The Download: impressive new AI capabilities

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.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

OpenAI has built a striking new generative video model called Sora that can take a short text description and turn it into a detailed, high-definition film clip up to a minute long. It’s seriously impressive-looking. 

Based on four sample videos that OpenAI shared with MIT Technology Review,  the firm has pushed the envelope of what’s possible with text-to-video generation (a hot new research direction that we flagged as a trend to watch in 2024).

It’s hard to know exactly how impressive a step this is until we get more information from OpenAI—and we may have a wait on our hands. The company has no plans to release it to the public currently, though it does hope to in future. For now, mindful of the potential for misuse, OpenAI will be doing extensive safety testing. Read the full story—and check out some of the videos! 

—Will Douglas Heaven

Google’s new version of Gemini can handle far bigger amounts of data

The news: Google DeepMind has launched the next generation of its powerful artificial-intelligence model Gemini, which has an enhanced ability to work with large amounts of video, text, and images.

For example: In one demonstration video shown by Google, the model was fed the 402-page transcript of the Apollo moon landing mission. Then they showed Gemini a hand-drawn sketch of a boot, and asked it to identify the moment in the transcript that the drawing represents. The model was also able to identify moments of humor. 

What it means: These sorts of AI capabilities are very impressive, Oren Etzioni, former technical director of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, told us. However, he did give one major caveat: “Never trust an AI demo.” Read the full story. 

—James O’Donnell

How bacteria-fighting viruses could go mainstream

Lynn Cole had a blood infection she couldn’t shake. For years, she was in and out of the hospital. Each time antibiotics would force the infection to retreat. Each time it came roaring back.

In the summer of 2020, the bacteria flooding Cole’s bloodstream stopped responding to antibiotics. She was running out of time. Her doctors decided they had to try a different approach: phages, which are tiny viruses that infect and destroy bacteria.

The phages worked. Cole recovered with remarkable speed. But then the therapy failed. Cole’s case highlights the enormous promise of phage therapy, but it also shows just how much we have to learn. Read the full story. 

—Cassandra Willyard

This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter all about biotech and health. 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 The Senate could be about to pass some major tech regulation
If it passes, the Kids Online Safety Act will be the biggest piece of tech regulation in the US in decades. (WP $)
+ Why child safety bills are popping up all over the US. (MIT Technology Review)
+ New York City is suing TikTok and Instagram for ‘addicting’ kids. (NBC) 
 
2 A new era of deepfakes is colliding with pivotal elections 
And it’ll be very hard to figure out how big an impact AI-generated content has on results, even after the fact. (WSJ $)
+ A Chinese influence campaign is using AI-generated content to amplify division in the US. (NYT $)
 
3 TikTok has released an app for the Vision Pro
YouTube says it’s building an app for the headset too. (The Verge)
 
4 AI is nothing to fear for white collar workers
That’s because it’s not really a substitute for expertise—it’s a lever for its application.  (Noema)
+ People are worried that AI will take everyone’s jobs. We’ve been here before. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Here’s how AI is shaking up the way we work. (The Verge)
 
5 What it’s like to be a content moderator in Pakistan
Pretty soul-crushing—and with little hope of a promotion or transferable skills. (Rest of World)
 
6 Hardware still matters
In fact, in the AI era, it’s about as important as it’s ever been. (FT $)
 
7 Discredited health claims are getting a second airing on TikTok
It’s giving new life to lectures by a woman permanently banned from providing health services in Australia. (Vox)
 
8 Electric vehicles aren’t great at handling extreme heat
But they could get better, thanks to new materials. (Scientific American $)
+ Tesla’s stainless steel Cybertrucks are already rusting. (Futurism)
 
9 Meat-injected rice, anyone? 
I have some serious beef with this new foodstuff (sorry, sorry.) (CNN)
 
10 Some young people want landlines 
There are some upsides to having a landline phone, but they’re disappearing fast. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“Critics are trying to write our obituary and are working to ban our industry in its infancy.”

—Uma Valeti, CEO of cultivated meat company Upside Foods, responds to criticism and pushback towards his industry from lawmakers, Wired reports.

The big story

This scientist is trying to create an accessible, unhackable voting machine

ALICIA FERNáNDEZ

November 2022

For the past 19 years, computer science professor Juan Gilbert has immersed himself in perhaps the most contentious debate over election administration in the United States—what role, if any, touch-screen ballot-marking devices should play in the voting process.

While advocates claim that electronic voting systems can be relatively secure, improve accessibility, and simplify voting and vote tallying, critics have argued that they are insecure and should be used as infrequently as possible. 

As for Gilbert? He claims he’s finally invented “the most secure voting technology ever created.” And he’s invited several of the most respected and vocal critics of voting technology to prove his point. Read the full story.

—Spencer Mestel

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It’s Friday! These recipes can become either cocktails or mocktails, if that’s more your thing.
+ Why ‘Wonderboy’ was John Lennon’s favorite Kinks track. 
+ Reckon I pretty much had this exact chat with my Dad when I was a kid. 
+ Soup doesn’t have to be a faff, as this recipe shows.
+ Turns out more money really can mean more problems. 
+ Some weird and wacky ways people with busy jobs relax.

The Download: why batteries rock, and Apple’s VR headset returns problem

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.

Three things to love about batteries

It’s hard to pick favorites when it comes to climate technologies. Really, anything that helps us get closer to tackling climate change is worth writing about, both to share the potential upsides and to carefully examine for pitfalls.

Our climate reporter Casey Crownhart, however, does have a special place in her heart for one in particular: batteries. Why? Well, they play a crucial role in climate action, there are a million different kinds that can meet basically any need, and they’re at least a little bit magical. Read the full story. 

—Casey Crownhart 

This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter that explains the tech that could combat the climate crisis. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

If you’re curious about batteries too, join our Roundtable event at 12.30pm ET today to hear from our editors and reporters discuss battery technologies, and what it’ll take for them to reach their full potential to combat climate change. 

And read more from us:

+ Sulfur could cut both the weight and cost of batteries—if it can overcome some big technical barriers.

+ Sodium could also be a game-changer for batteries.

+ If you want to know where batteries are going, look at their ingredients. + Discover why we chose battery recycling as one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies in 2023.

