Computing – MIT Technology Review

Almost every Chinese keyboard app has a security flaw that reveals what users type

Almost all keyboard apps used by Chinese people around the world share a security loophole that makes it possible to spy on what users are typing.  The vulnerability, which allows the keystroke data that these apps send to the cloud to be intercepted, has existed for years and could have been exploited by cybercriminals and…

Quartz, cobalt, and the waste we leave behind

Some time before the first dinosaurs, two supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana, collided, forcing molten rock out from the depths of the Earth. As eons passed, the liquid rock cooled and geological forces carved this rocky fault line into Pico Sacro, a strange conical peak that sits like a wizard’s hat near the northwestern corner of…

It’s time to retire the term “user”

Every Friday, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri speaks to the people. He has made a habit of hosting weekly “ask me anything” sessions on Instagram, in which followers send him questions about the app, its parent company Meta, and his own (extremely public-facing) job. When I started watching these AMA videos years ago, I liked them.…

Why it’s so hard for China’s chip industry to become self-sufficient

This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday. I don’t know about you, but I only learned last week that there’s something connecting MSG and computer chips. Inside most laptop and data center chips today, there’s a tiny component called…

This US startup makes a crucial chip material and is taking on a Japanese giant

It can be dizzying to try to understand all the complex components of a single computer chip: layers of microscopic components linked to one another through highways of copper wires, some barely wider than a few strands of DNA. Nestled between those wires is an insulating material called a dielectric, ensuring that the wires don’t…