The Download: direct-air-capture plants, and measuring body fat

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

These are the best ways to measure your body fat

—Jessica Hamzelou

We all know that being overweight is not great for your health—it’s linked to metabolic diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular problems. But weighing yourself won’t tell you all you need to know about your disease risk.

A friend of mine is a super-fit marathon runner. She’s all lean muscle. And yet according to her body mass index (BMI), which is a measure of weight relative to height, she’s overweight. Which is frankly ridiculous.

I, on the other hand, have never been all that muscular. I like to think I’m a healthy weight—but nurses in the past have advised me to eat more butter and doughnuts based on my BMI. This is advice I never expected to receive from a health professional. (I should add here that my friend and I are roughly the same height and wear the same size in clothes.)

The BMI is flawed. Luckily, there are several high-tech alternatives, but a simple measure that involves lying on your back could also tell you about how your body size might influence your health. Read the full story.

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things biotech and health. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The US must do more to boost demand for carbon removal, observers warn

In 2022, the US made a massive bet on the carbon removal industry, committing $3.5 billion to build four major regional hubs in an effort to scale up the sector. But industry observers fear that market demand isn’t building fast enough to support it.

Some are now calling for the Department of Energy to redirect a portion of the money earmarked to build direct-air-capture (DAC) plants toward purchases of greenhouse-gas removal instead. 

Breakthrough Energy, the Bill Gates–backed climate and clean energy organization, has released a commentary calling for more government support for demand to ensure that the industry doesn’t stall out in its infancy. Read more about what they have to say.

—James Temple

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Tesla has unveiled its Cybercab robotaxi
Elon Musk optimistically anticipates they’ll be available “before 2027.” (Tech Crunch) 
+ He has a long history of overpromising and undelivering. (WP $)
+ Musk was vague on details, but claimed it would cost less than $30,000. (FT $)

2 Hurricane Milton has left millions of Florida residents without power
Thousands of people have been rescued from flooded areas. (WSJ $)
+ Luckily, satellite-connected smartphones can keep them connected. (WP $)
+ Meteorologists are receiving death threats amid storm misinformation. (Rolling Stone $)

3 The US and UK will work together to protect children online
The two countries are forming a working group to tackle sexual abuse and harassment. (BBC)
+ Popular gaming platform Roblox is failing to protect young users, a report claims. (FT $)
+ How to protect your child’s photos online. (The Guardian)
+ Child online safety laws will actually hurt kids, critics say. (MIT Technology Review)

4 China is spreading antisemitic claims ahead of the US election
Fake accounts are spreading dangerous conspiracy theories about politicians. (WP $)
+ US authorities fear Russia, China, Iran and Cuba will sow doubts about the results. (Reuters)

5 Big Pharma is fighting back against compounded weight loss drugs
Unbranded versions proliferated during a shortage of big-name drugs. Now, the largest companies want them gone. (Wired $)

6 Uber and Lyft exploited a legal loophole to avoid paying NY drivers
Drivers have reported being locked out of the app almost every hour. (Bloomberg $)
+ Uber’s facial recognition is locking Indian drivers out of their accounts. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Viral debate videos are inescapable online
The more competitive, theatrical, and unbalanced, the better. (Vox)

8 How Wikipedia editors are tackling the influx of AI trash content
They’re trying to defend the site from misleading, garbled AI articles. (404 Media)
+ AI trained on AI garbage spits out AI garbage. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How to make the ocean quieter
Thanks to flexible propellers and noise-dampening metamaterials. (Economist $)

10 This social app allows Gen Z to filter out tell-tale red Solo cups
To maintain a squeaky clean online image. (TechCrunch)

Quote of the day

“As usual, Elon Musk is trying to compete in the Tour de France on a tricycle.”

—Dan O’Dowd, billionaire co-founder of Green Hills Software and founder of the software safety Dawn Project group, was left unimpressed by Tesla’s cybercab event, he tells Rolling Stone. 

The big story

People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before.

January 2024

It was 1938, and the pain of the Great Depression was still very real. Unemployment in the US was around 20%. New machinery was transforming factories and farms, and everyone was worried about jobs.

Were the impressive technological achievements that were making life easier for many also destroying jobs and wreaking havoc on the economy? To make sense of it all, Karl T. Compton, the president of MIT from 1930 to 1948 and one of the leading scientists of the day, wrote in the December 1938 issue of this publication about the “Bogey of Technological Unemployment.”

His essay concisely framed the debate over jobs and technical progress in a way that remains relevant, especially given today’s fears over the impact of artificial intelligence. It’s a worthwhile reminder that worries over the future of jobs are not new and are best addressed by applying an understanding of economics, rather than conjuring up genies and monsters. Read the full story.

—David Rotman

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Marty the robot is a Boston icon, rolling up and down Stop & Shop’s aisles without complaining.
+ Punctuation really matters—a simple comma cost these companies millions!
+ Cool: these pumpkins are thriving in Bangladesh sandbars.
+ For all our Warhammer heads out there: there’s only one shade of green that matters.

The Download: how to find new music online, and climate friendly food

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm

Since the heyday of radio, records, cassette tapes, and MP3 players, the branding of sound has evolved from broad genres like rock and hip-hop to “paranormal dark cabaret afternoon” and “synth space,” and streaming has become the default. 

Meanwhile, the  ritual of discovering something new is now neatly packaged in a 30-song playlist, refreshed weekly. The only rule in music streaming, as in any other industry these days, is personalization.

But what we’ve gained in convenience, we’ve lost in curiosity. Sure, our unlimited access lets us listen to Swedish tropical house or New Jersey hardcore, but this abundance of choice actually makes our listening experience less expansive or eclectic.

As we grow accustomed to the convenience of shuffling a generated playlist, we forget that discovering music is an active exercise. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Read the full story.

—Tiffany Ng

Tiffany’s piece is from the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, which is celebrating 125 years of the magazine! If you don’t already, subscribe now to ensure you get hold of future copies once they land.

