That is at present’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a day by day dose of what’s happening on the planet of expertise.
This grim however revolutionary DNA expertise is altering how we reply to mass disasters
Final August, a wildfire tore by the Hawaiian island of Maui. The record of lacking residents climbed into the a whole bunch, as buddies and households desperately searched for his or her lacking family members. However whereas some have been rewarded with tearful reunions, others weren’t so fortunate.
Over the previous a number of years, as fires and different climate-change-fueled disasters have turn out to be extra frequent and extra cataclysmic, the way in which their aftermath is processed and their victims recognized has been reworked.
The grim work following a catastrophe stays—surveying rubble and ash, distinguishing a bit of plastic from a tiny fragment of bone—however touchdown a constructive identification can now take only a fraction of the time it as soon as did, which can in flip carry households some semblance of peace swifter than ever earlier than. Learn the total story.
—Erika Hayasaki
OpenAI and Google are launching supercharged AI assistants. Right here’s how one can strive them out.
This week, Google and OpenAI each introduced they’ve constructed supercharged AI assistants: instruments that may converse with you in actual time and recuperate while you interrupt them, analyze your environment through dwell video, and translate conversations on the fly.
Quickly you’ll be capable to probe for your self to gauge whether or not you’ll flip to those instruments in your day by day routine as a lot as their makers hope, or whether or not they’re extra like a sci-fi celebration trick that ultimately loses its attraction. Right here’s what you must find out about how one can entry these new instruments, what you would possibly use them for, and the way a lot it’s going to value.
—James O’Donnell
Final summer time was the most well liked in 2,000 years. Right here’s how we all know.
The summer time of 2023 within the Northern Hemisphere was the most well liked in over 2,000 years, in line with a brand new examine launched this week.
There weren’t precisely thermometers round within the yr 1, so scientists must get artistic in terms of evaluating our local weather at present with that of centuries, and even millennia, in the past.
Casey Crownhart, our local weather reporter, has dug into how they figured it out. Learn the total story.
This story is from The Spark, our weekly local weather and power publication. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
A wave of retractions is shaking physics
Current extremely publicized scandals have gotten the physics neighborhood fearful about its repute—and its future. Over the past 5 years, a number of claims of main breakthroughs in quantum computing and superconducting analysis, printed in prestigious journals, have disintegrated as different researchers discovered they may not reproduce the blockbuster outcomes.
Final week, round 50 physicists, scientific journal editors, and emissaries from the Nationwide Science Basis gathered on the College of Pittsburgh to debate the easiest way ahead. Learn the total story to study extra about what they mentioned.
—Sophia Chen
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you at present’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 Google has buried search outcomes below new AI options
Wish to entry hyperlinks? Good luck discovering them! (404 Media)
+ Sadly, it’s an indication of what’s to return. (Wired $)
+ Do you belief Google to do the Googling for you? (The Atlantic $)
+ Why you shouldn’t belief AI engines like google. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
2 Cruise has settled with the pedestrian injured by considered one of its automobiles
It’s awarded her between $8 million and $12 million. (WP $)
+ The corporate is slowly resuming its take a look at drives in Arizona. (Bloomberg $)
+ What’s subsequent for robotaxis in 2024. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
3 Microsoft is asking AI employees in China to contemplate relocating
Tensions between the international locations are rising, and Microsoft worries its employees may find yourself caught within the cross-fire. (WSJ $)
+ They’ve been given the choice to relocate to the US, Eire, or different places. (Reuters)
+ Three takeaways concerning the state of Chinese language tech within the US. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
4 Automobile rental agency Hertz is offloading its Tesla fleet
However individuals who snapped up the discount automobiles are already working into issues. (NY Magazine $)
5 We’re edging nearer in direction of a quantum web
However first we have to invent a completely new gadget. (New Scientist $)
+ What’s subsequent for quantum computing. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
6 Making laptop chips has by no means been extra vital
And international locations and companies are vying to be high canine. (Bloomberg $)
+ What’s subsequent in chips. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
7 Your smartphone lasts quite a bit longer than it used to
Maintaining them in good working order nonetheless takes somewhat work, although. (NYT $)
8 Psychedelics may assist reduce power ache
If you may get maintain of them. (Vox)
+ VR is nearly as good as psychedelics at serving to individuals attain transcendence. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
9 Scientists are plotting how one can defend the Earth from harmful asteroids 
Smashing them into tiny items is actually one answer. (Undark Journal)
+ Earth might be protected from a killer asteroid for 1,000 years. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
10 Elon Musk nonetheless desires to combat Mark Zuckerberg
The grudge match of the century remains to be rumbling on. (Insider $)
Quote of the day
“This highway map results in a lifeless finish.”
—Evan Greer, director of advocacy group Combat for the Future, is much from impressed with US Senators’ ‘highway map’ for brand new AI laws, they inform the Washington Submit.
The large story
The 2-year combat to cease Amazon from promoting face recognition to the police
In the summertime of 2018, almost 70 civil rights and analysis organizations wrote a letter to Jeff Bezos demanding that Amazon cease offering Rekognition, its face recognition expertise, to governments.
Regardless of the mounting strain, Amazon continued pushing Rekognition as a software for monitoring “individuals of curiosity”. However two years later, the corporate shocked civil rights activists and researchers when it introduced that it could place a one-year moratorium on police use of the software program. Learn the total story.
—Karen Hao
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ This old skool basketball animation is past cool. 
+ Your seek for the right summer time learn is over: all of these sound improbable.
+ Analyzing the coloration idea in Disney’s Aladdin? Why not!
+ By no means purchase a foul cantaloupe once more with these important suggestions.
