Connect with us

Published

10 months ago

on

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.

DeepMind has predicted the structure of almost every protein known to science

The news: DeepMind says its AlphaFold tool has successfully predicted the structure of nearly all proteins known to science. From today, it’s offering its database of over 200 million proteins to anyone for free. It’s a massive boost to the existing database of 1 million proteins it released last year, and includes structures for plants, bacteria, animals, and many other organisms.

Why it matters: The expanded database opens up huge opportunities for AlphaFold to have impact on important issues such as sustainability, fuel, food insecurity, and neglected diseases, according to Demis Hassabis, DeepMind’s founder and CEO. Scientists could use the findings to better understand diseases, and to speed innovation in drug discovery and biology, he added. Read the full story.

—Melissa Heikkilä

AI for protein folding represents such a major advance that it was chosen as one of MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies this year. Read our story explaining why it’s so exciting, and our profile of DeepMind’s founder Demis Hassabis, where he explains why this may be the company’s most significant and long-lasting contribution to science.

Stitching together the grid will save lives as extreme weather worsens

The blistering heat waves that set temperature records across much of the US in recent days have strained electricity systems, threatening to knock out power in vulnerable regions of the country. While the electricity has largely stayed online so far this summer, heavy use of energy-sucking air-conditioners and the intense heat has contributed to scattered problems and close calls.

It’s unlikely to get better soon. A number of grid operators may struggle to meet peak summer demand, creating the risk of rolling blackouts, a new report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation has found. The nation’s isolated and antiquated grids are in desperate need of upgrades.

One solution would be to more tightly integrate the country’s regional grids, stitching them together with more long-range transmission lines, allowing power to flow between regions to where it’s needed more urgently. However, that’s a mission that’s fraught with challenges. Read the full story.

—James Temple

The must-reads

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

1 Meta’s revenue dropped for the first time
The cracks in Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot to the metaverse are beginning to show. (NYT $)
More people are logging into Facebook each day, though. (WP $)
Zuck says Meta is in ‘very deep, philosophical competition’ with Apple. (The Verge)
Discord is a natural home for users disillusioned by Instagram. (WSJ $)
Ex-Facebook and Bumble workers have built their own ‘less toxic’ social network. (Protocol)

2 Senators have advanced child online safety legislation 
But others argue that such safeguards should apply to users of all ages. (WP $)
Three wannabe senators have deep links to the tech firms they’re railing against. (NYT $)

3 A Greek politician was targeted by Israeli spyware
He’s filed a lawsuit to force Greek authorities to investigate who was behind the attempted hack. (NYT $)
Carine Kanimba claimed the Rwandan government used Pegasus spyware to spy on her family. (Motherboard)
The hacking industry faces the end of an era. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Bitcoin prices are rising again
After the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. (CNBC)

5 Take a journey across the universe
?
This amazing guide walks you through everything from exoplanets to supermassive black holes. (New Scientist $)
Will the universe’s expansion mean planets no longer orbit stars? (MIT Technology Review)

7 Your modern car is leaking your data
While a lot of it’s anonymized, the risk of privacy breaches is real. (The Markup)

8 Top-quality TVs lay bare bad CGI 
Showing up all its poorly-rendered flaws. (Vulture $)

9 Is DALL-E’s art stolen?
While users can commercialize their AI creations, the model is trained on others’ work. (Engadget)
Lawyers could choose to represent AIs in future courtroom battles. (Slate)
OpenAI is ready to sell DALL-E to its first million customers. (MIT Technology Review)

10 What old dogs can teach us about our own brains
Just don’t try to teach them new tricks. (Knowable Magazine)

Quote of the day

“This is not the Instagram that we used to have.”

—Tatiana Bruening, the creator of a viral post urging Instagram to stop trying to be TikTok, laments the platform’s

Read More

————

By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: The Download: a big DeepMind breakthrough, and fixing the US grid
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2022/07/28/1056519/download-deepmind-protein-folding-us-power-grid-connect-heat/
Published Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 12:05:14 +0000

Total
0
Shares
Share 0
Tweet 0
Pin it 0
Share 0
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Tech

The Download: China’s retro AI photos, and experts’ AI fears

Published

9 hours ago

on

June 3, 2023

By

1f30a

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.

Chinese creators use Midjourney’s AI to generate retro urban “photography”

Across social media, a number of creators are generating nostalgic photographs of China with the help of AI. Even though these images get some details wrong, they are realistic enough to trick and impress many of their followers.

The pictures look sophisticated in terms of definition, sharpness, saturation, and color tone. Their realism is partly down to a recent major update of image-making artificial-intelligence program Midjourney that was released in mid-March, which is better not only at generating human hands but also at simulating various photography styles.

It’s still relatively easy, even for untrained eyes, to tell that the photos are generated by an AI. But for some creators, their experiments are more about trying to recall a specific era in time than trying to trick their audience. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

Zeyi’s story is from China Report, his weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on tech in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

Read more of our reporting on AI-generated images:

+ These new tools let you see for yourself how biased AI image models are. Bias and stereotyping are still huge problems for systems like DALL-E 2 and Stable Diffusion, despite companies’ attempts to fix it. Read the full story.