Roundtable: Producing climate-friendly food

Our food systems account for a major chunk of global greenhouse-gas emissions, but some businesses are attempting to develop solutions that could help address the climate impacts of agriculture. That includes two companies on the recently-announced 2024 list of MIT Technology Review’s 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch. Pivot Bio is inventing new fertilizers, and Rumin8 is working to tackle emissions from cattle.  

Join MIT Technology Review senior editor James Temple and senior reporter Casey Crownhart at 12pm ET this Thursday October 10 for a subscriber-exclusive Roundtable diving into the future of food and the climate with special guests Karsten Temme, chief innovation officer and co-founder of Pivot Bio, and Matt Callahan, co-founder and counsel of Rumin8. Register here.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 A deadly virus is spreading across Rwanda
Marburg, which is similar to Ebola, is likely to spread to its neighboring countries. (Vox)
+ Rwanda has started vaccine trials to attempt to contain it. (BBC)
+ The risk of it spreading globally is relatively low, though. (NYT $)

2 Two American biologists have been awarded the Nobel Prize
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun have been honored for their microRNA research. (CNN)

3 This powerful lobbying group is challenging US child safety bills
Experts are concerned it’s misusing the First Amendment to do so. (NYT $)
+ Silicon Valley’s lobbying power is on the ascent. (New Yorker $)
+ Child online safety laws will actually hurt kids, critics say. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Scammers in Southeast Asia stole up to $37 billion last year
Gen AI and deepfakes mean their schemes are more convincing than ever. (Bloomberg $)
+ Telegram is a hotbed of criminal activity and fraud networks. (Reuters)
+ Five ways criminals are using AI. (MIT Technology Review)

5 How rural communities are fighting back against data centers 
Grassroots movements are taking back the power—and winning. (WP $)
+ Energy-hungry data centers are quietly moving into cities. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Viable search alternatives to Google are finally emerging
After 15 years of dominance, advertisers are hungry for something different. (WSJ $)
+ It looks as though even more AI Google features are on their way. (Insider $)
+ Why Google’s AI Overviews gets things wrong. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Substack wants to expand beyond newsletters
How, exactly? By becoming a means of payment for creators. (Semafor)

8 The future of search and rescue
Drones can be much quicker and more thorough than human volunteers. (Wired $)
+ AI-directed drones could help find lost hikers faster. (MIT Technology Review) 

9 Inside the last’s year wild and wacky British inventions
From flatpack coffins to a downwards-facing computer monitor. (The Guardian)

10 Can robots suffer?
That’s the question artist Lawrence Lek is exploring in his latest AI film. (FT $)

Quote of the day

“You don’t need to press a button to open a window. You can just open the window.”

—Adam DeMartino, cofounder of sustainable food startup Smallhold, reflects on how technology can over complicate simple ideas to the Guardian.

The big story

AI was supposed to make police bodycams better. What happened?

April 2024

When police departments first started buying and deploying bodycams in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a decade ago, activists hoped it would bring about real change.

Years later, despite what’s become a multibillion-dollar market for these devices, the tech is far from a panacea. Most of the vast reams of footage they generate go unwatched.  Officers often don’t use them properly. And if they do finally provide video to the public, it’s often selectively edited, lacking context and failing to tell the complete story.

A handful of AI startups see this problem as an opportunity to create what are essentially bodycam-to-text programs for different players in the legal system, mining this footage for misdeeds. But like the bodycams themselves, the technology still faces procedural, legal, and cultural barriers to success. Read the full story.

—Patrick Sisson

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These chickens are well and truly getting into the Halloween spirit!
+ If you’re lucky enough to live anywhere near these national parks, I suggest you get yourselves down there immediately.
+ Don’t fight it—Mr Brightside is still a banger.
+ No more microtrends, I beg.

The Download: training robots with gen AI, and the state of climate tech

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

AI-generated images can teach robots how to act

Generative AI models can produce images in response to prompts within seconds, and they’ve recently been used for everything from highlighting their own inherent bias to preserving precious memories.

Now, researchers from Stephen James’s Robot Learning Lab in London are using image-generating AI models for a new purpose: creating training data for robots. They’ve developed a new system, called Genima, that fine-tunes the image-generating AI model Stable Diffusion to draw robots’ movements, helping guide them both in simulations and in the real world. 

Genima could make it easier to train different types of robots to complete tasks—machines ranging from mechanical arms to humanoid robots and driverless cars—as well as making AI web agents more useful. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

These 15 companies are innovating in climate tech

We’ve just unveiled our 2024 list of 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch. This annual project is one the climate team at MIT Technology Review pours a lot of time and thought into, and we’re thrilled to finally share it with you.

Our goal is to spotlight businesses we believe could help make a dent in climate change. This year’s list includes companies from a wide range of industries, headquartered on five continents. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I highly recommend giving it a look. Each company has a profile in which we’ve outlined why it made the list, what sort of impact the business might have, and what challenges it’s likely to face. 

Casey Crownhart, our senior climate reporter, has dug into what these pioneering businesses reveal about the race to address climate change. Read about what she found out here.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI has been valued at an eye watering $157 billion 
A new funding round has made it one of the most valuable startups of all time. (WP $)
+ The company has urged investors to avoid funding rival AI firms. (FT $)
+ The secret to OpenAI’s fundraising success? Its extremely capable CFO. (The Information $)

2 Chipmakers are keeping a close eye on two North Carolina mines
Hurricane Helene has forced production to grind to a halt. (Bloomberg $)
+ The mines contain high purity quartz, which is essential to make chips. (Vox)

3 Hacking Meta’s smart glasses turns them into powerful doxxing tools
Students equipped the device with real-time facial recognition software. (404 Media)
+ The coolest thing about smart glasses is not the AR. It’s the AI. (MIT Technology Review)

4 American chips are powering Russian missiles
The deadly weapons are killing Ukrainian civilians, including a six-year old girl. (Bloomberg $)

5 Character.ai is pivoting away from making AI models
Ultimately, training LLMs proved to be too expensive. (FT $)
+ Make no mistake—AI is owned by Big Tech. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Apple is punishing social apps
They’re no longer allowed to access a user’s contact list. (NYT $)
+ Threads is letting users connect with other social networks for the first time. (WP $)

7 Flying cars are hovering in a gray legal area
Today’s EVOTLs are technically breaking the law, and it’s hard to see that changing. (NY Mag $)
+ These aircraft could change how we fly. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Workplace AI tools can’t always be trusted
Make sure you’re aware of when it’s still writing a transcript, for one. (WP $)
+ You should think twice about sharing personal info with chatbots, too. (The Atlantic $)

9 How to boost the benefits of meditation
Stimulating the brain could help to unlock the mysteries of the mind. (Vox)
+ Here’s how personalized brain stimulation could treat depression. (MIT Technology Review)

10 This video game birthed a generation of historians  
Age of Empires is a classic that defined a genre. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“We have some stock in Nvidia, and that’s who’s going to get all of this money anyway.”

