10 months ago
124 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 tactile graphics tin assistance extremity representation poverty
—Chancey Fleet
In 2020, successful the midst of the pandemic lockdown, my hubby and I bought a location successful Brooklyn and decided to reimagine and rebuild the interior. He taught maine a fewer cardinal architectural symbols and earlier agelong I was drafting my ain concepts, moving toward a shared imaginativeness of the location we yet designed.
It’s a commonplace story, but for 1 cardinal factor: I’m blind, and I’ve made it my ngo to guarantee that unsighted New Yorkers tin make and research images. As a unsighted tech educator, it’s my job—and my passion—to present unsighted and low-vision patrons to tools that assistance them determination done regular beingness with autonomy and ease.
For unsighted readers, learners, and creators, tactile graphics—images rendered legible by touch—open up the satellite of spatial communication. And though the method limitations progressive successful making these graphics are significant, deficiency of entree oregon adjacent consciousness is simply a larger problem. Read the afloat story.
This communicative is from the forthcoming people variation of MIT Technology Review, and this one’s each astir accessibility. If you haven’t already, subscribe to marque definite you don’t miss retired connected aboriginal stories—access starts from conscionable $80 a year.
In the clash of the EV chargers, it’s Tesla vs. everyone else
Tesla is known for its supercharging network, which it began gathering implicit a decennary ago. In the US, it’s bigger than each different specified networks combined, with conscionable implicit 19,000 accelerated chargers installed, compared with conscionable implicit 15,000 from each different operators.
The company’s electrical vehicles person agelong included a larboard that’s antithetic from what astir different vehicles usage successful the US. But successful caller weeks, respective automakers and charging networks person signed connected to follow Tesla’s charging technology.
These moves are changing the dynamics successful the conflict implicit chargers, successful a mode that could person important impacts connected however we get around. Our clime newsman Casey Crownhart has dug into what’s happening with this rivalry, wherefore it matters, and what it could mean for your aboriginal driving (and charging) habits. Read the afloat story.
This communicative is from The Spark, Casey’s play clime and vigor newsletter. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 The European Union is edging person towards regulating AI
When passed, the instrumentality volition service arsenic a benchmark for policymakers crossed the world. (NYT $)
+ It would clamp down connected facial recognition, and unit firms to beryllium much transparent. (WSJ $)
+ How to deliberation astir AI—and its inherent risks. (Vox)
+ Not everyone is truthful keen for regulation, however. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ Our speedy usher to the 6 ways we tin modulate AI. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Google made millions of dollars from fake gestation halfway ads
These “crisis gestation centers” are acceptable up to artifact radical from accessing termination services. (The Guardian)
+ Texas is trying retired caller tactics to restrict entree to termination pills online. (MIT Technology Review)
3 IBM’s quantum machine outperformed a supercomputer
But they’re not definite if its reply to a tricky calculation is really correct. (New Scientist $)
4 AI has made Microsoft chill again
How agelong it tin cling onto that chill remains to beryllium seen, though. (Bloomberg $)
+ Training AI models connected YouTube videos is simply a astute determination for Google. (The Information $)
+ Google wants to overhaul apparel shopping—thanks to immoderate AI magic. (Bloomberg $)
+ The open-source AI roar is built connected Big Tech’s handouts. How agelong volition it last? (MIT Technology Review)
5 Trans radical are being targeted by fake hormone pill ads
The cruel run marketed shrub supplements arsenic HRT-style pills. (Motherboard)
6 Chipmakers privation to shrink their c footprints
The manufacture is simply a immense c emissions producer, but its biggest companies person a plan. (FT $)
+ What’s adjacent for the spot industry. (MIT Technology Review)
7 Smart drugs don’t mean moving smarter
In fact, they could really trim your productivity. (Vox)
8 Internet sleuths are hampering execution investigations
Their ghoulish fixation with visiting sites is traumatizing survivors.(The Atlantic $)
9 TikTok is turning Sliding Doors moments into ‘canon events’
Just don’t instrumentality them excessively seriously. (The Guardian)
+ Lipreading clips are hugely popular, too. (NYT $)
10 It’s clip to rethink microbiomes
Experts reason we’re each portion of a bigger representation meta-organisms, called holobionts. (Economist $)
+ Your microbiome ages arsenic you do—and that’s a problem. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“Bribe-rejecting robots are OK but don’t physique immoderate that tin bash location chores. I don’t privation to suffer my occupation to a robot.”
—Vijayalakshmi, a navigator for households successful Jayanagar, India, explains her concerns astir the emergence of AI chatbots, which are helping workers similar her to sidestep the country’s corruption to entree fiscal aid, to Bloomberg.
The large story
Meet the wannabe kidfluencers struggling for stardom
December 2019On YouTube, children tin go millionaires—seemingly overnight, without trying. The highest paid of them, eight-year-old Ryan Kaji, made $22 cardinal successful 2018 by playing with toys connected his transmission Ryan ToysReview (now Ryan’s World). There are present thousands of likewise celebrated kid YouTubers: babies who person been vlogged since the infinitesimal of their birth, 10-year-old streamers showing disconnected video-game tricks, teenage girls giving acne proposal from their bedrooms.
Why bash truthful galore kids privation to beryllium YouTubers? Do they lone question fame, oregon is determination much to it: creativity, community, and a aboriginal career? How are their parents helping them? And what happens if, aft spending thousands of dollars oregon dropping retired of school, it doesn’t enactment out? Read the afloat story.
