← Back to feed Tech & Digital

The Download: AstroTurf wars and exponential AI growth

MIT Technology Review / 09 April 2026 / 3h ago
The Download: AstroTurf wars and exponential AI growth
Culture Index
62
Score Breakdown
Relevance
9/25
Freshness
25/25
Authority
18/20
Brand Signal
4/15
Depth
6/15
5-Axis Cultural Radar
Relevance Freshness Authority Brand Depth
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. Is fake grass a bad idea? The AstroTurf wars are far from over. In 2001, Americans installed just over 7 million square meters of synthetic turf. By 2024, that number was 79 million square meters—enough to carpet all of Manhattan and then some. The…
Read Full Article → MIT Technology Review ↗

More in Tech & Digital

Techmeme

Annual letter: Andy Jassy says AWS' AI revenue has hit a $15B annual run rate as of Q1 and that Amazon's internal chips business is generating $20B+ per year (Todd Bishop/GeekWire)

80
Techmeme

A survey of 1,500 people aged 14 to 29: hopefulness regarding AI has dropped from 27% to 18% over the past year, and 50% report using GenAI daily or weekly (Callie Holtermann/New York Times)

76
Techmeme

Elorian, which builds visual AI models with better reasoning capabilities for industries like robotics, emerges from stealth with $55M at a $300M valuation (Bloomberg)

75