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Connectivity is a Lifeline, Not a Luxury: Telecom Blackouts in Gaza Threaten Lives and Digital Rights
For the third time since October 2023, Gaza has faced a near-total telecommunications blackout—plunging over 2 million residents into digital darkness and isolating them from the outside world. According to Palestinian digital rights organization 7amleh, the latest outage began on June 11, 2025, and lasted three days before partial service was restored on June 14. As of today, reports from inside Gaza suggest that access has been cut off again in central and southern Gaza.
Blackouts like these affect internet and phone communications across Gaza, leaving journalists, emergency responders, and civilians unable to communicate, document, or call for help.
Cutting off telecommunications during an active military campaign is not only a violation of basic human rights—it is a direct attack on the ability of civilians to survive, seek safety, and report abuses. Access to information and the ability to communicate are core to the exercise of freedom of expression, press freedom, and the right to life itself.
The threat of recurring outages looms large. Palestinian digital rights groups warn of a complete collapse of Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure, which has already been weakened by years of blockade, lack of spare parts, and now sustained bombardment.
These blackouts systematically silence the people of Gaza amidst a humanitarian crisis. They prevent the documentation of war crimes, hide the extent of humanitarian crises, and obstruct the global community’s ability to witness and respond.
EFF has long maintained that governments and occupying powers must not disrupt internet or telecom access, especially during times of conflict. The blackout in Gaza is not just a local or regional issue—it’s a global human rights emergency.
As part of the campaign led by 7amleh to #ReconnectGaza, we call on all actors, including governments, telecommunications regulators, and civil society, to demand an end to telecommunications blackouts in Gaza and everywhere. Connectivity is a lifeline, not a luxury.
Google’s Advanced Protection Arrives on Android: Should You Use It?
With this week’s release of Android 16, Google added a new security feature to Android, called Advanced Protection. At-risk people—like journalists, activists, or politicians—should consider turning on. Here’s what it does, and how to decide if it’s a good fit for your security needs.
To get some confusing naming schemes clarified at the start: Advanced Protection is an extension of Google’s Advanced Protection Program, which protects your Google account from phishing and harmful downloads, and is not to be confused with Apple’s Advanced Data Protection, which enables end-to-end encryption for most data in iCloud. Instead, Google's Advanced Protection is more comparable to the iPhone’s Lockdown Mode, Apple’s solution to protecting high risk people from specific types of digital threats on Apple devices.
Advanced Protection for Android is meant to provide stronger security by: enabling certain features that aren’t on by default, disabling the ability to turn off features that are enabled by default, and adding new security features. Put together, this suite of features is designed to isolate data where possible, and reduce the chances of interacting with unsecure websites and unknown individuals.
For example, when it comes to enabling existing features, Advanced Protection turns on Android’s “theft detection” features (designed to protect against in-person thefts), forces Chrome to use HTTPS for all website connections (a feature we’d like to see expand to everything on the phone), enables scam and spam protection features in Google Messages, and disables 2G (which helps prevent your phone from connecting to some Cell Site Simulators). You could go in and enable each of these individually in the Settings app, but having everything turned on with one tap is much easier to do.
Advanced Protection also prevents you from disabling certain core security features that are enabled by default, like Google Play Protect (Android’s built-in malware protection) and Android Safe Browsing (which safeguards against malicious websites).
But Advanced Protection also adds some new features. Once turned on, the “Inactivity reboot” feature restarts your device if it’s locked for 72 hours, which prevents ease of access that can occur when your device is on for a while and you have settings that could unlock your device. By forcing a reboot, it resets everything to being encrypted and behind biometric or pin access. It also turns on “USB Protection,” which makes it so any new USB connection can only be used for charging when the device is locked. It also prevents your device from auto-reconnecting to unsecured Wi-Fi networks.
As with all things Android, some of these features are limited to select devices, or only phones made by certain manufacturers. Memory Tagging Extension (MTE), which attempts to mitigate memory vulnerabilities by blocking unauthorized access, debuted on Pixel 8 devices in 2023 is only now showing up on other phones. These segmentations in features makes it a little difficult to know exactly what your device is protecting against if you’re not using a Pixel phone.
Some of the new features, like the ability to generate security logs that you can then share with security professionals in case your device is ever compromised, along with the aforementioned insecure network reconnect and USB protection features, won’t launch until later this year.
It’s also worth considering that enabling Advanced Protection may impact how you use your device. For example, Advanced Protection disables the JavaScript optimizer in Chrome, which may break some websites, and since Advanced Protection blocks unknown apps, you won’t be able to side-load. There’s also the chance that some of the call screening and scam detection features may misfire and flag legitimate calls.
How to Turn on Advanced ProtectionAdvanced Protection is easy to turn on and off, so there’s no harm in giving it a try. Advanced Protection was introduced with Android 16, so you may need to update your phone, or wait a little longer for your device manufacturer to support the update if it doesn’t already. Once you’re updated, to turn it on:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap Security and Privacy > Advanced Protection, and enable the option next to “Device Protection.”
- If you haven’t already done so, now is a good time to consider enabling Advanced Protection for your Google account as well, though you will need to enroll a security key or a passkey to use this feature.
We welcome these features on Android, as well as the simplicity of its approach to enabling several pre-existing security and privacy features all at once. While there is no panacea for every security threat, this is a baseline that improves the security on Android for at-risk individuals without drastically altering day-to-day use, which is a win for everyone. We hope to see Google continue to push new improvements to this feature and for different phone manufacturer’s to support Advanced Protection where they don’t already.
