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.
How Indian health-care workers usage WhatsApp to prevention large women
Across India, an all-women cadre of 1 cardinal assemblage health-care workers are liable for making nationalist wellness attraction accessible to radical from distant areas and marginalized communities.
These workers counsel large women and guarantee they person due science-backed wellness care. Many are turning to WhatsApp arsenic a means to combat the aesculapian misinformation that is rampant crossed the state and to navigate delicate aesculapian situations, peculiarly regarding pregnancy. Their attack has amazingly bully results. Read the afloat story.
—Sanket Jain
A Massachusetts measure could let prisoners to swap their organs for their freedom
What is the worth of a quality organ? A disturbing projected alteration to the instrumentality successful Massachusetts could springiness incarcerated radical the accidental to swap their assemblage parts for reduced situation sentences.
Prisoners who donate 1 of their organs oregon their bony marrow could beryllium rewarded with anyplace betwixt 60 and 365 days disconnected their condemnation if this measure were to pass. Its cosponsors are touting it arsenic a mode to broaden the excavation of donors for much-needed organs. But laws similar this 1 are the incorrect mode to spell astir expanding organ donation. Read the afloat story.
—Jessica Hamzelou
This communicative is from The Checkup, Jessica’s play newsletter covering biotech. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Thursday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 A suspected Chinese ‘spy balloon’ is flying implicit the US
Officials are hesitant to sprout it down successful lawsuit it injures someone. (BBC)
+ The balloon doesn’t airs a menace to radical connected the ground. (WSJ $)
+ How China built a one-of-a-kind cyber-espionage behemoth to last. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Things are going from atrocious to worse for Big Tech
Earnings are sluggish, and jobs are inactive astatine risk. (WP $)
+ Apple, successful particular, fell abbreviated of expectations. (WSJ $)
3 The Kremlin seems to beryllium tracking Russian dissidents done Telegram
The app, which is expected to beryllium encrypted, has reportedly been compromised. (Wired $)
4 The motley unit down the Tether cryptocurrency
Including a erstwhile integrative surgeon and kid actor. (WSJ $)
+ We’re blessed to beryllium regulated, the crypto manufacture tells UK officials. (FT $)
+ Exchange Binance has started operating successful South Korea again. (CoinDesk)
+ What’s adjacent for crypto. (MIT Technology Review)
5 ADHD patients are suffering from an Adderall shortage
We don’t cognize wherefore supplies are truthful low—and officials aren’t upping the quotas. (The Guardian)
6 Native American peoples are warring for visibility connected Wikipedia
Editors are astatine loggerheads implicit however to screen indigenous history. (Slate $)
+ Authorities successful Pakistan person ordered Wikipedia to region content. (The Register)
7 Those horrible website clickbait ads aren’t going anywhere
The unnerving images thrust clicks, unfortunately. (Fast Company $)
8 The downsides of paying societal media users to post
The Philippine cardinal slope didn’t look favorably connected it, for one. (Rest of World)
9 TikTok loves Manhattan’s seasoned ticker dealers
It’s axenic Uncut Gems. (NYT $)
10 Virtual world is getting sexy
Explicit contented is banned connected the VRChat platform, but radical are attending virtual orgies connected determination anyway. (BuzzFeed)
Quote of the day
Quote of the day:
—Rob Dubbin, the brains down a fashionable automated Twitter bot, tells BuzzFeed however helium feels astir Elon Musk’s plans to complaint harmless bot relationship creators.
The large story
It’s good to opt retired of the crypto revolution
April 2022
Crypto advertizing is everywhere. But contempt their ubiquity and lavish expense, these ads routinely omit immoderate statement of what crypto is, oregon what immoderate of the crypto companies are really selling.
Crypto enthusiasts assertion that the manufacture volition revolutionize fiscal systems by decentralizing commerce. But truthful far, the manufacture has not made bully connected that democratizing promise. Read the afloat story.
—Rebecca Ackermann
We tin inactive person bully things
A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line or tweet 'em astatine me.)
+ Getting this 1 successful earlier Elon bans the bully bots—the Random Restaurants Twitter relationship makes bully connected its name.
+ What’s going to hap to book Twitter? Nothing good, it seems.
+ These pesky fish revealed their owner’s recognition paper details during a gaming unrecorded watercourse to thousands of people. 🐟
+ How to beryllium a cheap date—in the astir literal sense.
+ Congratulations to Bobi, who’s not lone the world’s oldest canine living, but the oldest canine ever!