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This is today’s edition download, Our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the tech world.
A new AI vision for humans
In the back room of an old building in New Zealand, one of the most advanced computers for artificial intelligence is helping to redefine the future of technology.
Te Hiku Media, a nonprofit Maori radio station run by Peter-Lucas Jones and Keoni Mahelona, purchased the machine to train its own algorithms for natural language processing. Now, reviving the Māori language while keeping their community’s data in check is a central part of the couple’s dream.
The project departs radically from the way the AI industry typically works. Over the past decade, AI researchers have pushed the field to new limits with the “more is more” dogma that has relentlessly scoured humans for their faces, voices, and behavior to enrich profitability. But projects like Te Hiku could point the way to a next-generation AI that doesn’t see marginalized people as mere subjects of data, but re-establishes them as co-creators of a shared future.Read the full story.
—Karen Hao
This is the fourth and final part of our series on AI colonialism, the idea that artificial intelligence is creating a new colonial world order. You can read previous articles in the series here.
These hackers showed how easy it is to target critical infrastructure
Expert skills:Earlier this week, two Dutch researchers took home $90,000 in reward for hacking the software that helps run the world’s critical infrastructure.
Scary convenience: Daan Keuper and his colleague Thijs Alkemade are quite experienced. They began infiltrating videoconferencing software and coronavirus apps last year, hacking a car in 2018. Their most recent challenge was the easiest yet. Targets were all industrial control systems operating critical facilities, including power grids, gas pipelines, and more. It is the same software that can be found in the real world.
Security vulnerabilities: The couple was able to successfully bypass trusted application control for a communication protocol called OPC UA, allowing different parts of the critical operations system to talk to each other in industrial environments. “There’s still a lot of low hanging fruit in industrial control systems,” says Keuper. “Security lags far behind.” Read the full story.
—Patrick Howell O’Neill
spilling the secrets of Silicon Valley, one tweet at a time
Shortly after midnight on May 4, 2018, Jane Manchun Wong tweeted her first ever “invention”. “Twitter is working on Private DM with End-to-End Encryption!” she wrote.
This tweet was the first of many tweets Wong would send. By hacking into publicly available sources for companies like Twitter and Facebook, he was able to find out what features and projects were secretly working on them before they were announced.
A young woman of color who exposed the plans of a Big Tech firm without any means other than the ability to reverse-engineer the code was (and is) quite radical, and it changed the way tech companies work.Read the full story.
—Tanya Basu
Word of the Day
“We think we are fighting fascism, but fascism is not there. none.”
— Sergei Klokov, a driver at the Moscow police station, criticized Russia’s activities in Ukraine in a telephone conversation with a friend shortly before his arrest. Wall Street Magazine.
must read
I scoured the internet for today’s most entertaining/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 We need to prepare for the war in Ukraine to continue indefinitely
Eight weeks have passed since the invasion and there is no sign that the conflict has come to a conclusion. (Foreign affairs)
+ Ukraine worried that Chinese-made drones are sabotaging its defenses. (WSJ $)
+ Russia has banned Kamala Harris and other US officials from entering the country. (Reuters)
+ Russian troops blockade a steel mill containing 2,000 Ukrainian fighters. (NYT $)
+ The World Bank anticipates a catastrophic global food crisis. (BBC)
+ Zelensky says Russia plans to “falsify” an independence referendum in southern Ukraine. (Guard)
2 Elon Musk says he lined up for $46.5 billion to buy Twitter
That’s a terrible amount of money, even for someone as wealthy as him. (WSJ $)
+ She says she wants free speech on the platform, but has spent years trying to silence her own critics, being highly sensitive to criticism. (Bloomberg $)
+ Musk also seems determined to go back to the time when tweets had less results. (New Yorker $)
3 Zero-day attacks are the weapon of choice for wealthy cybercriminals
They’re eye-wateringly expensive, but incredibly effective. (EN)
+ Google fixes more zero-day flaws targeting Chrome. (ZDNet)
4 Microbial jet fuel could help reduce carbon emissions from flight
It can be proven to work on an if (a large if) scale. (EN)
+ Another way to reduce greenhouse emissions? Sue the producers. (Economist $)
5 EU prepares to announce new law forcing Big Tech to moderate illegal content
If it passes, it means they will no longer be allowed to mark their own assignments. (FT $)
+ It could leave the largest companies vulnerable to billions of dollars in fines. (Bloomberg $)
+ As always, the biggest companies are less excited than expected. (Bloomberg $)
+ Marketers won’t be happy either. (Drum $)
6 Regulation alone cannot combat disinformation
Disinformation is dangerous, but flawed methods of dealing with it can also be terrible. (Atlantic Ocean $)
+ YouTube is more likely to reinforce extreme views than introduce you to them. (NYT $)
+ Obama says Big Tech is making democracy more vulnerable. (WP $)
7 Sheryl Sandberg reportedly convinced reporters not to write about her then-boyfriend
Partly because it would damage her reputation as a women’s champion. (WSJ $)
8 Someone in the UK has had covid for over a year
Doctors say we need better treatments for people battling persistent infections. (Guard)
+ New global cases of covid have dropped by nearly a quarter over the past week. (Guard)
9 Installing smart home technology in rental properties is a tough privacy challenge
On the one hand, it is convenient. On the other hand: the web is an efficient surveillance network. (WSJ $)
+ Amazon thinks its home tech is a safer bet than expanding on metadata. (FT $)
10 What it’s like to receive an email from your past self
A nice way to reflect on your achievements and the future. (Guard)
We can still have beautiful things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these strange times. (Any ideas? Write me or tweet me.)
+ If you’re lucky, you can catch mud-bathing boar calves here. live stream of namibia pond (thanks Michael!)
+Forget it I think How are you today? It is Stephen King’s scariest work to date.
+ NASA’s Perseverance Rover is a Rare solar eclipse on Mars.
+ Today would have been Glen Campbell’s 86th birthday. enjoy this review enduring classic, Wichita Lineman.
+ I’m sure the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, was impressed beautiful dance from two people dressed as kiwis invites him to Japan.
+ This collection of album covers makes me want to listen just a little bit of Grace Jones.
+ Remember Honda’s ASIMO robot? Her retired.
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