—A venture capitalist who didn’t participate in OpenAI’s massive funding round explains why they don’t have FOMO to Axios’ business editor Dan Primack.

The big story

This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future

January 2024

In June last year, Talon, an exploratory mining company, submitted a proposal to Minnesota state regulators to begin digging up as much as 725,000 metric tons of raw ore per year, mainly to unlock the rich and lucrative reserves of high-grade nickel in the bedrock.

Talon is striving to distance itself from the mining industry’s dirty past, portraying its plan as a clean, friendly model of modern mineral extraction. It proclaims the site will help to power a greener future for the US by producing the nickel needed to manufacture batteries for electric cars and trucks, but with low emissions and light environmental impacts.

But as the company has quickly discovered, a lot of locals aren’t eager for major mining operations near their towns. Read the full story.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Watch out, Nibi the adorable beaver’s about! (Thanks Alice!)
+ If you’ve never seen one man sing both sides of Phantom of the Opera before, now you have.
+ TV doesn’t come much more unhinged than Love Is Blind (if you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat).
+ How to catch a glimpse of the Comet A3, also known as Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.

The Download: how to connect the US’s grids, and OpenAI’s new voice mode

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Why one developer won’t quit fighting to connect the US’s grids

Michael Skelly hasn’t learned to take no for an answer. For much of the last 15 years, the energy entrepreneur has worked to develop long-haul transmission lines to carry wind power across the Great Plains, Midwest, and Southwest. But so far, he has little to show for the effort.

Skelly has long argued that building such lines and linking together the nation’s grids would accelerate the shift from coal- and natural-gas-fueled power plants to the renewables needed to cut the pollution driving climate change. But his previous business shut down in 2019, after halting two of its projects and selling off interests in three more.

Skelly contends he was early, not wrong, and that the market and policymakers are increasingly coming around to his perspective. After all, the US Department of Energy just blessed his latest company’s proposed line with hundreds of millions in grants. Read the full story.

—James Temple

OpenAI released its advanced voice mode to more people. Here’s how to get it.

OpenAI is broadening access to Advanced Voice Mode, a feature of ChatGPT that allows you to speak more naturally with the AI model. It allows you to interrupt its responses midsentence, and it can sense and interpret your emotions from your tone of voice and adjust its responses accordingly. 

Users who’ve been able to try it have largely described the model as an impressively fast, dynamic, and realistic voice assistant—which has made its limited availability particularly frustrating to some other OpenAI users. This is the first time the company has promised to bring the new voice mode to a wide range of users. Here’s what you need to know.

—James O’Donnell

An AI script editor could help decide what films get made in Hollywood

Every day across Hollywood, scores of film school graduates and production assistants work as script readers. Their job is to find the diamonds in the rough from the 50,000 or so screenplays pitched each year and flag any worth pursuing further. 

Now the film-focused tech company Cinelytic, which works with major studios like Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures to analyze film budgets and box office potential, aims to offer script feedback with generative AI. 

It takes its new tool Callaia less than a minute to compile a synopsis, a list of comparable films, grades for areas like dialogue and originality, and actor recommendations. Cool idea, but is it any good? Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The star witness in the FTX case has been sentenced to two years in prison
 Caroline Ellison got off lightly in exchange for her extensive cooperation. (CNBC)
+ In contrast, Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years earlier this year. (FT $)
+ Her help has been credited with helping to recover customer assets. (The Verge)

2 A Chinese-funded US VC fund is under scrutiny from the FBI
There are fears it may have passed trade secrets to Beijing. (FT $)
+ Hone Capital has invested in heavy-hitters including Stripe. (TechCrunch)

3 CrowdStrike’s CEO apologized to US Congress over the catastrophic outage
The crash highlighted the dangers of relying on single vendors. (WP $)
+ It’s facing legal action from its disgruntled shareholders. (Bloomberg $)+ The system failure affected millions of PCs across the world. (MIT Technology Review)

4 A bold plan to refreeze the Arctic may just work
Trials pumping seawater over existing ice appear have proved successful. (New Scientist $)
+ Europe is running rings around the US in terms of heat pump adoption. (The Atlantic $)

5 Huge data centers are springing up across Latin America
And local communities are paying the price. (The Guardian)
+ Energy-hungry data centers are quietly moving into cities. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Why Mark Zuckerberg washed his hands of politics
He regrets some of the political posturing he dabbled in during his 20s. (NYT $)
+ Meta isn’t giving up on giving its chatbots famous voices. (Insider $)

7 Be wary of Google Images of risky mushroom species
They could be AI-generated and look nothing like the real thing. (404 Media)
+ Director and AI-embracer James Cameron has joined Stability AI’s board. (The Verge)

8 You probably don’t need an iPhone 16
How much better can a camera get, really? (New Yorker $) 

9 Resist the temptation to vent about work online
Anything you share on company devices could come back to bite you. (WSJ $)

10 How to save the Earth from a colossal asteroid
Blast it into oblivion using a massive X-ray beam, obviously. (Vice)
+ Earth is probably safe from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about all of the people I hurt. I participated in a criminal conspiracy that ultimately stole billions of dollars from people who entrusted their money with us.”

—Caroline Ellison, a former executive at FTX, apologizes to New York federal court during her sentencing, Bloomberg reports.

