1 year ago
129 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.
Big Tech could assistance Iranian protesters by utilizing an aged tool
After the Iranian authorities took utmost measures to bounds net usage successful effect to the pro-democracy protests that person filled Iranian streets since mid-September, Western tech companies scrambled to assistance reconstruct entree to Iranian citizens.
Despite Signal asking its users to assistance tally proxy servers, Google offering credits for its Outline VPN and Elon Musk’s pledge to activate Starlink satellites, these workarounds aren’t enough. Iranian telecommunications providers and authorities person already blocked Signal validation codes and unopen down Google’s VPN, and Starlink is apt to request thousands much satellites to get the net up and running.
But determination is thing other that Big Tech could do, according to immoderate pro-democracy activists and experts connected integer freedom. Although it has received small attention—despite being thing respective large work providers offered until conscionable a fewer years ago—reinstating the exertion could beryllium Big Tech’s champion accidental astatine getting Iranian backmost online, and fast. Read the afloat story.
—Hana Kiros
A wrongfully terminated Chinese-American idiosyncratic was conscionable awarded astir $2 cardinal successful damages
It’s been astir a decennary since the Chinese-American hydrologist Sherry Chen’s beingness was turned upside down by an unfounded accusation of spying, and this week, she yet received thing similar justice.
Chen’s lawyers announced connected Thursday that the idiosyncratic has won a historical $1.8 cardinal colony from the US Commerce Department for her wrongful prosecution and consequent termination from the National Weather Service.
Her lawsuit was an aboriginal lawsuit of what would go a overmuch bigger signifier of the US government’s expanding suspicion of Chinese and Chinese-American scientists amid increasing contention betwixt the US and China. The colony represents a idiosyncratic and symbolic triumph aft years of persecution. Read the afloat story.
—Eileen Guo
This toddler is the archetypal to person been treated for her illness earlier she was born
According to her parents, Ayla Bashir is “a miracle.” The talkative and smiley 15-month-old is besides a pioneer—the archetypal idiosyncratic to commencement receiving aesculapian attraction for her familial upset earlier adjacent being born.
But objective trials connected fetuses rise plentifulness of ethical questions. How should we beryllium investigating treatments connected susceptible fetuses that can’t springiness consent? And what does this mean for the large person? Read the afloat story.
This communicative is from The Checkup, our elder biotech newsman Jessica Hemzelou’s play newsletter covering each things health. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Thursday.
Congratulations to our grant winners
The squad astatine MIT Technology Review is excited to denote that not conscionable 1 but 2 of our stories won awards from the American Association for the Advancement of Science's 2022 Kavli Science Journalism Award!
This piece by Kendra Pierre-Louis, astir however rising groundwater caused by clime alteration could devastate coastal communities, feels particularly timely during a COP27 dominated by conversations astir adaptation, and who'll ft the measure for it. It won golden successful the mag category, with 1 justice saying: “Pierre-Louis’ gripping and memorable nonfiction astir rising groundwater vividly weaves unneurotic quality stories and subject to explicate this under-appreciated effect of clime change.”Jane Qui's communicative astir the contention implicit the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, built disconnected unparalleled entree to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the laboratory of Shi Zhengli, won a metallic prize for in-depth reporting. Read it for yourself.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Crypto speech FTX utilized customers’ wealth to money its risky bets
Things are going from atrocious to worse for the exchange’s customers. (WSJ $)
+ The institution is present fundamentally worthless. (The Guardian)
+ Its ineligible brag told employees he’s trying to sphere it. (Bloomberg $)
+ Some of FTX’s assets person been frozen by a securities regulator. (FT $)
+ Here’s wherever it each started going incorrect for FTX. (Protocol)
2 Mass surveillance isn’t making america consciousness safer
It isn’t needfully reducing crime, either. (Coda Story)
+ Marseille’s conflict against the surveillance state. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Scientists edited crab patients’ immune systems to onslaught tumors
The encouraging CRISPR trial’s results could pave the mode to much personalized treatment. (BBC)
+ Edits to a cholesterin cistron could halt the biggest slayer connected earth. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Big Tech’s layoffs are a cruel reminder that you are much than your job
These companies request loyalty, but seldom instrumentality the favor. (Recode)
+ Social media is facing a reckoning close now. (The Atlantic $)
+ It’s excessively precocious for tech’s biggest bosses to apologize. (WSJ $)
5 Amazon is 1 measurement person to automating its warehouses 🦾
Its caller robotic limb tin place and benignant items without humans. (Insider $)
+ It’s besides created a transportation drone that tin alert successful the rain. (Bloomberg $)
+ iRobot, which was precocious acquired by Amazon, has laid disconnected 100 workers. (Boston Globe $)
6 How Cambodia became the world’s scam capital
Illegal gambling and online fraud companies postulation workers into the immense transgression networks. (Rest of World)
7 Science is changing however we specify parenthood
Combining the genomes of same-sex couples to make babies is connected the horizon. (Neo.Life)
+ A contraceptive gel for men is seeking FDA approval. (Fast Company $)
+ A three-parent method could assistance trans men person babies. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Uyghur-language apps are riddled with spyware
Security researchers fishy they’re being utilized to relay accusation to China. (Bloomberg $)
9 Who are anti-bullying apps truly helping?
Most of the time, it’s different load for the unfortunate to bear. (Wired $)
10 AIs similar talking to 1 different implicit humans
Try not to beryllium offended. (New Scientist $)
Quote of the day
"It's cringe-y successful retrospect."
—Writer Adam Fisher reflects connected an enthusiastic portion helium wrote for task superior institution Sequoia Capital’s website six weeks agone extolling the virtues of crypto speech FTX, which has since collapsed.
The large story
What I learned from studying billions of words of online instrumentality fiction
December 2019
Fan fabrication has galore literate precedents. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost utilizing characters from the Bible. Shakespeare retold past people stories.
Today, millions of young radical are penning and sharing instrumentality fabrication connected a assortment of websites. They are giving and receiving feedback and teaching each different however to write. They’re not lone learning astir writing; they’re uncovering community, establishing identity, and exploring caller trends that person not yet recovered mainstream acceptance.
But instrumentality fabrication could beryllium much than conscionable a root of enactment and self-expression for lonely kids; it could besides beryllium an important instrumentality successful ceremonial education. Read the afloat story.