Students and staff work together for MIT’s first “No Mow May”
In recent years, some grass lawns around the country have grown a little taller in springtime thanks to No Mow May, a movement originally launched by U.K. nonprofit Plantlife in 2019 designed to raise awareness about the ecological impacts of the traditional, resource-intensive, manicured grass lawn. No Mow May encourages people to skip spring mowing to allow for grass to grow tall and provide food and shelter for beneficial creatures including bees, beetles, and other pollinators.
This year, MIT took part in the practice for the first time, with portions of the Kendall/MIT Open Space, Bexley Garden, and the Tang Courtyard forgoing mowing from May 1 through June 6 to make space for local pollinators, decrease water use, and encourage new thinking about the traditional lawn. MIT’s first No Mow May was the result of championing by the Graduate Student Council Sustainability Subcommittee (GSC Sustain) and made possible by the Office of the Vice Provost for Campus Space Management and Planning.
A student idea sprouts
Despite being a dense urban campus, MIT has no shortage of green spaces — from pocket gardens and community-managed vegetable plots to thousands of shade trees — and interest in these spaces continues to grow. In recent years, student-led initiatives supported by Institute leadership and operational staff have transformed portions of campus by increasing the number of native pollinator plants and expanding community gardens, like the Hive Garden. With No Mow May, these efforts stepped out of the garden and into MIT’s many grassy open spaces.
“The idea behind it was to raise awareness for more sustainable and earth-friendly lawn practices,” explains Gianmarco Terrones, GSC Sustain member. Those practices include reducing the burden of mowing, limiting use of fertilizers, and providing shelter and food for pollinators. “The insects that live in these spaces are incredibly important in terms of pollination, but they’re also part of the food chain for a lot of animals,” says Terrones.
Research has shown that holding off on mowing in spring, even in small swaths of green space, can have an impact. The early months of spring have the lowest number of flowers in regions like New England, and providing a resource and refuge — even for a short duration — can support fragile pollinators like bees. Additionally, No Mow May aims to help people rethink their yards and practices, which are not always beneficial for local ecosystems.
Signage at each No Mow site on campus highlighted information on local pollinators, the impact of the project, and questions for visitors to ask themselves. “Having an active sign there to tell people, ‘look around. How many butterflies do you see after six weeks of not mowing? Do you see more? Do you see more bees?’ can cause subtle shifts in people’s awareness of ecosystems,” says GSC Sustain member Mingrou Xie. A mowed barrier around each project also helped visitors know that areas of tall grass at No Mow sites are intentional.
Campus partners bring sustainable practices to life
To make MIT’s No Mow May possible, GSC Sustain members worked with the Office of the Vice Provost and the Open Space Working Group, co-chaired by Vice Provost for Campus Space Management and Planning Brent Ryan and Director of Sustainability Julie Newman. The Working Group, which also includes staff from Open Space Programming, Campus Planning, and faculty in the School of Architecture and Planning, helped to identify potential No Mow locations and develop strategies for educational signage and any needed maintenance. “Massachusetts is a biodiverse state, and No Mow May provides an exciting opportunity for MIT to support that biodiversity on its own campus,” says Ryan.
Students were eager for space on campus with high visibility, and the chosen locations of the Kendall/MIT Open Space, Bexley Garden, and the Tang Courtyard fit the bill. “We wanted to set an example and empower the community to feel like they can make a positive change to an environment they spend so much time in,” says Xie.
For GSC Sustain, that positive change also takes the form of the Native Plant Project, which they launched in 2022 to increase the number of Massachusetts-native pollinator plants on campus — plants like swamp milkweed, zigzag goldenrod, big leaf aster, and red columbine, with which native pollinators have co-evolved. Partnering with the Open Space Working Group, GSC Sustain is currently focused on two locations for new native plant gardens — the President’s Garden and the terrace gardens at the E37 Graduate Residence. “Our short-term goal is to increase the number of native [plants] on campus, but long term we want to foster a community of students and staff interested in supporting sustainable urban gardening,” says Xie.
Campus as a test bed continues to grow
After just a few weeks of growing, the campus No Mow May locations sprouted buttercups, mouse ear chickweed, and small tree saplings, highlighting the diversity waiting dormant in the average lawn. Terrones also notes other discoveries: “It’s been exciting to see how much the grass has sprung up these last few weeks. I thought the grass would all grow at the same rate, but as May has gone on the variations in grass height have become more apparent, leading to non-uniform lawns with a clearly unmanicured feel,” he says. “We hope that members of MIT noticed how these lawns have evolved over the span of a few weeks and are inspired to implement more earth-friendly lawn practices in their own homes/spaces.”
No Mow May and the Native Plant Project fit into MIT’s overall focus on creating resilient ecosystems that support and protect the MIT community and the beneficial critters that call it home. MIT Grounds Services has long included native plants in the mix of what is grown on campus and native pollinator gardens, like the Hive Garden, have been developed and cared for through partnerships with students and Grounds Services in recent years. Grounds, along with consultants that design and install our campus landscape projects, strive to select plants that assist us with meeting sustainability goals, like helping with stormwater runoff and cooling. No Mow May can provide one more data point for the iterative process of choosing the best plants and practices for a unique microclimate like the MIT campus.