The big story

How tracking animal movement may save the planet

February 2024

Animals have long been able to offer unique insights about the natural world around us, acting as organic sensors picking up phenomena invisible to humans. Canaries warned of looming catastrophe in coal mines until the 1980s, for example.

These days, we have more insight into animal behavior than ever before thanks to technologies like sensor tags. But the data we gather from these animals still adds up to only a relatively narrow slice of the whole picture.

This is beginning to change. Researchers are asking: What will we find if we follow even the smallest animals? What could we learn from a system of animal movement, continuously monitoring how creatures big and small adapt to the world around us? It may be, some researchers believe, a vital tool in the effort to save our increasingly crisis-plagued planet. Read the full story. 

—Matthew Ponsford

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This night parrot looks like it’s hard some seriously late nights.
+ The Nazgûl morning routine sounds like a great way to start the day.
+ Time for a hypnotic pencil-sharpening video.
+ Spooky season’s starting early this year: we’ve just discovered a new species of ghost shark!

The Download: training robots for unfamiliar environments, and all-new bird flu

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

AI models let robots carry out tasks in unfamiliar environments

What’s new: It’s tricky to get robots to do things in environments they’ve never seen before. Typically, researchers need to train them on new data for every new place they encounter, which can become very time-consuming and expensive. Now, researchers have developed a series of AI models that teach robots to complete basic tasks in new surroundings without further training or fine-tuning.

What they achieved: The five AI models, called robot utility models, (RUMs), allow machines to complete five separate tasks: opening doors and drawers, and picking up tissues, bags and cylindrical objects in unfamiliar environments with a 90% success rate. 

The big picture: The team hope their findings will make it quicker and easier to teach robots new skills while helping them function within previously-unseen domains. The approach could make it easier and cheaper to deploy robots in our homes in future. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

Flu season is coming—and so is the risk of an all-new bird flu

September will soon be drawing to a close. The kids are back to school, and those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are experiencing the joys the end of summer brings: the cooling temperatures, the falling leaves, and, inevitably, the start of flu season.

In the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the flu vaccine for everyone over six months old. This year, following the spread of the “bird flu” H5N1 in cattle, the CDC is especially urging dairy farm workers to get vaccinated.

The goal is not only to protect those workers from seasonal flu, but to protect us all from a potentially more devastating consequence: the emergence of a new form of flu that could trigger another pandemic. That hasn’t happened yet, but unfortunately, it’s looking increasingly possible. Read the full story.

—Jessica Hamzelou

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly health and biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Things aren’t looking good for the Doomsday Glacier
It’s rapidly melting, and its collapse appears imminent. (CNN)
+ If that happened, it’d be a disaster for global sea levels. (Bloomberg $)
+ But we still have time to influence how rapidly the process unfolds. (New Scientist $)
+ Interventional measures have been in place for years. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Major social media firms harvested vast amounts of user data
To the extent that it qualifies as mass surveillance. (NYT $)
+ The US FTC accused firms of failing to protect user privacy. (WP $)

3 Apple’s new Mac update is breaking cybersecurity systems
The Sequoia update has messed up tools from CrowdStrike and others. (TechCrunch)
+ The company’s suite of AI tools is now available to test out in public betas. (The Verge)

4 Tech companies are pushing to weaken the EU AI Act
It’s a last ditch attempt to lobby for lighter regulation before its codes of practice are finalized. (Reuters)
+ The AI Act is done. Here’s what will (and won’t) change. (MIT Technology Review)

5 To build better batteries, we need new anodes
Cathodes get all the attention, but other components are equally important. (Economist $)
+ Three takeaways about the current state of batteries. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Most of us can’t afford to avoid microplastics
Non-plastic alternatives are wildly expensive. So what can we do? (The Atlantic $)
+ Microplastics are everywhere. What does that mean for our immune systems? (MIT Technology Review)

7 Crypto thieves sold $243 million from a single person
The creditor of a defunct trading firm fell for a sophisticated scam. (CoinDesk)

8 Blue light glasses aren’t as useful as they claim to be
You’re better off taking regular screen breaks instead. (WP $)

9 This delivery robot knocked over a passing pedestrian
The robot actually drove away, reversed and hit them for a second time. (404 Media)
+ The company has offered the victim vouchers in compensation. (The Verge)

10 iPhones are nudging their owners to check in with their exes
No thanks! (Insider $)

Quote of the day

“Self-regulation has been a failure.”

—The Federal Trade Commission criticizes social media platforms and video streaming services’ surveillance of their users in a damning new report, the Verge reports.

The big story

Inside effective altruism, where the far future counts a lot more than the present

October 2022

Since its birth in the late 2000s, effective altruism has aimed to answer the question “How can those with means have the most impact on the world in a quantifiable way?”—and supplied methods for calculating the answer.

It’s no surprise that effective altruisms’ ideas have long faced criticism for reflecting white Western saviorism, alongside an avoidance of structural problems in favor of abstract math. And as believers pour even greater amounts of money into the movement’s increasingly sci-fi ideals, such charges are only intensifying. Read the full story.

—Rebecca Ackermann

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Mmmm, doughnuts
+ Gentlemen, step away from the chore jacket.
+ Once a spelling bee champion, always a spelling bee champion. But what do they do once they get older?
+ Why Hugh Grant is the perfect villain, actually.

The Download: Congress’s AI bills, and Snap’s new AR spectacles

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

There are more than 120 AI bills in Congress right now

More than 120 bills related to regulating artificial intelligence are currently floating around the US Congress. This flood of bills is indicative of the desperation Congress feels to keep up with the rapid pace of technological improvements. 

Because of the way Congress works, the majority of these bills will never make it into law. But simply taking a look at them all can give us insight into policymakers’ current preoccupations: where they think the dangers are, what each party is focusing on, and more broadly, what vision the US is pursuing when it comes to AI and how it should be regulated.

That’s why, with help from the Brennan Center for Justice, we’ve created a tracker with all the AI bills circulating in various committees in Congress right now, to see if there’s anything we can learn from this legislative smorgasbord. Read the full story.

