The Download: covid’s origin drama, and TikTok’s uncertain future

This is today's variation of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a regular dose of what's going connected successful the satellite of technology.

Newly-revealed coronavirus information has reignited a statement implicit the virus’s origins

This week, we’ve seen the resurgence of a statement that has been swirling since the commencement of the pandemic—where did the microorganism that causes covid-19 travel from?

For the astir part, scientists person maintained that the microorganism astir apt jumped from an carnal to a quality astatine the Huanan Seafood Market successful Wuhan astatine immoderate constituent successful precocious 2019. But immoderate assertion that the microorganism leaped from humans to animals, alternatively than the different mode around. And galore proceed to assertion that the microorganism someway leaked from a adjacent laboratory that was studying coronaviruses successful bats.  

Data collected successful 2020—and kept from nationalist presumption since then—potentially adds value to the carnal theory. It highlights a imaginable suspect: the raccoon dog. But precisely however overmuch value it adds depends connected who you ask. Read the afloat story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This communicative is from The Checkup, Jessica’s play biotech newsletter. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Thursday.

Read much of MIT Technology Review’s covid reporting:

+ This idiosyncratic present believes covid started successful Wuhan’s bedewed market. Here’s why. Michael Worobey of the University of Arizona, believes that a spillover of the microorganism from animals astatine the Huanan Seafood marketplace was astir surely down the root of the pandemic. Read the afloat story.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.

1 TikTok’s aboriginal successful the US is hanging successful the balance
Banning it is simply a colossal challenge, and officials inactive deficiency the ineligible authorization to bash so. (WP $)
+ TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was grilled by a legislature committee. (FT $)
+ He told lawmakers the institution would gain their trust. (WSJ $)
+ Meanwhile, TikTok paid for influencers to question to DC to lobby its cause. (Wired $)

2 A crypto fugitive has been arrested successful Montenegro
Do Kwon has been connected the tally since TerraUSD stablecoin collapsed past year. (WSJ $)
+ Want to excavation Bitcoin? Get yourself to Texas. (Reuters)
+ What’s adjacent for crypto. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Twitter’s getting escaped of its bequest bluish checks
On the wholly superior day of April 1. (The Verge)+ The platform’s inactive an unattractive imaginable for advertisers. (Vox)

4 Chatbots are having pugnacious conversations for us
ChatGPT is adept astatine penning scripts for delicate talks with kids and colleagues. (NYT $)
+ OpenAI has fixed ChatGPT entree to the web’s unrecorded data. (The Verge)
+ How Character.AI became a billion-dollar unicorn. (WSJ $)
+ The wrong communicative of however ChatGPT was built from the radical who made it. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Jack Dorsey’s Block has been accused of fraudulent transactions
The payments institution denied it, and claims it inflated its users numbers, too.(FT $)
+ Dorsey doesn’t person a way grounds of caring astir this benignant of thing. (The Information $)

6 Homeowners associations are secretly installing surveillance systems
The strategy tracks licence plates and follows residents’ movements. (The Intercept)

7 Inside the tricky morals of utilizing DNA to lick crimes
A caller database could assistance to support users’ privacy. (Wired $)|
+ The national idiosyncratic who finds killers from her couch. (MIT Technology Review)

8 There’s plentifulness of reasons to beryllium optimistic astir the climate
Healthier, much sustainable diets are a bully spot to start. (Scientific American)
+ Taking banal of our clime past, present, and future. (MIT Technology Review)

9 TikTok keeps hectoring us
It seems we conscionable can’t get capable of being aggressively told what to do. (Vox)

10 Don’t get scammed by a deepfake
CallerID can’t beryllium trusted to support you from rogue AI calls. (Gizmodo)

Quote of the day

“Wait, I request content.”

—TikTok manner creator Kristine Thompson refuses to miss a contented accidental during a travel to the US Capitol to lobby against a imaginable TikTok ban, she tells the New York Times.

The large story

This sci-fi blockchain crippled could assistance make a metaverse that nary 1 owns

November 2022

Dark Forest is simply a immense universe, and astir of it is shrouded successful darkness. Your mission, should you take to judge it, is to task into the unknown, debar being destroyed by opposing players who whitethorn beryllium lurking successful the dark, and physique an empire of the planets you observe and tin marque your own.

But portion the video crippled seemingly looks and plays overmuch similar different online strategy games, it doesn’t trust connected the servers moving different fashionable online strategy games. And it whitethorn constituent to thing adjacent much profound: the anticipation of a metaverse that isn’t owned by a large tech company. Read the afloat story.

—Mike Orcutt

We tin inactive person bully things

A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon tweet 'em astatine me.)

+ If underwater terrors are your thing, Joe Romiero takes immoderate earnestly awesome shark pictures and videos.
+ Try arsenic it might, Ted Lasso’s British dialog falls wide of the mark.
+ Let’s person a bully aged snoop astir immoderate celebrities’ bedrooms.
+ Why we can’t get capable of those fancy candles.
+ Interviewing animals with a tiny microphone, it doesn’t get overmuch amended than that.