“We are always looking for new ways to use our campus as a test bed for sustainability,” says Director of Sustainability Julie Newman. “Community-led projects like No Mow May help us to learn more about our campus and share those lessons with the larger community.”
The Office of the Vice Provost, the Open Space Working Group, and GSC Sustain will plan to reconnect in the fall for a formal debrief of the project and its success. Given the positive community feedback, future possibilities of expanding or extending No Mow May will be discussed.
EFF to NJ Supreme Court: Prosecutors Must Disclose Details Regarding FRT Used to Identify Defendant
This post was written by EFF legal intern Alexa Chavara.
Black box technology has no place in the criminal legal system. That’s why we’ve once again filed an amicus brief arguing that the both the defendant and the public have a right to information regarding face recognition technology (FRT) that was used during an investigation to identify a criminal defendant.
Back in June 2023, we filed an amicus brief along with Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) in State of New Jersey v. Arteaga. We argued that information regarding the face recognition technology used to identify the defendant should be disclosed due to the fraught process of a face recognition search and the many ways that inaccuracies manifest in the use of the technology. The New Jersey appellate court agreed, holding that state prosecutors must turn over detailed information to the defendant about the FRT used, including how it works, its source code, and its error rate. The court held that this ensures the defendant’s due process rights with the ability to examine the information, scrutinize its reliability, and build a defense.
Last month, partnering with the same organizations, we filed another amicus brief in favor of transparency regarding FRT in the criminal system, this time in the New Jersey Supreme Court in State of New Jersey v. Miles.
In Miles, New Jersey law enforcement used FRT to identify Mr. Miles as a suspect in a criminal investigation. The defendant, represented by the same public defender in Arteaga, moved for discovery on information about the FRT used, relying on Arteaga. The trial court granted this request for discovery, and the appellate court affirmed. The State then appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court, where the issue is before the Court for the first time.
As explained in our amicus brief, disclosure is necessary to ensure criminal prosecutions are based on accurate evidence. Every search using face recognition technology presents a unique risk of error depending on various factors from the specific FRT system used, the databases searched, the quality of the photograph, and the demographics of the individual. Study after study shows that facial recognition algorithms are not always reliable, and that error rates spike significantly when involving faces of people of color, especially Black women, as well as trans and nonbinary people.
Moreover, these searches often determine the course of investigation, reinforcing errors and resulting in numerous wrongful arrests, most often of Black folks. Discovery is the last chance to correct harm from misidentification and to allow the defendant to understand the evidence against them.
Furthermore, the public, including independent experts, have the right to examine the technology used in criminal proceedings. Under the First Amendment and the more expansive New Jersey Constitution corollary, the public’s right to access criminal judicial proceedings includes filings in pretrial proceedings, like the information being sought here. That access provides the public meaningful oversight of the criminal justice system and increases confidence in judicial outcomes, which is especially significant considering the documented risks and shortcomings of FRT.
Professor Emeritus Hank Smith honored for pioneering work in nanofabrication
Nanostructures are a stunning array of intricate patterns that are imperceptible to the human eye, yet they help power modern life. They are the building blocks of microchip transistors, etched onto grating substrates of space-based X-ray telescopes, and drive innovations in medicine, sustainability, and quantum computing.
Since the 1970s, Henry “Hank” Smith, MIT professor emeritus of electrical engineering, has been a leading force in this field. He pioneered the use of proximity X-ray lithography, proving that X-rays’ short optical wavelength could produce high-resolution patterns at the nanometer scale. Smith also made significant advancements in phase-shifting masks (PSMs), a technique that disrupts light waves to enhance contrast. His design of attenuated PSMs, which he co-created with graduate students Mark Schattenburg PhD ʼ84 and Erik H. Anderson ʼ81, SM ʼ84, PhD ʼ88, is still used today in the semiconductor industry.
In recognition of these contributions, as well as highly influential achievements in liquid-immersion lithography, achromatic-interference lithography, and zone-plate array lithography, Smith recently received the 2025 SPIE Frits Zernike Award for Microlithography. Given by the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), the accolade recognizes scientists for their outstanding accomplishments in microlithographic technology.
“The Zernike Award is an impressive honor that aptly recognizes Hank’s pioneering contributions,” says Karl Berggren, MIT’s Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor in Electrical Engineering and faculty head of electrical engineering. “Whether it was in the classroom, at a research conference, or in the lab, Hank approached his work with a high level of scientific rigor that helped make him decades ahead of industry practices.”
Now 88 years old, Smith has garnered many other honors. He was also awarded the SPIE BACUS Prize, named a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, IEEE, the National Academy of Inventors, and the International Society for Nanomanufacturing.
Jump-starting the nano frontier
From an early age, Smith was fascinated by the world around him. He took apart clocks to see how they worked, explored the outdoors, and even observed the movement of water. After graduating from high school in New Jersey, Smith majored in physics at College of the Holy Cross. From there, he pursued his doctorate at Boston College and served three years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force.
It was his job at MIT Lincoln Laboratory that ultimately changed Smith’s career trajectory. There, he met visitors from MIT and Harvard University who shared their big ideas for electronic and surface acoustic wave devices but were stymied by the physical limitations of fabrication. Yet, few were inclined to tackle this challenge.
“The job of making things was usually brushed off the table with, ‘oh well, we’ll get some technicians to do that,’” Smith said in his oral history for the Center for Nanotechnology in Society. “And the intellectual content of fabrication technology was not appreciated by people who had been ‘traditionally educated,’ I guess.”