—Scott J Mulligan

Here’s what I made of Snap’s new augmented-reality Spectacles

Snap has announced a new version of its Spectacles: AR glasses that could finally deliver on the promises that devices like Magic Leap, or HoloLens, or even Google Glass, made many years ago.

Our editor-in-chief Mat Honan got to try them out a couple of weeks ago. He found they packed a pretty impressive punch layering visual information and applications directly on their see-through lenses, making objects appear as if they are in the real world—if you don’t mind looking a little goofy, that is. Read Mat’s full thoughts here.

Google is funding an AI-powered satellite constellation that will spot wildfires faster

What’s happening: Early next year, Google and its partners plan to launch the first in a series of satellites that together would provide close-up, frequently refreshed images of wildfires around the world, offering data that could help firefighters battle blazes more rapidly, effectively, and safely.

Why it matters: The images and analysis will be provided free to fire agencies around the world, helping to improve understanding of where fires are, where they’re moving, and how hot they’re burning. The information could help agencies stamp out small fires before they turn into raging infernos, place limited firefighting resources where they’ll do the most good, and evacuate people along the safest paths. Read the full story.

—James Temple

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 California has passed three election deepfake laws
But only one will take effect in time for the presidential election in November. (NYT $)
+ The bills also protect actors from AI impersonation without their consent. (WP $)

2 How did thousands of Hezbollah pagers explode simultaneously?
The devices were probably intercepted by hackers during shipment. (WSJ $)
+ Here’s everything we know about the attack so far. (Vox)
+ Small lithium batteries alone don’t tend to cause this much damage. (404 Media)
+ Exploding comms devices are nothing new. (FT $)

3 Instagram has introduced new accounts specifically for teens
In response to increasing pressure over Meta’s minor protection policies. (BBC)
+ Parents will be given greater control over their activities. (The Guardian)
+ Here’s how to set up the new restricted accounts. (WP $)

4 Google has won its bid to overturn a €1.5 billion fine from the EU
But the court said it stands by the majority of the previous findings. (CNBC)
+ But the ruling can still be appealed in the Court of Justice. (Bloomberg $)
+ Meanwhile, Meta’s antitrust woes are escalating. (FT $)

5 SpaceX has been accused of breaking launch rules 
And the US Federal Aviation Administration wants to slap it with a hefty fine. (WP $)

6 Electric cars now outnumber petrol cars in Norway
It’s particularly impressive given the country’s history as an oil producer. (The Guardian)
+ Why full EVs, not hybrids, are the future. (Economist $)
+ Three frequently asked questions about EVs, answered. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Our understanding of the universe is still up in the air
What looked like a breakthrough in physics actually might not be at all. (New Scientist $)
+ Why is the universe so complex and beautiful? (MIT Technology Review)

8 Tech’s middle managers are having a tough time
They’re losing their jobs left, right and center. (Insider $)

9 YouTube astrology is booming in Pakistan
Amid economic and political turmoil, Pakistanis are seeking answers in the stars. (Rest of World)

10 Not everything bad is AI-generated
But what’s AI-generated is often bad. (NY Mag $)

Quote of the day

“I’d rather go back to school than work in an office again.”

—CJ Felli, a system development engineer for Amazon Web Services, is not happy about the company’s back-to-the-office directive, Quartz reports.

The big story

What’s next for the world’s fastest supercomputers

September 2023

When the Frontier supercomputer came online last year, it marked the dawn of so-called exascale computing, with machines that can execute an exaflop—or a quintillion (1018) floating point operations a second.

Since then, scientists have geared up to make more of these blazingly fast computers: several exascale machines are due to come online in the US and Europe in 2024.

But speed itself isn’t the endgame. Researchers hope to pursue previously unanswerable questions about nature—and to design new technologies in areas from transportation to medicine. Read the full story.

—Sophia Chen

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These Ocean Photographer of the Year winning images are simply stunning ($)
+ Here’s where you’ll have the best chance of finding a fossilized shark tooth in the US.
+ Vans are back in style, as if they ever went out of it.
+ Potatoes are great every which way, but here’s how long to boil them for that perfect al dente bite.

The Download: Ukraine’s drone defenses, and today’s climate heroes

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone defense

Drones have come to define the brutal conflict in Ukraine that has now dragged on for more than two and a half years. And most rely on radio communications—a technology that Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov has obsessed over since childhood.

While Flash is now a civilian, the former officer has still taken it upon himself to inform his country’s defense in all matters related to radio. Once a month, he studies the skies for Russian radio transmissions and tries to learn about the problems facing troops in the fields and in the trenches.

In this race for survival—as each side constantly tries to best the other, only to start all over again when the other inevitably catches up—Ukrainian soldiers need to develop creative solutions, and fast. As Ukraine’s wartime radio guru, Flash may just be one of their best hopes for doing that. Read the full story.

—Charlie Metcalfe

Meet 2024’s climate innovators under 35

One way to know where a field is going? Take a look at what the sharpest new innovators are working on.

Good news for all of us: MIT Technology Review’s list of 35 Innovators Under 35 just dropped. A decent number of the people who made the list are working in fields that touch climate and energy in one way or another. And our senior climate reporter Casey Crownhart noticed a few trends that might provide some hints about the future. Read the full story.

This year’s list is available exclusively to MIT Technology Review subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber already, you sign up here with a 25% discount on the usual price.

