About: blatcho

AI doesn’t understand how humans read well enough to design type on its own. But it can help typographers make their work more accessible.

Residents and visitors in Sheffield can point their phone at the tops of buildings and see giant animated creatures spring to virtual life.

At the center of the much-maligned film is a beautifully bizarre sequence that secures the movie’s singularly strange affect.

Lizette Chapman / Bloomberg: Analysts, investors, and founders expect a hard year for tech startups, including more down rounds; PitchBook says 400+ unicorns haven’t raised funds since 2021  —  The startup world has had a tough year — plagued by mass layoffs, plummeting venture capital investment and the chaotic collapse of Silicon Valley Bank.

Christine Hall / TechCrunch: Super.com, formerly Snapcommerce, raised $60M in equity and $25M via a credit facility to launch a super app for deals, taking its total funding to $200M+  —  The current inflation environment has all of us looking for ways to cut costs and save some money.

Bloomberg: A look at LAION, a free AI training data set with 5B+ images used in Google’s Imagen and Stable Diffusion, created by high school teacher Christoph Schuhmann  —  In front of a suburban house on the outskirts of the northern Germany city of Hamburg, a single word — “LAION” — is scrawled in pencil […]

Scientists are striving to develop ever-smaller internet-of-things devices, like sensors tinier than a fingertip that could make nearly any object trackable. These diminutive sensors have miniscule batteries which are often nearly impossible to replace, so engineers incorporate wake-up receivers that keep devices in low-power “sleep” mode when not in use, preserving battery life. Researchers at […]

From strenuous hikes and serious summits to weekend rambles in the park, here are 11 great walking boots and shoes to make the most of your time outdoors.

Who knew plastic bottles could look (and feel) this good? These leggings, shoes, and other apparel help keep waste out of landfills.

New calculations suggest that the event horizons will eventually “decohere” quantum possibilities—even those that are far away.

Bloomberg: Analysis: people spend more time watching Netflix than Hulu, Disney+, and HBO Max combined, and Netflix makes up ~75% of the top 10 shows in the US each week  —  Good afternoon from Ojai, California, where I am celebrating my girlfriend’s birthday.  Lunch was interrupted by huge news …

Demetri Sevastopulo / Financial Times: Sources: the Biden administration has asked South Korea to encourage Samsung and SK Hynix to hold back from boosting sales to China if Beijing bans Micron chips  —  White House has tried to enlist Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in its semiconductor battle with Beijing

Nabiha Syed / The Markup: Q&A with Katherine Forrest, a former federal judge for the SDNY, on copyright and generative AI, the Copyright Office’s guidance on AI-generated work, and more  —  A conversation with Katherine Forrest  —  Subscribe to Hello World … Before they gobbled up headlines everywhere …

Essays in English written by people from China were branded by text-analysis tools as being generated by artificial intelligence 61 per cent of the time

Open communication can be challenging—but expressing desires and boundaries is good for everyone. Here’s how to get started.

Pumpkin Sandstorm. Spandex Tempest. Charming Kitten. Is this really how we want to name the hackers wreaking havoc worldwide?

Sam Reynolds / CoinDesk: A California judge rules that the RR/BAYC NFTs, which featured primates in similar poses to the BAYC under the pretense of satire, violated Yuga Labs’ copyright  —  Use of BAYC trademarks by Ripps’ RR/BAYC was intended to confuse consumers, a U.S. judge in California has ruled

Jaron Lanier / New Yorker: AI’s mythology as a technology for creating intelligent beings instills fear; “data dignity” and seeing AI as a social collaboration could address worries  —  There are ways of controlling the new technology—but first we have to stop mythologizing it.

Financial Times: Sources: in its most advanced chipmaking effort, Arm plans to work with manufacturing partners and build a test chip to showcase the capabilities of its designs  —  Company to build test chip with factory partners, stoking fears it could in future compete with its biggest customers

The HBO show, from Veep creator Armando Iannucci, has all of that shows comedy, but not as many of its layers.

Need a backpack, purse, tote, or even a new shopping bag? These are made from truck tarps, old sails, fishnets, and plastic bottles.

Tread lightly on our planet with toys and accessories made from repurposed plastic, and many other Earth-friendly picks.

Mike Pearl / Mashable: Some critics of Twitter Blue, such as @dril, Kara Swisher, and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, say they have been given unwanted Blue checkmarks  —  If you can’t beat ’em verify ’em. … The latest speed bump in the rollout of Twitter’s revamped verification policy under new owner Elon Musk is here: […]

Katherine Sayre / Wall Street Journal: A look at GeoComply, which says it checks 10B online sports bets per year on 400M+ devices to verify if the bets are happening in a US state where they’re legal  —  Even before online wagering on sports was legal in the U.S., Anna Sainsbury and David Briggs predicted […]

Monica Chin / The Verge: Report: cheap Chromebooks, due to their short lifespans and lack of repairability, are less sustainable and more expensive for schools than pricier devices  —  Back in early 2020, as the covid pandemic drove classrooms online, school districts found themselves needing to bulk purchase affordable laptops …

A tool called Photoguard that aims to stop images from being edited by artificial intelligence doesn’t work if you simply save an image as JPEG

E-waste, conflict minerals, and poor labor conditions are just a few issues blighting the tech industry. Here’s how to shop more sustainably.