More interested in solving problems than maintaining academic rank, Smith set out to understand the science of fabrication. His breakthrough in X-ray lithography signaled to the world the potential and possibilities of working on the nanometer scale, says Schattenburg, who is a senior research scientist at MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
“His early work proved to people at MIT and researchers across the country that nanofabrication had some merit,” Schattenburg says. “By showing what was possible, Hank really jump-started the nano frontier.”
Cracking open lithography’s black box
By 1980, Smith left Lincoln Lab for MIT’s main campus and continued to push forward new ideas in his NanoStructures Laboratory (NSL), formerly the Submicron Structures Laboratory. NSL served as both a research lab and a service shop that provided optical gratings, which are pieces of glass engraved with sub-micron periodic patterns, to the MIT community and outside scientists. It was a busy time for the lab; NSL attracted graduate students and international visitors. Still, Smith and his staff ensured that anyone visiting NSL would also receive a primer on nanotechnology.
“Hank never wanted anything we produced to be treated as a black box,” says Mark Mondol, MIT.nano e-beam lithography domain expert who spent 23 years working with Smith in NSL. “Hank was always very keen on people understanding our work and how it happens, and he was the perfect person to explain it because he talked in very clear and basic terms.”
The physical NSL space in MIT Building 39 shuttered in 2023, a decade after Smith became an emeritus faculty member. NSL’s knowledgeable staff and unique capabilities transferred to MIT.nano, which now serves as MIT’s central hub for supporting nanoscience and nanotechnology advancements. Unstoppable, Smith continues to contribute his wisdom to the ever-expanding nano community by giving talks at the NSL Community Meetings at MIT.nano focused on lithography, nanofabrication, and their future.
Smith’s career is far from complete. Through his startup LumArray, Smith continues to push the boundaries of knowledge. He recently devised a maskless lithography method, known as X-ray Maskless Lithography (XML), that has the potential to lower manufacturing costs of microchips and thwart the sale of counterfeit microchips.
Dimitri Antoniadis, MIT professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, is Smith’s longtime collaborator and friend. According to him, Smith’s commitment to research is practically unheard-of.
“Once professors reach emeritus status, we usually inspire and supervise research,” Antoniadis says. “It’s very rare for retired professors to do all the work themselves, but he loves it.”
Enduring influence
Smith’s legacy extends far beyond the groundbreaking tools and techniques he pioneered, say his friends, colleagues, and former students. His relentless curiosity and commitment to his graduate students helped propel his field forward.
He earned a reputation for sitting in the front row at research conferences, ready to ask the first question. Fellow researchers sometimes dreaded seeing him there.
“Hank kept us honest,” Berggren says. “Scientists and engineers knew that they couldn’t make a claim that was a little too strong, or use data that didn’t support the hypothesis, because Hank would hold them accountable.”
Smith never saw himself as playing the good cop or bad cop — he was simply a curious learner unafraid to look foolish.
“There are famous people, Nobel Prize winners, that will sit through research presentations and not have a clue as to what’s going on,” Smith says. “That is an utter waste of time. If I don’t understand something, I’m going to ask a question.”
As an advisor, Smith held his graduate students to high standards. If they came unprepared or lacked understanding of their research, he would challenge them with tough, unrelenting questions. Yet, he was also their biggest advocate, helping students such as Lisa Su SB/SM ʼ91, PhD ʼ94, who is now the chair and chief executive officer of AMD, and Dario Gil PhD ʼ03, who is now the chair of the National Science Board and senior vice president and director of research at IBM, succeed in the lab and beyond.
Research Specialist James Daley has spent nearly three decades at MIT, most of them working with Smith. In that time, he has seen hundreds of advisees graduate and return to offer their thanks. “Hank’s former students are all over the world,” Daley says. “Many are now professors mentoring their own graduate students and bringing with them some of Hank’s style. They are his greatest legacy.”
Celebrating an academic-industry collaboration to advance vehicle technology
On May 6, MIT AgeLab’s Advanced Vehicle Technology (AVT) Consortium, part of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics, celebrated 10 years of its global academic-industry collaboration. AVT was founded with the aim of developing new data that contribute to automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and insurers’ real-world understanding of how drivers use and respond to increasingly sophisticated vehicle technologies, such as assistive and automated driving, while accelerating the applied insight needed to advance design and development. The celebration event brought together stakeholders from across the industry for a set of keynote addresses and panel discussions on critical topics significant to the industry and its future, including artificial intelligence, automotive technology, collision repair, consumer behavior, sustainability, vehicle safety policy, and global competitiveness.
Bryan Reimer, founder and co-director of the AVT Consortium, opened the event by remarking that over the decade AVT has collected hundreds of terabytes of data, presented and discussed research with its over 25 member organizations, supported members’ strategic and policy initiatives, published select outcomes, and built AVT into a global influencer with tremendous impact in the automotive industry. He noted that current opportunities and challenges for the industry include distracted driving, a lack of consumer trust and concerns around transparency in assistive and automated driving features, and high consumer expectations for vehicle technology, safety, and affordability. How will industry respond? Major players in attendance weighed in.
