Google is launching a pilot program this week to keep emails from political campaigns from going to users’ spam folders, following pressure from politicians (Ashley Gold/Axios)

Ashley Gold / Axios: Google is launching a pilot program this week to keep emails from political campaigns from going to users’ spam folders, following pressure from politicians  —  Google is launching a pilot program to keep emails from political campaigns from going to users’ spam folders this week, the company told Axios.

OpenAI starts letting DALL-E 2 customers upload and edit people’s faces, after initially banning the uploading of photos that may depict real people (Kyle Wiggers/TechCrunch)

Kyle Wiggers / TechCrunch: OpenAI starts letting DALL-E 2 customers upload and edit people’s faces, after initially banning the uploading of photos that may depict real people  —  After initially disabling the capability, OpenAI today announced that customers with access to DALL-E 2 can upload people’s faces to edit …

Scene at MIT: Dancing the night away

On Saturday night, MIT came out to party. An all-Institute dance party, organized by L. Rafael Reif as a thank you to the community as he approaches the conclusion of his tenure as MIT’s 17th president, was attended by thousands of students, staff, faculty, and their guests. The festivities opened with a community café dinner, […]

A profile of China-born, US-educated academic Li Zexiang, an angel investor in 60+ Chinese tech startups collectively worth almost $12B, including DJI (Jane Zhang/Bloomberg)

Jane Zhang / Bloomberg: A profile of China-born, US-educated academic Li Zexiang, an angel investor in 60+ Chinese tech startups collectively worth almost $12B, including DJI  —  Li Zexiang grew up in rural China during the Cultural Revolution, when capitalists were the enemy.  Now the 61-year-old academic …

Sources: the Pentagon plans to audit how it conducts online clandestine information warfare after Meta, Twitter, and others removed pro-US operations (Ellen Nakashima/Washington Post)

Ellen Nakashima / Washington Post: Sources: the Pentagon plans to audit how it conducts online clandestine information warfare after Meta, Twitter, and others removed pro-US operations  —  Complaints about the U.S. military’s influence operations using Facebook and Twitter have raised concern in the White House and federal agencies.

Sources: Instacart plans to mostly sell employees’ stock during its IPO to help staff cash out, issuing a small number of shares and limiting the amount raised (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal: Sources: Instacart plans to mostly sell employees’ stock during its IPO to help staff cash out, issuing a small number of shares and limiting the amount raised  —  Most shares listed will come from employees, in a move that could help the delivery company retain and recruit talent

Ethics in action

Design decisions often treat people unequally. Take a bicycle, for instance. Bicycles offer a relatively inexpensive, healthy, and environmentally friendly mode of transportation for billions of people around the world. Yet each bicycle that hits the market automatically excludes those living with certain disabilities. “Even with the most benevolent technology, no matter how well-intentioned we […]

How Russia’s IRA troll factories tweeted a torrent of fabricated narratives against the US Women’s March and its leaders for 18 months, fracturing the movement (Ellen Barry/New York Times)

Ellen Barry / New York Times: How Russia’s IRA troll factories tweeted a torrent of fabricated narratives against the US Women’s March and its leaders for 18 months, fracturing the movement  —  As American feminists came together in 2017 to protest Donald Trump, Russia’s disinformation machine set about deepening the divides among them.

A look at the mounting challenges for Lingang, a Shanghai suburb meant to be China’s next Silicon Valley, amid an economic slowdown and geopolitical tensions (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: A look at the mounting challenges for Lingang, a Shanghai suburb meant to be China’s next Silicon Valley, amid an economic slowdown and geopolitical tensions  —  This article is the fourth in an occasional series about the New Geography of Technology.  You can read the first installment on Milan here …

A GTAForums user uploads 90 gameplay videos of Rockstar’s upcoming GTA VI, claiming they were behind last week’s Uber hack and may leak GTA V and VI source code (Tom Warren/The Verge)

Tom Warren / The Verge: A GTAForums user uploads 90 gameplay videos of Rockstar’s upcoming GTA VI, claiming they were behind last week’s Uber hack and may leak GTA V and VI source code  —  Footage of Grand Theft Auto VI, Rockstar’s next entry in its open-world franchise, appears to have leaked online.

Despite a talent shortage, startups in the Chinese chip sector are cutting back on hiring plans due to the deteriorating macro environment and a funding crunch (Qianer Liu/Financial Times)

Qianer Liu / Financial Times: Despite a talent shortage, startups in the Chinese chip sector are cutting back on hiring plans due to the deteriorating macro environment and a funding crunch  —  Despite a talent shortage, cash-crimped companies are having to cut back hiring plans  —  Fresh from six months of training courses …

An in-depth look at a 2019 cyberstalking campaign by eBay employees against two critics who are now suing the company, its former CEO, and others for harassment (David Streitfeld/New York Times)

David Streitfeld / New York Times: An in-depth look at a 2019 cyberstalking campaign by eBay employees against two critics who are now suing the company, its former CEO, and others for harassment  —  The victims of a bizarre cyberstalking operation are trying to hold the chief executive and the culture of the company responsible.

