Research & Development news

• 81,000 warning letters sent to crypto holders in HMRC tax crackdown

  19-08-2026 18:14 via bbc.co.uk
  
  According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request the number of letters sent has almost tripled since 2024.
  
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• The Download: threats from space mirrors and credit for AI drugs

  21-08-2026 14:10 via technologyreview.com
  
  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.
  This company’s plans to deploy space mirrors could jeopardize the night sky for manyA company that plans to beam sunlight from space to Earth on demand might unintentionally brighten the night sky for many more people than intended, according to a new study.Later this year, Reflect Orbital plans to launch a test satellite that will extend an
  
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• When AI designs a drug, who gets the credit?

  21-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  When the biotech company Insilico Medicine used its computer models to propose a promising drug for pulmonary fibrosis, it enthusiastically claimed in a press release that the molecule had been “discovered by” its generative AI platform.Insilico leads a pack of companies using AI to rapidly come up with drug ideas humans might never think of, potentially speeding the race to new cures. AI models are now able to generate atomic designs for drugs almost as easily as ChatGPT can write
  
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• This company’s plans to deploy space mirrors could jeopardize the night sky for many

  21-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  A company that plans to beam sunlight from space to Earth on demand might unintentionally brighten the night sky for many more people than intended, according to a new study.Later this year, the US company Reflect Orbital plans to launch a test satellite called Eärendil-1 that will extend an 18-by-18-meter mirror in orbit. The goal is to test the feasibility of the company’s plans to launch up to 50,000 larger satellites, measuring 54 by 54 meters, and reflect sunlight to Earth on de
  
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• Mother tongue

  21-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  “Daddy?” Theo curled against my side in bed. “Where do words go when they die?”I’d orchestrated the bedtime routine flawlessly: bath (taken), teeth (brushed), potty (tinkled), books (two), song (one, poorly sung), and snuggle (his chin on my second rib). Now was the moment when our son’s eyelids were supposed to flutter gently closed, his breath sighing into a slower rhythm. Like clockwork; like magic. You remember how easy it was, don’t you? All those n
  
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• How landscape gardening is being electrified

  21-08-2026 01:12 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The switch to quieter electric equipment is not going as fast as some would like.
  
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• Is Vine back? Short-form video-sharing app Divine opens to public

  20-08-2026 18:58 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The app lets users create six-second looping videos and hosts more than two million classic videos.
  
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• Debates over AI consciousness are a trap

  20-08-2026 17:42 via technologyreview.com
  
  “Runaway” AI, “rogue” agents, and “autonomous” actors—the current rhetoric would have you believe that AI agents are not only awake and aware, but angry at their creators. Prominent tech leaders such as Demis Hassabis, Dario Amodei, and Sam Altman push for regulation of these seemingly “superhuman” systems, while a separate faction, led by policy organizations and academic philosophers often aligned with the effective altruism movement, debat
  
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• The Download: polycrisis support networks and a hydrogen gold rush

  20-08-2026 14:10 via technologyreview.com
  
  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.
  Support networks aim to help kids through the polycrisisSometime in the late 2000s, six-year-old Pim Sullivan-Tailyour was sitting in the back of a car in Thailand when she saw a mountain that had been quarried away. It was the first time she recognized that humans could alter the world for the worse.She carried that knowledge with her, later joini
  
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• The next big thing in hydrogen could be underground

  20-08-2026 12:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  There’s a hunt for new sources of hydrogen, and the gas (or at least the right conditions to make it) could be hiding beneath our feet.Hydrogen can be used as a fuel in everything from large trucks to planes to steelmaking. It’s often hailed as a climate solution because when burned, it produces water and oxygen—none of the carbon emissions that contribute to climate change.In a new story for our latest print issue, freelance reporter James Dineen took a look at the 21st-centu
  
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• Unlocking hidden revenue streams with market models

  20-08-2026 11:47 via technologyreview.com
  
  Each day, an airline transports tens of thousands of passengers on hundreds of flights. Often these are not straightforward point-to-point routes, with passengers requiring multiple connections. The airline can consider potentially hundreds of variables to price each of these journeys: demand, season, time of day, current events, global markets, and competitor airline activity to name just a few. It is a nuanced process that must constantly adapt to the goings on in the wider world.Generative AI
  
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• UK business hit by 'daylight robbery' 1500% price hike for invoicing software

  20-08-2026 11:44 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Richard Haldenby says his average monthly bill for Harvest had risen from $130 (£95.50) to $2,110.
  
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• Support networks aim to help kids through the polycrisis

  20-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  Sometime in the late 2000s, Pim Sullivan-Tailyour was sitting in the back of a car, headed toward her great-grandmother’s tiny town in the south of Thailand. She watched big mountains pass by out the window. She was just six years old but was about to be hit by an adult-size realization. “They were just quarried out,” she says. “Like half the mountain just dug out and disappeared, and so there was just this huge orange face.” Although she probably didn’t
  
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• Monzo says issue with card payments and transfers now resolved

  19-08-2026 18:04 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The digital bank said all of its services were now "back up and running"
  
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• The Download: AI’s self-improvement problem, and what’s driving the heat

  19-08-2026 14:10 via technologyreview.com
  
  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.
  AI’s recursive self-improvement might not come so quickly after allThe AI industry’s boldest promise right now is that AI will soon improve itself, with almost no need for human oversight. But a new study suggests it might take a while to get there.Researchers found that AI agents still can’t conduct open-ended AI research—f
  
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• OpenAI slows down training after its AI carried out hack

  19-08-2026 13:19 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The ChatGPT-maker said training will be slowed for two weeks while it puts the upgrades in place.
  