In a powerful exchange on vehicle safety regulation, John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, and Mark Rosekind, former chief safety innovation officer of Zoox, former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and former member of the National Transportation Safety Board, challenged industry and government to adopt a more strategic, data-driven, and collaborative approach to safety. They asserted that regulation must evolve alongside innovation, not lag behind it by decades. Appealing to the automakers in attendance, Bozzella cited the success of voluntary commitments on automatic emergency braking as a model for future progress. “That’s a way to do something important and impactful ahead of regulation.” They advocated for shared data platforms, anonymous reporting, and a common regulatory vision that sets safety baselines while allowing room for experimentation. The 40,000 annual road fatalities demand urgency — what’s needed is a move away from tactical fixes and toward a systemic safety strategy. “Safety delayed is safety denied,” Rosekind stated. “Tell me how you’re going to improve safety. Let’s be explicit.”
Drawing inspiration from aviation’s exemplary safety record, Kathy Abbott, chief scientific and technical advisor for the Federal Aviation Administration, pointed to a culture of rigorous regulation, continuous improvement, and cross-sectoral data sharing. Aviation’s model, built on highly trained personnel and strict predictability standards, contrasts sharply with the fragmented approach in the automotive industry. The keynote emphasized that a foundation of safety culture — one that recognizes that technological ability alone isn’t justification for deployment — must guide the auto industry forward. Just as aviation doesn’t equate absence of failure with success, vehicle safety must be measured holistically and proactively.
With assistive and automated driving top of mind in the industry, Pete Bigelow of Automotive News offered a pragmatic diagnosis. With companies like Ford and Volkswagen stepping back from full autonomy projects like Argo AI, the industry is now focused on Level 2 and 3 technologies, which refer to assisted and automated driving, respectively. Tesla, GM, and Mercedes are experimenting with subscription models for driver assistance systems, yet consumer confusion remains high. JD Power reports that many drivers do not grasp the differences between L2 and L2+, or whether these technologies offer safety or convenience features. Safety benefits have yet to manifest in reduced traffic deaths, which have risen by 20 percent since 2020. The recurring challenge: L3 systems demand that human drivers take over during technical difficulties, despite driver disengagement being their primary benefit, potentially worsening outcomes. Bigelow cited a quote from Bryan Reimer as one of the best he’s received in his career: “Level 3 systems are an engineer’s dream and a plaintiff attorney’s next yacht,” highlighting the legal and design complexity of systems that demand handoffs between machine and human.
In terms of the impact of AI on the automotive industry, Mauricio Muñoz, senior research engineer at AI Sweden, underscored that despite AI’s transformative potential, the automotive industry cannot rely on general AI megatrends to solve domain-specific challenges. While landmark achievements like AlphaFold demonstrate AI’s prowess, automotive applications require domain expertise, data sovereignty, and targeted collaboration. Energy constraints, data firewalls, and the high costs of AI infrastructure all pose limitations, making it critical that companies fund purpose-driven research that can reduce costs and improve implementation fidelity. Muñoz warned that while excitement abounds — with some predicting artificial superintelligence by 2028 — real progress demands organizational alignment and a deep understanding of the automotive context, not just computational power.
Turning the focus to consumers, a collision repair panel drawing Richard Billyeald from Thatcham Research, Hami Ebrahimi from Caliber Collision, and Mike Nelson from Nelson Law explored the unintended consequences of vehicle technology advances: spiraling repair costs, labor shortages, and a lack of repairability standards. Panelists warned that even minor repairs for advanced vehicles now require costly and complex sensor recalibrations — compounded by inconsistent manufacturer guidance and no clear consumer alerts when systems are out of calibration. The panel called for greater standardization, consumer education, and repair-friendly design. As insurance premiums climb and more people forgo insurance claims, the lack of coordination between automakers, regulators, and service providers threatens consumer safety and undermines trust. The group warned that until Level 2 systems function reliably and affordably, moving toward Level 3 autonomy is premature and risky.
While the repair panel emphasized today’s urgent challenges, other speakers looked to the future. Honda’s Ryan Harty, for example, highlighted the company’s aggressive push toward sustainability and safety. Honda aims for zero environmental impact and zero traffic fatalities, with plans to be 100 percent electric by 2040 and to lead in energy storage and clean power integration. The company has developed tools to coach young drivers and is investing in charging infrastructure, grid-aware battery usage, and green hydrogen storage. “What consumers buy in the market dictates what the manufacturers make,” Harty noted, underscoring the importance of aligning product strategy with user demand and environmental responsibility. He stressed that manufacturers can only decarbonize as fast as the industry allows, and emphasized the need to shift from cost-based to life-cycle-based product strategies.
Finally, a panel involving Laura Chace of ITS America, Jon Demerly of Qualcomm, Brad Stertz of Audi/VW Group, and Anant Thaker of Aptiv covered the near-, mid-, and long-term future of vehicle technology. Panelists emphasized that consumer expectations, infrastructure investment, and regulatory modernization must evolve together. Despite record bicycle fatality rates and persistent distracted driving, features like school bus detection and stop sign alerts remain underutilized due to skepticism and cost. Panelists stressed that we must design systems for proactive safety rather than reactive response. The slow integration of digital infrastructure — sensors, edge computing, data analytics — stems not only from technical hurdles, but procurement and policy challenges as well.
