8 months ago
159 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 civilization drives foul play connected the internet, and however caller “upcode” tin support us
From Bored Apes and Fancy Bears, to Shiba Inu coins, self-replicating viruses, and whales, the net is crawling with fraud, hacks, and scams.
And portion caller technologies travel and go, they alteration small astir the information that online amerciable operations beryllium due to the fact that immoderate radical are consenting to enactment illegally, and others autumn for the stories they tell.
Ultimately, online transgression is simply a quality story. Three caller books connection explanations into wherefore it happens, wherefore it works, and however we tin support ourselves from falling for specified schemes—no substance however convincing they are. Read the afloat story.
—Rebecca Ackermann
Rebecca’s communicative is from the caller people contented of MIT Technology Review, which is each astir ethics. If you don’t subscribe already, sign up.
The tricky morals of encephalon implants and informed consent
We’re making large leaps successful presumption of helping radical who’ve mislaid their quality to talk to regain their voices. Earlier this week, two caller papers described however brain-computer interfaces successfully translated signals from the brains of 2 survey participants into code acknowledgment to encephalon implants.
Both of the women tin pass without an implant. The first, Pat Bennett, who has ALS, besides known arsenic Lou Gehrig’s disease, uses a machine to type. The second, Ann Johnson, who mislaid her dependable arsenic the effect of a brain-stem changeable that near her paralyzed, uses an eye-tracking instrumentality to prime letters connected a machine screen.
That quality to pass is what gave them the powerfulness to consent to enactment successful these trials. But however does consent enactment erstwhile connection is much difficult? Read the afloat story.
—Cassandra Willyard
This communicative archetypal appeared successful The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s play biotech newsletter. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Thursday.
Why brackish marshes could assistance prevention Venice
Venice, Italy, is suffering from a operation of subsidence—the city’s foundations dilatory sinking into the mud connected which they are built—and rising oversea levels. In the worst-case scenario, it could vanish underwater by the twelvemonth 2100.
Scientists progressively spot the sinking metropolis arsenic a laboratory for biology solutions. They’re investigating whether artificial mudflats successful the Venetian lagoon tin beryllium turned backmost into the marshes that erstwhile thrived successful this country and go a functioning portion of the lagoon ecosystem again, which successful turn, would assistance to safeguard the aboriginal of the metropolis itself. Read the afloat story.
—Catherine Bennett
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Teachers should presume that each their students are utilizing AI
If ChatGPT tin beryllium used, it volition beryllium used, is the caller regularisation of thumb. (NYT $)
+ Teachers and educators are limbering up for a challenging world year. (Wired $)+ ChatGPT is going to alteration education, not destruct it. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Miami has appointed its ain main vigor officer 3 The beauteous complexity of the US vigor spectrum
Jane Gilbert is the archetypal idiosyncratic successful the satellite to clasp the position. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Donald Trump has returned to Twitter
He broke his two-year soundlessness to stock an imposing mug shot. (Politico)
5 When earthy disasters strike, societal media isn’t helping anymore
Facebook and Twitter person turned their backs connected news. That’s making it overmuch harder to get captious accusation to residents successful danger. (WP $)
+ More than 1,000 radical are inactive missing successful Maui. (NY Mag $)
+ How AI tin really beryllium adjuvant successful catastrophe response. (MIT Technology Review)
6 News organizations are pushing backmost against ChatGPT
They look to beryllium blocking OpenAI’s web crawler from scraping their web pages. (The Guardian)+ Open root AI isn’t each it’s cracked up to be. (Wired $)
+ Wikipedia is doing conscionable good successful the property of AI, thanks. (Slate $)
+ We are hurtling toward a glitchy, spammy, scammy, AI-powered internet. (MIT Technology Review)
7 The Amazon is starting to merchandise its carbon
Worryingly, parts of it are releasing much c than it absorbs. (Nature)
+ Tropical trees can’t photosynthesize successful this heat. (Motherboard)
8 Eating integrative is simply a caller mode to get escaped of it
In theory, microbes and insects could 1 time assistance america to interruption down pugnacious polymers. (Knowable Magazine)
+ How chemists are tackling the plastics problem. (MIT Technology Review)
9 Beauty filters aren’t ever astir deception 💄
Sometimes, they’re astir whimsy and elemental fun. (Wired $)
+ Hyper-realistic quality filters are present to stay. (MIT Technology Review)
10 It could get messy connected the satellite 🌕
Space junk? No convey you. (Vox)
Quote of the day
“How bash you ever genuinely recognize the interaction that you tin person connected someone’s life, you know?”
—Charli D’Amelio, 1 of the internet’s best-known faces and TikTok’s breakout star, gets philosophical portion considering her effect connected her fans’ lives, she tells Bloomberg.
The large story
Inside Australia’s program to past bigger, badder bushfires
April 2019Australia’s assemblage past is dotted with fires truthful tremendous they person their ain names. The worst, Black Saturday, struck the authorities of Victoria connected February 7, 2009. Fifteen abstracted fires scorched the authorities implicit conscionable 2 days, sidesplitting 173 people.
While Australia is notorious for spectacular blazes, it really ranks beneath the United States, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, and Spain erstwhile it comes to the economical harm caused by wildfires implicit the past century.
That’s due to the fact that portion different nations reason astir the champion mode to tackle the issue, the horrors of Black Saturday led Australia to drastically alteration its response—one of the biggest of which was besides 1 of the astir basic: taking different look astatine the mode occurrence hazard is rated. Read the afloat story.