+ AI models spit out photos of real people and copyrighted images. The finding could strengthen artists’ claims that AI companies are infringing their rights. Read the full story.

+ This artist is dominating AI-generated art. And he’s not happy about it. Greg Rutkowski is a more popular prompt than Picasso. 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 AI experts want to pause the development of powerful systems
They worry about the “profound” risks that could accompany models like GPT-4. (The Verge)
How OpenAI tested GPT-4’s responses to dangerous queries. (Insider $)
It’s a bad time for Big Tech to cull its AI ethics teams. (FT $)
There’s still a lot of unanswered questions about how AI is trained. (New Yorker $)
AI prompt engineer is looking to be a very lucrative career path. (Bloomberg $)
Generative AI is changing everything. But what’s left when the hype is gone? (MIT Technology Review)

2 US police have run almost one million Clearview AI searches 
The controversial facial recognition firm has been fined extensively for privacy breaches. (BBC)
The walls are closing in on Clearview AI. (MIT Technology Review)

3 How North Korea is laundering stolen crypto
The process conceals the pilfered coins while unearthing new, untainted ones. (Wired $)
Crypto venture capitalists are going back to basics. (The Information $)
Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly tried to bribe Chinese officials. (CNN)

4 How urban planning became embroiled in a conspiracy theory quagmire
Scientist Carlos Moreno has received death threats for climate-friendly city proposals. (NYT $)
How to talk to conspiracy theorists. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Twitter is getting closer to finding out who leaked its code
A court has granted it permission to subpoena GitHub to share its leaker data. (Bloomberg $)+ Bafflingly, Twitter has stopped showing who users are replying to. (The Verge)
The company has reversed its recent For You page changes, though. (Insider $)
Certain celebrity accounts receive special treatment. (Platformer $)

6 Amazon is warning customers about frequently returned items
In theory, it should help to counter fake reviews that boost dodgy products. (The Information $)

7 Makeshift delivery bikes are polluting Latin America
Their powerful engines benefit delivery riders, but are a pain for everyone else. (Rest of World)

8 It’s incredibly tough to render water in video games
🌊
 
But modern graphics processing units are rising to the challenge. (WP $)

9 We’re strangely obsessed with merch belonging to collapsed tech firms
There’s a burgeoning market on eBay to prove it. (The Guardian)

10 The next wave of TikTok stars are behind the camera
🎥
Not everyone can be an influencer, but editors and producers are in high demand. (WSJ $)
TikTok’s CEO is becoming a star in his own right. (NYT $)

Quote of the day

“What the heck happened? The supposedly bright

Read More

————

By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: The Download: China’s retro AI photos, and experts’ AI fears
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/29/1070523/download-china-retro-ai-photos-experts-ai-fears/
Published Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2023 12:10:00 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://mansbrand.com/evolutionary-organizations-reimagine-the-future/

Continue Reading

Tech

Evolutionary organizations reimagine the future

Published

10 hours ago

on

June 3, 2023

By

Thoughtworks cover 16 9

As the emergence of radically disruptive technologies over the last decades has created, destroyed, or fundamentally changed many business models, most organizations have undergone some kind of digital transformation in response. Many have been reluctant, however, to acknowledge the degree to which they need to disrupt their standard way of working to succeed in this continuously changing business environment.

Thoughtworks cover 16 9 1

These change initiatives are commonly called “digital transformation,” though, as this report outlines, successful transformation is not a one-time change or single new technology adoption. Rather, it requires the organization to acquire the ability to continuously adapt to change. Although many organizations have the digital fundamentals in place, an updated tech stack and agile IT frameworks are just the beginning. Instead, change should be an evolutionary process that’s built into the organization’s mission and every aspect of its operations and strategy.

The global technology consultancy Thoughtworks describes organizations that can respond to marketplace changes with continuous adaptation as “evolutionary organizations.” It argues that, instead of focusing only on technology change, organizations should focus on building capabilities that support ongoing reinvention. While many organizations recognize the benefit of adopting agile approaches in their technology capabilities and architectures, they have not extended these structures and ways of thinking throughout the operating model, which would allow their impact to extend beyond that of a single transformation project.

TW web ready 16 9 Graphic

Global spending on digital transformation is growing at a brisk pace: 16.4% per year according to IDC. The firm’s 2021 “Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Guide” forecasts that annual transformation expenditures will reach $2.8 trillion in 2025, more than double the spending in 2020.1 At the same time, research from Boston Consulting Group shows that 7 out of 10 digital transformation initiatives fall short of their objectives. Organizations that succeed, however, achieve almost double the earnings growth of those that fail and more than double the growth in the total value of their enterprises.2 Understanding how to make these transitions successful, then, should be of key interest to all business leaders.