Reimer concluded the event by urging industry leaders to re-center the consumer in all conversations — from affordability to maintenance and repair. With the rising costs of ownership, growing gaps in trust in technology, and misalignment between innovation and consumer value, the future of mobility depends on rebuilding trust and reshaping industry economics. He called for global collaboration, greater standardization, and transparent innovation that consumers can understand and afford. He highlighted that global competitiveness and public safety both hang in the balance. As Reimer noted, “success will come through partnerships” — between industry, academia, and government — that work toward shared investment, cultural change, and a collective willingness to prioritize the public good.
Anantha Chandrakasan named MIT provost
Anantha Chandrakasan, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science who has held multiple leadership roles at MIT, has been named the Institute’s new provost, effective July 1.
Chandrakasan has served as the dean of the School of Engineering since 2017 and as MIT’s inaugural chief innovation and strategy officer since 2024. Prior to becoming dean, he headed the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), MIT’s largest academic department, for six years.
“Anantha brings to this post an exceptional record of shaping and leading important innovations for the Institute,” wrote MIT President Sally Kornbluth, in an email announcing the decision to the MIT community today. “I am particularly grateful that we will be able to draw on Anantha’s depth and breadth of experience; his nimbleness, entrepreneurial spirit and boundless energy; his remarkable record in raising funds from outside sources for important ideas; and his profound commitment to MIT’s mission.”
The provost is MIT’s senior academic and budget officer, with overall responsibility for the Institute’s educational programs, as well as for the recruitment, promotion, and tenuring of faculty. With the president and other members of the Institute’s senior leadership team, the provost establishes academic priorities, manages financial planning and research support, and oversees MIT’s international engagements.
“I feel deeply honored to take on the role of provost,” says Chandrakasan, who is also the Vannevar Bush Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “Looking ahead, I see myself as a key facilitator, enabling faculty, students, postdocs, and staff to continue making extraordinary contributions to the nation and the world.”
Investing in excellence
Chandrakasan succeeds Cynthia Barnhart, who announced her decision to step down from the role in February. As dean of engineering, Chandrakasan worked with Barnhart closely during her tenure as provost and, before that, chancellor.
“Cindy has been a tremendous mentor,” he says. “She is always very thoughtful and makes sure she hears all the viewpoints, which is something I will strive to do as well. I so admire how deftly she approaches complex problems and supports a variety of perspectives and approaches.”
As MIT’s chief academic officer, Chandrakasan will focus on three overarching priorities: understanding institutional needs and strategic financial planning, attracting and retaining top talent, and supporting cross-cutting research, education, and entrepreneurship programming. On all of these fronts, he plans to seek frequent input from across the Institute.
“Recognizing that each school and other academic units operate within a unique context, I plan to engage deeply with their leaders to understand their challenges and aspirations. This will help me refine and set the priorities for the Office of the Provost,” Chandrakasan says.
He also plans to establish a provost faculty advisory group to hear on an ongoing basis from faculty across the five schools and the college, as well as student/postdoc advisory groups and an external provost advisory council.
“My goal is to continue to facilitate excellence at MIT at all levels,” Chandrakasan says.
He adds: “There is a tremendous opportunity for MIT to be at the center of the innovations in areas where the United States wants to lead. It’s about AI. It’s about semiconductors. It’s about quantum, the biosecurity and biomanufacturing space — but not only that. We need students who can do more than just code or design or build. We really need students who understand the human perspective and human insights. This is why collaborations between STEM fields and the humanities, arts and social sciences, such as through the new MIT Human Insights Collaborative, are so important.”
In her email to the MIT community, Kornbluth also noted that Institute Professor Paula Hammond, currently vice provost for faculty, will take on an expanded portfolio with the new title of executive vice provost, and Deputy Dean of Engineering Maria Yang will serve as interim dean until the new dean is in place.
Advancing the president’s vision
In February 2024, Chandrakasan was appointed at MIT’s first chief innovation and strategy officer, to help develop and implement plans to advance research, education, and innovation in areas that President Kornbluth identified as her top priorities.
Working closely with the president, Chandrakasan oversaw MIT’s launch of several Institute-wide initiatives, including the MIT Human Insight Collaborative (MITHIC), the MIT Health and Life Sciences Collaborative (MIT HEALS), the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium (MGAIC, or “magic”), the MIT Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM), and multiple energy- and climate-related initiatives including the MIT-GE Vernova Energy and Climate Alliance.
These initiatives bring together MIT faculty, staff, and students from across the Institute, as well as industry partners, supporting bold, ground-breaking research and education to address pressing problems. In launching them, Chandrakasan was responsible for the “full stack” of tasks, from developing the vision to finding funding to implementing the programming — a significant undertaking on top of his other responsibilities.
“People consider me intense, which might be true,” he says, with a chuckle. “The reality is that I’m deeply passionate about the academic mission of MIT to create breakthrough technologies, educate the next generation of leaders, and serve the country and the world.”
New models for collaboration
During his time as dean of engineering, Chandrakasan played a key role in advancing a variety of historic Institute-wide initiatives, including the founding of the MIT Schwarzman College of computing and the development of the MIT Fast Forward plan for addressing climate change. He also served as the inaugural chair of the Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health and as the co-chair of the academic workstream for MIT’s Task Force 2021. Earlier, he led an Institute-wide working group to guide the development of policies and procedures related to MIT’s 2016 launch of The Engine, an incubator and accelerator for tough tech, and also served on its inaugural board.
