1 year ago
111 I’ve been missing the online buying acquisition successful China since I moved to the US 4 years ago. I grew up successful China astatine the aforesaid clip that Taobao, a fashionable e-commerce platform, took off, selling immoderate products you wanted, and for little than successful brick-and-mortar stores.
As Shein went mainstream successful the US, I became excited astir yet having a Taobao replacement. I went connected a spending spree, buying amusive small items similar telephone cases, a sheet retention rack, and adjacent a turkey chapeau for my cat.
But much recently, I’ve yet started to spot done the illusion of Shein-like platforms: to get occasional unthinkable deals, you are besides encouraged to store overmuch much than is indispensable oregon adjacent reasonable. I’ve been reasoning astir the interaction connected the climate, and the humans who person to nutrient these goods.
I don’t deliberation I’m the lone 1 experiencing that awakening—and companies similar Taobao and Shein volition inevitably person to look the consequences. Read the afloat story.
Zeyi’s communicative is from China Report, his play newsletter giving you the wrong way connected everything happening successful China. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Tuesday.
TR10: CRISPR for precocious cholesterol
Last year, a New Zealand pistillate became the archetypal to person a gene-editing treatment to permanently little her cholesterol. The pistillate had bosom disease, on with an inherited hazard for precocious cholesterol. But scientists down the experimental attraction deliberation it could assistance beauteous overmuch anyone.
The proceedings is simply a imaginable turning constituent for CRISPR, the editing instrumentality they used. Since the exertion was archetypal programmed to edit genomes astir a decennary ago, we’ve seen CRISPR determination from technological labs to clinics. But the archetypal experimental treatments person focused connected uncommon familial disorders. A high-cholesterol attraction has wider potential. Read the afloat communicative astir however caller forms of CRISPR could alteration treatments for communal diseases.
CRISPR for precocious cholesterol is 1 of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies, which we’ve been showcasing successful The Download each day. Take a look astatine the rest of the list, and vote successful our poll to assistance america determine what our last 11th exertion should be.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Twitter concisely verified accounts belonging to the Taliban
It's yet different objection of the dangers of charging for verification. (The Guardian)
+ Twitter has mislaid much than 500 of its biggest advertisers. (The Information $)
+ The company’s bureau creation and furnishings is up for auction. (NYT $)
+ Elon Musk’s “hardcore” workplace sounds perfectly terrible. (The Verge)
2 Crypto is connected a comeback tour
The manufacture wants to alteration influential minds. But are they buying it? (WP $)
+ Even crypto veterans are feeling the crunch. (WSJ $)
3 Meta’s advisory committee wants to escaped the nipple
The company’s long-standing anti-nudity stance appears to beryllium softening. (Engadget)
4 Quantum computing is inactive incredibly delicate to noise
A caller startup thinks it's recovered a solution to artifact outer sounds. (Wired $)
+ What’s adjacent for quantum computing. (MIT Technology Review)
5 The US inactive truly wants to prohibition TikTok
However, it would spark a sizable backlash from its millions of US users. (Vox)
6 The ineligible complaints against Tesla’s self-driving bundle are piling up
But Elon Musk continues to importune it’s safe. (NYT $)
7 How AI is helping to combat disconnected harvest diseases
From analyzing blight to making crops much resilient. (Knowable Magazine $)
+ There’s a colossal magnitude of wealth swirling astir AI close now. (The Atlantic $)
+ How exertion mightiness yet commencement telling farmers things they didn’t already know. (MIT Technology Review)
8 How Messi and Ronaldo’s fans took implicit Instagram
And escalated football’s biggest grudge lucifer successful the process. (Rest of World)
9 How conflict royale mode infiltrated video games
An all-out brawl is the cleanable antidote to overly-scripted formulas. (New Yorker $)
10 Here travel the propanefluencers
It’s the latest question of fossil-fuel propaganda. (NY Mag $)
Quote of the day
“I had tears successful my eyes. Something I had thought would beryllium a world successful the aboriginal was a world that day. We shouldn’t beryllium reaching these temperatures – it would beryllium intolerable to without clime change.”
—Laura Tobin, a TV upwind presenter, tells the Guardian astir her aggravated emotion astatine reporting deadly record-breaking temperatures successful the UK past summer.
The large story
House-flipping algorithms are coming to your neighborhood
April 2022
When Michael Maxson recovered his imagination location successful Clark County, Nevada, it was not owned by a idiosyncratic but by a tech company, Zillow. When helium went to instrumentality a look astatine the property, however, helium discovered a immense h2o leak had eroded walls and flooded the neighbors’ yard. Despite offering to grip the costly repairs himself, Maxson discovered that the location had already been sold to different family, astatine the aforesaid terms helium had offered.
During this time, Zillow mislaid much than $420 cardinal successful 3 months of erratic location buying and unprofitable sales, starring analysts to question whether the full tech-driven exemplary is truly viable. For the remainder of us, a bigger question remains: Does the accomplishment of Silicon Valley tech constituent to a amended aboriginal for lodging oregon an manufacture disruption to fear? Read the afloat story.