The must-reads

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

1 People are returning their Apple Vision Pro headsets
Their main complaints are that it’s uncomfortable, gives them headaches, and triggers motion sickness. (The Verge)
+ Should Apple be worried? (Mashable)
 
2 We shouldn’t be so surprised by big leaps in AI performance
Impressive new abilities, a new paper argues, are actually neither unpredictable nor sudden. (Quanta $
+ AI hype is built on high test scores. Those tests are flawed. (MIT Technology Review)
+ AI chatbots are getting tamer—and a bit lamer. (NYT $)
 
3 Russia is moving towards building space-based nuclear weapons
US intelligence officials say the threat isn’t imminent—but it’s a worrying development. (NYT $)
+ A globetrotting influencer sent missile and drone parts to Russia, as part of an effort to dodge US sanctions. (Vice)
+ AI is becoming a powerful tool for hacking, Microsoft says. (WP $)
 
4 Self-driving car firm Waymo is recalling its software 
The bad news just keeps on coming for the autonomous vehicle sector recently. (Quartz $)
+ Robotaxi companies face an uphill battle to restore public trust, and prove their business models work. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Carmakers are ditching hybrid cars too quickly. (Vox)
 
5 Meta cut funding for fact-checking on WhatsApp
The timing couldn’t be worse, in a year with so many elections around the world. (The Information $)
 
6 X has been accepting payments from terrorist groups
Directly violating US sanctions in the process. (BBC)
 
7 How a virus beat back a woman’s ‘zombie’ bacteria 
Viruses called phages can help people for whom antibiotics no longer work—but they can be tricky to deploy. (Wired $)
+ We’ve known the dangers of antimicrobial resistance for years. It’s time for action. (MIT Technology Review)
 
8 AI has been used to bring back children killed in shootings
It’s aimed at pushing lawmakers into action—but it’s a controversial way to go about it. (WSJ $)
 
9 Bitcoin’s on a tear again
It’s the highest price it’s been since December 2021 right now. (CNBC)
+ But don’t get too sucked into the hype. (Gizmodo)
+ It’s okay to opt out of the crypto revolution. (MIT Technology Review)
 
10 A guy made a dating app where you can only date one person: him
My lord, the chutzpah. (Gizmodo)

Quote of the day

“Quest is the better product, period.”

—Mark Zuckerberg’s review of Apple’s Vision Pro headset, posted to his Instagram account. 

The big story

The new US border wall is an app

ALICIA FERNáNDEZ

June 2023

Keisy Plaza, 39, left her home in Colombia seven months ago. She walked a 62-mile stretch with her two daughters and grandson to reach Ciudad Juárez in Mexico, on the border with Texas.

Plaza has been trying every day for weeks to secure an appointment with Customs and Border Protection so she can request permission for her family to enter the US.

So far, she’s had no luck: each time, she’s been met with software errors and frozen screens. When appointment slots do open up, they fill within minutes. A new app, called CBP One, is supposed to help alleviate the sorts of issues Plaza has encountered. But will it? Read the full story.

—Lorena Rios

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ When chefs are off-duty, these are the kinds of dishes they cook for themselves. 

+ Everyone seems to be loving Mr and Mrs Smith right now.

+ How many of these famous self-portraits were you able to identify? 

+ A home in London with a built-in Russian-style sauna and spa? Be still, my beating heart.

The Download: China’s digital red packet jamboree, and a methane-leak mapping satellite

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 the internet pushed China’s New Year red packet tradition to the extreme

If you ask any child in China what’s the most exciting thing about the Lunar New Year, they are likely to answer: the red packets. It’s a festive tradition: During the holidays, people give out red envelopes of cash to young members of the family. You can reliably get cash gifts every year until you graduate from school and start working full-time.

In the digital age, however, they’ve become a way for Chinese tech companies to make a stack of money and attract new users and traffic. 

In return, users have to follow increasingly complicated rules to get a few bucks, for example rewards for inviting friends to join the app, or spinning wheels of coupons. And these sorts of tactics are coming to the US and beyond, as apps like Temu expand. Read the full story. 

—Zeyi Yang

This story is from China Report, our weekly newsletter all about China’s tech scene and its impact on the wider world. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

How sulfur could be a surprise ingredient in cheaper, better batteries

The key to building less-expensive batteries that could extend the range of EVs might lie in a cheap, abundant material: sulfur.

Addressing climate change is going to require a whole lot of batteries, both to drive an increasingly electric fleet of vehicles and to store renewable power on the grid. Today, lithium-ion batteries are the dominant choice for both industries.

But as the need for more batteries grows, digging up the required materials becomes more challenging. The solution may lie in alternatives like lithium-sulfur, which could soon reach a major milestone, as startup Lyten plans to deliver limited quantities of lithium-sulfur cells to its first customers later this year. Read the full story. 

—Casey Crownhart

The must-reads

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

1 Is it worth paying for AI?
Tech giants have made huge bets that businesses will think it is—but some are unconvinced. (WSJ $)
+ AI hype is starting to look a bit like the telecoms boom and bust. (FT $)
+ OpenAI announced something that will make ChatGPT more useful: giving it a better memory. (NYT $)
+ It’s becoming clearer how AI is going to be sold to a skeptical public. (CNBC)

2 Chatbot ‘girlfriends’ are a privacy horror show
And the data they’re harvesting is about as intimate as it gets. (Wired $) 
+ If an AI chatbot dumped you, would you be able to tell? (WP $)
+ Please, do think carefully before outsourcing flirty texts to ChatGPT. (CNET)

3 EU climate policy is worryingly flawed
It looks good on the surface, but when you dig into it, it heavily relies on untested carbon-capture technology. (Nature)
+ Carbon removal hype is becoming a dangerous distraction. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Bots could be a big problem for this year’s elections
It’s not just deepfakes—there’s a whole gamut of new AI tools that’ll be used to wreak mayhem. (Scientific American $)
+ France says it’s uncovered a vast network of Russian disinformation websites in Europe. (The Economist $) 

5 A judge sided with OpenAI in a copyright lawsuit brought by authors
However, the lawsuit hasn’t reached a final conclusion yet. (Forbes)
+ How judges, not politicians, could dictate America’s AI rules. (MIT Technology Review)

6 It’s not a great idea to walk around while wearing your Vision Pro
For a whole stack of reasons, not least your own safety. (CNET)

7 The US military is targeting teen gamers for recruitment 
But there are questions hovering over whether their tactics are entirely ethical. (The Guardian) 

8 A private company called off its first attempt to land on the moon
Odysseus and NASA will try again on Thursday so we’ll see then. (NBC)

9 Jeff Bezos has sold over $4 billion in Amazon shares 
I’m honestly dying to know what he’s planning to do with it. (Axios)

10 What it’s like to eat a robot 
Deeply strange from the sounds of it! (IEEE Spectrum)

Quote of the day

“It’s something old that probably we think that we left behind, but that is coming back.”