He implemented a variety of interdisciplinary programs within the School of Engineering, creating new models for how academia and industry can work together to accelerate the pace of research. This work led to multiple new initiatives, such as the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium, the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, the MIT-Takeda Program, the MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative, the MIT Mobility Initiative, the MIT Quest for Intelligence, the MIT AI Hardware Program, the MIT-Northpond Program, the MIT Faculty Founder Initiative, and the MIT-Novo Nordisk Artificial Intelligence Postdoctoral Fellows Program.
Chandrakasan also welcomed and supported 110 new faculty members to the School of Engineering, including in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, which jointly reports between the School of Engineering and the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. He also oversaw 274 faculty and senior researcher promotion cases in Engineering Council.
One of his priorities as dean was to bolster the School of Engineering’s sense of community, launching several programs to give students and staff a more active role in shaping the initiatives and operations of the school, including the Staff Advice and Implementation Committee (SAIC), the undergraduate Student Advisory Group, the Graduate Student Advisory Group (GradSage), and the MIT School of Engineering Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for Engineering Excellence. Working closely with GradSage, Chandrakasan also played a key role in establishing the Daniel J. Riccio Graduate Engineering Leadership Program.
A champion for EECS research and education
Chandrakasan earned his BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California at Berkeley. After joining the MIT faculty, he was the director of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories from 2006 until 2011, when he became the EECS department head.
An active researcher throughout his time at MIT, Chandrakasan has led the MIT Energy-Efficient Circuits and Systems Group even while taking on new administrative roles. The group works on the design and implementation of integrated systems, from ultra-low-power wireless sensors and multimedia devices to biomedical systems. Chandrakasan has more than 120,000 citations and has advised or co-advised and graduated 78 PhD students. He says this experience will help him succeed as provost.
“To understand the pain points of our researcher scholars, you have to be in the trenches,” he says.
While at the helm of EECS, Chandrakasan also launched a number of initiatives on behalf of the department’s students. For example, the Advanced Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, more commonly known as “SuperUROP,” is a year-long independent research program that launched in EECS in 2012 and expanded to the whole School of Engineering in 2015.
Chandrakasan also initiated the Rising Stars program in EECS, an annual event that convenes graduate and postdoc women for the purpose of sharing advice about the early stages of an academic career. Another program for EECS postdocs, Postdoc6, aimed to foster a sense of community for postdocs and help them develop skills that will serve their careers.
As higher education faces new challenges, Chandrakasan says he is looking forward to helping MIT position itself for the future. “I'm not afraid to try bold things,” he says.
Protecting Minors Online Must Not Come at the Cost of Privacy and Free Expression
The European Commission has taken an important step toward protecting minors online by releasing draft guidelines under Article 28 of the Digital Services Act (DSA). EFF recently submitted feedback to the Commission’s Targeted Consultation, emphasizing a critical point: Online safety for young people must not come at the expense of privacy, free expression, and equitable access to digital spaces.
We support the Commission’s commitment to proportionality, rights-based protections, and its efforts to include young voices in shaping these guidelines. But we remain deeply concerned by the growing reliance on invasive age assurance and verification technologies—tools that too often lead to surveillance, discrimination, and censorship.
Age verification systems typically depend on government-issued ID or biometric data, posing significant risks to privacy and shutting out millions of people without formal documentation. Age estimation methods fare no better: they’re inaccurate, especially for marginalized groups, and often rely on sensitive behavioral or biometric data. Meanwhile, vague mandates to protect against “unrealistic beauty standards” or “potentially risky content” threaten to overblock legitimate expression, disproportionately harming vulnerable users, including LGBTQ+ youth.
By placing a disproportionate emphasis on age assurance as a necessary tool to safeguard minors, the guidelines do not address the root causes of risks encountered by all users, including minors, and instead merely focus on treating their symptoms.
Safety matters—but so do privacy, access to information, and the fundamental rights of all users. We urge the Commission to avoid endorsing disproportionate, one-size-fits-all technical solutions. Instead, we recommend user-empowering approaches: Strong default privacy settings, transparency in recommender systems, and robust user control over the content they see and share.
The DSA presents an opportunity to protect minors while upholding digital rights. We hope the final guidelines reflect that balance.
Read more about digital identity and the future of age verification in Europe here.
How Trump’s assault on science is blinding America to climate change
Assassinated lawmaker remembered as ‘giant’ who drove Minnesota climate action
22 climate activists request emergency injunction to stop Trump EOs
Global reinsurer says extreme heat is No. 1 risk
Trump budget would continue uneven support of highway disaster fund
California regulators will probe State Farm’s handling of LA fire claims
California high-speed rail CEO slams Trump’s plan to terminate grants
Why the EU is about to cripple its next climate target
The battle for the soul of Britain’s Green Party
Navigating the black box of fair national emissions targets
Nature Climate Change, Published online: 16 June 2025; doi:10.1038/s41558-025-02361-7
Fair climate targets aligned with the Paris Agreement can be calculated in multiple ways, yielding diverse outcomes. Researchers unpack how equity, global strategies and political and social uncertainties shape fair share allocations, using them to assess nationally determined contributions and guide global climate finance.Startup’s biosensor makes drug development and manufacturing cheaper
In the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, ELISA tests provide critical quality control during drug development and manufacturing. The tests can precisely quantify protein levels, but they also require hours of work by trained technicians and specialized equipment. That makes them prohibitively expensive, driving up the costs of drugs and putting research testing out of reach for many.