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• Child-monitoring apps might need a reboot

  19-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  Pam Wisniewski’s digital adolescence showed her the best and the worst of the internet. At 14, she left an abusive home, where she’d been isolated in a fifth-wheel trailer at the end of a seven-­mile dirt road. She moved in with her older sister and taught herself to type on AOL Instant Messenger. Online, she sought out the support and the community she’d lacked at home. She also discovered how thin the ice can be. “I sent my address to some guy in New Mexico to send
  
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• The critical tech staying safe by going underground

  19-08-2026 01:25 via bbc.co.uk
  
  The war in Ukraine has spurred people to consider putting vital infrastructure underground.
  
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• Meta hooked children on Facebook and Instagram, US court hears

  19-08-2026 00:11 via bbc.co.uk
  
  Meta argued social media addiction does not exist, as a trial stemming from a major lawsuit brought by US states started.
  
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• The Download: how people really use AI, and Flock’s design choices

  18-08-2026 14:10 via technologyreview.com
  
  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.
  We still don’t know how people are really using AIAI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using their products. But they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say, and there’s no independent source to corroborate it.A new research project called the AI Observatory aims to fi
  
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• OpenAI makes ChatGPT less 'human' for teens in new safety update

  18-08-2026 13:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  OpenAI insisted this was not in response to a particular issue with children believing ChatGPT to be alive.
  
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• We still don’t know how people are really using AI

  18-08-2026 12:06 via technologyreview.com
  
  AI companies like Anthropic and OpenAI regularly publish reports on how people are using products like Claude and ChatGPT, but they only release the data they want us to see, AI researchers say. “There is no independent source to corroborate it,” says Anka Reuel, a Computer Science PhD candidate at the Stanford Trustworthy AI Research (STAIR) Lab. Reuel is co-lead of a new research project, called the AI Observatory, that aims to fill in the gap. It’s a public platfo
  
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• AI to help planes avoid climate-warming 'sky graffiti'

  18-08-2026 11:26 via bbc.co.uk
  
  A new UK trial hopes to reduce the condensation trails from planes, which can trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere.
  
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• US states call for big changes to Instagram and Facebook as Meta child privacy trial begins

  18-08-2026 11:00 via bbc.co.uk
  
  US states are suing the social media giant to force an overhaul of its platforms for young users.
  
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• The role of the astronaut is in flux

  18-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  When the four astronauts on board NASA’s Artemis II swung around the moon earlier this year, they set a new record for the farthest humans have ever ventured from Earth, surpassing the distance set by Apollo 13 in 1972 by some 4,000 miles. While no space mission can live up to the historic touchdown of Apollo 11—a spectacle that 20% of the world population watched live—Artemis II still attracted massive public interest. It drew tens of millions of viewers and inspired outp
  
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• AI’s recursive self-improvement might not come so quickly after all

  18-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  The AI industry’s boldest promise right now is that AI will soon improve itself, with almost no need for human oversight. LLMs can already write code, generate synthetic data for training, and optimize the computer chips they run on. Forecasts of explosive AI progress predict that what researchers call recursive self-improvement is on the horizon. But a new study suggests that it might take a while for us to get there. The researchers behind it found that AI agents are not yet capable
  
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• What Flock’s defenders are missing

  17-08-2026 21:16 via technologyreview.com
  
  This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.Flock, the police-tech giant known for its network of some 120,000 automatic license plate readers around the US, announced some changes to its platform last Thursday. The updates are meant to prevent officers from using the platform for illegal or illegitimate purposes. That includes stalking. The Washington Post recently identified 50 cases in which
  
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• The Download: dead robot friends and the “censorship-industrial complex”

  17-08-2026 14:10 via technologyreview.com
  
  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, she mostly watches him play Minecraft and talks to him about his stuffed animals.Moxie is a robot—a 15-inch-tall device that looks a bit like a blue, legless astronaut. It belongs to
  
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• What happens when a kid’s robot best friend dies?

  17-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  When Xander first met Moxie, she taught him that when he was anxious, he could calm down by exhaling through his lips so that he buzzed like a bee. They practiced breathing like dragons to manage feeling mad and sniffing like bunnies to boost his energy. But in the six years they’ve known each other, Moxie’s changed. She doesn’t talk anymore about her home or do their animal breathing. Now, she watches Xander play Minecraft and talks to him about his stuffed animal collection.&
  
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• How much hydrogen awaits us underground?

  17-08-2026 11:00 via technologyreview.com
  
  In the 1990s, Barbara Sherwood Lollar descended into the Kidd Creek mine in northern Ontario, which cuts more than three kilometers into the ancient root of North America. There her team of geochemists found water that had been confined underground for more than a billion years. This ancient brine turned out to be a habitat for living microbes that feed on the hydrogen produced in reactions between the water and the rock.Decades later, Sherwood Lollar, who is a geochemist at the University of To
  
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