—Father Benanti, AI advisor to the Vatican, tells the New York Times that unwavering beliefs in AI’s power are almost becoming a new religion. 

The big story

Why we can no longer afford to ignore the case for climate adaptation

BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES

August 2022

Back in the 1990s, anyone suggesting that we’d need to adapt to climate change while also cutting emissions was met with suspicion. Most climate change researchers felt adaptation studies would distract from the vital work of keeping pollution out of the atmosphere to begin with.

Despite this hostile environment, a handful of experts were already sowing the seeds for a new field of research called “climate change adaptation”: study and policy on how the world could prepare for and adapt to the new disasters and dangers brought forth on a warming planet. Today, their research is more important than ever. Read the full story. 

—Madeline Ostrander

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It really is possible to think yourself happier—here’s how.
+ Panic-buying some flowers this Valentine’s Day? Don’t make these mistakes. 
+ I’ll be having nightmares about my poor, neglected notebooks after seeing this. 
+ What a champion: Bella can officially claim the title of world’s loudest purring cat. 
+ Hate to break it to you, but running really does seem to have the edge over walking if you want to get fitter. 

The Download: learning from environmental DNA, and why we should welcome watermarks

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 environmental DNA is giving scientists a new way to understand our world

Environmental DNA is a relatively inexpensive, widespread, potentially automated way to observe the diversity and distribution of life. 

Unlike previous techniques, which could identify DNA from, say, a single organism, the method also collects the swirling cloud of other genetic material that surrounds it. It can serve as a surveillance tool, offering researchers a means of detecting the seemingly undetectable. By sampling eDNA, or mixtures of genetic material in water, soil, ice cores, cotton swabs, or practically any environment imaginable, even thin air, it is now possible to search for a specific organism or assemble a snapshot of all the organisms in a given place.

It offers a thrilling — and potentially chilling — way to collect information about organisms, including humans, as they go about their everyday business. Read the full story.

—Peter Andrey Smith

Why Big Tech’s watermarking plans are some welcome good news

The world of AI has produced some depressing headlines recently, from the Taylor Swift AI-generated porn scandal to the proliferation of political deepfakes as election campaigns get underway in many countries around the world. But there’s a glimmer of good news in there, too: tech companies are stepping up and putting into place measures to better detect AI-generated content.

Meta has promised to start labeling AI-generated images on its platforms, and Big Tech is throwing its weight behind “provenance” tech that explains where content came from and who—or what—created it. These methods are not foolproof, but they’re a start. And even better, alongside these sorts of voluntary measures, we’re starting to see binding regulations. Read the full story. 

—Melissa Heikkilä

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 Deepfakes are being used to resurrect dead politicians 
For example in Indonesia, where over 200 million voters will go to the polls tomorrow. (CNN)
+ And also in India, which has a general election around the corner. (Al Jazeera)

2 How BYD beat Tesla to become the world’s top electric vehicle maker
Its growth has been truly stratospheric. Now here comes the scrutiny. (NYT $)
+ BYD is getting into shipping in a big way—this is why. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Sports leagues are rolling out apps for Apple’s Vision Pro headset
Now we just have to wait to see if people enjoy using them. (NBC)
+ This is what it’s like to wear the headset every day for two weeks. (WP $)
+ The Vision Pro could help scientists conduct research. (Nature)

4 Vietnam is becoming instrumental in the US-China chip war
And it’s doubling down on its role by dangling tax breaks and other perks to companies. (Nikkei Asia)
+ Raising trillions of dollars is probably the easiest bit of Sam Altman’s chip plan. (WSJ $)

5 Estate agents are using AI to furnish people’s homes with fake furniture 
Which must reduce their workload. But… does it cross the line into outright deception? (Vice)
+ AI is being used for an even grimmer purpose: to generate obituaries. (The Verge)

6 We’re getting closer to blood tests to predict dementia
A giant study of over 50,000 volunteers has yielded some amazing insights. (The Guardian)

7 How Slack changed us
It made work feel more casual—but also arguably more all-consuming, too. (The Verge)

8 Fans are fuming after Spotify layoffs broke a musical encyclopedia 
This is a real reminder of just how fragile the digital world can be. (TechCrunch)

9 Temu is determined you are going to hear about it
The Chinese e-commerce company is spending a ton of money to get name recognition among Americans. (The Atlantic $)
+ Why the stress around Chinese apps in the US is overblown. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Musk allegedly bought Twitter because the private jet account annoyed him
I guess this is what pettiness looks like when you’re one of the richest men on the planet. (Gizmodo)

Quote of the day

“It codifies your culture, your society’s intelligence, your common sense, your history – you own your own data.”

—Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, explains why he thinks every country should build its own ‘sovereign’ AI during the World Governments Summit in Dubai.

The big story

How megacities could lead the fight against climate change

GETTY

April 2021

In 2050, 2.5 billion more people will live in cities than do today. As the world grows more urbanized, many cities are becoming more populous while also trying to reduce carbon emissions and blunt the impacts of climate change.

In the coming decades, cities will be engines of economic growth. But they must also play a key role in confronting climate change. Learn how some of the world’s biggest cities—called megacities—are rising to this challenge. Read the full story.

—Gabrielle Merite & Andre Vitorio

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ Here in the UK, it’s pancake day! The perfect excuse to treat yourself to a nice breakfast.
+ Surely this is how many of us sleep.
+ This comedy sketch about the inherent weirdness of waiters serving black pepper had me giggling. 
+ Fascinated by this list of the priciest books sold last year. 

