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"Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/s/545106/human-animal-chimeras-are-gestating-on-us-research-farms"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms By Antonio Regalado archive page Braving a funding ban put in place by America’s top health agency, some U.S. research centers are moving ahead with attempts to grow human tissue inside pigs and sheep with the goal of creating hearts, livers, or other organs needed for transplants. The effort to incubate organs in farm animals is ethically charged because it involves adding human cells to animal embryos in ways that could blur the line between species. Last September, in a reversal of earlier policy, the National Institutes of Health announced it would not support studies involving such “human-animal chimeras” until it had reviewed the scientific and social implications more closely. The agency, in a statement, said it was worried about the chance that animals’ “cognitive state” could be altered if they ended up with human brain cells. The NIH action was triggered after it learned that scientists had begun such experiments with support from other funding sources, including from California’s state stem-cell agency. The human-animal mixtures are being created by injecting human stem cells into days-old animal embryos, then gestating these in female livestock. Based on interviews with three teams, two in California and one in Minnesota, MIT Technology Review estimates that about 20 pregnancies of pig-human or sheep-human chimeras have been established during the last 12 months in the U.S., though so far no scientific paper describing the work has been published, and none of the animals were brought to term. The extent of the research was disclosed in part during presentations made at the NIH’s Maryland campus in November at the agency’s request. One researcher, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute, showed unpublished data on more than a dozen pig embryo containing human cells. Another, from the University of Minnesota, provided photographs of a 62-day-old pig fetus in which the addition of human cells appeared to have reversed a congenital eye defect. The experiments rely on a cutting-edge fusion of technologies, including recent breakthroughs in stem-cell biology and gene-editing techniques. By modifying genes, scientists can now easily change the DNA in pig or sheep embryos so that they are genetically incapable of forming a specific tissue. Then, by adding stem cells from a person, they hope the human cells will take over the job of forming the missing organ, which could then be harvested from the animal for use in a transplant operation. “We can make an animal without a heart. We have engineered pigs that lack skeletal muscles and blood vessels,” says Daniel Garry, a cardiologist who leads a chimera project at the University of Minnesota. While such pigs aren’t viable, they can develop properly if a few cells are added from a normal pig embryo. Garry says he’s already melded two pigs in this way and recently won a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Army, which funds some biomedical research, to try to grow human hearts in swine. “The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.” Because chimeras could provide a new supply of organs for needy patients and also lead to basic discoveries, researchers including Garry say they intend to press forward despite the NIH position. In November, he was one of 11 authors who published a letter criticizing the agency for creating “a threat to progress” that “casts a shadow of negativity” on their work. The worry is that the animals might turn out to be a little too human for comfort, say ending up with human reproductive cells, patches of people hair, or just higher intelligence. “We are not near the island of Dr. Moreau, but science moves fast,” NIH ethicist David Resnik said during the agency’s November meeting. “The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.” The chance of an animal gaining human consciousness is probably slim; their brains are just too different, and much smaller. Even so, as a precaution, researchers working with farm-animal chimeras haven’t yet permitted any to be born, but instead are collecting fetuses in order to gather preliminary information about how great the contribution of human cells is to the animals’ bodies. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, a stem-cell biologist at Stanford University, began trying to make human-sheep chimeras this year. He says that so far the contribution by human cells to the animals’ bodies appears to be relatively small. “If the extent of human cells is 0.5 percent, it’s very unlikely to get thinking pigs or standing sheep,” he says. “But if it’s large, like 40 percent, then we’d have to do something about that.” Other kinds of human-animal chimeras are already widely used in scientific research, including “humanized” mice endowed with a human immune system. Such animals are created by adding bits of liver and thymus from a human fetus (collected after an abortion) to a mouse after it is born. The new line of research goes further because it involves placing human cells into an animal embryo at the very earliest stage, when it is a sphere of just a dozen cells in a laboratory dish. This process, called “embryo complementation,” is significant because the human cells can multiply, specialize, and potentially contribute to any part of the animal’s body as it develops. In 2010, while working in Japan, Nakauchi used the embryo complementation method to show he could generate mice with a pancreas made entirely of rat cells. “If it works as it does in rodents,” he says, “we should be able have a pig with a human organ.” “What if the embryo that develops is mostly human? It’s something that we don’t expect, but no one has done this experiment, so we can’t rule it out.” Although Nakauchi was a star scientist, Japanese regulators were slow to approve his idea for chimeras—a “pig man” as critics put it—and by 2013 Nakauchi decided to move to the U.S., where no federal law restricts the creation of chimeras. Stanford was able to recruit him with the help of a $6 million grant from the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a state agency set up a decade ago to bypass political interference from Washington. While the NIH funding ban doesn’t affect Nakauchi, it has put researchers under pressure to explain the purpose of their work. “I want to show you some chimeras,” Nakauchi said when I visited his laboratory at Stanford last month. He opened the door to a small room containing incubators where the chimeric embryos are stored. Because an early embryo is almost invisible to the human eye, the room houses special microscopes equipped with micro-needles used to inject the human cells into them. The type of human cells being added are called iPS cells, made from skin or blood chemically reprogrammed into more versatile stem cells using a Nobel Prize-winning formula developed by one of Nakauchi’s Japanese colleagues. Nakauchi says that as a matter of convenience, most of the iPS cells his team has been placing into animal embryos are made from his own blood, since recruiting volunteers involves too much paperwork. “We need a special consent if we’re injecting into animals,” he says sheepishly. “So I try to use my own.” The word chimera comes from the creature of Greek myth, part lion, part goat, and part snake. Nakauchi says most people at first imagine his chimeras are monsters, too. But he says attitudes change if he can explain his proposal. One reason is that if his iPS cells develop inside an animal, the resulting tissue will actually be his, a kind of perfectly matched replacement part. Desperately ill people on organ waiting lists might someday order a chimera and wait less than a year for their own custom organ to be ready. “I really don’t see much risk to society,” he says. Before that can happen, scientists will have to prove that human cells can really multiply and contribute effectively to the bodies of farm animals. That could be challenging since, unlike rats and mice, which are fairly close genetically, humans and pigs last shared an ancestor nearly 90 million years ago. To find out, researchers in 2014 decided to begin impregnating farm animals with human-animal embryos, says Pablo Ross, a veterinarian and developmental biologist at the University of California, Davis, where some of the animals are being housed. Ross says at Davis he has transferred about six sets of pig-human embryos into sows in collaboration with the Salk Institute and established another eight or 10 pregnancies of sheep-human embryos with Nakauchi. Another three dozen pig transfers have taken place outside the U.S., he says. These early efforts aren’t yet to make organs, says Ross, but more “to determine the ideal conditions for generating human-animal chimeras.” The studies at Davis began only after a review by three different ethics committees, and even then, he says, the university decided to be cautious and limit the time the animals would be allowed to develop to just 28 days (a pig is born in 114 days). By then, the embryonic pig is only half an inch long, though that’s developed enough to check if human cells are contributing to its rudimentary organs. “We don’t want to grow them to stages we don’t need to, since that would be more controversial,” says Ross. “My view is that the contribution of human cells is going to be minimal, maybe 3 percent, maybe 5 percent. But what if they contributed to 100 percent of the brain? What if the embryo that develops is mostly human? It’s something that we don’t expect, but no one has done this experiment, so we can’t rule it out.” hide by Antonio Regalado Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Biotechnology and health Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus. By Cassandra Willyard archive page Some deaf children in China can hear after gene therapy treatment After deafness treatment, Yiyi can hear her mother and dance to the music. But why is it so noisy at night? By Antonio Regalado archive page Zeyi Yang archive page Scientists just drafted an incredibly detailed map of the human brain A massive suite of papers offers a high-res view of the human and non-human primate brain. By Cassandra Willyard archive page How AI can help us understand how cells work—and help cure diseases A virtual cell modeling system, powered by AI, will lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of diseases, argue the cofounders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. By Priscilla Chan archive page Mark Zuckerberg archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Too Much Information | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/s/522661/too-much-information"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Too Much Information By Amanda Schaffer archive page Pregnant women and their partners can already peer at an unborn child’s chromosomes: with amniocentesis, they can learn about the presence or, more likely, absence of large-scale genetic defects, often gaining peace of mind. But only a small percentage of parents-to-be take the opportunity, because the procedure is invasive and uncomfortable—a large needle is inserted into the amniotic sac—and causes miscarriage in roughly one in 400 cases. Researchers have long hoped to develop a noninvasive alternative. Ever since scientists discovered, in the 1990s, that pregnant women’s blood contains substantial amounts of fetal DNA , they’ve theorized that they could use this genetic material to test for fetal abnormalities like an extra copy of chromosome 21, which causes Down syndrome. That technology has now arrived (see “ Prenatal DNA Sequencing ,” May/June 2013). Several companies have introduced genetic tests that use blood drawn from the mother. These tests can be performed earlier in pregnancy than amniocentesis is usually done, which means that if the results suggest an abnormality, women and their partners have more time to grapple with whether to have an abortion or prepare for a child with special needs. If the results are reassuring, the cloud of anxiety dissipates sooner. Given that the risks of having blood drawn are minimal, the tests are likely to be widely used. While today fewer than 5 percent of pregnant women undergo amniocentesis, “I think we could see 50, 60, 70, 80 percent of American pregnancies getting genetic testing,” says Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford. Things Reviewed Noninvasive prenatal screening The catch, though, is that as the accuracy of these tests continues to improve, they will be able to detect a greater range of genetic variations, including some with murkier implications. For example, rather than indicating something with certainty, they could reveal elevated risks for certain diseases or disorders. These advances could collide with the politics of abortion and raise the ugly specter of eugenics. When, if ever, should parents terminate pregnancies on the basis of genetic results? Do we have the wisdom to direct our own evolution? And perhaps most important, are there limits to how much data parents should have—or want to have—about their children before birth? Corporate contenders The first noninvasive tests to reach the market have screened for the largest-scale genetic defects—namely, abnormal numbers of chromosomes. Sequenom Laboratories, Verinata Health (part of Illumina), Ariosa Diagnostics, and Natera all offer tests that look for trisomies—an extra copy of chromosomes 13, 18, or 21, which cause Patau syndrome, Edwards syndrome, and Down syndrome, respectively. Some also identify an aberrant number of sex chromosomes. This fall, Sequenom expanded its test to encompass additional trisomies as well as selected microdeletions (in which DNA is missing), including those known to cause DiGeorge syndrome, -Cri-du-chat syndrome, and Prader-Willi or Angelman syndrome. The various companies’ tests range in price from less than $1,000 to almost $3,000, though they are covered by some insurance plans. So far, these offerings have not replaced amniocentesis, which remains the gold standard for accuracy. But they can be performed as early as 10 weeks into pregnancy and can help identify women who may need the more invasive test. Companies will modify these tests to flag an increasing number of genetic conditions, including some that are quite rare. The trend is toward “detecting smaller and smaller mutations,” says Jonathan Sheena, chief technology officer of Natera, who predicts that noninvasive identification of inherited single-gene diseases like cystic fibrosis, Tay-Sachs, and neurofibromatosis will soon become commercial reality. In the laboratory, meanwhile, researchers have already used noninvasive methods to sequence a whole fetal genome. In 2012, geneticist Jay Shendure’s group at the University of Washington analyzed blood from the mother as well as a saliva sample from the father to reach this goal. Also in 2012, Stephen Quake’s group at Stanford used a maternal blood sample alone to derive the fetal exome, which consists of the coding parts of genes. “That’s pretty much the whole ball of wax,” Quake told me. (Shendure and Quake are advisors to Ariosa Diagnostics and Verinata, respectively.) These laboratory efforts were not cheap: Shendure says it cost him around $50,000 to do the full genome. But they represent a clear proof of principle. And as the costs of sequencing continue to plummet, far more parents-to-be will potentially have access to far more genetic data about their future children. Quake says he hopes the technology will be used to identify and manage conditions that are well defined and for which early intervention can make a difference; he points to metabolic disorders like phenylketonuria, in which children require a strict diet, and certain immune disorders that can respond to early treatment. If babies’ problems can be diagnosed prenatally, he says, “you’re not putting them in distress for the first few weeks” while everyone is “running around trying to figure out what is wrong.” Another example is a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy, in which the heart is enlarged and weakened. This disorder can go undiagnosed until its victims find themselves short of breath or have a heart attack as teenagers or young adults. By treating them from a young age with drugs, physicians can “dramatically change outcomes,” says Euan Ashley , a Stanford researcher who cofounded Personalis, a genetic screening company. Ethical conundrums But the moral quandaries are sure to intensify as well. If many more women receive information about genetic disorders like Down syndrome earlier in pregnancy, it’s likely that the number of abortions will rise. Inevitably, some people will object to the testing technology because of their opposition to abortion, says Greely. And some current parents of children with Down syndrome will worry that if fewer people are born with the disorder, medical research and public support will start to dry up. The unease deepens with less severe disorders like Kleinfelter’s syndrome, which is caused by an extra X chromosome in males. Boys with this syndrome often have few noticeable symptoms early on and may not be diagnosed until later in life, when they may experience atypical sexual development, learning difficulties, and infertility. If genetic testing identified more cases prenatally, some of those pregnancies would almost surely be terminated. Even firm supporters of abortion rights may find that thought troubling. Similarly, consider achondroplasia , which is an inherited form of dwarfism. If two parents with achondroplasia wanted a child who looked like them, “would it be wrong for them to terminate a normal-sized fetus?” Greely asks. “These are hard questions.” Who knows which ­disorders will be curable or treatable 20 or 30 years from now? For now, testing for intelligence or height or other complex traits that might pique parents’ curiosity appears to be far off: researchers largely seem skeptical that they will be able to predict these traits from an individual’s genome in the foreseeable future. “We’re really bad at it right now,” says Shendure. “In 10 years we’ll probably still be pretty bad at it.” But the underlying issue will still complicate the abortion debate: to what extent should parents be able to choose the traits of their children—and should the calculus change when the traits in question, like sex or hair color or eye color, are not directly linked to disease? For the most part, we tend to trust parents to make the right decisions for their children, but that prerogative may not be absolute, especially when it comes to nonmedical factors. We can’t know how children’s lives will unfold or how important a whole range of traits might turn out to be to them. We surely don’t have the understanding to guide our own evolution, or even to understand the extent to which individuals’ genomes relate to their health or happiness. And given the disastrous history of eugenics, from forced sterilizations to the Holocaust, we should maintain a healthy fear of even small-scale efforts to select some nonmedical traits over others. This is not merely a theoretical matter: parents in India, China, and South Korea who learn their fetuses’ sex through ultrasound have disproportionately chosen abortion in the case of girls. (Arizona has already made it illegal to abort on the basis of sex or race, though introducing criminal penalties for doctors is not necessarily wise either.) Perhaps the biggest question is which information will be meaningful for parents to receive. Genetic interpretation can be a dicey game. It is well known, for instance, that mutations in the BRCA1 gene are strongly associated with breast cancer, but in a disturbingly large number of cases, patients are told they have variants of unknown significance. “It would be very unfortunate if we started delivering ‘variants of unknown significance’ results in the context of reproductive health,” Shendure says. Similarly, when it comes to complex problems like cognitive impairment, it’s not clear how useful it is to test for—or report on—variants that have been associated with disabilities. Research suggests, for instance, that people with specific duplications on chromosome 16 are at higher risk of mental impairment. Some are severely affected, but others are “absolutely, perfectly healthy, functioning normally,” according to Wendy Chung, director of clinical genetics at Columbia University. To date, there is no reliable data on what percentage of duplication carriers fall into each of these categories, meaning that prenatal testing for these variants could greatly increase parents’ anxiety while leaving them at a loss to assess the results quantitatively. Then there are girls with three copies of the X chromosome. They are also at higher risk for cognitive impairment and learning disabilities, but the risk remains small, and the vast majority of them will be normal. How should parents make sense of these possibilities? Most of us find it hard to think about risk, and we are truly bad at predicting how future events will affect us emotionally. And on top of all that, who knows which disorders will be curable or treatable through gene therapy or some other method 20 or 30 years from now? In other words, we’re not ready for the onslaught of information the new tests seem poised to provide. Nevertheless, that information is coming, and parents will have to figure out what they want to know and how to interpret the choices they’re offered. It is critical, then, that the informed–consent process for testing be exceptionally good, says Greely. Ideally, parents should meet with a genetic counselor to discuss what exactly testing might reveal and what wrenching decisions might follow. If formal genetic counseling isn’t available, obstetricians should step in with extended, thorough conversations that take into account the parents’ values, desire for data, and tolerance for uncertainty. Genetic testing, as Greely puts it, should be made distinct from other forms of prenatal care; it should never be “just one more tube of blood” taken in the course of another whirlwind visit to the doctor. Amanda Schaffer is a freelance journalist who writes about science and medicine for Slate , the New York Times , and other publications. hide by Amanda Schaffer Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our January/February 2014 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Keep Reading Most Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus. By Cassandra Willyard archive page Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 With just a few minutes of sample video and $1,000, brands never have to stop selling their products. By Zeyi Yang archive page How to fix the internet If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms. By Katie Notopoulos archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Hacking the Biological Clock | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/magazines/hacking-the-biological-clock"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Magazine View previous issues MIT News Magazine Hacking the Biological Clock Inside the quest to slow aging, extend fertility, and defeat cancer. Letter from the editor View previous issue View next issue Features Categorized in Biotechnology and health Google’s Long, Strange Life-Span Trip Why does a mole rat live 30 years but a mouse only three? With $1.5 billion in the bank, Google’s anti-aging spinout Calico is rich enough to find out. Categorized in Biotechnology and health Rejuvenating the Chance of Motherhood? An audacious startup thinks it can give 40-ish women a better shot at having children. Should desperate would-be parents believe it? Categorized in 17035 The Cancer Lottery Finding telltale mutations in tumors and targeting those cancers with precisely selected drugs is the newest front in the war on cancer. Now researchers just have to figure out why it doesn’t work for everyone. Categorized in Computing The Unacceptable Persistence of the Digital Divide Millions of Americans lack broadband access and computer skills. Can President Trump bring them into the digital economy? Categorized in Policy The Pentagon’s Innovation Experiment The U.S. Department of Defense founded a kind of startup in Silicon Valley to accelerate the development and acquisition of new technologies useful to the military. But will it survive President Trump? Categorized in Artificial intelligence Mining 24 Hours a Day with Robots Mining companies are rolling out autonomous trucks, drills, and trains, which will boost efficiency but also reduce the need for human employees. Also in this issue Ghana’s Last Mile Innovative African e-tailers are offering sought-after goods to the continent’s growing ­middle class. But logistical challenges must be worked out delivery by delivery. Categorized in 17036 Mr. Robot Killed the Hollywood Hacker The popular portrayal of computers as magic boxes capable of anything has done real societal harm. Now one TV show wants to save us. Categorized in 17036 Hotter Days Will Drive Global Inequality Rising temperatures due to climate change will strongly affect economic growth around the world, making some countries richer and some poorer. Categorized in Climate change and energy If Only AI Could Save Us from Ourselves Google has an ambitious plan to use artificial intelligence to weed out abusive comments and defang online mobs. The technology isn’t up to that challenge—but it will help the Internet’s best-behaving communities function better. Categorized in 17041 Meet the World’s First Completely Soft Robot Researchers use an ingenious design to make a soft robot that moves on its own. Categorized in Humans and technology Amazon’s Next Big Move: Take Over the Mall Unable to resist any opportunity to sell you something, the e-commerce leader is opening up brick-and-mortar bookstores. But its online prowess doesn’t yet translate into a very good retail experience. Categorized in 17036 Will the Climate Treaty Get the Money It Needs? If Donald Trump pulls back on the U.S. commitment, the entire plan could crumble. Categorized in 17037 37 Years Ago: How to Fix Democracy A computer scientist who saw congressional decision-making up close in 1980 found it insufficient to the task of solving big problems. Categorized in 17036 Past issues Updated The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Six things to do with your data before you die | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/23/239999/six-things-to-do-with-your-data-before-you-die"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Six things to do with your data before you die How to make sure your loved ones can get into all your accounts. Or, alternatively—how to cover your tracks. By Simson Garfinkel ’87, PhD ’05 archive page Illustration of skeleton arm lifting corner of doormat shaped like an iphone, revealing a key Benedikt Luft What would happen to your digital estate if you died, suddenly, before finishing this paragraph? Would your survivors be able to find what you left behind? There is nothing hypothetical about this for many people: the problem emerges, wholly formed, when tragedy strikes. What’s worse, more than half of Americans don’t have a will, let alone one that’s up to date, according to a 2016 Gallup Poll. As a result, most survivors lack a road map to the deceased’s assets (physical and digital) or even, in some cases, the legal authority to proceed. Fortunately, there are many things you can do now, without a lawyer, to make things easier for your survivors. #1 Build a back door Fifteen years ago, if you died and your next of kin got your laptop, that person was pretty much guaranteed access to your data. Then, in 2003, Apple introduced full disk encryption, designed to protect your data from a thief, but also keeping it out of the reach of your survivors. Cryptocurrencies pose a similar problem: if no one has access to your digital wallet, then any value there is lost—there’s no Bitcoin central control to complain to. Today there’s a debate as to whether tech companies should put back doors in their crypto technology so law enforcement can get access to data on devices they seize during an investigation. Short of that, it’s easy to back-door your encryption yourself: just write down your hard drive’s master password, put the paper in an envelope, and seal it. Do the same with your Bitcoin wallet. Make sure it’s well hidden but in a location that’s known to your loved ones. #2 Sign up for Inactive Account Manager If you have a Gmail account, use Inactive Account Manager to specify an e-mail address that will be automatically notified three months after your Google account goes inactive. Google defines “activity” broadly: if you check Gmail, log in to a Google website, or perform a search with a Chrome browser that’s logged into your account, Google will assume you’re not dead. But when your digital heartbeat stops, this approach ensures that someone you trust can access your Gmail account, Google Photos, and other data. #3 Download your medical records Your doctor is supposed to keep copies of your test results and other records, but it’s a good idea to keep your own. Ask for copies and scan them. You might also be able to get your records directly if your health-care provider participates in the US government’s Blue Button Connector, which lets you download PDF files for yourself and a special format for other health-care providers (should you wish to give it to them). My elderly father keeps a copy of his records on a USB stick that he carries with him at all times. It comes in handy when he sees a specialist who might not have access to his primary care provider’s computer. Yes, there’s a risk the stick could fall into the wrong hands, but he’s decided that the risk of medical professionals not having access to his records is greater. #4 Use a password manager It used to be straightforward to identify the deceased’s accounts by waiting for bank statements and tax bills to arrive by snail mail. These days, two thirds of Americans do their banking online (according to a 2017 survey by the American Bankers Association), and many people no longer receive paper statements. This significantly increases the chance that your bank accounts or retirement accounts might be declared “abandoned” in the event that you die. So use a password manager like 1Password or LastPass. Now make sure that your spouse, or lawyer, or children, or parents, or somebody has some way to get to your accounts (so they can, for example, save any cherished photos or easily delete your accounts after you’re gone). One way that couples can simply access each other’s accounts is by sharing their passwords. This is getting harder as websites implement two-factor authentication, but it’s still possible by registering multiple second factors (like a FIDO Universal 2nd Factor device) and giving one to each partner. #5 Ponder the complexities of social media If you are an avid user of Facebook or Twitter, take some time to read their data-after-death policies. You might not like what you find. When Facebook is notified that one of its users has become medically incapacitated or died, the company allows authorized individuals to request that the user’s account be either “memorialized” or removed. Be aware: memorialized accounts can be managed by a legacy contact (who has to be specified in advance), but that person can’t log into the Facebook account, remove or change past posts, or read private messages. In one famous case, parents of a 15-year-old German girl who died after being hit by a subway train were unsuccessful in trying to force Facebook to open the girl’s account so that they, the parents, could determine if she had experienced cyber-bullying or depression, or if her death really was a tragic accident. Twitter’s policy is similar: after you die, a family member can contact the company and ask that your account be deleted, according to a help page on its website. Twitter will also, if requested, remove specific imagery or messages sent just before or after an individual’s death. But Twitter will not give family members access to a deceased user’s private messages. So if you’re storing something on Facebook that you’d like people to have access to after you’re gone, you should download that data regularly and store it where your loved ones will have access—for example, in Google Drive. #6 Be careful what you wish for I gave much of this advice at a cybersecurity training seminar a few months ago, and almost everybody in the room thought I was crazy. The people there—mostly men—said they’d never share their passwords with their spouses. And maybe they’ve got a point. Family members should be careful about taking extraordinary measures to crack open these encrypted digital crypts, warns Ibrahim Baggili, associate professor of computer science at the University of New Haven and an expert in digital forensics. “This person I knew died, and his wife managed to finally break into his e-mails and iPad and found all sorts of things about him that she did not want to know,” says Baggili. “She really loved him, and it changed her whole perspective on him.” Simson Garfinkel is a science writer living in Arlington, Virginia, and coauthor of The Computer Book: From the Abacus to Artificial Intelligence, 250 Milestones in the History of Computer Science , published this November by Sterling Milestones. hide by Simson Garfinkel ’87, PhD ’05 Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Keep Reading Most Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus. By Cassandra Willyard archive page Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 With just a few minutes of sample video and $1,000, brands never have to stop selling their products. By Zeyi Yang archive page How to fix the internet If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms. By Katie Notopoulos archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. 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"Your genome, on demand | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/23/1960/your-genome-on-demand"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Your genome, on demand How your detailed genetic profile can predict your risk of diseases and improve your health. By Ali Torkamani and Eric Topol archive page Photo illustration of a doll's face filled with colorful beads each containing a letter of a nucleotide. A black, unmarked bead appears in a set of tweezers above the face. Nicolas Ortega In early 2018, it was estimated that over 12 million people had had their DNA analyzed by a direct-to-­consumer genetic test. A few months later, that number had grown to 17 million. Meanwhile, geneticists and data scientists have been improving our ability to convert genetic data into useful insights—forecasting which people are at triple the average risk for heart attack, or identifying women who are at high risk for breast cancer even if they don’t have a family history or a BRCA gene mutation. Parallel advances have dramatically changed the way we search for and make sense of volumes of data, while smartphones continue their unrelenting march toward becoming the de facto portal through which we access data and make informed decisions. Taken together, these things will transform the way we acquire and use personal genetic information. Instead of getting tests reactively, on a doctor’s orders, people will use the data proactively to help them make decisions about their own health. With a few exceptions, the genetic tests used today detect only uncommon forms of disease. The tests identify rare variants in a single gene that causes the disease. But most diseases aren’t caused by variants in a single gene. Often a hundred or more changes in genetic letters collectively indicate the risk of common diseases like heart attack, diabetes, or prostate cancer. Tests for these types of changes have recently become possible, and they produce what is known as your “polygenic” risk score. Polygenic risk scores are derived from the combination of these variants, inherited from your mother and father, and can point to a risk not manifest in either parent’s family history. We’ve learned from studies of many polygenic risk scores for different diseases that they provide insights we can’t get from traditional, known risk factors such as smoking or high cholesterol (in the case of heart attack). Your polygenic score doesn’t represent an unavoidable fate—many people who live into their 80s and 90s may harbor the risk for a disease without ever actually getting it. Still, these scores could change how we view certain diseases and help us understand our risk of contracting them. A polygenic risk score might tell you that you’re at high risk for breast cancer and spur you to get more intensive screening. Genetic tests for rare forms of disease caused by a single gene typically give a simple yes or no result. Polygenic risk scores, in contrast, are on a spectrum of probability from very low risk to very high risk. Since they’re derived from combinations of genome letter changes that are common in the general population, they’re relevant to everybody. The question is whether we’ll find a way to make proper use of the information we get from them. Can they inform us about changes to our lifestyle, or point to medications we should take or a screening test we should get, that might improve our chances of staying healthy? Statin drugs are a good case study for this. They’re widely used, even though 95% of the people taking them who ­haven’t had heart disease or stroke get no benefit aside from a nice cholesterol lab test. We can use a polygenic risk score to reduce unnecessary statin use, which not only is expensive but also carries health risks such as diabetes. We know that if you are in the top 20% of polygenic risk for heart attack, you’re more than twice as likely to benefit from statins as people in the bottom 20%; these people can also benefit greatly from improving their lifestyle (stop smoking, exercise more, eat more vegetables). So knowing your polygenic risk might cause you to take statins but also make some lifestyle changes. (And a recent large-scale study in Finland showed that people with high heart-risk scores responded with lifestyle improvements at a much higher rate than those with low risk scores.) And it’s not just about heart disease. A polygenic risk score might tell you that you’re at high risk for breast cancer and spur you to get more intensive screening and avoid certain lifestyle risks. It might tell you that you’re at high risk for colon cancer, and therefore you should avoid eating red meat. It might tell you that you’re at high risk for type 2 diabetes, and therefore you should watch your weight. Yet despite growing evidence that polygenic risk scores are important, until recently there was no service allowing people to determine their own scores, even if they had invested in their own personal direct-to-consumer genetic profiling. We’re attempting to remedy that through the development of MyGeneRank, a free mobile app that estimates users’ polygenic risk for heart attack and stroke from their own genetic data. It also allows them to participate in a clinical trial to measure the influence of polygenic risk information on people’s behavior, as reported by them, and their heath data, captured by mobile sensors linked to their smartphones. There are still some issues and controversies we need to deal with. Equal access is one major concern—especially given that the majority of genetic studies have been performed in populations of European ancestry. For now, it appears that the more powerful the predictions become, the less accurate they become with other populations. In addition, genetic risk information is likely to make some people feel anxious or fatalistic (or might give others a false sense of security). Previous studies suggest that genetic risk information has a minimal influence on these psychological states, but many of those studies were done when the variations in risk you could get via polygenic factors were marginal. As our ability to separate people into increasingly different classes of genetic risk gets better, these issues may become more prominent. Another challenge will be to convince people to forgo or delay medical interventions if they have a low risk of a certain condition. This will require them to agree that they’re better off accepting a very low risk of a catastrophic outcome rather than needlessly exposing themselves to a medical treatment that has its own risks. People tend to overestimate the likelihood of catastrophic events, so if polygenic scores are to achieve their full impact on health outcomes and health-care spending, we’ll need to find a way to effectively communicate those trade-offs. And finally there are the privacy concerns. We need to maintain our current protections against genetic discrimination so that people can benefit from their own genetic information without having to worry that insurance companies will get access to that information and use it to raise their rates or deny coverage. You can’t change your genetic risk. But you can use lifestyle and medical interventions to offset that risk. We can accelerate breast cancer screening for women with a high risk for the disease, and help people with borderline risk of heart disease to make decisions about whether to take statins or not. If we deliver and track the response to polygenic risk information, we can collect real-world evidence on how to optimize the use of that data to give safe and effective health advice. In the near future your smartphone might feature technologies that monitor your physiological, genetic, environmental, and behavioral characteristics. And this information could be linked to virtual medical coaches and AI systems that can synthesize all that information and deliver you insights about your own health, on demand. Ali Torkamani is director of genomic informatics at the Scripps Research Translational Institute. Eric Topol is a cardiologist and the author of books including the upcoming Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. hide by Ali Torkamani and Eric Topol Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Genes I wish they would find | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/23/1936/genes-i-wish-they-would-find"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Genes I wish they would find Enough with the useless genes. Here are some that would actually come in handy. By Sarah Cooper archive page 1) Knowing when I will need an umbrella; knowing when I will completely regret bringing an umbrella 2) Ability to talk my way out of a speeding ticket 3) Tolerance for small talk at networking events 4) Ability to mentally drown out the sound of my upstairs neighbor 5) Never late 6) Ability to talk my way up to first class 7) Perfect poker face 8) Jeans always fit perfectly 9) Eyes never closed in pictures 10) Ability to only eat one potato chip hide by Sarah Cooper Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"AI can’t replace doctors. But it can make them better. | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/23/139414/ai-cant-replace-doctors-but-it-can-make-them-better"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts AI can’t replace doctors. But it can make them better. A machine can collate environmental data, genetic data, and patient history way better than I can. By Rahul Parikh archive page Child's drawing of a doctor's office showing the child on the exam table and the doctor at the computer. Drawing by Ag, Age 7, copyright Thomas G. Murphy MD 2011 Several years ago Vinod Khosla, the Silicon Valley investor, wrote a provocative article titled “Do We Need Doctors or Algorithms?” Khosla argued that doctors were no match for artificial intelligence. Doctors banter with patients, gather a few symptoms, hunt around the body for clues, and send the patient off with a prescription. This sometimes (accidentally, maybe) leads to the correct treatment, but doctors are acting on only a fraction of the available information. An algorithm, he wrote, could do better. I’m a pediatric and adolescent physician in the San Francisco Bay Area, where entrepreneurs like Khosla have been knocking on the doors of doctors for years with their pilot technologies and software and hardware. I can say with some authority that Khosla’s is the voice of a savvy outsider who knows what he knows—which isn’t health care. Yes, AI could help us diagnose and treat disease. It can collate and serve up broad swaths of data in a clear and concise way, cutting down on the imprecise judgments that doctors make because of the pressures and complexity of our practices. There’s no doubt that for certain doctors, whose work is highly focused on diagnosis (radiologists or pathologists, for example), that breakthrough may prove an existential threat. A decade ago, for example, researchers showed that AI was as good as radiologists at detecting breast cancer. But for physicians like me in primary care, managing 1,500 to 2,000 patients, AI presents an opportunity. I went to medical school to connect with people and make a difference. Today I often feel like an overpaid bookkeeper instead, taking in information and spitting it back to patients, prescribing drugs and adjusting doses, ordering tests. But AI in the exam room opens up the chance to recapture the art of medicine. It could let me get to know my patients better, learn how a disease uniquely affects them, and give me time to coach them toward a better outcome. Consider what AI could do for asthma, the most common chronic medical disease in childhood. Six million American kids suffer from it. In 2013, they collectively missed 14 million days of school. The cost of medications, visits to the doctor and emergency room, and hospitalizations nears $60 billion a year. I diagnose asthma via a rule of thumb that’s been handed down over time: if you’ve had three or more wheezing episodes and the medicines for asthma help, you have the disease. Once it’s diagnosed, I ask the parents to remember—as best they can—how often they administer medicines to their child. I ask: What seems to trigger episodes? Is the child exposed to anyone who smokes at home? I can also review their records to count how many visits to the emergency room they’ve had, or the number of times they’ve refilled their prescriptions. But even with the most accurate recall by parents and patients, and the most accurate electronic records, it’s still just retrospective knowledge. There’s no proactive, predictive strategy. It’s not that we don’t have the data; it’s just that it’s messy. We spend a great deal of our time trying to make sense of it. It’s not that we don’t have the data; it’s just that it’s messy. Reams of data clog the physician’s in-box. It comes in many forms and from disparate directions: objective information such as lab results and vital signs, subjective concerns that come in the form of phone messages or e-mails from patients. It’s all fragmented, and we spend a great deal of our time as physicians trying to make sense of it. Technology companies and fledging startups want to open the data spigot even further by letting their direct-to-consumer devices—phone, watch, blood-pressure cuff, blood-sugar meter—send continuous streams of numbers directly to us. We struggle to keep up with it, and the rates of burnout among doctors continue to rise. How can AI fix this? Let’s start with diagnosis. While the clinical manifestations of asthma are easy to spot, the disease is much more complex at a molecular and cellular level. The genes, proteins, enzymes, and other drivers of asthma are highly diverse, even if their environmental triggers overlap. A number of experts now think of asthma in the same way they think of cancer—an umbrella term for a disease that varies according to the tumor’s location and cellular characteristics. Ian Adock of the National Heart & Lung Institute at Imperial College, London, studies the link between asthma and the environment. He and his team have been collecting biological samples from asthma patients’ blood, urine, and lung tissue and organizing the genetic and molecular markers he finds into subtypes of asthma. The hypothesis is that with that kind of knowledge, patients can be given the drug that works best for them. AI might also help to manage asthma flares. For many patients, asthma gets worse as air pollution levels rise, as happened this past summer when brush fires swept through Northern California. AI could let us take environmental information and respond proactively. In 2015, researchers published a study showing they could predict the number of asthma-related emergency room visits to a Dallas–Fort Worth hospital. They pulled data from patient records, along with air pollution data from EPA sensors, Google searches, and tweets that used terms like “wheezing,” or “asthma.” The Google and Twitter data were tied to the user’s location data. If I had this kind of data I could say, “Alexa, tell me which asthma patients I need to worry about today.” I could give a heads-up to the affected families. And if I also had some genetic data like Adock’s, I could diagnose asthma before the patient suffered three bouts of wheezing, by ordering blood tests and comparing the results against those molecular markers. This kind of time-saving intelligence frees me to spend more time with my patients. One study showed that asthmatic children only took or received their inhaled medications about half of the time. AI might allow me more time to personally interact with those kids, and get better results. Lots of questions lie ahead. Are patients willing to share more of their personal data with us? If the AI shows your care is better one way, but you or your doctor feel differently, will an insurance company accept it? What if the algorithm misses something or is applied incorrectly? Who is liable, the doctor or the machine’s maker? Not long ago, in the Journal of the American Medical Association , I saw a colorful picture drawn by a child in crayon. It portrayed her pediatrician, eyes glued to the computer, while she sat on the exam table, looking wide-eyed. I hope that AI will soon allow me to turn my attention back to that little girl. Rahul Parikh is a pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area. hide by Rahul Parikh Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Keep Reading Most Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI The tool, called Nightshade, messes up training data in ways that could cause serious damage to image-generating AI models. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus. By Cassandra Willyard archive page Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 With just a few minutes of sample video and $1,000, brands never have to stop selling their products. By Zeyi Yang archive page How to fix the internet If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond the big platforms. By Katie Notopoulos archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"The skeptic: What precision medicine revolution? | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/23/139408/the-skeptic-what-precision-medicine-revolution"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts The skeptic: What precision medicine revolution? The benefits of genomic drugs are exaggerated, hurting patients and the practice of medicine, says one high-profile oncologist. By Stephen S. Hall archive page John Clark Vinay Prasad is relatively young (35) and still climbing the academic ladder (he’s an associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland), but he has already established an outsize reputation as a “professional scold” for his sharp critiques of contemporary biomedical research, including personalized medicine. In commentaries in high-profile medical and scientific journals, and in a Twitter account with some 25,000 followers, Prasad has questioned the evidence (or lack thereof) to support the use of precision oncology, the practice of selecting drugs for patients on the basis of specific mutations in their tumors. He has also criticized the inflated cost of cancer drugs and the financial conflicts of interests bedeviling contemporary research. Prasad brings several unique perspectives to the role of medical scold. Born in Euclid, Ohio, outside Cleveland, to an immigrant couple from India, he developed an interest in philosophy in college before attending medical school at the University of Chicago. As a practicing oncologist, the prolific Prasad has generated a boatload of peer-reviewed papers, gathering evidence to suggest, among other things, that genomic-based evidence hasn’t made much of an impact on cancer patients. As a sometimes prickly online persona, he has been faulted for unleashing expletive-laden putdowns but has also attracted a robust audience for what he calls “tweetorials,” which dissect the design of high-profile studies and the data they generate. In the following conversation with veteran medical writer Stephen S. Hall, he takes aim at “precision oncology,” the gaps in direct-to-consumer genetic testing, and what it really costs to bring a new drug to market. Proponents have been promising a revolution in personalized medicine for decades. What’s the reality? I would say, and I think many people will agree, that the promises that were made around the time of the Human Genome Project have largely not materialized, and that the impact of personalized medicine has probably been exaggerated. What’s the danger of exaggerating the promises? I think we have a schizophrenia in science and medicine. On the one hand, people who are good scientists understand that science is difficult. You should not be, nor will you be, having breakthroughs all the time. Breakthroughs are rare. Science is hard. It takes years of slogging to understand very fundamental pathways. On the other hand, we often are tempted to—and I see experts continue to—make grandiose promises, and have a lofty, unrealistic vision for what might be achieved in the next few years. That harms the public understanding of science, because the public comes to believe that unless you guys and gals are producing breakthroughs all the time, we shouldn’t be funding this. That’s wrong, because science needs more funding—needs a lot more funding than what we’re currently investing. Does it hurt the patient? I would say inflated rhetoric about the value of medical practices, technologies, or science harms patients because it distorts their understanding of what a therapy or intervention might do. And by distorting the understanding, it robs them of autonomy. I’ll give you just one example. Precision medicine is very, very seductive. The temptation is that it shouldn’t be assessed in the same way as other treatments. Sometimes cancer patients are on medications that add real side effects to their life, but they believe that there’s going to be some survival benefit by taking this medicine. Every person is making kind of a daily decision: Do I stick with this medicine or not? Are the side effects worth it to me or not? And if that decision is made in a very impartial way, with a good understanding of what the drug does, that’s the right way. But if that decision is made under the cloud of hype, when it’s surrounded and marinated in hype and misinformation, then I think what we’re really doing is that we’re preventing the person from making the decision compatible with their wishes. We’re kind of taking away that choice. And I do fear that that happens quite often. You recently published a study indicating that most cancer patients don’t benefit from personalized genomic medicine, even though it’s been in practice since at least 2006. Why do you think that’s the case? Some people have said that study is pessimistic. It’s neither pessimistic nor optimistic; it is simply the most realistic estimate of how many people have benefited from genome-driven therapies. There clearly are some situations in cancer where drugging a single ­cancer-causing gene is important, and that should not be taken away. Those clearly do exist. The problem is that they simply don’t exist for the majority of patients who will be diagnosed with metastatic cancer. The purpose of our paper was to document what that number is, and what has been the change over time. I’ve heard the rhetoric that we’re reaching exponential growth, or that [precision oncology] is taking off, or there’s an inflection point. We simply don’t see that evidence if you look objectively at the data. Does that mean you’re reluctant to use them in your own practice? Of course I use genome therapies. I love [them]. Where they work, they work well. In fact, I would increase the funding to research them. But at the same time, I think we should be realistic about their prospects. We’re also doing that same kind of analysis right now for immunotherapy drugs and cytotoxic drugs and different kinds of drugs. Can we more accurately compare what has been the impact of these different types of therapies? In a recent article, you suggested that if adopted prematurely, the use of precision medicine might actually increase the risk of inappropriate medical care. How so? Every day there are new potential treatments or therapies or strategies to treat any disease, and they all have some degree of bio-plausibility. When it comes to a new cancer drug, bio-­plausibility is just not enough. You should also test it and prove that it does what you think it does. Precision medicine should be held to the same standard. One of the differences is that precision medicine is very, very seductive. Some of its bio-plausibility is just such a compelling story that I think we do see this temptation by proponents that it shouldn’t be assessed in the same way. It’s so plausible, it should just be adopted—that kind of attitude. That kind of attitude might paradoxically lead us to adopt potentially more things that ultimately turn out not to do what you think they should do. Do you think direct-to-consumer marketing by companies like 23andMe has made it seem as though personalized medicine has arrived already? Yes, I think the constant rhetoric that this is wonderful has shifted the public perception. In terms of the direct-to-consumer advertising, we actually have a paper on the BRCA breast cancer gene test that appeared in [the Journal of the American Medical Association ] about a month or two ago. It points out that there are some limitations to that direct-to-consumer BRCA testing. The test is actually only for three mutations that are very common in the Ashkenazi Jewish population, but not perhaps the most common BRCA mutations among all people with deleterious mutations. And thus there are some unintended consequences. A woman with a family history who may be worried will send off that test, get a negative result, and feel reassured. But that person may have a deleterious BRCA mutation. It may actually be counterproductive. If genomic testing and these other aspects of personalized medicine are not currently predictive of outcomes for individual patients, are the drug companies and medical institutions taking advantage of consumers by pushing these methods? It’s a big category, and there are some things that are very well validated. But I think there are some things that are not. And the consumer doesn’t always know which ones are which, and that’s the challenge. Even some of the people in the field apparently seem to forget which ones are which, and that’s what I try to remind them of. When you remind them, it sounds like you get pretty strong pushback. I appreciate pushback when it’s about the technical merits of any of these arguments. Where I think pushback is counterproductive is when pushback becomes personal or when pushback is about the intention. There are a number of people who have voiced concern that one or more precision therapies don’t have the data. And sometimes I feel as if the argument devolves into the people who want that therapy saying, “Well, we want what’s best for patients. And you people who are saying that we don’t have data, you apparently don’t want what’s best for patients.” I think we have to recognize we all want what’s best for patients. This is an argument about the evidence. And I get personally frustrated when I see people try to pervert the argument in that way. You’ve also criticized the high cost of drugs, and you recently argued that industry estimates of the cost of bringing a new drug to market are wildly exaggerated. What does it really cost? I think that the cleanest estimate that I’ve seen—and I’m a little bit personally biased—is the estimate that Sham Mailankody and I put out in JAMA Internal Medicine , where we estimate that it costs something like $800 million in R&D to bring a cancer drug to market. The industry estimate is $2.6 billion. There’s a big difference there. But at the end of the day, this is one of those few things in life where you don’t have to settle for estimates. Since the industry repeatedly uses the cost of R&D as a justification for the high price—and unsustainable price—of drugs, I think it’s probably fair game for governments to ask them to show the data. Let’s just put all the data on the table and let’s see what it really costs. One of the other things you’ve suggested is that the expert panels that advise the FDA have financial conflicts of interest. Is that compromising the quality of medicines that consumers are getting? I just want to clarify my view here, which is that I wholeheartedly support collaboration between academic investigators and for-profit companies. The additional complexity and challenge is when you have payments made to physicians personally. I think those payments—and they’ve been shown to—do affect our perception of products. If you’re receiving a lot of money from a manufacturer, you may not view their product as impartially as you would if you were not receiving that money. That’s the concern. I think we should try to curb the financial conflicts of for-profit companies in the healthcare space. There are some legitimate questions here about the role of financial conflicts in this space. Does it distort the impartiality around adjudicating medical practices? I fear it does. Given the implications of the kind of critiques that you have been publishing pretty prolifically, why aren’t more people saying the same thing? I ask myself that all the time. These questions feel very obvious to me. There are a lot of people who do care. A lot of them are general internal-­medicine folks. I think we see it a little less in the specialties. And I think we see it much more in the younger crop of physicians than the older crop, in the sense that people who have done this, practiced for many years in this environment and who have found their niche in the environment, they’re comfortable where they are, and they don’t really feel the urge to comment about these more problematic areas. But people who are younger, and approach this field with fresh eyes, feel as if these things are problematic. You don’t always sound like a scold. I’m very optimistic about science, that we will improve outcomes. I just think that we would benefit from a lot more empiricism and impartiality in the process. That’s what I feel is missing—empiricism, impartiality, and more modest rhetoric. I think those three things would go like 90% of the way. Is it true, as reported by The Cancer Letter , that you’ve closed your Twitter account? No, it’s not true at all! I’m on Twitter, @VPplenarysesh. I believe that there are a number of inaccuracies in the Cancer Letter stories about me. I’ll save that for another day. hide by Stephen S. Hall Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. 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"Look how far precision medicine has come | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/23/139378/look-how-far-precision-medicine-has-come"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Look how far precision medicine has come Skeptics say drugs based on genetic insights have underdelivered. But look carefully and they’re everywhere. By Antonio Regalado archive page Personalized Medicine Coalition Sometime this fall, the number of people who have spit in a tube and sent their DNA to the largest consumer DNA testing companies, like Ancestry and 23andMe, is likely to top 20 million. The list by now is certain to include some of your classmates and neighbors. If you are just tuning in, this figure will seem huge. And you might wonder: how did we get here? The answer is little by little. The number of people getting DNA reports has been doubling, roughly, every year since 2010. The figures are now growing by a million each month, and the DNA repositories are so big that they’re enabling surprising new applications. Consumers are receiving scientific predictions about whether they’ll go bald or get cancer. Investigators this year started using consumer DNA data to capture criminals. Vast gene hunts are under way into the causes of insomnia and intelligence. And 23andMe made a $300 million deal this summer with drug company GlaxoSmithKline to develop personalized drugs, starting with treatments for Parkinson’s disease. The notion is that targeted medicines could help the small subset of Parkinson’s patients with a particular gene error, which 23andMe can easily find in its database. Ever since the Human Genome Project—the 13-year, $3 billion effort to decipher the human genetic code—researchers and doctors have been predicting the arrival of “precision medicine.” It’s a term with no agreed-upon definition, although it suggests most strongly just the kinds of medicines that Glaxo and 23andMe are pursuing: more targeted and more effective because they take into account a person’s particular genetic makeup. President Bill Clinton, at the unveiling of the genome’s first draft back in June 2000, said the data would “revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases.” Seeking better drugs The proportion of patients who actually benefit fron a best-selling drug in each category. Almost two decades after those big promises, it is in vogue to question why precision medicine has not delivered more. A report in the New York Times this summer, noting that deaths from cancer still outnumber cures by a wide margin, asked: “Are We Being Misled About Precision Medicine?” One reason for this seemingly slow progress is that not all precision medicine involves drugs. As gene hunts gain in scope—the latest involve comparisons of more than a million people’s DNA and health records—an inconvenient fact about many common diseases has emerged: they don’t, by and large, have singular causes. Instead, many hundreds of genes play small roles, and there is no obvious point at which to intervene with a pill. So instead of drugs, we are seeing a new predictive science in which genetic risk profiles may say which people should lower their blood pressure, which should steel themselves for Alzheimer’s, and which cancer patients aren’t going to benefit from chemotherapy and can skip the ordeal. To be sure, these sorts of prognostics aren’t widely accepted, and it’s hard to get people to change their behavior. Yet for many people, these predictions may begin to offer a concrete route to precision health and increased knowledge of their own biology. Genetic information explodes Left: Cost of sequencing a genome Right: Number of people who have bought consumer DNA tests Look beyond cancer, and some definitive cures have arrived. As with those growing millions sending in their DNA, it’s easy to miss the change before it’s everywhere. Here are just two medications of note: a drug that mops up hepatitis C in 90% of those who take it and an experimental gene therapy that is curing a rare, fatal, and previously untreatable childhood disease, spinal muscular atrophy. Though these treatments come from different corners of biology, it’s what they have in common that’s important: each benefits from detailed understanding of genetic information and tools to control it. To our thinking, these drugs display real precision. The hep C pill, called Sovaldi, consists of a chemical that is irresistible to the replicating virus, but when the drug comes in contact with the virus’s genome, replication quickly grinds to a halt. The treatment for spinal muscular atrophy, meanwhile, is a genetic replacement part. With gene therapy, doctors can add fresh DNA instructions to the child’s nerve cells. The dozen or so kids who’ve gotten the therapy at a young age don’t develop the disease. All this traces back to even before the Human Genome Project. Think instead of the foundational act of the biotechnology industry, 40 years ago. On September 6, 1978, Genentech announced “the successful laboratory production of human insulin.” Before then, diabetics had injected insulin from pigs. It took around two tons of pig parts to extract eight ounces (227 grams) of pure insulin. But Genentech had found a way to splice the human version of the insulin-producing gene into E. coli bacteria, which then manufactured the hormone. Genentech still keeps the 40-year-old press release online. To the pharmaceutical houses of the 20th century, with their roots in commercial dye making and synthetic chemistry, these new biotech drugs looked at first like a sideshow. They were hard to make and inconvenient to take (by injection, mostly). The pharma giants could easily believe their way of doing things would always dominate. Until well into the 1990s, a single drug company, Merck, was more valuable than all biotech companies combined. It probably seemed as if biotech would never arrive—until it did. Of the 10 best-selling drugs in the US during 2017, seven (including the top seller, the arthritis drug Humira) are biotech drugs based on antibodies. Antibodies embody biological precision too. These tiny blood proteins, normally part of our immune response, fit—like a key in a lock—onto other molecules, like those dotting the surface of a cancer cell. And just like insulin, they’re often constructed using DNA code retrieved from our bodies. Drugs based on DNA Left: Percentage of drugs in development that may be tailored to a person's genetic profile Right: Number of the 10 best-selling drugs in the US that are biological molecules Insulin and antibodies are meant to work the same way on everyone. But no two people’s genomes are exactly the same—about 1% of the DNA letters differ between any two of us. Those differences can explain why one person is ill and another isn’t, or why one person’s version of diabetes is different from another’s. Drugs that take into account these differences in genetic information are called “targeted” drugs. The cancer drug Herceptin, an antibody that reached the market in 1998, was among the first. It was effective, but mostly in people whose newly diagnosed breast cancer was growing because of specific genetic damage—about 20% of cases. It depended on the genome of the tumor itself. Herceptin came to market with the admonition that, to get it, you should first have a test to see if you would benefit. According to the US National Cancer Institute, there are now more than 80 such targeted medicines for cancer on the market. Critics argue rightly enough that such medications still do too little for too few people at too great a cost (often $10,000 a month). In fact, on the whole, those who survive cancer still owe little to targeted drugs. “The single biggest determinant of who survives cancer is who has insurance,” Greg Simon, who leads the Biden Cancer Initiative, has said—not whether there’s a drug to match their mutation. Some think we are spending too much time searching under the lamplight shed by genetic tools. “Perhaps we had been seduced by the technology of gene sequencing—by the sheer wizardry of being able to look at a cancer’s genetic core,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning cancer doctor, Siddhartha Mukherjee, wrote this summer. Big questions need big data Studies are using DNA from more people than ever Big questions need big data 2002 Japanese scientists use a new approach—the genome-wide association study—to hunt for the causes of heart attack. 2005 A gene hunt reveals critical mutations that increase the risk of macular degeneration, a common cause of blindness. 2010 Consumer test company 23andMe contributes user data to a search for Parkinson’s genes. 