This story is from The Spark, our weekly climate and energy newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The first commercial spacewalk by private citizens is underway
And, thus far, it’s been a success. (CNN)
+ Take a look at the long and illustrious history of spacewalks. (BBC)

2 Silicon Valley is divided over California’s AI safety bill
Big Tech is waiting anxiously for the state’s governor to make a decision. (FT $)
+ What’s next for AI regulation? (MIT Technology Review)

3 Wildfires are raging across southern California
The state has weathered nearly three times as much acreage burn this year so far compared to the whole of 2023. (The Guardian)
+ Canada’s 2023 wildfires produced more emissions than fossil fuels in most countries. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Broken wind turbines have major repercussions
Multiple offshore wind projects have run into serious trouble. (NYT $)

5 The percentage of women in tech has hardly changed in 20 year
Women and people of color face an uphill battle to get hired. (WP $)
+ Why can’t tech fix its gender problem? (MIT Technology Review)

6 Google’s new app can turn your research into an AI podcast
Please don’t do this, though. (The Verge)

7 Human drivers keep crashing into Waymo robotaxis
The company has launched a new website to put the incidents into perspective.(Ars Technica)
+ What’s next for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

8 This tiny SpaceX rival is poised to launch its first satellites
AST SpaceMobile’s star appears to be on the rise—but for how long?(Bloomberg $)

9 You’ve got a fax
Pagers, fax machines and dumbphones are all the rage these days. (WSJ $)

10 Have we reached peak emoji?
The little pictograms are an illustrative language, not an ideographic one. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“A beautiful world.”

—Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman’s reaction as he saw Earth from space during the first privately funded spacewalk today, the BBC reports.

The big story

What does GPT-3 “know” about me?

August 2022

One of the biggest stories in tech is the rise of large language models that produce text that reads like a human might have written it.

These models’ power comes from being trained on troves of publicly available human-created text hoovered up from the internet. If you’ve posted anything even remotely personal in English on the internet, chances are your data might be part of some of the world’s most popular LLMs.

Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Technology Review’s senior AI reporter, wondered what data these models might have on her—and how it could be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the test. Read about what she found.

In this section yesterday we stated that Amazon had acquired iRobot. This was incorrect—the acquisition never completed. We apologize for the error.

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ These photos of London taken on a Casio camera watch are a snapshot of bygone times.
+ If you’ve noticed elaborate painted nails making their way into your cookbooks, it’s part of a wider trend.
+ Painting Paint, now that’s meta.
+ Wow, enthusiastic skeletons are already limbering up for next month!

The Download: a quantum breakthrough, and the Internet Archive ruling

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Google says it’s made a quantum computing breakthrough that reduces errors

The news: Google researchers claim to have made a breakthrough in quantum error correction, one that could pave the way for quantum computers that finally live up to the technology’s promise.

Why it matters: One major challenge facing the field has been that quantum computers can store or manipulate information incorrectly, preventing them from executing algorithms that are long enough to be useful. 

The new research from Google Quantum AI and its academic collaborators demonstrates that they can add components to reduce these errors. Ultimately, it bolsters the idea that error correction is a viable strategy toward building a useful quantum computer. Read the full story.

—Sophia Chen

Why a ruling against the Internet Archive threatens the future of America’s libraries

—Chris Lewis is president and CEO of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that works to shape technology policy in the public interest.

In the 1980s and ‘90s, it didn’t matter if you didn’t have a computer or your parents lacked infinite money for tutors—you could get a lifetime’s education for free at the public library.

A ruling from the US Second Circuit against the Internet Archive and in favor of publisher Hachette has just thrown that promise of equality into doubt by limiting libraries’ access to digital lending. Read this to learn why.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 OpenAI’s new reasoning AI model is coming
The Strawberry model is reportedly planned for release within a fortnight. (The Information $)+ It’s an area of research that Google DeepMind is also invested in. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Another human has contracted bird flu in the US
And worryingly, they don’t seem to have been in direct contact with animals. (Vox)
+ How worried should we be, really? (The Atlantic $)
+ What’s next for bird flu vaccines. (MIT Technology Review)

3 A US legal advisor coalition wants warning labels for social media 
The 42-strong attorney general group is urging Congress to take action. (WP $)
+ Australia is planning to introduce a minimum age limit for social media use. (BBC)
+ Should social media come with a health warning? (MIT Technology Review)

4 How 9/11 changed the internet
It shaped how we talk—and to some people’s distaste, joke—about national tragedies online. (Insider $)

5 Huawei has announced a triple-folding smartphone
The $2,800 Mate XT folds up like a pamphlet. (FT $)
+ If you want more memory, its price tag rises to an eye-watering $3,300. (Reuters)

6 Caroline Ellison is likely to receive a sentence soon
The key FTX case witness has pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges.(NY Mag $)
+ She’s seeking no prison time as a result of her cooperation in the trial. (Boston Globe $)

7 Satellites are at risk from “killer electrons”
Luckily, a secretive radio wave method could help safeguard them. (Economist $)

8 Researchers have created a cloud atlas of Mars
While some formations are similar to Earth’s, others are completely different. (New Scientist $)

9 Kamala Harris supporters are using Trump’s weirdest quotes against him
A new platform catalogs all of his strangest missives in real time. (Fast Company $)

10 The British are coming!
Britishcore is the latest tongue-in-cheek trend to grab Gen Z’s attention. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“Parents want their kids off their phones and on the footy field and so do I.”

—Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, explains the rationale behind his government’s plans to restrict social media access for teenagers and children, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

A Roomba recorded a woman on the toilet. How did screenshots end up on Facebook?

December 2022

In the fall of 2020, gig workers in Venezuela posted a series of images to online forums where they talk shop. The photos were mundane, if sometimes intimate, household scenes—including a particularly revealing shot of a young woman in a lavender T-shirt sitting on the toilet, her shorts pulled down to mid-thigh.

The images were not taken by a person, but by development versions of iRobot’s Roomba robot vacuum. They were then sent to Scale AI, a startup that contracts workers around the world to label data used to train artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, MIT Technology Review obtained 15 screenshots of these private photos, which had been posted to closed social media groups. The images speak to the growing practice of sharing potentially sensitive data to train algorithms. They also reveal a whole data supply chain—and new points where personal information could leak out—that few consumers are even aware of. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ What do astronauts and deep sea divers have in common? Their training is surprisingly similar.
+ Eggs, eggs eggs—who doesn’t love eggs?
+ Better gut health is something we should all be aiming for. Here’s where to start.
+ Single women of TikTok, we salute you.

Correction: The piece has been updated to remove a reference to Amazon’s acquisition of iRobot, which was never completed.