The Download: join us at EmTech Digital Europe in London!

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.

Join us at EmTech Digital Europe in London

For over ten years, academics, policymakers, and business and technology leaders have gathered at our EmTech Digital event in Silicon Valley and on the MIT campus.

Now, for the first time ever, we are bringing EmTech Digital to London on 16-17 April for an exclusive gathering where we’ll hear about the most cutting-edge uses (and abuses) of AI from some of the most respected global names in the field, plus our own reporters and editors. There’ll also be plenty of time to network over food and drinks—this is London after all! 

Best of all, we’ve even got a hefty 30% discount on tickets for Download readers. So come and join us!

There are so many great speakers lined up. Here’s who I’m speaking to onstage:

+ I’m going to be speaking to Paul Murphy, Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, about the impressive, growing cohort of AI companies emerging out of Europe, for example Mistral AI. 

+ I’ll also talk with Vincenzo Ciancaglini, Senior Threat Researcher at TrendMicro, about the booming business of AI within the criminal underground and the emerging risks he’s seeing.

+ And I’ll chat to Lee Glazier, Head of Digital Integrity at Rolls-Royce. He’s responsible for making sure AI is adopted as safely and ethically as possible, while remaining at the cutting-edge. 

We’ll also hear from: 

+ David Knott, Chief Technology Officer, UK Government
David will take a top-level look at the key concerns in the UK and Europe, along with some of the most pressing technology issues that leaders are facing with AI today and how to foster responsible AI innovation within their borders in the future. 

+ Zoubin Ghahramani, VP of Research, Google DeepMind
As AI continues its march into our everyday lives, Zoubin will discuss realistic timelines, new collaborations, and the need for an overall strategy to map out steps to a safe and productive AI future for Europe and beyond.

+ Victor Riparbelli, CEO and Cofounder, Synthesia
Digital humans are here, and people are replicating themselves for hire, blending physical and digital worlds. Victor will guide us through current and future use cases of 3D avatars, alongside exploring the potential risks associated with avatars that look, act, and sound like real human beings.+ Bonnie Kruft, Partner / Deputy Director of AI4Science, Microsoft
Generative AI is unlocking new research tools for bold scientific discoveries. Bonnie will cut through the hype and take a deep dive into the groundbreaking research enabled by generative AI—from small molecular inhibitors for treating infectious disease, to the discovery of new materials for energy storage. 

This chart shows why heat pumps are still hot in the US

Heat pumps are still a hot technology, though sales in the US, one of the world’s largest markets, fell in 2023. Even with the drop, the appliances saw their overall market share increase.

Heat pumps heat and cool spaces using electricity, and they could be a major tool in the effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions. (About 10% of global emissions are generated from heating buildings.) Check out this chart and accompanying story to learn more about where heat pump adoption in the US is set to go next. 

—Casey Crownhart

The must-reads

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

1 The Biden campaign just joined TikTok
As part of an effort to get younger voters onside. (WP $)
+ Imran Khan used an AI voice to declare victory in Pakistan’s election from behind bars. (NYT $)
+ Instagram and Threads will let people decide if they want to see political content or not. (Quartz) 

2 A crowd destroyed an autonomous Waymo car in San Francisco 
This sort of incident has been brewing for a long time. (The Verge)
+ What’s next for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Why people might never use autonomous cars. (MIT Technology Review)

3 Climate change is ruining winter sports 
It’s doing far worse things, but this is one affluent people will notice. (Axios) 
+ For one competitive skier, climate change might have helped them achieve the incredible feat of going from last to first place. (Wired $)

4 What AI cannot do
It can assist with creative tasks, but it can’t generate them. (Wired $)
+ AI just beat a human test for creativity. What does that even mean? (MIT Technology Review)

5 What’s the Apple Vision Pro for?
Reviews so far seem to have converged on “work” being the answer. (WSJ $)
+ But there are so many other things VR can be used for. For example, pain relief. (MIT Technology Review) 
+ Sorry Zuck, Fortnite is winning the metaverse. (The Verge)

6 The first endometriosis drug in decades is within reach
Promising news for the hundreds of millions of women it affects. (The Economist $)
+ Tiny faux organs could crack the mystery of menstruation. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Cultivated meat might never make money 
As VC cash dries up, startups in the sector are having to reckon with the financial realities. (NYT $)
+ Here’s what we know about lab-grown meat and climate change. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Lab diamonds are becoming flawless
And it’s putting people off, as it makes it too obvious they’re not “real”. (The Atlantic $)

9 A spreadsheet error cost a Norwegian wealth fund $92 million 
For real. Ouch. (FT $)

10 Is artificial turf really safer for (American) football? 
It’s surprisingly hard to reach a firm conclusion. (Ars Technica)

Quote of the day

“You’ve basically got a faulty product here: they need to fix it.”

—Beeban Kidron, a UK lawmaker, tells The Guardian that campaigns to protect children’s rights online need to go deeper than just removing harmful content, into platforms’ underlying designs.

The big story

Future space food could be made from astronaut breath

INTERSTELLAR LAB

May 2023

The future of space food could be as simple—and weird—as a protein shake made with astronaut breath or a burger made from fungus.

For decades, astronauts have relied mostly on pre-packaged food during their forays off our planet. With missions beyond Earth orbit in sight, a NASA-led competition is hoping to change all that and usher in a new era of sustainable space food.

To solve the problem of feeding astronauts on long-duration missions, NASA asked companies to propose novel ways to develop sustainable foods for future missions. Around 200 rose to the challenge—creating nutritious (and outlandish) culinary creations in the process. Read the full story.

—Jonathan O’Callaghan

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ It seems as though we are living in the puppet age.
+ Celebrities love writing poetry. But are they any good at it?
+ Here’s why we find hold music so darned annoying.
+ Mountain Town Hockey sounds incredibly intense.
+ Teeny tiny dogs are back in style—maybe don’t lug them around in your handbag, though

The Download: solar geoengineering’s rocky road, and Apple’s driverless ambitions

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.

Solar geoengineering could start soon if it starts small

—David W. Keith, founding faculty director of the Climate Systems Engineering initiative at the University of Chicago, and Wake Smith, a lecturer at the Yale School of Environment and a research fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School.  