2013 The FDA cracks down on consumer test companies offering genetic health predictions from DNA, calling the results unreliable. 2015 Why are some people fatter than others? Clues from a genetic study are quickly offered to consumers in the form of “DNA diet” tests. 2017 A massive trove of gene data from the UK Biobank permits simultaneous analysis of 2,000 human traits and diseases. 2018 Researchers identify genes linked to educational success. They warn against using the results as a “DNA IQ test.” A search for the genes behind insomnia is the largest genetic study ever. It relies heavily on the consumer DNA database of 23andMe. He’s right that the impulse toward precision medicine, cost be damned, springs from new technology. It’s what it can do. And so you can be sure even more personalization is on the horizon. Genentech (which created Herceptin) now imagines what it calls “cancer vaccines,” tailored not just to broad subtypes of people but to the unique signature of a person’s tumor. The new approach involves collecting information about the peculiarities of a person’s cancer through high-speed genome sequencing; using software to analyze and predict what a custom biological drug would look like (they will be reverse images of antibodies, known as antigens, that stimulate the immune system); and then quickly manufacturing it. No two of these vaccines would be alike. Also, note this: if and when the US Food and Drug Administration approves these vaccines, it won’t be greenlighting a particular compound. Instead, it will approve a computerized process for turning DNA information into drugs. Medicine as programmatic and predictable as a computer? The idea has begun to exert a potent appeal in Silicon Valley, where some of tech’s biggest names now see biology as “just a code” they can crack. Marc Andreessen (best known for inventing the web browser) is one of them. The venture fund he cofounded, Andreessen Horowitz or a16z, has set aside a total of $650 million since 2015 to put into biotech investments. As the firm’s blog states with awe, “You don’t just read the code of biology but you can also write, or design, with it.” Welcome to biotech, a16z. Yet they’re on to something. Even 40 years after Genentech’s insulin press release, genetic engineering is a marvel worth rediscovering. The ability to see, understand, and manipulate human genes and the proteins they make is the great advance that is still unfolding in all its immense complexity four decades later. Biology isn’t anywhere as neat as a computer program, but little by little, we’re learning how to control it. To enzymes and antibodies we’ve added gene therapy and gene editing. We haven’t sequenced one genome—we’ve sequenced a million. An astute observer might realize we’ve already come a long way. hide by Antonio Regalado Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Designer babies aren’t futuristic. They’re already here. | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/22/139478/are-we-designing-inequality-into-our-genes"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Designer babies aren’t futuristic. They’re already here. Are we designing inequality into our genes? By Laura Hercher archive page Illustration of a fetus between the profiles of a man and a woman. The umbilical cord is forming a dollar sign. Benedikt Luft At first, Matthew assumed the weakness in his knee was the sort of orthopedic nuisance that happens when you turn 30. It was weeks before he consulted a doctor, and months before it occurred to him that there could be a connection between his worsening limp and a cousin’s shoulder problem when they were kids. DNA testing confirmed it: Matthew, like his cousin, had a genetic form of dystonia, a condition where muscles contract uncontrollably. Their grandfather most likely had dystonia as well. I’d met Matthew only a few months earlier, when he’d married my friend’s daughter, Olivia, in one of those hip old New York hotels with an elegant downtown vibe. Since I was the only genetic counselor of their acquaintance, they brought their questions to me. With their permission, I am sharing their story. I have changed their names to preserve their privacy. Matthew was lucky. His was a mild version of DYT1 dystonia, and injections of Botox in his knee helped. But the genetic mutation can cause severe symptoms: contractures in joints or deformities in the spine. Many patients are put on psychoactive medications, and some require surgery for deep brain stimulation. Their kids, Matthew and Olivia were told, might not be as lucky. They would have a 50–50 chance of inheriting the gene variant that causes dystonia and, if they did, a 30% chance of developing the disease. The risk of a severely affected child was fairly small, but not insignificant. My friends learned there was an alternative. They could undergo in vitro fertilization and have their embryos genetically tested while still in a laboratory dish. Using a technology called pre-implantation genetic testing, they could pick the embryos that had not inherited the DYT1 mutation. It would be expensive—costs for IVF in the US average over $20,000 for each try, and testing can add $10,000 or more. And it would require an unpleasant two-week process of ovarian stimulation and egg harvesting. “It wasn’t the way I saw myself making a baby,” Olivia told me. But they wanted what the procedure could offer them: a guarantee that dystonia was eliminated for the next generation, and beyond. Matthew and Olivia don’t think of themselves as having a “designer baby.” That term has negative associations, suggesting something trivial, discretionary, or unethical. They weren’t choosing eye color or trying to boost their kid’s SAT score. They were looking out for the health and well-­being of their future child, as parents should. We risk creating a society where some groups, because of culture or geography or poverty, bear a greater burden of genetic disease. Public opinion on the use of assisted reproductive technology consistently draws a distinction between preventing disease and picking traits. The Johns Hopkins Genetics and Public Policy Center, which contacted over 6,000 people through surveys and focus groups from 2002 to 2004, summed up its findings this way: “In general, Americans approve of using reproductive genetic tests to prevent fatal childhood disease, but do not approve of using the same tests to identify or select for traits like intelligence or strength.” The dystonia gene is in a gray zone—some people born with it live perfectly healthy lives—yet presumably few parents would criticize Matthew and Olivia’s choice to weed it out. All embryo testing does fit the “designer” label in one important way, however: it is not available to everybody. Matthew and Olivia opted in to what is a quiet but significant trend. Although the number of couples using this technology remains small, it is growing rapidly. According to the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology, the number of US IVF attempts with single-gene testing rose from 1,941 in 2014 to 3,271 in 2016, an increase of almost 70%. This is only the beginning. As the price of genetic testing of all kinds drops, more adults are learning about their genetic makeup as part of routine medical care and discovering specific genetic risks before pregnancy. But these people are still most likely to be affluent and educated, like Olivia and Matthew. While they consulted with IVF clinics, Olivia’s own brother and his wife got news of a gene that increased risk for cancer in their kids. “If you could get rid of it, why wouldn’t you?” he asked. Cost was not a concern for these couples, but it is an obstacle for many Americans. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 1.7% of babies born in the US today are conceived using IVF. It’s much higher in countries that publicly fund assisted reproductive technology: 4% in Belgium, 5.9% in Denmark. A 2009 study found that 76% of the medical need for assisted reproduction in the US is unmet. Insurance doesn’t normally cover IVF in the US, except for a handful of states where coverage is mandated. Even policies that cover fertility treatment are inconsistent in what they reimburse. Coverage for pre-implantation genetic testing is downright Kafkaesque. Under many policies, testing the embryos is covered, but the IVF procedure itself is not, because the couples are not infertile. “The analogy I like to use,” says James Grifo, director of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at NYU Langone Health, “is if you were having coronary bypass surgery and they didn’t pay for cracking the chest.” At least part of the reason the IVF industry is growing is not that more people can afford it but that those who can are paying for new kinds of services. Egg banking, for example, is now aggressively marketed to younger women as an insurance policy against age-related infertility. In 2011, egg banking did not even exist as a category in the CDC’s annual report on IVF; by 2016, storing eggs or embryos was the purpose of 25% of all IVF cycles. Elite companies like Facebook offer egg freezing as a perk, but for most people it remains a luxury. Cost isn’t the only barrier. Reproductive technology is less acceptable in racial, ethnic, and religious groups where being seen as infertile carries a stigma. Language barriers can reduce awareness and referrals. Geography also plays a role, since IVF clinics cluster in areas of greatest demand. Presumably, many people would make the same decision as Matthew and Olivia if given the option, but many don’t have that choice. Our discomfort around designer babies has always had to do with the fact that it makes the playing field less level—taking existing inequities and turning them into something inborn. If the use of pre-implantation testing grows and we don’t address these disparities, we risk creating a society where some groups, because of culture or geography or poverty, bear a greater burden of genetic disease. What could change society more profoundly than to take genetic disease—something that has always epitomized our shared humanity—and turn it into something that only happens to some people? hide by Laura Hercher Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Your next doctor’s appointment might be with an AI | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/16/139443/your-next-doctors-appointment-might-be-with-an-ai"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Your next doctor’s appointment might be with an AI A new wave of chatbots are replacing physicians and providing frontline medical advice—but are they as good as the real thing? By Will Douglas Heaven archive page Illustration of medical equipment and ipad “My stomach is killing me!” “I’m sorry to hear that,” says a female voice. “Are you happy to answer a few questions?” And so the consultation begins. Where’s the pain? How bad is it? Does it come and go? There’s some deliberation before you get an opinion. “This sounds like dyspepsia to me. Dyspepsia is doctor-speak for indigestion.” Doctor-speak, maybe, but it’s not a doctor speaking. The female voice belongs to Babylon, part of a wave of new AI apps designed to relieve your doctor of needless paperwork and office visits—and reduce the time you have to wait for medical advice. If you’re feeling unwell, instead of calling a doctor, you use your phone to chat with an AI. The idea is to make seeking advice about a medical condition as simple as Googling your symptoms, but with many more benefits. Unlike self-diagnosis online, these apps lead you through a clinical-grade triage process—they’ll tell you if your symptoms need urgent attention or if you can treat yourself with bed rest and ibuprofen instead. The tech is built on a grab bag of AI techniques: language processing to allow users to describe their symptoms in a casual way, expert systems to mine huge medical databases, machine learning to string together correlations between symptom and condition. Babylon Health, a London-based digital-first health-care provider, has a mission statement it likes to share in a big, bold font: to put an accessible and affordable health service in the hands of every person on earth. The best way to do this, says the company’s founder, Ali Parsa, is to stop people from needing to see a doctor. When in doubt, the apps will always recommend seeking a second, human opinion. But by placing themselves between us and medical professionals, they shift the front line of health care. When the Babylon Health app started giving advice on ways to self-treat, half the company’s patients stopped asking for an appointment, realizing they didn’t need one. Babylon is not the only app of its kind—others include Ada, Your.MD, and Dr. AI. But Babylon is the front-­runner because it’s been integrated with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), showing how such tech could change the way health services are run and paid for. Last year Babylon started a trial with a hospital trust in London in which calls to the NHS’s non-­emergency 111 advice line are handled partly by Babylon’s AI. Callers are asked if they want to wait for a human to pick up or download the Babylon-powered “NHS Online: 111” app instead. Around 40,000 people have already opted for the app. Between late January and early October 2017, 40% of those who used the app were directed to self-treatment options rather than a doctor—around three times the proportion of people who spoke to a human operator. But both the AI and the humans staffing the phone line told the same proportion of people to seek emergency care (21%). When the app started giving advice on ways to self-treat, half of patients stopped asking for an appointment, realizing they didn’t need one. Now Babylon has also co-launched the UK’s first digital doctor’s practice, called GP at Hand. People in London can register with the service as they would with their local doctor. But instead of waiting for an appointment slot and taking time off work to see a physician in person, patients can either chat with the app or talk to a GP at Hand doctor on a video link. And in many cases the call isn’t needed. The human doctor becomes your last resort rather than your first. GP at Hand has proved popular; some 50,000 people registered in the first few months, among them Matt Hancock, the UK health minister. Babylon now wants to expand across the UK. The service is also available in Rwanda, where 20% of the adult population has already signed up, according to Mobasher Butt, a doctor and a member of Babylon’s founding team. And it’s setting up services in Canada, with plans to do the same in the US, the Middle East, and China. Your doctor is overloaded For 70 years, the NHS has provided free medical care to anyone who needs it, paid for by UK taxpayers. But it is showing signs of strain. Two generations ago there were 50 million Britons, and their average life expectancy was not much over 60 years. There are now 66 million, and most can expect to live into their 80s. That stretches the resources of a system that has never been flush with cash. On average, people in the UK see a doctor six times a year, twice as often as a decade ago. From 2011 to 2015, the average GP clinic’s patient list grew by 10% and its number of contacts with patients (by phone or in person) grew by 15.4%, according to a survey by the King’s Fund. In a survey by the British Medical Association in 2016, 84% of general practitioners said they found their workload either “unmanageable” or “excessive,” with “a direct impact on the quality” of care they gave their patients. In turn, people often have to wait days to get a non-urgent consultation. Many show up at hospital emergency departments instead, adding even more strain to the system. “We have the perception that it’s older people who turn up [at the emergency room],” says Lee Dentith, CEO and founder of the Now Healthcare Group, a health-tech company based in Manchester, UK. “But it’s not. It’s the 18- to 35-year-olds who are unwilling to wait a week for an appointment.” Population and life expectancy will continue to grow. By 2040, it is estimated, the UK will have more than 70 million people, one in four of whom will be over 65. Most other rich countries are also getting older. At the same time, the next few decades will see more people living with long-term illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease. And better treatment for diseases like cancer means millions more people will be living with or recovering from them. Of course, the UK is not alone. Whether because of prohibitive costs in the US or the lack of medical professionals in Rwanda, “all health systems around the world are stretched,” says Butt. “There’s not enough clinical resources. There’s not enough money.” Which is where companies like Babylon come in. A chatbot can act as a gatekeeper to overworked doctors. Freeing up even more of the doctor’s time, the AI can also handle paperwork and prescriptions, and even monitor care at home. A chatbot can also direct people to the right provider. “A GP is not always the best person to see,” says Naureen Bhatti, a general practitioner in East London. “A nurse might be better at dressing a wound, and a pharmacist might be better for advice about a repeat prescription. Anything that helps unload a very overloaded system, allowing doctors to do what they are best at, is always welcome.” Sometimes AI is just better Bhatti remembers how upset lots of doctors were when patients first started bringing in printouts from their own web searches. “How dare they try and diagnose themselves! Don’t think you can negate my six years at medical school with your one hour on the internet.” But she likes to see it from the patients’ perspective: “Well, don’t think you can negate my six years of living with this illness with your one-hour lecture at medical school.” When a patient does meet a doctor face to face, the AI can still help by suggesting diagnoses and possible treatments. This is useful even when a doctor is highly skilled, says Butt, and it’s “really critical” in poorer countries with a shortage of competent doctors. AI can also help spot serious conditions early. “By the time most diseases are diagnosed, a £10 problem has become a £1,000 one,” says Parsa. “We wait until we break down before going to a doctor.” Catching a disease early slashes the cost of treating it. These apps first hit the market as private health services. Now they are starting to integrate with national health-care providers and insurers. For example, Ada users can share their chatbot sessions with their NHS doctor, and the company is now working with a handful of GP practices to enable the chatbot to refer them to the doctor. Another app, Now Patient, provides video consultations with your existing doctor, and it also acts as an AI pharmacist. Users can buy their drugs from the Now Healthcare Group’s drug-­delivery service. It’s a kind of Amazon for medicines. “How do we make this a job that people want to do? I don’t think ... consulting from their kitchen is why people get into medicine. They come to meet patients.” “This is a service that patients really want, that they didn’t previously have, and that is now being provided to them through the NHS 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, for free,” Butt says of Babylon. “And the brilliant thing is it doesn’t cost the NHS a single penny more to deliver that.” Not only will the AI in these apps get smarter; it will get to know its users better. “We’re building in the ability for patients to manage their health not only when they’re sick, but also when they’re not sick,” says Butt. The apps will become constant companions for millions of us, advising us and coaxing us through everyday health choices. Death by chatbot? Not everyone is happy about all this. For a start, there are safety concerns. Parsa compares what Babylon does with your medical data to what Facebook does with your social activities—amassing information, building links, drawing on what it knows about you to prompt some action. Suggesting you make a new friend won’t kill you if it’s a bad recommendation, but the stakes are a lot higher for a medical app. According to Babylon, its chatbot can identify medical conditions as well as human doctors do, and give treatment advice that’s safer. In a study posted online in June and coauthored with researchers at Imperial College London, Stanford University, and the Northeastern Medical Group, Babylon put its AI through a version of the final exam of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), which British GPs must pass in order to practice unsupervised. Babylon’s AI scored 81%, 9% higher than the average grade achieved by UK medical students. The RCGP was quick to distance itself from Babylon’s hype, however. “The potential of technology to support doctors to deliver the best possible patient care is fantastic, but at the end of the day, computers are computers, and GPs are highly trained medical professionals: the two can’t be compared and the former may support but will never replace the latter,” said RCGP vice chair Martin Marshall in a statement. “No app or algorithm will be able to do what a GP does.” Others level far more serious charges, suggesting that Babylon has focused on making its service accessible and affordable at the expense of patients’ safety. One Twitter user with the handle DrMurphy11 (he’s an NHS consultant who told me he needs to remain anonymous because of the corporate culture there) has coined the hashtag #DeathByChatbot. In videos showing interactions with the app, DrMurphy11 suggests that Babylon’s AI misses obvious diagnoses and fails to ask the right questions. “I have no concerns about health tech or AI in general,” he says. “No doctor wants to make mistakes, and any system that helps minimize the risk of harm from human error will be welcomed.” But he’s worried that companies are misleading doctors and the public with marketing claims that vastly oversell their current tech. Babylon has also met with criticism in Rwanda, where it runs the Babyl service, for not taking local epidemiology into account. In an interview with the BBC, Rwanda’s minister of health claimed that the Babyl app included no questions about malaria, for example (although Babylon disputes this). Still, while Babylon may not be as good as a real doctor (and such apps are always careful to recommend you see a real doctor when in doubt), playing it too safe would defeat the purpose. “We wanted to re-create the same pragmatic approach that a clinician takes,” says Butt. “If we just had a group of nonclinical people building the service, they might have gone for something that was 100 percent safe, but that could mean you send everyone to hospital, which is not what a real doctor or nurse would do.” Another fear is that digital-­first services will create a two-tiered health-care system. For example, GP at Hand advises people with serious medical issues to think twice about signing up to a practice that offers mostly remote access to doctors. That might seem prudent, but it has led to accusations that GP at Hand is effectively cherry-picking younger patients with less complex—and less expensive—health-care needs. Since British GP practices get per-­patient funding from the NHS, cherry-picking would mean the rest of the health-care system is left to do more with less. For some GPs, this isn’t acceptable. “We take everybody,” says Bhatti. But Oliver Michelson, a spokesperson for the NHS, accepts that GP at Hand has to issue some form of caveat—it can’t realistically welcome everyone. “They are not denying people access but saying that if you’re going to need to come into your GP regularly, a digital-first service may not be the best place to be,” he says. And Butt insists that they exclude nobody. “The service is available to everyone,” he says; it just may not suit some people, such as those with severe learning difficulties or visual impairments, who would struggle with the app. People still come in handy For Bhatti, having a local doctor who knows you is a crucial part of the health system. “Knowing your doctor saves lives,” she says. “Doctors will pick up things because there’s continuity.” She thinks this is just as much an issue for doctors as for patients. “How do we make this a job people want to do?” she says. “I don’t think people working flexibly, consulting from their kitchen, is why people come to medicine. They come to meet patients.” Not even Butt envisions chatbots replacing human doctors entirely. “Care is not just about diagnosing or prescribing medicine,” he says. “It’s about knowing your patient is going to be able to cope with the chemotherapy you’re proposing for them, knowing that their family will be able to offer them the support that they’re going to need for the next few months. Currently there is no software that’s going to be able to replace that.” hide by Will Douglas Heaven Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. 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"The smartphone app that can tell you’re depressed before you know it yourself | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/15/66443/the-smartphone-app-that-can-tell-youre-depressed-before-you-know-it-yourself"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts The smartphone app that can tell you’re depressed before you know it yourself Analyzing the way you type and scroll can reveal as much as a psychological test. By Rachel Metz archive page Photo of Paul Dagum0 There are about 45 million people in the US alone with a mental illness, and those illnesses and their courses of treatment can vary tremendously. But there is something most of those people have in common: a smartphone. A startup founded in Palo Alto, California, by a trio of doctors, including the former director of the US National Institute of Mental Health, is trying to prove that our obsession with the technology in our pockets can help treat some of today’s most intractable medical problems: depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse. Mindstrong Health is using a smartphone app to collect measures of people’s cognition and emotional health as indicated by how they use their phones. Once a patient installs Mindstrong’s app, it monitors things like the way the person types, taps, and scrolls while using other apps. This data is encrypted and analyzed remotely using machine learning, and the results are shared with the patient and the patient’s medical provider. The assessment included classic neuropsychological tests that have been used for decades, like a so-called timed trail-tracing test. The seemingly mundane minutiae of how you interact with your phone offers surprisingly important clues to your mental health, according to Mindstrong’s research—revealing, for example, a relapse of depression. With details gleaned from the app, Mindstrong says, a patient’s doctor or other care manager gets an alert when something may be amiss and can then check in with the patient by sending a message through the app (patients, too, can use it to message their care provider). For years now, countless companies have offered everything from app-based therapy to games that help with mood and anxiety to efforts to track smartphone activities or voice and speech for signs of depression. But Mindstrong is different, because it’s considering how users’ physical interactions with the phones—not what they do, but how they do it—can point to signs of mental illness. That may lead to far more accurate ways to track these problems over time. If Mindstrong’s method works, it could be the first that manages to turn the technology in your pocket into the key to helping patients with a wide range of chronic brain disorders—and may even lead to ways to diagnose them before they start. Digital fingerprints Before starting Mindstrong, Paul Dagum , its founder and CEO, paid for two Bay Area–based studies to figure out whether there might be a systemic measure of cognitive ability—or disability—hidden in how we use our phones. One hundred and fifty research subjects came into a clinic and underwent a standardized neurocognitive assessment that tested things like episodic memory (how you remember events) and executive function (mental skills that include the ability to control impulses, manage time, and focus on a task)—the kinds of high-order brain functions that are weakened in people with mental illnesses. The assessment included neuropsychological tests that have been used for decades, like a so-called timed trail-­tracing test, where you have to connect scattered letters and numbers in the proper order—a way to measure how well people can shift between tasks. People who have a brain disorder that weakens their attention may have a harder time with this. Subjects went home with an app that measured the ways they touched their phone’s display (swipes, taps, and keyboard typing), which Dagum hoped would be an unobtrusive way to log these same kinds of behavior on a smartphone. For the next year, it ran in the background, gathering data and sending it to a remote server. Then the subjects came back for another round of neurocognitive tests. As it turns out, the behaviors the researchers measured can tell you a lot. “There were signals in there that were measuring, correlating—predicting, in fact, not just correlating with—the neurocognitive function measures that the neuropsychologist had taken,” Dagum says. For instance, memory problems, which are common hallmarks of brain disorders, can be spotted by looking at things including how rapidly you type and what errors you make (such as how frequently you delete characters), as well as by how fast you scroll down a list of contacts. (Mindstrong can first determine your baseline by looking at how you use your handset and combining those characteristics with general measures.) Even when you’re just using the smartphone’s keyboard, Dagum says, you’re switching your attention from one task to another all the time—for example, when you’re inserting punctuation into a sentence. He became convinced the connections presented a new way to investigate human cognition and behavior over time, in a way that simply isn’t possible with typical treatment like regularly visiting a therapist or getting a new medication, taking it for a month, and then checking back in with a doctor. Brain-disorder treatment has stalled in part because doctors simply don’t know that someone’s having trouble until it’s well advanced; Dagum believes Mindstrong can figure it out much sooner and keep an eye on it 24 hours a day. In 2016, Dagum visited Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences company, where he pitched his work to a group including Tom Insel , a psychiatrist who had spent 13 years as director of the National Institute of Mental Health before he joined Verily in 2015. Verily was trying to figure out how to use phones to learn about depression or other mental health conditions. But Insel says that at first, what Dagum presented—more a concept than a show of actual data—didn’t seem like a big deal. “The bells didn’t go off about what he had done,” he says. Over several meetings, however, Insel realized that Dagum could do something he believed nobody in the field of mental health had yet been able to accomplish. He had figured out smartphone signals that correlated strongly with a person’s cognitive performance—the kind of thing usually possible only through those lengthy lab tests. What’s more, he was collecting these signals for days, weeks, and months on end, making it possible, in essence, to look at a person’s brain function continuously and objectively. “It’s like having a continuous glucose monitor in the world of diabetes,” Insel says. Why should anyone believe that what Mindstrong is doing can actually work? Dagum says that thousands of people are using the app, and the company now has five years of clinical study data to confirm its science and technology. It is continuing to perform numerous studies, and this past March it began working with patients and doctors in clinics. In its current form, the Mindstrong app that patients see is fairly sparse. There’s a graph that updates daily with five different signals collected from your smartphone swipes and taps. Four of these signals are measures of cognition that are tightly tied to mood disorders (such as the ability to make goal-based decisions), and the other measures emotions. There’s also an option to chat with a clinician. We don’t know how many different illnesses are in the category of depression. Insel hopes Mindstrong can use patient data to find out. For now, Insel says, the company is working mainly with seriously ill people who are at risk of relapse for problems like depression, schizophrenia, and substance abuse. “This is meant for the most severely disabled people, who are really needing some innovation,” he says. “There are people who are high utilizers of health care and they’re not getting the benefits, so we’ve got to figure out some way to get them something that works better.” Actually predicting that a patient is headed toward a downward spiral is a harder task, but Dagum believes that having more people using the app over time will help cement patterns in the data. There are thorny issues to consider, of course. Privacy, for one: while Mindstrong says it protects users’ data, collecting such data at all could be a scary prospect for many of the people it aims to help. Companies may be interested in, say, including it as part of an employee wellness plan, but most of us wouldn’t want our employers anywhere near our mental health data, no matter how well protected it may be. Spotting problems before they start A study in the works at the University of Michigan is looking at whether Mindstrong may be beneficial for people who do not have a mental illness but do have a high risk for depression and suicide. Led by Srijan Sen, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, the study tracks the moods of first-year doctors across the country—a group that is known to experience intense stress, frequent sleep deprivation, and very high rates of depression. Participants log their mood each day and wear a Fitbit activity tracker to log sleep, activity, and heart-rate data. About 1,500 of the 2,000 participants also let a Mindstrong keyboard app run on their smartphones to collect data about the ways they type and figure out how their cognition changes throughout the year. Sen hypothesizes that people’s memory patterns and thinking speed change in subtle ways before they realize they’re depressed. But he says he doesn’t know how long that lag will be, or what cognitive patterns will be predictive of depression. Insel also believes Mindstrong may lead to more precise diagnoses than today’s often broadly defined mental health disorders. Right now, for instance, two people with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder might share just one of numerous symptoms: they could both feel depressed, but one might feel like sleeping all the time, while the other is hardly sleeping at all. We don’t know how many different illnesses are in the category of depression, Insel says. But over time Mindstrong may be able to use patient data to find out. The company is exploring how learning more about these distinctions might make it possible to tailor drug prescriptions for more effective treatment. Insel says it’s not yet known if there are specific digital markers of, say, auditory hallucinations that someone with schizophrenia might experience, and the company is still working on how to predict future problems like post-traumatic stress disorder. But he is confident that the phone will be the key to figuring it out discreetly. “We want to be able to do this in a way that just fits into somebody’s regular life,” he says. hide by Rachel Metz Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"DNA databases are too white. This man aims to fix that. | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2018/10/15/139472/dna-databases-are-too-white-this-man-aims-to-fix-that"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts DNA databases are too white. This man aims to fix that. Carlos D. Bustamante’s hunt for genetic variations between populations should help us better understand and treat disease. By David Rotman archive page Photo of Carlos D. Bustamante In the 15 years since the Human Genome Project first exposed our DNA blueprint, vast amounts of genetic data have been collected from millions of people in many different parts of the world. Carlos D. Bustamante’s job is to search that genetic data for clues to everything from ancient history and human migration patterns to the reasons people with different ancestries are so varied in their response to common diseases. Bustamante’s career has roughly spanned the period since the Human Genome Project was completed. A professor of genetics and biomedical data science at Stanford and 2010 winner of a MacArthur genius award, he has helped to tease out the complex genetic variation across different populations. These variants mean that the causes of diseases can vary greatly between groups. Part of the motivation for Bustamante, who was born in Venezuela and moved to the US when he was seven, is to use those insights to lessen the medical disparities that still plague us. But while it’s an area ripe with potential for improving medicine, it’s also fraught with controversies over how to interpret genetic differences between human populations. In an era still obsessed with race and ethnicity—and marred by the frequent misuse of science in defining the characteristics of different groups—Bustamante remains undaunted in searching for the nuanced genetic differences that these groups display. Perhaps his optimism is due to his personality—few sentences go by without a “fantastic” or “extraordinarily exciting.” But it is also his recognition as a population geneticist of the incredible opportunity that understanding differences in human genomes presents for improving health and fighting disease. David Rotman, MIT Technology Review ’s editor at large, discussed with Bustamante why it’s so important to include more people in genetic studies and understand the genetics of different populations. How good are we at making sure that the genomic data we’re collecting is inclusive? I’m optimistic, but it’s not there yet. In our 2011 paper, the statistic we had was that more than 96% of participants in genome-wide association studies were of European descent. In the follow-up in 2016, the number went from 96% to around 80%. So that’s getting better. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, a lot of that is due to the entry of China into genetics. A lot of that was due to large-scale studies in Chinese and East Asian populations. Hispanics, for example, make up less than 1% of genome-wide association studies. So we need to do better. Ultimately, we want precision medicine to benefit everybody. Aside from a fairness issue, why is diversity in genomic data important? What do we miss without it? First of all, it has nothing to do with political correctness. It has everything to do with human biology and the fact that human populations and the great diaspora of human migrations have left their mark on the human genome. The genetic underpinnings of health and disease have shared components across human populations and things that are unique to different populations. How does that play out? Diabetes is a great example. If we look at the genetics of diabetes, they are different in different parts of the world. In the early 2010s, the Broad [Institute of MIT and Harvard] did a study with the National Institute of Genomic Medicine in Mexico to study the genetics of diabetes. Sure enough, they found a genetic variant that has a 25% frequency in Mexico that you don’t see in European, East Asian, or African populations. It is largely seen only in the Americas, and it underscores a large part of ethnic disparity in diabetes. “We can’t use genetics for the purpose of trying to define the stories we tell about ourselves.” We’ve done research on seemingly innocuous traits like blond hair. There is no more striking phenotype. Some people have blond hair and some people don’t. And the cause of blond hair in Melanesia is completely different from the cause in Europe—and that’s blond hair. So why do you think diabetes, heart disease, all these other complex traits will have identical causes in all humans? It doesn’t make sense. It turns out the highest prevalence of asthma [in the US] is in individuals of Puerto Rican ancestry, followed by individuals of African-American ancestry, followed by European ancestry. The people with the lowest rate of asthma are those of Mexican ancestry. You have two of the Hispanic populations at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Why is detailing these genetic differences helpful for medicine? If the genetic etiology of disease is different, it gives us an opportunity to discover new drug targets. It gives us new biology that then can be used even for those that don’t necessarily suffer from the disease in that way. It’s important for drug discovery. If you think of it like looking for oil, we’ve only been looking for oil in the North Sea. There are plenty of other places to search, and that benefits everyone. Secondly, we’re finding that polygenic risk scores [disease-risk predictions based on genetic tests] for European ancestry don’t translate easily into other populations. If we don’t have broad representation in medical and population genetics, then we run the risk of widening health disparities, which will be a terrible outcome for precision medicine and precision health. So aren’t you disappointed by the lack of progress in including more populations in genomic data? I’m actually super-excited. We’ve done a great job of mining for drug targets in Europe. Iceland led the way, Britain led the way, and now Finland. So we’re tapping all those resources—awesome. But what about Latin America? What about Africa? What about South Asia? All of those places have tons to contribute to our understanding of health and disease. It is both a moral obligation and a missed scientific opportunity if we don’t go to work in those populations. Many genetic researchers have long argued that race has no basis in science. But the debate doesn’t seem to go away. In a global context there is no model of three, or five, or even 10 human races. There is a broad continuum of genetic variation that is structured, and there are pockets of isolated populations. Three, five, or 10 human races is just not an accurate model; it is far more of a continuum model. Humans are a beautifully diverse species both phenotypically and genetically. This is very classic population genetics. If I walk from Cape Horn all the way to the top of Finland, every village looks like the village next to it, but at the extremes people are different. But as a population geneticist? I don’t find race a meaningful way to characterize people. You walk a tricky line, though, don’t you? You’re pointing out the importance of variance between different populations, but you don’t want to reinforce old categories of race. We can’t use genetics for the purpose of trying to define the stories we tell about ourselves. Social determinants of health are often far more important than genetic determinants of health, but that doesn’t mean genetic determinants aren’t important. So you’ve got to embrace the complexity and figure out how we translate this to a broad general public. I’m actually an optimist. I think the world is becoming a less racist place. If you talk to the next generation of people, millennials on down, those abhorrent ideologies are thrown away. That means it gives us a space to now think about what role does genetics play in health and diseases and human evolution in ways that we can soberly understand and bring to bear on important problems. We can’t allow genetics to get hijacked by identity politics. If you begin to allow politics and other interests to come in, you just muddy the waters. You need to let the data lead. You need to let outcomes lead. And the rest will follow. Data bias in dna studies Precision medicine is getting more precise for some but leaving many others behind. And those left behind are often people with Latin American, African, Native American, and other ancestries that are underrepresented in genomic databases. By far, most of the data in genome-wide association studies, which have been critical in spotting genetic variants tied to common diseases, comes from people with European ancestry. In 2011, Carlos D. Bustamante and his colleagues called out the disparities and the resulting threat that genomic medicine “will largely benefit a privileged few.” In subsequent years, the collection of genomic data has exploded, but the disparities remain. In 2016, Alice Popejoy, who was a PhD student at the University of Washington and is now a postdoc in Bustamante’s lab, updated the results in the journal Nature , finding little progress for most population groups. One result of this lack of data is that genetic tests may be less relevant and accurate for people from underrepresented groups. Increasingly popular consumer genetic tests can be misleading or just plain wrong, and medical genetic tests for some common diseases are often inconclusive. Likewise, Popejoy says, false positives and false negatives in genetic diagnoses are more common in people with non-European ancestry, because the results are interpreted using databases that are incomplete or biased toward European ancestry. hide by David Rotman Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window This story was part of our November/December 2018 issue. Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Uncategorized The Download: how to fight pandemics, and a top scientist turned-advisor Plus: Humane's Ai Pin has been unveiled By Rhiannon Williams archive page The race to destroy PFAS, the forever chemicals Scientists are showing these damaging compounds can be beat. By John Wiegand archive page How scientists are being squeezed to take sides in the conflict between Israel and Palestine Tensions over the war are flaring on social media—with real-life ramifications. By Antonio Regalado archive page These new tools could make AI vision systems less biased Two new papers from Sony and Meta describe novel methods to make bias detection fairer. By Melissa Heikkilä archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Humane officially launches the AI Pin, its OpenAI-powered wearable - The Verge"

"https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23953901/humane-ai-pin-launch-date-price-openai"

"The Verge homepage The Verge homepage The Verge The Verge logo. / Tech / Reviews / Science / Entertainment / More Menu Expand Menu Gadgets / Tech / Artificial Intelligence Humane officially launches the AI Pin, its OpenAI-powered wearable Humane officially launches the AI Pin, its OpenAI-powered wearable / It’s a gadget designed for interacting with large language models, not apps, and for talking instead of typing. But it’s not yet entirely clear what you’re supposed to use it for. By David Pierce , editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired. | Share this story On Thursday, after months of demos and hints about what the AI-powered future of gadgets might look like, Humane finally took the wraps off of its first device: the AI Pin. The device, as we revealed yesterday , is a $699 wearable in two parts: a square device and a battery pack that magnetically attaches to your clothes or other surfaces. In addition to that price, there’s also the $24 monthly fee for a Humane subscription, which gets you a phone number and data coverage through T-Mobile’s network. The company told Wired the device will start shipping in early 2024 and that preorders begin November 16th. The AI Pin is powered by a Snapdragon processor — though it’s not clear which one — and you control it with a combination of voice control, a camera, gestures, and a small built-in projector. The Pin itself weighs about 34 grams, and the “battery booster” adds another 20. The built-in camera takes 13-megapixel photos and will capture video as well after a software update. Related Humane’s AI Pin: all the news about the new AI-powered wearable Unlike a device like the Rewind Pendant , it’s not meant to be always recording, and it’s not even listening for a wake word. You’ll have to activate the device manually by tapping and dragging on the touchpad, and the Pin’s “Trust Light” blinks to let you and supposedly everyone else know it’s collecting data. Introducing Humane Ai Pin from Humane, Inc. on Vimeo. The Pin’s primary job is to connect to AI models through software the company calls AI Mic. Humane’s press release mentions both Microsoft and OpenAI, and previous reports suggested that the Pin was primarily powered by GPT-4 — Humane says that ChatGPT access is actually one of the device’s core features. Its operating system, called Cosmos, is designed to route your queries to the right tools automatically rather than asking you to download and manage apps. The Pin’s primary job is to connect to AI models What Humane is trying to do with the Pin is essentially strip away all the interface cruft from your technology. It won’t have a homescreen or lots of settings and accounts to manage; the idea is that you can just talk to or touch the Pin, say what you want to do or know, and it’ll happen automatically. Over the last year, we’ve seen a huge amount of functionality become available through a simple text command to a chatbot; Humane’s trying to build a gadget in the same spirit. The question, then, is what this thing can actually do. Most of the features Humane mentions in its announcement today are the ones co-founder Imran Chaudhri showed off during a demo at TED earlier this year: voice-based messaging and calling; a “catch me up” feature that can summarize your email inbox; holding up food to the camera to get nutritional information; and real-time translation. Beyond that, though, it seems the device’s primary purpose is as something of a wearable LLM-powered search engine. The company did tell Wired it intends to add navigation and shopping capabilities, though, and plans to give developers ways to build tools of their own. Humane seems to view the AI Pin as the beginning of a larger project, which is probably correct: it will get better as the underlying models get better, and seemingly the whole tech industry is hard at work looking for new things to do with AI. Humane may hope its device evolves the way the smartphone did: better hardware improves the user experience over time, but the real revolution comes from what you can do with the device. There’s a lot of work left to do on that front, but Humane’s apparently ready to get started. Sam Altman fired as CEO of OpenAI Breaking: OpenAI board in discussions with Sam Altman to return as CEO Windows is now an app for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and PCs Screens are good, actually What happened to Sam Altman? Verge Deals / Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we've tested sent to your inbox daily. From our sponsor Advertiser Content From More from this stream Humane’s AI Pin: all the news about the new AI-powered wearable Some journalists got to see Humane’s AI Pin. Nov 10, 2023, 1:03 AM UTC Maybe building a whole product off of generative AI might be a bad idea. Nov 9, 2023, 11:23 PM UTC It sure seems like Humane investor Sam Altman doesn’t care much for the Humane AI Pin. Nov 9, 2023, 6:29 PM UTC Exclusive leak: all the details about Humane’s AI Pin, which costs $699 and has OpenAI integration Nov 8, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC Terms of Use Privacy Notice Cookie Policy Do Not Sell Or Share My Personal Info Licensing FAQ Accessibility Platform Status How We Rate and Review Products Contact Tip Us Community Guidelines About Ethics Statement The Verge is a vox media network Advertise with us Jobs @ Vox Media © 2023 Vox Media , LLC. All Rights Reserved "

"This startup plans to create realistic human embryos | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/04/1056633/startup-wants-copy-you-embryo-organ-harvesting"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts This startup wants to copy you into an embryo for organ harvesting With plans to create realistic synthetic embryos, grown in jars, Renewal Bio is on a journey to the horizon of science and ethics. By Antonio Regalado archive page Ms Tech In a search for novel forms of longevity medicine, a biotech company based in Israel says it intends to create embryo-stage versions of people in order to harvest tissues for use in transplant treatments. The company, Renewal Bio, is pursuing recent advances in stem-cell technology and artificial wombs demonstrated by Jacob Hanna, a biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Earlier this week, Hanna showed that starting with mouse stem cells, his lab could form highly realistic-looking mouse embryos and keep them growing in a mechanical womb for several days until they developed beating hearts, flowing blood, and cranial folds. It’s the first time such an advanced embryo has been mimicked without sperm, eggs, or even a uterus. Hanna’s report was published in the journal Cell on Monday. “This experiment has huge implications,” says Bernard Siegel, a patient advocate and founder of the World Stem Cell Summit. “One wonders what mammal could be next in line.” The answer is humans. Hanna tells MIT Technology Review he is already working to replicate the technology starting with human cells and hopes to eventually produce artificial models of human embryos that are the equivalent of a 40- to 50-day-old pregnancy. At that stage basic organs are formed, as well as tiny limbs and fingers. Related Story “We view the embryo as the best 3D bio printer,” says Hanna. “It’s the best entity to make organs and proper tissue.” Researchers can already print or grow simple tissues, like cartilage or bone, but making more complex cell types and organs has proved difficult. An embryo, however, starts building the body naturally. “The vision of the company is ‘Can we use these organized embryo entities that have early organs to get cells that can be used for transplantation?’ We view it as perhaps a universal starting point,” says Hanna. Embryonic blood cells might be collected, multiplied, and transferred to an elderly person in order to reboot the immune system. Another concept is to grow embryonic copies of women with age-related infertility. Researchers could then collect the model embryo’s gonads, which could be further matured, either in the lab or via transplant into the woman’s body, to produce youthful eggs. The startup, funded so far with seed capital from the venture firm NFX , has been briefing other investors, and its pitch materials state that its mission is “renewing humanity—making all of us young and healthy.” Now humans Renewal Bio’s precise technical plan remains under wraps, and the company’s website is just a calling card. “It’s very low on details for a reason. We don’t want to overpromise, and we don’t want to freak people out,” says Omri Amirav-Drory, a partner at NFX who is acting as CEO of the new company. “The imagery is sensitive here.” Some scientists say it will be difficult to grow human embryo models to an advanced stage and that it would be better to avoid the controversy raised by imitating real embryos too closely. “It’s absolutely not necessary, so why would you do it?” says Nicolas Rivron, a stem-cell scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna. He argues that scientists should only create “the minimal embryonic structure necessary” to yield cells of interest. For his part, Amirav-Drory says he hasn’t seen a technology with so much potential since CRISPR gene-editing technology first emerged. “The ability to create a synthetic embryo from cells—no egg, no sperm, no uterus—it’s really amazing,” he says. “We think it can be a massive, transformative platform technology that can be applied to both fertility and longevity.” Mechanical womb To create the succession of breakthroughs, Hanna’s lab has been combining advanced stem-cell science with new types of bioreactors. A year ago, the stem-cell specialist first showed off a “ mechanical womb ” in which he managed to grow natural mouse embryos outside of a female mouse for several days. The system involves spinning jars that keep the embryos bathed in nutritious blood serum and oxygen. In the new research published this week, Hanna used the same mechanical womb, but this time to grow look-alike embryos created from stem cells. Remarkably, when stem cells are grown together in specially shaped containers, they will spontaneously join and try to assemble an embryo , producing structures that are called embryoids, blastoids, or synthetic embryo models. Many researchers insist that despite appearances, these structures have limited relation to real embryos and zero potential to develop completely. By adding these synthetic mouse embryos to his mechanical womb, however, Hanna managed to grow them further than ever before, to the point where hearts started beating, blood began moving, and there was the start of a brain and a tail. “The embryos really look great,” says Hanna, whose report this week provoked awe among other scientists. “They are really, really similar to natural embryos.” Analyses show the synthetic versions are about 95% similar to normal mouse embryos, based on the mix of cell types inside each. Even so, techniques for growing synthetic embryos remain inefficient. Fewer than 1 in 100 attempts to mimic a mouse embryo was successful, and even the model embryos that developed for the longest time eventually suffered abnormalities, including heart problems, perhaps because they couldn’t grow any further without a proper blood supply. Mini-Me In a next set of experiments, Hanna is using his own blood or skin cells (and those of a few other volunteers) as the starting point for making synthetic human embryos. It means his lab could soon be swimming in hundreds or thousands of tiny mini-mes—all genetic clones of himself. Related Story Researchers are growing embryos outside the womb for longer than has ever been possible. Hanna is not troubled by the idea. Despite the startling fact that he’s able to mimic the beginnings of mammals in test tubes, he views these as entities without a future. They’re probably not viable, he says. Plus, right now there is no way to graduate from jar life to real life. Without a placenta and an umbilical cord connected to a mother, no synthetic embryo could survive if transplanted to a uterus. “We are not trying to make human beings. That is not what we are trying to do.” says Hanna. “To call a day-40 embryo a mini-me is just not true.” Still, as this technology progresses, there could be debate as to whether synthetic embryos have any rights—or if they can ethically be used as fodder for science and medicine. In the US, the National Institutes of Health has, in some cases, declined to fund studies on synthetic embryos that it believes would be too close to the real thing. Although Hanna doesn’t think an artificial embryo made from stem cells and kept in a lab will ever count as a human being, he has a contingency plan to make sure there is no confusion. It’s possible, for instance, to genetically engineer the starting cells so the resulting model embryo never develops a head. Restricting its potential could help avoid ethical dilemmas. “We think this is important and have invested a lot in this,” says Hanna. Genetic changes can be made that lead to “no lungs, no heart, or no brain.” The new startup, Renewal, has already hired some of Hanna’s students and licensed his technology from the Weizmann Institute. It’s going to begin spending money improving the incubators, developing sensors to track the embryoids as they develop, and coming up with ways to extend their survival time in the lab. Amirav-Drory says the company is at such an early stage that it is still learning what the technology could be used for—and which applications are the most promising. He and Hanna, who is Renewal’s scientific founder, have been approaching other scientists and doctors to learn what they would do, if they had access to large numbers of synthetic embryos developed for days, or even weeks. “We’ve been asking people, ‘Imagine if we can get to this or that milestone. What does it unlock?’ And people’s eyes light up,” he says. hide by Antonio Regalado Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Biotechnology and health Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Artificial wombs are nearing human trials. But the goal is to save the littlest preemies, not replace the uterus. By Cassandra Willyard archive page Some deaf children in China can hear after gene therapy treatment After deafness treatment, Yiyi can hear her mother and dance to the music. But why is it so noisy at night? By Antonio Regalado archive page Zeyi Yang archive page Scientists just drafted an incredibly detailed map of the human brain A massive suite of papers offers a high-res view of the human and non-human primate brain. By Cassandra Willyard archive page How AI can help us understand how cells work—and help cure diseases A virtual cell modeling system, powered by AI, will lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of diseases, argue the cofounders of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. By Priscilla Chan archive page Mark Zuckerberg archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"Israel’s “green pass” vaccine passport is an early vision of how we leave lockdown | MIT Technology Review"

"https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/03/01/1020154/israels-green-pass-is-an-early-vision-of-how-we-leave-lockdown"

"Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Featured Topics Newsletters Events Podcasts Israel’s “green pass” is an early vision of how we leave lockdown There are plans all over the world for apps and cards that would prove vaccination. But Israel’s experience suggests major caveats. By Cat Ferguson archive page Joshua Mitnick archive page Maya Alleruzzo/AP The commercial opens with a tempting vision and soaring instrumentals. A door swings wide to reveal a sunlit patio and a relaxed, smiling couple awaiting a meal. “How much have we missed going out with friends?” a voiceover asks. “With the green pass, doors simply open in front of you … We’re returning to life.” It’s an ad to promote Israel’s version of a vaccine passport , but it’s also catnip for anyone who’s been through a year in varying degrees of lockdown. Can we go back to normal life once we’ve been vaccinated? And if we can, what kind of proof should we need? Although there are still many unknowns about vaccines, and many practical issues surrounding implementation, those considering vaccine passport programs include airlines, music venues , Japan , the UK, and the European Union. Some proponents, including those on one side of a fierce debate in Thailand , have focused on ending quarantines for international travelers to stimulate the hard-hit tourism industry. Others imagine following Israel’s lead, creating a two-tiered system that allows vaccinated people to enjoy the benefits of a post-pandemic life while others wait for their shots. What is happening there gives us a glimpse of the promise—and of the difficulties such schemes face. How it works Israel’s vaccine passport was released on February 21, to help the country emerge from a month-long lockdown. Vaccinated people can download an app that displays their “green pass” when they are asked to show it. The app can also display proof that someone has recovered from covid-19. (Many proposed passport systems offer multiple ways to show you are not a danger, such as proof of a recent negative test. The Israeli government says that option will come to the app soon, which will be especially useful for children too young to receive an approved vaccine.) Officials hope the benefits of the green pass will encourage vaccination among Israelis who have been hesitant, many of whom are young. “People who get vaccinated need to know that something has changed for them, that they can ease up,” says Nadav Eyal, a prominent television journalist. “People want to know that they can have some normalcy back.” Related Story Despite the flashy ads, however, it’s still too early to tell how well Israel’s program will work in practice—or what that will mean for vaccine passports in general. Some ethicists argue that such programs may further entrench existing inequalities, and this is already happening with Israel’s pass, since few Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank have access to vaccines. The green pass is also a potential privacy nightmare, says Orr Dunkelman, a computer science professor at Haifa University and a board member of Privacy Israel. He says the pass reveals information that those checking credentials don’t need to know, such as the date a user recovered from covid or got a vaccine. The app also uses an outdated encryption library that is more vulnerable to security breaches, Orr says. Crucially, because the app is not open source, no third-party experts can vet whether these concerns are founded. “This is a catastrophe in the making,” says Ran Bar Zik, a software columnist for the newspaper Haaretz. Zik recommends another option currently available under the green pass program: downloading a paper vaccination certificate instead of using the app. Although that’s possible, the app is expected to become the most widespread verification method. Unnecessarily complicated In the US, developers are trying to address such privacy concerns ahead of any major rollout. Ramesh Raskar runs the PathCheck Foundation at MIT, which has partnered with the design consultancy Ideo on a low-tech solution. Their prototype uses a paper card, similar to the one people currently receive when they’re vaccinated. The paper card could offer multiple forms of verification, scannable in the form of QR codes, allowing you to show a concert gatekeeper only your vaccination status while displaying another, more information-heavy option to health-care providers. “Getting on a bus, or getting into a concert, you need to have a solution that is very easy to use and that provides a level of privacy protection,” he says. But other situations may require more information: an airline wants to know that you are who you say you are, for example, and hospitals need accurate medical records. It’s not just about making sure you don’t have to hand over personal information to get into a bar, though: privacy is also important for those who are undocumented or who mistrust the government, Raskar says. It’s important for companies not to create another “hackable repository” when they view your information, he adds. He suggests that right now commercial interests are getting in the way of creating something so simple—it wouldn’t make much money for software companies, which at least want to show off something that could be repurposed later in a more profitable form. Compared with Israel, he says, “we’re making things unnecessarily complicated in the US.” The way forward It’s unclear what the US—which, unlike Israel, doesn’t have a universal identity record or a cohesive medical records system—would need to do to implement a vaccine passport quickly. But whichever options eventually do make it into widespread use, there are also aspects of this idea that don’t get laid out in the ads. For example, proposals have been floated that would require teachers and medical staff to provide proof of vaccination or a negative test to gain admittance to their workplaces. That could be overly intrusive on individual privacy rights, says Amir Fuchs, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute. Still, he says, “most people understand that there is a logic in that people who are vaccinated will have less limitations.” Despite the progress in delivering vaccines, all these passport efforts are all still in the early stages. PathCheck’s idea hasn’t rolled out yet, although pilots are under discussion. In Denmark, vaccine passports are still more a promise than a plan. And even in Israel, the vision put forward by government advertising is still just an ambition: while pools and concert venues may be open to green pass holders, dining rooms and restaurants aren’t open yet—for anybody. This story is part of the Pandemic Technology Project , supported by the Rockefeller Foundation. hide by Cat Ferguson & Joshua Mitnick Share linkedinlink opens in a new window twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window emaillink opens in a new window Popular This new data poisoning tool lets artists fight back against generative AI Melissa Heikkilä Everything you need to know about artificial wombs Cassandra Willyard Deepfakes of Chinese influencers are livestreaming 24/7 Zeyi Yang How to fix the internet Katie Notopoulos Deep Dive Policy Three things to know about the White House’s executive order on AI Experts say its emphasis on content labeling, watermarking, and transparency represents important steps forward. By Tate Ryan-Mosley archive page Melissa Heikkilä archive page How generative AI is boosting the spread of disinformation and propaganda In a new report, Freedom House documents the ways governments are now using the tech to amplify censorship. By Tate Ryan-Mosley archive page Government technology is famously bad. It doesn’t have to be. New York City is fixing the relationship between government and technology–and not in the ways you’d expect. By Tate Ryan-Mosley archive page It’s shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel A new report exposes the privacy and national security concerns created by data brokers. US senators tell MIT Technology Review the industry needs to be regulated. By Tate Ryan-Mosley archive page Stay connected Illustration by Rose Wong Get the latest updates from MIT Technology Review Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more. Enter your email Thank you for submitting your email! It looks like something went wrong. We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive. The latest iteration of a legacy Advertise with MIT Technology Review © 2023 MIT Technology Review About About us Careers Custom content Advertise with us International Editions Republishing MIT News Help Help & FAQ My subscription Editorial guidelines Privacy policy Terms of Service Write for us Contact us twitterlink opens in a new window facebooklink opens in a new window instagramlink opens in a new window rsslink opens in a new window linkedinlink opens in a new window "

