 1, 2025 • 33 mins
The newest versions of generative AI are bedazzling, with lifelike videos, seemingly expert-sounding prose, and other all too humanlike behaviors. Business leaders are fretting over how to reinvent their companies as billions flow into startups, and the big AI companies are creating ever more powerful models. Predictions abound on how ChatGPT and the growing list of large language models will transform the way we work and organize ...
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December 18, 2024 • 23 mins
Despite it being over 100 years old, radio technology is still critical in almost all aspects of modern warfare—including in the drones that have come to dominate the Russia-Ukraine war. But before the war, there was a frightening vacuum of expertise. Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov, who has been obsessed with radios since childhood, stepped in to fill it. Now, the unlikely hero is sharing expert advice and intel on the ever-evolving te...
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December 11, 2024 • 27 mins
You can practically hear the shrieks from corner offices around the world: “What is our ChatGPT play? How do we make money off this?”
Whether it’s based on hallucinatory beliefs or not, an AI gold rush has started to mine the anticipated business opportunities from generative AI models like ChatGPT.
But while companies and executives see a clear chance to cash in, the likely impact of the technology on workers and the economy on ...
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December 4, 2024 • 30 mins
In the future, CRISPR will get easier and easier to administer, potentially opening up paths for tinkering with human evolution. What will that mean for our species?
This story was written by senior biomedicine editor Antonio Regalado and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com
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November 27, 2024 • 41 mins
Did you know that NASA intends to destroy the International Space Station by around 2030? Once it's gone, private companies will likely swoop in with their own replacements. Get ready for the great commercial takeover of low Earth orbit.
This story was written by David W. Brown and narrated by Noa - newsoveraudio.com
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November 21, 2024 • 26 mins
Pump jacks and pipelines clutter the Elk Hills oil field of California, a scrubby stretch of land in the southern Central Valley that rests above one of the nation’s richest deposits of fossil fuels.
Oil production has been steadily declining in the state for decades, as tech jobs have boomed and legislators have enacted rigorous environmental and climate rules. Companies, towns, and residents across Kern County, where the poverty ...
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November 13, 2024 • 26 mins
Robots that can do many of the things humans do in the home—folding laundry, cooking meals, cleaning—have been a dream of robotics research since the inception of the field in the 1950s.
While engineers have made great progress in getting robots to work in tightly controlled environments like labs and factories, the home has proved difficult to design for. Out in the real, messy world, furniture and floor plans differ wildly; chi...
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November 6, 2024 • 34 mins
In an attempt to protect its forests and famous wildlife, Virunga has become the first national park to run a Bitcoin mine. But some are wondering what crypto has to do with conservation.
This story was written by Adam Popescu and narrated by Noa (newsoveraudio.com)
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October 30, 2024 • 16 mins
We live in an undeniably gamified world. We stand up and move around to close colorful rings and earn achievement badges on our smartwatches; we meditate and sleep to recharge our body batteries; we plant virtual trees to be more productive; we chase “likes” and “karma” on social media sites and try to swipe our way toward social connection.
But instead of liberating us from drudgery and maximizing our potential, gamification has ...
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