The DHS has awarded a ~$700K grant to researchers to develop best practices and resources for monitoring and evaluating extremist activities in game communities (Matthew Gault/VICE)

Matthew Gault / VICE: The DHS has awarded a ~$700K grant to researchers to develop best practices and resources for monitoring and evaluating extremist activities in game communities  —  Several groups are coming together to study the little understood phenomenon.  —  Matthew Gault

Protecting maternal health in Rwanda

The world is facing a maternal health crisis. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 810 women die each day due to preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. Two-thirds of these deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. In Rwanda, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality is infected Cesarean section wounds. An interdisciplinary team […]

How neural network chess engines redefined the game’s creativity, leading some top players to use deception, misdirection, and other psychological techniques (Matteo Wong/The Atlantic)

Matteo Wong / The Atlantic: How neural network chess engines redefined the game’s creativity, leading some top players to use deception, misdirection, and other psychological techniques  —  It was as if a bottom seed had knocked out the top team in March Madness: At the Sinquefield Cup chess tournament in St. Louis earlier this month […]

A profile of Figma founder Dylan Field, who will become the wealthiest person from the Thiel Fellowship by far, as PitchBook estimates his stake is worth $2B+ (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg: A profile of Figma founder Dylan Field, who will become the wealthiest person from the Thiel Fellowship by far, as PitchBook estimates his stake is worth $2B+  —  Dylan Field dropped out of an Ivy League school in 2012 to take a grant from the billionaire Peter Thiel and start a software company called […]

A Vietnamese couple says they wiped some of Intercontinental Hotels Group’s data, accessed using the password Qwerty1234, after a failed ransomware attack (Joe Tidy/BBC)

Joe Tidy / BBC: A Vietnamese couple says they wiped some of Intercontinental Hotels Group’s data, accessed using the password Qwerty1234, after a failed ransomware attack  —  Hackers have told the BBC they carried out a destructive cyber-attack against Holiday Inn owner Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG) “for fun”.

Some experts say targeted ads on streaming services could be crucial in the 2022 US midterms, as others worry the ads evade federal regulation and oversight (Natasha Singer/New York Times)

Natasha Singer / New York Times: Some experts say targeted ads on streaming services could be crucial in the 2022 US midterms, as others worry the ads evade federal regulation and oversight  —  Over the last few weeks, tens of thousands of voters in the Detroit area who watch streaming video services were shown different […]

Sources: BeReal is exploring adding paid features to avoid advertising; the app now has 15M DAUs, up from 10K in March 2021, and is now valued at ~$600M (Financial Times)

Financial Times: Sources: BeReal is exploring adding paid features to avoid advertising; the app now has 15M DAUs, up from 10K in March 2021, and is now valued at ~$600M  —  Photo-sharing app BeReal is exploring the addition of in-app payments for extra features to avoid Instagram-style advertising …

After Ethereum’s Merge, a look at four more upgrades to the network that are under active development, called The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge (Sidhartha Shukla/Bloomberg)

Sidhartha Shukla / Bloomberg: After Ethereum’s Merge, a look at four more upgrades to the network that are under active development, called The Surge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge  —  After much celebration over the successful transition of Ethereum, the question remains what’s next for the most commercially-significant crypto project.

A US federal appeals court upholds the Texas social media content moderation law, lifting an injunction that blocked it and remanding it back to the lower court (Joe Schneider/Bloomberg)

Joe Schneider / Bloomberg: A US federal appeals court upholds the Texas social media content moderation law, lifting an injunction that blocked it and remanding it back to the lower court  —  A federal appeals court upheld the validity of a Texas social-media law that companies like Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc …

EVGA stops making video cards, citing conflicts with Nvidia and ending a partnership started in 1999; Nvidia’s GeForce reportedly makes up 80% of EVGA’s revenue (Andrew Cunningham/Ars Technica)

Andrew Cunningham / Ars Technica: EVGA stops making video cards, citing conflicts with Nvidia and ending a partnership started in 1999; Nvidia’s GeForce reportedly makes up 80% of EVGA’s revenue  —  EVGA will continue selling current-gen GeForce cards until it runs out of stock.  —  Graphics card manufacturer eVGA …

Filing: Starboard Value has built a 9% stake in Wix, which has been struggling with losses since Q4 2021 and has adopted a three-year cost-cutting program (Svea Herbst-Bayliss/Reuters)

Svea Herbst-Bayliss / Reuters: Filing: Starboard Value has built a 9% stake in Wix, which has been struggling with losses since Q4 2021 and has adopted a three-year cost-cutting program  —  Starboard Value LP has built a 9% stake in website development platform Wix.com Ltd (WIX.O), the activist hedge fund disclosed in a regulatory filing […]