"The Georgia Runoff Election Doesn't Have a Paper Trail to Safeguard Against Hacks | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/georgia-runoff-election-hack-audit-vote"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Lily Hay Newman Security The Simple Fix That'd Help Protect Georgia From Election Hacks Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Early voting in the runoff for Georgia’s Sixth District congressional seat kicked off May 30; election day itself comes on June 20. The race has garnered national attention as one in which Democrats could pick up a long-held Republican seat. It has also generated scrutiny, though, for taking place in a state with some of the most lax protections against electoral fraud, at a time when Russia has meddled freely in campaigns in the US and abroad. But Georgia's voting issues aren't rooted in any specific hacking threat. The problem instead lies in the state's inability to prove if fraud or tampering happened in the first place. By not deploying a simple paper backup system, Georgia opens itself up to one of the most damaging electoral outcomes of all: uncertainty. “You have an un-provable system," says Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a group that promotes best practices at the polls. “It might be right, it might not be right, and that absence of authoritative confirmation is the biggest problem. It’s corrosive.” First, the good news. Unlike dozens of other states, Georgia officials maintain that Russian hackers did not compromise the state’s election infrastructure in any way during the 2016 presidential election. Georgia voting machines also don't connect to the internet, and the state says it tests them before, during, and after voting to confirm that they aren't running unapproved software, like viruses or other malicious programs. More Election Security Security Brian Barrett Security Andy Greenberg Cyber Espionage Andy Greenberg But researchers have demonstrated that hackers can compromise machines like those used in Georgia. The state has also suffered election security lapses, including a recent incident, detailed in Politico , in which a huge amount of sensitive election data sat exposed for many months in Georgia's unified election center at Kennesaw State University. These fresh developments feed longstanding concerns about the security of Georgia’s election infrastructure overall—and the need for paper backups so the system can be audited. “This has been an ongoing issue since 2002,” says Sara Henderson, policy director at Common Cause Georgia, a non-partisan group that advocates for government transparency. “Our machines haven’t been updated since 2005, they’re running on Windows 2000. It’s ridiculous. We need to ensure that we can verify and audit our election processes here in Georgia, which we can’t do right now.” Voting in the U.S. can be cumbersome enough as it is; you don’t hear a lot of nostalgia for the punch-card systems of yesteryear. Technologies like voter registry databases, touchscreen voting machines, and digital scanners can make voting protocols easy to use for voters, poll workers, and election officials alike. And it is possible to robustly secure this digital infrastructure. But when it comes to securing the vote experts have urged states around the US to go low-tech—at least in one respect. The best contingency in case something goes wrong (like, say, some-nation state meddles in the election)? Good ol’ paper backups that citizens verify when they cast their votes. By keeping paper copies on hand, election officials have the option to audit election results randomly or if they suspect a mishap, and recount as much of the vote as they need to without having to worry that a digital hack has impacted their backup. “If there is uncertainty after an election, either because of the possibility of tampering or just the possibility of error or malfunction, a paperless system like Georgia’s doesn’t have any way to go back to other evidence to figure out what really happened,” says Ed Felten, one of the security researchers who showed that the voting machine model used in Georgia can be hacked, and who served as deputy US chief technology officer from 2015 until this year. “That evidence is key to being able to resolve any kind of uncertainty or dispute that might arise.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Georgia joins just four other states—Delaware, Louisiana, South Carolina, and New Jersey—that only use digital voting throughout, though some individual counties elsewhere offer no paper trail as well. Georgia also declined Department of Homeland Security election defense consultation during the 2016 presidential race, citing concerns that DHS wanted to inappropriately federalize the election system. A few other states, like Indiana, followed suit. As a result, if an election hack does take place either in this runoff or in the future, Georgia officials will have nothing to fall back on that they can trust. You can trace Georgia's inability to audit back to 2000, when a dramatic recount in the US presidential election spurred many states to replace “punch card” voting systems with digital upgrades. The paper ballots had yielded too many "hanging chads" that made voter intention hard to suss out. In 2002, Georgia moved to standardize its election infrastructure across all counties by distributing AccuVote TS touch-screen voting machines. At the same time, the state abolished mechanisms for creating paper-vote backups. The direct-recording electronic voting machines that Georgia uses to this day do have an option to add a paper backup mechanism, but Georgia's 2005 paper pilot program ran into technical problems. It also didn't adequately protect the privacy of voters with disabilities. 'It’s not satisfactory after your airplane lands to say well, it didn’t crash this time.' — Security researcher Ed Felten So yes, adding a paper trail to Georgia’s election infrastructure would involve a full overhaul. But it could likely use one anyway, given that the current devices are approaching the end of their 20-year max lifespan. And the potential consequences of not adding a paper audit continue to escalate. “Every [election] we cross our fingers and hope that this is not the time that there’s an incident,” Felten says. “It’s really not satisfactory to say afterward that we didn’t have a problem this time, just in the same way that it’s not satisfactory after your airplane lands to say well, it didn’t crash this time.” In May, voting rights advocates filed an emergency motion to compel the use of paper ballots in the upcoming 6th District runoff. Superior Court Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams dismissed the case on Friday, though, concluding that to grant it would illegally interfere with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s authority over state elections. Since the motion named Kemp as the defendant in his role as Secretary of State, Adams also noted that he is protected by Georgia’s sovereign immunity laws. But advocates of voting-system reform say that the case has still had a positive impact. “Lawsuits close to elections are very challenging,” Verified Voting's Smith says. “But it certainly does draw attention to the issue, and you can get some testimony on the record.” Georgia officials maintain that overhauling election infrastructure would be cost-prohibitive, but advocates point out that the 2017-2018 state budget increased by 3.5 percent, with none of that money earmarked for maintaining or replacing election systems. That's not for lack of awareness of the issues. A 2015 Brennan Center for Justice investigation asked Merle King, the executive director of Georgia's Center for Election Systems, how many jurisdictions would want to purchase new voting machines if they could. "They all would," she said. And that was before the extent of Russia's electoral interference ambitions came to light. Whatever the reason for the delay, Georgia’s elections remain vulnerable to manipulation, simply because there would be no recourse if the vote were somehow tainted. The way to safeguard the vote is clear; it seemingly lacks the will to do so. Senior Writer X Topics election hacking elections hacks National Affairs Dell Cameron Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron David Gilbert Andy Greenberg Dhruv Mehrotra Matt Burgess Andy Greenberg Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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"Will Future Electric Vehicles Be Powered by Deep-Sea Metals? | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/will-future-electric-vehicles-be-powered-by-deep-sea-metals"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Eric Niiler Science Will Future Electric Vehicles Be Powered by Deep-Sea Metals? Greenpeace International activists aboard the Rainbow Warrior display banners reading “Stop Deep Sea Mining” in front of the Maersk Launcher, a ship chartered by DeepGreen, one of the companies spearheading the drive to mine the barely understood deep sea ecosystem. Photograph: Marten van Dijl/Greenpeace Save this story Save Save this story Save The push to build more electric vehicles to combat climate change rests on an inconvenient truth: The metals used in EV batteries are pretty dirty. From exploited child laborers digging cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo to toxic waste leaking from nickel mines in Indonesia, the sources of key ingredients to power climate-friendly transportation have been assailed by activists and led to lawsuits against the tech firms that use the metals. US and European carmakers have been looking for alternative sources of these materials that would allow them to bypass some of these troublesome practices, while avoiding having to buy batteries produced by global competitor China. They also want a piece of President Joe Biden’s new plan to spend $174 billion to promote electric cars and build new charging stations. Could materials mined from the deep sea be the answer? That’s what commercial mining firms and scientists are trying to determine this month during two separate expeditions to a remote part of the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ). A potential treasure chest of metals waiting to be plucked is at stake: This region of water is the size of the continental US, and its floor is littered with potato-sized metallic nodules, each containing high concentrations of cobalt, nickel, copper, and manganese, which are used in EV batteries. (Lithium, another key component, is primarily mined from Australia.) These materials would all be harvested as minerals, then refined into metals that could be used in batteries, usually by adding an oxide. Of course, the trick is getting the nodules off the bottom, which is 12,000 to 18,000 feet deep, without killing the creatures that live there or the fish that swim above. For the next few weeks, the two expeditions will be traversing the CCZ to test undersea mining technologies and how much damage they cause. A 295-foot supply ship called the Maersk Launcher is hosting Canada-based mining firm DeepGreen and a crew of independent scientists. Another expedition is operating in a separate section of the zone to test a bottom-crawling mechanical harvester called the Patania II operated by Global Sea Mineral Resource (GSR), a subsidiary of the Belgian dredging firm DEME Group. The harvester is designed to scoop up the precious minerals and is controlled from the surface vessel through a 3-mile-long tether that provides power and communication capabilities to it. The trial will test how well a smaller version of the robo-harvester can maneuver along the seafloor and pick up nodules. If successful, GSR will build a full-scale collector with a riser and lift system to bring the materials to the surface. A view of the Normand Energy retrieving the Patania II nodule collector visible (green), seen from the Rainbow Warrior. The vessel is chartered by Global Sea Mineral Resources (GSR), a Belgian company researching deep sea mining in the Pacific. Photograph: Marten van Dijl/Greenpeace Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Both expeditions will collect baseline environmental data on the kinds of marine organisms that live on the seafloor, the composition and chemistry of bottom sediments, and the flow of underwater currents at different depths. Knowing these control measurements will be important in determining whether such mining can be done without destroying the underwater habitat. “Our goal is to find out how much sediment the harvester will take off along with the nodules,” says Matthias Haeckel , a marine biochemist at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, who is coordinating the environmental review of GSR’s activities for a project called MiningImpact. “That has never been done before.” Plumes of sediment can harm bottom-dwelling creatures like sponges and corals that form the base of the food chain in the deep-sea ecosystem. If the grit remains suspended in the water, it can also affect fish and other marine life. Haeckel and his team have about 50 different types of sensors to measure the sediment in both the water and on the seafloor surface. This will provide the first quantitative scientific evidence on the environmental consequences of nodule extraction under real-world mining scenarios, according to Haeckel. “We know that the sediment plume doesn’t rise very high, just 5 or 10 meters,” he says. “Now it's basically to understand how far the particles settle. We want to measure how thick of a layer it is and how it thins out over distance, so we can determine its impact.” DeepGreen and GSR have received exploration licenses from the International Seabed Authority , a UN-affiliated agency that controls access to the area’s mineral riches. Neither will be permitted to start actual mining until the authority adopts new environmental rules and issues extraction licenses. The agency has granted 30 exploration contracts involving 22 different countries and affiliated mining companies for deep-sea minerals. Gerard Barron, the founder and CEO of DeepGreen, says he’s committed to operating in an environmentally responsible manner. Barron says ocean minerals are a better option than sourcing from China or from mines in politically troubled regions. “Everyone realizes that moving to electric vehicles is very metal-intensive, and the question is, where the hell are they going to come from?” says Barron. “We represent an opportunity for America to get some independence.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Barron says it takes 64 metric tons of rock to produce enough of the four minerals—a total of about 341 pounds—needed to make an EV battery and its wiring from a mine on land. But it takes only 6 tons of the polymetallic seafloor nodules to make the same amount, because the metals are more concentrated. The nodules formed over millions of years as naturally occuring minerals precipitated from both seawater and sediments and formed around cores that could have been microscopic bits of debris, rock, bone or even pieces of other nodules. They are more common in areas where there are low levels of dissolved oxygen, and under certain geological conditions, such as in the equatorial Pacific, which contains an estimated 21 billion tons of them. According to a company spokesperson, DeepGreen currently has about $570 million available to fund mining. The firm is considering sites in Texas, Quebec, and Norway for a processing plant to turn the nodules into usable materials for batteries, sites that are close to renewable energy sources as well as markets for the minerals. Barron says the processing of the seafloor nodules would be pretty simple. They are first dried in a rotary kiln, which is a type of electric furnace. “It’s the first step to separate the manganese from the nickel, cobalt, and copper,” he says. “They form a mat-like material for the battery grade material, whether it’s powders or metallic sulfates.” Of course, that processing is done on land. Operating a floating mining camp several days away from the nearest port has its own engineering uncertainties, such as bad weather that could shut down operations. And it raises several ecological questions. After the precious nodules are sucked from the harvester to the mining ship through a hose, leftover mud and sediments are released underwater. That could pose a risk to marine life, according to environmental groups. In addition, seafloor mining scars do not recover quickly. A 2019 study in the journal Nature found that seafloor tracks off the coast of Peru lasted 30 years, and that there were fewer species of plant and animal life in the disturbed areas. Another study published in 2016 found that one deep-sea octopus likes to lay its eggs on manganese nodules in that same region, a sign that mining could be a threat to those cephalopods. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg These studies indicate that not enough is known about the bottom habitat and whether it can recover from large-scale mining with mechanical harvesters, says Douglas McCauley, a professor of ocean science at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “Deep ocean ecosystems are the least resilient ecosystems on the planet,” McCauley says. “It’s a weird place, biologically speaking. The pace of life moves more slowly in the deep ocean than any other place. Species live a long time, and ecosystems take a long time to recover.” McCauley says the loss of habitat could destroy yet-unknown organisms that might provide new sources of biopharmaceuticals or disease-fighting compounds. “If you grind up the habitat, you are going to lose species—perhaps species we will never know,” he continues. Last month, carmakers BMW and Volvo pledged not to use EV batteries that use metals sourced from the ocean, citing the potential environmental concerns from deep-sea mining. DeepGreen’s Barron says the environmental monitoring tests will help guide development of harvesting technologies and will determine whether the effect is local or has a bigger footprint across the seafloor. He says DeepGreen will be testing its own harvesting device in 2022 with an eye to begin mining operations in 2024. All the data collected on both the DeepGreen and GSR monitoring expeditions will be published and reviewed by independent scientists. The European “ MiningImpact ” environmental monitoring project is funded by various European universities and academic labs, according to GEOMAR’s Haeckel. Scientists monitoring DeepGreen’s efforts are not paid either, and both research data sets will be shared publicly. GSR officials say they are devising ways to limit how far the sediment travels and will separate it from the nodules before they reach the surface. Commercial mining has to make both economic and environmental sense, says GSR’s head of sustainability, Samantha Smith. “If the science shows that deep-seabed mining has no advantages over the alternative, which is to rely solely on opening up new mines on land, then there won’t be any deep-sea mining industry, and we won't submit an application,” she says. Smith says that if all goes well, GSR won’t begin mining until 2028. It will take that long to do all the environmental tests as well as engineering trials. Technicians at GSR are considering varying the suction on the harvester to limit its effect on the seafloor, just as how turning down the power dial on a household vacuum cleaner changes how hard it sucks up dirt from different surfaces. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg For his part, UC Santa Barbara’s McCauley says that if the studies show that the mining can take place without significant habitat destruction, he would support it. “I want good data to answer these questions,” he says. “If it turns out that there is no harm and it’s an innocuous activity, I would have no problem with it.” Still, McCauley cautions that long-term effects of deep-sea mining might not be understood for several decades. “We don’t have those answers, and we won’t get them in the time horizon that the mining companies have for their operations,” he says. Update 4-14-2021 4:50 pm EST: This story was updated to correct information about how sediments collected by the underwater harvester would be released. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! The buzzy, chatty, out-of-control rise of Clubhouse In Brazil’s favelas, esports is an unlikely source of hope Physicists learn to superfreeze antimatter ( hint: pew pew! ) AI could enable “swarm warfare” for tomorrow's fighter jets Bed tricks, cod, and the hidden history of catfishing 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 📱 Torn between the latest phones? 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"The Mining Industry’s Next Frontier Is Deep, Deep Under the Sea | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/deep-sea-mining-electric-vehicle-battery"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Vince Beiser Backchannel The Mining Industry’s Next Frontier Is Deep, Deep Under the Sea Photograph: Andria Lo Save this story Save Save this story Save In October of last year, an enormous new creature appeared on the seabed of the Pacific Ocean, about 1,400 miles southwest of San Diego. It was a remote-controlled, 90-ton machine the size of a small house, lowered from an industrial ship on a cable nearly 3 miles long. Once it was settled on the ocean floor , the black, white, and Tonka-truck-yellow contraption began grinding its way forward, its lights lancing through the darkness, steel treads biting into the silt. A battery of water jets mounted on its front end blasted away at the seafloor, stirring up billowing clouds of muck and dislodging hundreds of fist-sized black rocks that lay half-buried in the sediment. The jets propelled the lumpy stones into an intake at the front of the vehicle, where they rattled into a steel pipe rising all the way back up to the ship. Air compressors pushed the rocks up in a column of seawater and sediment and into a shipboard centrifuge that spun away most of the water. Conveyor belts then carried the rocks to a metal ramp that dropped them with a clatter into the ship’s hold. From a windowless control room nearby, a team of engineers in blue and orange coveralls monitored the operation, their faces lit by the polychromatic glow from a hodgepodge of screens. This article appears in the April 2023 issue. Subscribe to WIRED. Photograph: Andria Lo The ship, called the Hidden Gem , was a former oil-drilling vessel nearly 800 feet long, retrofitted for sea mining by the Metals Company, an international firm officially headquartered in Canada. This was the first test of its system to collect the ancient black stones. They are officially known as polymetallic nodules, but the Metals Company’s CEO, Gerard Barron, likes to call them “batteries in a rock.” That’s because the stones happen to be packed with metals that are essential for manufacturing electric cars— a market that is surging worldwide. Barron’s company is at the front of a pack of more than a dozen enterprises slavering over the billions of dollars that could be reaped from those little subsea rocks. The world’s long-overdue, fitful transition to renewable energy is hobbled by an Achilles’ heel: It requires staggering quantities of natural resources. Manufacturing enough electric vehicles to replace their fossil-fueled counterparts will require billions of tons of cobalt , lithium , copper, and other metals. To meet the exploding demand , mining companies, carmakers, and governments are scouring the planet for potential mines or expanding existing ones, from the deserts of Chile to the rain forests of Indonesia. Meanwhile, what might be the richest source of all—the ocean floor—remains untapped. The US Geological Survey estimates that 21 billion tons of polymetallic nodules lie in a single region of the Pacific, containing more of some metals (such as nickel and cobalt) than can be found in all the world’s dryland deposits. “Here’s one of them,” Barron said when we met recently in the lobby of a chic Toronto hotel, as he casually pulled one of these geologic oddities out of his jacket pocket and handed it to me. Barron is a fit, muscular Australian in his mid-fifties, with swept-back dark hair, a nautical beard, and craggy Kurt Russell-esque looks. His jeans, black boots, and wristloads of leather bracelets lend him a roguish air. He has just flown in from London for a big mining conference. For years, he’s been traveling the world to talk up deep-sea mining to investors and government officials. He and other would-be sea miners argue that collecting nodules from the deep will be not only cheaper than traditional mining but also gentler on the planet. No rain forests uprooted, no Indigenous peoples displaced, no toxic tailings poisoning rivers. Barron may finally be on the brink of achieving his goal of mega-scale mining on the ocean floor. The Metals Company has tens of millions of dollars in the bank and partnerships with major maritime companies. The Hidden Gem ’s foray last October marked the first time since the 1970s that any company had successfully trialed a complete system for harvesting nodules. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The main thing holding the company back is international law, which currently forbids deep-ocean mining. That may be about to change, however. Last year, the Metals Company teamed up with the tiny South Pacific island nation of Nauru to trigger an obscure process that could let them bypass the international prohibition and get a license to start full-scale operations as early as July 2024. That prospect has sparked an outraged backlash. Environmental groups, scientists, and even some corporations in the market for battery metals fear the potential havoc of seabed mining. The oceans provide much of the world’s biodiversity, a significant chunk of humanity’s food, and the planet’s biggest carbon sink. No one knows how such an unprecedented incursion would affect the many life-forms that live in the abyssal depths, the marine life farther up the water column, or the ocean itself. The European Parliament and countries including Germany, Chile, Spain, and several Pacific island nations have joined dozens of organizations in calling for at least a temporary moratorium on deep-sea mining. Several banks have declared they won’t loan to ocean-mining ventures. Corporations including BMW, Microsoft, Google, Volvo, and Volkswagen have pledged not to buy deep-sea metals until the environmental impacts are better understood. Even Aquaman is opposed: Jason Momoa narrated a recently released documentary denouncing sea mining. “This has the potential to transform the oceans, and not for the better,” says Diva Amon, a marine scientist who has worked extensively in the main area of the Pacific targeted for mining, including as a contractor for one of the sea-mining companies. “We could stand to lose parts of the planet and species that live there before we know, understand, and value them.” None of that deters Barron. “The biggest challenge to our planet is climate change and biodiversity loss. We don’t have a spare decade to sit around,” he declares. By the end of the Hidden Gem ’s trial last October, the vehicle had delivered more than 3,000 tons of the stones, mounded up in a glistening black pyramid nearly four stories high. “This,” Barron promised the press, “is just the beginning.” The Metals Company uses a former oil-drilling vessel, the Hidden Gem , to collect polymetallic nodules from the seafloor. Courtesy of Richard Baron/TMC Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The nodules have been growing, in utter blackness and near-total silence, for millions of years. Each one started as a fragment of something else —a tiny fossil, a scrap of basalt, a shark’s tooth—that drifted down to the plain at the very bottom of the ocean. In the lugubrious unfolding of geologic time, specks of waterborne nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese slowly accreted onto them. By now, trillions lie half-buried in the sediment carpeting the ocean floor. One March day in 1873, some of these subaqueous artifacts were dragged for the first time into sunlight. Sailors aboard the HMS Challenger , a former British warship retrofitted into a floating research lab, dredged a net along the sea bottom, hauled it up, and dumped the dripping sediment onto the wooden deck. As the expedition’s scientists, in long trousers and shirtsleeves, eagerly sifted through the mud and muck, they noted the many “peculiar black oval bodies” that they soon determined were concretions of valuable minerals. A fascinating discovery, but it would be almost a century before the world began to dream of exploiting these stones. In 1965, an American geologist published an influential book called The Mineral Resources of the Sea, which generously estimated that the nodules contained enough manganese, cobalt , nickel, and other metals to feed the world’s industrial needs for thousands of years. Mining the nodules, he speculated, “could serve to remove one of the historic causes of war between nations, supplies of raw materials for expanding populations. Of course it might produce the opposite effect also, that of fomenting inane squabbles over who owns which areas of the ocean floor.” In an era when population growth and an embryonic environmental movement were fueling concerns about natural resources, seabed mining suddenly got hot. Throughout the 1970s, governments and private companies rushed to develop ships and rigs to pull up nodules. There was so much hype that in 1972, it seemed completely plausible when billionaire Howard Hughes announced that he was dispatching a custom-built ship into the Pacific to search for nodules. (In fact, the CIA had recruited Hughes to provide cover for the ship’s Bond-esque mission: to covertly retrieve a sunken Soviet submarine.) But none of the actual sea miners managed to come up with a system that could do the job at a price that made sense, and the fizz went out of the nascent industry. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg By the turn of the 21st century, advancing marine technology made sea mining seem plausible again. With GPS and sophisticated motors, ships could float above precisely chosen points on the seafloor. Remotely operated underwater vehicles grew more capable and dove deeper. The nodules now seemed to be within reach, just at the moment when booming economies such as China’s were ravenous for metals. Barron saw the potential bonanza decades ago. He grew up on a dairy farm, the youngest of five kids. (He now has five of his own.) “I knew I didn’t want to be a dairy farmer, but I loved dairy farm life,” he says. “I loved driving tractors and harvesters.” He left home to go to a regional university and started his first company, a loan-refinancing operation, while still a student. After graduating, he moved to Brisbane “to discover the big, wide world.” Over the years, he has been involved in magazine publishing, ad software, and conventional car battery operations in China. Corals, sponges, and nematodes live on the rocks or shelter beneath them. Other critters float around them, including anemones with 8-foot tentacles. In 2001, a tennis buddy of Barron’s—a geologist, former prospector, and early web-hosting entrepreneur named David Heydon—pitched him on a company he was spinning up, a sea-mining outfit called Nautilus Minerals. Barron was fascinated to learn that the oceans were filled with metals. He put some of his own money into the venture and rounded up other investors. Nautilus wasn’t going after polymetallic nodules, but rather what seemed like an easier target: underwater formations called seafloor massive sulfides, which are rich in copper and other metals. The company struck a deal with the government of Papua New Guinea to mine sulfides off the country’s coast. (Under international law, countries can do basically whatever they want within their Economic Exclusion Zones, which extend up to 200 miles from their coastlines.) It sounded good enough to attract half a billion dollars from investors, including Papua New Guinea itself. But in 2019, after spending some $460 million, Nautilus went bust. Neither Barron nor Heydon lost any of their own money: Both had sold their shares about a decade earlier, with Barron clearing about $30 million in profit. Papua New Guinea, where more than half the population lives in poverty, was out $120 million. “It wasn’t my business,” Barron tells me. “I was just supporting David, really.” Heydon, meanwhile, was building a company called DeepGreen—rebranded in 2021 as the Metals Company— this time pursuing polymetallic nodules. By then, the growing demand for electric vehicles had added both a new potential market and an extra environmental justification for the project. Barron came on as CEO, and several other Nautilus alums joined up, including Heydon’s son Robert. Along with other would-be miners, they started knocking on the door of the International Seabed Authority. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Based in Kingston, Jamaica, the ISA has the contradictory tasks of protecting the ocean floor while organizing its commercial exploitation. Back in the 1980s, most of the world’s nations—notably excluding the United States—signed a kind of constitution for the oceans, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Among many other things, the document established the International Seabed Authority to represent what are now its 167 member nations. The organization was charged with devising rules to govern the then-nonexistent deep-sea-mining industry. The testudinal pace of subsea geology is rivaled only by that of international bureaucracy, and the ISA has been working to develop those rules ever since. Until regulations are agreed upon, full-scale mining is prohibited. But in the meantime, the agency can grant miners the rights to explore specific areas and reserve them for commercial exploitation. The ISA also declared that private companies must partner with a member country. Even the tiniest member country will do. By now, the Seabed Authority has granted permits to 22 companies and governments to explore enormous swaths of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean seabeds. Most are targeting nodules lying roughly 3 miles underwater in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, an expanse of the Pacific between Mexico and Hawaii measuring 1.7 million square miles. Holding the rights to three of the choicest parcels is Gerard Barron and the Metals Company. The company’s chief financial officer recently told investors that those expanses could yield metals worth $31 billion. Here’s what makes all of this urgent. The mining ban has a loophole: the two-year trigger. A section of the treaty known as Paragraph 15 states that if any member country formally notifies the Seabed Authority that it wants to start sea mining in international waters, the organization will have two years to adopt full regulations. If it fails to do so, the treaty says the ISA “shall none the less consider and provisionally approve such plan of work.” This text is commonly interpreted to mean mining must be allowed to go ahead, even in the absence of full regulations. “Paragraph 15 was appallingly drafted,” says Duncan Currie, a lawyer for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an international umbrella organization of dozens of groups. “Several countries dispute the idea that it means they need to automatically approve a plan of work.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In the summer of 2021, the president of Nauru formally notified the Seabed Authority that the country, along with the Metals Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, Nauru Ocean Resources, planned to begin sea mining. The two-year trigger has been pulled. The Metals Company’s audacious gambit may have opened the door to deep-sea mining for the first time. “As an environmentalist,” Barron says, he finds the opposition to his plans frustrating. “‘Save the oceans’ is a really easy slogan to get behind. I’m behind it!” he says. “I want to save the oceans, but I also want to save the planet.” It might be true that getting metals from the seafloor is less damaging than getting them from land. But so far, few outside the industry are convinced. Very little is truly known about the deep ocean. Gathering data hundreds of miles from land and miles below the water’s surface is extraordinarily difficult. A single day’s work can cost up to $80,000, and sophisticated tools such as remotely operated vehicles have only recently become available to many scientists. In 2022, 31 marine researchers published a paper that reviewed hundreds of studies on deep-sea mining. The authors also interviewed 20 scientists, industry members, and policy-makers; almost all said the scientific community needed at least five more years “to make evidence-based recommendations” for regulating the industry. Every phase of the mining process entails serious risks for the world’s oceans, which are already severely stressed by pollution, overfishing, and climate change. Start at the bottom. A massive piece of machinery-tank-treading over the pristine ocean floor, prying loose thousands of nodules from the beds where they have lain for millennia, is inevitably going to cause some damage. Corals, sponges, nematodes, and dozens of other organisms live on the nodules themselves or shelter beneath them. Other critters float around them, including anemones with 8-foot tentacles, rippling squidworms, glass sponges, and ghostly white Dumbo octopuses. “It’s like Dr. Seuss down there,” says Amon, the marine scientist. The nodules, Amon believes, are a critical part of the ecosystem that supports all those creatures. And since they formed over millions of years, any harm that results from removing them “is in effect irreversible.” Some scientists are also concerned that the huge amounts of carbon embedded on the ocean floor could be released, potentially interfering with the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Silt and clay stirred up by the collector vehicles will also rise up into the water, creating plumes of sediment that could cloud the water for miles, linger for weeks or more, and suffocate creatures farther up the water column. Those plumes might also contain dissolved metals or other toxic substances that could harm aquatic life. The nodule-collecting machine gets lowered to the ocean floor on a cable that’s nearly 3 miles long. Courtesy of Richard Baron/TMC Onboard the ship, engineers in a control room monitor the mining robot's progress. Courtesy of Richard Baron/TMC Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Moving upward, the noise and light emitted by the harvester vehicles and riser systems could affect any number of creatures that have evolved to live in silence and darkness. A recent study found that the racket from just one seabed mining operation could echo for hundreds of miles through the water, potentially interfering with aquatic organisms’ ability to navigate and find food and mates. Once the nodules have been carried up to a ship, the silt-infused water that accompanied them will have to be dumped back into the sea, creating another potentially dangerous sediment plume. “We are talking about massive volumes. Fifty thousand cubic meters a day,” says Jeff Drazen, an ocean scientist at the University of Hawaii who has also worked extensively in the Clarion Clipperton Zone, including on a research mission funded by the Metals Company. “That’s like a freight train of muddy seawater every day.” A 2022 report from the United Nations Environment Programme sums up the grim picture. Bottom line, according to the authors: “Current scientific consensus suggests that deep-sea mining will be highly damaging to ocean ecosystems.” More than 700 marine science and policy experts have signed a petition calling for a “pause” on sea mining until more research has been conducted. Barron insists that his company is committed to getting the science right and points out that it has funded 18 research expeditions (to fulfill the requirements of the Seabed Authority). “Last year I spent $50 million on ocean science,” he tells me. “I don’t see anyone else doing that.” By now, he argues, we know enough. “The lack of full scientific knowledge should not be used as an excuse not to proceed when the known impacts of the alternative—land-based mining—are there for us all to see,” he says. It is a “certainty,” he says, that sea mining will be less destructive. Whoever authored the Metals Company’s own registration filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission wasn’t so categorical. That document notes that nodule collection in the Clarion Clipperton Zone is “certain to disturb wildlife” and “may impact ecosystem function” to an unpredictable extent. The filing adds that it may “not be possible to definitively say” whether nodule collection will do more or less harm to global biodiversity than land-based mining. When the vehicle was just 50 feet from the surface, the umbilical snapped. The 35-ton machine went spiraling down to the bottom of the Pacific. The Metals Company’s critics say the company basically isn’t interested in what the science shows. One environmental scientist quit a contract job with the company, complaining in a since-deleted LinkedIn post in 2020 that “the company has minimal respect for science, marine conservation, or society in general … Don’t let them fool you. Money is the game. It’s business in their eyes, not people or the planet.” (Barron says this person is just a disgruntled ex-employee and that his charges aren’t true. My efforts to contact the scientist were unsuccessful.) The metals company is the only deep-sea mining outfit that is not backed by a major corporation or national government. It’s a startup, wholly dependent at this point on fickle investor capital. That could certainly help explain why Barron seems to be in a hurry to start mining. When I ask him why the company triggered the two-year rule, he interrupts to clarify: “Well, Nauru did. We didn’t. Nauru did.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg You’d have a hard time finding a more extreme example of despoliation of a tropical paradise, of a fall from Eden, than Nauru. When the first European ship came across this 8-square-mile island in the South Pacific, in 1798, the captain was so charmed by the locals’ friendly welcome, the fair weather, and the lovely beaches that he dubbed it Pleasant Island. But once an Australian geologist discovered that the spot was loaded with high-grade phosphate, much in demand as fertilizer, the outside world rushed in. Over the course of the 20th century, the nation of 12,000 people was strip-mined to the brink of oblivion. Its once-lush interior was reduced to what The Guardian described as a “moonscape of jagged limestone pinnacles unfit for agriculture or even building.” As the phosphate began running low in the 1990s, Nauru tried to set itself up as a no-questions-asked offshore banking haven, but so much ill-gotten cash poured in that Nauru was forced to tighten its regulations. The island’s next moneymaker was to rent some of its territory to Australia to use as an immigrant detention center. Detainees there have rioted, staged hunger strikes, and sewn their lips shut. Given all that, it’s easy to see the economic appeal of teaming up with the Metals Company—especially since the mining zone is nowhere near Nauru. “Our people, land, and resources were exploited to fuel the industrial revolution elsewhere, and we are now expected to bear the brunt of the destructive consequences of that industrial revolution,” including sea-level rise, wrote Margo Deiye, Nauru’s representative to the UN, in a December newspaper op-ed explaining why her country is supporting sea mining. “We’re not sitting back, waiting for the rich world to fix what they created.” Barron, who has never set foot on the island, insists that the relationship is a respectful partnership, not a modern version of colonial exploitation. “It’s horrible what happened to Nauru,” he says. “They were absolutely fucked over by the Germans, the English, the Australians, and the Kiwis.” The Metals Company says it has doled out more than $200,000 to support community programs of various sorts in Nauru, Kiribati, and Tonga, the two other island nations with which it has business arrangements. “The real contribution,” he adds, “will be when we start paying royalties”—the partner nations’ yet-to-be-decided percentage of mining revenues. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The Metals Company’s own finances, however, are a bit shaky. Barron took the company public in September 2021, a few months after the two-year rule was triggered, claiming it had commitments of $300 million from investors. Its stock topped $12 per share a few days after it hit the market. But two key investors never delivered, leaving Barron and his team with only a third of their expected capital. The stock price plummeted and has remained stuck at around $1 for months. The company is suing the faithless investors and is being sued itself by other investors who claim they were misled. Meanwhile, it has burned through $300 million. A substantial chunk of that cash wound up in Barron’s pocket. He is paid nearly a million dollars each year in salary and bonuses. His partner, Erika Ilves, a former executive at a company aiming to mine water on the moon whom Barron brought on as chief strategy officer, is also paid handsomely. The pair were given stock options valued at nearly $19 million in 2021 alone. Bloomberg reporters and some environmental organizations have suggested that the company holds unfair leverage over its partner nations, and critics have drawn attention to the seemingly cozy ties between the Metals Company and the International Seabed Authority—in particular its secretary general, Michael Lodge. A recent New York Times investigation alleged that the ISA gave the company’s executives access to data indicating where the most valuable seabed tracts were located, then helped it secure the rights to those areas. Both the agency and the company say that all their dealings have been legal and appropriate. (Lodge also made his stance on environmentalists pretty clear, telling the Times : “Everybody in Brooklyn can say, ‘I don’t want to harm the ocean.’ But they sure want their Teslas.”) Between Barron’s outspokenness and his company’s legal and financial pyrotechnics, the Metals Company has drawn most of the media coverage around sea mining. “TMC is very bold, but the other companies are piggybacking on them,” says Jessica Battle, who heads the World Wildlife Fund’s campaign against sea mining. “Once one mining license is given, others will follow.” There’s an eager lineup. Belgian maritime giant Deme, high-tech hardware colossus Lockheed Martin, ship-builder Keppel Offshore & Marine, and the governments of South Korea, India, Japan, Russia, and China have launched dozens of research expeditions in recent years. China has two outfits licensed to explore for polymetallic nodules in the Pacific. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Deme’s sea-mining subsidiary, Global Sea Mineral Resources, may be best positioned to take the lead if the Metals Company stumbles. “They’ve got the backing of a multibillion-dollar company and access to European resources for design,” says Currie, the environmental lawyer. “They can wait 10 or 15 years and it wouldn’t be the end of the world for them. Whereas with the Metals Company, look at their stock price. If their license isn’t approved, it’s hard to see how they survive.” Global Sea Mineral Resources has also been running extensive tests in the Pacific—and learning its own lessons in how badly things can go wrong. a frantic knocking on the metal door of his cabin jolted Kris De Bruyne awake. It was early in the morning of April 25, 2021, and De Bruyne, a Belgian engineer with Global Sea Mineral Resources, was aboard an industrial ship far out in the Pacific. De Bruyne was helming a team of researchers testing the Patania II, a bright green prototype nodule collector similar to the one deployed by the Metals Company. Now one of his team was shouting through the door: “Something really bad happened. The umbilical disconnected!” It was, indeed, really bad. The umbilical is a Kevlar-jacketed cable stuffed with fiber-optic and copper wires. Nearly 3 miles long and as thick as a person’s arm, it was the only thing tethering the Patania to the ship. “Is it going down?” De Bruyne called back. “Yes!” De Bruyne scrambled into his red coveralls and ran up on deck. The crew had been hauling up the vehicle after a test drive. When it was just 50 feet from the surface, the umbilical snapped. The 35-ton vehicle went spiraling back down to the bottom of the Pacific. De Bruyne stared helplessly over the side. Luckily, the Patania landed with its locator system intact, sending acoustic pings up to the ship. It took a couple of days, but crew members eventually maneuvered down a small submersible robot equipped with three-fingered Doctor Octopus tentacles to reattach the repaired umbilical. “It was relatively easy. Well, I say it was very easy, but it was also like ‘AAAAHHH!’ and ‘NOOOO!’” De Bruyne recounted when I met him at Deme’s headquarters near Antwerp, Belgium. “It was an emotional roller coaster.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg When they hauled the Patania up, they found it almost completely undamaged. To De Bruyne, the snapped cable was just one of the “teething problems” that typically come with launching such a complex piece of equipment. Earlier in the expedition, he’d also had to contend with Greenpeace activists who had painted “RISK!” on his ship in huge yellow letters. De Bruyne is fit, clean-shaven, and small in stature, with a fanboy’s enthusiasm for his job. He’s acutely conscious of the criticism directed at his industry, and he seems to take it personally. De Bruyne’s parents were traveling veterinarians, and they raised him and his brother in Rwanda and Vietnam. “I grew up in nature. I’m not the nature destroyer they want me to be,” he says. “The nongovernmental organizations and the environmentalists, they forget that we also have our stories and that we want to do something good for the world as well.” The Patania mission, he points out, was accompanied by a separate boatload of independent marine scientists who monitored the machine’s impact on the ocean (as was the Metals Company’s foray). Still, the more we talked, the more qualms he confesses. “Once in a while, I’ll ask myself, am I still doing the right thing?” he says. “I still think we’re doing the right thing, because we’re still doing research.” He says he’s not even convinced deep-sea mining should go ahead. “We need to know what the impact would be of deep-sea mining, and I’m contributing to getting answers to that question. That’s how I feel about it.” Global Sea Mineral Resources has already sunk at least $100 million into developing its subsea mining system, and it recently announced a partnership with Transocean, a major offshore oil-drilling outfit. The sea-mining company is now designing the much larger Patania III—the first of what the company hopes will be a fleet of full-scale mining robots that will hit the ocean floor around 2028. The five years between now and then might be enough to develop the scientific understanding needed to craft regulations to safely mine the seafloor—or to determine whether it should be done at all. Or it might be time for alternatives, such as reducing private car ownership or recycling metals, to gain enough traction to make seabed mining superfluous. But frankly, none of these possibilities seem likely. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Gerard Barron is not planning to wait. “Got the boat, got the machine, announced the partnerships on how we’re going to process the nodules,” he says confidently. Assuming the Metals Company gets the go-ahead from the Seabed Authority, he says, everything is on track to start harvesting nodules by late 2024. The company’s goal for its first year is 1.3 million tons, scaling up to 10 times that amount in the next decade. The two-year deadline expires this summer. After Nauru put the Seabed Authority on notice, the agency hurriedly convened several meetings, but results have been scant. The pressure seems to be generating something of a backlash. At the authority’s most recent meetings last November, several member states called for a “precautionary pause” on seabed mining, echoing the moratorium petition. According to Bloomberg, France’s representative declared that his country did not consider itself obligated to approve mining until it was satisfied with the regulations, and several other countries indicated they felt similarly. The UK, India, and Japan, however, want to try to hit the 2023 deadline. Some activists are even calling for the Seabed Authority to be overhauled or replaced. “The general feeling is, there’s a lot of work to do and a lot of complex issues to be addressed. So when some country says, ‘Just gimme a contract, I’m gonna get on with it,’ it rankles enormously,” says Currie, who attended the most recent round of Seabed Authority meetings. There’s a widespread feeling that it is too soon to be giving out permission to start mining, he says, but it’s not clear how the organization might stop that from happening. “No one,” says Currie, “is sure how this will play out.” Update 4-12-2023 2:45 PM ET: This story was updated to clarify Barron's compensation. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. This article appears in the April 2023 issue. Subscribe now. Let us know what you think. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. 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"2021 Was the Year Space Tourism Opened Up. But for Whom? | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/2021-was-the-year-space-tourism-opened-up-but-for-whom"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Ramin Skibba Science 2021 Was the Year Space Tourism Opened Up. But for Whom? Illustration: Jenny Sharaf; Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save In the early years of this century, executives at Virgin Galactic, founded by the irreverent Richard Branson, predicted that commercial flights to space for paying passengers were only a couple of years away. That turned out to be far too ambitious. Disaster struck the company twice in the next decade: In 2007 an explosion during pre-launch tests of SpaceShipTwo’s rocket systems killed three people. Then in 2014, a pilot was killed during a test flight when the space plane crashed in the Mojave desert. Now, in 2021, everything looks different. On July 11, Branson and three crew members traveled to Spaceport America, Virgin Galactic’s human spaceflight headquarters in southern New Mexico, and clambered aboard VSS Unity , a much upgraded version of SpaceShipTwo. They blasted toward the edge of space , at an altitude of 54 miles above the Earth, allowing the passengers a panoramic view of the world as they excitedly floated in zero gravity for about four minutes of their hour-long journey. Nine days later, Blue Origin’s founder, Jeff Bezos, and three others made a similar voyage aboard their New Shepard space vehicle, this time reaching an altitude of 63 miles, also staying aloft and weightless for a few minutes. And then in September, Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the all-civilian Inspiration4 mission aboard a Crew Dragon spacecraft. They reached an orbit just above the International Space Station’s, flying for about three days before their capsule safely splashed down off the coast of Florida. After decades of research, development, trial, error, and hype, the dream of commercial spaceflight had finally gotten off the ground. While private passengers have previously hitched rides on NASA shuttles and Russian Soyuz spacecraft, the three billionaire titans of the industry have made it possible to book a trip to space and back on a private spacecraft. With plenty more flights from these companies (and others) on the horizon, space tourism has surely arrived. In fact, the industry is now launching so many people into space that in January the FAA will end its Commercial Space Astronaut Wings program, which was originally designed to promote the industry. (The agency will continue to recognize space travelers on its website.) “I honestly think that we are at the dawn of an incredible inflection point in history for human spaceflight. I truly believe that seeing Earth from space is transformative and will ultimately help humanity and the Earth in unknown ways,” says Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor, who previously worked for NASA and who flew with Branson in July. “Until this year, it’s predominantly been government-focused—NASA propelling astronauts to the space station. That's an achievement, but also a turning point where we’re noticing the effects of the democratization of space. You don’t need to be an astronaut to go to space,” says Danielle Bernstein, co-lead of the Aerospace Corporation’s Space Safety Institute. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But this access currently depends on the whims and largesse of a handful of billionaires. Despite some lofty rhetoric, the leaders of the industry still struggle to make the case that their rockets have more to offer than expensive trips for the rich and famous. “There’s a surface attempt to make them appear as commercial science vessels, but they’re much more like yachts or cruises,” says University of Chicago space historian Jordan Bimm. Others question the purpose of space tourism too. “These are technological achievements, there’s no doubt about that,” says Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist and space ethics researcher at York University in Toronto. But, she suggests, “their most significant achievement is the domination of the airwaves and television coverage.” So far, tickets to the edge of space go for six figures—$200,000 or more—while booking an orbital expedition costs up to eight figures. A $200,000 price tag for a brief spaceflight tops the annual income of about 90 percent of Americans. It’s hard not to take note of that, especially at a time of climate crisis , a pandemic, and growing awareness of inequality. Each seat aboard a suborbital flight is like launching a home while there are more than half a million unhoused Americans, or like launching a family’s lifetime health care costs while tens of millions lack health care, or like launching college tuition when a majority of Americans don’t have access to higher education. “Every time somebody flies for $250,000, while in that same country children aren’t eating and people are lined up along the borders, I have a hard time getting my head around it, to be honest,” Denning says. But if the 20th-century aviation industry is any guide, while these flights will begin as luxuries, prices will drop, and access to space will broaden beyond ultra-rich people as the market opens up and technologies and infrastructure improve. “If you rewind to 100 years ago, it wasn’t your everyday person taking advantage of airlines that were just beginning to figure out how to fly routes around the world. But nowadays, for a very reasonable sum, anybody can hop on a plane, and they don’t think twice about it. It’s very safe. That’s probably the vision for space,” Bernstein says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg This also isn’t the first time that a handful of wealthy individuals have played an outsize role in US space activities. “It was actually billionaires like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller who funded the largest astronomical telescopes in the country in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was the Guggenheim family that was the primary source of funding for Robert Goddard, who was the first rocketry pioneer in the US,” says Alex MacDonald, chief economist at NASA. And on the other hand, MacDonald points out, NASA has supported and invested in the burgeoning private space industry for decades, signing a variety of contracts for equipment and services, including with the once-fledgling SpaceX, which turns 20 next spring. NASA’s currently investing in Blue Origin and two other companies to develop designs for a commercial space station to follow the ISS. It’s part of a long-term plan to support the private sector in low Earth orbit, while reducing costs and freeing up more of the agency’s budget for long-distance exploration. While the first six decades of spaceflight belonged to highly trained astronauts, now passengers can fly just for the spectacular view, or for fun, or for the challenge. And while the cost of a ticket is high, these early private flights did make room for a handful of people who would have never had the opportunity before. The commander of SpaceX’s Inspiration4 was Jared Isaacman, the billionaire CEO of the payment processing company Shift4Payments, and he funded the tickets that went to the three other travelers. Artist and scientist Sian Proctor won hers in a contest, Chris Sembroski got his ticket from a friend who won a lottery-like competition, and Hayley Arceneaux was offered her spot as an ambassador for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, an organization for which the mission raised $200 million—a charitable purpose that could become a model for some other private flights. Virgin Galactic announced on November 24 that Keisha Schahaff, a health and energy coach in Antigua, won two seats in a sweepstakes that raised $1.7 million for Space for Humanity, a Denver-based nonprofit that works to expand access to space with its Citizen Astronaut Program. Passengers on other flights seem to have been chosen for their qualities as “goodwill ambassadors” for space travel. That includes pilot Wally Funk , who was one of the all-female Mercury 13 astronaut trainees in the 1960s, but wasn’t selected for a mission because of the sexism of her era, and William Shatner, aka Star Trek ’s Captain Kirk. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg What people think of as an astronaut (or as a “spaceflight participant,” to use the FAA’s term ) has always been evolving. Early space exploration involved the military, in the context of the space race and the Cold War, and the first astronauts were mostly test pilots with “the right stuff.” After the successful Apollo program and moon landing, a greater emphasis on science led to sending more scientists. “As we go through those stages, it’s not an erasure of the previous one, but a layering on over them,” Bimm says. “Look at the Inspiration4 crew: While they’re civilians, they tried hard to look both like militarized astronauts, appearing in jets and flight suits , and as scientists, with performative science as part of their mission.” The crew collected their own biomedical data during their flight , but Bimm says it’s not clear how much that data will aid research on effects of low gravity on astronaut health, for example. One of the most-touted benefits of sending people to space has always been that it’s awe-inspiring to do, generating feelings of optimism, wonder, and international cooperation. The sight of our little planet seen from far away moves many space fliers, as well, in what’s often called the “overview effect.” It’s a rare opportunity to witness how unique the Earth is, to see it without borders and in all of its vulnerability. Virgin Galactic’s Beth Moses calls it an “indescribable and magical experience.” And Shatner, who flew on Blue Origin’s second passenger flight in October, afterward called it a “ profound ” one that he hopes he’ll never recover from. But some people question whether spaceflight is necessary to learn this existential and cosmological lesson. “I’m sure it’s beautiful to behold,” Denning says. But, she asks, “do you actually have to go to space to have an experience like that? And the answer for many thousands of years has been no. You can have a spiritual oneness with the Earth and a rise in enviro-consciousness without that.” Similarly, Bimm doubts that space tourism inevitably spurs people to make the world a better place. “I worry that the very wealthy are going to start going to space, claiming they had the overview effect, and come back to Earth and use that claim of a ‘transformative experience’ to do pretty much anything they want,” he says. Bezos’ dubious project to move heavy industry into space, which he touted after his jaunt in July, is a prime example, Bimm says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg He also isn’t sold on the value of taking along passengers with compelling stories, like Shatner, Funk, Proctor, and Arceneaux, who is a cancer survivor and has a prosthetic body part. It almost serves as a deflection technique, Bimm says, since it distracts attention from the wealthy, lower-profile paying customers, as well as from Bezos’ and Musk’s problems on Earth, like complaints about the treatment of workers at Amazon and Tesla. Fred Scharmen, author of the new book Space Forces , wonders how long these good feelings will last in an era of private flight. “That kind of feeling and vibe that the public agencies are able to tap into almost effortlessly—everybody loves NASA—it’ll be interesting to keep an eye on how long the private actors can invoke or connect to that kind of feeling of goodwill, hope, and overwhelmingly sublime awe that space travel inspires,” he says. There are already signs that the private passenger space industry is beginning to expand beyond tourism, and it’s shaving down the price of getting there. The first mission of up-and-coming Houston-based company Axiom Space, dubbed Ax-1, will deliver four crew members to the ISS in February for an eight-day stay, where they’ll conduct research experiments involving the health impacts of space. “It is a pathfinder, pioneering mission for this new era of commercial human spaceflight to the ISS and in the future to commercial space stations. The long-term goal is to open up low Earth orbit to become its own marketplace,” says Michael López-Alegría, Ax-1’s commander, Axiom’s vice president of business development, and a former NASA astronaut. He anticipates a market that includes tourism and research as well as advertising and entertainment. Axiom has also already signed NASA contracts to develop modules to attach to the ISS, which will later detach and become their own station. Other commercial space stations will become destinations as well, for astronauts, tourists, and a variety of businesses. There’s already a market for space wine , space beer , and movies filmed in space , Denning says. A variety of other ventures will follow. That includes teardrop-shaped space balloons the size of football fields from the company Space Perspective, based at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “Rather than going to space at high g's on a rocket, you’re going to space very gently and comfortably at 12 miles an hour,” says Jane Poynter, the company’s co-CEO. The balloons carry a pressurized capsule and eight passengers aloft, nearly 20 miles above the Earth’s surface. They’re planning their first crewed flight in 2023 and their first commercial one the following year, with tickets going for around $125,000. It’s also a relatively safe way to fly to the edge of space, rather than strapping oneself to a rocket, Poynter points out. (Blue Origin and SpaceX use traditional vertical-launch rockets that are automated, with the crew sitting in a capsule on top, while Virgin makes use of a piloted space plane.) Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg As the industry matures, ideas for improving it can develop as well. Ariel Ekblaw, founder and director of the MIT Space Exploration Initiative and author of the book Into the Anthropocosmos , believes there should be more transparency in the way space fliers are chosen, because people around the world pay attention to these flights and to their crew. And Bimm argues that companies should be transparent about something else: whether the crew's flight plan is just to hang out and enjoy the spectacular view, rather than gathering scientific data. Right now, private flights seem to encompass multiple things at once: They’re science missions, ecotourism expeditions, and yacht trips led by famous space barons. “We have yet to see what the hybrid role of these missions are,” says Ekblaw. “We’re at a cusp of a public grand opening of space.” 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Amazon's dark secret : It has failed to protect your data Humans have broken a fundamental law of the ocean What The Matrix got wrong about cities of the future The father of Web3 wants you to trust less Which streaming services are actually worth it? 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 💻 Upgrade your work game with our Gear team’s favorite laptops , keyboards , typing alternatives , and noise-canceling headphones Staff Writer X Topics space SpaceX Blue Origin Virgin Galactic Spacecraft Commercial Space commercial spaceflight NASA Year in Review Matt Simon Matt Simon Emily Mullin Rhett Allain Rhett Allain Emily Mullin Ramin Skibba Emily Mullin Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"New Asteroid Mining Company Aims to Manufacture Products in Space | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/2013/01/deep-space-asteroid-mining"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Adam Mann Science New Asteroid Mining Company Aims to Manufacture Products in Space A schematic of DSI's asteroid-prospecting FireFly spacecraft Save this story Save Save this story Save A new private company called Deep Space Industries announced today that it intends to send a fleet of small spacecraft to near-Earth asteroids with the aim of mining resources and turning them into products using space-based 3-D printers. Last year was thick with audacious private spaceflight company unveilings , including the announcement from Planetary Resources, Inc. of their plans to mine relatively valuable platinum group metals from asteroids. With the formation of Deep Space Industries, it seems that 2013 could see a new crop of private space companies with lofty goals. "We are about prospecting, exploring, harvesting, extracting, and manufacturing based on the resources of space," said Rick Tumlinson , founder and chairman of DSI, during a press conference on Jan. 22. Tumlinson has been an ardent space advocate for many years, helping found MirCorp , which brought space tourist Dennis Tito to the International Space Station. There exists potentially extremely valuable material on asteroids, including nickel, silicon, platinum group metals such as platinum and palladium, and water, which can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen to make rocket fuel. DSI intends to create a fleet of prospecting spacecraft called "FireFlies" (perhaps trying to rouse interest in their plans from Joss Whedon acolytes) that will travel to asteroids in Earth's vicinity on journeys of two to six months. The spacecraft will be built up from teams of small CubeSats -- low-cost miniature satellites -- to form 25 kg (55 lbs) machines that can collect data about the best asteroids to mine from. The company hopes to launch the first FireFly in 2015. A year later, DSI wants to launch larger spacecraft called DragonFlies that can make a round-trip journey to an asteroid and bring back samples. They estimate the trip will take two to four years and can return as much as 70 kg (150 lbs) of asteroid material to Earth orbit. DSI has patented technology they claim can extract precious metals from raw asteroid material and build it into parts with a 3-D printer. The company wants to mass produce manufactured goods from bulk asteroid material. All this industry will take place in space and the company hopes to eventually create complex communications satellites and solar power stations in orbit. Further down the line, DSI wants to supply products, fuel and parts for deeper space ventures, such as orbiting hotels and manned Mars missions. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But bringing all these plans from ideas on paper into actual physical reality will require overcoming many obstacles. The company has an aggressive launch schedule, particularly if it intends to get its first spacecraft up and flying by 2015. Launch manifests are typically set at least two years in advance. They will likely face setbacks in both mining, refining, and printing their products as things in space tend to be harder than first imagined. Finally, DSI did not announce how much money they have invested in their company. Planetary Resources' asteroid mining dreams at least garnered some respectability because they are backed by deep-pocketed investors, including Google’s CEO Larry Page and executive chairman Eric Schmidt, former Microsoft chief architect Charles Simonyi. DSI announced that NASA and other companies are involved in their venture and that they are looking for other customers and sponsors, but they stopped short of announcing how much money they have at their disposal and the company's overall financial situation. Still, the company is excited about their prospects, estimating that 1 ton of asteroid material would be worth $1 million in orbit, said Mark Sonter, a member of the DSI Board of Directors during the press conference. They hope to sell asteroid data to government space agencies and asteroid material to collectors to help get the company off the ground. Images: DSI X Topics Open Space space Ramin Skibba Amit Katwala Matt Simon Matt Simon Grace Browne Ramin Skibba Jim Robbins Matt Simon Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"A People’s History of Black Twitter, Part III | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/black-twitter-oral-history-part-iii-getting-through"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons I: Coming Together (2008–2012) II: Rising Up (2012–2016) III: Getting Through (2016–present) Why the History of Black Twitter Needed to Be Told Sign Up For the Longreads Newsletter By Jason Parham Backchannel A People’s History of Black Twitter, Part III Illustration: Aaron Marin A People’s History of Black Twitter I: Coming Together (2008–2012) II: Rising Up (2012–2016) III: Getting Through (2016–present) Now Reading Why the History of Black Twitter Needed to Be Told Sign Up For the Longreads Newsletter Save this story Save Save this story Save By the end of the Obama era, Black Twitter seemed like a fully realized world, with its own codes and customs. As it reached new levels of visibility and influence, though, deep-rooted problems began to reassert themselves. Users were hardly surprised. This article appears in the September 2021 issue. Subscribe to WIRED. Illustration: Aaron Marin Sarah J. Jackson, coauthor of #Hashtag Activism: Networks of Race and Gender Justice : When we first got on Twitter, we weren’t worried about people pretending to be Black. We took people for their word. They were who they were. Judnick Mayard, TV writer and producer: Now y’all over here tryna copy. Everything is a copy of Black Twitter. Every trend, every conversation. Humor. The idea of audacity. Y’all was never as audacious as Black Twitter. Sylvia Obell, host of the podcast Okay, Now Listen : It starts with us, and then Black culture gets taken everywhere. We can always trace it back to a tweet or a joke or meme or whatever else, because we have that evidence. Mayard: From the Kardashian body down to the idioms used in ads. CaShawn Thompson, educator: I think, quite frankly, there is a healthy amount of gatekeeping that we ain’t doing. We let these white folks come at us any old kind of way. Nah. Check them. Stay out of our business. Brandon Jenkins, TV and podcast host: Black Twitter made a real-time encyclopedia, like an IV plugged into our system. It also created a visibility on Black culture that people never had before. There’s benefits to it, but we never thought about what it would actually mean to be seen. The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States—and the politics of division he represented—did not shock a great many Black Americans. Still, we reeled, and often turned to Twitter for respite. André Brock, author of Distributed Blackness: African American Cybercultures : When Trump took over, white people really began to claw back all the politeness and care for Black folk that they, at one point, seemed to have. Tracy Clayton, host of the podcast Strong Black Legends : That’s the time when we needed emotional support the most. We were pre-grieving all the things we knew that we stood to lose with his presidency, and we were grieving the loss of Obama’s presidency. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg C. Thompson: The Trump years were a time for us to come together, hold on, and ride this terrible wave together. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Often, that meant gathering around moments of Trumpian absurdity—one in particular. Brock: The Yahoo tweet “Trump wants a much nigger navy” is infamous. They took it down 20 minutes after, so you’ll never find it. Johnetta Elzie, St. Louis activist: Everybody was like, wait, what does this say? Some news publication and their alleged typo [for “bigger navy”]. That’s a hell of a typo, but OK. Denver Sean, editor of LoveBScott.com: I have never laughed so hard. I mean, it’s got to be one of the top three Black Twitter moments of all time. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. God-is Rivera, global director of culture and community at Twitter: We had a field day. It was just so many jokes around basically what would be a Black Navy. It was a lot of Cash Money taking over for the 99, people on boats, and all of that. Elzie: I appreciate Black people’s ability to find joy or make a joke. I know that sometimes we shouldn’t joke about certain shit, but some things are just, like, the joke is right there and I’m glad you said it. Naima Cochrane, music and culture journalist: The unofficial code of Black Twitter is: Jokes are better than facts. Even—perhaps especially—in the face of a raging, terrifying global pandemic. Jenkins: It just felt like the automatic setting was supposed to be sad. And then, here goes Black people showing up and being dynamic and presenting conflicting emotions. People would tweet that they lost someone that morning and would be getting jokes off at the expense of the nation in the afternoon. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Cochrane: I remember it being, like, June, and somebody would say something about a panasonic or a panorama or a pan pizza, and folks are like, don’t you mean pandemic ? And we’re like, no, a Pinocchio. It’s a permanent press. [ Laughs. ] X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Obell: Are we gonna call the pandemic everything but that? A panasonic? A panini? Yes. Because what else are we supposed to do? Die? No. Kozza Babumba, head of social at Genius: The pandemic was unbelievably difficult, and I can look at mad moments on Black Twitter like, this is the only way I’m getting through the day. Kashmir Thompson, visual artist: We supported each other. Myself and a lot of my followers would do random lunch giveaways, where we would pick some of our followers to Cash App money to. C. Thompson: I came down with Covid. I was isolated in my own home. When I was up to it, I would get on Twitter and talk about it. You know, my anxieties around it. People responded and prayed for me. People sent food deliveries. It made everything a lot more bearable. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Obell: Black Twitter did a lot of affirming that was necessary—mentally—at the time. Like, I’m not the only one arguing with my mom about not going to church; you all are dealing with that too? Just as it was in the early days, shared moments of entertainment became prime-time viewing during the pandemic. Obell: When TV and movies had to stop filming, we weren’t getting new stuff to watch the way we would have otherwise. And then something like Verzuz [the song battle webcast, produced by Timbaland and Swizz Beatz] comes out. Browne: The moment when we can’t do all the stuff that we need to do and love to do, out of this was birthed a virtual music experience where millions of people are tuning in to hear very Black artists. Rivera: The conversation was on Twitter. I had the time of my life the night Teddy Riley battled Babyface. Obell: From the multiple attempts to them being peak Black uncles to the guy who was on the side jamming with Teddy the whole time, and how that became a meme—I don’t think I’ve ever laughed more. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Babumba: I’m not exaggerating, actual tears came from my fucking eyeballs. I cried multiple times that night because mofos were wylin. It was off the rails, and jokes were prime. K. Thompson: We kept trying to invent ways to have fun—but that’s just Black people on the internet, period. Brock: These were spaces where people could witness a collective experience of joy and relaxation, since many of us were shut out of concerts. My wife is still mad about our Janet Jackson tickets. Babumba: Tiger King was a fine documentary, but what made it good—actually more than watchable, but enjoyable—was watching it with Black Twitter. The Michael Jordan documentary was amazing, but it was more amazing because Black Twitter had jokes for days. The work that Jasmyn did over at Netflix, when she was able to put together that Coachella watch party for Beyoncé—unbelievable. Jasmyn Lawson, TV content executive at Netflix: For someone like me who lives alone, the isolation hit very quick. I was like, OK, how can I still feel connected to people? I’m a huge Beyoncé fan, and I remember live-tweeting when Homecoming first came on Netflix. I thought, can we do that as a group? I definitely did not expect it to grow and have so many legs or to get the attention of Beyoncé herself. The trending topic was number one across the globe. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But the joys would prove fleeting—it was to be a merciless year that wouldn’t let up. George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Nationwide protests. A contentious election that threatened to rip the country apart. Babumba: When the George Floyd video came out, Twitter was afire. Rembert Browne, writer: The uprisings in the streets felt very connected to 2013, ’14, ’15 in terms of, I’m getting my real news from Twitter again. The reporting about the 2020 election. The reporting about the police. I knew that the realest version I was gonna get was gonna be on Twitter. My mom was going to find out about it on cable news. And then at some point, I would talk to her and tell her what’s actually going on. Babumba: The protests started happening, and you started seeing people moving in the streets. And yes, we were moving in the streets during the pandemic. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Jackson: People were doing what they do, which is the resiliency of Blackness in America. They were figuring out how to build community. They were figuring out how to take action on Twitter. They were pointing out the hypocrisy of the nation that was letting Black people die at a disproportionate rate from this plague that was keeping us apart while trying to decide whether to reelect a white supremacist or not. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Sean: The news cycle was just crazy. We had Trump in office doing all of what Trump was doing. Cochrane: Twitter wore my nerves out during election season. Rivera: The way Atlanta came through, and the memes about the mail-in votes, you know what I mean? That was us congratulating us, because we always fought for the promise and the right of liberation and freedom. Michael Arceneaux, author of I Don’t Want to Die Poor : By this stage, Twitter was more exhausting than enjoyable for me. So while Twitter is where I first saw the news of Biden’s election, I was more relieved by the cheers outside in Harlem—a break from the sirens signaling death and shit—than on the timeline. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Cochrane: The insurrection at the Capitol was horrifying. But I was going back and forth between being horrified and gut-busting laughter at how we were on Black Twitter like, OK, this ain’t got nothing to do with us. Like the eating popcorn GIF. We were marveling at the ridiculousness of it all, even as scary as it was. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Jenkins: If we saw Black people out there, we’d know that we were about to watch one of the biggest massacres to ever take place on American soil. But there was very few Black people in sight, so we knew it was about to be jokes. As the election of Joe Biden portended a return to a kind of normalcy, Black Twitter began to look inward, prompting a period of soul searching. Sean: I kind of pulled away from Black Twitter in 2020. We had so much misinformation and back and forth about Covid and what we’re supposed to do and who thinks what. Combine that with the idea that Twitter is not as fun as it used to be, because everything is so over­policed. Cochrane: I think accountability is important, but now there is a little bit of glee when, quote-unquote, exposing people. And in the hastiness to do that, misinformation runs rampant. That is the one thing about Black Twitter that I think is hard: Once something gets going, it’s very hard to reel it back in. Browne: In reality, like everything, there are sections of Black Twitter. There are even generations of Black Twitter. Sean: Gen Z and Twitter—I don’t know what it is, but it’s not for them. They can’t handle it. I mean, everybody is just super sensitive. And I get it, we’re moving to a place where certain things are allowed and certain things aren’t. Because a lot of us came up with Twitter, we’ve gotten so comfortable that, before, it felt really intimate, like you could tell a joke. Elzie: I miss the hood days on Twitter, the good days. It’s not that fun to me anymore. Wesley Lowery, 60 Minutes+ correspondent: The heartbeat of Black Twitter was just, insert random Black user who got something funny off that day or who did a thread or who talked about $200 dates. It was this democratic process. It was a Black open mic night. Once Black Twitter started being talked about as this tangible thing you could study or hold or quantify, some of that magic melted away. Browne: Originally, it felt like folks were at least getting into it for the right reasons. Since Black Lives Matter and lots of things have become profitable, I think we are now in a second wave where I do think some folks get into this game for the wrong reason. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Lawson: Twitter is just a mirror reflection of our real world. I don’t think that it’s always a healthy space and I don’t think it's always a toxic space. There’s definitely always an in-between. But it’s important to remember that certain users—particularly women and queer folks—have never felt comfortable on the platform. C. Thompson: I get heated. I hate to see the way Black women are treated. I get abused on here by Black men all the time. Meredith Clark, author of a forthcoming book on Black Twitter: Black Twitter is not a very safe and welcoming space when it comes to discussions of gender or when it comes to discussions of nonnormative identity or being queer. Raquel Willis, trans rights activist: I never felt comfortable in the early days. Transphobia and trans misogyny was so common­place that even some of the people we consider to be the wokest now, or the most down, were shitty to trans people online. C. Thompson: Some people are brazenly ignorant and antagonistic to anybody that’s different from them. Brock: Hotep , which is an Egyptian word, has come to represent a certain type of toxic masculinity. These men believe that women should know their place. A lot of it is Black incel culture. Tariq Nasheed got big in that period. Willis: Tariq Nasheed has terrorized Black women and Black queer and trans folks for years. It is almost impossible for a white institution, which all these social media companies are, to hold the intra-communal harm accountable. It’s not possible for Twitter, as a corporation, to hold Black figures accountable in the same way they can hold alt-right white figures accountable—and they still don’t do a good job of that. Brock: All these constituencies have just as active a presence on Twitter as young queer folks, as the educated Black bourgeoisie, the Blavity Blacks. So there’s this constant undercurrent of commentary on things they think Black people should and should not do. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Mayard: Now, we’re learning lessons—and being like, “Oh, no. You don’t get to run and hide in the community if you are being an abuser or an oppressor.” We hold each other accountable. Willis: And Twitter is a great space for political education. People understanding the sheer amount of violence that Black trans ­people face—and, of course, enjoying the beauty of our experiences—that came, in large part, from Black Twitter. I can only imagine how many people first learned about Marsha P. Johnson or Sylvia Rivera through a tweet. Illustration: Aaron Marin Despite the challenges of being on the platform, positive change seemed possible. And in many cases, new opportunities arose. April Reign, diversity and inclusion advocate: We know that Black Twitter is powerful because it found people who have been lost. It has helped people who have mental health issues, financial issues. We have promoted Black businesses. Ashley Weatherspoon, founder of DearYoungQueen.com: To see that people were able to build things from it, you know what I mean? Like, people were able to build careers. People are able to help people. People are able to take a meme and then it turns into a job for them. Watching these talented writers and comedians and all of the people on Twitter turn it into something real and valuable—into an income—is fucking so dope and beautiful to me. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Willis: How many shows in the last 10 years have made their BLM episode? That is how deep in the culture the discourse in Black Twitter has been. I don’t know if we would have Insecure in the way that we have it without Black Twitter. I don’t know that we would have a Moonlight or a Get Out —or even what Black Panther was—without a presence on Black Twitter yearning for those things. Sean: I have friends who are in writing rooms and work for production companies, and from what I hear, most of their ideas come from Black Twitter. They’re taking Black Twitter jokes and incorporating them into scripts. Browne: Twitter kind of became this creative laboratory where folks really got to flex a lot of different muscles. I love the fact that I’m looking at the cover of Deadline and it’s Desus, Mero, and Ziwe. Desus and Mero are two people who do not get to where they are without Twitter. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Weatherspoon: What gives me so much happiness and satisfaction is seeing us win from it. We’re doing it. Like damn, we really turned this into something. More than a decade since Black people got on the platform, altering its very DNA and the power it gave to those who used it, the essence of Black Twitter lives on in these accomplishments—and in a legacy that’s still being written today. Jamilah Lemieux, Slate columnist: It’s hard for me to define a single legacy. Jenkins: We’re still so close to the epicenter that it’s really hard to measure. But if we’re dropping a pin in different moments in the world of Black culture, Black Twitter is really fucking high up there. I’m not gonna get crazy and say it’s Juneteenth, but it’s really big. Jackson: Can you imagine the last 10 years of American pop culture without Black Twitter? Jenkins: What the fuck would advertising do? Where would restaurants look for slang? Rivera: Black Twitter shook the table so strongly that this country will never be the same. It was not always comfortable, but I think what they did was literally change the trajectory of society by pushing back, by finding new ways to find joy and creativity and showing that we matter. X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg X content This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from. Lemieux: Black Twitter has made it a lot harder to ignore certain voices. Rivera: You can be a hairdresser or a widow somewhere in Alabama. But you can get these tweets off on Black Twitter. Reign: Not every Black person is a member of Black Twitter. Hello Candace Owens. And not every person who is a member of Black Twitter is Black. You have to be open enough to be able to amplify and to promote the culture while also acknowledging that your place may not be within the culture. Jenkins: Black Twitter is probably maybe the best piece of media to capture Blackness in its sort of unfiltered and dynamic way ever. I think we’re going to look back at it and realize it’s the most honest depiction—not to say it’s perfect by any means—of contemporary Black culture that there is. Brock: It is a living archive, because we are still contributing to it every day. Babumba: It’s crazy because we do this without a monthly Illuminati meeting. It’s not like we meet, like, “OK guys, this month we’re gonna do this, then wild out.” A lot of it is so organic, and it comes up because that is what we are interested in. Clark: Just like with everything else, we really don’t give a fuck, because we’re not doing what we do for other people. K. Thompson: I hate to be like, we run this whole shit, but really we do. [ Laughs. ] Jenkins: People say to be Black is to be bilingual, but it’s something beyond language. It’s multi- … I don’t have the word. It’s just Black. Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. Read next Read next Why the History of Black Twitter Needed to Be Told Senior Writer X Topics longreads Black Twitter Black Twitter Series twitter History magazine-29.09 Brandi Collins-Dexter Angela Watercutter Andy Greenberg Lauren Smiley Steven Levy Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"How to Use Tor and Go Anonymous Online | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/the-grand-tor"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Andy Greenberg Security The Grand Tor: How to Go Anonymous Online The sites you're visiting see you as emerging from a random point on the internet and thus can't trace your true IP address or your associated identity. Aaron Fernandez Save this story Save Save this story Save Fifteen years have passed since a couple of MIT grads and a Navy-funded researcher first built The Onion Router, or Tor , a wild experiment in granting anonymity to anyone online. Today, Tor has millions of users. The original project has been endlessly hacked on, broken, and fixed again. While imperfect, it remains the closest thing to a cloak of anonymity for internet users with a high sensitivity to surveillance, without needing serious technical chops. And it’s stronger and more versatile than ever before. Tor protects your identity online—namely your IP address—by encrypting your traffic in at least three layers and bouncing it through a chain of three volunteer computers chosen among thousands around the world, each of which strips off just one layer of encryption before bouncing your data to the next computer. All of that makes it very difficult for anyone to trace your connection from origin to destination—not the volunteer computers relaying your information, not your internet service provider, and not the websites or online services you visit. Earlier this month, Tor announced an update to its so-called onion services , which use Tor’s anonymizing features to hide not just individual people on the web, but servers too, allowing for so-called dark web or darknet sites and other services that can’t be physically traced to any locatable computer. Beyond merely covering your tracks as you visit websites, the new feature has opened Tor up to a new range of applications, enabling a new generation of whistleblowing platforms and new forms of untraceable messaging. Tor’s update has made those onion services less easily discovered and strengthened their encryption. That overhaul should cement Tor’s reputation as an indispensable anonymity tool, says Marc Rogers, a security researcher for tech firm Cloudflare, who has also worked on a still-in-development Tor-based network router project himself. “It’s still pretty much the only game in town,” he says. “After this update, I can say that yes, Tor is the best privacy tool out there.” Here's how you can use Tor today, whether you want to want to browse controversial sites in peace, or send messages the NSA can't peep. The most basic—and by far the most common—way to use Tor is to simply download, install, and run the TorBrowser from the Tor Project’s website. Like other Tor apps, it routes all its traffic over Tor, so that you're browsing the web truly incognito: The sites you're visiting see you as emerging from a random point on the internet and thus can't trace your true IP address or your associated identity. Aside from making government or other targeted surveillance much more difficult, the TorBrowser also functions as a powerful anti-censorship tool for people in countries like Iran and China, since it hides any direct connection to domains like Google, Facebook, and Twitter that oppressive regimes often block. Be aware, however, that the final computer routing your traffic to a destination website in that three-hop system, known as an “exit node,” can see all of your activity as you connect to a website, even if it doesn’t know where that activity comes. Privacy experts warn that law enforcement, intelligence services, and malicious hackers run their own exit nodes for exactly that surveillance purpose. It's critical, then, for Tor users to only visit HTTPS-protected websites to ensure that the information that passes between the browser and the site remains encrypted. Some popular websites have now even started to run their own Tor onion services, including Facebook and Pro Publica. That means they're essentially hosting a site on Tor's network, so that you can visit through the TorBrowser and your traffic remains encrypted all the way to its destination, with no need to trust an exit node. It’s easy to route not just your web browsing over Tor, but instant messaging, too. The Tor Project offers a program called Tor Messenger , which allows you to combine Tor with the chat protocols Jabber, IRC, Google Talk, and others. That means your connection to whatever server is running that chat service routes over Tor, so that the server can’t in theory identify your IP address or location. Another app called TorChat goes a step further, allowing you to instant message using servers that themselves run as Tor onion services, which can only receive incoming connections through Tor. With that setup, who might want to compromise the messages can't locate the servers that host them. And a next-generation tool called Ricochet takes the IM implementation of Tor yet another step, cutting servers out of the picture altogether. Instead, it turns your computer (or the computer of the person you’re talking to) into an onion service, so that you can connect directly through Tor without any middleman. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg A slower but more widely used and well-audited way to route communications over Tor is SecureDrop. Taking a cue from WikiLeaks and originally coded by the late internet activist Aaron Swartz , SecureDrop allows anyone to host an anonymous dropbox for sensitive information. Dozens of news organizations now use it to solicit tips and leaked documents from whistleblowers, including The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Guardian , and of course WIRED. For larger file transfers, an application called Onion Share essentially allows anyone to turn their computer into an onion service that anyone can connect to directly to download files, just as they might from a website—but without leaving any trace of their identity. Instead of trying to route any particular app over Tor, why not route all your internet data over the Tor network? That's the pitch of products like Anonabox and Invizbox , small, portable routers that run Tor and are designed to siphon every packet that leaves or enters your computer over that protected network. But those routers— particularly Anonabox —have been criticized for security flaws. Some security experts warn against routing all your data over Tor anyway. While Tor can effectively hide your IP address, the regular course of anyone's web browsing invariably includes sharing identifying details, which could defeat the purpose of using an anonymity tool in the first place. Better still, in those cases, is an entire Tor-based operating system called Tails , an acronym for The Amnesiac Incognito Live System. The primary benefit of Tails has more to do with security than privacy; you can run it off of a USB drive, which once removed, leaves no trace on the computer that ran it, making it virtually impossible to install malware on the user's machine. But as an added bonus, it also routes all data over Tor, adding an extra layer of anonymity. The system is secure enough that it's been listed as a trouble spot for the NSA in documents leaked by Edward Snowden —and Snowden has also said that he uses it himself to avoid surveillance by his former employer. And if it's good enough for him, it's probably good enough for you. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg More Tips for Public Figures : After you've taken a tour of Tor, encrypt everything , sign up for Google Advanced Protection , and deploy physical measures to increase your digital security. Tips for Regular Users (the Hackers are Still Circling) : Master passwords , lock down your smartphone , keep yourself secure from phishers , know how to deal with getting doxed , and, if you have kids, keep them safe online. Professionals Are After You. Time to Get Serious : If you think they’re onto you, remove the mic from your devices , find bugs , and (worst case scenario) dive down the paranoia rabbithole. Senior Writer X Topics Tor security anonymity Internet Scott Gilbertson Lily Hay Newman Lily Hay Newman Matt Burgess Vittoria Elliott David Gilbert David Gilbert Dell Cameron Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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"Famed Hacker Kevin Mitnick Shows You How to Go Invisible Online | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/2017/02/famed-hacker-kevin-mitnick-shows-go-invisible-online"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Kevin Mitnick Security Famed Hacker Kevin Mitnick Shows You How to Go Invisible Online Save this story Save Save this story Save Little, Brown. If you’re like me, one of the first things you do in the morning is check your email. And, if you’re like me, you also wonder who else has read your email. That’s not a paranoid concern. If you use a web-based email service such as Gmail or Outlook 365, the answer is kind of obvious and frightening. Even if you delete an email the moment you read it on your computer or mobile phone, that doesn’t necessarily erase the content. There’s still a copy of it somewhere. Web mail is cloud-based, so in order to be able to access it from any device anywhere, at any time, there have to be redundant copies. If you use Gmail, for example, a copy of every email sent and received through your Gmail account is retained on various servers worldwide at Google. This is also true if you use email systems provided by Yahoo, Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, or even your workplace. Any emails you send can also be inspected, at any time, by the hosting company. Allegedly this is to filter out malware, but the reality is that third parties can and do access our emails for other, more sinister and self-serving, reasons. While most of us may tolerate having our emails scanned for malware, and perhaps some of us tolerate scanning for advertising purposes, the idea of third parties reading our correspondence and acting on specific contents found within specific emails is downright disturbing. The least you can do is make it much harder for them to do so. Most web-based email services use encryption when the email is in transit. However, when some services transmit mail between Mail Transfer Agents (MTAs), they may not be using encryption, thus your message is in the open. To become invisible you will need to encrypt your messages. Most email encryption uses what’s called asymmetrical encryption. That means I generate two keys: a private key that stays on my device, which I never share, and a public key that I post freely on the internet. The two keys are different yet mathematically related. For example: Bob wants to send Alice a secure email. He finds Alice’s public key on the internet or obtains it directly from Alice, and when sending a message to her encrypts the message with her key. This message will stay encrypted until Alice---and only Alice---uses a passphrase to unlock her private key and unlock the encrypted message. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg So how would encrypting the contents of your email work? The most popular method of email encryption is PGP, which stands for “Pretty Good Privacy.” It is not free. It is a product of the Symantec Corporation. But its creator, Phil Zimmermann, also authored an open-source version, OpenPGP, which is free. And a third option, GPG (GNU Privacy Guard), created by Werner Koch, is also free. The good news is that all three are interoperational. That means that no matter which version of PGP you use, the basic functions are the same. When Edward Snowden first decided to disclose the sensitive data he’d copied from the NSA, he needed the assistance of like-minded people scattered around the world. Privacy advocate and filmmaker Laura Poitras had recently finished a documentary about the lives of whistle-blowers. Snowden wanted to establish an encrypted exchange with Poitras, except only a few people knew her public key. Snowden reached out to Micah Lee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Lee’s public key was available online and, according to the account published on the Intercept , he had Poitras’s public key. Lee checked to see if Poitras would permit him to share it. She would. Kevin Mitnick ( @kevinmitnick ) is a security consultant, public speaker, and former hacker. The company he founded, Mitnick Security Consulting LLC, has clients that include dozens of the Fortune 500 and world governments. He is the author of Ghost in the Wires , The Art of Intrusion , and The Art of Deception. Given the importance of the secrets they were about to share, Snowden and Poitras could not use their regular e‑mail addresses. Why not? Their personal email accounts contained unique associations---such as specific interests, lists of contacts---that could identify each of them. Instead Snowden and Poitras decided to create new email addresses. How would they know each other’s new email addresses? In other words, if both parties were totally anonymous, how would they know who was who and whom they could trust? How could Snowden, for example, rule out the possibility that the NSA or someone else wasn’t posing as Poitras’s new email account? Public keys are long, so you can’t just pick up a secure phone and read out the characters to the other person. You need a secure email exchange. By enlisting Lee once again, both Snowden and Poitras could anchor their trust in someone when setting up their new and anonymous email accounts. Poitras first shared her new public key with Lee. Lee did not use the actual key but instead a 40-character abbreviation (or a fingerprint) of Poitras’s public key. This he posted to a public site---Twitter. Sometimes in order to become invisible you have to use the visible. Now Snowden could anonymously view Lee’s tweet and compare the shortened key to the message he received. If the two didn’t match, Snowden would know not to trust the email. The message might have been compromised. Or he might be talking instead to the NSA. In this case, the two matched. Snowden finally sent Poitras an encrypted e‑mail identifying himself only as “Citizenfour.” This signature became the title of her Academy Award–winning documentary about his privacy rights campaign. That might seem like the end---now they could communicate securely via encrypted e‑mail---but it wasn’t. It was just the beginning. Both the strength of the mathematical operation and the length of the encryption key determine how easy it is for someone without a key to crack your code. Encryption algorithms in use today are public. You want that. Public algorithms have been vetted for weakness---meaning people have been purposely trying to break them. Whenever one of the public algorithms becomes weak or is cracked, it is retired, and newer, stronger algorithms are used instead. Edward Snowden: The Untold Story How to Anonymize Everything You Do Online Now’s Probably the Time to Consider One of These Burner Phones Mr. Robot Uses ProtonMail, But It Still Isn’t Fully Secure The keys are (more or less) under your control, and so, as you might guess, their management is very important. If you generate an encryption key, you---and no one else---will have the key stored on your device. If you let a company perform the encryption, say, in the cloud, then that company might also keep the key after he or she shares it with you and may also be compelled by court order to share the key with law enforcement or a government agency, with or without a warrant. When you encrypt a message---an e‑mail, text, or phone call---use end‑to‑end encryption. That means your message stays unreadable until it reaches its intended recipient. With end‑to‑end encryption, only you and your recipient have the keys to decode the message. Not the telecommunications carrier, website owner, or app developer---the parties that law enforcement or government will ask to turn over information about you. Do a Google search for “end‑to‑end encryption voice call.” If the app or service doesn’t use end-to-end encryption, then choose another. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg If all this sounds complicated, that’s because it is. But there are PGP plug-ins for the Chrome and Firefox Internet browsers that make encryption easier. One is Mailvelope, which neatly handles the public and private encryption keys of PGP. Simply type in a passphrase, which will be used to generate the public and private keys. Then whenever you write a web-based email, select a recipient, and if the recipient has a public key available, you will then have the option to send that person an encrypted message. Even if you encrypt your e‑mail messages with PGP, a small but information-rich part of your message is still readable by just about anyone. In defending itself from the Snowden revelations, the US government stated repeatedly that it doesn’t capture the actual contents of our emails, which in this case would be unreadable with PGP encryption. Instead, the government said it collects only the email’s metadata. You'd be surprised by how much can be learned from the email path and the frequency of emails alone. What is email metadata? It is the information in the To and From fields as well as the IP addresses of the various servers that handle the email from origin to recipient. It also includes the subject line, which can sometimes be very revealing as to the encrypted contents of the message. Metadata, a legacy from the early days of the internet, is still included on every email sent and received, but modern email readers hide this information from display. That might sound okay, since the third parties are not actually reading the content, and you probably don’t care about the mechanics of how those emails traveled---the various server addresses and the time stamps---but you’d be surprised by how much can be learned from the email path and the frequency of emails alone. According to Snowden, our email, text, and phone metadata is being collected by the NSA and other agencies. But the government can’t collect metadata from everyone---or can it? Technically, no. However, there’s been a sharp rise in “legal” collection since 2001. To become truly invisible in the digital world you will need to do more than encrypt your messages. You will need to: Remove your true IP address: This is your point of connection to the Internet, your fingerprint. It can show where you are (down to your physical address) and what provider you use. Obscure your hardware and software: When you connect to a website online, a snapshot of the hardware and software you’re using may be collected by the site. Defend your anonymity: Attribution online is hard. Proving that you were at the keyboard when an event occurred is difficult. However, if you walk in front of a camera before going online at Starbucks, or if you just bought a latte at Starbucks with your credit card, these actions can be linked to your online presence a few moments later. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg To start, your IP address reveals where you are in the world, what provider you use, and the identity of the person paying for the internet service (which may or may not be you). All these pieces of information are included within the email metadata and can later be used to identify you uniquely. Any communication, whether it’s email or not, can be used to identify you based on the Internal Protocol (IP) address that’s assigned to the router you are using while you are at home, work, or a friend’s place. IP addresses in emails can of course be forged. Someone might use a proxy address---not his or her real IP address but someone else’s---that an email appears to originate from another location. A proxy is like a foreign-language translator---you speak to the translator, and the translator speaks to the foreign-language speaker---only the message remains exactly the same. The point here is that someone might use a proxy from China or even Germany to evade detection on an email that really comes from North Korea. Instead of hosting your own proxy, you can use a service known as an anonymous remailer, which will mask your email’s IP address for you. An anonymous remailer simply changes the email address of the sender before sending the message to its intended recipient. The recipient can respond via the remailer. That’s the simplest version. One way to mask your IP address is to use the onion router ( Tor ), which is what Snowden and Poitras did. Tor is designed to be used by people living in harsh regimes as a way to avoid censorship of popular media and services and to prevent anyone from tracking what search terms they use. Tor remains free and can be used by anyone, anywhere---even you. How does Tor work? It upends the usual model for accessing a website. When you use Tor, the direct line between you and your target website is obscured by additional nodes, and every ten seconds the chain of nodes connecting you to whatever site you are looking at changes without disruption to you. The various nodes that connect you to a site are like layers within an onion. In other words, if someone were to backtrack from the destination website and try to find you, they’d be unable to because the path would be constantly changing. Unless your entry point and your exit point become associated somehow, your connection is considered anonymous. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg To use Tor you will need the modified Firefox browser from the Tor site ( torproject.org ). Always look for legitimate Tor browsers for your operating system from the Tor project website. Do not use a third-party site. For Android operating systems, Orbot is a legitimate free Tor app from Google Play that both encrypts your traffic and obscures your IP address. On iOS devices (iPad, iPhone), install the Onion Browser , a legitimate app from the iTunes app store. In addition to allowing you to surf the searchable Internet, Tor gives you access to a world of sites that are not ordinarily searchable---what’s called the Dark Web. These are sites that don’t resolve to common names such as Google.com and instead end with the .onion extension. Some of these hidden sites offer, sell, or provide items and services that may be illegal. Some of them are legitimate sites maintained by people in oppressed parts of the world. It should be noted, however, that there are several weaknesses with Tor: You have no control over the exit nodes, which may be under the control of government or law enforcement; you can still be profiled and possibly identified; and Tor is very slow. That being said, if you still decide to use Tor you should not run it in the same physical device that you use for browsing. In other words, have a laptop for browsing the web and a separate device for Tor (for instance, a Raspberry Pi minicomputer running Tor software). The idea here is that if somebody is able to compromise your laptop they still won’t be able to peel off your Tor transport layer as it is running on a separate physical box. Legacy email accounts might be connected in various ways to other parts of your life---friends, hobbies, work. To communicate in secrecy, you will need to create new email accounts using Tor so that the IP address setting up the account is not associated with your real identity in any way. Creating anonymous email addresses is challenging but possible. Since you will leave a trail if you pay for private email services, you’re actually better off using a free web service. A minor hassle: Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others require you to supply a phone number to verify your identify. Obviously you can’t use your real cellphone number, since it may be connected to your real name and real address. You might be able to set up a Skype phone number if it supports voice authentication instead of SMS authentication; however, you will still need an existing email account and a prepaid gift card to set it up. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Some people think of burner phones as devices used only by terrorists, pimps, and drug dealers, but there are plenty of perfectly legitimate uses for them. Burner phones mostly provide voice, text, and e‑mail service, and that’s about all some people need. However, purchasing a burner phone anonymously will be tricky. Sure, I could walk into Walmart and pay cash for a burner phone and one hundred minutes of airtime. Who would know? Well, lots of people would. First, how did I get to Walmart? Did I take an Uber car? Did I take a taxi? These records can all be subpoenaed. I could drive my own car, but law enforcement uses automatic license plate recognition technology (ALPR) in large public parking lots to look for missing and stolen vehicles as well as people on whom there are outstanding warrants. The ALPR records can be subpoenaed. Creating anonymous email addresses is challenging but possible. Even if I walked to Walmart, once I entered the store my face would be visible on several security cameras within the store itself, and that video can be subpoenaed. Okay, so let’s say I send a stranger to the store---maybe a homeless person I hired on the spot. That person walks in and buys the phone and several data refill cards with cash. Maybe you arrange to meet this person later away from the store. This would help physically distance yourself from the actual transaction. Activation of the prepaid phone requires either calling the mobile operator’s customer service department or activating it on the provider’s website. To avoid being recorded for “quality assurance,” it’s safer to activate over the web. Using Tor over an open wireless network after you’ve changed your MAC address should be the minimum safeguards. You should make up all the subscriber information you enter on the website. For your address, just Google the address of a major hotel and use that. Make up a birth date and PIN that you’ll remember in case you need to contact customer service in the future. After using Tor to randomize your IP address, and after creating a Gmail account that has nothing to do with your real phone number, Google sends your phone a verification code or a voice call. Now you have a Gmail account that is virtually untraceable. We can produce reasonably secure emails whose IP address---thanks to Tor---is anonymous (although you don’t have control over the exit nodes) and whose contents, thanks to PGP, can’t be read except by the intended recipient. To keep this account anonymous you can only access the account from within Tor so that your IP address will never be associated with it. Further, you should never perform any internet searches while logged in to that anonymous Gmail account; you might inadvertently search for something that is related to your true identity. Even searching for weather information could reveal your location. As you can see, becoming invisible and keeping yourself invisible require tremendous discipline and perpetual diligence. But it is worth it. The most important takeaways are: First, be aware of all the ways that someone can identify you even if you undertake some but not all of the precautions I’ve described. And if you do undertake all these precautions, know that you need to perform due diligence every time you use your anonymous accounts. No exceptions. Excerpted from The Art of Invisibility: The World’s Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data , Copyright © 2017 by Kevin D. Mitnick with Robert Vamosi. Used with permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York. All rights reserved. Topics email encryption privacy security Tor Lily Hay Newman Matt Burgess Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron David Gilbert Andrew Couts Lily Hay Newman Andy Greenberg Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"What Is Zero Trust? It Depends What You Want to Hear | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-zero-trust"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Lily Hay Newman Security What Is Zero Trust? It Depends What You Want to Hear If you talk to enough zero trust advocates, the whole thing starts to sound a bit like a religious experience. Illustration: Elena Lacey Save this story Save Save this story Save For years a concept known as “zero trust” has been a go-to cybersecurity catchphrase, so much so that even the notoriously dilatory federal IT apparatus is going all in. But a crucial barrier to widespread adoption of this next-generation security model is mass confusion over what the term actually means. With cyberattacks like phishing, ransomware, and business email compromise at all time highs, though, something's gotta change, and soon. At its core, zero trust relates to a shift in how organizations conceive of their networks and IT infrastructure. Under the old model, all the computers, servers, and other devices physically in an office building were on the same network and trusted each other. Your work computer could connect to the printer on your floor, or find team documents on a shared server. Tools like firewalls and antivirus were set up to view anything outside the organization as bad; everything inside the network didn't merit much scrutiny. You can see, though, how the explosion of mobile devices, cloud services, and remote work have radically challenged those assumptions. Organizations can't physically control every device its employees use anymore. And even if they could, the old model was never that great to begin with. Once an attacker slipped by those perimeter defenses, remotely or by physically infiltrating an organization, the network would instantly grant them a lot of trust and freedom. Security has never been as simple as “outside bad, inside good.” “About 11 years ago at Google we did have a significant, sophisticated attack against us and our corporate network,” says Heather Adkins, Google's senior director of information security. Hackers backed by the Chinese government rampaged through Google's networks, exfiltrating data and code while trying to establish backdoors so they could get back in if Google tried to kick them out. “We realized that the way we were all taught to build networks just didn’t make any sense. So we went back to the drawing board. Now if you walk into a Google building it’s like walking into a Starbucks. Even if someone had access to a Google machine, nothing trusts it. It's much more difficult for an attacker because we’ve changed the battlefield.” “Zero trust is a concept, not an action.” Ken Westin, Security Researcher Instead of trusting particular devices or connections from certain places, zero trust demands that people prove they should be granted that access. Typically that means logging into a corporate account with biometrics or a hardware security key in addition to usernames and passwords to make it harder for attackers to impersonate users. And even once someone gets through, it's on a need-to-know or need-to-access basis. If you don't invoice contractors as part of your job, your corporate account shouldn't tie into the billing platform. If you talk to enough zero-trust advocates, the whole thing starts to sound a bit like a religious experience. They consistently emphasize that zero trust isn't a single piece of software you can install or a box you can check, but a philosophy, a set of concepts, a mantra, a mindset. They describe zero trust this way partly in an attempt to reclaim it from all the marketing doublespeak and promotional T-shirts that have attempted to paint zero trust as a magic bullet. “Vendors hear new buzzwords, and then they try to package a product they already have into that: ‘Now with 10 percent more zero trust!’” says Ken Westin, an independent security researcher who has worked with security sales and marketing teams throughout his career. “It’s problematic, because zero trust is a concept, not an action. You still have to implement things like device and software inventory, network segmentation, access controls. As an industry we need to have more integrity with how we’re communicating, especially with all the attacks and real threats that organizations are facing—they just don’t have time for the BS.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Confusion about the real meaning and purpose of zero trust makes it harder for people to implement the ideas in practice. Proponents are largely in agreement about the overall goals and purpose behind the phrase, but busy executives or IT administrators with other things to worry about can easily be led astray and end up implementing security protections that simply reinforce old approaches rather than ushering in something new. “What the security industry has been doing for the past 20 years is just adding more bells and whistles—like AI and machine learning—to the same methodology,” says Paul Walsh, founder and CEO of the zero-trust-based anti-phishing firm MetaCert. “If it’s not zero trust, it's just traditional security, no matter what you add.” Cloud providers in particular, though, are in a position to bake zero-trust concepts into their platforms, helping customers adopt them in their own organizations. But Phil Venables, chief information security officer of Google Cloud, notes that he and his team spend a lot of their time talking to clients about what zero trust really is and how they can apply the tenets in their own Google Cloud use and beyond. “There's quite a lot of confusion out there." he says. “Customers say, ‘I thought I knew what zero trust was, and now that everyone is describing everything as zero trust, I understand it less.’” Other than agreeing on what the phrase means, the biggest obstacle to zero trust's proliferation is that most infrastructure currently in use was designed under the old moat-and-castle networking model. There's no easy way to retrofit those types of systems for zero trust, since the two approaches are so fundamentally different. As a result, implementing the ideas behind zero trust everywhere in an organization potentially involves significant investment and inconvenience to rearchitect legacy systems. And those are precisely the types of projects that are at risk of never getting done. That makes implementing zero trust in the federal government—which uses a hodgepodge of vendors and legacy systems that will take massive investments of time and money to overhaul—particularly daunting, despite the Biden administration's plans. Jeanette Manfra, former assistant director for cybersecurity at CISA who joined Google at the end of 2019, saw the difference firsthand when moving from government IT to the tech giant's own zero-trust-focused internal infrastructure. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “I was coming from an environment where we were investing just tremendous amounts of taxpayer dollars into securing very sensitive personal data, mission data, and seeing the friction you experienced as a user, especially in the more security-oriented agencies,” she says. “That you could have more security and a better experience as a user was just mind-blowing for me." Which is not to say that zero trust is a security panacea. Security professionals who are paid to hack organizations and discover their digital weaknesses—known as red teams—have started studying what it takes to break into zero-trust networks. And for the most part, it's still easy enough to simply target the portions of a victim's network that haven't yet been upgraded with zero-trust concepts in mind. “A company moving its infrastructure off-premises and putting it in the cloud with a zero-trust vendor would close some traditional attack paths,” says longtime red teamer Cedric Owens. “But in all honesty, I have never worked in or red-teamed a full zero-trust environment.” Owens also emphasizes that while zero trust concepts can be used to materially strengthen an organization's defenses, they aren't bulletproof. He points to cloud misconfigurations as just one example of the weaknesses companies can unintentionally introduce when they transition to a zero-trust approach. Manfra says that it will take time for many organizations to fully grasp the benefits of the zero-trust approach over what they've relied on for decades. She adds, though, that the abstract nature of zero trust has its benefits. Designing from concepts and principles rather than particular products lends a flexibility, and potentially a longevity, that specific software tools don't. “Philosophically, it seems durable to me,” she says. “Wanting to know what and who are touching what and whom in your system are always things that will be useful for understanding and defense.” 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Can robots evolve into machines of loving grace? 3D printing helps ultracold quantum experiments go small How community pharmacies stepped up during Covid The Artful Escape is psychedelic perfection How to send messages that automatically disappear 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 📱 Torn between the latest phones? 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"SolarWinds: The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/the-untold-story-of-solarwinds-the-boldest-supply-chain-hack-ever"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons By Kim Zetter Backchannel The Untold Story of the Boldest Supply-Chain Hack Ever Play/Pause Button Pause Illustration: Tameem Sankari Save this story Save Save this story Save Steven Adair wasn’t too rattled at first. It was late 2019, and Adair, the president of the security firm Volexity, was investigating a digital security breach at an American think tank. The intrusion was nothing special. Adair figured he and his team would rout the attackers quickly and be done with the case—until they noticed something strange. A second group of hackers was active in the think tank’s network. They were going after email, making copies and sending them to an outside server. These intruders were much more skilled, and they were returning to the network several times a week to siphon correspondence from specific executives, policy wonks, and IT staff. Adair and his colleagues dubbed the second gang of thieves “Dark Halo” and booted them from the network. But soon they were back. As it turned out, the hackers had planted a backdoor on the network three years earlier—malicious code that opened a secret portal, allowing them to enter or communicate with infected machines. Now, for the first time, they were using it. “We shut down one door, and they quickly went to the other,” Adair says. His team spent a week kicking the attackers out again and getting rid of the backdoor. But in late June 2020, the hackers somehow returned. And they were back to grabbing email from the same accounts. The investigators spent days trying to figure out how they had slipped back in. Volexity zeroed in on one of the think tank’s servers—a machine running a piece of software that helped the organization’s system admins manage their computer network. That software was made by a company that was well known to IT teams around the world, but likely to draw blank stares from pretty much everyone else—an Austin, Texas, firm called SolarWinds. This article appears in the June 2023 issue. Subscribe to WIRED. Photograph: Dan Winters Adair and his team figured the hackers must have embedded another backdoor on the victim’s server. But after considerable sleuthing, they couldn’t find one. So they kicked the intruders out again and, to be safe, disconnected the server from the internet. Adair hoped that was the end of it. But the incident nagged at him. For days he woke up around 2 am with a sinking feeling that the team had missed something huge. They had. And they weren’t the only ones. Around the time Adair’s team was kicking Dark Halo out of the think tank’s network, the US Department of Justice was also wrestling with an intrusion —one involving a server running a trial version of the same SolarWinds software. According to sources with knowledge of the incident, the DOJ discovered suspicious traffic passing from the server to the internet in late May, so they asked one of the foremost security and digital forensics firms in the world—Mandiant—to help them investigate. They also engaged Microsoft, though it’s not clear why. (A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed that this incident and investigation took place but declined to say whether Mandiant and Microsoft were involved. Neither company chose to comment on the investigation.) According to the sources familiar with the incident, investigators suspected the hackers had breached the Justice Department server directly, possibly by exploiting a vulnerability in the SolarWinds software. The Justice Department team contacted the company, even referencing a specific file that they believed might be related to the issue, according to the sources, but SolarWinds’ engineers were unable to find a vulnerability in their code. After weeks of back and forth the mystery was still unresolved, and the communication between investigators and SolarWinds stopped. (SolarWinds declined to comment on this episode.) The department, of course, had no idea about Volexity’s uncannily similar hack. As summer turned to fall, behind closed doors, suspicions began to grow among people across government and the security industry that something major was afoot. But the government, which had spent years trying to improve its communication with outside security experts, suddenly wasn’t talking. Over the next few months, “people who normally were very chatty were hush-hush,” a former government worker says. There was a rising fear among select individuals that a devastating cyber operation was unfolding, he says, and no one had a handle on it. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In fact, the Justice Department and Volexity had stumbled onto one of the most sophisticated cyberespionage campaigns of the decade. The perpetrators had indeed hacked SolarWinds’ software. Using techniques that investigators had never seen before, the hackers gained access to thousands of the company’s customers. Among the infected were at least eight other federal agencies, including the US Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the Treasury Department, as well as top tech and security firms, including Intel, Cisco , and Palo Alto Networks —though none of them knew it yet. Even Microsoft and Mandiant were on the victims list. After the Justice Department incident, the operation remained undiscovered for another six months. When investigators finally cracked it, they were blown away by the hack’s complexity and extreme premeditation. Two years on, however, the picture they’ve assembled—or at least what they’ve shared publicly—is still incomplete. A full accounting of the campaign’s impact on federal systems and what was stolen has never been provided to the public or to lawmakers on Capitol Hill. According to the former government source and others, many of the federal agencies that were affected didn’t maintain adequate network logs, and hence may not even know what all was taken. Worse: Some experts believe that SolarWinds was not the only vector—that other software makers were, or might still be, spreading malware. What follows is an account of the investigation that finally exposed the espionage operation—how it happened, and what we know. So far. on November 10, 2020, an analyst at Mandiant named Henna Parviz responded to a routine security alert—the kind that got triggered anytime an employee enrolled a new phone in the firm’s multifactor authentication system. The system sent out one-time access codes to credentialed devices, allowing employees to sign in to the company’s virtual private network. But Parviz noticed something unusual about this Samsung device: It had no phone number associated with it. She looked closely at the phone’s activity logs and saw another strange detail. The employee appeared to have used the phone to sign in to his VPN account from an IP address in Florida. But the person didn’t live in Florida, and he still had his old iPhone enrolled in the multifactor system. Then she noticed that the Samsung phone had been used to log in from the Florida IP address at the same time the employee had logged in with his iPhone from his home state. Mandiant had a problem. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The security team blocked the Samsung device, then spent a day investigating how the intruder had gotten into the network. They soon realized the issue transcended a single employee’s account. The attackers had pulled off a Golden SAML attack—a sophisticated technique for hijacking a company’s employee authentication system. They could seize control of a worker’s accounts, grant those accounts more privileges, even create new accounts with unlimited access. With this power, there was no telling how deep they had burrowed into the network. On November 17, Scott Runnels and Eric Scales, senior members of Mandiant’s consulting division, quietly pulled together a top-tier investigative team of about 10, grabbing people from other projects without telling managers why, or even when the employees would return. Uncertain what the hunt would uncover, Runnels and Scales needed to control who knew about it. The group quickly realized that the hackers had been active for weeks but had evaded detection by “living off the land”—subverting administration tools already on the network to do their dirty deeds rather than bringing in their own. They also tried to avoid creating the patterns, in activity logs and elsewhere, that investigators usually look for. The Mandiant team was facing a textbook example of a supply-chain hack—the nefarious alteration of trusted software at its source. But in trying to outsmart Mandiant, the thieves inadvertently left behind different fingerprints. Within a few days, investigators picked up the trail and began to understand where the intruders had been and what they had stolen. On Friday morning, November 20, Kevin Mandia, Mandiant’s founder and CEO, clicked out of an all-hands meeting with 3,000 employees and noticed that his assistant had added a new meeting to his calendar. “Security brief” was all it said. Mandia, a 52-year-old former Air Force intelligence officer who still sports taper-cut military hair two decades after leaving service, was planning to get an early start on the weekend, but he dialed into the call anyway. He expected a quick update of some kind. Five minutes into the conversation, he knew his weekend was shot. Related Stories It's a Trap! Andy Greenberg Security Brendan I. Koerner Weak Link Andy Greenberg Many of the highest-profile hacks of the past two decades have been investigated by Mandia’s firm, which he launched in 2004. Acquired by FireEye in 2013, and again last year by Google, the company has threat hunters working on more than 1,000 cases annually, which have included breaches at Google, Sony, Colonial Pipeline, and others. In all that time, Mandiant itself had never suffered a serious hack. Now the hunters were the hunted. The intruders, Mandia learned, had swiped tools his company uses to find vulnerabilities in its clients’ networks. They had also viewed sensitive information identifying its government customers. As his team described how the intruders had concealed their activity, Mandia flashed back to incidents from the early days of his career. From 1995 to 2013, while in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and in the private sector, he had observed Russian threat actors continuously testing systems, disappearing as soon as investigators got a lock on them. Their persistence and stealth made them the toughest adversaries he’d ever faced. Now, hearing about the activity inside his own network, he “started getting pattern recognition,” he later told a conference audience. The day after getting the unsettling news of the breach, he reached out to the National Security Agency (NSA) and other government contacts. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg While Mandia conferred with the government, Charles Carmakal, the CTO of Mandiant Consulting, contacted some old friends. Many of the hackers’ tactics were unfamiliar, and he wanted to see whether two former Mandiant colleagues, Christopher Glyer and Nick Carr, had seen them before. Glyer and Carr had spent years investigating large, sophisticated campaigns and had tracked the notorious hackers of the SVR—Russia’s foreign intelligence agency—extensively. Now the two worked for Microsoft, where they had access to data from many more hacking campaigns than they had at Mandiant. Carmakal told them the bare minimum—that he wanted help identifying some activity Mandiant was seeing. Employees of the two companies often shared notes on investigations, so Glyer thought nothing of the request. That evening, he spent a few hours digging into the data Carmakal sent him, then tapped Carr to take over. Carr was a night owl, so they often tag-teamed, with Carr passing work back to Glyer in the morning. The two didn’t see any of the familiar tactics of known hacking groups, but as they followed trails they realized whatever Mandiant was tracking was significant. “Every time you pulled on a thread, there was a bigger piece of yarn,” Glyer recalls. They could see that multiple victims were communicating with the hackers Carmakal had asked them to trace. For each victim, the attackers set up a dedicated command-and-control server and gave that machine a name that partly mimicked the name a real system on the victim’s network might have, so it wouldn’t draw suspicion. When Glyer and Carr saw a list of those names, they realized they could use it to identify new victims. And in the process, they unearthed what Carmakal hadn’t revealed to them—that Mandiant itself had been hacked. It was a “holy shit” moment, recalls John Lambert, head of Microsoft Threat Intelligence. The attackers weren’t only looking to steal data. They were conducting counterintelligence against one of their biggest foes. “Who do customers speed-dial the most when an incident happens?” he says. “It’s Mandiant.” As Carr and Glyer connected more dots, they realized they had seen signs of this hack before, in unsolved intrusions from months earlier. More and more, the exceptional skill and care the hackers took to hide their tracks was reminding them of the SVR. Video: Tameem Sankari back at mandiant, workers were frantically trying to address what to do about the tools the hackers had stolen that were designed to expose weak spots in clients’ defenses. Concerned that the intruders would use those products against Mandiant customers or distribute them on the dark web, Mandiant set one team to work devising a way to detect when they were being used out in the wild. Meanwhile, Runnels’ crew rushed to figure out how the hackers had slipped in undetected. Because of the pandemic, the team was working from home, so they spent 18 hours a day connected through a conference call while they scoured logs and systems to map every step the hackers took. As days turned to weeks, they became familiar with the cadence of each other’s lives—the voices of children and partners in the background, the lulling sound of a snoring pit bull lying at Runnels’ feet. The work was so consuming that at one point Runnels took a call from a Mandiant executive while in the shower. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Runnels and Scales briefed Mandia daily. Each time the CEO asked the same question: How did the hackers get in? The investigators had no answer. On December 8, when the detection tools were ready and the company felt it had enough information about the breach to go public, Mandiant broke its silence and released a blockbuster statement revealing that it had been hacked. It was sparse on details: Sophisticated hackers had stolen some of its security tools, but many of these were already public, and there was no evidence the attackers had used them. Carmakal, the CTO, worried that customers would lose confidence in the company. He was also anxious about how his colleagues would react to the news. “Are employees going to feel embarrassed?” he wondered. “Are people not going to want to be part of this team anymore?” What Mandiant did not reveal was how the intruders got in or how long they had been in the company’s network. The firm says it still didn’t know. Those omissions created the impression that the breach was an isolated event with no other victims, and people wondered whether the company had made basic security errors that got it hacked. “We went out there and said that we got compromised by a top-tier adversary,” Carmakal says—something every victim claims. “We couldn’t show the proof yet.” Mandiant isn’t clear about exactly when it made the first discovery that led it to the source of the breach. Runnels’ team fired off a barrage of hypotheses and spent weeks running down each one, only to turn up misses. They’d almost given up hope when they found a critical clue buried in traffic logs: Months earlier, a Mandiant server had communicated briefly with a mysterious system on the internet. And that server was running software from SolarWinds. SolarWinds makes dozens of programs for IT administrators to monitor and manage their networks—helping them configure and patch a lot of systems at once, track performance of servers and applications, and analyze traffic. Mandiant was using one of the Texas company’s most popular products, a software suite called Orion. The software should have been communicating with SolarWinds’ network only to get occasional updates. Instead it was contacting an unknown system—likely the hackers’ command-and-control server. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Back in June, of course, Mandiant had been called in to help the Justice Department investigate an intrusion on a server running SolarWinds software. Why the pattern-matchers at one of the world’s preeminent security firms apparently didn’t recognize a similarity between the two cases is one of the lingering mysteries of the SolarWinds debacle. It’s likely that Runnels’ chosen few hadn’t worked on the Justice case, and internal secrecy prevented them from discovering the connection. (Mandiant declined to comment.) Runnels’ team suspected the infiltrators had installed a backdoor on the Mandiant server, and they tasked Willi Ballenthin, a technical director on the team, and two others with finding it. The task before him was not a simple one. The Orion software suite consisted of more than 18,000 files and 14 gigabytes of code and data. Finding the rogue component responsible for the suspicious traffic, Ballenthin thought, would be like riffling through Moby-Dick for a specific sentence when you’d never read the book. But they had been at it only 24 hours when they found the passage they’d been looking for: a single file that appeared to be responsible for the rogue traffic. Carmakal believes it was December 11 when they found it. The file was a .dll, or dynamic-link library—code components shared by other programs. This .dll was large, containing about 46,000 lines of code that performed more than 4,000 legitimate actions, and—as they found after analyzing it for an hour—one illegitimate one. The main job of the .dll was to tell SolarWinds about a customer’s Orion usage. But the hackers had embedded malicious code that made it transmit intelligence about the victim’s network to their command server instead. Ballenthin dubbed the rogue code “Sunburst”—a play on SolarWinds. They were ecstatic about the discovery. But now they had to figure out how the intruders had snuck it into the Orion .dll. This was far from trivial. The Orion .dll file was signed with a SolarWinds digital certificate, which was supposed to verify that the file was legitimate company code. One possibility was that the attackers had stolen the digital certificate, created a corrupt version of the Orion file, signed the file to make it look authentic, then installed the corrupt .dll on Mandiant’s server. Or, more alarmingly, they might have breached SolarWinds’ network and altered the legitimate Orion .dll source code before SolarWinds compiled it—converting the code into software—and signed it. The second scenario seemed so far-fetched that the Mandiant crew didn’t really consider it—until an investigator downloaded an Orion software update from the SolarWinds website. The backdoor was in it. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The implication was staggering. The Orion software suite had about 33,000 customers, some of whom had started receiving the hacked software update in March. That meant some customers might have been compromised for eight months already. The Mandiant team was facing a textbook example of a software-supply-chain attack —the nefarious alteration of trusted software at its source. In a single stroke, attackers can infect thousands, potentially millions, of machines. In 2017 hackers had sabotaged a software supply chain and delivered malware to more than 2 million users by compromising the computer security cleanup tool CCleaner. That same year, Russia distributed the malicious NotPetya worm in a software update to the Ukrainian equivalent of TurboTax, which then spread around the world. Not long after, Chinese hackers also used a software update to slip a backdoor to thousands of Asus customers. Even at this early stage in the investigation, the Mandiant team could tell that none of those other attacks would rival the SolarWinds campaign. it was a Saturday morning, December 12, when Mandia called SolarWinds’ president and CEO on his cell phone. Kevin Thompson, a 14-year veteran of the Texas company, was stepping down as CEO at the end of the month. What he was about to hear from Mandia—that Orion was infected—was a hell of a way to wrap up his tenure. “We’re going public with this in 24 hours,” Mandia said. He promised to give SolarWinds a chance to publish an announcement first, but the timeline wasn’t negotiable. What Mandia didn’t mention was that he was under external pressure himself: A reporter had been tipped off about the backdoor and had contacted his company to confirm it. Mandia expected the story to break Sunday evening, and he wanted to get ahead of it. Thompson started making calls, one of the first to Tim Brown, SolarWinds’ head of security architecture. Brown and his staff quickly confirmed the presence of the Sunburst backdoor in Orion software updates and figured out, with alarm, that it had been delivered to as many as 18,000 customers since the spring of 2020. (Not every Orion user had downloaded it.) Thompson and others spent most of Saturday frantically pulling together teams to oversee the technical, legal, and publicity challenges they faced. They also called the company’s outside legal counsel, DLA Piper, to oversee the investigation of the breach. Ron Plesco, an attorney at Piper and former prosecutor with forensic expertise, was in his backyard with friends when he got the call at around 10 pm. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Plesco beelined to his home office, arrayed with whiteboards, and started sketching out a plan. He set a timer for 20 hours, annoyed by what he felt was Mandia’s arbitrary deadline. A day was nowhere near enough to prepare affected customers. He worried that once SolarWinds went public, the attackers might do something destructive in customers’ networks before anyone could boot them out. The attackers had infected thousands of networks but only dug deep into a tiny subset of them—about 100. The main goal appeared to be espionage. The practice of placing legal teams in charge of breach investigations is a controversial one. It puts cases under attorney-client privilege in a manner that can help companies fend off regulatory inquiries and fight discovery requests in lawsuits. Plesco says SolarWinds was, from the start, committed to transparency, publishing everything it could about the incident. (In interviews, the company was mostly forthcoming, but both it and Mandiant withheld some answers on the advice of legal counsel or per government request—Mandiant more so than SolarWinds. Also, SolarWinds recently settled a class action with shareholders over the breach but still faces a possible enforcement action from the Securities and Exchange Commission, making it less open than it might otherwise be about events.) In addition to DLA Piper, SolarWinds brought on the security firm CrowdStrike, and as soon as Plesco learned this, he knew he wanted his old friend, Adam Meyers, on the case. The two had known each other for decades, ever since they’d worked on incident response for a defense contractor. Meyers was now the head of CrowdStrike’s threat intelligence team and rarely worked investigations. But when Plesco texted him at 1 am to say “I need your help,” he was all in. Later that Sunday morning, Meyers jumped on a briefing call with Mandiant. On the call was a Microsoft employee, who told the group that in some cases, the hackers were systematically compromising Microsoft Office 365 email accounts and Azure cloud accounts. The hackers were also able to bypass multifactor authentication protocols. With every detail Meyers heard, the scope and complexity of the breach grew. Like others, he also suspected the SVR. After the call, Meyers sat down in his living room. Mandiant had sent him the Sunburst code—the segment of the .dll file that contained the backdoor—so now he bent over his laptop and began picking it apart. He would remain in this huddled position for most of the next six weeks. at solarwinds, shock, disbelief, and “controlled chaos” ruled those first days, says Tim Brown, the head of security architecture. Dozens of workers poured into the Austin office they hadn’t visited in months to set up war rooms. The hackers had compromised 71 SolarWinds email accounts—likely to monitor correspondence for any indication they’d been detected—so for the first few days, the teams communicated only by phone and outside accounts, until CrowdStrike cleared them to use their corporate email again. Brown and his staff had to figure out how they had failed to prevent or detect the hack. Brown knew that whatever they found could cost him his job. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg One of the team’s first tasks was to collect data and logs that might reveal the hackers’ activity. They quickly discovered that some logs they needed didn’t exist—SolarWinds didn’t track everything, and some logs had been wiped by the attackers or overwritten with new data as time passed. They also scrambled to see whether any of the company’s nearly 100 other products were compromised. (They only found evidence that Orion was hit.) Around midmorning on Sunday, news of the hack began to leak. Reuters reported that whoever had struck Mandiant had also breached the Treasury Department. Then around 5 pm Eastern time, Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima tweeted that SolarWinds’ software was believed to be the source of the Mandiant breach. She added that the Commerce Department had also been hit. The severity of the campaign was growing by the minute, but SolarWinds was still several hours from publishing its announcement. The company was obsessing over every detail—a required filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission got so heavily lawyered that Thompson, the CEO, quipped at one point that adding a single comma would cost $20,000. Around 8:30 that night, the company finally published a blog post announcing the compromise of its Orion software—and emailed customers with a preliminary fix. Mandiant and Microsoft followed with their own reports on the backdoor and the activity of the hackers once inside infected networks. Oddly, Mandiant didn’t identify itself as an Orion victim, nor did it explain how it discovered the backdoor in the first place. Reading Mandiant’s write-up, one would never know that the Orion compromise had anything to do with the announcement of its own breach five days earlier. Monday morning, calls started cascading in to SolarWinds from journalists, federal lawmakers, customers, and government agencies in and outside the US, including president-elect Joe Biden’s transition team. Employees from across the company were pulled in to answer them, but the queue grew to more than 19,000 calls. The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency wanted to know whether any research labs developing Covid vaccines had been hit. Foreign governments wanted lists of victims inside their borders. Industry groups for power and energy wanted to know whether nuclear facilities were breached. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg As agencies scrambled to learn whether their networks used Orion software—many weren’t sure—CISA issued an emergency directive to federal agencies to disconnect their SolarWinds servers from the internet and hold off on installing any patch aimed at disabling the backdoor until the security agency approved it. The agency noted that it was up against a “patient, well-resourced, and focused adversary” and that removing them from networks would be “highly complex and challenging.” Adding to their problems, many of the federal agencies that had been compromised were lax about logging their network activity, which effectively gave cover to the hackers, according to the source familiar with the government’s response. The government “couldn’t tell how they got in and how far across the network they had gone,” the source says. It was also “really difficult to tell what they had taken.” It should be noted that the Sunburst backdoor was useless to the hackers if a victim’s Orion server wasn’t connected to the internet. Luckily, for security reasons, most customers did not connect them—only 20 to 30 percent of all Orion servers were online, SolarWinds estimated. One reason to connect them was to send analytics to SolarWinds or to obtain software updates. According to standard practice, customers should have configured the servers to only communicate with SolarWinds, but many victims had failed to do this, including Mandiant and Microsoft. The Department of Homeland Security and other government agencies didn’t even put them behind firewalls, according to Chris Krebs, who at the time of the intrusions was in charge of CISA. Brown, SolarWinds’ security chief, notes that the hackers likely knew in advance whose servers were misconfigured. But it soon became clear that although the attackers had infected thousands of servers, they had dug deep into only a tiny subset of those networks—about 100. The main goal appeared to be espionage. The hackers handled their targets carefully. Once the Sunburst backdoor infected a victim’s Orion server, it remained inactive for 12 to 14 days to evade detection. Only then did it begin sending information about an infected system to the attackers’ command server. If the hackers decided the infected victim wasn’t of interest, they could disable Sunburst and move on. But if they liked what they saw, they installed a second backdoor, which came to be known as Teardrop. From then on, they used Teardrop instead of Sunburst. The breach of SolarWinds’ software was precious to the hackers—the technique they had employed to embed their backdoor in the code was unique, and they might have wanted to use it again in the future. But the more they used Sunburst, the more they risked exposing how they had compromised SolarWinds. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Through Teardrop, the hackers stole account credentials to get access to more sensitive systems and email. Many of the 100 victims that got Teardrop were technology companies—places such as Mimecast, a cloud-based service for securing email systems, or the antivirus firm Malwarebytes. Others were government agencies, defense contractors, and think tanks working on national security issues. The intruders even accessed Microsoft’s source code, though the company says they didn’t alter it. victims might have made some missteps, but no one forgot where the breaches began. Anger against SolarWinds mounted quickly. A former employee claimed to reporters that he had warned SolarWinds executives in 2017 that their inattention to security made a breach inevitable. A researcher revealed that in 2018 someone had recklessly posted, in a public GitHub account, a password for an internal web page where SolarWinds software updates were temporarily stored. A bad actor could have used the password to upload malicious files to the update page, the researcher said (though this would not have allowed the Orion software itself to be compromised, and SolarWinds says that this password error was not a true threat). Far worse, two of the company’s primary investors—firms that owned about 75 percent of SolarWinds and held six board seats—sold $315 million in stock on December 7, six days before news of the hack broke, prompting an SEC investigation into whether they had known about the breach. Government officials threatened to cancel their contracts with SolarWinds; lawmakers were talking about calling its executives into a hearing. The company hired Chris Krebs, CISA’s former head, who weeks earlier had been fired by President Donald Trump, to help navigate interactions with the government. Meanwhile, Brown and his security team faced a mountain of work. The tainted Orion software was signed with the company’s digital certificate, which they now had to invalidate. But the same certificate had been used to sign many of the company’s other software products too. So the engineers had to recompile the source code for every affected product and sign those new programs with new certificates. But they still didn’t know where the rogue code in Orion had come from. Malicious code could be lurking on their servers, which could embed a backdoor in any of the programs being compiled. So they ditched their old compilation process for a new one that allowed them to check the finished program for any unauthorized code. Brown says they were under so much stress to get the recompiled programs out to customers that he lost 25 pounds in three weeks. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg While Brown’s team rebuilt the company’s products and CrowdStrike tried to figure out how the hackers got into SolarWinds’ network, SolarWinds brought on KPMG, an accounting firm with a computer forensics arm, to solve the mystery of how the hackers had slipped Sunburst into the Orion .dll file. David Cowen, who had more than 20 years of experience in digital forensics, led the KPMG team. The infrastructure SolarWinds used to build its software was vast, and Cowen and his team worked with SolarWinds engineers through the holidays to solve the riddle. Finally, on January 5, he called Plesco, the DLA Piper attorney. A SolarWinds engineer had spotted something big: artifacts of an old virtual machine that had been active about a year earlier. That virtual machine—a set of software applications that takes the place of a physical computer—had been used to build the Orion software back in 2020. It was the critical puzzle piece they needed. Forensic investigations are often a game of chance. If too much time has passed since a breach began, traces of a hacker’s activity can disappear. But sometimes the forensic gods are on your side and evidence that should be gone remains. To build the Orion program, SolarWinds had used a software build-management tool called TeamCity, which acts like an orchestra conductor to turn source code into software. TeamCity spins up virtual machines—in this case about 100—to do its work. Ordinarily, the virtual machines are ephemeral and exist only as long as it takes to compile software. But if part of the build process fails for some reason, TeamCity creates a “memory dump”—a kind of snapshot—of the virtual machine where the failure occurred. The snapshot contains all of the virtual machine’s contents at the time of failure. That’s exactly what occurred during the February 2020 build. Ordinarily, SolarWinds engineers would delete these snapshots during post-build cleanup. But for some reason, they didn’t erase this one. If it hadn’t been for its improbable existence, Cowen says, “we would have nothing.” In the snapshot, they found a malicious file that had been on the virtual machine. Investigators dubbed it “Sunspot.” The file had only 3,500 lines of code, but those lines turned out to be the key to understanding everything. It was around 9 pm on January 5 when Cowen sent the file to Meyers at CrowdStrike. The CrowdStrike team got on a Zoom call with Cowen and Plesco, and Meyers put the Sunspot file into a decompiler, then shared his screen. Everyone grew quiet as the code scrolled down, its mysteries slowly revealed. This tiny little file, which should have disappeared, was responsible for injecting the backdoor into the Orion code and allowing the hackers to slip past the defenses of some of the most well-protected networks in the country. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Now the investigators could trace any activity related to Sunspot. They saw that the hackers had planted it on the build server on February 19 or 20. It lurked there until March, when SolarWinds developers began building an Orion software update through TeamCity, which created a fleet of virtual machines. Not knowing which virtual machine would compile the Orion .dll code, the hackers designed a tool that deployed Sunspot into each one. At this point, the beauty and simplicity of the hack truly revealed itself. Once the .dll appeared on a virtual machine, Sunspot quickly and automatically renamed that legitimate file and gave its original name to the hackers’ rogue doppelgänger .dll. The latter was almost an exact replica of the legitimate file, except it contained Sunburst. The build system then grabbed the hackers’ .dll file and compiled it into the Orion software update. The operation was done in a matter of seconds. Once the rogue .dll file was compiled, Sunspot restored the original name to the legitimate Orion file, then deleted itself from all of the virtual machines. It remained on the build server for months, however, to repeat the process the next two times Orion got built. But on June 4, the hackers abruptly shut down this part of their operation—removing Sunspot from the build server and erasing many of their tracks. Cowen, Meyers, and the others couldn’t help but pause to admire the tradecraft. They’d never before seen a build process get compromised. “Sheer elegance,” Plesco called it. But then they realized something else: Nearly every other software maker in the world was vulnerable. Few had built-in defenses to prevent this type of attack. For all they knew, the hackers might have already infiltrated other popular software products. “It was this moment of fear among all of us,” Plesco says. the next day, January 6—the same day as the insurrection on Capitol Hill—Plesco and Cowen hopped on a conference call with the FBI to brief them on their gut-churning discovery. The reaction, Plesco says, was palpable. “If you can sense a virtual jaw drop, I think that’s what occurred.” A day later they briefed the NSA. At first there were just two people from the agency on the video call—faceless phone numbers with identities obscured. But as the investigators relayed how Sunspot compromised the Orion build, Plesco says, more than a dozen phone numbers popped up onscreen, as word of what they’d found “rippled through the NSA.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But the NSA was about to get another shock. Days later, members of the agency joined a conference call with 50 to 100 staffers from the Homeland Security and Justice Departments to discuss the SolarWinds hack. The people on the call were stumped by one thing: Why, when things had been going so well for them, had the attackers suddenly removed Sunspot from the build environment on June 4? The response from an FBI participant stunned everyone. The man revealed matter-of-factly that, back in the spring of 2020, people at the agency had discovered some rogue traffic emanating from a server running Orion and contacted SolarWinds to discuss it. The man conjectured that the attackers, who were monitoring SolarWinds’ email accounts at the time, must have gotten spooked and deleted Sunspot out of fear that the company was about to find it. Callers from the NSA and CISA were suddenly livid, according to a person on the line—because for the first time, they were learning that Justice had detected the hackers months earlier. The FBI guy “phrased it like it was no big deal,” the attendee recalls. The Justice Department told WIRED it had informed CISA of its incident, but at least some CISA people on the call were responding as if it was news to them that Justice had been close to discovering the attack—half a year before anyone else. An NSA official told WIRED that the agency was indeed “frustrated” to learn about the incident on the January call. For the attendee and others on the call who hadn’t been aware of the DOJ breach, it was especially surprising, because, the source notes, in the months after the intrusion, people had been “freaking out” behind closed doors, sensing that a significant foreign spy operation was underway; better communication among agencies might have helped uncover it sooner. Instead, says the person with knowledge of the Justice investigation, that agency, as well as Microsoft and Mandiant, surmised that the attackers must have infected the DOJ server in an isolated attack. While investigating it in June and July, Mandiant had unknowingly downloaded and installed tainted versions of the Orion software to its own network. (CISA declined to comment on the matter.) the discovery of the Sunspot code in January 2021 blew the investigation open. Knowing when the hackers deposited Sunspot on the build server allowed Meyers and his team to track their activity backward and forward from that time and reinforced their hunch that the SVR was behind the operation. The SVR is a civilian intelligence agency, like the CIA, that conducts espionage outside the Russian Federation. Along with Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, it hacked the US Democratic National Committee in 2015. But where the GRU tends to be noisy and aggressive—it publicly leaked information stolen from the DNC and Hilary Clinton’s presidential campaign—SVR hackers are more deft and quiet. Given various names by different security firms (APT29, Cozy Bear, the Dukes), SVR hackers are noted for their ability to remain undetected in networks for months or years. The group was very active between 2014 and 2016, Glyer says, but then seemed to go dark. Now he understood that they’d used that time to restrategize and develop new techniques, some of which they used in the SolarWinds campaign. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Investigators found that the intruders had first used an employee’s VPN account on January 30, 2019, a full year before the Orion code was compromised. The next day, they returned to siphon 129 source code repositories for various SolarWinds software products and grabbed customer information—presumably to see who used which products. They “knew where they were going, knew what they were doing,” Plesco says. The hackers likely studied the source code and customer data to select their target. Orion was the perfect choice. The crown jewel of SolarWinds’ products, it accounted for about 45 percent of the company’s revenue and occupied a privileged place in customer networks—it connected to and communicated with a lot of other servers. The hackers could hijack those connections to jump to other systems without arousing suspicion. Once they had the source code, the hackers disappeared from the SolarWinds network until March 12, when they returned and accessed the build environment. Then they went dark for six months. During that time they may have constructed a replica of the build environment to design and practice their attack, because when they returned on September 4, 2019, their movements showed expertise. The build environment was so complex that a newly hired engineer could take months to become proficient in it, but the hackers navigated it with agility. They also knew the Orion code so well that the doppelgänger .dll they created was stylistically indistinguishable from the legitimate SolarWinds file. They even improved on its code, making it cleaner and more efficient. Their work was so exceptional that investigators wondered whether an insider had helped the hackers, though they never found evidence of that. Not long after the hackers returned, they dropped benign test code into an Orion software update, meant simply to see whether they could pull off their operation and escape notice. Then they sat back and waited. (SolarWinds wasn’t scheduled to release its next Orion software update for about five months.) During this time, they watched the email accounts of key executives and security staff for any sign their presence had been detected. Then, in February 2020, they dropped Sunspot into place. On November 26, the intruders logged in to the SolarWinds VPN for the last time—while Mandiant was deep into its investigation. The hackers continued to monitor SolarWinds email accounts until December 12, the day Kevin Mandia called Kevin Thompson to report the backdoor. Nearly two years had passed since they had compromised SolarWinds. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Illustration: Tameem Sankari steven adair, the Volexity CEO, says it was pure luck that, back in 2019, his team had stumbled on the attackers in a think tank’s network. They felt proud when their suspicion that SolarWinds was the source of the intrusion was finally confirmed. But Adair can’t help but rue his missed chance to halt the campaign earlier. “We were so close,” he says. Mandiant’s Carmakal believes that if the hackers hadn’t compromised his employer, the operation might have gone undetected for much longer. Ultimately, he calls the SolarWinds hacking campaign “a hell of an expensive operation for very little yield”—at least in the case of its impact on Mandiant. “I believe we caught the attackers far earlier than they ever anticipated,” he says. “They were clearly shocked that we uncovered this … and then discovered SolarWinds’ supply chain attack.” But given how little is still known publicly about the wider campaign, any conclusions about the success of the operation may be premature. The US government has been fairly tight-lipped about what the hackers did inside its networks. News reports revealed that the hackers stole email, but how much correspondence was lost or what it contained has never been disclosed. And the hackers likely made off with more than email. From targeting the Departments of Homeland Security, Energy, and Justice, they could plausibly have accessed highly sensitive information—perhaps details on planned sanctions against Russia, US nuclear facilities and weapons stockpiles, the security of election systems, and other critical infrastructure. From the federal court’s electronic case-files system, they could have siphoned off sealed documents, including indictments, wiretap orders, and other nonpublic material. Given the logging deficiencies on government computers noted by one source, it’s possible the government still doesn’t have a full view of what was taken. From technology companies and security firms, they could have nabbed intelligence about software vulnerabilities. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg More concerning: Among the 100 or so entities that the hackers focused on were other makers of widely used software products. Any one of those could potentially have become a vehicle for another supply chain attack of similar scale, targeting the customers of those companies. But few of those other companies have revealed what, if anything, the hackers did inside their networks. Why haven’t they gone public, as Mandiant and SolarWinds did? Is it to protect their reputations, or did the government ask them to keep quiet for national security reasons or to protect an investigation? Carmakal feels strongly that the SolarWinds hackers intended to compromise other software, and he said recently in a call with the press that his team had seen the hackers “poking around in source code and build environments for a number of other technology companies.” What’s more, Microsoft’s John Lambert says that judging by the attackers’ tradecraft, he suspects the SolarWinds operation wasn’t their first supply chain hack. Some have even wondered whether SolarWinds itself got breached through a different company’s infected software. SolarWinds still doesn’t know how the hackers first got into its network or whether January 2019 was their first time—the company’s logs don’t go back far enough to determine. Krebs, the former head of CISA, condemns the lack of transparency. “This was not a one-off attack by the SVR. This is a broader global-listening infrastructure and framework,” he says, “and the Orion platform was just one piece of that. There were absolutely other companies involved.” He says, however, that he doesn’t know specifics. Krebs takes responsibility for the breach of government networks that happened on his watch. “I was the leader of CISA while this happened,” he says. “There were many people in positions of authority and responsibility that share the weight here of not detecting this.” He faults the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies for not putting their Orion servers behind firewalls. But as for detecting and halting the broader campaign, he notes that “CISA is really the last line of defense … and many other layers failed.” The government has tried to address the risks of another Orion-style attack—through presidential directives , guidelines , initiatives , and other security-boosting actions. But it may take years for any of these measures to have impact. In 2021, President Biden issued an executive order calling on the Department of Homeland Security to set up a Cyber Safety Review Board to thoroughly assess “cyber incidents” that threaten national security. Its first priority: to investigate the SolarWinds campaign. But in 2022 the board focused on a different topic , and its second investigation will also not be about SolarWinds. Some have suggested the government wants to avoid a deep assessment of the campaign because it could expose industry and government failures in preventing the attack or detecting it earlier. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “SolarWinds was the largest intrusion into the federal government in the history of the US, and yet there was not so much as a report of what went wrong from the federal government,” says US representative Ritchie Torres, who in 2021 was vice-chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security. “It’s as inexcusable as it is inexplicable.” At a recent conference, CISA and the US’s Cyber National Mission Force, a division of Cyber Command, revealed new details about their response to the campaign. They said that after investigators identified Mandiant’s Orion server as the source of that firm’s breach, they gleaned details from Mandiant’s server that allowed them to hunt down the attackers. The two government teams implied that they even penetrated a system belonging to the hackers. The investigators were able to collect 18 samples of malware belonging to the attackers—useful for hunting for their presence in infected networks. Speaking to conference attendees, Eric Goldstein, the leader for cybersecurity at CISA, said the teams were confident that they had fully booted these intruders from US government networks. But the source familiar with the government’s response to the campaign says it would have been very difficult to have such certainty. The source also said that around the time of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, the prevailing fear was that the Russians might still be lurking in those networks, waiting to use that access to undermine the US and further their military efforts. Meanwhile, software-supply-chain hacks are only getting more ominous. A recent report found that in the past three years, such attacks increased more than 700 percent. This article appears in the June 2023 issue. Subscribe now. Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. 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"Your Microsoft Exchange Server Is a Security Liability | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/microsoft-exchange-server-vulnerabilities"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Andy Greenberg Security Your Microsoft Exchange Server Is a Security Liability Photograph: Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Once, reasonable people who cared about security, privacy, and reliability ran their own email servers. Today, the vast majority host their personal email in the cloud, handing off that substantial burden to the capable security and engineering teams at companies like Google and Microsoft. Now, cybersecurity experts argue that a similar switch is due—or long overdue—for corporate and government networks. For enterprises that use on-premise Microsoft Exchange, still running their own email machine somewhere in a closet or data center, the time has come to move to a cloud service—if only to avoid the years-long plague of bugs in Exchange servers that has made it nearly impossible to keep determined hackers out. The latest reminder of that struggle arrived earlier this week, when Taiwanese security researcher Orange Tsai published a blog post laying out the details of a security vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange. Tsai warned Microsoft about this vulnerability as early as June of 2021, and while the company responded by releasing some partial fixes, it took Microsoft 14 months to fully resolve the underlying security problem. Tsai had earlier reported a related vulnerability in Exchange that was massively exploited by a group of Chinese state-sponsored hackers known as Hafnium, which last year penetrated more than 30,000 targets by some counts. Yet according to the timeline described in Tsai’s post this week, Microsoft repeatedly delayed fixing the newer variation of that same vulnerability, assuring Tsai no fewer than four times that it would patch the bug before pushing off a full patch for months longer. When Microsoft finally released a fix, Tsai wrote, it still required manual activation and lacked any documentation for four more months. Meanwhile, another pair of actively exploited vulnerabilities in Exchange that were revealed last month still remain unpatched after researchers showed that Microsoft’s initial attempts to fix the flaws had failed. Those vulnerabilities were just the latest in a years-long pattern of security bugs in Exchange’s code. And even when Microsoft does release Exchange patches, they’re often not widely implemented, due to the time-consuming technical process of installing them. The result of those compounding problems, for many who have watched the hacker-induced headaches of running an Exchange server pile up, is a clear message: An Exchange server is itself a security vulnerability, and the fix is to get rid of it. “You need to move off of on-premise Exchange forever. That’s the bottom line,” says Dustin Childs, the head of threat awareness at security firm Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which pays researchers for finding and reporting vulnerabilities in commonly used software and runs the Pwn2Own hacking competition. “You’re not getting the support, as far as security fixes, that you would expect from a really mission-critical component of your infrastructure.” Aside from the multiple vulnerabilities Orange Tsai exposed and the two actively exploited unpatched bugs revealed last month, Childs points to another 20 security flaws in Exchange that a researcher reported to ZDI and ZDI reported to Microsoft two weeks ago, and which remain unpatched. “Exchange right now has a very broad attack surface, and it just hasn’t had a lot of really comprehensive work done on it in years from a security perspective,” says Childs. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Childs points to two other ZDI discoveries of Exchange vulnerabilities, one in 2018 and another in 2020 , that were actively exploited by hackers even after the bugs were reported to Microsoft and patched. Security podcast Risky Business went so far as to title a recent episode “ It’s Exchangehog Day ,” in a reference to the dreary cycle of vulnerability revelations and subsequent patching the servers require. When WIRED reached out to Microsoft for comment on its Exchange security issues, Aanchal Gupta, the corporate vice president of Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), responded with an exhaustive list of measures the company has taken to mitigate, patch, and harden on-premise Exchange servers. She noted that Microsoft quickly released updates in response to Tsai's findings to partially block the vulnerabilities he exposed before the company released the full fix in August. Gupta further wrote that MSRC “worked around the clock” to help customers update their Exchange servers in the midst of last year’s Hafnium attacks, released numerous security updates for Exchange over the year, and even launched an Exchange Emergency Mitigation service, which helps customers automatically apply security mitigations to block known attacks on Exchange servers even before a full patch is available. Still, Gupta agreed that most customers should move from on-premise Exchange servers to Microsoft's cloud-based email service, Exchange Online. “We strongly recommend customers migrate to the cloud to take advantage of real-time security and instant updates to help keep their systems protected from the latest threats,” Gupta said in an emailed statement. “Our work to support on-premises customers to move to a supported and up-to-date version continues, and we strongly advise customers who cannot keep these systems up to date to migrate to the cloud.” If email administrators are, in fact, having trouble keeping Exchange fully patched, Trend Micro's Childs says that's due largely to the complexity of actually installing Exchange updates, both because of the age of its code and the risks of breaking functionality by changing interdependent mechanisms in the software. Security researcher Kevin Beaumont, for instance, recently live-tweeted his own experience of updating an Exchange server , documenting countless bugs, crashes, and hiccups in the process, which took him nearly three hours, despite the fact the server had last been updated just a few months earlier. “It’s a difficult and arduous process, so even though there are active attacks, people just don’t patch their on-premise Exchange,” says Childs. “So there are patched bugs that are taking forever to get fixed, and also unpatched bugs that have yet to get fixed.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Another problem compounding on-premise Exchange’s security woes arises from the fact that vulnerabilities found in its software are often particularly easy to exploit. Exchange bugs aren’t any more common than, say, vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol, says Marcus Hutchins, an analyst for security firm Kryptos Logic. But they’re far more reliable to use because, despite the fact that an Exchange server hosts email locally, it’s accessed through a web service. And passing commands through an online interface to a web server is a far more reliable form of hacking than methods like so-called memory corruption vulnerabilities, which have to alter data in a lower-level and less predictable portion of a targeted machine. “It’s basically very fancy web exploitation,” says Hutchins. “It’s not something that’s going to crash the server if you do it wrong. It’s very stable and simple.” That exploitability is compounded by what seems to be Microsoft’s increasing inattention to maintaining the security of on-premise Exchange in favor of its cloud-based email service, 365 Exchange Online. As Beaumont pointed out earlier this month, Microsoft itself recommended that customers disable “legacy” authentication for Exchange—using industry jargon for outdated and often unsupported features—without acknowledging that there was no alternative form of authentication available. That’s a strong hint that Microsoft itself thinks of on-premise Exchange servers on the whole as de facto “legacy” products, says Jake Williams, a former National Security Agency hacker who leads threat intelligence at cybersecurity firm Scythe. Microsoft no doubt wants customers to switch to its cloud-based service, he says, and seems to have shifted its security resources accordingly. “It’s clear the depth on the on-premise Exchange team is not where it was a few years ago and hasn’t kept up with the security landscape,” says Williams. “It’s pretty stark.” Williams acknowledges that some users may prefer or even require that their email be hosted locally rather than in the cloud for legal or privacy issues. But many enterprises that rely on the security of controlling the Exchange server themselves need to reckon with the fact they’re likely introducing more risks than they’re avoiding. “I tell customers, ‘I get it, you want to run on-prem for control reasons,’” says Williams. “But you have to start evaluating this as a liability. And that’s because Microsoft is not putting effort and resources into patching.” “The proof is in the pudding,” Williams adds. “This code base is not getting the love that it clearly and desperately needs.” And if Microsoft isn’t giving that love to your Exchange server, perhaps Exchange no longer deserves your love, either. You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Senior Writer X Topics malware cybersecurity vulnerabilities Andy Greenberg Lily Hay Newman Andrew Couts Andy Greenberg David Gilbert David Gilbert David Gilbert Justin Ling Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Why the Belarus Railways Hack Marks a First for Ransomware | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/belarus-railways-ransomware-hack-cyber-partisans"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Andy Greenberg Security Why the Belarus Railways Hack Marks a First for Ransomware Using reversible encryption rather than merely wiping targeted machines would represent a new evolution in hacktivist tactics. Photograph: Valery Sharifulin/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save For years, idealistic hacktivists have disrupted corporate and government IT systems in acts of protest. Cybercriminal gangs, meanwhile, have increasingly held hostage the same sort of enterprise networks with ransomware , encrypting their data and extorting them for profit. Now, in the geopolitically charged case of a hacktivist attack on the Belarusian railway system, those two veins of coercive hacking appear to be merging. On Monday, a group of Belarusian politically motivated hackers known as the Belarusian Cyber Partisans announced on Twitter and Telegram that they had breached the computer systems of Belarusian Railways, the country's national train system, as part of a hacktivist effort the attackers call Scorching Heat. The hackers have since posted screenshots that appeared to show their access to the railway’s backend systems and claimed to have encrypted its network with malware, for which they would only provide decryption keys if the Belarus government met a list of demands. They’ve called for the release of 50 political prisoners detained in the midst of the country’s protests against dictator Alexander Lukashenko, as well as a commitment from Belarusian Railways to not transport Russian troops as the Kremlin prepares for a possible invasion of Ukraine on multiple fronts. The hackers appear to have successfully made at least some of Belarusian Railways' databases inaccessible on Monday, according to Franak Viačorka, a technical advisor to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. Viačorka says he confirmed the database outages with Belarusian Railway workers. The railway's online ticketing system was also taken down Monday; on Tuesday it displayed a message that “work is underway to restore the performance of the system” but remained offline. “At the command of the terrorist Lukashenka, #Belarusian Railway allows the occupying troops to enter our land. We encrypted some of BR's servers, databases, and workstations to disrupt its operations,” the Cyber Partisan hackers wrote on Twitter Monday, noting that the hackers were careful not to affect “automation and security systems” that could cause dangerous railway conditions. Cybersecurity researchers have yet to independently confirm what sort of ransomware was used to encrypt Belarusian Railways' systems. But a spokesperson for Cyber Partisans, Yuliana Shemetovets, wrote to WIRED that while the hackers’ permanently deleted some backup systems, others were merely encrypted and could be decrypted if the hackers provide the keys. Shemetovets added that the ransomware the hackers used “was specially created but based on common practice in this field.” Using reversible encryption rather than merely wiping targeted machines would represent a new evolution in hacktivist tactics, says Brett Callow, a ransomware-focused researcher at security firm Emsisoft. “This is the first time I can recall non-state actors having deployed ransomware purely for political objectives,” says Callow. “I find this absolutely fascinating, and I’m surprised it didn’t happen a long, long time ago. It’s far more effective than waving placards outside a puppy testing lab.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Ransomware—and destructive malware purporting to be ransomware—has certainly been used for political coercion in the past. North Korean hackers, for instance, planted destructive malware on machines across the network of Sony Pictures in 2014. Posing as hacktivists going by the name Guardians of Peace, they appear to have sent an email demanding payment prior to the attack, then pressured the company not to release the Kim Jong-un assassination comedy The Interview. In 2016 and 2017 the Russian hackers known as Sandworm , part of the country's GRU military intelligence agency, used fake ransomware as a means to destroy computers across Ukraine— and ultimately hundreds of other networks around the world —while posing as profit-seeking cybercriminals. (Unidentified hackers appear to have targeted systems in Ukraine with the same tricks , on a much smaller scale, earlier this month.) Even if the Cyber Partisans' ransomware turns out to be a thin disguise for irreversibly destructive malware, as in those earlier cases, the incident still seems to represent a new phenomenon. The group appears to be actual, bona fide hacktivists rather than state-sponsored hackers posing as such. “At the risk of maybe eating crow in a few years, the Cyber Partisans seem like a more authentic effort,” says Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade, a researcher at security firm SentinelOne who gave a talk at last year's CyberwarCon conference about the state of modern hacktivism. “We've seen fake ransomware being used by fake hacktivism, but I don't think we've ever seen this tactic being used by real hacktivism in any way that I can recall.” The Cyber Partisans are genuine grassroots hacktivists, says Viačorka, the technical advisor to Belarus' opposition party. Since last summer, the group has rampaged through Belarusian state systems, breaching government and police databases and leaking their contents to show the inner workings of the government’s crackdown on protestors and cover-up of Covid-19 infection rates. Viačorka points out the group is a part of the Belarusian “Supraciu,” or “solidarity,” movement of political dissident activists calling for the overthrow of the dictatorial Lukashenko regime, and that Belarus designated that larger network as terrorists in November of last year. He adds that while he and Belarus' opposition party have no connection to the Cyber Partisans, he fully supports their work. “Cyberspace has become the domain of battle in our fight for freedom,” Viačorka says. “This is not only their revenge on the regime but how we keep the regime accountable. [The Lukashenko regime] understands that everything they do, the decisions they make, the crimes they commit will be accounted.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Whether the Cyber Partisans' ransomware attack on Belarusian Railways will be a tactical success remains far from clear. Security researchers like Guerrero-Saade and Callow point out that hackers who create their own custom ransomware—as the Cyber Partisans claim to have done in this case—often make mistakes that allow their targets to decrypt their systems. Even Viačorka argues that the ransomware is unlikely to affect Belarusian Railways' movement of troops to the Ukrainian border. “The problem of such actions is that they’re very powerful, very disruptive, but they’re one-time, and when you make such an attack it’s very difficult to repeat,” Viačorka says. Specific policy impacts, though, may only have been part of the broader objective. “It’s too early to say if it was fully successful,” writes Shemetovets, the Cyber Partisans spokesperson. “The goals that CPs set are hard to achieve, but it created a very serious pressure on the regime, disrupted the system, and showed that the dictator is not in control. It’s too early to say if Russia troops were affected, but we hope that it will indirectly make an impact on their movements.” In the larger view of hacktivism and ransomware, however, Guerrero-Saade argues that the Cyber Partisans' tactics could soon bleed out to other groups who see the power of ransomware to achieve political coercion—for good and for ill—and raise the stakes of Belarus' own political conflicts. “The looming horror of ransomware is precisely just how many systems are out there about whose criticality we don't understand until they're unavailable,” Guerrero-Saade says. “So if this is a continued tactic of theirs, I think we'll definitely see a ratcheting up of the pressure on both sides.” Additional reporting by Lily Hay Newman. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! How Bloghouse's neon reign united the internet The US inches toward building EV batteries at home This 22-year-old builds chips in his parents' garage The best starting words to win at Wordle North Korean hackers stole $400M in crypto last year 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Senior Writer X Topics cybersecurity Russia hacking ransomware malware Andy Greenberg Lily Hay Newman Dell Cameron Andy Greenberg Matt Burgess Dell Cameron Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Ransomware Has Gone Corporate—and Gotten More Cruel | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/ransomware-gone-corporate-darkside-where-will-it-end"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Brian Barrett Security Ransomware Has Gone Corporate—and Gotten More Cruel The rise of the buttoned-up ransomware hacker is partly a function of how successful these kinds of attacks have been. Illustration: Elena Lacey Save this story Save Save this story Save “We created DarkSide because we didn’t find the perfect product for us,” reads the launch announcement. “Now we have it.” It’s a line that could come out of any number of VC-friendly pitch decks, but DarkSide is no startup. It’s the latest strain of ransomware built to shake down big-game targets for millions—with attacks that are couched in an uncanny air of professionalism. Guaranteed turnaround times. Real-time chat support. Brand awareness. As ransomware becomes big business, its purveyors have embraced the tropes of legitimate enterprises, down to corporate responsibility pledges. In that same “press release,” posted to the operators' site on the dark web on August 10 and first reported by cybersecurity news site Bleeping Computer, the DarkSide hackers pinky-swear not to attack hospitals, schools, nonprofits, or government targets. “The groups are increasingly becoming ruthlessly efficient,” says Brett Callow, a threat analyst at antivirus company Emsisoft. “They have more of a chance of success the easier they make life for their victims—or the easier they make it to pay them.” The rise of the buttoned-up ransomware hacker has been gradual and widespread, and is partly a function of success breeding success. The more resources these groups have, the more they can allocate toward streamlining their services. In 2019 ransomware attacks potentially grabbed at least $7.5 billion from victims in the US alone, according to Emsisoft. The group behind DarkSide isn’t the first to wear a patina of professionalism. REvil ransomware, which predates and shares some characteristics with DarkSide, has long offered chat support and assures victims that “its [sic] just a business. We absolutely do not care about you and your deals, except getting benefits.” The developers of Maze ransomware have long been thought to operate under an affiliate model, in which they get a cut of whatever hackers glean from attacks that use their product. "They’re not just threatening to publish the data, they’re threatening to weaponize it." Brett Callow, Emsisoft One particularly illustrative exchange published by Reuters in July shows just how cordial these interactions can be, at least superficially. When Ragnar Locker ransomware hackers struck the travel company CWT, a chipper representative at the other end of the support line broke down what services the ransom payment would render, offered a 20 percent discount for timely payment, and kept the chat window functional after handing over the decryption keys in case CWT needed any troubleshooting. “It’s a pleasure to deal with professionals,” wrote the Ragnar agent as the conversation wound down. They might as well have been discussing a denim refund at Madewell. “Even many of the very early ransomware operators have been sensitive to providing ‘good customer service’ and responsive communication via dedicated chat systems or email, and reasonable guarantees that payment would lead to victims receiving the tools necessary to decrypt impacted files and systems,” says Jeremy Kennelly, manager of analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence. In addition to swearing off hospitals—a traditionally popular ransomware target , but more of a minefield in a pandemic—DarkSide also claims that it only attacks those who can afford to pay. “Before any attack, we carefully analyze your accountancy and determine how much you can pay based on your net income,” the press release reads. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg That sort of operational sophistication has also become more widespread in recent years. Mandiant has spotted an actor associated with Maze looking to hire someone to scan networks full-time to identify companies and figure out their finances. “We also have seen specialized tools seemingly developed to aid in quickly discovering company revenues,” said Kimberly Goody, senior manager of analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence, in an interview last month. “Earlier in July, an actor advertised a domain checker that would output information about a company from ZoomInfo, including its listed revenue, number of employees, and address.” In other words, DarkSide isn’t doing anything new, but it does provide a tidy distillation of how ransomware groups have adopted a slickly professional veneer. At the same time, its name hints at the increasingly retaliatory steps that those same hackers have begun to take when their victims don’t pay up. The politesse of DarkSide quite obviously belies the criminal activity in which it partakes, and like other major ransomware groups, its operators have escalated beyond simply encrypting a victim’s files. To better ensure payment, they also steal that data and hold it hostage, threatening to make it public should the target attempt to restore their systems on their own. DarkSide maintains a data leak site on the dark web, where it lists not only victims but the size of the haul and what sort of documents and information it comprises. If the victim doesn’t pay, the DarkSide hackers say they’ll keep the stolen trove online for at least six months. This week they posted their first entry, claiming they had obtained 200 gigabytes of data comprising HR, finance, payroll, and more internal departments from Canadian real estate firm Brookfield Residential. It’s a variation on a familiar threat, one that ransomware attackers are all too ready to follow through on. In May the REvil hackers demanded $42 million from entertainment law firm Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks, leaking 2.4 GB of Lady Gaga's legal documents to back up their claim. (REvil has gone so far as to auction off its stolen data troves on the dark web.) The NetWalker ransomware gang includes a countdown clock on its data leak site, adding a dash of drama. The Pysa ransomware organization refers to its victims as “partners” on its site, advertising the sort of data you can find in the leaks like earnest hype men. One such entry concludes: “17 GB of great information that won’t leave you indifferent.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “It’s the carrot and the stick,” says Callow, who notes that recently attackers have taken the additional step of threatening to proactively notify the media, competitors, and government regulators about sensitive data they’ve stolen if the victim doesn’t pay promptly. “They’re not just threatening to publish the data, they’re threatening to weaponize it.” In a roundabout way, that overture of affable competence helps reinforce the seriousness of those threats. “Ransomware attacks are not just encryption exercises but more so exercises in delivering fear,” says Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro. “The more victims believe their attackers are professionals, the more likely they will believe their underlying messages like, ‘It’s useless to fight us, just pay’ or ‘Trust us, you’ll get your data back because we do this for a living.’” It's an unvirtuous cycle—ransomware groups make more money, so they invest more in their operations, so they can hit bigger targets, so they make more money, and so on. And there's no reason to think it will abate any time soon. Even well-resourced companies have inevitable holes in their security setups. Most of the major operators live outside of the US, so law enforcement has little recourse. The last major legal action against an alleged ransomware kingpin came in December, when the Department of Justice indicted the Russian head of the Evil Corp hacking group. They’re the ones, security analysts believe, who shut down Garmin in July. The furious hunt for the MAGA bomber How Bloomberg’s digital army is still fighting for Democrats Tips to make remote learning work for your children “Real” programming is an elitist myth AI magic makes century-old films look new 🎙️ Listen to Get WIRED , our new podcast about how the future is realized. Catch the latest episodes and subscribe to the 📩 newsletter to keep up with all our shows ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Executive Editor, News X Topics malware ransomware hacking dark web Andy Greenberg Lily Hay Newman Andy Greenberg Andy Greenberg Lily Hay Newman Dhruv Mehrotra Lily Hay Newman Matt Burgess Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"DarkSide Ransomware Hit Colonial Pipeline—and Created an Unholy Mess | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/darkside-ransomware-colonial-pipeline-response"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Lily Hay Newman Security DarkSide Ransomware Hit Colonial Pipeline—and Created an Unholy Mess The group said Monday that it would “introduce moderation” to its ransomware-as-a-service model. Photograph: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save After a ransomware attack late last week, Colonial Pipeline and the United States government have been scrambling to restore service to a pipeline that delivers nearly half of the East Coast's fuel. The culprit, according to the FBI, is the notorious and brazen ransomware gang known as DarkSide. And the repercussions of their attack may ripple far beyond what they intended. Colonial Pipeline says it hopes to restore full service by the end of the week; in the meantime, the Department of Transportation released an emergency order on Sunday to allow expanded oil distribution by truck. But the real impact of the attack may be felt in the world of ransomware. While a number of hackers have long engaged in anarchic targeting, including a horrifying rash of attacks on hospitals last fall, close observers say the pipeline incident may finally represent a turning point. DarkSide emerged last August and announced itself with a veneer of professionalism and efficiency. At the time, it pledged not to target health care providers, schools, or businesses that couldn't afford to pay. A few months later, the group made a series of charitable donations , part of a long-running attempt to manage its reputation. But as a ransomware-as-a-service operation, DarkSide largely works on an affiliate model, loaning out its ransomware and infrastructure to criminal customers and taking a cut of whatever clients earn in their attacks. On Monday, as pressure mounted from US law enforcement and the White House itself, DarkSide seemed to blame the Colonial Pipeline hack on its affiliates and pledged to more thoroughly vet the criminals it contracts with. “We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics," DarkSide posted on Monday. “Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society. From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future.” The statement is reminiscent of any industry promising to self-police as an alternative to government regulation. But even if you could take DarkSide at its word, the implication is that it's somehow acceptable to target certain organizations with ransomware if they're carefully selected. “The idea that ransomware operators should decide who is worthy of being compromised is extremely problematic, to say the least,” says Katie Nickels, director of intelligence at the security firm Red Canary. “It's absurd.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg DarkSide's dubious pledge to self-regulate likely stems from concerns that hacking a critical infrastructure company and ultimately causing a mass service outage crossed a red line—whether DarkSide or one of its clients actually perpetrated the attack. “I am not surprised that this happened. It was realistically only a matter of time before there was a major critical infrastructure ransomware incident,” says Brett Callow, a threat analyst at antivirus company Emsisoft. “DarkSide appears to have realized that this level of attention is not a good thing and could bring governments to action. They may stay with smaller attacks now in the hope that they'll be able to continue making money for longer.” Callow and other researchers emphasize, though, that it's difficult to produce meaningful deterrence when it comes to ransomware and cyberattacks in general. Even after repeated wake-up calls and ransomware-related disasters, governments have not shown enough urgency in trying to solve the problem. “One of the biggest challenges in cyber deterrence is attribution, and you can see that in this situation," Red Canary's Nickels says. “There are the ransomware developers, their affiliates and clients, and host countries that are ignoring their behavior. Who’s at fault? Who do you have to deter?” DarkSide was illustrative of that enforcement problem even before the Colonial Pipeline attack. It almost exclusively targets English-speaking organizations and is widely thought to be a criminal group based in Russia or Eastern Europe. The DarkSide malware is even built to conduct language checks on targets and to shut down if it detects Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Armenian, Georgian, Kazakh, Turkmen, Romanian, and other languages associated with Russia's geopolitical interests. The Kremlin has historically let cybercriminals operate unfettered within its borders as long as they don't go after their countrymen. DarkSide's rent-a-ransomware business model makes it difficult to determine who, specifically, is behind any given DarkSide attack, convenient insulation for all involved. And the very existence of ransomware-for-hire services shows just how popular—and profitable—these attacks have become. Members of DarkSide focused on point-of-sale credit card data theft and ATM cashout attacks for years, says Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at the security firm CrowdStrike, which tracks DarkSide's activity under the name Carbon Spider. “They’ve transitioned to the ransomware game because there’s so much money in it,” Meyers says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The Biden administration has signaled in recent weeks that it plans to focus real attention on addressing the threat of ransomware. The White House has been hiring for key cybersecurity policy and response roles and participated in a public-private ransomware task force aimed at generating comprehensive recommendations to curb the problem. The Colonial Pipeline incident now gives the White House a renewed motivation to turn policy proposals into action. “We’re taking a multipronged and whole-of-government response to this incident and to ransomware overall,” deputy national security adviser Anne Neuberger said in a White House briefing on Monday. “We’re aggressively investigating the incident and its culprits." Neuberger said that the administration believes DarkSide is a criminal actor only but that the intelligence community is looking into the possibility of government ties. On Monday, President Biden called on the Russian government to stop harboring cybercriminals. “I’m going to be meeting with President Putin,” Biden said. “So far there is no evidence … from our intelligence people that Russia is involved, although there is evidence that the actors’ ransomware is in Russia. They have some responsibility to deal with this.” One question that dogs ransomware response is whether governments should make it illegal for victims to pay ransoms. In theory, no more ransom payments would mean no more incentives for criminals to continue. But members of the public-private ransomware task force say that the group was unable to reach a consensus about firm recommendations to that end; the trade-offs aren't easily navigable. "It was realistically only a matter of time before there was a major critical infrastructure ransomware incident." Brett Callow, Emsisoft Steps that could work in the near term? Requiring that victims disclose ransomware incidents, and creating a cyber incident review board in the US, says Rob Knake, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former director for cybersecurity policy at the National Security Council. Currently most victims keep ransomware attacks quiet when possible; a full accounting of these rolling crises could spur a response. “Notification is essential, because cyber incidents are not like plane crashes—the investigating agency may never find out that they have happened,” Knake says. “So for the cyber incident review board to be successful it will need to be notified of incidents and then have the authority to investigate. Voluntary will not work.” In the meantime, cybersecurity professionals say that they hope the Colonial Pipeline incident really will finally spark action in the fight against ransomware. Given how many other dire attacks have failed to act as this catalyst, though, they are wary of being too hopeful. “We’re at a point where only systemic improvement will have any meaningful impact,” Crowdstrike's Meyers says. “And organizations don’t necessarily have the bandwidth, funding, and personnel to do that. But this should be a wake-up call to any organization: You need to do better or you’re going to suffer the same fate.” 