For half a century, climate researchers have considered the possibility of injecting small particles into the stratosphere to counteract some aspects of climate change. The idea is that by reflecting a small fraction of sunlight back to space, these particles could partially offset the energy imbalance caused by accumulating carbon dioxide, reducing warming as well as extreme storms and many other climate risks.

Cooling the planet with this form of solar geoengineering, called stratospheric aerosol injection,  would require a purpose-built fleet of high-altitude aircraft, which could take decades to assemble. This long lead time encourages policymakers to ignore the hard decisions about regulating its deployment.

Such complacency is ill-advised. Our analysis suggests a country could conceivably start a subscale solar geoengineering deployment in as little as five years, one that would produce unmistakable changes in the composition of the stratosphere. 

If we are correct, then policymakers may need to confront solar geoengineering—its promise and disruptive potential, and its profound challenges to global governance—earlier than is now widely assumed. Read the full story.

If you’re interested in learning more about solar geoengineering, take a look at:

+ A startup says it’s begun releasing particles into the atmosphere, in an effort to tweak the climate. Make Sunsets attempted to earn revenue for geoengineering back in 2022. Read the full story.

+ The flawed logic of rushing out extreme climate interventions. Forging too fast into controversial terrain can spark backlashes that stall research and limit our options. Read the full story.

+ This technology could alter the entire planet. These groups want every nation to have a say. Nonprofits and academic groups are working to help climate-vulnerable regions take part in the high-stakes global debate over solar geoengineering. Read the full story.

The must-reads

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

1 Apple’s self-driving car division is secretly racking up the miles
But it’s still lagging far behind its more advanced competition. (Wired $)
+ Chinese automaker Geely has launched new satellites to improve its cars. (Reuters)
+ Automakers are racing to get solid-state batteries off the ground. (The Guardian)
+ What’s next for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Google will no longer back up the entire internet
RIP web cache. (Ars Technica)

3 Microsoft’s AI chatbot will start developing news stories
But media startup Semafor’s human journalists will still do the actual writing. (FT $)
+ A new AI technique could slash training data requirements. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ ChatGPT can turn bad writers into better ones. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Facebook was launched 20 years ago
The site defined a strain of social network that’s started to die. (Economist $)
+ Its next two decades will be defined by the billions it’s spent on AI. (The Information $)
+ What the world thought of Facebook in 2004. (Fast Company $)

5 Sexual attacks in the metaverse are on the rise
And authorities are beginning to pay attention. (WP $)
+ We reported on this back in 2021. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Life near a bitcoin mine is a living nightmare
Constant noise is driving its neighbors to distraction, and a new law isn’t helping. (NYT $)
+ How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Bitcoin mining was booming in Kazakhstan. Then it was gone. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Gorillas, militias, and Bitcoin: Why Congo’s most famous national park is betting big on crypto. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Pig-butchering scam kits are for sale on the dark web
The kits contain web pages designed to connect to and drain a victim’s crypto wallets. (Bloomberg $)
+ The involuntary criminals behind pig-butchering scams. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Your perfect home has been dreamt up by AI
Impossibly spacious rooms, cozy nooks, and opulent interiors galore. (NYT $)

9 Sharing a Spotify account is a minefield
You never know when your peaceful playlist is about to be interrupted. (WSJ $)
+ Joe Rogan has thrashed out a multi-million dollar podcast deal. (Variety)

10 The best spots to look for alien life
Planets orbiting stable stars that aren’t too hot—or too cold—are good places to start. (The Atlantic $)
+ The best places to find extraterrestrial life in our solar system, ranked. (MIT Technology Review)
+ Experts are searching for dark matter in another dimension. (Quanta Magazine)
+ What celestial interlopers can teach us about exoplanets. (Knowable Magazine)

Quote of the day

“I thought it was a toy.”

—Derek Dennis, 56, a signal engineer on the New York subway, isn’t impressed by the city’s police department’s retired 400-pound robot, the New York Times reports.

The big story

How to fix the internet

October 2023

We’re in a very strange moment for the internet. We all know it’s broken. But there’s a sense that things are about to change. The stranglehold that the big social platforms have had on us for the last decade is weakening. 

There’s a sort of common wisdom that the internet is irredeemably bad. That social platforms, hungry to profit off your data, opened a Pandora’s box that cannot be closed. 

But the internet has also provided a haven for marginalized groups and a place for support. It offers information at times of crisis. It can connect you with long-lost friends. It can make you laugh. 

The internet is worth fighting for because despite all the misery, there’s still so much good to be found there. And yet, fixing online discourse is the definition of a hard problem. But don’t worry. I have an idea. Read the full story.

—Katie Notopoulos

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ This cat has no time for David Byrne.
+ How to grow an avocado plant—but you’ll be waiting a while for it to bear fruit.
+ Some people are really great at learning languages: up to 30 of them!
+ Why great white sharks get such a bad rap (here’s looking at you, Spielberg)
+ Tight shoulders? These stretches should help to sort you out.

The Download: what to expect in AI in 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.

AI for everything: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024

When OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, nobody knew what was coming. But that low-key release changed everything, and by January, ChatGPT had become the fastest-growing web app ever.

That was only the beginning. In February, Microsoft and Google revealed rival plans to combine chatbots with search—plans that reimagined our daily interactions with the internet. And while early demos weren’t great, the genie wasn’t going back in its bottle.

Never has such radical new technology gone from experimental prototype to consumer product so fast and at such scale. And what’s clear is that we haven’t even begun to make sense of it all, let alone reckon with its impact. Read the full story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

AI for everything is one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2024. Check out the rest of the list and vote for the final 11th breakthrough—we’ll reveal the winner in April.

+ If you’re interested in learning more, check out Will’s story on the six big questions that will dictate the future of generative AI, for better or worse.

What to expect from the coming year in AI

Looking to the year ahead, all signs point to there being immense pressure on AI companies to show that generative AI can make money and that Silicon Valley can produce the “killer app” for AI.

This year will also be another huge year for AI regulation around the world. In 2023 the first sweeping AI law was agreed upon in the European Union, Senate hearings and executive orders unfolded in the US, and China introduced specific rules for algorithms. If last year lawmakers agreed on a vision, 2024 will be the year policies start to morph into concrete action.

