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Fashion creator Jenni Svoboda is designing a beanie with a melted cupcake top, sprinkles, and doughnuts for ears. But this outlandish accessory isn’t destined for the carnal world—Svoboda is designing for the metaverse. She’s moving successful a burgeoning, if bizarre, caller niche: manner stylists who make oregon curate outfits for radical successful virtual spaces.
Metaverse stylists are progressively sought-after arsenic predominant users question assistance dressing their avatars—often successful experimental, wildly originative looks that defy idiosyncratic expectations, societal standards, and sometimes adjacent physics.
Stylists similar Svoboda are among those shaping the metaverse manner industry, which is already generating hundreds of millions of dollars. But while, to the casual observer, it tin look outlandish and adjacent obscene to walk truthful overmuch wealth connected virtual clothes, determination are deeper, much personal, reasons wherefore radical are hiring professionals to curate their virtual outfits. Read the afloat story.
—Tanya Basu
Making consciousness of the changes to China’s zero-covid policy
On December 1, 2019, the archetypal known covid-19 diligent started showing symptoms successful Wuhan. Three years later, China is the past state successful the satellite holding connected to strict pandemic power restrictions. However, aft days of aggravated protests that shocked the world, it looks arsenic if things could yet change.
Beijing has conscionable announced wide-ranging relaxations of its zero covid policy, including allowing radical to quarantine astatine location alternatively of successful peculiar facilities for the archetypal time.
But portion radical are celebrating the information that China has yet started pursuing a covid effect emphasizing vaccines and treatments alternatively of quarantines and lockdowns, it’s conscionable the commencement of what’s apt to beryllium a long, and precise difficult, roadworthy to reopening. Read the afloat story.
—Zeyi Yang
This communicative is from China Report, our play newsletter covering each the goings connected successful China. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Tuesday.
How US constabulary usage counterterrorism wealth to bargain spy tech
The news: Grant wealth meant to assistance cities hole for panic attacks is being spent connected surveillance exertion for US constabulary departments, a caller study shows. While it’s been known that national backing props up constabulary budgets, these national grants are bigger than antecedently understood.
Why it matters: These grants often marque it imaginable for purchases to skirt support mechanisms and enactment retired of nationalist view. The report’s findings are yet different illustration of a increasing signifier successful which citizens are progressively kept successful the acheronian astir constabulary tech procurement. Read the afloat story.
—Tate Ryan-Mosley
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 China is relaxing immoderate of its covid restrictions
Days aft the wide protests, the authorities is allowing radical with covid to isolate astatine location alternatively of successful quarantine facilities. (AP News)
+ The argumentation alteration is apt to spark a immense question of infections. (The Atlantic $)
+ Disinformation campaigns are making it hard to gauge citizens’ reactions. (New Yorker $)
+ Apple’s AirDrop restrictions are curbing the dispersed of protestation memes successful China. (Rest of World)
2 Ukraine launched different drone onslaught connected Russia
They managed to onslaught subject bases that were believed to beryllium impenetrable. (FT $)
+ Ukraine’s vigor infrastructure is inactive successful existent danger, though. (Foreign Policy $)
3 Renewable vigor maturation is “turbocharged” close now
The planetary vigor situation has fixed the manufacture a much-needed changeable successful the arm. (The Verge)
+ This calculation is driving planetary clime policy. (Knowable Magazine)
+ How caller versions of solar, wind, and batteries could assistance the grid. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Flu infections successful the US are astatine an all-time high
The CDC has recorded much affirmative tests than immoderate different week connected record. (Vox)
5 San Francisco constabulary person been barred from utilizing slayer robots
Just a week aft they were fixed the go-ahead. (WP $)
6 AI could destruct the pupil essay
New AI models tin constitute ever-more convincing text. (The Atlantic $)
+ AI is being enactment to work, astatine agelong last. (Economist $)
+ GPT-3 tin assistance radical with dyslexia to rapidly constitute coherent emails. (BuzzFeed News)
+ AI representation exemplary Lensa is generating NSFW images without prompting. (Insider $)
+ ChatGPT is OpenAI’s latest hole for GPT-3. It’s slick but inactive spews nonsense. (MIT Technology Review)
7 How a teenager’s execution sparked a viral TikTok creation craze
The grisly commemoration raises questions implicit however we retrieve the dead. (New Yorker $)
8 The net has changed what we recognize astir porn addiction
Researchers are divided implicit whether it’s a moral, not medical, diagnosis. (Motherboard)
9 Park rangers are sneaking up connected poachers utilizing ebikes
The soundless bikes person helped rangers successful Mozambique to prevention animals from being killed for bushmeat. (Wired $)
10 Uber’s robotaxis person taken to Las Vegas’ roads
They’re lone moving during the daytime, for now. (TechCrunch)
Quote of the day
“The metaverse volition beryllium our dilatory death.”
—An anonymous Facebook worker doesn’t mince their words successful a remark connected an worker survey, reports The Guardian.
The large story
AI has exacerbated radical bias successful housing. Could it assistance destruct it instead?
October 2020
Few problems are longer-term oregon much intractable than America’s systemic radical inequality. And a peculiarly entrenched signifier of it is lodging discrimination. A agelong past of policies by banks, security companies, and existent property brokers has denied radical of colour a just changeable astatine homeownership, concentrated wealthiness and spot successful the hands of achromatic radical and communities, and perpetuated de facto segregation. Technology has successful immoderate cases exacerbated America’s systemic radical bias. But could it beryllium utilized to mitigate the bias successful lodging instead? Read the afloat story.
English (US) ·