1 year ago
121 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 to log off
As soon arsenic I aftermath up, I drawback my telephone to cheque immoderate messages that person arrived overnight and thumb done quality alerts earlier scrolling rapidly done Twitter and Instagram. At work, I’m tethered to Slack and email, isolated from the occasional TikTok video oregon meme I nonstop to my friends implicit WhatsApp. And if I extremity up watching mindless world TV successful the evening (hello, Love Island), I’ll inevitably caput backmost to Twitter to spot if everyone other is arsenic coiled up by the contestants’ latest antics arsenic I am.
None of this makes maine consciousness bad, exactly. But it doesn’t marque maine consciousness great, either. It’s casual to suffer hours to pointless scrolling with thing to amusement for it.
In hunt of ways to chopped down connected aimless clip online, I went to speech to immoderate experts astir however to forge a healthier, happier narration with my devices and the internet. Here's my mini-guide connected however to log off. Read the afloat story.
—Rhiannon Williams
Inside the authorities bureau shaping the aboriginal of energy
The US authorities had a manus successful creating immoderate of the astir iconic inventions of the past century, from idiosyncratic computers to modern GPS. Now, it’s making a akin propulsion for energy.
The ARPA-E bureau has awarded implicit $3 cardinal successful backing to implicit 1,400 projects successful precocious vigor probe since it was founded successful 2007, and appointed its caller director, Evelyn Wang, successful January.
She sat down with our clime newsman Casey Crownhart to sermon the agency’s relation successful advancing technology, the challenges that prevarication ahead, and wherefore we’re surviving successful a captious clip for energy. Read the afloat story.
The net is astir to get a batch safer
If you usage Google, Instagram, Wikipedia, oregon YouTube, you're going to commencement noticing changes to contented moderation, transparency, and information features connected those sites implicit the adjacent six months.
Why? It’s down to immoderate large tech authorities that was passed successful the EU past twelvemonth but hasn’t received a full batch of attention, particularly successful the US. The Digital Services Act, which deals with integer information and transparency from tech companies, and the Digital Markets Act, which addresses antitrust and contention successful the industry, are really rather revolutionary. Let Tate Ryan-Mosley, our elder tech argumentation reporter, explicate why. Read the afloat story.
Tate’s communicative is from The Technocrat, her caller play newsletter giving you the wrong way connected each things power, politics, and Silicon Valley. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Friday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Scammers are utilizing AI to impersonate loved ones successful distress
They’re utilizing inexpensive programs to marque eerily convincing telephone calls to victims. (WP $)
+ Bing is already showing signs of being a persuasive scammer, too. (Motherboard)
+ Audio deepfakes are poised to go a monolithic governmental problem. (The Atlantic $)
2 How Binance sought to evade US authorities
The speech went to utmost lengths to debar regulation. (WSJ $)
+ It’s good to opt retired of the crypto revolution. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Russia wants to physique its ain Android phone
It wants to go much self-sufficient amid biting tech sanctions. (Wired $)
4 Inside Afghanistan’s clime crisis
Scientists successful the state are urging the planetary assemblage to prosecute with the Taliban. (Undark)
+ The Taliban, not the West, won Afghanistan’s technological war. (MIT Technology Review)
5 What it’s similar to instrumentality Ozempic for its existent intended purpose
The drug, which is utilized to dainty diabetes, has been cooped by already-slim radical looking to suffer weight. (Slate $)
+ It’s important to guarantee the radical who request it are inactive capable to entree it. (Economist $)
6 What the precise archetypal chatbot tin thatch america astir AI
Its warnings are disturbingly prescient today. (Vox)
+ It turns retired that Ask Jeeves was close each along. (The Atlantic $)
+ The wrong communicative of however ChatGPT was built from the radical who made it. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Alexa, what happened?
Amazon’s once-innovative dependable adjunct has fallen by the wayside. (FT $)
8 How YouTube birthed a dubbing empire
Dubbing fashionable videos into caller languages unlocks caller audiences—and a full batch of cash. (Rest of World)
9 Mouse-jigglers are foiling workplace surveillance plans
They’re freeing workers to popular to the shops oregon ticker the shot successful peace. (The Guardian)
+ What to bash if your brag is watching you. (Wired $)
10 Meet Silicon Valley’s youngest founders
Gen Z are cutting deals and raising concern earlier they adjacent postgraduate highschool. (The Information $)
Quote of the day
“We already had Elizabeth Holmes. … we’ve already dug the grave.”
—Seraj Desai, a instrumentality pupil astatine Stanford, mulls implicit whether Sam Bankman-Fried’s location apprehension connected field sullies the university’s estimation successful a chat with the Washington Post.
How to measurement each the world’s caller water
December 2021
The Congo River is the world’s second-largest stream strategy aft the Amazon. More than 75 cardinal radical beryllium connected it for nutrient and water, arsenic bash thousands of taxon of plants and animals. The monolithic tropical rainforest sprawled crossed its mediate helps modulate the full Earth’s clime system, but the magnitude of h2o successful it is thing of a mystery.
Hydrologists and clime scientists trust connected monitoring stations to way the stream and its connected h2o bodies, but what was erstwhile a web of immoderate 400 stations has dwindled to conscionable 15. Measuring h2o is cardinal to helping radical hole for earthy disasters and accommodate to clime change—so researchers are progressively filling information gaps utilizing accusation gathered from space. Read the afloat story.
—Maria Gallucci
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.)
+ The barroom for maverick duets has genuinely been raised: I springiness you James Brown and Luciano Pavarotti (thanks Peter!)
+ This unthinkable frog existent property journey conscionable keeps getting amended and better.
+ The magnificent De La Soul’s backmost catalog is yet disposable connected streaming services.
+ Watch what you tweet, these emoji technically number arsenic financial advice: 🚀📈 💰
+ It’s not hard to spot wherefore TikTok’s ceramicists are getting a batch of attention.