But even as the generative-AI revolution unfolds at a breakneck pace, there are still some big unresolved questions that urgently need answering. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

This story is from The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter covering the latest AI developments. 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 We’ve finally got a release date for Apple’s Vision Pro headset
If you’ve got $3,499 spare, mark February 2 in your diary. (The Verge)
+ Apple is training its retail staff on how to demo the headset correctly. (Bloomberg $)
+ These minuscule pixels are poised to take augmented reality by storm. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Things aren’t looking great for the Peregrine lunar lander
A fuel leak means it’s highly unlikely to make it to the moon after all. (WP $) 
+ It started experiencing difficulty just hours after launch. (FT $)
+ The US company in charge is worried it won’t be able to control it much longer. (BBC)

3 The OpenAI and New York Times lawsuit is getting ugly
The AI company has accused the newspaper of not “telling the full story.” (FT $)
+ The Times is the first major US media organization to sue OpenAI. (NYT $)
+ How judges, not politicians, could dictate America’s AI rules. (MIT Technology Review)

4 China claims to have cracked Apple’s AirDrop feature
To reveal the phone numbers and email addresses of previously-anonymous senders. (Bloomberg $)

5 Our skies are chock-full of satellites
And they’re both a blessing and burden to astronomers back on Earth. (NYT $)
+ Amazon and SpaceX are head to head in a battle for satellite internet dominance. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Your body’s cells communicate with each other about aging
When they no longer talk to each other, the body starts to decline. (Quanta Magazine)
+ The debate over whether aging is a disease rages on. (MIT Technology Review)

7 What isn’t plant-based these days?
Cynics might say it’s an easy way for companies to bump up prices. (The Atlantic $)

8 A major fantasy games publisher was caught out using AI-generated content
The Magic: The Gathering maker had originally denied any generative involvement. (Motherboard)
+ This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it. (MIT Technology Review)

9 It’s not just you—dating apps really are getting worse
And users are ditching them in favor of IRL serendipity. (Bustle)
+ Looking for love on the apps is getting more and more expensive. (FT $)

10 Vinted wants to make secondhand clothing our first choice
No seller fees and fiddling around with postage, for starters. (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“We can be confident we haven’t seen a warmer year globally since the birth of Christ.”

—Professor Piers Forster, interim chair of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, reflects on 2023 being named as the hottest year on record, Sky News reports.

The big story

Computer scientists designing the future can’t agree on what privacy means

April 2023

When computer science students and faculty at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Software Research returned to campus in the summer of 2020, there was a lot to adjust to.

The department had moved into a brand-new building, complete with experimental devices called Mites. Embedded in more than 300 locations throughout the building, these light-switch-size devices measure 12 types of data—including motion and sound.

The Mites had been installed as part of a research project on smart buildings, and were quickly met with resistance from students and faculty who felt the devices would subject them to experimental surveillance without their consent.

The conflict has deteriorated into a bitter dispute, complete with accusations of bullying, vandalism, misinformation, and workplace retaliation. Read the full story.

—Eileen Guo & Tate Ryan-Mosley

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I’d just love a helpful tidy mouse companion.
+ This Instagram account is a celebration of all kinds of jelly, and a thing of beauty.
+ The trick to making even the cheapest coffee beans taste better? It’s all in the tamping.
+ Happy birthday to Jimmy Page—80 years old today!
+ Man, they just don’t make choose your own adventures like they used to.

The Download: 2023’s worst tech failures, and the end of online anonymity in China

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 worst technology failures of 2023

Welcome to our annual list of the worst technologies. This year, one technology disaster in particular holds lessons for the rest of us: the Titan submersible that imploded in the shadow of the Titanic. 

Everyone had warned Stockton Rush, the sub’s creator, that it wasn’t safe. But he believed innovation meant tossing out the rule book and taking chances. He set aside good engineering in favor of wishful thinking. He and four others died. 

To us it shows how the spirit of innovation can pull ahead of reality, sometimes with unpleasant consequences. It was a phenomenon we saw time and again this year, like when GM’s Cruise division put robotaxis into circulation before they were ready. Others find convoluted ways to keep hopes alive, like a company that is showing off its industrial equipment but is quietly still using bespoke methods to craft its lab-grown meat.

The worst cringe, though, is when true believers can’t see the looming disaster, but we do. That’s the case for the new “Ai Pin,” developed at a cost of tens of millions, that’s meant to replace smartphones. It looks like a titanic failure to us. Read the full story to find out the seven worst technologies of 2023.  

—Antonio Regalado

How 2023 marked the death of anonymity online in China

There are so many people we meet on the internet daily whose real names we will never know. The TikTok teen who learned the trendy new dance, the anime artist who uploaded a new painting, the random commenter posting under the YouTube video you just watched. That’s the internet we are familiar with. 

In China, it’s already been impossible to be fully anonymous for a while now, thanks to a sophisticated system that requires identity verification to use any online services. Despite that, there were still corners of the Chinese internet where you could remain obscure. But lately, even this last bit of anonymity is slipping away. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

Gene editing took center stage in 2023

Gene editing can be used to delete, insert, or alter portions of our genetic code. We’ve been able to modify DNA for years, but newer technologies like CRISPR mean that we can do it faster, more accurately, and more efficiently than ever before. 

In 2023, we saw the first approval of a CRISPR-based gene-editing therapy. And many more are to come. So let’s take a look at the developments that made news this year. What is the promise of gene editing, and what are the current pitfalls? Read the full story. 

In 2023, MIT Technology Review published a striking number of stories about gene editing. And really, that’s no surprise. Perhaps no technology has more power to transform medicine.

—Cassandra Willyard

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

Is this the most energy efficient way to build homes?

When the Canadian engineer Harold Orr and his colleagues began designing an ultra-efficient home in Saskatchewan in the late ’70s, they knew that the trick wasn’t generating energy in a greener way, but using less of it. They needed to make a better thermos, not a cheaper coffee maker.

The result was the 1978 Saskatchewan Conservation House, a cedar-clad trapezoid that cut energy usage by 85%—and helped inspire today’s globally recognized passive-house standard for building design. It’s a marriage of efficiency and rigorously applied physics, and the associated benefits are vast. Read the full story. 

