Category: Uncategorized

Artificial intelligence that analyses the sound of a cough to detect covid-19 had been reported to be 99 per cent accurate, but a comprehensive analysis shows it’s only about 60 per cent accurate

Advice on what to say (and what not to say) when you break the news.

After Wordle became an instant hit, Josh Wardle had to consider long-term options for the web-based word game he created.

Clive Thompson / MIT Technology Review: A profile of blockchain auditing service CertiK, which inspects smart contracts to help clients like Yuga Labs avoid critical bugs that can lead to lost crypto  —  Programming errors on the blockchain can mean $100 million lost in the blink of an eye.  Ronghui Gu and his company CertiK […]

Belle Lin / Wall Street Journal: Southwest Airlines’ recent meltdown exposed an over-reliance on aging crew-assignment software SkySolver, forcing the company to return to manual scheduling  —  The airline industry is long overdue for a tech overhaul that takes full advantage of the cloud and data integration, analysts say

Previous golf robots have required assistance from human operators, but Golfi can find golf balls on a green and work out how to hit them by itself

NASA and Lockheed Martin’s strange-looking X-59 plane is set to fly early in 2023, and it is designed to break the sound barrier quietly rather than creating a huge sonic boom

Debby Wu / Bloomberg: Chinese media: Foxconn says its Zhengzhou plant is operating with ~200,000 workers, or ~90% capacity, back to around reported normal levels, after disruptions  —  Foxconn Technology Group has brought the world’s largest iPhone plant to about 90% of anticipated peak capacity …

Electric vehicles went mainstream in 2022, so 2023’s designs will be bold, weird, and wonderful. Here are a few flashes of inspiration.

This type of devastating scheme ensnares victims and takes them for all they’re worth—and the threat is only growing.

WIRED visited the Geological Society of America conference to learn about the untapped potential of gigantic reptiles in gaming.

Evelyn Cheng / CNBC: A look at China’s rising Beijing-endorsed industry of “virtual people”, including scandal-free influencers, performers, and customer service representatives  —  – Tech company Baidu said the number of virtual people projects it’s worked on for clients has doubled since last year …

Manish Singh / TechCrunch: Zomato co-founder and CTO Gunjan Patidar leaves, following departures of two senior execs and another co-founder last month; Zomato’s stock dropped 57%+ in 2022  —  Zomato said on Monday its co-founder and chief technology officer Gunjan Patidar has left the firm, the latest in a series …

New York Times: Research: 35+ companies have pledged ~$200B for chip-related manufacturing projects in the US since spring 2020 across 16 states and 23 new chip factories  —  Amid a tech cold war with China, U.S. companies have pledged nearly $200 billion for chip manufacturing projects since early 2020.

As cells perform their everyday functions, they turn on a variety of genes and cellular pathways. MIT engineers have now coaxed cells to inscribe the history of these events in a long protein chain that can be imaged using a light microscope. Cells programmed to produce these chains continuously add building blocks that encode particular […]

Stephen Katte / Cointelegraph: Luke Dashjr, one of the original core BTC developers, says someone stole “basically” all his BTC by compromising his PGP key; a wallet shows ~217 BTC were moved  —  A Bitcoin OG and core developer Luke Dashjr claims his PGP key was compromised, resulting in virtually all his Bitcoin being stolen […]

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times: German grocery delivery app Flink, one of the last independent services, had €400M in 2022 sales and expects to be profitable in 2023; Flink has raised $700M+  —  Berlin-based start-up aims for profits next year as rivals struggle for cash  —  Flink, one of Europe’s …

Christopher Mims / Wall Street Journal: A look at the longest tech boom so far, including crypto’s rise and fall, VR falling short of its hype, the marketplace economy’s growth, pizza robots, and more  —  From pizza robots to the crypto meltdown, the long bubble has shown us the hilarious, the regrettable, and the unexpectedly […]

Matthew Smith / Wired: A look at the use of AI to design and test games, such as to tune difficulty, find world geometry flaws, and sniff out situations that make it impossible to win  —  The next generation of video game characters could be powered by AI, making them more engaging and challenging.

If you’re about to set your resolutions for 2023, stop. According to experts, this is how to pick the right ones, build good habits, and stay motivated.

Maintenance of FORM, the 1980s software that’s used for the field’s hardest calculations, rests almost entirely with one septuagenarian physicist.

Whether you’re skiing in the backcountry or trampolining in the backyard, we have an activity tracker for you.

Chloe Cornish / Financial Times: A look at the impact of the funding crunch on India’s tech startups, which raised $24.7B from January to November 2022, down 35% YoY, per data provider Tracxn  —  Funding crunch has triggered mass job cuts of up to 25,000 at country’s once-thriving tech companies

Chris Velazco / Washington Post: Hands-on with Pixel 7 Pro’s Real Tone, which claims to render skin tones more accurately in photos, compared with the Galaxy S22 Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro Max  —  Google is trying to make its phone cameras more inclusive.  We put it to the test against its rivals.

