Afrigather Plus: the primary privately-funded spacewalk goes properly
That is right now’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a every day dose of what is going on on on the earth of know-how.
Meet the radio-obsessed civilian shaping Ukraine’s drone protection
Drones have come to outline the brutal battle in Ukraine that has now dragged on for greater than two and a half years. And most depend on radio communications—a know-how that Serhii “Flash” Beskrestnov has obsessed over since childhood.
Whereas Flash is now a civilian, the previous officer has nonetheless taken it upon himself to tell his nation’s protection in all issues associated to radio. As soon as a month, he research the skies for Russian radio transmissions and tries to study concerning the issues going through troops within the fields and within the trenches.
On this race for survival—as either side consistently tries to greatest the opposite, solely to start out yet again when the opposite inevitably catches up—Ukrainian troopers must develop artistic options, and quick. As Ukraine’s wartime radio guru, Flash could be one in every of their greatest hopes for doing that. Learn the complete story.
—Charlie Metcalfe
Meet 2024’s local weather innovators beneath 35
One method to know the place a discipline goes? Check out what the sharpest new innovators are engaged on.
Excellent news for all of us: MIT Expertise Evaluate’s listing of 35 Innovators Beneath 35 simply dropped. A good variety of the individuals who made the listing are working in fields that contact local weather and vitality in a technique or one other. And our senior local weather reporter Casey Crownhart observed a couple of developments that may present some hints concerning the future. Learn the complete story.
This 12 months’s listing is on the market completely to MIT Expertise Evaluate subscribers. For those who’re not a subscriber already, you join right here with a 25% low cost on the same old worth.
This story is from The Spark, our weekly local weather and vitality publication. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you right now’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 The primary business spacewalk by personal residents is underway
And, up to now, it’s been successful. (CNN)
+ Check out the lengthy and illustrious historical past of spacewalks. (BBC)
2 Silicon Valley is split over California’s AI security invoice
Large Tech is ready anxiously for the state’s governor to decide. (FT $)
+ What’s subsequent for AI regulation? (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
3 Wildfires are raging throughout southern California
The state has weathered practically thrice as a lot acreage burn this 12 months to this point in comparison with the entire of 2023. (The Guardian)
+ Canada’s 2023 wildfires produced extra emissions than fossil fuels in most international locations. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
4 Damaged wind generators have main repercussions
A number of offshore wind tasks have run into severe hassle. (NYT $)
5 The share of girls in tech has hardly modified in 20 12 months
Girls and folks of shade face an uphill battle to get employed. (WP $)
+ Why can’t tech repair its gender downside? (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
6 Google’s new app can flip your analysis into an AI podcast
Please don’t do that, although. (The Verge)
7 Human drivers hold crashing into Waymo robotaxis
The corporate has launched a brand new web site to place the incidents into perspective.(Ars Technica)
+ What’s subsequent for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
8 This tiny SpaceX rival is poised to launch its first satellites
AST SpaceMobile’s star seems to be on the rise—however for a way lengthy?(Bloomberg $)
9 You’ve received a fax 📠
Pagers, fax machines and dumbphones are all the craze as of late. (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 stupendous world.”
—Billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman’s response as he noticed Earth from house through the first privately funded spacewalk right now, the BBC reviews.
The massive story
What does GPT-3 “know” about me?
August 2022One of many greatest tales in tech is the rise of huge language fashions that produce textual content that reads like a human may need written it.
These fashions’ energy comes from being educated on troves of publicly out there human-created textual content hoovered up from the web. For those who’ve posted something even remotely private in English on the web, chances are high your knowledge is perhaps a part of a few of the world’s hottest LLMs.
Melissa Heikkilä, MIT Expertise Evaluate’s senior AI reporter, puzzled what knowledge these fashions may need on her—and the way it may very well be misused. So she put OpenAI’s GPT-3 to the check. Examine what she discovered.
On this part yesterday we acknowledged that Amazon had acquired iRobot. This was incorrect—the acquisition by no means accomplished. We apologize for the error.
We will nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ These images of London taken on a Casio digicam watch are a snapshot of bygone instances.
+ For those who’ve observed elaborate painted nails making their manner into your cookbooks, it’s a part of a wider pattern. 💅
+ Portray Paint, now that’s meta.
+ Wow, enthusiastic skeletons are already limbering up for subsequent month!