The Download: introducing our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2024

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

Introducing: our 35 Innovators Under 35 list for 2024

Tomorrow’s technologies are being developed today. And every year, we recognize young people from around the world who are leading the way through their research and entrepreneurship.

This year’s 35 young innovators are driving progress toward better health, a more stable climate, and greater equality. Each was selected from hundreds of nominees by expert judges. Keep an eye out for these innovators in the years to come—they’re already making an impact.

Today, we’re excited to unveil our latest cohort of Innovators. Read the full list of this year’s honorees making a difference in robotics, computing, biotech, climate and energy, and AI.

This year’s list is available exclusively to MIT Technology Review subscribers. If you’re not a subscriber already, sign up here to save 25%.

Innovator of the Year: Shawn Shan builds tools to help artists fight back against exploitative AI

When image-generating models kick-started the generative AI boom in early 2022, artists started noticing odd similarities between AI-generated images and those they’d created themselves. Many found that their work had been scraped into massive data sets and used to train AI models, which then produced knockoffs in their creative style. 

Now artists are fighting back. And some of the most powerful tools they have were built by Shawn Shan, 26, a PhD student in computer science at the University of Chicago, and MIT Technology Review’s 2024 Innovator of the Year.

Shan created the algorithm behind Glaze, a tool that lets artists mask their personal style from AI mimicry, and another tool called Nightshade. Both algorithms work by adding invisible changes to the pixels of images that disrupt the way machine-learning models interpret them—allowing artists to be creative online again. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

To be more useful, robots need to become lazier

Unlike humans, robots treat all the information they receive about their surroundings with equal importance. Driverless cars, for example, have to continuously analyze data about things around them whether or not they are relevant. This keeps drivers and pedestrians safe, but it draws on a lot of energy and computing power. What if there’s a way to cut that down by teaching robots what they should prioritize and what they can safely ignore?

That’s the principle underpinning “lazy robotics,” a field of study which proposes that teaching all kinds of robots to be “lazier” with their data could help pave the way for better, more efficient machines. And researchers have hit on a fun way to test this line of enquiry: teaching robots to play soccer. Read the full story.

—Rhiannon Williams

What impact will AI have on video game development?

Video game development has long been plagued by fear of the “crunch”—essentially, being forced to work overtime on a game to meet a deadline. 

In the early days of video games, the crunch was often viewed as a rite of passage. However, nowadays the crunch is less likely to be glamorized than to be seen as a form of exploitation. With games getting more expensive, companies are incentivized to make even more short-term profits by squeezing developers. 

But what if AI could help to alleviate game-development hell? If you look closely, it may in fact already be happening. Here’s how.

—Scott J Mulligan

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things AI. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Monday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 The first private human spacewalk mission is underway
The ambitious mission will see four astronauts spend five days in space. (BBC)
+ It’s also the riskiest private mission to date—they’ve got limited life support. (CNN)

2 The first artificially intelligent iPhone is here
But its Apple Intelligence software is far from infallible. (WP $)
+ Not all of the AI features will be available when the iPhone 16 goes on sale. (FT $)
+ Here’s a list of everything Apple announced during its annual keynote. (WSJ $)

3 How to weather this winter’s viral illnesses
Colds, flu, and covid will be doing the rounds. (Vox)
+ How scientists traced a mysterious covid case back to six toilets. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Apple and Google owe Europe billions of euros in fines
Both companies have lost appeals against European Union rulings. (CNN)
+ It’s a major victory for European regulators seeking to curb Big Tech. (WP $)

5 We’re developing a new weapon for the war against antibiotic resistance
In the form of trapping bacteria between hostile viruses and antibiotics. (Knowable Magazine)
+ How CRISPR could help to make UTIs a thing of the past. (Wired $)
+ How bacteria-fighting viruses could go mainstream. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Can you spot an AI-generated video?
It’s a lot harder than you may think. (NYT $)
+ AI slop and social media is a match made in heaven. (The Atlantic $)
+ Audible will invite US audiobook narrators to create AI models of their voices. (Bloomberg $)
+ What this futuristic Olympics video says about the state of generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)

7 We’re still waiting for useful robots
The former head of Google’s robotic moonshot project has some ideas about how we should build them.(Wired $)
+ Is robotics about to have its own ChatGPT moment? (MIT Technology Review)

8 How solar panels can help boost biodiversity efforts
The same patch of land can help to address two crises at once. (New Yorker $)

9 Elon Musk may be summoned before UK Parliament
But, like Mark Zuckerberg before him, he may simply choose not to appear. (FT $)

10 Doctors can’t get enough of this medical TikTok star
His insider jokes are resonating with fellow physicians. (NY Mag $)

Quote of the day

“One monopoly is bad enough. But a trifecta of monopolies is what we have here.”

—Julia Tarver Wood, a lawyer for the US Department of Justice, makes her opening statement during the first day of Google’s latest antitrust trial, Ars Technica reports.

The big story

How one mine could unlock billions in EV subsidies

January 2024

On a pine farm north of the tiny town of Tamarack, Minnesota, Talon Metals has uncovered one of America’s densest nickel deposits—and now it wants to begin extracting it.

If regulators approve the mine, it could mark the starting point in what the company claims would become the country’s first complete domestic nickel supply chain, running from the bedrock beneath the Minnesota earth to the batteries in electric vehicles across the nation.

MIT Technology Review wanted to provide a clearer sense of the law’s on-the-ground impact by zeroing in on a single project and examining how these rich subsidies could be unlocked at each point along the supply chain. Take a look at what we found out.

—James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ How to organize your kitchen like a professional chef.
+ This is one seriously impressive marble run.
+ Meet the retirees spending their golden years hopping from cruise ship to cruise ship.
+ Dinosaurs were no fools—it’s looking like they evolved to fly in multiple ways.

The Download: climate tipping point alarms, and AI’s vision of the 3028 Olympics

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology.

The UK is building an alarm system for climate tipping points

The news: The UK’s new moonshot research agency just launched an £81 million ($106 million) program to develop early warning systems to sound the alarm if Earth gets perilously close to crossing climate tipping points.

