Tech Trends & Innovation: The Latest in Tech News
- Quantum computing promises novel healthcare solutions, but practical advantages remain uncertain and depend on future breakthroughs.
- Spent nuclear fuel still contains usable uranium; recycling can cut waste and mining but is costly and complex.
- Current recycling processes are not fully efficient, limiting environmental and economic gains from reprocessing nuclear material.
- Technical, economic, and political barriers hinder widespread nuclear waste recycling despite clear resource benefits.
- The Spark from MIT Technology Review curates these stories, highlighting ongoing debates around tech, privacy, AI, and energy policy.
The prize will go to the quantum computer that can solve real health care problems that conventional “classical” computers are unable to solve. But there can be only one big winner—if there is a winner at all. Read the full story.
—Michael Brooks
Why the world doesn’t recycle more nuclear waste
There’s still a lot of usable uranium in spent nuclear fuel when it’s pulled out of reactors. Recycling could reduce both the waste and the need to mine new material, but the process is costly, complicated, and not fully efficient.
Find out why it’s such an issue. —Casey Crownhart
This story is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The FBI has confirmed it’s buying Americans’ location data
Director Kash Patel said it’s led to “valuable intelligence.” (Politico)
+ What AI “remembers” about you is privacy’s next frontier. (MIT Technology Review)
2 The first draft of a federal AI bill has been introduced
It aims to protect “children, creators, conservatives, and communities.” (Engadget)
+ A war is brewing over AI regulation in the US. (MIT Technology Review)
Read the full article from the original source