Keeping your coders in good spirits will be critical to retaining talent and beating a downturn.

Neuroscientists and psychologists explain how to keep yourself on track—for good this time.

Mitchell Clark / The Verge: Verizon decommissioned its 3G network on December 31, the last major US carrier to do so after AT&T and T-Mobile turned off services earlier in 2022  —  It’s well and truly curtains for 3G, one of the key technologies that helped usher in the age of the smartphone.

New approaches to the biology of senescence can make lives longer and healthier.

Wall Street Journal: A look at the rise and fall of Alameda Research, whose troubles began well before the crypto crash as it took big gambles, winning some and losing plenty  —  Trading firm took big gambles, winning some and losing plenty; ‘complete lack of a risk-management framework’

Hannah Murphy / Financial Times: Experts weigh in on Meta’s impending decision to lift Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram ban; source: the announcement will be made later than January 7  —  Tech giant’s policy chief Nick Clegg due to rule this month whether to revoke ban on former US president

Not every transition must be a caterpillar into a butterfly, or a solitary trek through terror and pain. The natural world has other models of transformation.

It’s all the same features, but none of the distractions or annoying notifications.

Ernesto Van der Sar / TorrentFreak: Leaked screener copies of big movies tend to surface at year’s end, but didn’t in 2022, probably due to more security, streaming, and shorter release windows  —  Screeners are advance copies of recent movies that are generally sent out to critics and awards voters for review.

Jenni Reid / CNBC: A look at ABBA Voyage, the hit London concert performed by 3D digital avatars of the band created from motion capture, as its producers plan a global expansion  —  – ABBA Voyage, which sees digital avatars of the four-piece Swedish band ‘perform’ a 90-minute concert created from motion capture …

The phenomenon threatens local drinking water, and scientists think climate change may be the culprit.

Lily Hay Newman / Wired: A look at 2022’s worst breaches, leaks, ransomware attacks, state-sponsored hacking campaigns, and digital takeovers, including at least two Twilio breaches  —  The year was marked by sinister new twists on cybersecurity classics, including phishing, breaches, and ransomware attacks.

Ari Levy / CNBC: Ernst & Young: US tech IPO deal proceeds plummeted 94%, from $155.8B in 2021 to $8.6B in 2022; FactSet: no tech IPO raised $1B in 2022, compared to 15 in 2021  —  – IPO deal proceeds plummeted 94% in 2022, according to Ernst & Young’s IPO report published in mid-December.

Supply chains are clogged and driving is getting more dangerous. 2023’s autonomous vehicles could help fix both.

Do “anti-hangover” supplements really work? With the sterling help of a UK rugby team, we raised a glass or five to find out.

Plus: Patches for Apple iOS 16, Google Chrome, Windows 10, and more.

Brian Merchant / The Atlantic: Meta’s dramatic implosion, Elon Musk’s Twitter train wreck, and Amazon’s labor uprising show that 2022 was not just a disastrous year, but a reckoning for tech  —  The companies that define our digital lives have hit a wall.  —  The dramatic, multidimensional implosion of Meta …

Wall Street Journal: Predictions for 2023: competition for Meta’s metaverse, Apple’s AR/VR headset debut, generative AI integration into products, continuing crypto gloom, and more  —  Our tech columnists look ahead to an Apple headset, Netflix password crackdowns, the next DALL-E and more  —  Big layoffs at Meta, Amazon, Snap and others?

Any multifactor authentication adds protection, but a physical token is the best bet when it really counts.

Whether you want to run a marathon or learn to play the guitar, here’s how to set yourself up for success.

From stray cats to low-rent vampire hunters, this year’s best games were all about the fun of failure.

Kashmir Hill / New York Times: Google changes its appeals process for CSAM-flagged accounts; content deemed exploitative will still be removed and reported but users can plead their innocence  —  People who upload images of children that Google flags as potentially illegal will be able to provide more context to appeal bans.

Sandali Handagama / CoinDesk: Italy’s parliament approves a 26% tax on gains of €2,000+ from crypto trading per tax period and offers incentives for declaring crypto profits for tax purposes  —  Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s new bill also includes an incentive for those declaring crypto for tax purposes.

Wall Street Journal: Source: Sam Bankman-Fried will likely plead not guilty to fraud and other charges at a January 3 hearing; SBF returns to Twitter to deny he moved Alameda funds  —  Created with sketchtool.  —  FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is likely to plead not guilty to eight counts of fraud at a hearing next […]

Ten picks from one of HBR’s most popular newsletters.

Reuters: Bahamas’ Securities Commission says it is holding FTX assets worth $3.5B on a temporary basis and plans to deliver them to customers and creditors who own them  —  The Securities Commission of the Bahamas said on Thursday that it is holding FTX assets worth $3.5 billion based on market pricing …