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We're backmost with our latest database of the worst technologies of the year. Think of these arsenic anti-breakthroughs, the benignant of mishaps, misuses, miscues, and atrocious ideas that pb to exertion failure. One taxable that emerges from our catastrophe database is however severely policy—the rules, processes, institutions, and ideals that govern technology’s use—can fto america down.
China’s zero covid measures came to an abrupt and unexpected end. On Twitter, Elon Musk intentionally destroyed the site’s governing policies, replacing them with a puckish and arbitrary premix of escaped speech, idiosyncratic vendettas, and appeals to the close wing. In the US, argumentation failures were evident successful the highest levels of overdose deaths ever recorded, galore of them owed to a 60-year-old chemic compound: fentanyl.
In each of these messes, determination are important lessons astir wherefore exertion fails. Read the afloat story.
—Antonio Regalado
What’s adjacent for crypto successful 2023
Last month's abrupt implosion of the fashionable cryptocurrency speech FTX has intensified a governmental warfare for the psyche of crypto that was already raging.
There are 2 salient sides. A vocal assemblage of crypto skeptics, including salient politicians and regulators, wants to rein successful an manufacture it sees arsenic overrun with fraud and harmful to consumers. On the different hand, determination are the champions of “decentralization,” who reason that cryptocurrency networks are captious to the aboriginal of privateness and fiscal freedom, and interest that misguided attempts astatine regularisation could imperil freedoms.
In the coming year, we are apt to spot that combat travel to a caput successful US courtrooms and successful Congress. The aboriginal of concern hangs successful the balance. Read the afloat story.
—Mike Orcutt
Why it's truthful hard to archer porn spam from Chinese authorities bots
A fewer weeks ago, astatine the highest of China’s protests against stringent zero-covid policies, radical were shocked to find that searching for large Chinese cities connected Twitter led to an endless watercourse of ads for hookup oregon escort services successful Chinese.
At the time, radical suspected this was a maneuver deployed by the Chinese authorities to poison the hunt results, but a caller study by the Stanford Internet Observatory has formed uncertainty implicit its involvement. Instead, the spam was apt to beryllium the handiwork of the aforesaid aged commercialized spam bots that person plagued Twitter forever. Read the afloat story.
—Zeyi Yang
This communicative is from China Report, our play newsletter covering each things China. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Tuesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Elon Musk says helium volition measurement down arsenic Twitter’s CEO
As soon arsenic helium tin find idiosyncratic “foolish capable to instrumentality the job.” (The Guardian)
+ He maintains he’ll clasp power of the bundle and servers teams. (WP $)
+ Musk appears to beryllium coasting connected vibes astatine this point. (FT $)
+ Twitter has settled with an enforcement who was unopen retired of her IT systems. (Bloomberg $)
+ Journalists that Musk banned and reinstated are inactive being silenced. (The Intercept)
2 One of the largest crypto mining firms successful the US is going bust
Core Scientific is the industry’s latest unfortunate aft racking up excessively overmuch debt. (CNBC)
+ Crypto miners and traders successful Asia are selling disconnected their costly equipment. (Rest of World)
3The US is playing whack-a-mole with China’s chipmakers
American export sanctions are coming heavy and accelerated to effort and thwart caller spot projects. (FT $)
4 The occupation with trying to prohibition TikTok
The institution has go a bogeyman for Big Tech successful Washington. (Vox)
5 Optical computing’s aboriginal is looking bright
After decades of sluggish development, advancement is yet being made. (Economist $)
6 Inside the implosion of euphony lawsuit startup Pollen
Drugs, intersexual harassment allegations, and reckless spending each played a part. (Insider $)
7 Fake quality is getting faker
But there’s inactive clip to curb the astir unsafe deepfake scenarios. (The Atlantic $)
+ People are hiring retired their faces to go deepfake-style selling clones. (MIT Technology Review)
8 NASA’s Insight Mars spacecraft has signed off
The lander is losing star powerfulness aft 4 years of relaying accusation backmost to Earth. (NPR)
+ The UK’s archetypal abstraction motorboat has been granted a license. (Engadget)
9 The joyousness of Reddit
Now that Google hunt results are progressively little useful, Reddit is simply a affluent hub of incredibly circumstantial information. (New Yorker $)
10 How billionaires endanger our security
Capitalism isn’t ever bully for code. (Wired $)
+ 2022 has been a atrocious twelvemonth for billionaire reputations overall. (Vox)
Quote of the day
“Streaming has made euphony excessively creaseless and painless. Everything’s excessively easy. Just 1 changeable of the ringing finger, mediate finger, 1 small click, that’s each it takes.”
—Legendary instrumentalist Bob Dylan bemoans the convenience of euphony streaming platforms to the Wall Street Journal.
The large story
The codification indispensable spell on: An Afghan coding bootcamp becomes a lifeline nether Taliban rule
December 2021
Four months aft the Afghan authorities fell to the Taliban, 22-year-old Asad Asadullah had settled into a caller routine. In his hometown successful Afghanistan’s bluish Samangan province, the erstwhile machine subject pupil started and ended each time glued to his laptop screen.
Since precocious October, Asadullah had been participating successful a virtual coding bootcamp organized by CodeWeekend, a volunteer-run assemblage of Afghan tech enthusiasts, with contented donated by Scrimba, a Norwegian institution that offers online programming workshops.
Asadullah is 1 of the millions of young Afghans whose lives, and plans for the future, were turned upside down erstwhile the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan successful August 2020. In specified dire circumstances, a coding bootcamp whitethorn look retired of place. But for its participants, it offers anticipation of a amended future. Read the afloat story.
—Eileen Guo
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.)
+ This cartoon cake is genuinely outstanding.
+ A decennary aft helium went viral, the Ikea monkey is surviving his champion beingness successful Ontario.
+ Here’s however your relation successful your childhood nativity sets you up for aboriginal life.
+ Why Barbie’s Dreamhouse is an enduring plan icon.
+ Take a look astatine however New Yorkers braved the winter blizzard of 1956.
English (US) ·