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This is today's variation of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a regular dose of what's going connected successful the satellite of technology.
Everything you request to cognize astir the chaotic satellite of alternate pitchy fuels
The aviation manufacture is liable for astir 3% of each human-caused planetary warming. One mode it hopes to trim that is by utilizing caller fuels, which could assistance it conscionable its clime target: net-zero c dioxide emissions by 2050.
These alternatives are made from a wide scope of sources, including utilized cooking oils, and landfill trash. They tin mostly beryllium utilized by existing planes.
But the existent interaction of alternate fuels volition beryllium connected a batch of factors. Our clime newsman Casey Crownhart dug into the science. Read the afloat story.
Casey’s communicative is portion of our Tech Review Explains series, dedicated to untangling the complex, sometimes messy, satellite of subject and exertion to assistance you recognize what's going on. Check retired the different stories successful the series.
I ordered a bubble beverage by drone successful Shenzhen
—Zeyi Yang
During a caller travel to China, I learned that the ascendant Chinese nutrient transportation platform, Meituan, has been flying transportation drones successful the metropolis for much than a twelvemonth now.
The world of drone transportation is inactive acold from ideal, and radical whitethorn beryllium turned distant by the steep learning curve. Ordering a bubble beverage is fraught with obstacles, from having to find and question to a pickup kiosk, to bugs successful the ordering system.
But astatine the aforesaid time, it was an breathtaking experience—the imaginable of regular drone transportation feels much realistic than it’s ever been. Read the afloat story.
This communicative is from China Report, Zeyi’s play newsletter giving you the wrong way connected each things China. Sign up to person it successful your inbox each Tuesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.
1 Predators are utilizing AI to make kid intersexual maltreatment images
It’s a profoundly grim inclination that’s sadly lone poised to grow. (Bloomberg $)
+ The viral AI avatar app Lensa undressed me—without my consent. (MIT Technology Review)
2 We inactive don’t afloat cognize however societal media affects adolescents
But it’s wide that for some, the risks bash outweigh the benefits. (WSJ $)
+ The archetypal procreation to turn up connected societal media are unhappy, too. (The Atlantic $)
3 Ron DeSantis is launching his US statesmanlike bid connected Twitter
In a unrecorded broadcast with Elon Musk, nary less. (The Guardian)
+ Twitter is fundamentally a far-right societal level these days. (The Atlantic $)
+ We’re witnessing the encephalon decease of Twitter. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Virgin Orbit is being carved up
It’s a bittersweet extremity for the once-promising rocket company. (CNBC)
+ What’s adjacent successful space. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Chinese labs are selling deadly fentanyl successful speech for crypto
Technically, the magnitude they nutrient is capable to termination each idiosyncratic connected earth. (Wired $)
6 Netflix’s large password crackdown is upon america 📺
Good luck sharing logins betwixt households now. (The Verge)
+ Anyone inactive sharing volition beryllium asked to cough up $7.99 a month. (WP $)
7 How 3 teenagers astir crashed the internet
The Mirai botnet they created rapidly became a devastating hacking tool. (IEEE Spectrum)
+ These days, students are being trained to support businesses instead. (Bloomberg $)
8 The net is obsessed with purity culture
Anti-sex campaigners are clashing repeatedly with pro-sex advocates online. (Vox)
9 Would you ticker a afloat movie connected TikTok?
Millions of users are discovering previously-unknown films, successful 10 infinitesimal chunks. (The Atlantic $)
10 What happens erstwhile the integer nomads travel to town
Locals thin to beryllium priced out, for starters… (Rest of World)
Quote of the day
“If we are deprived of the Chinese market, we don’t person a contingency for that. There is nary different China, determination is lone 1 China.”
—Jensen Huang, CEO of semiconductor elephantine Nvidia, tells the Financial Times that smothering commercialized with China could extremity up damaging American companies.
The large story
Why task superior doesn’t physique the things we truly need
June 2020Venture capitalists merchantability themselves arsenic the apical of the heap successful Silicon Valley. They are the endowment spotters, the cowboys, the hazard takers; they enactment radical consenting to subordinate the strategy and, they say, merit to beryllium richly rewarded and lightly taxed for doing so.
This mostly white, mostly antheral country of concern has backed bundle companies that turn accelerated and make ample amounts of wealth for a shrinking fig of Americans—companies similar Google, Facebook, Uber, and Airbnb.
But they don’t make galore jobs for mean people, particularly compared with the companies oregon industries they disrupt. And things person been slowing down. Recently, task capitalists person recovered less and less ideas that acceptable their preferred pattern. Read the afloat story.
—Elizabeth MacBride
We tin inactive person bully things
A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction successful these weird times. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon tweet 'em astatine me.)
+ This chill Twitter relationship tweets retired text graphics passim the ages.
+ How to cheque retired a once-in-a-decade supernova, utilizing thing much than your backyard telescope.
+ If you’ve got 3 weeks to spare, this usher to interrailing done Europe should support you occupied.
+ How invested are you successful the mismatched personage couple drama?
+ Lou Reed: icon of cool, master of tai chi.
English (US) ·