Now the Advanced Silicon Group (ASG), founded by Marcie Black ’94, MEng ’95, PhD ’03 and Bill Rever, is commercializing a new technology that could dramatically lower the time and costs associated with protein sensing. ASG’s proprietary sensor combines silicon nanowires with antibodies that can bind to different proteins to create a highly sensitive measurement of their concentration in a given solution.
The tests can measure the concentration of many different proteins and other molecules at once, with results typically available in less than 15 minutes. Users simply place a tiny amount of solution on the sensor, rinse the sensor, and then insert it into ASG’s handheld testing system.
“We’re making it 15 times faster and 15 times lower cost to test for proteins,” Black says. “That’s on the drug development side. This could also make the manufacturing of drugs significantly faster and more cost-effective. It could revolutionize how we create drugs in this country and around the world.”
Since developing its sensor, ASG’s team has received inquiries from a long list of people interested in using them to develop new therapeutics, help elite athletes train, and understand soil concentrations in agriculture, among other applications.
For now, though, the small company is focusing on lowering barriers in health care by selling its low-cost sensors to companies developing and manufacturing drugs.
“Right now, money is a limiting factor in researching and creating new drugs,” explains Marissa Gillis, a member of ASG’s team. “Making these processes faster and less costly could dramatically increase the amount of biologic testing and creation. It also makes it more viable for companies to develop drugs for rare conditions with smaller markets.”
A family away from home
Black grew up in a small town in Ohio before coming to MIT for three degrees in electrical engineering.
“Going to MIT changed my life,” Black says. “It opened my eyes to the possibilities of doing science and engineering to make the world a better place. Also, just being around so many amazing people taught me how to dream big.”
For her PhD, Black worked with the late Institute Professor Mildred Dresselhaus, a highly acclaimed physicist and nanotechnology pioneer who Black remembers for her mentorship and compassion as much as her contributions to our understanding of exotic materials. Black couldn’t always afford to go home for holidays, so she’d spend Thanksgivings with the Dresselhaus family.
“Millie was an amazing person, and her family was a family away from home for me,” Black says. “Millie continued to be my mentor — and I hear she did this with a lot of students — until the day she died.”
For her thesis, Black studied the optical properties of nanowires, which taught her about the nanostructures and optoelectronics she’d eventually use as part of the Advanced Silicon Group.
Following graduation, Black worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory before founding the company Bandgap Engineering, which developed efficient, low-cost nanostructured solar cells. That technology was subsequently commercialized by other companies and became the subject of a patent dispute. In 2015, Black spun out the Advanced Silicon Group to apply a similar technology to protein sensing.
ASG’s sensors combine known approaches for sensitizing silicon to biological molecules, using the photoelectric properties of silicon nanowires to detect proteins electrically.
“It’s basically a solar cell that we functionalize with an antibody that’s specific to a certain protein,” Black says. “When the protein gets close, it brings an electrical charge with it that will repel light carriers inside the silicon, and doing that changes how well the electron and the holes can recombine. By looking at the photocurrent when you’re exposed to a solution, you can tell how much protein is bound to the surface and thus the concentration of that protein.”
ASG was accepted into MIT.nano’s START.nano startup accelerator and MIT’s Office of Corporate Relations Startup Exchange Program soon after its founding, which gave Black’s team access to cutting-edge equipment at MIT and connected her with potential investors and partners.
Black has also received broad support from MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service and worked with researchers from MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL), where she conducted research as a student.
“Even though the company is in Lowell, [Massachusetts], I’m constantly going to MIT and getting help from professors and researchers at MIT,” Black says.
Biosensing for impact
From extensive discussions with people in the pharmaceutical industry, Black learned about the need for a more affordable protein-measurement tool. During drug development and manufacturing, protein levels must be measured to detect problems such as contamination from host cell proteins, which can be fatal to patients even at very low quantities.
“It can cost more than $1 billion to develop a drug,” Black says. “A big part of the process is bioprocessing, and 50 to 80 percent of bioprocessing is dedicated to purifying these unwanted proteins. That challenge leads to drugs being more expensive and taking longer to get to market.”
ASG has since worked with researchers to develop tests for biomarkers associated with lung cancer and dormant tuberculosis and has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the commonwealth of Massachusetts, including funding to develop tests for host cell proteins.
This year, ASG announced a partnership with Axogen to help the regenerative nerve repair company grow nerve tissue.
“There’s a lot of interest in using our sensor for applications in regenerative medicine,” Black says. “Another example we envision is if you’re sick in rural India and there’s no doctor nearby, you can show up at a clinic, nurses can give this to you and test for the flu, Covid-19, food poisoning, pregnancy, and 10 other things all at once. The results come in 15 minutes, then you could get what you need or teleconference a doctor.”
ASG is currently able to produce about 2,000 of its sensors on 8-inch chips per production line in its partner’s semiconductor foundry. As the company continues scaling up production, Black is hopeful the sensors will lower costs at every step between drug developers and patients.
“We really want to lower the barriers for testing so that everyone has access to good health care,” Black says. “Beyond that, there are so many applications for protein sensing. It’s really where the rubber hits the road in biology, agriculture, diagnostics. We’re excited to partner with leaders in every one of these industries.”
Upcoming Speaking Engagements
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
- I’m speaking at the International Conference on Digital Trust, AI and the Future in Edinburgh, Scotland on Tuesday, June 24 at 4:00 PM.
The list is maintained on this page.