The animals evolved into ultra-resilient, disease-free predators while isolated on Auckland Island. Now people want to breed them for organ transplants.

We’ve got Earth Day discounts on reusable water bottles and bike helmets galore.

Maddy Crowell / Columbia Journalism Review: A profile of Runa Sandvik, who started Granitt in June 2022 to help journalists, lawyers, activists, and other at-risk people keep their data safe from hackers  —  Runa Sandvik has made it her life’s work to protect journalists against cyberattacks.  Authoritarian regimes are keeping her in business.

Rashi Shrivastava / Forbes: The proliferation of AI-generated content on marketplaces like Upwork is causing transactional disputes and increasing mistrust between clients and freelancers  —  While some freelancers are losing their gigs to ChatGPT, clients are being spammed with AI-written content on freelancing platforms.

Sergiu Gatlan / BleepingComputer: On April 7, Google patched the GhostToken GCP vulnerability that could have allowed attackers to backdoor Google accounts using malicious OAuth applications  —  Google has addressed a Cloud Platform (GCP) security vulnerability impacting all users and allowing attackers to backdoor …

The high court has maintained access to a drug used in medication abortion while it weighs a final decision on the pill.

Matt Binder / Mashable: In a campaign called #BlockTheBlue, some Twitter users, including popular ones like @dril, are asking people to block anyone who subscribes to Twitter Blue  —  After Elon Musk removed legacy verified users’ checkmarks, Twitter’s biggest users are blocking everyone who pays.

Lauren Feiner / CNBC: The US Department of Homeland Security announces a task force to explore potential uses of AI to protect the country, including better cargo screening systems  —  – The Department of Homeland Security will establish a new task force to examine how artificial intelligence technology can be used …

Reuters: A California jury clears Tesla of any blame for a 2019 crash involving Autopilot as the company’s user manual warned against using the system on city streets  —  A California state court jury began deliberating on Thursday in what appears to be the first trial related to a crash involving …

Studies of consciousness often run into a common conundrum of science — it’s hard to measure a system without the measurement affecting the system. Researchers assessing consciousness, for instance as volunteers receive anesthesia, typically use spoken commands to see if subjects can still respond, but that sound might keep them awake longer or wake them […]

When the MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) launched its Climate and Sustainability Scholars Program in fall 2022, the goal was to offer undergraduate students a unique way to develop and implement research projects with the strong support of each other and MIT faculty. Now into its second semester, the program is underscoring the value […]

MIT announced today that in conjunction with the end of the federal and state public health emergency declarations, the Institute will retire its remaining Covid-era policies, including its vaccination requirement for members of the MIT community, effective May 11. MIT Medical Director Cecilia Stuopis and Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education Ian A. Waitz […]

Leaders of companies with operations in Russia share how they’ve navigated new and unexpected challenges during the war in Ukraine.

Now is the time for private- and public-sector leaders to step up.

New research finds that despite being demonstrably worse for the environment, overpackaging increases consumers’ perceptions of environmental friendliness.

For those who love Western classical music, it’s a godsend. But as a global app, Apple Music Classical barely scratches the surface.

The transition from traditional logins to cryptographic passkeys is getting messy. But don’t worry—there’s a plan.

The algae Melosira arctica is the foundation of the food chain, and its contamination could have major consequences for ecosystems and the climate.

Paul Sawers / TechCrunch: Email: Twitter tells advertisers that they must have “a verified checkmark or subscribe to either Twitter Blue or Verified Organizations” to keep running ads  —  As Twitter’s legacy blue check mark system finally comes to an end, the social network’s new paid-for verification system …

Carina Chocano / New Yorker: A profile of Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn, who co-created CAPTCHA and reCAPTCHA, as he predicts AI will eventually make computers better teachers than humans  —  The company’s founder, Luis von Ahn, believes that artificial intelligence is going to make computers better teachers than humans.

Jahnavi Nidumolu / Reuters: Twitter dropped the “Government-funded” and “China state-affiliated” labels from accounts of media organizations and journalists, including NPR, BBC, and Xinhua  —  Twitter dropped the “Government-funded” and “China state-affiliated” labels, which implies government involvement …

AI tools can explore the ethics of AI itself, says Lavie Tidhar.  His new dystopian film uses AI image-generation program Midjourney to tell the story of a well-meaning artificial intelligence trying to help the last surviving human

Robots have been roaming Google offices for two years, attempting to separate recyclable items from waste in bins and can now do it with 84 per cent accuracy