1 year ago
109 Would you privation a vessel of soda for conscionable 1 cent? Before you accidental yes, there’s a catch: You person to wage by scanning your thenar and sharing your accusation with a Chinese tech giant.
This was the proposition Tencent made to a fistful of Chinese consumers recently, arsenic seen successful a video posted connected Douyin, the Chinese mentation of TikTok, successful precocious September. Tencent, the institution that owns the outgo strategy WeChat Pay, appears to person been investigating palm-print outgo devices successful the state for months.
Supporters of the exertion assertion it’s much close and unafraid than different forms of biometrics. But its wide installation would inactive travel with privateness risks for consumers, not to notation applicable complications. Read the afloat story.
—Zeyi Yang
We’re getting a amended thought of AI’s existent c footprint
The news: Large connection models person a soiled secret: they necessitate immense amounts of vigor to bid and run. But it’s inactive a spot of a enigma precisely however large these models’ c footprints truly are. AI startup Hugging Face believes it’s travel up with a new, much close mode to cipher it.
The details: Hugging Face estimated that grooming its ample connection exemplary BLOOM led to 25 metric tons of c emissions. But, the researchers found, that fig doubled erstwhile they took into relationship the emissions produced by the manufacturing of the machine instrumentality utilized for training, the broader computing infrastructure, and the vigor required to really tally BLOOM erstwhile it was trained.
Why it matters: The startup’s work, which has been published successful a non-peer reviewed paper, could beryllium a measurement toward much realistic information from tech companies astir the c footprint of their AI products. It comes astatine a clip erstwhile experts are calling for the assemblage to bash a amended occupation of evaluating AI’s biology impact. Read the afloat story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
You tin work much of Melissa’s thoughts connected wherefore we request to amended however we measurement AI’s c footprint—and wherefore the existent fig is apt to beryllium adjacent bigger than Hugging Face’s calculations—in her weekly newsletter. Sign up to person The Algorithm successful your inbox each Monday.
The 2023 Innovators Under 35 contention is present unfastened for nominations
MIT Technology Review’s yearly database of 35 Innovators Under 35 is present accepting nominations for 2023! There’s nary amended mode to admit the bully and important enactment done by radical conscionable starting retired successful their careers, portion giving you a archetypal look astatine the astonishing opportunities they’re creating to alteration the satellite for the better.
Read more astir however to nominate up-and-coming innovators moving successful each areas of technology, and instrumentality a look backmost astatine this year’s winners.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Twitter is lurching from atrocious to worse
From nationalist firings to a emergence successful hatred speech, the level is crumbling nether Elon Musk’s cavalier leadership. (Vox)
+ Musk is revealing himself to beryllium a beauteous thin-skinned leader. (Bloomberg $)
+ Twitter’s SMS information verification is breaking. (Wired $)
+ The immense bulk of Twitter workers deliberation it’s connected people to fail. (Rest of World)
+ Here’s however a Twitter technologist says it volition interruption successful the coming weeks. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Crypto’s biggest speech wants the manufacture to cleanable up its act
Binance’s CEO says that laws unsocial cannot forestall a “bad player.” (FT $)
+ Inside the emergence and accelerated autumn of Bankman-Fried. (NYT $)
+ His attack to hazard whitethorn person been what triggered his downfall. (WSJ $)
+ The equilibrium expanse of his company, FTX, is rather something. (NY Mag $)
3 How Russian bundle infiltrated US authorities and service apps
The agencies were tricked into reasoning the institution that built the bundle was based successful the US. (Reuters)
4 Why Big Tech’s layoffs are truthful gutting
After years of unconstrained growth, workers are paying the price. (WP $)
+ Amazon has joined the large names cutting thousands of staff. (FT $)
+ A full batch of radical are cheating connected their certification exams. (Insider $)
+ For what it’s worth, tech stocks are overmuch amended worth now. (Economist $)
5 China’s billionaires are fleeing to Singapore
Xi Jinping’s taxation plans are driving them to much wealth-friendly places. (Bloomberg $)
+ The combat for power of Taiwan is bubbling up again. (New Yorker $)
6 Why online governmental betting is truthful fashionable successful the US
The specter of elections truly isn’t truthful antithetic to sports. (The Atlantic $)
+ Here’s what past week’s US midterms person taught us. (Vox)
7 It’s not wide what’s really successful tampons
A much-criticized TikTok shone a airy connected what is—and isn’t—known astir their ingredients. (Undark)
+ What if you could diagnose diseases with a tampon? (MIT Technology Review)
8 We request caller antibiotics
The pandemic has lone strengthened infections’ absorption to existing drugs. (Wired $)
+ The adjacent pandemic is already here. Covid tin thatch america however to combat it. (MIT Technology Review)
9 The irresistible entreaty of Duolingo 🦉
That small greenish owl whitethorn beryllium annoying, but helium definite gets results. (The Guardian)
10 Malaysia is acceptable to invited integer nomads
The lone occupation is, determination are acold less nomads than determination utilized to be. (Rest of World)
Quote of the day
“They’re each a clump of cowards.”
—Eric Frohnhoefer, a seasoned Twitter engineer, tells Forbes precisely what helium thinks of the company’s management, aft Elon Musk fired Frohnhoefer for publically questioning him successful a tweet.
The large story
This is however your encephalon makes your mind
August 2021
What is your mind? It’s a unusual question, perhaps, but if pressed, you mightiness picture it arsenic the portion of yourself that makes you who you are—your consciousness, dreams, emotions, and memories. Scientists believed for a agelong clip that specified aspects of the caput had circumstantial encephalon locations, similar a circuit for fear, a portion for memory, and truthful on.
But successful caller years we’ve learned that the quality encephalon is really a maestro of deception, and your experiences and actions bash not uncover its interior workings. Your caput is successful information an ongoing operation of your brain, your body, and the surrounding world, successful a changeless authorities of trying to marque consciousness of your contiguous utilizing what it’s learned successful the past. Read the afloat story.
—Lisa Feldman Barrett
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.)
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