10 Breakthrough Technologies 2021
This list marks 20 years since we began compiling an annual selection of the year’s most important technologies.
More from MIT Technology Review
How Facebook and Google fund global misinformation
The tech giants are paying millions of dollars to the operators of clickbait pages, bankrolling the deterioration of information ecosystems around the world.
«Scammers used to make their $$ from naive people. Now they get their payments straight from some of the world's biggest tech companies.»
Meta has built a massive new language AI—and it’s giving it away for free
Facebook’s parent company is inviting researchers to pore over and pick apart the flaws in its version of GPT-3
Saudi Arabia plans to spend $1 billion a year discovering treatments to slow aging
The oil kingdom fears that its population is aging at an accelerated rate and hopes to test drugs to reverse the problem. First up might be the diabetes drug metformin.
Edits to a cholesterol gene could stop the biggest killer on earth
In a first, a patient in New Zealand has undergone gene-editing to lower their cholesterol. It could be the beginning of new era in disease prevention.
Social media is polluting society. Moderation alone won’t fix the problem
Companies already have the systems in place that are needed to evaluate their deeper impacts on the social fabric.
«Facebook’s 2012 “emotional contagion” experiment, which showed that users’ affect (their mood as measured by their behavior on the platform) shifted measurably depending on which version of the product they were exposed to»
You May Also Like
What Is Code?
If you’re not a professional programmer but you’ve ever used a computer, this article is for you – seriously. You will learn what code is, what software is, how apps get written, and what different programming languages do and why they matter. Plus you’ll get details about other technical issues. Along the way, Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Paul Ford explains the culture and some of the psychology of programming. This delightfully animated article is essential for anyone not in the programming field who uses computers. getAbstract recommends it to everyone interested in learning more about programming, its culture and its principles.
How technology disrupted the truth
Social media has swallowed the news – threatening the funding of public-interest reporting and ushering in an era when everyone has their own facts. But the consequences go far beyond journalism
People Are Dating All Wrong, According to Data Science
Large data sets provide intriguing—and dismaying—insights into who we're drawn to and how much that matters for our romantic happiness.
Still the Same — Real Life
Nineteenth-century critiques of technology show how longstanding many current concerns are
The economy and the paradox of technology
Since the Industrial Revolution, technology has greatly enhanced humanity’s capacity to shape the world through manufacturing and finance. However, these technological developments also have the…
«Francis Bacon had described the scientific method’s application to the natural world in his Novum Organum Scientiarum (1620) as restoring humans’ ‘rights over nature’ as they use all their ‘efforts to make the course of art outstrip nature’.»
What is Refind?
Every day Refind picks 5 links from around the web for every user, tailored to the user’s interests. Picking only a handful of links means focusing on what’s relevant and useful. We favor timeless pieces—links with long shelf-lives, articles that are still relevant one month, one year, or even ten years from now. These lists of the best resources on any topic are the result of years of careful curation.
How does Refind curate?
It’s a mix of human and algorithmic curation, following a number of steps:
- We monitor 10k+ sources and 1k+ thought leaders on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
- In addition, our users save links from around the web using our Save buttons and our extensions.
- Our algorithm processes 100k+ new links every day and uses external signals to find the most relevant ones, focusing on timeless pieces.
- Our community of active users gets 5 links every day, tailored to their interests. They provide feedback via implicit and explicit signals: open, read, listen, share, add to reading list, save to «Made me smarter», «More/less like this», etc.
- Our algorithm uses these internal signals to refine the selection.
- In addition, we have expert curators who manually curate niche topics.
The result: lists of the best and most useful articles on hundreds of topics.
How does Refind detect «timeless» pieces?
We focus on pieces with long shelf-lives—not news. We determine «timelessness» via a number of metrics, for example, the consumption pattern of links over time.
How many sources does Refind monitor?
We monitor 10k+ content sources on hundreds of topics—publications, blogs, news sites, newsletters, Substack, Medium, Twitter, etc.
Can I submit a link?
Indirectly, by using Refind and saving links from outside (e.g., via our extensions).
How can I report a problem?
When you’re logged-in, you can flag any link via the «More» (...) menu. You can also report problems via email to hello@refind.com
Who uses Refind?
100k+ smart people start their day with Refind. To learn something new. To get inspired. To move forward. Our apps have a 4.9/5 rating.
Is Refind free?
Yes, it’s free!
How can I sign up?
Head over to our homepage and sign up by email or with your Twitter or Google account.