How they’re doing it: The teams the agency supports will work toward three goals: developing low-cost sensors to provide more precise data about the conditions of these systems; deploying those and other sensing technologies to create an observational network to monitor these tipping systems; and building computer models that harness physics and artificial intelligence to pick up subtle early warning signs of tipping in the data.

What it matters: The goal of the five-year program will be to reduce scientific uncertainty about when these events could occur, how they would affect the planet and the species on it, and over what period those effects might develop and persist. Read the full story.

—James Temple

What this futuristic Olympics video says about the state of generative AI

The Olympic Games in Paris just finished last month and the Paralympics are still underway, so the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles feel like a lifetime from now. But the prospect of watching the games in his home city has Josh Kahn, a filmmaker in the sports entertainment world, thinking even further into the future: What might an LA Olympics in the year 3028 look like?

It’s the perfect type of creative exercise for AI video generation, which allows users to generate fairly high-definition video in minutes. More than anything, the video shows what a boon the generative technology may be for creators. However, it also indicates what’s holding it back.

Read the full story.

—James O’Donnell

Coming soon: Our 2024 list of Innovators Under 35

To tackle complex global problems such as preventing disease and mitigating climate change, we’re going to need new ideas from our brightest minds. Every year, MIT Technology Review identifies a new class of Innovators Under 35 taking on these and other challenges.

On September 10, we will honor the 2024 class of Innovators Under 35. These 35 researchers and entrepreneurs are rising stars in their fields pursuing ambitious projects. Each is doing groundbreaking work to advance one of five areas: materials science, biotechnology, robotics, artificial intelligence, or climate and energy.

Keep an eye on this newsletter next Tuesday for our announcement of the 2024 list, which will be made available exclusively to subscribers. Read the full story for more details, and if you’re not a subscriber already, sign up here to save 25%.

—Amy Nordum

If you can’t wait until then, we’ll reveal our Innovator of the Year during a live broadcast on LinkedIn on Monday, September 9. Register here to be among the first to find out who it is, and learn about their work and the impact they’re having.

MIT Technology Review Narrated: How a tiny Pacific Island became the global capital of cybercrime

Tokelau is a group of three isolated atolls strung out across the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Hawaii.

Despite its size, Tokelau has become an internet giant. Until recently, its .tk domain had more users than any other country’s: a staggering 25 million. Yet only one website with a .tk domain is actually from Tokelau. Nearly all the others are used by spammers, phishers, and cybercriminals.

This is the story of how Tokelau unwittingly became the global capital of cybercrime—and its fight to fix its reputation.

This is our latest story to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast. In partnership with News Over Audio, we’ll be making a selection of our stories available, each one read by a professional voice actor. You’ll be able to listen to them on the go or download them to listen to offline.

We’re publishing a new story each week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, including some taken from our most recent print magazine.

Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to get all our new content as it’s released.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 Clearview AI has been slapped with its largest fine to date 
A Dutch regulator has ordered it to pay more than 30 million euros for creating an illegal database of “unique biometric codes.” (The Verge)
+ Clearview has missed its window to appeal the decision. (Ars Technica)
+ It’s not the first time the company has been in legal hot water. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Bluesky is gaining millions of new users
It’s struggling to cope with the influx triggered by X’s shutdown in Brazil. (TechCrunch)
+ Some worry that judge Alexandre de Moraes has overreached his powers. (Economist $)

3 Training AI to appear human-like is unrewarding work
Workers cite long hours, low pay, and unstable employment. (Fast Company $)
+ The people paid to train AI are outsourcing their work… to AI. (MIT Technology Review) 

4 The Chinese Communist Party is silencing protesters in San Francisco
It’s part of a bigger pattern of China overreaching beyond its borders. (WP $)
+ How Twitter’s “Teacher Li” became the central hub of China protest information. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Mega AI data centers are coming
But the companies behind the multi-billion dollar projects are a mystery. (The Information $)
+ Energy-hungry data centers are quietly moving into cities. (MIT Technology Review)

6 New York vigilantes are making big bucks reporting idling polluters
The only problem is, the police keep getting in the way. (NY Mag $)

7 Beware of Bitcoin ATM scams
Criminals are finding new ways to part victims from their hard-earned cash. (The Verge) 

8 What’s going to happen to all our old gas-powered cars?
Giving them a second life undermines efforts to curb climate change. (Vox)
+ This company wants to inject petroleum carbon emissions back underground. (The Atlantic $)
+ The problem with plug-in hybrids? Their drivers. (MIT Technology Review)

9 You can’t play video games on Microsoft’s new AI computers
Their new chip architecture isn’t playing ball with more than 1,000 games. (WSJ $)

10 Yarn made from potato is a sustainable cotton alternative
There’s no guarantee it’ll taste good, though. (New Scientist $)

Quote of the day

“We’re a Brazilian app now.”

—Bluesky jokes about the millions of new users it’s gained in the wake of Brazil’s Supreme Court banning access to X in the country, the Financial Times reports.

The big story

Hydrogen trains could revolutionize how Americans get around

April 2024

Like a mirage speeding across the dusty desert outside Pueblo, Colorado, the first hydrogen-fuel-cell passenger train in the United States is getting warmed up on its test track. It will soon be shipped to Southern California, where it is slated to carry riders on San Bernardino County’s Arrow commuter rail service before the end of the year.

The best way to decarbonize railroads is the subject of growing debate among regulators, industry, and activists. The debate is partly technological, revolving around whether hydrogen fuel cells, batteries, or overhead electric wires offer the best performance for different railroad situations. But it’s also political: a question of the extent to which decarbonization can, or should, usher in a broader transformation of rail transportation.

In the insular world of railroading, this hydrogen-powered train is a Rorschach test. To some, it represents the future of rail transportation. To others, it looks like a big, shiny distraction. Read the full story.

—Benjamin Schneider

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ The time and effort it must have taken to paint all 151 original Pokemon is mind-boggling.
+ You’ve heard of Stonehenge, but do you know Kilmartin Glen?
+ The Netherlands recently hosted a celebration for thousands of redheads.
+ Peter Blackert builds some seriously impressive Lego cars.