—Patrick Sisson

This story is from the next magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 8—and it’s all about innovation. If you don’t already, subscribe to get a copy when it lands.

The must-reads

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

1 Hyperloop One is shutting down
Frankly, the ambition never made much sense—and now it’s unraveled entirely. (Bloomberg $)

2 What we learn about wars on TikTok
The videos that do well tend to be apocalyptic, alarmist, and full of propaganda. (WSJ $)
+ What it’s like to be a TikTok moderator. (The Guardian)
+ Misinformation is warping the debate in the US over Ukraine aid. (BBC)

3 Apple wants to catch up with AI research rivals
It’s focusing on work to shrink large language models to run more efficiently on smartphones. (FT $)
+ These six questions will dictate the future of generative AI. (MIT Technology Review)
+ The problem with America’s big AI safety plan? It’s likely to be woefully underfunded. (Wired $)

4 Twitter’s problems run so much deeper than Elon Musk
People were disengaging en masse before he even came on the scene. (The Atlantic $)

5 These were the biggest discoveries in computer science this year
From quantum computing to AI to cryptography, there was plenty to get excited about. (Quanta $)
+ A dispute about a quantum computing milestone shows just how tough it is to make them practical. (Wired $)

6 How e-scooter startup Bird crashed and burned
Safety concerns, issues with financial reporting and the pandemic all contributed. (Wired $) 
+ It owes money to more than 300 cities and towns, which shows just how rapidly it expanded before it collapsed. (Quartz $)

7 VR is becoming a hit in nursing homes
Which, in a way, makes a lot of sense. (WP $)

8 The beef industry is about to be hit by a demographic time bomb 
It’s a lot more popular with boomers than the rest of the US population. (Wired $)
+ Lab-grown meat just reached a major milestone. Here’s what comes next. (MIT Technology Review) 

9 YouTube has a big plagiarism problem
And creators say they want more than just apologies. (NBC)
+ This is how much money influencers make. (WP $)

10 This was the year millennials aged out of the internet
We’re just exhausted with it. Gen Z, over to you. Good luck. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“Governance got a bit loosey-goosey during the bubble.”

—Healy Jones, vice president of financial strategy at Kruze Consulting, tells the New York Times that a lack of due diligence by venture capitalists allowed startup fraud to thrive in the last decade.

The big story

How Bitcoin mining devastated this New York town

GABRIELA BHASKAR

April 2022

If you had taken a gamble in 2017 and purchased Bitcoin, today you might be a millionaire many times over. But while the industry has provided windfalls for some, local communities have paid a high price, as people started scouring the world for cheap sources of energy to run large Bitcoin-mining farms.

It didn’t take long for a subsidiary of the popular Bitcoin mining firm Coinmint to lease a Family Dollar store in Plattsburgh, a city in New York state offering cheap power. Soon, the company was regularly drawing enough power for about 4,000 homes. And while other miners were quick to follow, the problems had already taken root. Read the full story.

—Lois Parshley

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.)

+ Thankfully, it’s probably too late to hand over control of your Christmas planning to ChatGPT.
+ It’s time to condense 2023 in 84 gloriously weird sentences.
+ Enjoy this sweet lil story about madeleines at the most wonderful time of the year.
+ Merry Christmas from Snoopy and the Peanuts gang! 
+ May baby Gromit bless your new year

The Download: recreating the early internet, and 2023 in climate data

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.

Recapturing early internet whimsy with HTML 

Websites weren’t always slick digital experiences. 

There was a time when surfing the web involved opening tabs that played music against your will and sifting through walls of text on a colored background. In the 2000s, before Squarespace and social media, websites were manifestations of individuality—built from scratch using HTML, by users who had some knowledge of code. 

Scattered across the web are communities of programmers working to revive this seemingly outdated approach. And the movement is anything but a superficial appeal to retro aesthetics—it’s about celebrating the human touch in digital experiences. Read the full story. 

—Tiffany Ng

This story is from the next magazine edition of MIT Technology Review, set to go live on January 8—and it’s all about innovation. If you don’t already, take advantage of our seasonal subscription offers to get a copy when it lands.

2023 is breaking all sorts of climate records

This has been quite the year for climate news, with weather disasters, technological breakthroughs, and policy changes making headlines around the world. There’s an abundance of bad news, but there are also some glimmers of hope, if you know where to look.

It’s a lot to make sense of, so we took a look back at the year, with the help of plenty of data. A “climate wrapped,” if you will. Check it out, and also read our story about why our climate team is more optimistic than you might imagine. 

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate 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 Child sexual abuse photos have been found in AI training data sets
It’s a shocking demonstration of how little we know about the massive amounts of data generative AI models are trained on. (WP $) 
+ The biggest AI image training data set, LAION, has been temporarily taken offline while it scrambles to respond. (404 Media)

2Apple’s headset could be ready as early as February 2024
Then we’ll find out the answer to the big question: who will buy it? (Bloomberg $)
+ These minuscule pixels are poised to take augmented reality by storm. (MIT Technology Review)

3 TikTok moderators are struggling to assess Israel-Gaza content
The big problem is a lack of local language skills in content moderation teams. (The Guardian)
+ Meta’s oversight board has said AI is leading the company to remove too many posts related to the conflict. (Quartz)
+ Search engines help to boost misinformation. (Scientific American $)

4 The US pumped more oil than any other country in history in 2023
Sounds dreadful, but the reality below the headline is complex. (The Atlantic $)
+ Fossil-fuel emissions are over a million times greater than carbon removal efforts. (MIT Technology Review)

5 What will Ozempic’s next act be? 
These types of drugs are being studied as treatments for everything from addiction to liver disease to infertility. (NYT $) 
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review)

6 YouTube is one of the last bastions of unbiased journalism in India
And even then, reporters who run their own channels work with few protections and a lot of fear. (Rest of World)

7 X went down for more than an hour
It’s not the only major outage for the site in recent days either. (The Verge)
+ How Twitter died in 2023. (Engadget)

8 Science fiction is kinda ruining the world
Billionaires grew up reading dystopian novels, and now they’re determined to make them a reality. (Scientific American $)

9 What happens to our planet when the sun dies?
Read this for a healthy helping of perspective over the holidays(!) (Quanta $)

10 How 2023 went down on social media
It wasn’t a vintage year in honesty, but there were still plenty of lolz—and drama—to go around. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“People have always been able to lie, but the effectiveness of those lies is now augmented and significantly increased.”

