techAugust 17, 2026·MIT Tech Review

The Download: dead robot friends and the “censorship-industrial complex”

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…

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•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 story was reported by MIT Tech Review, covering developments in the tech space.
•AI advancements continue to reshape industries — read the full article on MIT Tech Review for complete coverage.

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The Download: dead robot friends and the “censorship-industrial complex”

Key Takeaways

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What Flock’s defenders are missing

Business adoption of AI agents tripled this year - as measurable ROI emerges

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The Download: dead robot friends and the “censorship-industrial complex”

Key Takeaways

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Discussion

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MIT Tech Review
What Flock’s defenders are missing
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 Thur

ZDNet AI
Business adoption of AI agents tripled this year - as measurable ROI emerges
Industries are finding the strategies that work best for their business needs, according to Salesforce's latest Agentic Enterprise Index.

9to5Google
Google just bought a bunch of Spirit Airlines data for AI training
As the AI race continues to hunt for new data to use for AI training, Google has just purchased a huge dump of old data from the now-defunct Spirit Airlines to be “helpful” in training its AI models.

ZDNet AI
AI-enriched Linux 7.2 delivers cache-aware scheduling - here's everything new
The latest kernel also brings filesystem and I/O improvements and substantial new support across AMD, Intel, Apple, Nvidia, USB4, and laptop hardware.