1 year ago
142 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.
Welcome to the oldest portion of the metaverse
Today’s headlines dainty the metaverse arsenic a hazy imagination yet to beryllium built. But if it’s defined arsenic a web of virtual worlds we tin inhabit, its oldest country has been already moving for 25 years.
It’s a medieval phantasy kingdom created for the online role-playing crippled Ultima Online.
It was the archetypal to simulate an full world: a vast, dynamic realm wherever players could interact with astir anything, from effect connected trees to books connected shelves.
Ultima Online has already endured a quarter-century of marketplace competition, economical turmoil, and governmental strife. So what tin this crippled and its players archer america astir creating the virtual worlds of the future? Read the afloat story.
—John-Clark Levin
How does an EV artillery really work?The batteries propelling electrical vehicles person rapidly go the astir important component, and expense, for a caller procreation of cars and trucks.
The immense bulk of electrical vehicles are powered by lithium-ion batteries, which are besides recovered successful smartphones. They tin clasp precocious voltage and exceptional charge, making them an efficient, dense signifier of vigor storage.
But portion they’re expected to stay ascendant successful EVs for the foreseeable future, artillery developers are moving towards lighter, cheaper and much businesslike alternatives. Read the afloat story.
—Patrick Sisson
Both of the stories supra are from the adjacent contented of MIT Technology Review’s people magazine, which is each astir design. Subscribe to work it successful afloat erstwhile it comes retired aboriginal this month.
TR10: Vote successful our poll
Earlier this year, we published MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2023. There’s inactive clip to ballot successful our poll to assistance america determine the honorary 11th technology. The victor volition beryllium announced successful The Download connected March 1, truthful beryllium definite to cheque backmost then.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Microsoft wants to rein successful Bing’s creepy interactions
Its unnerving answers and irritable code are riling people. (NYT $)
+ A reminder: Bing does not person feelings, oregon so person a hint what it’s saying. (Motherboard)
+ The hype astir AI hunt already seems premature. (The Atlantic $)+ If chatbots spout nonsense, it’s due to the fact that they were trained connected nonsense. (NYT $)
+ Why you shouldn’t spot AI hunt engines. (MIT Technology Review)
2 Tesla is recalling hundreds of thousands of ‘full self-driving’ cars
The existent strategy allows vehicles to enactment dangerously astir intersections. (ABC News)
+ The US authorities is to blasted for letting things get to this constituent too. (Slate $)
+ Self-driving cars are facing a rocky roadworthy ahead. (The Guardian)
+ The large caller thought for making self-driving cars that tin spell anywhere. (MIT Technology Review)
3 The US and China accidental they’ll get to the bottommost of the spy balloon mystery
A telephone telephone betwixt Joe Biden and Xi Jinping is connected the cards. (FT $)
+ The 3 different mysterious objects could really beryllium upwind balloons. (NY Mag)
4 A deadly Marburg microorganism has been detected successful Africa
At slightest 8 radical person died to date, and there’s nary vaccine. (New Scientist $)
5 Bitcoin’s aboriginal rests successful the hands of conscionable 5 coders
They diligently drawback bugs and support its ticking implicit down the scenes. (WSJ $)
+ Crypto has failed Black investors successful parsoftware ticular. (Vox)
+ Beware: there’s a full batch of crypto scams retired there. (Wired $)
6 Big Tech has nary pistillate CEOs
Susan Wojcicki’s departure from YouTube makes the manufacture adjacent much of a boy’s club. (Bloomberg $)
+ Other high-profile women person besides stepped down successful caller months. (WP $)
+ Why can’t tech hole its sex problem? (MIT Technology Review)
7 How 3D-printing could revolutionize artillery design
Its solid-state cells are some businesslike and cost-effective. (Fast Company $)
+ How aged batteries volition assistance powerfulness tomorrow’s EVs. (MIT Technology Review)
8 YouTube is teaching the satellite astir Sufism
The mysticism-heavy subdivision of Islam is little-understood by non-disciples. (Rest of World)
9 What your supermarket knows astir you
Those discount cards are a treasure trove of idiosyncratic buying data. (The Markup)
10 Social media can’t hold connected what parenting looks similar 🧸
Either way, we cognize it’s making parents consciousness worse IRL. (The Atlantic $)
Quote of the day
“I privation to beryllium alive. 😈”
—A effect the New York Times managed to make from Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot Bing (which, contempt overmuch excitement and consternation, is not a motion of sentience.
The messy morality of letting AI marque life-and-death decisions
In a store successful the Netherlands, Philip Nitschke is overseeing investigating connected his caller assisted termination machine. Sealed wrong the coffin-sized pod, a idiosyncratic who has chosen to dice indispensable reply 3 questions. The instrumentality volition past capable with nitrogen gas, causing the occupant to walk retired successful little than a infinitesimal and dice by asphyxiation successful astir five.
Despite a 25-year run to “demedicalize death” done technology, Nitschke has not been capable to sidestep the aesculapian constitution fully. A solution could travel successful the signifier of an algorithm that Nitschke hopes volition let radical to execute a benignant of psychiatric self-assessment.
While his ngo whitethorn look extreme—even outrageous—to some, helium is not the lone 1 looking to impact technology, and AI successful particular, successful life-or-death decisions. Read the afloat story.
—Will Douglas Heaven
We tin inactive person bully things
A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon tweet 'em astatine me.)
+ I simply cannot get capable of these terrible waxworks.
+ These pesky woodpeckers managed to store much than 700 pounds of acorns successful a Californian rental location (thanks Allison and Brian!)
+ These preserved shade ships are earnestly spooky.
+ Humankind’s past relatives could person been handy with tools millions of years ago.
+ I’m not loving it: this website tracks the terms of your closest Big Mac (and it’s atrocious quality if you unrecorded successful Massachusetts.)