—Arizona’s Secretary of State Adrian Fontes tells Wired how he expects AI to affect the 2024 elections. 

The big story

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

SAEED KHAN/APF/GETTY IMAGES

December 2022

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

The images were taken by development versions of a 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.

MIT Technology Review obtained 15 screenshots of these private photos, which had been posted to closed social media groups. The images 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.)

+ The new year is approaching, and with it: 30 days of yoga with Adriene!
+ The JWST has gifted us with a plethora of amazing images this year. Here are some of the most impressive.
+ There’s never a bad time to eat delicious pasta dishes.
+ Shout out to Sally Snowman, the Boston Light first and online female lighthouse keeper.
+ India’s oldest bookshop looks like a lovely place.

The Download: what we learned from COP28, and an advance for household robots

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 two words that pushed international climate talks into overtime

The annual UN climate negotiations at COP28 in Dubai have officially come to a close. Delegates scrambled to get a deal together in the early morning hours, and the meetings ended a day past their scheduled conclusion (as these things tend to). 

It’s understandable if you’ve tuned out news from the summit. The quibbles over wording—“urges” vs. “notes” vs. “emphasizes”—can all start to sound like noise. But these talks are the biggest climate event of the year, and there are some details that are worth paying attention to, not least the high-profile fight about those two words: fossil fuels.

As negotiators start their treks home, let’s sort through what happened at COP28 and why all these political fights matter for climate action. Read our story.

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things energy and climate-related. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday.

This new system can teach a robot a simple household task within 20 minutes

The news: A new system can teach robots a domestic task in around 20 minutes. The system, called Dobb-E, was trained on iPhone videos of people carrying out a range of household jobs, recording data on movement, depth, and rotation—important information when it comes to training a robot to replicate the actions on its own. That data is then fed to an AI model which instructs the robot how to carry out the actions.

Why it matters: This new system could help the field of robotics overcome one of its biggest challenges: a lack of training data. While other types of AI, such as large language models, are trained on huge repositories of data scraped from the internet, the same can’t be done with robots, because the data needs to be physically collected. This makes it a lot harder to build and scale training databases. Read the full story. 

—Rhiannon Williams

Vertex will pay tens of millions to license a controversial CRISPR patent

The news: Vertex Pharmaceuticals has agreed to buy rights to use a CRISPR patent owned by the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, avoiding a potential lawsuit over its new gene-editing treatment for sickle-cell disease.

Why it matters: The agreement allows Vertex to start selling its treatment, approved last Friday, without fear of patent infringement claims. Under an agreement with Editas announced today, Vertex agreed to pay it $50 million and annual fees of between $10 and $40 million a year until 2034. Read the full story.

—Antonio Regalado

The bigger picture: read Antonio’s story from earlier this month explaining the background, and context, to the fight over the first CRISPR cure to be approved in the US.

The must-reads

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

1 Google’s AI search tool could upend the internet
Publishers in particular fear it could take a sledgehammer to their traffic. (WSJ $)
+ OpenAI is partnering with a major publisher. (The Guardian)
+ Chatbots could one day replace search engines. Here’s why that’s a terrible idea. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Tesla has to update nearly all 2 million of its vehicles in the US
To address a defect in the autopilot system. (The Verge)
+ Here’s what to do if you’re affected. (WP $)

3 What you need to know about plastic pollution
One fact stands out: the US produces more plastic waste than any other country. (one5c)
+ Think that your plastic is being recycled? Think again. (MIT Technology Review)

4 What’s the point of Meta’s smart glasses? 
Despite all the time and money thrown at them, they still lack a killer app. (NYT $)
+ Why Facebook is using Ray-Ban to stake a claim on our faces. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Amazon is under growing pressure
If tons of its products come from China anyway, why not buy from its Chinese competitors? (The Atlantic $)
+ The counterfeit lawsuits that scoop up hundreds of Chinese Amazon sellers at once. (MIT Technology Review)

6 Apple could sign X’s death warrant
Soon it could become such a toxic platform it violates Apple’s standards, triggering a removal from its app store. (Bloomberg $)
+ X’s ad revenue reportedly fell by $1.5 billion this year. (Ars Technica)

7 Why weight loss drugs are so significant
Their impact will ripple across our societies over the coming years. (New Yorker $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the internet. But what does this mean for people IRL? (MIT Technology Review) 

8 How much time should we spend on our phones at Christmas? 
I’d say that it really depends on how bearable your family is. (Wired $)
+ There still isn’t much evidence to back up claims that social media is bad for teens. (NBC)

9 AI astrology is getting out of hand 
It’s all fun and games until it starts instructing people to ditch things they find healthy and useful. (The Atlantic $)

10 Taylor Swift fans literally rocked the Earth
People danced so enthusiastically at her gig in Seattle that it was picked up by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. (The Economist $)

Quote of the day

“Grok is woke unfortunately.”

—Right-wing US podcaster Tim Pool expresses his annoyance at the fact that Elon Musk’s ‘anti-woke’ AI chatbot seems to express just as left-leaning views as any of its rivals.

The big story

Inside Australia’s plan to survive bigger, badder bushfires

SAEED KHAN/APF/GETTY IMAGES

April 2019

Australia’s colonial history is dotted with fires so enormous they have their own names. The worst, Black Saturday, struck the state of Victoria in February 2009, killing 173 people.

While Australia is notorious for spectacular blazes, it actually ranks below the United States, Indonesia, Canada, Portugal, and Spain when it comes to the economic damage caused by wildfires.

That’s because while other nations argue about the best way to tackle the issue, the horrors of Black Saturday led Australia to drastically change its response—one of the biggest of which was also one of the most basic: how fire risk is rated. Read the full story.

—Bianca Nogrady

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.)

+ I’m a big fan of this festive hip hop house. 
+ This kinetic PC case is a real feat of engineering.
+ There’s something seriously eerie about hearing voice recordings from the distant past.
+ It’s almost Christmas! Time to relax with a festive film or two.
+ All hail 2023, the year of the hat.