This MIT Technology Review Insights report is based on a survey of 275 corporate leaders, supplemented by interviews with seven experts in digital transformation. Its key findings include the following:

• Digital transformation is not solely a technology issue. Adopting new technology for its own sake does not set the organization up to continue to adapt to changing circumstances. Among survey respondents, however, transformation is still synonymous with tech, with 70% planning to adopt a new technology in the next year, but only 41% pursuing changes to their business model.

TW web ready 16 9 Quote

• The business environment is changing faster than many organizations think. Most survey respondents (81%) believe their organization is more adaptable than average and nearly all (89%) say that they’re keeping up with or ahead of their competitors—suggesting a wide gap between the rapidly evolving reality and executives’ perceptions of their

Read More

————

By: MIT Technology Review Insights
Title: Evolutionary organizations reimagine the future
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/29/1070438/evolutionary-organizations-reimagine-the-future/
Published Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2023 14:00:00 +0000

Did you miss our previous article…
https://mansbrand.com/the-download-sleeping-in-vr-and-promising-clean-energy-projects/

Continue Reading

Tech

The Download: sleeping in VR, and promising clean energy projects

Published

1 day ago

on

June 2, 2023

By

1f40e

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.

Inside the cozy but creepy world of VR sleep rooms

People are gathering in virtual spaces to relax, and even sleep, with their headsets on. VR sleep rooms are becoming popular among people who suffer from insomnia or loneliness, offering cozy enclaves where strangers can safely find relaxation and company—most of the time.

Each VR sleep room is created to induce calm. Some imitate beaches and campsites with bonfires, while others re-create hotel rooms or cabins. Soundtracks vary from relaxing beats to nature sounds to absolute silence, while lighting can range from neon disco balls to pitch-black darkness.

The opportunity to sleep in groups can be particularly appealing to isolated or lonely people who want to feel less alone, and safe enough to fall asleep. The trouble is, what if the experience doesn’t make you feel that way? Read the full story.

—Tanya Basu

Inside the conference where researchers are solving the clean-energy puzzle

There are plenty of tried-and-true solutions that can begin to address climate change right now: wind and solar power are being deployed at massive scales, electric vehicles are coming to the mainstream, and new technologies are helping companies make even fossil-fuel production less polluting.

But as we knock out the easy climate wins, we’ll also need to get creative to tackle harder-to-solve sectors and reach net-zero emissions.

Our climate reporter Casey Crownhart spent last week in Washington, DC, at the annual Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy summit where high-risk, high-reward projects are showcased. Read about some of the most intriguing projects that caught Casey’s eye.

This story is from The Spark, Casey’s weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things climate and energy. 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 Convincing AI-generated images are mainstream now 
And Midjourney, the company behind many of them, has few rules and little oversight. (WP $)
What these kinds of images mean for the future of misinformation. (Vox)
AI image generator Midjourney blocks porn by banning words about the human reproductive system. (MIT Technology Review)

2 Restaurant chain Panera wants customers to pay with their palms
Privacy advocates worry the data is at high risk of being hacked. (The Guardian)
Tencent wants you to pay with your palm. What could go wrong? (MIT Technology Review)

3 South Korea has passed its own Chips Act
Like the US equivalent, it’s designed to boost native chip development. (Bloomberg $)
These simple design rules could turn the chip industry on its head. (MIT Technology Review)

4 ByteDance is thinking beyond TikTok
The next US-China war could be over its new app Lemon8, instead. (NYT $)+ TikTok could fall foul of the proposed US RESTRICT Act. (Rest of World)

5 Microsoft is experimenting with adverts in Bing Chat
There’s no way of blocking them with current tools. (TechCrunch)
Chatbots are being touted as solutions to problems that don’t necessarily exist. (Slate $)
ChatGPT runs rings around Bard in a personal assistant capacity. (NYT $)

6 The metaverse has been dealt another blow
Disney and Microsoft recently disbanded teams focused on building digital realms. (WSJ $)
Meta is desperately trying to make the metaverse happen. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Algorithms are savvy at predicting horse racing winners
🐎
But there’s still plenty of room for human intuition. (FT $)

8 We don’t know what’s trapped inside glaciers
New research suggests their contents could be more volatile than previously thought. (Wired $)

9 The search for a new Earth
🌍
There are six contenders in play. (The Atlantic $)
What’s next in space. (MIT Technology Review)

10 We still can’t get enough of Wordle
It attracts more visitors than the New York Times’ infamous crossword puzzle. (The Verge)

Quote of the day

“We’re going to stick with it.”

—Nick Clegg, Meta’s head of global affairs, insists the company is still committed to building the metaverse, Bloomberg reports.

The big story

How we drained California dry

Read More

————

By: Rhiannon Williams
Title: The Download: sleeping in VR, and promising clean energy projects
Sourced From: www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/30/1070610/download-sleeping-in-vr-promising-clean-energy-projects/
Published Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2023 12:10:00 +0000

Continue Reading

Trending