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! How Pixar uses hyper-colors to hack your brain These learning tools are shaping the online schoolhouse He's a WWE pro and Vtuber. Those worlds aren't so different Signal offers a payments feature— with cryptocurrency The power and pitfalls of gamification 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Senior Writer X Topics ransomware cybersecurity Russia malware Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron Lily Hay Newman Dell Cameron Dell Cameron Dhruv Mehrotra Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Apple’s Ransomware Mess Is the Future of Online Extortion | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/apple-ransomware-attack-quanta-computer"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Lily Hay Newman Security Apple’s Ransomware Mess Is the Future of Online Extortion The latest trend Apple finds itself at the forefront of? Ransomware. Photograph: Stephen Lam/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save On the day Apple was set to announce a slew of new products at its Spring Loaded event , a leak appeared from an unexpected quarter. The notorious ransomware gang REvil said they had stolen data and schematics from Apple supplier Quanta Computer about unreleased products, and that they would sell the data to the highest bidder if they didn’t get a $50 million payment. As proof, they released a cache of documents about upcoming, unreleased MacBook Pros. They've since added iMac schematics to the pile. The connection to Apple and dramatic timing generated buzz about the attack. But it also reflects the confluence of a number of disturbing trends in ransomware. After years of refining their mass data encryption techniques to lock victims out of their own systems, criminal gangs are increasingly focusing on data theft and extortion as the centerpiece of their attacks—and making eye-popping demands in the process. “Our team is negotiating the sale of large quantities of confidential drawings and gigabytes of personal data with several major brands,” REvil wrote in its post of the stolen data. “We recommend that Apple buy back the available data by May 1.” For years, ransomware attacks involved the encryption of a victim's files and a simple transaction: Pay the money, get the decryption key. But some attackers also dabbled in another approach—not only did they encrypt the files, but they stole them first and threatened to leak them, adding additional leverage to ensure payment. Even if victims could recover their affected data from backups, they ran the risk that the attackers would share their secrets with the entire internet. And in the past couple of years, prominent ransomware gangs like Maze have established the approach. Today incorporating extortion is increasingly the norm. And groups have even taken it a step further, as is the case with REvil and Quanta, focusing completely on data theft and extortion and not bothering to encrypt files at all. They're thieves, not captors. “Data encryption is becoming less of a part of ransomware attacks for sure,” says Brett Callow, a threat analyst at the antivirus firm Emsisoft. “In fact ‘ransomware attack’ is probably something of a misnomer now. We’re at a point where the threat actors have realized that the data itself can be used in a myriad of ways.” In the case of Quanta, attackers likely feel they hit a nerve, because Apple is notoriously secretive about intellectual property and new products in its pipeline. By hitting a vendor downstream in the supply chain, attackers give themselves more options about the companies they can extort. Quanta, for example, also supplies Dell, HP, and other large tech companies, so any breach of Quanta's customer data would be potentially valuable for attackers. Attackers also may find softer targets when they look to third-party suppliers who many not have as many resources to funnel into cybersecurity. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “Quanta Computer's information security team has worked with external IT experts in response to cyber attacks on a small number of Quanta servers,” the company said in a statement. It added that it is working with law enforcement and data protection authorities “concerning recent abnormal activities observed. There's no material impact on the company's business operation.” Apple declined to comment. “A couple of years ago, we didn’t really see much ransomware plus extortion at all, and now there's an evolution all the way to extortion-only events,” says Jake Williams, founder of the cybersecurity firm Rendition Infosec. “I can tell you as an incident responder that people have gotten better at responding to ransomware events. Organizations I work with are more likely today to be able to recover and avoid paying a ransom with traditional file-encryption techniques.” The $50 million demand may seem extraordinary, but it also fits in with the recent ransomware trend of “big game” hunting. REvil reportedly put the same sum to Acer in March, and the average ransomware demand reportedly doubled between 2019 and 2020. Large companies have become a more popular target specifically, because they can potentially afford big payouts; it's a more efficient racket for a criminal group than cobbling smaller payments together from more victims. And attackers have already been experimenting with strategies to put pressure on extortion victims, like contacting individuals or businesses whose data might be impacted by a breach and telling them to encourage a target to pay. Just this week, one ransomware group threatened to feed information to short sellers of publicly traded companies. A company like Apple would presumably take the threat of leaking intellectual property seriously. But other organizations, especially those that hold regulated personal data from customers, have even more incentive to pay if they think it will help cover up an incident. A seven-figure ransom might seem appealing if disclosing a breach might result in $2 million of regulatory fines under laws like Europe's GDPR or California's Consumer Privacy Act. “Even if Apple specifically would pay or compel payment through Quanta now, that doesn’t necessarily make it a reliable, repeatable model for attackers,” Williams says. “But there’s a very large number of organizations that have regulated data, and the cost of their potential fines is fairly predictable, so that may be more reliable and the thing defenders should worry about.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The potential for extortion attacks against supply chain vendors magnifies every company's risks. And given that organizations have historically often paid ransoms in secret, a force that may push even more transactions in that direction will only increase the challenge of getting a handle on ransomware gangs. The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it is launching a national task force aimed at addressing the ever-rising threat of ransomware. Given how aggressively ransomware has evolved—and on an international scale—they'll have their hands more than full. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! The cold war over McDonald's hacked ice cream machines What octopus dreams tell us about the evolution of sleep The lazy gamer’s guide to cable management How to log in to your devices without passwords Help! Am I oversharing with my colleagues ? 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Senior Writer X Topics cybersecurity ransomware apple Kate O'Flaherty Dell Cameron Dell Cameron Matt Burgess Vas Panagiotopoulos Lily Hay Newman Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Alleged Russian Hacker Behind $100 Million Evil Corp Indicted | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/alleged-russian-hacker-evil-corp-indicted"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Brian Barrett Security Alleged Russian Hacker Behind $100 Million Evil Corp Indicted Alleged Evil Corp mastermind Maksim Yakubets stands next to his Lamborghini Huracan. Courtesy of the UK National Crime Agency Save this story Save Save this story Save For the last decade, the hackers behind Evil Corp have led a sustained assault on the bank accounts of thousands of victims across dozens of countries. By steadily evolving malware known as Bugat, they indiscriminately siphoned tens of millions of dollars from unwitting victims. Thursday, the FBI indicted Evil Corp’s alleged leader: Maksim V. Yakubets, also known as “aqua.” The indictment, which you can read in full below, details in broad strokes the playbook that Yakubets and Igor Turashev, another Russian charged in the scheme, allegedly have rolled out countless times. They’d convince victims to click on a malicious link in a phishing email to download Bugat. Once installed, the malware would use a variety of techniques to steal: a keylogger to grab passwords, or creating fake banking pages to trick someone into voluntarily entering their credentials. Armed with that information, the hackers would arrange for electronic funds transfers from victim bank accounts to a network of so-called money mules , who would then get the funds back to Evil Corp. “Each and every one of these intrusions was effectively a cyber-enabled bank robbery,” said assistant US attorney general Brian Benczkowski at a press conference announcing the indictment Thursday. Both men are still at-large in Russia. Evil Corp was apparently also in the franchise business. According to court documents, Yakubets gave a UK resident access to Bugat in exchange for $100,000 up front, plus 50 percent of all revenues, with a minimum take of $50,000 a week. Like any good franchisor, Yakubets offered technical support as needed. Courtesy of the FBI Since at least 2011, the FBI estimates that Bugat—also known as Dridex and Cridex—resulted in losses of $100 million or more across hundreds of banks. What makes the Evil Corp campaign so impressive isn’t just the scale, but how adaptable it has proved to be. Law enforcement has pursued them for years, even successfully prosecuting Dridex sysadmin Andrey Ghinkul. US law enforcement disabled some of the conspiracy’s sub-botnets in 2016 by sinkholing them. The FBI indicted a related Belarus-based money mule network that same year. And still, Evil Corp persisted. “The Dridex malware conspiracy was a constantly evolving and adapting criminal enterprise that had a level of sophistication and scope of threat that we rarely see,” US attorney Scott Brady said at Thursday’s press conference. Over the years, Brady said, Evil Corp has switched from a centralized command-and-control center to peer-to-peer botnets to make their activities harder to trace, used more sophisticated so-called web injects to trick users into entering sensitive information, and ditched international wire transfers for the relative anonymity of ransomware tied to cryptocurrency payments. “This is why this has been the most widespread and destructive malware and banking trojans in the world over the last decade,” Brady said. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In all, Yakubets and Turashev have been indicted on 10 Bugat-related counts, covering conspiracy, computer hacking, wire fraud, and bank fraud. But the Yakubets story goes further still. Which is maybe why the US government has taken the rare step of offering $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Since 2006, few malware campaigns have caused as much international consternation as Zeus , a trojan horse that became the favored malware of organized crime. Both the original Zeus and its later variants, Jabber Zeus and GameOver Zeus, had a roughly similar modus operandi to Bugat: steal banking credentials, transfer the money. A separate criminal complaint also unsealed Thursday alleges that Yakubets has been involved almost since the beginning. Zeus attacks netted $70 million from US targets, a diverse list that includes banks, a luggage store, and the Franciscan Sisters of Chicago. It hit 21 municipalities, banks, and nonprofit organizations in 11 states over its decade-long reign. The specific role Yakubets played, according to the criminal complaint, was to provide “money mules and their associated banking credentials in order to facilitate the movement of money which was withdrawn from victim accounts by fraudulent means.” Law enforcement connected Yakubets to both Bugat and Zeus thanks in part to his “aqua” moniker, which allegedly showed up in chat transcripts from the Zeus crew that detail bank transfer data and discuss ongoing operations. The FBI was also aided, perhaps surprisingly, by the Russian government, which has been notoriously protective of its hackers , both state-sponsored and otherwise. “It was helpful in the investigation—to a point,” said FBI deputy director David Bowdich at Thursday’s press conference. The FBI also first asked for that assistance in 2010. But in a separate announcement Thursday of sanctions against Evil Corp and its enablers, spanning 17 individuals and seven entities in all, the US Treasury Department alleged that Yakubets later signed on with Russia’s FSB intelligence agency. “In addition to his leadership role within Evil Corp, Yakubets has also provided direct assistance to the Russian government,” the agency’s statement reads. “As of 2017, Yakubets was working for the Russian FSB, one of Russia’s leading intelligence organizations.” It’s unclear exactly what role Yakubets is accused of playing with the FSB, but the allegations include “acquiring confidential documents through cyber-enabled means and conducting cyber-enabled operations.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The indictment, criminal complaint, and sanctions announcement collectively paint Yakubets as something of a cybercrime Zelig. “Yakubets has allegedly been involved in cybercrime on an almost unimaginable scale for over a decade,” said the DOJ’s Benczkowski. Indictments like this always invite the same question: What will it actually accomplish? Yakubets is safely ensconced in Russia, after all. The odds of actually bringing him to trial seem vanishingly slim. Then again it’s not impossible. Take Ghinkul as an example, or Roman Seleznev, a Russian hacker arrested in 2016 in the Maldives and sentenced to 27 years in prison the following year. A successful arrest also isn’t the only potential positive outcome. “Having your name, your face, or your description on a wanted poster makes moving around freely much more difficult,” the FBI’s Bowdich said at Thursday’s press conference. “Simply naming them in an indictment accomplishes a great deal. State sponsors and other clients prize hackers for their anonymity, deniability, and their stealth. Calling these actors out publicly through these indictments strips away that anonymity.” And then there’s the matter of the $5 million. Offering a reward for leads like this has some precedent; there’s a $3 million bounty still extant for information relating to alleged Zeus mastermind Evgeniy Bogachev. “You put into the equation that someone, whether or not it’s the Russian government, might decide the money is worth turning them over,” says David J. Hickton, founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute of Cyber Law Policy and Security, who also prosecuted the Ghinkul case. Putting that $5 million forward can also invite certain trade-offs, says former White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert. “This bounty can’t hurt and could easily help by testing the honor of fellow thieves. I think it might well generate a lead,” Bossert says. “The two downsides will be the increased work of sifting through false tips and the potential for one day having to pay the bounty to an unsavory character, who might use the proceeds for bad. The cost-benefit trade-offs in this case make it worth trying.” For now, Yakubets remains at large, and presumably still active; the DOJ cited Bugat attacks as recent as March 19. But shining a spotlight on his various alleged schemes can only make them harder to pull off in the future, whether or not he ever sees the inside of a courtroom. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Additional reporting by Andy Greenberg. Everybody loves Rey, a Star Wars story The tech-obsessed, hyper-experimental restaurant of the future 25 amazing gift ideas under $25 Drawing with drones over the salt flats of Bolivia Here's the evidence that links Russia’s most brazen cyberattacks 👁 A safer way to protect your data ; plus, the latest news on AI 🎧 Things not sounding right? Check out our favorite wireless headphones , soundbars , and Bluetooth speakers Executive Editor, News X Topics Russia hacking cybercrime Dell Cameron Dell Cameron Lily Hay Newman Dell Cameron Dell Cameron Lily Hay Newman Andy Greenberg Justin Ling Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The Accellion Breach Keeps Getting Worse—and More Expensive | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/accellion-breach-victims-extortion"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Lily Hay Newman Security The Accellion Breach Keeps Getting Worse—and More Expensive Victims include the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the state of Washington, security firm Qualys, and dozens more. Photograph: Erik Isakson/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save The drumbeat of data breach disclosures is unrelenting, with new organizations chiming in all the time. But a series of breaches in December and January that have come to light in recent weeks has quietly provided an object lesson in how bad things can get when hackers find an inroad to dozens of potential targets—and they're out for profit. Firewall vendor Accellion quietly released a patch in late December, and then more fixes in January , to address a cluster of vulnerabilities in one of its network equipment offerings. Since then, dozens of companies and government organizations worldwide have acknowledged that they were breached as a result of the flaws—and many face extortion, as the ransomware group Clop has threatened to make the data public if they don't pay up. On March 1, security firm FireEye shared the results of its investigation into the incident, concluding that two separate, previously unknown hacking groups carried out the hacking spree and the extortion work, respectively. The hackers seem to have connections to the financial crimes group FIN11 and the ransomware gang Clop. Publicly known victims so far include the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the state of Washington, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Singaporean telecom Singtel, the high-profile law firm Jones Day, the grocery store chain Kroger, and the University of Colorado; just last week, cybersecurity firm Qualys joined their ranks. The four vulnerabilities are in Accellion's File Transfer Appliance, essentially a dedicated computer used to move large and sensitive files within a network. “These vulnerabilities are particularly damaging, because in a normal case an attacker has to hunt to find your sensitive files, and it's a bit of a guessing game, but in this case the work is already done," says Jake Williams, founder of the security firm Rendition Infosec, which is working on remediating an Accellion FTA-related breach. “By definition, everything sent through Accellion FTA was pre-identified as sensitive by the user.” Widespread Accellion FTA exploitation has played out in recent months alongside other massive nation-state hacking sprees that targeted the IT services firm Solarwinds and the managed email system Microsoft Exchange Server. Both of those initiatives appear to have hit thousands of companies, but primarily for espionage purposes. The Accellion hackers, by contrast, seem motivated by criminal profit. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “Worldwide, actors have exploited the vulnerabilities to attack multiple federal and state, local, tribal, and territorial government organizations as well as private industry organizations including those in the medical, legal, telecommunications, finance, and energy sectors,” the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said at the end of February in a joint statement with international authorities. “In some instances observed, the attacker has subsequently extorted money from victim organizations to prevent public release of information exfiltrated from the Accellion appliance.” Accellion has consistently emphasized that its FTA product, which has been around for more than 20 years, is at the end of its life. The company had already planned to end support for FTA on April 30, and had discontinued support for its operating system, Centos 6, on November 30. The company says it has been working for three years to transition customers away from FTA and onto its new platform, Kiteworks. “Since becoming aware of these attacks, our team has been working around the clock to develop and release patches that resolve each identified FTA vulnerability, and support our customers affected by this incident,” Accellion CEO Jonathan Yaron said in a statement last Monday. Incident responders say, though, that Accellion was slow to raise the alarm about the potential risk to FTA users. “The Accellion zero days were particularly damaging because actors were mass-exploiting this vulnerability quickly, and the severity of this wasn't being communicated from Accellion,” says David Kennedy, CEO of the corporate incident response consultancy TrustedSec. “We had a number of customers that were reaching out to Accellion to understand the impact without any response. There was a large time window for active exploitation.” The company faces multiple lawsuits in Northern California and Washington state court as a result of the widespread intrusions. "In a normal case an attacker has to hunt to find your sensitive files and it's a bit of a guessing game, but in this case the work is already done." Jake Williams, Rendition Infosec There are likely more Accellion victims out there, and not all known victims have had samples of their data leaked on Clop websites. Brett Callow, a threat researcher at the antivirus firm Emsisoft, says that the ransomware group has been releasing its extortion demands and corresponding leaked data from a handful of victims per week. It's possible, he says, that they're releasing the data slowly to keep up with the logistics of managing the extortion requests, and that much more is to come. “With attacks like these, which are carried out through groups looking to profit from hacking, we often don't see large exploitation all at once,” TrustedSec's Kennedy says. “This was well-crafted, thought out, and executed by these specific adversaries to maximize monetary gain for the attacks.” Accellion devices sit on-premises, meaning attackers had to seek out vulnerable pieces of equipment within targets' networks. But incident responders say that the situation also raises the specter of how catastrophic it would be if similar types of vulnerabilities were to occur in public cloud services, like those offered by Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure. The effect of one key that opens many doors would be amplified even more. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “Public cloud is absolutely great except when it isn’t,” Emsisoft's Callow says. “Data that is in the cloud can be just as vulnerable as on-premises data. There is a misconception that using the cloud automatically makes your data more secure, but that’s not necessarily the case.” In an incident at the end of 2020, for example, hundreds of organizations worldwide, including universities and charities, suffered data breaches because of vulnerabilities in the Blackbaud cloud platform. “It absolutely could happen at a cloud provider too,” Rendition Infosec's Williams says. “The only thing with on-premises appliances like FTA is that the code is easier to inspect for vulnerabilities," because attackers can get the devices themselves. For a product like FTA that's at the end of its life, attackers certainly saved the worst for last. But given that it can take years for organizations to actually transition away from legacy network equipment, more FTA-related breaches may come to light, and others could still occur in the future in unpatched devices. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! The Lion, the polygamist, and the biofuel scam Clubhouse is booming. So is the ecosystem around it How Google's grand plan to make its own games fell apart Why can't I stop staring at my own face on Zoom ? Perseverance’s eyes see a different Mars 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 📱 Torn between the latest phones? Never fear—check out our iPhone buying guide and favorite Android phones Senior Writer X Topics security cybersecurity hacking vulnerabilities Lily Hay Newman Matt Burgess Kate O'Flaherty Andy Greenberg Lily Hay Newman Andy Greenberg Dell Cameron Andy Greenberg Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"What the Scientists Who Pioneered Weight-Loss Drugs Want You to Know | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/obesity-drugs-researcher-interview-ozempic-wegovy"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Matt Reynolds Science What the Scientists Who Pioneered Weight-Loss Drugs Want You to Know Photograph: Florian Gaertner/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save The history of weight-loss drugs is littered with failures. Some were outright dangerous: In the 1950s and ’60s, amphetamine-based diet pills were popular, but their prominence faded after being linked to addiction and other severe side effects. In 1997 the drug cocktail fen-phen was removed from the US market after it became clear it caused heart valve damage. Other attempts at treating obesity with drugs hit scientific dead ends. The history of anti-obesity drug discovery is for the most part “a bottomless pit into which people shove money and time,” wrote Derek Lowe in Science. The new crop of much-hyped weight loss drugs seems to be different. These work by mimicking a hormone called glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1), which regulates blood sugar levels and slows down the rate at which food leaves the stomach, making people fuller for longer. GLP-1-mimicking drugs seem to be a powerful tool for weight loss: Some people lose 15 percent of their body weight or more after 68 weeks on semaglutide, which is approved in the US for weight loss as Wegovy and for type 2 diabetes under the brand name Ozempic. But the history of GLP-1 goes back more than 40 years—before obesity became the health crisis it is today. To get a sense of where these drugs came from—and where they might go next—WIRED spoke to two scientists who did some of the earliest work on the GLP-1 hormone, and who have played an important role in the development of these drugs. Jens Juul Holst is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Joel Habener is a professor at the Mass General Research Institute in Massachusetts. In 2021, Habener, Holst, and Daniel Drucker were awarded the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for their work discovering and developing treatments based on the GLP-1 hormone. Holst and Habener were interviewed separately. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. WIRED: Jens, you got involved with this research in the 1970s. Rather than diabetes or obesity, the history of GLP-1 starts with a completely different disease. Tell us about that. Jens Holst: This was duodenal ulcer disease—people have forgotten about that disease completely. Diabetes was just something for old people, and you couldn’t do a lot about it anyway, and it was not interesting. So people were talking about duodenal ulcer disease— that was the problem. And this meant looking at the hormones that are secreted when people eat. You started taking GLP-1 from pigs and pumping it through pig pancreases to see what it did—and that’s when you realized GLP-1 seemed to be a particularly powerful hormone. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Holst: We found that not only did GLP-1 stimulate insulin secretion, it also inhibited glucagon secretion. This was interesting, because people with diabetes have too much glucagon and that glucagon causes high blood sugar. So by stimulating insulin and inhibiting glucagon, you could have a double mechanism on the blood glucose. And now it was beginning to look like something interesting, and we were beginning to think of diabetes. That pig pancreas study was published in 1988. Were drug companies paying much attention then? Holst: I have always had friendly relationships with [Ozempic and Wegovy manufacturer] Novo Nordisk. It’s in Denmark, just up the street, and we were interested in the same things, so I kept telling them about what we were doing. They were obviously interested in anything that could stimulate insulin secretion, but I must say that when we showed Novo Nordisk that [a different but related hormone] does not stimulate insulin secretion in people with diabetes, they withdrew some research support we had received because they said it wouldn’t work. This is true. This is what happened. They were listening politely, but they weren’t really interested. But by the early 1990 things started to change? Holst: The real turning point was a study by Michael Nauck in 1993. We worked together, and we finally infused GLP-1 into people with type 2 diabetes and could show that the blood glucose came to completely normal levels in four hours, while insulin was stimulated and glucagon was inhibited. This demonstrated to everybody that this was really doing something in people with type 2 diabetes, completely unlike other hormones. At that point, did you have a sense of how much potential these drugs might have, for treating obesity as well as diabetes? Holst: We were finding these things out step by step. First, it was stimulating insulin secretion. That’s interesting but not really exciting. Then it’s stimulating glucagon secretion—that’s more interesting, put that on top. Then it’s also inhibiting the GI tract and gastric emptying. Then we find out it’s inhibiting food intake as well. Wow, amazing. Amazing. It’s building up on top of each other all the time. Joel Habener: We thought this might be a potential treatment for diabetes, type 2 diabetes. But we and others were finding with treating human subjects with GLP-1 in the very early days that you had to be very careful to keep the dose low, because many patients felt ill when they were eating. They were supposed to eat a meal, and then within 30 minutes we’d measure the blood insulin to check how effective it was. Many of the subjects noted they were unable to finish their meal. It was messing up the experimental protocol because they were getting full and feeling nauseated and saying they didn’t want to eat any more food. Today, we’re between 10 to 15 percent of adults in the world who have a BMI at or above 30 ; in the US it’s around 40 percent. And obesity is clearly a very serious metabolic disease. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg And that means a huge number of people will meet the FDA’s requirements for Wegovy treatment. Some projections put the future value of obesity drugs at $100 billion annually. Did you ever suspect that your work on GLP-1 could make you rich? Holst: I’m so old, you know! I’m from ’68 and all of that; I was walking around in the street with signs saying: “Research for the people, not for the profit.” We didn’t even think of patenting or getting money out of this or anything. We were interested in publishing, doing something and moving this ahead. Right, but you have close links with Novo Nordisk—it supported some of your research on GLP-1—and you also work at the metabolic research foundation it established at the University of Copenhagen. The company must be pretty grateful for your work? Holst: I have been treated very nicely by them. I’ve been hired as a consultant [by Novo Nordisk] for some years, but otherwise I’ve never received a penny from them. Actually, when we found GLP-1 inhibited food intake and demonstrated this in 1998, we tried to make a patent with Novo Nordisk on the treatment of obesity. We were very interested in appetite regulation and treatment of obesity. They said yes, and we thought we’d have a good patent, together with Novo Nordisk’s experience. Of course, eventually it turned out that the things we patented were not the things that they developed, so nothing came out of that after all. The wider world really started to realize the potential of these drugs for weight loss in 2021, when The New England Journal of Medicine published a study showing that weekly semaglutide injections led to an average 14.9 percent weight loss in overweight and obese people. A lot of people in the industry were really impressed by this result —did it come as a surprise to you? Holst: We already knew since 2001 that the dose of GLP-1 you were able to give people would determine its effect on food intake, so you could make the deduction that this would work. The problem was the side effects. Throughout the development of these GLP-1 drugs, the main problem has been finding a balance between the two. One of the really important observations was when Novo Nordisk created a fixed combination of long-acting insulin and GLP-1 called Xultophy. That was given to people with severe diabetes and it worked beautifully, but it turned out that to get to a steady dose with Xultophy it took 14 weeks of [gradually upping] the dose. And the more carefully you can up these drugs, the less side effects you can get eventually. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg And a 15 percent weight reduction is pretty remarkable too, right? Holst: It’s exceptional for two reasons. One is that it has not been possible with any other means to make a similar drug-induced weight loss. It’s simply not been possible; you can’t do it. This in itself is remarkable. With low-calorie diets you can make 12 percent decreases in eight weeks, you could do that. But you can’t continue that kind of low-calorie diet. But now to have 15 percent or perhaps even up to 20 percent weight loss in a year or so is really remarkable. The other reason is shown by studies like the DIRECT studies from Scotland, where they managed to make people lose weight by dieting and lifestyle interventions, and they could look at weight loss in categories. Those who were able to lose 15 percent of their body weight in that study had 86 percent diabetes remission. If you can lose 15 percent body weight, then a lot of people can get rid of their diabetes, apparently. If they can maintain it, the same is true. And this, of course, is supported from bariatric surgery results—they show exactly the same results. But one of the problems is that these drugs aren’t always being taken by the people who are most in need of them—just look at Ozempic’s popularity as an off-label drug among celebrities. Derek Thompson in The Atlantic has written that these drugs could be a public health revolution, but in early 2023 they represent “an elite cultural makeover more than a medical intervention.” Holst: I am a doctor. I am an MD all the way through. And my interest is in the complications of diabetes and obesity, and so I’m thinking constantly of people with obstructive apnea , and people with arthritis who can’t move, and I’m thinking about all the cardiovascular disease in these people. This year we will have the results of the SELECT study looking at semaglutide’s effects on heart disease and stroke in patients with obesity. There are so many terrible problems. Have you ever visited a diabetes hospital? It’s really deplorable. People come in with amputated limbs and compromised cognitive functions and heart problems or they can barely move—they’re miserable and depressed. It’s really serious. There is so much you can improve with a drug that is not only a weight-loss drug but is also an anti-diabetic. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Habener: I think it’s important at this stage that the use of GLP-1 drugs is under medical supervision. The drugs should not be available over the counter, for example. It needs to be a prescription carefully followed by a physician who will be looking for troublesome side effects. But it’s hard to know where it’s gonna go. I’d say the most satisfying thing right now about the drugs is the fact they are very effective at controlling type 2 diabetes for the most part. Activists have warned that the rise of weight-loss drugs could deepen social stigma against fatness; that it will entrench the idea that anyone could—and should—have a skinny body. Does this worry you? Holst: I don’t consider the shape of people at all in this. I only talk about complications. If people are completely healthy, I’m not interested. Let them be, that’s not a problem for me. But if they start to develop cardiovascular disease or cancer or depression, then there’s something to do. Then I’m a doctor or a surgeon and have to do something about it. And this also underlines the importance of making sure the right people have access to the drug. Habener: It’s not going to be available for poorer people unless things change. And currently a lot of insurance companies won’t cover [Wegovy] because obesity is still seen as a cosmetic problem, and they think that people are obese because they eat too much or don’t exercise enough or don’t have any willpower. But obesity is a disease, a metabolic disorder that has genetic and environmental inputs. It’s a complex trait. It’s also partly to do with big problems with our food system: access to healthy food, poverty, the dominance of big corporations over our diets. Drugs like Wegovy can’t address any of these root causes, so I wonder if there’s this dynamic where we have this terrible food environment, but we also have these drugs that undo some of those effects, so we end up ignoring all of these fundamental problems with our diets. Holst: I don’t think it works that way, actually. What happens is that you lose your appetite and also the pleasure of eating, and so I think there’s a price to be paid when you do that. If you like food, then that pleasure is gone. The craving for food for some people is taken away when they take GLP-1 drugs. So you don’t eat through GLP-1 therapy because you’ve lost interest in food. That may eventually be a problem, that once you’ve been on this for a year or two, life is so miserably boring that you can’t stand it any longer and you have to go back to your old life. So there might be a problem with getting people to stay on GLP-1 drugs? Holst: GLP-1s have been on the market since 2005. Do people stay on them? No, they don’t. It’s just like every other drug, they don’t stay on it for many reasons. One of the reasons, as I said, is that once you have tried it and you realize you’ve lost interest in food, then that may be enough. We don’t know why people stop taking these drugs, but we know for a fact that they do stop. They do that all over the world. It’s not the question of money. It’s simply because something happens that makes you uninterested in going on. Maybe you think everything is alright now, and then it turns out later that it is not alright and maybe you come back on the therapy. But I don’t see that a huge part of the population will be put on Wegovy and will stay on Wegovy for the rest of their lives—I simply don’t see that picture, because this hasn’t happened with other GLP-1 drugs. You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Senior writer X Topics medicine drugs health Weight Loss Matt Reynolds Maryn McKenna Grace Browne Matt Reynolds Lux Alptraum Rob Reddick Celia Ford Emily Mullin Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"How Explosives, a Robot, and a Sled Expose a Doomsday Glacier | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/how-explosives-a-robot-and-a-sled-expose-a-doomsday-glacier"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Matt Simon Science How Explosives, a Robot, and a Sled Expose a Doomsday Glacier Photograph: Erin Pettit Save this story Save Save this story Save Two Decembers ago, Erin Pettit layered up, slapped on goggles, cued up an audio book, and went on a hike—across Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. Behind her, she dragged a sled loaded with a ground-penetrating radar, which fired pulses through a thousand feet of ice and analyzed the radio waves that bounced off the seawater below, thus building a detailed image of the glacier beneath her feet. Pettit—a glaciologist and climate scientist at Oregon State University—hiked alone through the snow, sometimes eschewing headphones for the absolute auditory stillness of the most remote landscape on Earth. “It was actually kind of an amazing, meditative field season,” she says, “I just bundled up, I went out there and pulled my sled, and just walked for miles and miles.” In case you were worried, her colleagues always knew where Pettit was; every so often someone would roll out on a snow machine to bring her supplies or to swap out the radar’s battery. Sure, the team could have covered more ground by towing the radar behind the vehicle, but the vibrations would have introduced noise to the data. And by walking slowly, Pettit could maximize the resolution of the radar images. Every night, she’d return to camp, download that data, and begin to parse it. “And then the next day, I would go out and do the same thing—walk this peaceful, quiet walk,” says Pettit. She hiked up to 12 miles each day for over two weeks, for a total of 135 miles. “I was thinking: I'm walking on top of 300, 400 meters of ice that's on top of the ocean, and on this piece of ice that was unlikely to be there for much longer.” That’s because Thwaites—aka the Doomsday Glacier—is deteriorating fast, losing 50 billion tons of ice to the sea each year. Stretching 75 miles across the coast of Antarctica, encompassing an area about the size of Florida, it’s currently responsible for 4 percent of global sea level rise. (It straddles land and sea: The bit on land is known as an “ice sheet,” but where it floats it’s an “ice shelf.”) If it melted completely, the glacier would not only contribute over 2 feet of sea level rise, but as it slid into the ocean, it would also tug on the glaciers surrounding it, further destabilizing them. That’d add another 8 feet of sea level rise. Scientists are racing to understand how Thwaites is disintegrating, and to figure out how much time humanity has before the thing causes disastrous sea level rise. The ice shelf could crumble in three to five years, which will dramatically accelerate the decline of the rest of the glacier. Each new satellite image of Thwaites shows deeper and longer fractures that are growing up to 6 miles a year, and they’re heading toward thinner ice. Erin Pettit leaves camp with a ground-penetrating radar in tow Photograph: Karen Alley Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But the view from above only tells half the story. That’s why Pettit and 100 other scientists in the five-year International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration , funded by the US and UK governments, are also investigating the glacier’s hard-to-reach underbelly. At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union last month, they updated the public with their recent findings. And yeah, things aren’t looking good. Pettit’s sled-based radar measurements give an idea of how well the glacier’s underside is holding together. Radar travels well through solid water but not liquid water, so when the pulses reached the sea—the relatively warm water that is melting the bottom of the glacier—they bounced back to the sled. “Where I'm walking looks like it's just an endless flat landscape,” says Pettit. “But when you look at the underside, it's a very intricate, complex landscape that has cliffs and gouges and fractures in it, and it's much thinner than the rest of the ice shelf.” The researchers pore over radar data Photograph: Karen Alley Unlike the fractures that satellites have spotted on the surface, those underside cracks don’t seem to be growing quickly right now, Pettit says, “but they could easily be triggered to propagate faster.” That’s because the ice shelf is losing its grip on an underwater mountain about 30 miles offshore, which acts like a dam, or “pinning point,” holding back the rest of the glacier. But soon that dam will break and the ice shelf will shatter into icebergs. It'll be like a car hitting a pothole, allowing a nick in the windshield to propagate into a web of cracks. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Without a cohesive ice shelf holding it back, the ice sheet on land will accelerate its own seaward march, as well as that of its neighbors. “As Thwaites Glacier loses mass and it flows out more quickly into the ocean, it will be pulling on the nearby glaciers,” says Pettit. Thus the name “Doomsday Glacier.” Photograph: Karen Alley Other scientists have turned their attention to Thwaites’ grounding zone, where the glacier transitions from land to floating on water. Peter Washam, an oceanographer and climate scientist at Cornell University, presented findings at the conference from his last few years of work. His team gets an even more detailed picture of the underside of the ice with a robot called Icefin, essentially an 11-foot-long scientific torpedo that a crew lowers through a bored hole. The robot’s tether allows it to wander over 2 miles, using sonar and lasers to map the seafloor and the glacier’s belly in three dimensions. It’s got sensors that measure salinity, temperature, and oxygen, and it uses acoustic pings that bounce off particles in the water column to measure the speed of currents. Basically, Icefin can track down whatever scientists want to know about Thwaites’ grounding zone. “It's your typical ship-based instrumentation, all slammed into a little vehicle,” says Washam. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Getting a view of any grounding zone is a rarity. “The fact that it was Thwaites was like a gold star on top of that,” he continues. “This gives us an idea as we start to look around Antarctica elsewhere, and Greenland, of what we might expect in these sorts of regions.” Photograph: Karen Alley But the news from Icefin doesn't bode well. Waters warm enough to melt glaciers are swirling around Thwaites’ grounding line—the exact point where ice meets land—and this line has retreated over a mile since 2011. That means there’s now more seawater in contact with the bottom of the glacier, which means more melting. The ice, says Washam, “is the most chaotic part of all of this—it has these really cool sort of corrugated, undulating features close to the grounding line.” These features are hot spots of melting. If the underside of Thwaites were flat, the freshwater that melts out of the ice would pool beneath it like a lid, insulating it from being further melted by warmer seawater. “It will basically fight the movement of ocean heat into the ice,” says Washam. Instead, the undulating, sloped features disrupt the lid of freshwater, allowing warmer waters to contact the ice. This revelation gives glaciologists critical insight into how glaciers everywhere might be degrading—and is a factor they haven’t yet accounted for in modeling. “This sort of other way of melting along these sloped ice surfaces is just not in ice sheet models,” Washam says. “What this shows us is this is something that has to be considered if we're going to more accurately project Antarctica's contribution to sea level rise.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Lizzy Clyne, a geophysicist and glaciologist at Lewis and Clark College, and another conference presenter, has found yet more trouble at the grounding zone—by using explosives, which crews lower into a 20-foot-deep hole in the ice. (“It's kind of like a firework,” Clyne says. “It would hurt you if it blew up in your hand, but it's not like a giant bomb.”) An array of seismometers at the surface measures how the energy of the explosion bounces off what’s below the ice. Using that data, Clyne can see whether it’s water or solid earth. It works like Pettit’s ground-penetrating radar, and indeed Clyne marries the seismic data with radar data too. Icefin's view of the underside of Thwaites Glacier Video: Peter Washam The data, which Clyne has been gathering since 2018, is showing that because the ice shelf portion of Thwaites is floating on the sea, it tilts when the tide goes in and out. As it lifts up, warmer water slips through the grounding zone and underneath the ice sheet that’s resting on the land, driving still more melting. It’s yet another critical dynamic that isn’t represented in the modeling of glacial melt. “It's got this kind of action where you might be pulling that couple-degrees-above-freezing seawater a little bit farther inland than we initially thought,” says Clyne. “It might be like a few centimeters of water, a little thin layer going farther inland. But that's all it takes to melt ice.” Now that scientists are piecing these trends together—the fractures in the ice shelf, the complexity of the underside of the glacier, and the tidal pumping—they’ve landed at a grim assessment of the Doomsday Glacier: It’s decomposing in more ways than they previously understood. If it melts entirely and takes surrounding glaciers with it, sea levels would go up a total of 10 feet. “In my view,” says Clyne, “if we're going to have a very rapid amount of sea level rise over the next several decades, it can't happen unless Thwaites is contributing a lot to it.” By dragging radar on sleds, piloting torpedo robots, and setting off explosives, scientists are building an ever-clearer picture of the most important glacier on Earth. “I individually don't have the ability to control sea level rise, and I can't fix global warming on my own,” says Clyne. “But what we can do is study and understand what's happening, what's going to happen, and how to mitigate as much as possible.” The race to find “green” helium Your rooftop garden could be a solar-powered farm This new tech cuts through rock without grinding into it The best Discord bots for your server How to guard against smishing attacks 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Staff Writer X Topics climate change Antarctica Matt Simon Matt Simon Brent M. Foster Matt Simon Matt Simon Jorge Garay Arbab Ali Robin Andrews Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"A Robot Finds More Trouble Under the Doomsday Glacier | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/a-robot-finds-more-trouble-under-the-doomsday-glacier"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Matt Simon Science A Robot Finds More Trouble Under the Doomsday Glacier Photograph: Rob Robbins/USAP Save this story Save Save this story Save Icefin the robot is designed to go where no human can, swimming off the coast of Antarctica under 2,000 feet of ice. Lowered through a borehole drilled with hot water, the torpedo-shaped machine takes readings and—most strikingly—video of Thwaites Glacier’s vulnerable underbelly. This Florida-sized chunk of ice is also known as the Doomsday Glacier, and for good reason: It’s rapidly deteriorating, and if it collapses, global sea levels could rise over a foot. It could also tug on surrounding glaciers as it dies, which would add another 10 feet to rising seas. In a pair of papers published today in the journal Nature , scientists describe what Icefin and other instruments have discovered underneath all that ice. Simply put: trouble. Models of future sea-level rise characterize the bit of Thwaites that’s floating on the ocean—known as an ice shelf—as having a fairly simple, flat underside, but the robot found that 10 percent of it is way more complex. There are terraces, for instance, of vertical walls over 30 feet high where melting is happening much faster than in flat areas. That small portion is “contributing 25 percent of the melting that we see,” says Britney Schmidt, an Earth and planetary scientist at Cornell University, who leads the Icefin project. (She’s the lead author of one of the papers and coauthor on the other.) “So it's a really outsized impact.” Hot-water drilling of the borehole in Antarctica Photograph: Peter Davis/British Antarctic Survey Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg As those features melt, they may be sending shocks through the system. “What we know about Thwaites is that it's falling apart,” says Schmidt. “We've been looking at it for the last 30 years, watching rifts and crevasses propagating across the system and destabilizing the whole ice shelf. And what we're showing here is the way that the ocean kind of works into these weak spots, and in a sense makes it worse.” To deploy Icefin and other instruments, Schmidt and her colleagues drilled down near the glacier’s grounding line, the point where the ice lifts off the Antarctic land mass and starts floating on the sea. Thwaites’ risk of melting isn’t due to rising atmospheric temperatures above, but from rising ocean temperatures below. Its grounding line has retreated 10 miles inland since the late 1990s, which means that now more of the glacier’s ice is making contact with warm saltwater. A phenomenon known as tidal pumping is not helping: The ice heaves up when the tide comes in , allowing yet more water to rush underneath. Photograph: Peter Davis/British Antarctic Survey Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Scientists have good estimates of where the retreating grounding line is, thanks to satellites watching for tiny changes in the ice’s elevation. But they haven’t had a good picture of what the glacier’s belly looks like at the grounding line, because it’s under thousands of feet of ice. “These data are really exciting because we're getting a look into a hidden system,” says University of Waterloo glaciologist Christine Dow, who studies Antarctic glaciers but wasn’t involved in the research. Video: ITGC/Schmidt/Washam With Icefin, the researchers could remotely pilot a camera while measuring the salinity, temperature, and oxygen content of the water. “We saw that the ice base itself was very complex in its topography, so there's lots of staircases, terraces, rifts, and crevasses,” says British Antarctic Survey physical oceanographer Peter Davis, the lead author of one of the papers and coauthor on the other. “The rate of melting on different surfaces was very different.” Where the glacier’s underside (or basal ice, in the scientific parlance) is smoother, melting is definitely happening, but at a much slower rate than where the topography is jagged. That’s because a layer of cold water rests where the ice is flat, insulating it from warmer ocean water like a liquid blanket. But where the topography is sloped and irregular, there are more vertical surfaces where warm water can attack the ice, including making incursions from the side. This melting creates a peculiar “scalloped” look, like the surface of a golf ball. These complex, expanding basal features could then influence the rest of the ice. “If you open up features underneath the ice, you also get similar reflections of them on the surface, because of the way that the ice is floating,” says Davis. “So there's a fear that if you're widening these rifts and crevices under the ice, you can destabilize the ice shelf, which could lead to greater disintegration over time.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg If you’re feeling relieved that the flatter bits of basal ice are insulated against melting to a certain degree—don’t be. “It sounds like what we're saying is that there's less melting than there was before, and that's not true,” says Schmidt. Instead, they’re showing that the dramatic deterioration of Thwaites has been happening under conditions that are milder than models previously estimated. “That's important,” she continues. “That means that it takes less to get this degree of change.” Video: ITGC/Schmidt/Washam Put another way: Thwaites’ underside may be much more sensitive than previously believed. “What it shows us is that it's easier, perhaps, to knock these systems out of equilibrium in the first place,” says Davis. “In the past, we have associated rapid retreat with rapid melting. And I think what the results are showing us is that you don't need rapid melting to drive retreat. What you do need, though, is a change in melting. So you need something to shift the system away from a balance.” That’s especially troubling because it means that the retreat of the grounding line can’t be explained by sky-high rates of basal melt, says Alexander Robel, head of the Ice and Climate Group at Georgia Tech, who wasn’t involved in the new papers. And other factors could set off further melt. “If ocean temperature or ocean circulation were to change in the future,” says Robel, “we could potentially get even higher basal melt rates that would produce even faster grounding line retreat rates.” Better understanding how Thwaites is crumbling is critical for projecting how quickly it’ll add to sea-level rise. Typically, forecasts are based on simplified models that represent the underside of ice sheets as flat or sloped—partly because instruments like Icefin are only just beginning to map them in detail, partly because of the computing power needed to parse such complexity over vast areas. But the complex features that Icefin has discovered could be essential for modeling the glacier in much finer detail. “This is such a key region for Antarctic stability,” says Dow. “Any data we're getting from there is going to be hugely valuable for trying to figure out what that system will do in the future.” You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Staff Writer X Topics climate change robotics oceans Antarctica Ramin Skibba Jim Robbins Matt Simon Swapna Krishna Emily Mullin Maryn McKenna Erica Kasper Matt Reynolds Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"NASA’s InSight Mars Lander’s Days Are Numbered | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/with-dusty-solar-panels-insights-days-on-mars-are-numbered"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Ramin Skibba Science With Dusty Solar Panels, InSight’s Days on Mars Are Numbered Photograph: NASA Save this story Save Save this story Save On May 4, NASA’s InSight lander made a huge discovery, recording the biggest quake ever detected on another world, a magnitude 5 temblor. But InSight’s greatest accomplishment may also be its last act; just two weeks later, scientists on the InSight team revealed that the lander’s solar panels are now blanketed with dust, which has gradually accumulated since its arrival on the planet. Those panels’ diminishing power will likely spell the end of the mission. When the lander arrived on the Red Planet, the panels generated 5,000 watt-hours per sol (a Martian day), but now they’re down to about a tenth of that, said Kathya Zamora Garcia, InSight deputy project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, at a virtual press conference on Tuesday. The scientists will keep running Insight’s seismometer and robotic arm camera full-time for a few more weeks, and will run them for half-days every other sol after that, but they expect InSight’s science operations to end this summer, possibly in July. “We’re getting to the point where, we think in the next few months, we’ll probably have to shut down the instruments. Then maybe a few months after that, the spacecraft itself won’t have enough power to stay awake and communicate with Earth,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight’s principal investigator at JPL, speaking the day before the press conference. Since 2018 , InSight has resided near the Martian equator in a smooth impact crater named Elysium Planitia, probing the planet’s interior with a seismometer provided by a team of scientists at France’s National Centre for Space Studies. The sensitive instrument detects seismic waves as tiny motions in the ground, measuring how much the ground shakes. Last year it helped scientists measure the size and density of Mars’ core as well as the thickness of its crust. The lander collects weather data too. Its most remarkable finding so far may have been its detection of the big quake earlier this month, which was nearly 10 times the strength of the previous record holder, a marsquake it measured last August. On Earth, the shifting, building, and colliding of tectonic plates causes earthquakes as well as volcanoes. Mars doesn’t have such an active tectonic system, although it may have had one, along with a molten core, billions of years ago. Nonetheless, scientists believe it still has some limited tectonic activity. Even though the planet’s crust isn’t flowing, it’s brittle and has fractures and weak points, because the planet is shrinking slightly as it gradually cools. Learning more about the crust and the goings-on below has been a major goal of the InSight mission. Originally planned to last two years, InSight has nearly doubled that lifespan. The convertible-sized lander has stoically completed most of its mission while planted in its equatorial spot, surviving both swirling dust storms and clear Martian weather, and functioning during tectonic activity and quiet periods. InSight has already achieved all of its goals with the exception of sinking a heat probe into the ground, Banerdt says. That instrument, developed and built by the German Aerospace Center, was designed to take the Red Planet’s internal temperature and provide more information about its underground geology, but InSight couldn’t burrow the probe, also known as the “mole,” sufficiently deep into the clumpy Martian soil. (The Martian dirt also thwarted NASA’s Perseverance rover’s first attempt to collect a rock sample.) Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg While InSight’s pair of solar panels, each one shaped like a decagonal (10-sided) pie, efficiently provide solar power to the lander, dust has always been its Achilles’ heel. While dust storms come by frequently—though not as intensely as portrayed in The Martian —they emerge more often during the summer, says Raymond Arvidson, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis and a member of the Mars Science Laboratory and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter teams. Over time, dust continually collected atop the flat, horizontal solar arrays, which started off near-black, but are now almost completely a dusty auburn. This has limited the lander’s power, and ultimately, its life expectancy. In January, a particularly large, thick dust storm blocked sunlight from reaching the panels. Because of the reduced power supply, the InSight team put the lander in “safe mode,” suspending all but the essential functions needed for survival, until resuming normal operations about 12 days later. Since InSight is stuck in one place, it has almost no ability to shake off the dust by moving around. “With a rover, you might be able to tilt the panels, but with a lander, you are where you are,” says Amy Williams, a geologist at the University of Florida who works with the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers. (Both are powered by radioactive plutonium , while their predecessors, Spirit and Opportunity, were solar-powered.) While Martian storms can sprinkle dust on solar panels, they also come with winds that can sweep off dust, too, which benefited Spirit and Opportunity, Williams says: “They had enough dust devils nearby that actually cleaned the solar panels and allowed those missions to go a long time. InSight has not been so fortunate.” “Dust isn’t our friend,” Arvidson agrees. “Apparently, the location of InSight doesn’t have a lot of these dust devils or high winds to blow dust off; it just accumulates.” In May 2021, the InSight team successfully tried a new dust-removal technique, using the lander’s robotic arm to trickle some grains of sand onto a solar panel—when a gust of wind carried the sand away, it swept a little dust off with it. But the trick isn’t enough to save the lander this time; last year it only brought back a few tens of watt-hours of energy. The scientists now think there is only around a 5 percent chance of a lucky windstorm clearing enough dust to give the lander a new lease on life this summer, Banerdt says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Dusty environments will continue to pose challenges for future missions, which could benefit from knowledge gleaned from this lander. “I’m sure there will be a lot of technology development, thinking of clever ways to keep solar panels as clear as we can. We can also think of seasons to send spacecraft—like in planning for the Mars sample return mission, we could send the lander during a season that’s less dusty,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s Washington headquarters, during Tuesday’s press conference. Design of the seismometer for the Dragonfly spacecraft that will be sent to Saturn’s moon Titan could also be informed by InSight’s instrument. While all space missions have limited lifespans, those who work on them for years, and fans who follow their development and findings, understandably grow attached to these spacefaring machines. After the lander shuts down later this year, it’s possible that if the wind blows just right, InSight could awaken and once again send signals back home. Banerdt and his colleagues will be listening, just in case. But in the meantime, they are mourning as they anticipate InSight’s likely end. “It’s really sad. This lander has done everything that we’ve asked of it and more. It really feels almost like part of the family,” Banerdt says. “I wake up every morning and see what messages it sent us, what data it sent us. I’m not sure what it’ll be like, when I wake up and there’s not anything in my email to tell me about what’s going on in Mars. It’s going to leave a little hole in my life.” You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Staff Writer X Topics Mars NASA space planetary science Spacecraft seismology Astronomy Ramin Skibba Matt Simon Matt Simon Amit Katwala Grace Browne Ramin Skibba Jim Robbins Matt Simon Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"SpaceX Must Fix 63 Issues Before Its Starship Can Fly Again | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/the-investigation-of-spacexs-starship-explosion-is-complete-and-elon-musk-has-more-work-to-do"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Ramin Skibba Science SpaceX Must Fix 63 Issues Before Its Starship Can Fly Again Debris from SpaceX's Boca Chica launch pad are pushed off the road following the Starship explosion in April. Photograph: Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save As the dust settled following SpaceX’s brief, explosive test launch of Starship in April, both the company and the Federal Aviation Administration dug into investigating the aftermath. The gigantic rocket’s flight lasted just four minutes before it blew up near SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site on the Texas coast. Images and news reports posted in the days afterward showed boulders of concrete and rebar blasting into the air during liftoff, and there were accounts of particulates raining down on nearby Port Isabel. Today, both SpaceX and the FAA released statements on their joint “mishap investigation,” which was led by the company and overseen by the FAA, with NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board acting as observers. The results had to be evaluated and approved by FAA officials, but neither the agency nor SpaceX has released a full report, which would include proprietary data and US Export Control information. Despite SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s claim on X (formerly Twitter) on September 5 that “Starship is ready to launch,” the FAA’s statement makes clear that SpaceX has more work to do. “The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of Starship launches at Boca Chica. SpaceX must implement all [63] corrective actions that impact public safety and apply for and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch,” the statement reads. The FAA also released a “mishap closure letter” sent to SpaceX officials today, which further outlines the agency’s safety and environmental concerns. “During lift-off, structural failure of the launch pad deck foundation occurred, sending debris and sand into the air,” the letter states. On ascent, when the rocket deviated from its trajectory, the Autonomous Flight Safety System issued a destruct command, but there was an “unexpected delay” before it actually blew up, the letter continues. The letter to SpaceX also summarizes what the FAA expects the company to address before it can be granted a new launch license. Those actions include “redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesign of the launch pad to increase its robustness, incorporation of additional reviews in the design process, additional analysis and testing of safety critical systems and components including the Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS), and the application of additional change control practices.” A statement on the SpaceX website briefly describes updates the company has been making to the rocket and launchpad since April. These include a hot-stage separation system, intended to use the second-stage engines to “push the ship away from the booster,” as well as a new thrust vector control system with electric motors, rather than hydraulic systems, which the company says “has fewer potential points of failure.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Their statement also said the company had reinforced the launch pad’s foundation. Similarly, Musk tweeted this morning: “Thousands of upgrades to Starship & launchpad/Mechazilla,” referring to the launch tower. The April launch was not the first time SpaceX had tested—and crashed —a version of Starship, although previous launches had been of earlier prototypes, including just the upper-stage rocket. In April, engineers had sought to test the fully stacked rocket and to send it on its first nearly orbital flight. After stage separation, the uncrewed upper stage was supposed to fly almost all the way around the Earth, and then splash down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii 90 minutes later. On launch day, Starship successfully got off the pad, but trouble became apparent a few minutes later. During ascent, propellant leaked at the end of the Super Heavy booster and caused fires, which severed the connection with the primary flight computer, according to the SpaceX statement. That’s why the upper stage and the booster failed to separate, the company concluded. Engineers then lost control of the vehicle, the connected stack began to rotate and tumble, and it eventually exploded. Another problem was the cratering of the launch pad, caused by what Musk described on Twitter Spaces as a “rock tornado” generated by the launch. The launchpad notably lacked a flame deflector—or water deluge system—which most pads are built with. This is intended to diffuse the sound, flames, and energy produced by a launch. In SpaceX’s statement today, the company says it has made upgrades “to prevent a recurrence of the pad foundation failure,” and that includes “the addition of a flame deflector , which SpaceX has successfully tested multiple times.” (SpaceX has not responded to WIRED’s request for comment.) There’s a lot on the line for Starship. At 390 feet tall, it is bigger than either SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy or even NASA’s Space Launch System. With 33 Raptor engines and millions of pounds of thrust, it could become the most powerful rocket in the world. Musk envisions using Starship for Mars voyages , and NASA plans to use it for the Artemis moon missions , starting with the historic Artemis 3 flight planned for 2025, which will take astronauts back to lunar soil for the first time since 1972. NASA also awarded SpaceX a contract for the Artemis 4 landing scheduled for 2028. Those plans will face setbacks if SpaceX can’t quickly get its launch site and its massive new rocket working. A couple weeks after the Starship explosion, NASA awarded Blue Origin—SpaceX’s rival—a moon lander contract for the Artemis 5 mission slated for 2029, perhaps as a hedge in case SpaceX’s troubles with Starship continue. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Inaugural rocket launches almost always fail, especially attempted orbital flights , and SpaceX’s Starship’s short-lived flight was not unexpected. (NASA’s successful lunar flight by the Space Launch System and Orion last year was an exception.) Musk himself tweeted that he thought there might be a 50 percent chance of success and said on Twitter Spaces that he hoped the rocket wouldn’t “ fireball ” and melt the launchpad. The FAA oversees other companies’ launch site investigations too—including Blue Origin’s following its New Shepard rocket failure in September 2022. The Starship launch site neighbors a wildlife refuge and public beach. Local and environmental groups like Save RGV (referring to the Rio Grande Valley) and the Center for Biological Diversity raised concerns even before the test launch, not just about debris but also about increased vehicle traffic, intense heat, noise, and light pollution from construction, and launch activities that could affect protected species and the public beach. On May 1, they sued the FAA for granting the launch license without a more thorough environmental impact statement. (SpaceX later joined the lawsuit on the FAA’s side.) Through their lawsuit, the groups are calling for the FAA to conduct a fuller review of the Starship launch program that would likely include more mitigating measures. They feel this will better protect the local community and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species like Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and migratory birds like the piping plover. “The explosion, the destruction at the launch pad, the debris scattered across the area, the dust floating to nearby towns, what occurred proves our point: The mitigation is clearly insufficient,” says Jared Margolis, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “As we look to the stars, as we try to look forward to this new age of spaceflight, we can’t forget about life here on Earth.” You Might Also Like … 📩 Get the long view on tech with Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter Watch this guy work, and you’ll finally understand the TikTok era How Telegram became a terrifying weapon in the Israel-Hamas War Inside Elon Musk’s first election crisis —a day after he “freed” the bird The ultra-efficient farm of the future is in the sky The best pickleball paddles for beginners and pros 🌲 Our Gear team has branched out with a new guide to the best sleeping pads and fresh picks for the best coolers and binoculars Staff Writer X Topics SpaceX commercial spaceflight Regulation environment NASA Spacecraft rockets explosion Ramin Skibba Ramin Skibba Swapna Krishna Garrett M. Graff Ramin Skibba Ramin Skibba Matt Reynolds Emily Mullin Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"NASA’s Yearlong Mars Simulation Is a Test of Mental Mettle | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/nasa-chapea-mars-simulation-test-of-mental-mettle"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons By Ramin Skibba Science NASA’s Yearlong Mars Simulation Is a Test of Mental Mettle Illustration: WIRED Staff; NASA, Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save On June 25, four crew members will suit up and embark on a Mars mission, living for an entire year in a small 3D-printed habitat with only each other for company. But these space explorers won’t leave Earth. Their simulated Martian environment is contained in a large hangar at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and it’s designed to test the psychological and social challenges that will confront early visitors to the Red Planet, where remoteness and the harsh terrain will make life formidable. The program is called Chapea, which stands for Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog. NASA hopes that lessons from this unique social experiment could aid future astronauts when they really do set foot on the ruddy Martian dirt—such as learning how the space agency can make the crew comfortable and help them get along with each other, or deal with loneliness or homesickness. “If we get to the end of the year and the crew is complete and we haven’t had any attrition, that would be, for me, a huge thing. It sounds doable, but it actually will be very hard,” says Kelly Haston, the mission’s biomedical researcher and commander. “We know we can actually leave. We’re volunteers, so there is an exit sign. On Mars you won’t have that.” Just like the first batch of Martian astronauts, Haston and her crewmates—Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones, and Alyssa Shannon—will live in a cramped space without contact with other people. They’ll be able to communicate with mission control, but with a 20-minute delay, as if they were in fact some 100 million miles away from home. Like real visitors to Mars, they’ll see only a stark, lifeless landscape, which NASA is simulating with an enclosed space covered with Martian mural images and a 1,200-square-foot sandbox filled with red sand. Each week, they will have multiple opportunities to go outside for “Mars walks”—while wearing spacesuits. The 1,700-square-foot structure they’ll live in has been 3D-printed using a simulated Martian regolith to mimic NASA’s plans for future missions. It has Ikea-like furniture, clean spaces, and bright lighting, like a high-end hostel for space workers. The habitat includes small individual crew quarters, a communal space with a table for team dinners and meetings, chairs and a couch, a work area, a kitchen, two bathrooms, and an exercise room. And that’s about it. “The objective of the Chapea mission is to collect data on the crew’s health and performance while they are living in a realistically restricted environment and living the lifestyle that could be expected of Mars astronauts,” says deputy project manager Raina MacLeod. Photograph: BILL STAFFORD/NASA/JSC HOUSTON TEXAS Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg While the idea of throwing four people into a single structure for a long time and seeing how they fare sounds kind of like a reality TV show , the crew will be disciplined, and they’ll have tasks to complete. In many ways, their day-to-day life will be similar to that of astronauts aboard the International Space Station , just with a bit more space and no floating. (People will feel lighter and bouncier on Mars, which is smaller and less massive than Earth, but that’s hard to simulate.) During the crew’s work hours, they’ll conduct mission operations, like the “Mars walks,” growing plants, getting exercise, cleaning the habitat, and maintaining equipment. The kitchen’s equipped with a small oven and a fridge, and they’ll have to rely on reconstituted dehydrated food between limited batches of fresh food delivered by infrequent cargo resupply missions. Their bathrooms have a shower, toilet, and sink with running water—a big improvement over life in microgravity—though the water for each crew member will be rationed, as there will be very limited water available on Mars. NASA will be monitoring the Chapea crew using cameras posted inside the habitat, and someone will be available to them 24/7 at mission control. Like astronauts in Earth orbit, the crew will have private conferences with medical professionals to keep tabs on their mental and physical health, and those will be the only communications not subject to the usual time delay. They will also fill out surveys regarding their mood and temperament. The crew will be able to stay in touch with friends and family—but while they can send and receive video messages and emails, real-time conversations with them will be impossible. While the accommodations look nice, the relative isolation might affect crew members over time, and it’s important to see how they fare. “NASA is right to study this, because what we’ve learned is that social isolation is a very dangerous psychological toxin,” says Craig Haney, a UC Santa Cruz psychologist who researches solitary confinement. Haney has documented the debilitating and sometimes permanent effects of isolation on prisoners—effects that can emerge in just a couple weeks. The situations aren’t the same, of course: While the Chapea bedrooms are similar in size to a solitary confinement cell, the crew also has other spaces for activities—and they have each other. They’ll still be more isolated than normal, however, like many of us were during the early days of Covid-19. During Covid “we’ve been denied the normal social interactions that we’ve learned to depend on. For many people, it’s proven to be extremely stressful, and it has generated forms of psychological maladies that were unanticipated at the outset of the pandemic,” he says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Photograph: BILL STAFFORD/NASA/JSC HOUSTON TEXAS With the Mars simulation, Haney suggests that NASA should watch the crew for danger signs, like symptoms of depression, heightened irritability, and moodiness, and changes in sleeping and eating patterns. And for the crew, he recommends creating routines, including social rituals, and trying to reach out to the outside world, not just to NASA’s mission control, to lessen the feelings of isolation. For her part, Haston plans to bring along videos of familiar places and audio recordings of sounds and music that have meaning for her, anticipating the unsettling lack of sound in the simulated Mars environment. She also plans on using meditation to deal with anxiety. Chapea builds on previous Mars-like experiments, including the NASA-funded Hi-SEAS simulation on the northern slope of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. Hi-SEAS ran six experiments between 2013 and 2018, with the last one aborted after just four days when a crew member had to be taken to a hospital after suffering an electric shock. Kate Greene, author of Once Upon a Time I Lived on Mars, was in the first Hi-SEAS crew, which lived in the habitat for four months. (One of her crewmates was Sian Proctor, a geoscientist and artist who later flew in orbit on SpaceX’s Inspiration4. ) Greene thinks these programs are useful. “What makes them worthwhile is thoughtful experimental design,” she says. “I think it is of the utmost importance to consider the human factors involved in a long-duration space mission. As Kim Binsted, the head of Hi-SEAS, often said, ‘If something goes wrong psychologically or sociologically with the crew, it can be as disastrous as if a rocket exploded.’” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Ashley Kowalski, who served on an eight-month US-Russian Mars simulation called SIRIUS-21, says they are also good for helping future crews psychologically prepare in advance. “Until you’re in that type of environment, you don’t really know how you’ll react to issues and situations that come up,” she says. Ultimately, a real Mars mission will be much tougher than any simulation on Earth. Those astronauts will have to worry about threats like space radiation , the health effects of microgravity , and running out of water, food, power , and breathable air. And unlike the Chapea volunteers, if they get sick of their crewmates, they can’t just quit. But Haston points out the positive side of this unique situation too. “There’s the negative people bring up: ‘You’re going to be four people getting on each other’s nerves.’ But we’re also going to become a tremendous unit that can do things and understand each other in a way that most people don’t have in their workplace,” she says. “You’ll be so dependent on each other, and also so close to each other. Seeing that outcome will be amazing.” Update 6-5-2023 7:00 PM: This story was updated to correct the nationalities of the agencies that ran the SIRIUS-21 program. You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Staff Writer X Topics Mars NASA astronauts psychology sociology mental health WIRED30 space Matt Simon Maryn McKenna Swapna Krishna Jorge Garay Ramin Skibba Matt Simon Maryn McKenna Matt Simon Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"India’s Lander Touches Down on the Moon. Russia’s Has Crashed | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/indias-lander-touches-down-on-the-moon-russias-has-crashed"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Ramin Skibba Science India’s Lander Touches Down on the Moon. Russia’s Has Crashed Photograph: Aijaz Rahi/AP Save this story Save Save this story Save Today, India’s Chandrayaan-3 became the first spacecraft to successfully land near the lunar south pole, and India became the fourth country to make a soft landing anywhere on lunar soil, following the former Soviet Union, the United States, and China. The robotic vehicle touched down at 8:33 am Eastern time, nearly six weeks after its launch. The craft includes a four-legged lander and a small rover whose purpose is to study the lunar regolith and look for signs of water ice during a two-week mission. But Russia’s Luna-25 lander wasn’t so lucky. On August 20, the craft malfunctioned, and it appears to have crashed while preparing for a landing planned for the next day. Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, had intended to deploy Luna-25 for a yearlong mission near the Boguslavsky impact crater, where its eight scientific instruments would also have examined properties of the regolith and pockets of water ice. Chandrayaan-3’s landing was accomplished without ground intervention. The craft’s autonomous landing system took control about one hour before the start of the descent. India’s space agency, the Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, provided a live telecast in both Hindi and English. The power descent phase began at about 8:15 am ET, during which the craft’s speed slowed from 1,680 to 358 meters per second, and the altitude dropped from 30 to 7.4 kilometers over a period of 11.5 minutes. During the following altitude hold phase, the craft turned its altimeters toward the moon’s surface for 10 seconds to take a reading of how far it was from the regolith. Then began the fine braking phrase, which ran for nearly 3 minutes, as the altitude was reduced to 800 meters. The vertical descent phase began around 8:29 am ET, and the craft began its approach to the lunar surface, turning to orient its four legs toward the landing site. It briefly hovered 150 meters above the surface as its sensors took readings of the safety of the landing site and retargeted accordingly. Then, as it successfully set down on the regolith, the people at the ISRO mission control headquarters in Bengaluru broke into cheers. “India is on the moon!” exclaimed ISRO chairman Sreedhara Somanath. Somanath then asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was watching the telecast remotely, to speak. “Friends, on this joyous occasion, I would like to address all the people of the world, the people of every country and region. India’s successful moon mission is not just India’s alone,” said Modi, during a part of the address delivered in English. “This success belongs to all of humanity, and it will help moon missions by other countries in the future. I’m confident that all countries in the world, including those from the global south, are capable of achieving such things. We can all aspire for the moon and beyond.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Roscosmos has released little information about Luna-25 so far, but officials posted brief statements on Telegram , saying that on August 19, the spacecraft malfunctioned while firing its engines to maneuver into a prelanding orbit. “At about 14:57 Moscow time, communication with the Luna-25 spacecraft was interrupted,” reads the statement, which WIRED used Google to translate. Roscosmos was unable to restore contact with the craft, and based on the agency’s preliminary analysis, they believe it was destroyed after crashing into the lunar surface. In an interview on Russia 24 , Roscosmos chief Yuri Borisov blamed the crash on engine failure, saying that the engines incorrectly fired for 127 seconds rather than 84 seconds during the maneuver. It’s been nearly a half-century since 1976, when Roscosmos’s Soviet predecessor last sent a successful lander to the moon. Considering the struggles of the Russian civil space program , morale must be low there now, says Anatoly Zak, creator and publisher of the independent publication RussianSpaceWeb. “It’s a flagship mission. In the entire post-Soviet period, they had three attempts to go beyond low Earth orbit and explore celestial bodies: Mars 96 , Phobos-Grunt in 2011, and this one. All of them failed, so it’s very depressing,” he says. The bumpy road on this race to the moon’s southern pole shows that developing a lunar economy will be complex and could take decades to realize. That part of the moon is particularly tantalizing because its water ice could be extracted for oxygen or rocket propellant, and it has “peaks of eternal light,” spots that receive near-constant solar illumination. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Getting a craft safely to the moon, and especially to the rough terrain of the south pole, poses many challenges. “You know the saying, ‘Space is hard.’ It’s because the environment we’re trying to operate in is not the environment where most of our technology has matured,” says Phil Metzger, a planetary scientist at the University of Central Florida who studies space economics. To name just a few of the technical factors that have to go absolutely right, the vehicle has to survive the jolt of launch, the vacuum of space, and the challenges of heat transfer and space radiation—plus communicate with Earth, despite a significant time delay. “All these things add up,” he says. Landing attempts on Mars and a comet have proven to be incredibly arduous, and the moon’s unique topography comes with its own difficulties. “It’s a complex engineering undertaking to not only design the vehicles to get to the moon, but to design the control systems that have to work autonomously and that have to be able to account for the limited atmosphere, rugged terrain, the variation in lighting. All of those have to be taken into consideration in concert,” says Ron Birk, a development executive at the Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit think tank, and president of the American Astronautical Society. Safe landing spots—ones without too many shadows and steep slopes—are limited. The moon’s south pole spans some 100,000 square kilometers, about the size of the state of Kentucky. Ideally, space agencies want to pick a spot that is close to a place where they could ultimately set up a lunar base or mining operation. (While the Outer Space Treaty forbids nations from owning territory on the moon, the Artemis Accords allow them to set up exclusive “safety zones” around equipment or facilities.) And nations should avoid cluttering those spots with mechanical detritus, which could complicate future missions. Like campers heading into the backcountry, it’s important to think carefully about what you pack with you and what you take out, Birk says. India’s success doesn’t mean the end of the race toward the moon’s south pole, but it does boost India’s standing. “This will certainly contribute to its status as a rising power with technological prowess. What’s happening in space is a reflection of what’s happening geopolitically on Earth,” says Cassandra Steer, an expert on space law and space security at the Australian National University in Canberra. And while Roscosmos suffered a setback, this isn’t the end of their moon program either, or their role in the new lunar competition. The Soviets beat the US at every stage of the 20th-century space race, Steer says, except for the landing of astronauts on the moon. Next, Russia intends to collaborate with China on a lunar research station. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Over the past decade, only China’s space program has achieved considerable success landing spacecraft on the moon, including its Chang'e 3, 4, and 5 missions in 2013, 2019, and 2020. India’s Chandrayaan-2 and Israel’s Beresheet lander failed in 2019, and Japan’s Ispace lander failed this April. In fact, until China made its first landing, the moon had arguably been neglected for decades. NASA ended its Apollo mission in 1972, and the USSR’s Luna-24 mission in 1976 was the last successful lunar landing. That could mean limited institutional memory, especially for Russia, making it tough to develop and deploy new moon missions, Metzger says. Over the past few decades, Russia has been trying to resuscitate its program, but with little success. Roscosmos has Luna-26 and Luna-27 planned for 2027 and 2029, as the agency aims to bring an orbiter and a larger lander to the moon. But their limited funding , thanks to sanctions following the Ukraine invasion, means these followup missions will likely be delayed, Zak says. And if the space agency decides to overhaul their propulsion system design after investigating the failure of Luna-25, that could be another reason for delays, he adds. NASA has fared better with its Artemis program , which last year sent the uncrewed Artemis 1 to orbit the moon and is aiming for a crewed landing in 2026. But the program has faced its own challenges: NASA plans on using a SpaceX Starship lander, though, as its abortive test flight in April shows, Starship clearly has a long way to go. More than half of the 10 cubesat satellites deployed by Artemis 1 experienced technical glitches or lost contact with Earth, including the Japanese Omotenashi probe, which was unable to land on the moon as planned. NASA has increasingly relied on commercial partners in a bid to boost the speed and lower the price of moon exploration—moving some of the costs onto businesses, rather than taxpayers. But these companies, too, are new players in the space race. In late 2024, NASA plans to send its Viper rover on an Astrobotic lander, though that company’s first moon lander, meant to demonstrate the technology, hasn’t even launched yet. NASA has also charged Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, and Draper with delivering a variety of payloads to the lunar surface over the next couple years. In the meantime, nations like India, Japan, and Israel have begun moon programs from scratch. India next plans to collaborate with Japan on the Lunar Polar Exploration rover, which would launch no sooner than 2026. “We have set the bar now so high. Nothing less spectacular than this is going to be inspiring for any of us in the future,” said Shri M. Sankaran, director of ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre, speaking on today’s telecast. “We will now be looking at putting a man in space, putting a spacecraft on Venus, and landing on Mars. Those efforts have been ongoing for years. This success today will inspire us and spur us to take those efforts even more strongly to make our country proud again and again and again.” Updated 8/23/2023 12:00 pm ET: This story was updated to correct the ISRO chief's name. You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Staff Writer X Topics moon moon landing Spacecraft Russia india space NASA Sushmita Pathak Emily Mullin Rhett Allain Matt Simon Matt Simon Ramin Skibba Rhett Allain Emily Mullin Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. 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"How NASA Plans to Melt the Moon—and Build on Mars | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/how-nasa-plans-to-melt-the-moon-and-build-on-mars"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Khari Johnson Science How NASA Plans to Melt the Moon—and Build on Mars Mars Dune Alpha is the first structure built for a NASA by the Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology team. Photograph: ICON Save this story Save Save this story Save In June a four-person crew will enter a hangar at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and spend one year inside a 3D printed building. Made of a slurry that—before it dried—looked like neatly laid lines of soft-serve ice cream, Mars Dune Alpha has crew quarters, shared living space, and dedicated areas for administering medical care and growing food. The 1,700-square-foot space, which is the color of Martian soil, was designed by architecture firm BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group and 3D printed by Icon Technology. Experiments inside the structure will focus on the physical and behavioral health challenges people will encounter during long-term residencies in space. But it’s also the first structure built for a NASA mission by the Moon to Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) team, which is preparing now for the first construction projects on a planetary body beyond Earth. When humanity returns to the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program , astronauts will first live in places like an orbiting space station, on a lunar lander, or in inflatable surface habitats. But the MMPACT team is preparing for the construction of sustainable, long-lasting structures. To avoid the high cost of shipping material from Earth, which would require massive rockets and fuel expenditures, that means using the regolith that’s already there, turning it into a paste that can be 3D printed into thin layers or different shapes. The team’s first off-planet project is tentatively scheduled for late 2027. For that mission, a robotic arm with an excavator, which will be attached to the side of a lunar lander, will sort and stack regolith, says principal investigator Corky Clinton. Subsequent missions will focus on using semiautonomous excavators and other machines to build living quarters, roads, greenhouses, power plants, and blast shields that will surround rocket launch pads. The first step toward 3D printing on the moon will involve using lasers or microwaves to melt regolith, says MMPACT team lead Jennifer Edmunson. Then it must cool to allow gasses to escape; failure to do so can leave the material riddled with holes like a sponge. The material can then be printed into desired shapes. How to assemble finished pieces is still being decided. To keep astronauts out of harm’s way, Edmunson says the goal is to make construction as autonomous as possible, but she adds, “I can’t rule out the use of humans to maintain and repair our full-scale equipment in the future.” One of the challenges the team faces now is how to make the lunar regolith into a building material strong enough and durable enough to protect human life. For one thing, since future Artemis missions will be near the moon’s south pole, the regolith could contain ice. And for another, it’s not as if NASA has mounds of real moon dust and rocks to experiment with—just samples from the Apollo 16 mission. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg So the MMPACT team has to make their own synthetic versions. Edmunson keeps buckets in her office of about a dozen combinations of what NASA expects to find on the moon. The recipes include varying mixtures of basalt, calcium, iron, magnesium, and a mineral named anorthite that doesn’t occur naturally on Earth. Edmunson suspects that white and shiny synthetic anorthite being developed in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines is representative of what NASA expects to find on the lunar crust. Yet while the team feels that they can do a “reasonably good job” of matching the geo chemical properties of the regolith, says Clinton, “it's very hard to make the geo technical properties, the shape of the different tiny pieces of aggregate, because they’re built up by collisions with meteorites and whatever has hit the moon over 4 billion years.” There are other X factors to account for when building on the moon—and a lot can go wrong. Gravity is much weaker, there’s a chance of moonquakes that can create vibrations for up to 45 minutes, and temperatures at the south pole can get as high as 130 degrees Fahrenheit in sunlight and as low as –400 degrees at night. Abrasive moon dust can clog machinery joints and bring hardware to a screeching halt. During the Apollo missions, regolith damaged space suits , and inhaling dust caused astronauts to experience hay-fever-like symptoms. Constructing Mars Dune Alpha, the test habitat in Texas, had an even bigger X factor: The human race has never brought a sample of Martian soil back to Earth, so Icon had to simulate the material, based on predictions of what it is made out of—such as that it’s rich in basalt. (They call their building material “lavacrete.”) The most important part to NASA officials, says CEO Jason Ballard, was getting the Martian soil’s color match right, to accurately mimic what it would be like to live on the Red Planet. The structure took one month to 3D print, he says. Their process uses a giant printer arm with a nozzle that extrudes a steady supply of lavacrete. They start by outlining the footprint of the structure, adding layers and building upward like a coiled clay pot. Mars Dune Alpha is also the first structure built by Icon with a 3D printed roof. The original design called for tilted semicircles, but the design had to be updated in order to meet the building code for the hangar in Houston. The current roof design rises up to meet in the middle of the structure like two waves meeting in the ocean. Icon printed the roof panels separately, then added them to the top of the structure. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “Building humanity’s first home on another planet will be one of the most ambitious construction projects in human history and will push technology, engineering, science, and architecture to new heights,” Ballard told WIRED by email. Icon also has a $57.2 million NASA contract to research lunar construction research and development. As part of that effort, the company commissioned a study of what a moon base built in the next 10 years could look like. Designs commissioned by Icon and created by the Bjarke Ingels group envision a collection of torus, doughnut-shaped structures with hard outer shells that could protect a four-person crew from meteorites, moonquakes, radiation, and rapid temperature swings. A rendering of a moon base concept by Icon Technology and the Bjarke Ingels group, shown in an overhead view. Photograph: ICON Experiments with melting regolith in vacuum chambers make up the bulk of Icon’s moon habitat construction research today. These chambers simulate the airless conditions on the moon and allow researchers to test thermal extremes. “We think we have the major mechanical systems worked out,” Ballard says, and now they are trying to strike a balance between the material’s strength and brittleness and achieve an appearance that he calls a “lunar ceramic.” The most important variables in that testing process are the power settings for the lasers, how long to allow cooling, and the geochemical makeup of the regolith, which may vary based on location. Different materials have different melting temperatures, he says, so “you can't just show up and blast the laser at the same power no matter where you are, and you can't cool it at the same rate.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In 2024, the MMPACT team will also test their abilities to melt regolith in a vacuum chamber using lasers or microwaves. Right now they're testing them separately. "The team has had ideas about using both technologies together—but that will take a bit more time (and funding) that we currently don’t have," Edmunson wrote in an email. They’ll also test their 3D printing, starting by making pieces of a landing pad within the vacuum chamber. This construction technology “will be the future of everything” built on the moon, Edmunson says, “but right now we're focusing on the landing pads because that’s tops in terms of the safety of infrastructure on the lunar surface and how to protect it.” Building landing pads will be critical to keeping dust kicked up by spacecraft from harming important structures like radiation shields, garages, and roads, or from clouding landing conditions, Edmunson says. A rocket engine firing at the lunar surface without a landing pad could potentially send particles into orbit that could damage satellites or the Lunar Gateway orbiter , which NASA intends to build as a way station for visiting astronauts. Roughly a year from now, the MMPACT team will run a dress rehearsal of a planned 2027 moon mission. Again using a vacuum chamber, they’ll put the robotic arm with an excavator scoop atop a bed of simulated regolith about the size of a kid’s sandbox. The goal will be to test its sorting and scooping capabilities in moonlike conditions; they’ll purposely let simulated rock get in the way of the scoop as it tries to collect the regolith. If a rock is too big, the excavator should work around it, but if it’s the size of the scoop or smaller, it should be sorted into piles of material—one pile fit for melting and another for waste. Learning how to build on the moon may help enable the first human mission to Mars—but figuring out how to construct buildings under extreme conditions with locally available material could also pay off big on Earth. One way is by making advances in alternatives to concrete. Concrete is made with materials like limestone and sand, bound together with cement. Making cement is a pollution-prone process , accounting for 8 percent of the global carbon footprint. It’s also heavy, making it unsuitable for construction off Earth. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg A Tennessee-based company called Branch Technology wants to start using proteins as an alternative to cement, to create a building material that weighs only about a tenth as much as concrete. Through a partnership with Stanford University and NASA’s Ames Research Center, they plan to build structures with lunar regolith that’s held together with bovine proteins that have been genetically engineered to bind lunar or Martian soils. They tested their material aboard the International Space Station last summer. “If this could become a concrete substitute, the applications are myriad and far less polluting than concrete processes that exist now,” former Branch CEO Platt Boyd said at the company’s lunar habitat demonstration last fall. A cement-free approach may also offer solutions for people in places on Earth where concrete is imported for building projects. “Melting basalt on the moon and melting basalt on Hawaii—you know, it's not too different,” Edmundson says. And more broadly, the science of 3D printing space habitats may help make building housing on Earth cheaper and faster. This week, Icon is kicking off a competition with $1 million in prize money that challenges teams to design 3D printed houses that cost no more than $99,000. Designs must have at least one bedroom and one bathroom and meet residential code requirements, since winners could join the catalog of home layouts on offer from Icon. Building in an environment where you minimize what you bring in and maximize using what’s available unlocks new innovation, says Branch Technology lunar construction program lead David Goodloe. “The lunar construction manufacturing ecosystem really is a greenhouse for new ideas and how we think about building in the most challenging environments humans have ever built in,” he says. “We’re going to come up with new ways to build that are better because of that requirement, and that’s going to translate to the construction industry at large.” Update 5-23-2023 10:29 am ET: This story was updated to correct the names of Icon CEO Jason Ballard and the Colorado School of Mines. You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Senior Writer X Topics Mars moon space NASA construction engineering Max G. Levy Matt Simon Max G. Levy Dell Cameron Grace Browne Amit Katwala Dhruv Mehrotra Ramin Skibba Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Astronaut Gear of the Future May Fight Bone and Muscle Loss | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/astronaut-gear-of-the-future-may-fight-bone-and-muscle-loss"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Sarah Scoles Science Astronaut Gear of the Future May Fight Bone and Muscle Loss Photograph: Steve Boxall Save this story Save Save this story Save On Monday, an astronaut capsule that looks like a giant orange juicer splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean, bringing its four-person crew back under the influence of Earth's gravity. These astronauts have spent six months on the International Space Station , and so the gravity now tugging at their bodies will feel familiar to them, but strange. This team, called SpaceX Crew-2, spent much of the past half-year in orbit doing spacefaring scientific work, like testing out “ tissue chips ,” small-scale analogs of human organs. But they also whiled away the hours as gym rats: Six days a week, they had a 2.5-hour exercise block to reduce the damage that living in space can do to the body. Space, as they say , is hard. But it’s particularly hard on humans. Radiation , lack of gravity, and living in confined spaces each take their tolls. “NASA has always been concerned with the effects of spaceflight on the human body, from the very first space missions,” says Michael Stenger, element scientist for Human Health Countermeasures , the agency’s arm dedicated to understanding how spaceflight affects physiology and mitigating those effects. One big problem is that living on-orbit is physiologically similar to bedrest, even if you’re bouncing around doing experiments all day. “Being in space is a lot like laying around doing nothing,” he says. By Sarah Scoles When you don’t need to counteract gravity, your muscles and bones lose strength, because those parts of the anatomy adhere to a sort of “use it or lose it” philosophy. Muscles can atrophy , the same way they would if an astronaut laid on the couch playing Fallout all day. Bones can lose mass: They both form and break down based on the forces they experience day to day, from both gravity and muscle use. After six months in space, the proximal femoral bone in the leg can ditch around 10 percent of its mass, requiring years of recovery back on the ground. Space is also hard on the cardiovascular system, says Stenger: “Your heart no longer has to pump as hard to maintain blood pressure, so your heart becomes weaker.” During astronaut Scott Kelly’s year in space, his heart shrank in size by more than a quarter , adapting to fit its new conditions. Back under the influence of gravity, the heart can pump itself back up to normal, seemingly without long-term damage. Scientists don’t fully understand why , but astronauts’ spines also grow longer in space, and they gain a few inches of height. The travelers shrink back to their normal sizes on Earth, but after flight, astronauts have a higher risk of disk herniation, which may be associated with these spinal shifts. Also, their suits and equipment have to be designed for their dimensions—and if those dimensions are changing, the design gets complicated, especially for a longer trip. To keep astronauts’ innards fit for their tasks in space and healthy once they’re back on Earth, Human Health Countermeasures has tried to right these physiology wrongs—in part with gym gear built for space. The Advanced Resistive Exercise Device is a sort of space-based Bowflex: It uses vacuum cylinders to create a few hundred pounds of resistance, and microgravity athletes can reconfigure it to do deadlifts, squats, or bench presses for two hours, including the time it takes to reconfigure the device and do a little recovery. The ISS is also kitted out with a treadmill and a cycling machine, which the astronauts use for 30 minutes of interval training. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg That sort of luxe setup won’t always be possible, though, on future missions to the moon and eventually Mars. “We're sort of in the sweet spot where we have this beautiful floating laboratory and space with all kinds of room to do all the kinds of measures that we want to,” says Stenger, “and all of the future programs are going to be in tiny little vehicles.” Flights to these destinations will be longer, leaving more time for ill effects to develop. And on top of that, future astronauts will need more oomph for more—and more difficult—extravehicular physical activity than today’s explorers do, to stay alive and functional on another world. So if space workouts won’t be enough, maybe future astronauts need different gear. Two students at MIT, both Draper Scholars at Draper Laboratory, a nonprofit engineering company that often does work for NASA and the Department of Defense, are now working on possible solutions to counteract muscle and bone problems. One is a sort of auto-exercise device that can contract muscles like movement would, and the other is a skintight space suit that simulates the effect of gravity. “We need to make sure they're as healthy as possible,” says Thomas Abitante, the Draper Scholar working on the muscle-toning device. “But we can't really add more exercise. So what else can we add?” Abitante and his Draper Scholar colleague Rachel Bellisle are both PhD candidates at MIT’s Human Systems Lab , part of the university’s aeronautics and astronautics department. Draper Lab pays their doctoral tuition and stipends, and the students do their thesis research co-supervised by a university faculty member and a Draper technical staff member. This school year, there are 55 Draper Scholars at 11 universities. Bellisle’s research involves helping design a skintight space suit officially called the Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit—or just “the Skinsuit ,” in conversation—that could compress the body enough to simulate some of gravity’s effects, help keep the spine from elongating, and keep the “antigravity” muscles that humans use to maintain posture and move—like the quadriceps and muscles in the back—from atrophying and causing motor-control deficits, like trouble with balance and coordination once astronauts return to gravity. “When we go into reduced gravity or space, those muscles aren't needed as much,” says Bellisle, who has been at MIT since 2018. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Bellisle is working with Caroline Bjune, a principal member of the technical staff in Draper’s mechanical design and system packaging division, and astronautics professor Dava Newman at MIT, whose lab developed the first iteration of the Skinsuit about a decade ago. It compresses the whole body at once, from the shoulders to the feet. This version of the suit is made of Primeflex—a super-stretchy elastic material made of polyethylene terephthalate and polytrimethylene terephthalate. It compresses in two directions, laterally and vertically. The load from that squeeze simulates some of the effects of gravity, and makes the body behave more like it would on Earth. The eighth iteration of the suit will likely use a different fabric. Astronauts tested a version of the suit on the Space Station between 2015 and 2017 , and today, Bellisle is working on its seventh iteration, the Mk-7 , investigating how to make the next version more comfortable and minimize musculoskeletal changes induced by the space environment. The shoulders and foot stirrups could be more comfy, she found. “I'm also identifying parts of the suit that should be changed to better target the muscles we are interested in,” Bellisle says. Comfort is important—the form and the function have to be right. Bellisle recalls a “body-loading” garment Russian cosmonauts wore called the Penguin suit. “Essentially, it was a suit with a bunch of bungee cords,” Bellisle says. The cords could stretch from a belt to the shoulders, and from a belt to the feet, or just from the shoulders to the feet, providing a “load” on the body not unlike gravity’s. The problem? The cosmonauts would cut the bungee cords once no one on Earth could stop them. The Skinsuit is designed to put more consistent loads on the body, making it more effective. The new suit has gotten pilot testing in Earth gravity, in a partial-gravity simulator, and on parabolic flights that induce microgravity. Bellisle’s team has stuck electrodes on the test-user’s body to measure their muscles’ electrical impulses, an indicator of how active they are. Bellisle is currently working on comparing the muscles’ activity levels in different gravitational environments—typically highest in Earth-like 1g, where muscles were meant to live—to see if the suit’s squeeze can help induce normal activity levels in lower gravity, and determine whether the muscles’ coordination patterns differ in lower gravity compared to on the ground. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But there’s a drawback: These pilot studies have only been done on one person. The team’s results—to be published in the spring—have to be vetted and replicated, and tried out on a larger sample size. Abitante, who studied astronautical engineering as an undergrad before signing on for graduate school at MIT in 2017, grew up reading novels about human derring-do in the great beyond. But in college, he noticed a big disconnect between the robotics and satellite projects he saw around him, and the human-centric exploration in books. ‘Where's the path towards the future of everything you see in sci-fi?’” he asks. That’s part of why he’s pursuing a pretty sci-fi idea of his own: He hopes to build a wearable device that would let astronauts zap their muscles to simulate the effects of exercise. At Draper, he’s supervised by Kevin Duda, group lead for space and mission critical systems. This idea is already used in treatments for spinal cord injury patients. Electrical stimulation—specifically, a kind called neuromuscular stimulation —can cause muscles to contract, even if the brain isn’t telling them to. These stimulations can fire, say, the quad, hamstring, and glute in sequence, allowing patients who can’t otherwise control their limbs to do things like pedal a bike. In the past 10 years, researchers have investigated whether similar technology could help those in wheelchairs maintain bone mass —helpful because falls from a wheelchair can result in broken hips. Research suggests that stimulating muscles, which then put force on bones and deform them slightly, encourages those bones to stay strong. “So it was a hop, skip, and jump for me to be like, ‘Who else has disuse-associated bone loss?’” says Abitante. “Astronauts.” His ideal cosmic zapping device would attach to an astronaut’s belt, and he envisions it stimulating their muscles periodically throughout the day. But before he can build a space-centric prototype, he has to learn how much force electrically induced contractions actually put on bones—and how effective it might be in shoring up their strength. “There's a lot we don't know about how bone responds,” he says. Most models come from experiments on rodents and birds, with that data extrapolated to suit human anatomy. “We can still infer human bone behavior based on the animal experiment,” he says. “This work is useful because the strain from electrical stimulation can be used to infer its effectiveness as a bone-loss tool both in space and on Earth.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Now he’s doing his own research with people, like semiprofessional athletes he coaxed into cooperation by doing outreach at local gyms, and running or weightlifting clubs. He zaps study participants’ muscles with electricity, and uses biomechanical modeling to estimate how much strain is exerted on their bones. Then he compares that force to what’s generated by other activities, like walking or resistance exercise, to see if the synthetic version can measure up. He’s also testing out how long it takes for their muscles to get tired, because he wants to know how long the contractions from a single simulation period will be effective, and whether the device can deliver enough in a day to make a difference. So far the results—yet to be published, although they’ve been preliminarily presented at a recent meeting of the International Society of Biomechanics—are variable. “It really depends on the individual, how strong their contractions are,” Abitante says. Athletes who did activities like judo or powerlifting had stronger device-created contractions, which in turn put more pressure on their bones. “Your body is the exercise machine,” Abitante says. The students’ two projects have complementary flavors. Bellisle’s suit would be a kind of base: a steady and constant part of an astronaut’s body maintenance. “I'm increasing a little spice throughout the day,” says Abitante. Their work is still preliminary, but the ideas they are exploring could be useful on our own planet, not just for the astronauts of the future. “I definitely love thinking about the Earth applications,” says Bellisle. Better compression garments could help those with lymphedema, a condition that leads to fluid buildup in the soft tissue, by reducing swelling and redistributing fluid. Knowing more about how muscle stimulators work could help improve treatment for bedridden patients, paralyzed people, and those who use wheelchairs. Those applications are important—both for their own merits, but also because no one actually knows for sure when (or if) astronauts will fly long-term missions. Still, Abitante feels the pull of that future. “I, personally, have no intention to go to Mars,” he says. “But that doesn't mean I don't want to help make sure I see it on the news one day.” 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Neal Stephenson finally takes on global warming A cosmic ray event pinpoints the Viking landing in Canada How to delete your Facebook account forever A look inside Apple's silicon playbook Want a better PC? Try building your own 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? 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"Amazon September 2021 Event: Astro, Echo Show 15, Smart Thermostat | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/everything-amazon-announced-september-2021"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Gear Team Gear Everything Amazon Announced—Including a Cute Security Robot Save this story Save Save this story Save September has been a hectic month for new hardware. Following Apple and Microsoft , Amazon took to the (virtual) stage to unveil new additions to its Echo and Ring lineups, including security monitoring hardware and software services, plus a Wall-E-like robot (last week, it unveiled new Kindles too ). Here’s everything Amazon announced today. Video: Amazon The strangest and most unique device unveiled at the hardware event is a new Alexa-powered robot called Astro. This rolling household robot combines computer vision, artificial intelligence, Alexa, and Ring technologies to become your digital dog on wheels. The idea is to solve the problems associated with stationary devices, allowing for easy communication with those who are elderly or disabled. You can use Astro to check on rooms in a household, people, and pets while you’re away, like a roving security camera. With built-in mannerisms like eyes, screen motion, and the ability to speak, it's designed to drive around your home autonomously without banging into everything, much like your nimble K9 and feline companions. It costs $1,000 and you can sign up for an invite if you want to preorder it. We have more details about Astro here. Photograph: Amazon It’s almost surprising that Amazon hasn’t come out with a smart thermostat until now. The company has developed a simple-looking one that uses thermostat technology from Resideo , a company that makes thermostats under the Honeywell Home brand name. Amazon's thermostat sells for an astonishingly low price of $59 , well below the price of the average smart home thermostat (as Amazon well knows, seeing as how it sells tons of them). It works with most existing HVAC systems and accomplishes the standard thermostat tasks, like setting routines in your home on when to lower or increase the temperature. Amazon notes that potential energy savings will help customers meet sustainability goals. At this price, it will also help Amazon edge companies like Nest and Ecobee out of the market. It launches on November 4. Photograph: Amazon Unlike any other Echo that came before, the Echo Show 15 is designed to be mounted to a wall in portrait or landscape mode, like a modern-day family bulletin board. With a 15.6-inch Full HD display, it's Amazon's largest Echo with a screen to date. The home screen has been redesigned to include widgets for calendars, to-do lists, and shopping lists, among others, as well as support for picture-in-picture mode. It can be used as a TV to stream Netflix, Prime Video, and Hulu, with support for Sling TV coming soon. When you're not using it, it can display art (or family photos). Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft You can train Alexa to recognize specific sounds with the Echo Show 15—like the sound your fridge makes when it's accidentally left open for too long or your doorbell ringing. The device will send a notification to your phone whenever it picks up on that specific noise. This feature is also coming to most Echo devices, except for the first-gen Echo and first-gen Echo Dot. Courtesy of Amazon It's all powered by Amazon's latest AZ2 Neural Edge processor, which runs machine learning-based speech models faster than its predecessor. It has a built-in 5-megapixel camera and mics for video calls, both of which can be turned off when not in use. It also comes with Visual ID, an optional facial recognition feature that can recognize the person in front of the display to show reminders, notes from other household members, and upcoming events specific to them. The Echo Show 15 starts at $250 but there's no exact launch date just yet. Amazon says you can sign up here to get alerts about the product's release. Additional accessories like countertop stands and under-cabinet mounts will cost extra. Photograph: Amazon Over the past pandemic year, one of the biggest struggles was engaging smaller children remotely. Anything was preferable to pinning them down on a couch whilst staring silently at Nana on a screen. Amazon’s Glow looks like one of the most promising devices yet to help with this. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft The 14-inch-tall freestanding tower has a built-in 8-inch display. On one end, an adult downloads the Glow app on either an iOS or Android tablet. On the other end, the Glow projects a 19-inch interactive puzzle, story, or drawing activity on a 22-inch mat in front of the child. In addition to the mat, the tower comes with optional Glow Bits packages the child can manipulate by hand, like tangrams. The adult reads or plays along, and each gets to see the other's face. (There's a physical shutter to prevent anyone from snooping when the device is not in use.) The Glow is a sort of lovechild between two of our favorite kid devices over the past few years, the Osmo tablets and the Facebook Portal. Amazon says it collaborated with some of the biggest kid entertainment companies, like Disney, Sesame Street, and Nickelodeon, to create all-new original content for the Glow. It'll retail at the introductory price of $249 and an eventual MSRP of $299. Hopefully, it'll ship well before the start of the winter holidays. Photograph: Amazon Last year, Amazon debuted its new fitness tracker, the Halo Band , which—rather than count your steps or track your workouts—measures your body fat with a picture and also taught you to be nicer. This year, Amazon is rolling out a whole host of updates to make the Halo a much more comprehensive fitness tracker with features like Halo Fitness, a studio workout service, and Halo Nutrition, which has partners like Whole Foods and Weight Watchers and pulls from a menu of 500 recipes to help you eat better. All services will be included in the Halo membership. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft The Halo, well, it looks pretty familiar to anyone who has seen a Fitbit in the past 10 years. It has a color display that will let you swipe through your metrics, a swim-proof design and three sport band colors, plus a variety of swappable wristbands. And … dun dun dun … it will ship before the holidays and sell for a possible Fitbit-killing price of $80 , as long as you like stripping for your fitness band. The new Alexa Together subscription makes it possible for multiple people, like neighbors, to help check in on your elderly relative. It will replace Amazon's existing (and free) Care Hub in 2022 and lets caregivers serve as tech support—set up routines on your loved one’s devices, monitor assistant activity, or even play music—all for $20 a month. New is the ability to access an emergency helpline in the event of an accident. New customers can get a six-month trial to the service, and existing Care Hub users will get a year for free. Photograph: Amazon During last year’s hardware launch from Amazon, one product, in particular, stole the virtual show: the Always Home Camera. It's literally a drone designed to fly around inside your home. Why put multiple static cameras around the home, when you can have a single one that intelligently picks up on movement around the house, reasoned some product managers at Amazon (truly). The thing never shipped. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Until now. Today, Ring says the Always Home Camera will be available soon for $250 —but by invitation only. The idea behind the cam is that uses active sensors and a “dedicated neural processing unit” to pick up on noise or activity within the home, and then automatically flies out of its docking station—a receptacle that also blocks the camera when the drone is resting—to record whatever movement is happening in the home. Ring’s president, Leila Rouhi, said in an interview before the event that certain design considerations had to be made before the drone could be released. The camera has to be able to identify where windows are located, differentiate between a pet skulking around the house versus an intruder, and avoid chandeliers, she said. This may all be true, but strong reactions to the reveal of the in-home drone last year may have also led to Amazon hitting pause on the project for a while. “Do not, under any circumstances, put an Amazon surveillance drone in your house,” advocacy group Fight for the Future tweeted at the time. Well, now some lucky customers will be able to do just that. Photograph: Amazon Amazon hopes you haven’t given up on Ring , its smart-home brand that came under fire in 2019 for its controversial data-sharing agreements with law enforcement and a spate of hacks. Ring's newest hardware is the Ring Alarm Pro , a security monitoring system that doubles as a router. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft For $250, you get a base station with Eero’s Wi-Fi 6 router built-in ( Amazon bought Eero in 2019 ). High-speed LTE backup keeps it running even if your internet goes down. For $50 more , you’ll get a range extender, an alarm keypad, a motion detector, and four sensors for windows and doors. The alarm has the ability to store videos locally with Ring Edge, which is nice for anyone who doesn’t want their data on a cloud. It’s available for Ring Alarm Pro and Ring Protector subscribers and comes with a 64-GB MicroSD card, which stores about 47 hours of video, according to the company. There’s also a new Pro subscription in the Ring Protect plans, which costs $200 a year or $20 a month. You’ll get professional monitoring, backup internet on all Ring devices, access to the Alexa Guard Plus helpline, and more robust online security using Eero Secure. Photograph: Amazon If you’re a small business owner or you have multiple houses or rental properties, Ring's new Virtual Security Guard might sound appealing. A third-party service— Rapid Response , though Ring says other security monitoring companies will join later—can monitor outdoor cameras anytime they’re in armed mode. These agents will be able to view motion alerts and respond accordingly, like triggering an alarm and alerting police if an intruder is spotted. Ring says the agents can only view live feeds when motion is detected, and never when the camera is disarmed. You’ll have to apply for early access. There are also two new alert types you can use with Ring’s existing doorbells and cameras: Package Alerts and Custom Event Alerts. With Package Alerts, available on the Video Doorbell 2 Pro and Video Dooorbell (2020), you’ll receive a notification whenever packages are delivered in a specific zone. Custom Event Alerts work with the Ring Spotlight Cam Battery to recognize when an object is in a certain condition—like when a garage door is left open or a car is in the driveway. You can customize the exact areas and objects you want to monitor and the Ring app will send any necessary alerts to your phone. Photograph: Amazon Working with The Home Depot, Ring's new JobSite Security bundle aims to make it easier to monitor job sites. There are several bundles to customize to your liking, but it includes the Ring Alarm Pro with the option to add the Ring Protect Pro subscription service for cellular connectivity with 24/7 backup internet (to keep devices running online even if there's an internet outage). You’ll be able to purchase and connect it to additional accessories like Ring Power Packs, smart cameras, and smart lighting. It’s available exclusively at The Home Depot and bundles will start at $400. Photograph: Amazon If you're not into Ring, there's always Blink, another smart-home company Amazon acquired. It just announced its very first Video Doorbell , complete with 1080p HD video for day and night, alerts sent to your phone, two-way audio, and up to two years of battery life (unless you choose to wire it). It's compatible with Echo and Fire devices, which you can use to monitor the camera and control it via Alexa voice commands. It starts at $50. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Blink also announced two additional products: a battery-powered LED Floodlight Camera mount , which is compatible with Blink's outdoor camera, plus a Solar Panel Mount. The solar panel can recharge the outdoor camera. All three of Blink's new devices are currently available for preorder and launch on October 21. Update, 3:00 pm, October 1: This story was updated to clarify the relationship between Resideo, Honeywell, and Amazon. Resideo sells thermostats under the Honeywell Home brand name; the building technology company Honeywell is not directly involved in the relationship with Amazon. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. 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All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Boosted: The Electric Skateboard Company That Would Take Over the World | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/2016/08/electric-skateboard-company-take-world"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter David Pierce Gear The Electric Skateboard Company That Would Take Over the World Caption TK Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED Save this story Save Save this story Save It's clear from the beginning that something is different about this couch. It’s a beaten-up gray and has the word “Boosted” written across the back in blocky orange letters---as in Boosted Boards, America's favorite purveyor of electric-powered skateboards. Oh, and instead of feet, the couch has two Boosted longboards supporting it. The biggest hint that this is no ordinary couch, though, is the guy sitting on the rightmost cushion holding two pistol-shaped remote controls and wearing a big grin. This is John Ulmen, Boosted’s cofounder and CTO. “Scoot all the way over,” he says to me, “to balance the weight.” He’s about to start the couch, and he doesn’t want me to go flying off. The couch is outside Boosted’s office in Mountain View, California, in the parking lot. Some cars, a basketball hoop, and a skate ramp serve double duty as a makeshift obstacle course. Fingers on triggers like an old-timey cowboy, Ulmen squeezes both remote controls and the couch starts moving. He guides us easily around corners and over bumps---this ain't his first couch ride---before suddenly flicking one lever backward and one forward, sending the couch spinning like a top. Ulmen looks over at me and laughs, his shaggy hair whipping in the wind. Then he slows it down and hands me the remotes. My turn to drive. "It's really easy," he says. "We take it out on the street sometimes." Inside Boosted's large warehouse of an office, Ulmen and his team have Boosted just about everything. The couch, a surfboard, a toboggan, basically anything with a place to sit or stand and room for wheels and a motor. The only thing the company sells, at least for now, is a longboard---essentially a super-sized skateboard with subtle tweaks that make riding easier and more comfortable than the classic style. In four years on the market, the bright orange wheels and black decks of Boosted boards have become staples on the streets of San Francisco, New York, and other cities where nerds don’t like their Rockports to touch concrete. Now, Boosted’s second-generation board is about to go on sale, and the company faces all sorts of competition for the last-mile geek-transport market. Ulmen and his team are racing to make sure their company still makes the most fun, most practical, most awesome electric skateboard on the planet. And after that? “In the future, you’ll have ride-sharing, you’ll have public transit, you’ll have private vehicles,” says Sanjay Dastoor, Boosted’s CEO. “Some of them will be autonomous. Some of them will be driven by people.” And some of them, he says, will have Boosted’s bright-orange logo on the side. At the Boosted offices, anything that could have wheels...gets wheels. Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED Like so many things in Silicon Valley, Boosted began as a cure for a white guy's laziness. As a Stanford grad student studying robotics, Ulmen shuttled among a teaching gig and two labs, each at different corners of the sprawling campus. He got tired of walking (and being late) and bought a Loaded Dervish, a bouncy bamboo longboard, to help him get around. He'd never been a skater before, he says, but "I loved it, because I could carry it into class with me. If I needed to go somewhere, I’d just stand up, walk outside, drop it on the ground, and go." No bike racks, no parking spots. Simple. Ulmen's laziness caught up to him again: He got tired of pushing the board around all day. "So I figured, hey, I'm just going to see if I can get an electric longboard. This seems like something that should exist." He went shopping, and found … not much. "It was all this old lead-acid battery technology," he says, which hadn't come far since Jim Rugroden, another walking-averse student, built the gas-powered MotoBoard in the 1970s. Boosted in Brief A Boosted Board is an electric longboard, an extended skateboard with motorized wheels that will take you up to 22 mph. The battery's good for about six miles on a charge. You steer with your feet, and speed up and brake using a handheld throttle. There are many boards like Boosted, but none more popular or loved. Boosted's second-generation board starts shipping this month, and starts at $999. The board's a fun ride, but Boosted also hopes it's part of a new kind of vehicle, meant to make dense areas a lot easier to navigate and make big cities feel a little smaller. He knew how motors and batteries worked, and even where to get them. So over the next few months, Ulmen cobbled together $1,000 or so (for parts) and built himself an electric longboard. It went about 25 miles an hour and didn't have brakes. "I'd just haul ass around campus," Ulmen says, "and then footbrake. So I'd go through shoes really fast." The board had no protective housing, no weatherproofing. The remote was a huge RC plane controller, with a rubber band on the throttle stick to pull it back when he let go. It looked bad. But as Ulmen rode, people would stop him and ask him: Where can I get one? "I realized at that point that there is something here," he says. Ulmen connected with Dastoor and Matthew Tran, two other Stanford robotics students who’d been working on their own board, equipped with casters that let riders shred like a snowboarder. "The idea was that this is something people could use to get around these high-density areas, whether it's a campus or a city,” Dastoor says. He and Tran had the vision; Ulmen had the board. They were a perfect match. In the summer of 2012, after a few months and many revisions later, Ulmen, Tran, and Dastoor got into both Stanford's StartX program and the famed Y Combinator incubator. They had big plans for a splashy Kickstarter and a big company kickoff, but one of their new investors talked them into first doing a beta test. +++inset-left Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Boosted CEO Sanjay Dastoor. Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED So the guys bought five more Loaded decks and rigged them up with an Arduino to handle the signal processing, a battery, and a Wii nunchuk---not the controller, the little accessory joystick---as the remote control. They somehow found five people willing to pay $1,200 for the contraption. They kept in close touch, talking to their new customers about what they liked (speed, portability) and what they hated (charging, charging, and charging). One guy stuck with them the most, a rando they'd met in a Palo Alto bar. He told them the board made him explore more, see new things, and try new places, because so many more things were now a few minutes away. That idea---of shrinking your town or city, making everything feel close---became like a mantra at Boosted. Even as Boosted has tried to make its board fun and exciting and totally righteous, brah, the team has repeatedly made decisions with practicality in mind. They've invested heavily in customer service, and they focused on making the board not fast or thrilling but as rideable as possible. When Boosted did launch a Kickstarter campaign in the fall of 2012, one of the funding options was to spend an extra $300 and be part of a beta-testing group for early models. "They were able to test the drivetrain," Dastoor says, "and we were able to see how that failed. Then we'd give them the motor controller and see how that failed." To iterate more quickly, Boosted's office was set up with the engineering team about 15 feet from the prototyping machines. Welcome to the Metastructure: The New Internet of Transportation You Don’t Like Sharing Your Car. But Can Elon Musk Change Your Mind? Boosted’s New Electric Skateboard Goes Farther, Is Less Punk Sam Sheffer, a creative producer at Mashable and my most Boosted-riding friend, says this is precisely why Boosted is worth the price. "To me, as someone who has ridden all of the electric skateboards," he says, "you just see the attention to detail with every damn detail." Sheffer says he loves the flexible bamboo deck (made by Loaded) for riding over bumps, and raves about the remote's simple safety switch and rolling throttle. He says he has let more than 50 strangers try it on the streets of New York, and everyone loves it. "They think it’s some sort of insane contraption," he says, "but it’s just a board with a motor on it." A year after the Kickstarter campaign, Boosted shipped its first finished board. Then it immediately started working on the next one, based on the feedback that came pouring in. Users didn't like that their $1,200 longboard might break down every time it drizzled, so the new board has water-resistant housings around the electronics. They couldn't stand that their battery kept dying mid-ride, but still wanted to be able to take the board on a plane, so Boosted made the battery easily swappable---and created a bigger one for people who don't care about coming under the FAA's size regulations. “Ninety percent of the board is redesigned and new," Ulmen says. With fame comes competition. Kickstarter and Amazon teem with electric skateboards, not to mention the hoverboards, the scooters, the unicycles. Boosted wouldn't share exact sales numbers, but at this point, it's safe to say the company is at least the best-known company making motorized boards, with high-profile fans like Dave and James Franco and YouTube vlogging champion Casey Neistat. Whether he's turning it into a magic carpet or his friend is manualling straight into a river, "Casey's been good for us," Dastoor says with a laugh. But with fame comes competition: Kickstarter and Amazon teem with electric skateboards now. Plus there are the hoverboards, the scooters, the unicycles. "I think if you’re looking carefully," Razor CEO Carlton Calvin says, "you’ll see a lot of interest in electric mobility." Razor's fastest-growing product is its adult scooters, Calvin says, and the company is beefing up its engineering department to produce more "adult electric mobility products." Boosted co-founder and CTO John Ulmen. Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED Even if the piles of ready-to-ship boxes might indicate otherwise, Boosted Boards are still niche products. The $1,000 price tag is too high, for one thing. And an electric longboard will never be for everyone. Even traditional longboarders instinctively look down on anything electronic, anything with brakes---"I like pushing," one deadpans into the camera during a YouTube review of the first Boosted. I see at least one guy in a suit happily zooming up Third Street on a Boosted every morning, but outside San Francisco, board-commuting might be a hard sell. Ulmen says he's OK with that. Longboards are just the first idea of many. More and more people are starting to change they way they move around the world. It's familiar territory by now: We're moving to cities; we're ditching our cars; we're more connected than ever. "It is the logical conclusion of the liberation of computing," says Carlo Ratti, a designer and architect at MIT. The real-time data that comes from connecting everyone and everything, Ratti says, made Uber possible, makes self-driving cars possible, and will make room for new forms of transit that don't look like cars at all. "With autonomy and shared ownership, this form factor will become one instance of many," he says. "With advances in robotics, new machines that empower the human body can be built." In 2015, California passed a law officially legalizing motorized skateboards, outlawed since 1977 (when the only available products were gas-powered and considered unsafe). Kristin Olsen, then Republican leader of the California State Assembly, introduced the bill after touring the offices of Intuitive Motion, whose ZBoard is one of Boosted's biggest competitors. Olson said after the law passed that she hoped to make room for “an environmentally friendly transportation option." Boosted and others are hoping that California will be a leader in their regulatory fight. Meanwhile, someone needs to figure out where people should actually ride these things. "Think about the car lane, the bike lane, and the sidewalk as three different things that exist pretty much throughout any city," Dastoor says. The car lane is heavily regulated and heavily congested. The sidewalk is for walking, not wheels. (Don't be that guy.) "And then you see the bike lane opening up," he continues. Amsterdam and Copenhagen are building even more bike infrastructure. Dastoor imagines the Boosted Board as a new link in the chain: Drivers hate cyclists, who hate boarders, who hate pedestrians. The circle of commuting life. The new board looks similar, but nearly everything about it has changed. Christie Hemm Klok/WIRED At the company, "Boosted" has become a verb, at least internally. As in: We got kinda drunk and Boosted that couch last night, duder. Anything that can move is fair game. So at one point near the end of our conversation, I half-jokingly ask Dastoor if Boosted's going to make an electric car. "Well, not anytime soon ," he says. "But I don't see us just sticking with skateboards." Boosted already has people who understand batteries, motors, wheels, and customer service. They could probably make a car or something car-like---wheels, doors, a roof. But you can’t carry a car into a building or onto a train. Cars are the problem with present infrastructure, not the solution to it. By the time your Model S lease runs out, your next ride could be a longboard, a hoverboard, or a wacky self-balancing electric unicycle. It might even be a couch. 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"Big Tech’s Role in Policing the Protests | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/gadget-lab-podcast-458"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter WIRED Staff Gear Big Tech’s Role in Policing the Protests Photograph: Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Across the world, millions of people have gathered to protest police brutality and systemic racism after an officer in Minneapolis killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man. Amid the outpouring of grief and support, tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Reddit have issued statements backing protesters and the Black Lives Matter movement. But these same companies also provide platforms and services that prop up communities of hate and help law enforcement disproportionately track and convict people of color. This week on Gadget Lab, a conversation with WIRED senior writers Sidney Fussell and Lily Hay Newman about hypocrisy in tech, police surveillance, and how to safely exercise your right to protest. Read Sidney’s story about tech companies’ relationships with law enforcement here. Read Lily and Andy Greenberg’s tips for how to protect yourself from surveillance while protesting here. Read Lauren Goode and Louryn Strampe’s story about what to bring and what to avoid at a demonstration here. Follow all of WIRED’s protest coverage here. Sidney recommends the documentary LA 92 about the aftermath of the Rodney King killing. Lily recommends Mission Darkness Faraday bags from MOS Equipment. Lauren recommends this Google doc of anti-racism resources. Mike recommends donating to Campaign Zero and Grassroots Law Project. Sidney Fussell can be found on Twitter @ sidneyfussell. Lily Hay Newman is @ lilyhnewman. Lauren Goode is @ LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @ snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @ GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@ booneashworth ). Our executive producer is Alex Kapelman (@ alexkapelman ). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Play Music app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed. [ Intro theme music ] Michael Calore : Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab , I'm Michael Calore, a senior editor at WIRED, and I am joined remotely by my cohost, WIRED senior writer Lauren Goode. Lauren Goode : Hey Mike, I'm here at home as I have been for the past several weeks taping this podcast, but this is the week that lots of people left their homes and went out into the streets, and we're going to talk about that on this week's podcast. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : That's right. We are also joined this week by WIRED senior writer Sidney Fusell. Hi Sidney. Sidney Fussell : Hey guys, thanks for having me on. MC : Of course, thanks for coming back. As Lauren mentioned, it has been a very momentous and emotional week across the country and around the world. Millions of people have gathered to protest police brutality after a viral video showed an officer in Minneapolis killing George Floyd, an unarmed black man. The sheer scale of the demonstrations and the increasingly violent police response have dominated the national conversation. Police departments have also been scrutinized for their use of enhanced surveillance technology, which is often provided by tech companies like Amazon and Google. While these companies make statements condemning systemic racism and violence, they've also provided platforms and tools that worsen inequality. On the second half of the show, WIRED senior writer Lily Hay Newman will be joining us to talk about how protesters can protect themselves from these digital surveillance methods. But first, let's get into some of the methods themselves. Sidney, you wrote a story for WIRED this week about tech's ties to law enforcement. Tell us more. SF : Yeah. I was definitely one of those people who was shocked and stunned and horrified by what I was seeing, and at first I had that initial very good rush of, "Oh, it's so good to see all these companies speaking out for their employees, for the people who use their products, for the people who are affected." There was also at the same time a very big backlash where people were saying, "Well, it's great that companies like Amazon or Google are stepping up and using their platforms to speak out in support of the movement for black lives." But at the same time, there has been a lot of criticism about the relationship between big tech, Silicon Valley and these platforms, and the police. One of the things I tried to talk about in the piece I wrote was how the very companies that are now tweeting out "black lives matter" have had years of controversy and years of pushback from civil rights advocates saying that they're furnishing tools to police that are making it harder for on-the-ground protesters, harder for people of color. One of the best examples is Salesforce. Salesforce and GitHub both tweeted out in support of Black Lives Matter—and they both have contracts with Customs and Border Patrol. GitHub very controversially had a contract with ICE last year. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft And so you end up with a situation where, "Oh, thanks so much for the support, but you're furnishing tech to police." Similarly, Amazon has a product called Rekognition, which is spelled with a k —we don't know why. Rekognition is a facial-recognition product that's been sold to law enforcement. There's been a lot of talk about whether or not it is functional or just completely isn't accurate. A lot of research has showed that Rekognition actually performs less accurately on darker-skinned faces, which leads to a whole other discussion about racial profiling and whether or not someone arrested and charged with a crime because of a recognition match, whether or not that actually is the person, and whether or not the use of Amazon Rekognition could lead to a further stigmatization and a further overpolicing of people of color if police departments where to adopt it. And again, this has been going on for years; I remember covering this in 2017. And Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy, these higher-up Amazon executives, spoke in favor of Rekognition. They said it would make people safer, and they defended it. It's really unsettling to now see them tweeting in favor of Black Lives Matter, in favor of the protesters, when they have in the past defended the very tools which have been criticized for potentially increasing the inequality and increasing some of the issues or frustrations that people are protesting against right now. A big part of this has been the relationship between big tech and police, and the other part of this, which is where we get into talking more about Facebook and Reddit, is this issue of free speech versus policing white supremacy. Reddit CEO Steve Huffman was tweeting in support of Black Lives Matter when the former CEO, Ellen K. Pao, said, "You don't get to save Black Lives Matter when Reddit nurtures and monetizes white supremacy and hate all day long." It was the biggest, most shocking call-out I'd seen as I was writing the article. And one of the things Ellen Pao says is that Reddit did not do enough to stop white supremacy. Reddit allowed people on places like r/The_Donald to come together and say these racist, problematic things, and so now are you saying that you support Black Lives Matter, when before you weren't doing enough to stop some of the racist speech? All of that brings us to what is happening right now with Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has said that while he vehemently disagrees with President Trump's comments about, when the looting starts the shooting starts, he says, "I disagree with him." He declined to remove that message when it was cross-posted from Twitter to Facebook. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft That exact same message was unacceptable on Twitter, but it is acceptable on Facebook? Zuckerberg has pushed back against the backlash he's receiving. He's saying, "Yes, I can support Black Lives Matter and, yes, I can say that, while this is objectionable, I'm going to keep it on this site." And that's caused a lot of pushback within Facebook; a lot of employees staged what they called a virtual walkout. Right now a lot of Facebook employees are remote, but they still took the time to log off and protest. Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg met with a lot of different civil rights organizations who specifically voiced their concerns about Zuckerberg's decision to leave that message up—that there's a clear connection between the violence we're seeing right now and this call to arms to stop looters using gun violence. And they basically said that if you can't see the connection between these two things, you're absolutely not in support of black lives. Although Facebook has offered, I believe it was $10 million to different racial justice organizations. At the same time, Zuckerberg is defending his decision not to remove that message. LG : It sounds like what you're saying, Sidney, is there's hypocrisy at multiple levels. Tech companies are putting out statements of solidarity while they're either deploying tools that are used by law enforcement, or they're just allowing divisive or outright racist content to live on their platforms. I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit more, if we know at this point, what kind of tech is currently being deployed on the ground during demonstrations and protests to potentially track protesters? What do we know about that? SF : One specific technology that I'm especially interested in right now, and hopefully for a future story, is called Project Greenlight. This is a system of cameras in Detroit, Michigan. And what's so fascinating about Project Greenlight is that you have these CCTV cameras that were furnished by the city, but then businesses could also register their own cameras to the same database, so that with police officers, if there's some type of a crime or some issue, police officers can very easily see, "OK, here's the cameras that we have either that are ours or that were registered from business owners or homeowners or whatever, we can see exactly where the cameras are, where they're pointing." And so they have all these different eyes. It's a public-private partnership that combines all these different real-time CCTV cameras. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft And what's so interesting about that is how the use has changed so much just over the past year. This was introduced as a crime deterrent. This was supposed to stop things like drive-by shootings, burglaries, things like that. Then it got used for social-distancing measures. And so there was a real issue with people going out and violating the quarantine, people going out past curfew. There were issues with people doing large gatherings—you could upload footage or flag it and say, "Hey, we have this footage of a barbecue," or something like that. And now it's being used to monitor protesters and stop looting. One of the things that people who study surveillance, one of the things that they really talk about is that once you introduce surveillance that you think is just on the edge, like, "Oh, it's only for violent crimes," it morphs, it changes, it insists upon itself. It becomes something that you learn to rely on. At first, it was for very, very violent crimes but most of society it wouldn't touch, but then the quarantines happened and now it's used for that. And then the protests are happening and now it's used for that. With Project Greenlight, which may or may not include drones, we know that Detroit has looked into drone contracts, we can't confirm it or not, but I think that Project Greenlight is the perfect example of why even a little bit of surveillance can be so dangerous, and why we do need to really, really push these tech companies—because they may introduce some surveillance technology for one specific purpose, but it will mutate and it will insist upon itself as being important and long-lasting no matter what the situation is. MC : One place where that's particularly striking is geolocation on smartphones. It's a feature that was sold to us as a way to add convenience so you can see relevant information as you're walking around or searching for things. When your phone knows where you are that sense of place can deliver information that could be helpful to you. But as we've seen and as you talk about in your story there's a way that the location information being broadcast by your phone is being used by law enforcement. And if also tech companies, particularly Google, it's called a geofencing warrant. What can you tell us about it? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft SF : Right. Geofencing warrant was something that I believe in early 2018, late 2017, a few people were looking into and the basic... it's a little bit complex. But basically, a crime occurs within a specific area, let's say there's a robbery, there's a shooting or something like that. What a geofence warrant is, police will go to Google and they'll say, "We would like the data on the devices that are within this specific area." And normally it's around 100 meters, 200 meters around the crime. Basically what Google does is it offers just like a not fully anonymized, just random numbers for the devices within this specific area and the police are the ones you have to do that detective work of saying, "OK, who was in a specific area at this specific time? Was there any shady movement?" They narrow it down to just a few. And then from there they'll go back to Google and say, "OK, we have these four or five devices that were in this specific area at this specific time who move in patterns that look shady to us. Can you give us information on these four or five?" The defense from police departments is that, "Well, although everyone in this area gets pinged we only know who very few of these people are." It's mostly anonymized, mostly people don't even know this would happen. You really have no way of knowing if this has happened to you because unless the police contact you, you wouldn't know that you were in that initial string of a randomized, anonymized number sets. There's a lot of concern though about this idea that just by being in the vicinity of the crime and vicinity is doing a lot of work right now because researchers have found much later that the scope of the warrants to be much bigger than the scene of the crime. You may know the house that the scene of the crime happening, why do you need the devices for the entire block or the entire neighborhood? One of the things that there's been a lot of concern about is that why should people who live in high crime areas be subjected to being involved in these random searches, and what other types of data could potentially be shown to police? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft There was a problem in North Carolina where police had sought five different geofencing warrants and two of them were in the same public housing complex. Anyone who knows anything about public housing those seem to be very, very dense to get a lot of people for each block. You end up with a lot of people being routinely put through this search just for the sake of whatever crime it is. And I think that really speaks to first and foremost, a lack of technological literacy on judges, again, you do need a warrant for this, you do have to go through the court system but I don't think a lot of judges are aware of how this is working and how many people get caught up in this. And I think that ultimately Google releases transparency reports in which it talks about, "Hey, this is how much data we give to police." And I recommend everyone look at these transparency reports because it has doubled in the past two years. In 2017, they gave around 10,000 requests from police in terms of requesting Google user data and for 2019, there were 20,000. Where this reliance on Google user data in criminal investigations is increasing, it's becoming normalized. And so going back to what we were saying about Project Greenlight, it may seem like an edge case they only do occasionally for a few people, but if it follows the rules of surveillance it could potentially be normalized and be the type of thing that gets used for lots of different uses. It's also worth noting that Google released a lot of information about social distancing, broken down to the county in terms of how much people were traveling before and after some of these quarantines started. Again, the data that was created for the purpose of Maps and Uber became useful in terms of tracking social distancing and is now useful in terms of whether or not you were around or not around the scene of the crime. The malleability of this data is it can be overstated, we have to be very, very cautious about how it's being used. LG : And Sidney very quickly, it's also worth pointing out that some of the tools that are being used are flawed and they're flawed because the technology that underpins them, which we collectively refer to as AI, right? AI now applies to so many different things in the world that we cover, but we certainly get a lot of pitches where things claim to be using AI. But if the data sets that are informing those technologies are biased to begin with and that inherently results in fallible technology. Talk about that quickly. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft SF : Absolutely. I mean, I think the best example that I've seen as it relates to the problem of biases in AI relates to this idea of tracking or preventing crime. It's like, "Oh, what rate do crimes occur in this area? Can we predict from there when crimes will occur?" And it really overlooks what their definition of crime is and what types of crimes get reported and what types of communities have those interactions with police for the crimes, "to be reported." The same crimes can be happening in different neighborhoods but you would not see the data reflect that, you would see a high crime in areas with high policing and you would see low crime in areas with low policing because that's where the criminal reports, those statistics are being generated in areas where there are police officers to record that data. When you look at what a police officer does, you have to remember that there's a person who's going through and collecting this data and sorting it and everything else. And I will just say that there's a lot to be said about the types of crimes that we're going to use this data and use these resources to predict and prevent. And I think we should really talk about some of the why we're really trying so hard to prevent certain crimes and not others and which ones can be reflected in the data and which can't be. MC : All right. Well, right now we're going to take a break and then when we come back during the second half of the show, we're going to talk about some practical tips on how to protest safely. [Break] MC : Welcome back. Protesting is of course a constitutional right for all Americans. But in light of increased police surveillance and the use of force that we've all seen on TV, on Twitter and with our very own eyes, if you want to go out and demonstrate you should plan to do it safely. To help us talk through that we are now joined by WIRED senior writer, Lily Hay Newman. Hi Lily. Lily Hay Newman : Hi, good to be back with you. MC : Thanks for coming back on the show. Lily, you and our WIRED colleague, Andy Greenberg put together a guide about how to protest safely in this age of digital surveillance. Why don't you just give us some of the ways people can protect themselves out there? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft LN : Yeah. We were specifically looking at how you can protect your privacy and your data and your digital security while you're out protesting. And I think there are two things to consider when you think about this, because also there's a lot of other safety considerations when you're protesting. Physical safety, gear you might want to bring with you, staying hydrated, all these things and especially protesting in a pandemic. But there's also things to consider in terms of your privacy and all of that starts with your smartphone. You want to both be thinking about the wireless emanations from your phone and the wireless communication that's happening between your smartphone and cell towers or wireless access points, things like that. And then you also want to think about the data that is locally stored on the device or accounts that you're logged into on the device through apps or the mobile browser, things like that. Because if your device is confiscated by police, if police detain you and ask you to unlock your device or demand that you unlock your device, things like that, they can suddenly gain access to all that data on your phone. The first thing we think about is just do you need to bring a phone at all? For most people in most cases the answer is, "Yes," realistically in today's world. But if you're going to a protest nearby where you live or where you're driving there with a group and you're ready have your people with you, things like that, it could be a situation where you actually could leave your phone at home. And that's kind of the best way if it's possible to just negate all of these concerns, that's the way that you can know for sure that no one's tracking your phone, no one's going to see the data on your phone because the phone isn't there at the protest. LG : Lily, it sounds like you really think people should try to leave their phones at home. But let's say that you've weighed your options, you want to be able to photograph things or capture video, where you just feel you need your phone on you for other safety reasons and you've decided to bring it with you. What are your options then? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft LN : Some ideal scenarios would be something like bringing a burner phone, a cheap prepaid device that you might just pick up at a corner store or a drug store or something like that. It has as little registered to you as possible, things like that and it's just a throw away type of thing it's not your normal number, all those things that would really help reduce the usefulness of data that a surveillance a dragnet would collect about that phone. Another option for people who have a second phone, maybe it's a work phone or various reasons that you might have a second device, if it has less data on it, if you use it less often, if you don't really have a lot logged into it and it's kind of more convenient to keep it more empty, that's another good option to bring with you. If you're at the point where you're thinking, "I just need to bring my primary devices, the only device I have, I need it to coordinate or in case I get in a bad situation, here are sort of some things to consider with that. Sidney was talking about geolocation as a factor in this. We're also thinking about devices known as Stingrays or mobile access points that put out WiFi that are controlled by law enforcement. These are fake cell towers or fake hotspots where they provide your phone with some connectivity, but really what they're doing is intercepting data and they sort of trick your phone into connecting because they're a strong signal close by, but really they're not a legitimate cell tower or a legitimate WiFi hotspot. Those are some of the types of things that you're concerned about. One thing you can do is just keep your phone off as much as possible and only turn it on if you need to make that emergency call or if you need to check where someone is. Another option which is recommended by a lot of activists is similar to keeping your phone at home and not bringing it at all in some sense, is to use what's called a Faraday bag. It's an enclosure where radio signals can't penetrate. All the antennas and various sensors in your phone, they're still in your phone just like normal but they're in this enclosure, in this case a pouch or a bag and nothing can talk to them basically. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft You can leave your phone on, everything can just be normal, but when it's in the bag you're good, and when you want to use it you take it out briefly use it and then you put it back in the bag and it's an easy way. You can't slip up and turn it on by mistake when you didn't mean to or something has just physically in the bag. And then the other thing to think about when we were talking about data on the phone, the crucial thing here is just locking your device and making sure on Android phones that you have full-disk encryption turned on. Well, that's in the security settings and that is automatic on iOS if you add a passcode. LG : Lily, one question I have is if you are compelled by authorities to show them your phone or unlock your phone, what are your rights? LN : Your rights are that you shouldn't be forced to unlock a device for a search in the middle of a protest in the middle of a street without arrest, without going to a precinct, without a search warrant, things like that. But in practice, the concern that we're thinking about is just the heat of the moment and your realistic feelings about your safety in that moment or what you feel comfortable with. MC : There's seemingly a difference in terms of the different ways that you can set your phone to unlock either with biometrics, with a face print, with a thumb print, with a passcode. What is the difference and which one would you recommend for people that are going to protest? LN : I think the easiest answer is just a PIN or a passcode is always the recommendation, preferably six digits. That is sort of the baseline recommendation for going to a protest. Some operating systems offer a feature for emergency convert to passcode. It's like if you use the thumbprint or you use face unlock because it's convenient in your daily life, but suddenly you're in a situation where you're thinking, "Well, I don't want to someone to grab my wrist and just put my finger on the phone." You can press the home button and the side button or something like that to initiate this feature where it'll ask for your passcode. If it's too much effort in general, I think it's still worth setting up for when you're going to the protest and then you can turn it off later and switch back to biometrics or whatever you prefer. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : I would also add that I know there's a feature on Android phones where you can leave the phone unlocked if you're carrying it on your person. Since the accelerometer in the phone knows which way gravity is, it knows when you're carrying it in your pocket or you're walking around with it. It also knows when you're close to your home and it will stay unlocked when you're close to your home. These are all things that you have to opt into to turn on, and if you've turned those on you should definitely turn all of those off, basically anything that makes it easier for your phone to automatically unlock. LN : Yeah. I know it sounds like a lot of different eventualities and a lot of different things to consider, but I think the most important concept is just having it in your mind to like, "Oh, there's a difference between bringing my phone with me and leaving it at home." Or, "There's a difference between taking some precautions to keep it off or keep it in a special bag versus just using it totally normally." And I think if you just have that in the back of your mind you'll naturally make some small modifications as you're able to protect yourself a little better. MC : All right. Well, I highly suggest that everybody who's listening to this goes out and reads the piece that Lily and Andy wrote about protecting your privacy during protests, and also that you read the guide that our own Lauren Goode and Louryn Strampe on the Gear team wrote about in general practical tips for protesting out in the streets, for exercising your First Amendment rights and doing it in a way that protects your safety and your privacy and of course your sanity. Let's take a quick break and when we come back, we will go through recommendations from everybody on the show. [Break] MC : OK, Lily, let's get started with you. What is your recommendation for our listeners? LN : Since I suggested that people use a Faraday bag to hold their smartphone in if they go to protest, I have a Faraday bag recommendation, just trying to do a service here. Mission Darkness Faraday bags, they're made by MOS Equipment. They're just exactly the type of thing you need, it's just a pouch. They even have other formats like duffle bags where the whole bag is a Faraday bag, things like that. Pricing for the pouches is about $25 to $100 and more for the bigger bags. But the reason I wanted to give a Faraday bag recommendation is that they're not all legit. If you just google it and find something random it may not actually block everything you want to block. This was actually a recommendation from Harlo Holmes, who's Director of Newsroom Security at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and yeah, Mission Darkness Faraday bags is a good option. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : Great. Sidney, what's your recommendation? SF : My recommendation is that for the people who like me are just very overwhelmed with social media and still want to just learn a lot about riots and protests and some of the things that are happening right now, there's a wonderful documentary on Netflix called LA 92. It's about LA in 1992, the chaos surounding what happened to Rodney King. And it's super relevant, there's no narration whatsoever, it's entirely archival footage. And what I think is so incredible about it is that it really showed how long we've struggled with the idea of the viral video. I think that's something that we're seeing right now, social media is flooded with tons of videos from tons of different viewpoints. But with what happened in 1992 and of course the infamous Rodney King video, really from the very beginning activists and people on the ground were having a discussion about what do people think when they see violence in videos? And I think that now that we're being completely flooded with different videos of horrific violence, I really would like people to watch this documentary and really ruminate on what it means to watch this stuff online and to share it and whether it's serving the purpose that you think it is. MC : I can second that. I was in high school in Southern California during the Rodney King incident and I found the documentary to be very powerful. In a way it just is as almost as powerful as living through it the first time. OK, Lauren, what is your record the recommendation? LG : My recommendation is a Google Doc that is being shared widely on the internet right now. I first saw it shared by Brittany Packnett Cunningham, who's the Co-Founder of Campaign Zero and the cohost of Pod Save the People, but the document was actually compiled by Sarah Sophie Flicker and Alyssa Klein. And it is a list of anti-racism resources aimed at white people, particularly white people and parents to try to deepen the work that we can do to be anti-racist, the ways that we can start at home, ways that we can do this on social media and in our workspaces. There's a list of books, podcasts, articles. Some of the articles are, I mean, it's going to take a lot of work but that's the point, they're really worth reading. Videos to watch. There's a really comprehensive list of books to read. We're going to link to this document in the podcast notes and I hope that you all take a look. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : Thanks for that, Lauren. That's a very valuable. For my recommendation, I'm going to share a little bit of information about myself. I am a white man and like many other white people I am wondering what I can do to help. And what I have heard from my friends, white, black, brown, is that the best thing that you can do is open your wallet. There are a lot of people asking for money right now, there are a lot of places you can donate to right now. And if you're unsure of where to go I'm going to give you two places that you can donate that have been vetted and they're great organizations doing really great work towards police reform and criminal justice reform. One is the organization that Lauren just mentioned called Campaign Zero, which is working towards reforming police activities and the way that particularly black people and communities of color are policed in this country. And the other is the Grassroots Law Project, which is working specifically towards criminal justice reform. That's my recommendation, open your damn wallet, give money to these organizations that are doing good in the world right now at this moment. All right, that is our show for this week. Lily, thanks again for joining us. LN : Stay safe everyone. MC : And Sidney, thanks for coming on the show again. SF : Thank you, thank you for having me. MC : And thank you all for listening. If you have any feedback you can find all of us on Twitter, just check the show notes. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth and our Executive Producer is Alex Kapelman. Goodbye, and we'll be back next week. [Outro theme music] What happened when I switched from Mac to Windows How Kickstarter employees formed a union 5 simple ways to make your Gmail inbox safer Quarantine has transformed not-TV into essential TV Let's rebuild the broken meat industry— without animals 👁 What is intelligence, anyway ? 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All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Riot Games Makes More Than Just 'League of Legends' Now | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/riot-games-announcements"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Julie Muncy Culture Riot Games Makes More Than Just League of Legends Now Riot Games just announced a slew of titles that it'll offer alongside its wildly popular League of Legends. Courtesy of Riot Games Save this story Save Save this story Save Welcome to Replay , WIRED's weekly column devoted to everything gaming. This week, we've got a lot of big game announcements in one small package, and a lot of Fortnite. Fortnite never ends, my friends. Even when it does. You'll see what we mean. For most of its lifespan, Riot Games has been known for one thing: League of Legends. Because it's their only game. They just make one game. Or they did, until earlier this week, when, during a livestream celebrating the 10th anniversary of League of Legends —and therefore, really, of Riot itself—Riot announced new games. And not just a couple. Like, seven. First, Riot's got a League of Legends fighting game coming out, codenamed Project L. No word on a release date, but it's in progress. Project A is also coming, and it's a tactical multiplayer first-person shooter, in a whole new setting not at all related to League of Legends. Again, no release date or anything. Then there's a management simulation game, à la, say, Football Manager or those modes in every Madden game, but you're managing a fictional esports League of Legends team. Really. It's called Esports Manager , and it's coming in 2020. There's also a card game, because, of course. Oh, and there's Legends of Runeterra , starting up beta stuff now. And there's the mysterious Project F , which is something, apparently. And we didn't even get into the TV show. Or the mobile ports. Really, Riot is going hard out here. This past weekend, Fortnite players were greeted with a remarkable, bizarre sight. They saw their beloved game—an island full of guns and rickety towers— pulled into an event horizon at the apex of the world. Fortnite disappeared into a black hole, and it sat there—unplayable, inert, beyond approach—for days. Now Fortnite has been resurrected, with a clean slate, as Fortnite Chapter 2. The new version is a simplified, streamlined, overall ease-of-use update to the game, great for new and old players alike. But that's not what's exciting. What is exciting is that, for a couple days, Epic Games took their biggest moneymaker, one of the most popular games in the world, and just deleted it. They yeeted Fortnite into goshdanged space. It was riveting, and we loved every second of it. But Fortnite , as prominent as it is, still isn't quite a household name. At least not in all households. And as one measure of fame, we know how big Fortnite isn't. It ain't Lady Gaga big. We know this due to two of the funniest tweets we've seen in recent memory. As recapped by Kotaku , Lady Gaga asked her followers a question that, after the whole black hole game deletion thing went viral, probably seemed pretty urgent: "What's fortnight?" And then, after Ninja replied, suggesting he show her, Lady Gaga expressed equivalent confusion, replying, simply, "who are you." Who indeed, Lady Gaga, who indeed. We'll know games really are big when even our most bizarre pop stars are building stuff in Minecraft. Before the rebooted Lara Croft series dove into self-indulgence and an increased delight in suffering, there was Tomb Raider. Held together in large part by Rhianna Pratchett's sharp character writing, this 2013 reboot of the classic exploration-action series is a story of a Lara Croft who comes through a crucible of suffering and comes out a stronger, albeit pretty traumatized, person. It's a slick, fun little action adventure title, worthy of its pedigree. Maybe skip the sequels. Netflix, save yourself and give me something random to watch The best tech and accessories for your dog The former Soviet Union's surprisingly gorgeous subways Why are rich people so mean ? A brutal murder, a wearable witness, and an unlikely suspect 👁 Prepare for the deepfake era of video ; plus, check out the latest news on AI 🎧 Things not sounding right? Check out our favorite wireless headphones , soundbars , and Bluetooth speakers Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Contributor X Topics Replay video games Eric Ravenscraft Geoffrey Bunting Boone Ashworth Angela Watercutter Geek's Guide to the Galaxy Megan Farokhmanesh Megan Farokhmanesh Kate Knibbs Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"This Drone Maker Is Swooping In Amid US Pushback Against DJI | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/drone-maker-swooping-us-pushback-against-dji"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Tom Simonite Business This Drone Maker Is Swooping In Amid US Pushback Against DJI Photograph: Skydio Save this story Save Save this story Save Application Hardware Regulation Safety End User Big company Government Sector Aviation Defense Public safety Source Data Video Geolocation Technology Machine learning Machine vision Robotics These being pandemic times, a recent visit to the Silicon Valley offices of drone startup Skydio involved slipping past dumpsters into the deserted yard behind the company’s loading dock. Moments later, a black quadcopter eased out of the large open door, sounding like a large and determined wasp. Skydio is best known for its “ selfie drones ,” which use onboard artificial intelligence to automatically follow and film a person, whether they’re running through a forest or backcountry skiing. The most recent model, released last fall, costs $999. The larger and more severe-looking machine that greeted WIRED has similar autonomous flying skills but aims to expand the startup’s technology beyond selfies into business and government work, including the military. Skydio’s plans show how the conflict between the US and China over technology can create unexpected openings for American companies. Skydio’s work with the US government is being buoyed by growing opposition from government officials to its most powerful competitor and the world’s dominant drone maker, China’s DJI. New regulations and proposed legislation restrict government agencies from buying foreign drones, claiming they are a potential conduit for cyberattacks. Skydio is happy to fill the void. “We feel a sense of opportunity, and responsibility,” says Adam Bry, Skydio’s CEO and a founder of Google’s drone delivery project. His company recently won a contract with the Drug Enforcement Agency and is vying to become the Army’s standard-issue short-range surveillance drone to help infantry peek over the next hill or look around corners in urban combat. The government interest and protection come on the heels of a slump in the US drone industry. Investors hoping for sales in industries such as agriculture and energy plowed money into drone startups in the early 2010s as the Federal Aviation Administration gradually allowed broader use of the technology. Uptake was slower than anticipated, and drones turned out to be similar to other portable electronics—made more efficiently in China. DJI’s market share soared while prominent US drone makers crashed. In 2016, 3D Robotics , which has raised more than $180 million, according to Pitchbook, and was cofounded by a former WIRED editor in chief, stopped manufacturing its own drones. It later started supplying software to run on DJI’s instead. In 2018, Airware, a San Francisco drone startup, which had raised more than $100 million in funding, shut down. Analytics company Drone Industry Insights says DJI’s products now account for 77 percent of drones in the US, citing FAA figures. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg DJI has since gotten snared in growing US–China hostilities over technology. Late last year the Department of Justice recommended its agencies be wary of foreign drones. The Department of the Interior grounded its 800-strong drone fleet, which includes models DJI had customized for the agency, saying it was concerned Chinese drones or drone components were a security risk. The policies are widely seen as targeted at DJI. Lawmakers have joined the action. In February, the House passed a bill that blocks the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies like FEMA and Customs and Border Protection from buying foreign drones. The Senate is considering a broader bill that would ban all US agencies from buying drones from any country recognized as a national security threat, such as China. “We need to be more strategic in protecting our national security interests and our competitive edge,” says Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R–Washington), who voted for the House bill and says she wants to see more support for US drone makers like Skydio. “Chinese drones like DJI’s can possibly send data back to China.” A spokesperson for DJI said its products don’t send customer data to China and cited the results of a recent security audit by consultants Booz Allen Hamilton. It discovered some security vulnerabilities in DJI’s drones, which the company says it is addressing, but no evidence of connections to China. DJI argues that it would be better to require all drone vendors to meet defined security standards than to ban some companies based purely on their country of origin. The Chinese company’s chances of escaping US government restrictions seem slim amid bipartisan support for legislation on foreign drones. Ulrike Franke, a policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, says the US campaign against DJI resembles that against telecoms provider Huawei in its breadth and its influence on US allies in Europe. Skydio’s willingness to capitalize on DJI’s troubles is a reminder that despite Silicon Valley’s perceived disdain of government and recent protests at some companies against defense contracts, the tech industry remains entangled with the US government and military. A database of tech industry government contracts released by the nonprofit Tech Inquiry last week shows Skydio has deals worth at least $7 million, including with the Air Force, Army, and DEA. By David Pierce Skydio was founded in 2014 and makes its drones near its offices in Redwood City, a short drone flight from Facebook’s home in Menlo Park. Bry says he chose to manufacture in Silicon Valley, one of the country’s most expensive locales, because making its drones smarter required tight integration between their hardware and onboard AI. That makes Skydio’s drones pricier—it’s first model released in 2018 was $2,499—but has more recently become important to government customers suspicious of China. Other drone makers are working on autonomous flying too, including DJI, but Skydio has prioritized the technology, saying it’s needed for drones to become widely used. On its latest models, the onboard software uses video from six 4K navigation cameras, three on top and three underneath, and a powerful processor from chip company Nvidia to build a 3D model of the drone’s surroundings and avoid crashes. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Skydio’s software can also recognize that a person or people are in the frame and can follow one person in particular by tracking their shape and motion, not any identifying characteristics. One of Skydio’s consumer drones had no trouble zipping along behind a WIRED reporter jogging erratically around Skydio’s rear yard. The aerial gadget weaved easily around trees and other obstacles before landing smoothly in Bry’s outstretched hand. More drones in the hands of businesses and government would be good for Skydio, but some people wonder if it would be bad for society. Skydio drones with “POLICE” stickers are used by cops in Chula Vista, California, which last week won FAA approval to fly beyond an operator’s line of sight. Police drones were common at many recent protests in US cities against racist policing. Democratic state lawmakers in New York were spurred to introduce a bill to ban police drones at demonstrations and concerts and to require a warrant for any law enforcement use of the technology. The New York Civil Liberties Union has praised the legislation, saying that, like other surveillance technologies, they are most often directed at vulnerable communities and covertly expand government power. Unsurprisingly, Bry is comfortable with police drones but says he recognizes such concerns. “The more we expand beyond consumers the more potential there is for really positive impact, but it comes with the potential for misuse and abuse,” he says. The company is working on a set of ethical principles for use of drones to be released this summer, he says, covering topics including privacy and community engagement. Skydio is also creating applications that adapt its autonomous software for commercial use, which it believes will be a bigger market than government work. One is aimed at insurance workers inspecting buildings. A loss adjuster can use a mobile app to mark the area of a roof that needs inspecting, and the drone automatically flies a route that captures every square millimeter. FAA rules require an operator to watch and be ready to tap to end the flight, but Skydio says its software makes drones much more practical, because staff don’t need such extensive flying lessons. That app will run on Skydio’s selfie drone launched last fall and also on the boxier, black business-and-government model that greeted WIRED and will be released later this year. It has a longer flight time, a thermal camera, and folds to about the size of an overstuffed foot-long sandwich. It comes in a version aimed at the defense industry, configured to meet Army specifications. Skydio is also working on a kind of robotic nest, or dock, that would allow its drones to be launched without a human on hand, for uses like capturing security footage or checking inventory in a warehouse at night. My friend was struck by ALS. To fight back, he built a movement 15 face masks we actually like to wear This card ties your credit to your social media stats Passionflix and the Musk of Romance Live wrong and prosper: Covid-19 and the future of families 👁 The therapist is in— and it's a chatbot app. Plus: Get the latest AI news 💻 Upgrade your work game with our Gear team’s favorite laptops , keyboards , typing alternatives , and noise-canceling headphones Senior Editor X Topics drones China DJI artificial intelligence Samanth Subramanian Amanda Hoover Caitlin Harrington Niamh Rowe Vittoria Elliott David Gilbert Will Knight Reece Rogers Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Coway Bidetmega 400 Review: A Glorious Way to Clean Your Derrière | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/review/coway-bidetmega-400"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Parker Hall Gear Review: Coway Bidetmega 400 Facebook X Email Save Story Photograph: Coway Facebook X Email Save Story $599 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Rating: 8/10 Open rating explainer The millennial generation’s discretionary cash isn’t being mashed into avocado toast. It’s being spent on cell phones, smartwatches, wireless headphones, and Netflix subscriptions. Senior reviewer Adrienne So says we pay this much for little things because the big things are broken. If we can’t fix health care, rid ourselves of student loan debt, or compete with skyrocketing housing prices, we may as well treat ourselves to The Witcher on a big ol’ flatscreen. I think she’s right, in no small part because, over the past two weeks, I’ve discovered a new must-have for fellow techno-nihilists: A $599 electrified toilet attachment called the Bidetmega 400. Butt tech: The next thing you didn’t know you needed. Coway’s heated seat, heated water, auto-cleaning, blow-drying, and night-light-laden throne is a masterpiece of comfort and cleanliness I now can’t live without. If I’m gonna Uber to the hospital because I can’t afford an ambulance , I might as well do it with a sparkling undercarriage. It’s basic armchair philosophy: If you got pooped on by a bird, would you wipe it off your skin with some two-ply and keep walking? No. You’d use water. The bidet is better, right? Photograph: Coway Not necessarily. There’s no indication that the amount of microbial junk in our trunks ( about 0.14 grams in the average American wiper , according to fellow WIRED writer and bidet enthusiast Jason Kehe) is an actual health concern. I couldn’t even find peer-reviewed evidence that suggested using bidets is actually cleaner, which is crazy because bidets make me feel so much cleaner. The real reason to use a bidet, I’ve learned, is how gently they clean your nether regions. Some studies have shown that bidets may be helpful for people with hemorrhoids or other issues where wiping causes physical discomfort (or, in some cases, more damage). Medical professionals also say they are good tools for people with physical disabilities. They're also popular in several parts of the world, just not the US. The Bidetmega begins its magic as soon as you descend into its ergonomic clutches. A pressure sensor on the front of the bold, slanted toilet seat automatically tells the bidet to rinse itself clean—trickling a bit of water below you, as though self-aware of the generation of economics that led to this moment. At the same time, the Bidetmega starts heating the seat to one of two temperatures (three if you include leaving the heat off entirely). My butt now follows the seasons. I prefer the hot setting during the dreary Portland winter but envision myself transitioning to medium heat in springtime and no heat in summer. It's mega fast, reaching a warm temperature in about a minute. After you’ve done your business, you press the Rear or Front buttons on the included remote—which is wireless, and thus a hilarious way to surprise a visiting friend or relative. Photograph: Coway Coway Bidetmega 400 Rating: 8/10 $599 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Push the button (also printed with braille), and the Bidetmega starts one of three preselected cleaning modes: Basic, Soothing Wash, and Active. I prefer Soothing Wash, for obvious reasons. Active mode isn’t why anyone buys a $600 bidet, and Basic mode just feels like a waste of the money. Soothing Wash mode is as magnificent as it sounds. Unlike many cheaper toilet attachments—like my previous model from Amazon, which bows its plastic spritzer wand at the feet of this well-heeled Coway model—the Bidetmega very carefully regulates pressure and temperature of its water stream using something it calls “i-wave technology.” The stream changes in intensity throughout a cleaning, providing a multistage wash at one of three user-selected water temperatures. I, now a connoisseur, prefer medium heat. Unlike that Amazon-bought predecessor, the Bidetmega never misses, so there’s no weird waddling action; both nozzle positions can be adjusted forward or backward using the remote during the first use, for laserlike precision thereafter. That's the best part of the Bidetmega 400: There's nothing to think about. You press a single button, and for a brief, private moment, you are a God, gloriously beloved by a toilet seat. You’re cleaned, warmed, and—in the end—you press another button, and a warm stream of air blows you dry. This is a perfect modern machine. There’s no internet connection and no virtual assistant to talk to. Nobody at the NSA is going to snoop through your poop data. The Bidetmega simply takes something that offers you little excitement and makes it a joyous highlight of your day. It's even got a glowing blue light to guide you in for late-night landings. Think you might want to experience the Bidetmega’s magic? Coway offers a 90-day free trial on its website—which raises the question: What are they doing with used bidets? Photograph: Coway Coway Bidetmega 400 Rating: 8/10 $599 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED In any case, installation didn’t have me fearing I was going to break my toilet or flood my bathroom. It was as simple as changing a toilet seat. Put it on, install a T-connector to your toilet’s water supply, and plug it into an outlet. Job done. The remote even comes with a tape-backed mount, so you can put the controls anywhere you want. The Bidetmega is the Rolls Royce of bathroom accessories, but there are many similar products from well-known brands that offer many of the same features for less. I'll be testing more soon, but for now the Bidetmega 400 reigns supreme. This is the fanciest device I’ve ever put in my bathroom, and I cherish every moment I spend in its company. Don’t believe me? Give it a shot. Your parents might have a ritzy house and no student loan debt, but they probably don’t poop like this. Algae caviar, anyone? What we'll eat on the journey to Mars A code-obsessed novelist builds a writing bot. The plot thickens Chris Evans goes to Washington The best meal kit delivery service for every kind of cook The fractured future of browser privacy 👁 The secret history of facial recognition. Plus, the latest news on AI 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Coway Bidetmega 400 Rating: 8/10 $599 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. 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"Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/mach-effect-thrusters-interstellar-travel"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Daniel Oberhaus Backchannel Gravity, Gizmos, and a Grand Theory of Interstellar Travel Jim Woodward’s peers have long dismissed his ideas about gravity and inertia. Now he believes he has the data that will prove him right—and could make interstellar travel possible for humans. Photograph: Rozette Rago Save this story Save Save this story Save It was a warm afternoon in July, and Hal Fearn was sitting in his camouflage jeep in the parking lot of a mostly empty IHOP in Southern California. Fearn, a physicist at California State University, Fullerton, bided his time by singing along to the a cappella covers pumping through his stereo. He hadn’t loitered long before he spotted a silver minivan easing into the lot. Behind the wheel was Jim Woodward, large gold-framed glasses and a surgical mask adorning his gaunt face. Woodward, a physics professor emeritus at Fullerton, slid his van beside the jeep and rolled down his window to pass a box to Fearn. Inside was a collection of metallic devices with wires protruding from their exposed electromechanical guts. They looked like the type of gadgets an action movie villain might carry in his pocket to blow up a city, but their actual function is even more improbable. Woodward believes these devices—he calls them his “gizmos”—may set humans on the path to interstellar travel. As the pandemic raged across the globe, Woodward and Fearn met regularly in the pancake house parking lot to keep their experiments going. Funded by a grant from a NASA program that also supports research on far-out concepts such as inflatable telescopes and exoplanet photography , the duo has been developing what they call a Mach-effect gravitational assist (MEGA) drive, a propulsion system designed to produce thrust without propellant. Every spacecraft that has ever left Earth has relied on some type of propellant to get it to its destination. Typically a spacecraft moves by igniting its fuel in a combustion chamber and expelling hot gases. (Even more exotic forms of propulsion, such as ion thrusters, still require propellant.) That’s why humans have remained stuck so close to home. A spacecraft can only accelerate as long as it has fuel to burn or a planet to loop around for a gravitational assist. Those methods can’t even carry a vehicle all the way to Alpha Centauri, our closest neighbor, in any reasonable amount of time. The fastest spacecraft ever built, the Parker Solar Probe, which will hit speeds over 400,000 miles per hour, would take thousands of years to get there. Woodward’s MEGA drive is different. Instead of propellant, it relies on electricity, which in space would come from solar panels or a nuclear reactor. His insight was to use a stack of piezoelectric crystals and some controversial—but he believes plausible—physics to generate thrust. The stack of crystals, which store tiny amounts of energy, vibrates tens of thousands of times per second when zapped with electric current. Some of the vibrational frequencies harmonize as they roll through the device, and when the oscillations sync up in just the right way, the small drive lurches forward. This might not sound like the secret to interstellar travel, but if that small lurch can be sustained, a spacecraft could theoretically produce thrust for as long as it had electric power. It wouldn’t accelerate quickly, but it could accelerate for a long time, gradually gaining in velocity until it was whipping its way across the galaxy. An onboard nuclear reactor could supply it with electric power for decades, long enough for an array of MEGA drives to reach velocities approaching the speed of light. If Woodward’s device works, it’d be the first propulsion system that could conceivably reach another solar system within the lifespan of an astronaut. How does it work? Ask Woodward and he’ll tell you his gizmo has merely tapped into the fabric of the universe and hitched a ride on gravity itself. Sound impossible? A lot of theoretical physicists think so too. In fact, Woodward is certain most theoretical physicists think his propellantless thruster is nonsense. But in June, after two decades of halting progress, Woodward and Fearn made a minor change to the configuration of the thruster. Suddenly, the MEGA drive leapt to life. For the first time, Woodward seemed to have undeniable evidence that his impossible engine really worked. Then the pandemic hit. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Woodward turns 80 next year. He is a survivor of stage IV lung cancer living with COPD, and he is being treated for relapsed Hodgkin's lymphoma. That puts him in the high-risk category for Covid-19, so when cases in California started climbing, he grudgingly left his lab at Fullerton and hunkered down at home. But he wasn’t going to let a global pandemic stymie his progress. Over the summer, Woodward gradually turned the office he shares with his partner, Carole, into a den that would be the envy of any mad scientist. Hand tools are scattered around Woodward’s desk among boxes full of new ball bearings, stacks of crystalline disks, and scraps of metal shim that Woodward has cut into electrodes. There’s lubricant that costs $175 a bottle, for greasing the bearing rods, and a special glue that has a number for a name. It’s a stark contrast to Carole’s neat desk on the other side of the room, but Woodward says she’s so far tolerated his ad hoc thruster factory. “I should think that having a partner like me would be very trying,” he says. “She has been astonishingly good about it over the years.” Woodward and Fearn film and record the displacement registered by the torsion balance from every test of their Mach-effect thruster. Photograph: Rozette Rago Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Woodward built a dozen or so devices and handed some of them off to Fearn, who tested them in their shared lab at Fullerton. Later this fall, they’ll send a device to an independent researcher in Toronto named George Hathaway, an experimentalist with ties to NASA whom Woodward described as “probably the finest experimentalist in the world for this type of work.” Woodward prepared another thruster for the US Naval Research Laboratory, which will also try to replicate the duo’s results. The amount of thrust Woodward appears to have coaxed out of his MEGA drive is tiny even compared to the puniest satellite thrusters in orbit today. But if other engineers can confirm his results, it could be our best bet yet for a human mission to the stars. Scientists have long dreamed of seeing an alien sunrise. Our sun is just an average star, one of billions like it in our galaxy. Many of those stars also have planets, some of which might have the right conditions to support life. In 1911 the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, generally regarded as the father of rocket science, was the first to outline how an interstellar spacecraft might go about exploring them. Since then, scientists have proposed using fusion engines, wormholes, massive lasers, and hydrogen bombs to whisk humans across the deepest of deep space. Only two spacecraft—Voyager 1 and Voyager 2—have ever entered interstellar space. Like every spacecraft to date, they were hurled into the void by a rocket and then used small liquid-fueled thrusters to navigate the solar system. They’re now booking it through the cosmos at more than 35,000 miles per hour. NASA has contemplated an uncrewed interstellar mission for years, but the only one under active development today is an independent effort called Breakthrough Starshot. It aims to use exceptionally powerful lasers to propel a spacecraft the size of a fingernail up to 20 percent the speed of light. For humans to make the trip, they’d need a much larger craft—and a propulsion system that, ideally, could get them there within a generation. That species-defining challenge was what captivated Woodward as a young man. Woodward was born in Boston in 1941, the eldest son of a patent lawyer and an astronomer. His mother, the astronomer, gave him a basic fluency in the language of the universe and stoked his curiosity about the cosmos. As a child, Woodward tinkered with homemade rockets, but he didn’t get very far. His younger brother, Paul Woodward, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota, recalls a time when his older brother pilfered potassium nitrate from his childhood chemistry set and used it to make a homebrew rocket that exploded spectacularly over their neighborhood. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “The story was that my father got on some sort of list for doing that and could not buy me any more chemicals for my experiments,” Paul recalls. “So the launch was the end of Jim's career in rocketry and my career as a chemist.” Still, Woodward followed his childhood interest into a physics undergraduate program at Middlebury College, a small liberal arts school in Vermont. But it was an experience he had a few years after graduating that changed the course of his life. Woodward has been developing his Mach-effect thrusters for nearly 30 years. Photograph: Rozette Rago On a clear night in March 1967, Woodward was stargazing on the rooftop of Pensión Santa Cruz, a hotel in the heart of Seville, in Spain. The 26-year-old physicist was struggling with his chosen profession and had taken a break from graduate work at New York University. He found himself drawn to fringe research topics, particularly those having to do with gravity, which he knew would make it hard to get a job. “It became clear to me simply by looking at the physics department around me that a bunch of people like that were unlikely to hire someone like me,” Woodward says. So he decided to try something else. He had picked up flamenco guitar as an undergrad and even performed in clubs in New York. Inspired by his aunt, a CIA officer who had learned to play the instrument while stationed in Madrid, he headed to Spain to pursue a career in it. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg At the time, the space race was only a decade old and satellite spotting was a popular sport. As Woodward gazed up from atop his Spanish hotel, he saw a speck of light arcing across the sky and mentally calculated its path. But as he watched the satellite, it began deviating from its expected trajectory—first by a little and then by a lot. Everything Woodward knew about satellites told him that what he was seeing should be impossible. It would take too much energy for a satellite to change its orbit like that, and most satellites weren’t able to shift more than a couple of degrees. And yet, he had just seen a satellite double back with his own eyes. He didn't conclude that engineers at NASA or in the Soviet Union must have secretly achieved a breakthrough in satellite propulsion. Instead, he believes he saw a spacecraft of extraterrestrial origin. “Critters at least as clever as us had figured out how to get around spacetime far better than we are capable of doing,” Woodward says. That changed the question, he says, from if it was possible to how. Never one to doubt the power of the human intellect, especially his own, Woodward reckoned he could build a similar interstellar propulsion system if he put his mind to it. “If somebody figured out how the hell to do something like that, they probably aren’t an awful lot smarter than I am,” Woodward recalls thinking at the time. “So I thought maybe I should devote a little time to trying to do that.” It was a project that would occupy him for the rest of his life. Woodward completed his master’s degree in physics at NYU in 1969, and he left to do a PhD in history at the University of Denver shortly after. His decision to pivot from physics to history was a pragmatic one. As a master’s student, he spent a lot of his time combing through old scientific journals in search of promising gravitational research that had been abandoned or hit a dead end so he could pick up the torch. “I was doing the history of science already, so I might as well get a degree in it,” Woodward says. “It was an obvious thing to do.” As an academic historian, he’d enjoy the job security that comes with uncontroversial research and still have the freedom to study fringe gravitational topics as an avocation. He accepted a position in the Cal State Fullerton history department in 1972. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg It’s not like Woodward’s passion for fringe physics was a secret. In addition to a trickle of historical research, he regularly published technical papers in mainstream science journals on arcane gravitational subjects. “It is unusual that a professor of history would set up a research lab in physics, but Jim was recognized as a serious scholar and committed researcher,” says Dorothy Woolum, a physicist who arrived at Fullerton shortly after Woodward. He was particularly interested in using pulsars, a type of rapidly spinning neutron star that had only recently been discovered, to try to detect an unknown and exotic coupling between electromagnetism and gravity predicted by the Nobel Prize–winning physicist Patrick Blackett. Alas, Woodward’s work on pulsars only managed to raise skepticism among his peers. “Many people looked at me as a crank and blew me off,” Woodward says. “I wouldn’t recommend it as a career path.” The electromagnetism stuff was bad enough, but it was Woodward’s emerging ideas about inertia that really got them riled up. Inertia is the resistance you feel whenever you push on an object. (Or, as Newton put it, inertia is why an object at rest tends to stay at rest.) Though ubiquitous and fundamental, no one has penned a full explanation of it. Woodward inherits his ideas about inertia from Einstein, who was inspired by the 19th-century physicist Ernst Mach. Mach posited that inertia is the result of the gravitational interactions of everything in the universe. In other words, the resistance from the sidewalk when someone walks on it or from a pool wall when a swimmer executes a tumble turn is partly due to starstuff billions of light years away. Einstein called this idea “Mach’s principle” and incorporated it into general relativity, his theory of gravity. From the start, Mach’s principle was a controversial addendum to general relativity. Some of Einstein’s contemporaries, especially the Dutch mathematician Willem de Sitter, labored to show that his concept of inertia was inconsistent with other mathematical implications of general relativity. But it was the physicist Carl Brans who finally expelled the idea from respectable physics. In Brans’ PhD thesis , published in 1961, he used mathematics to demonstrate that inertia could not be explained by the gravitational influence of distant matter in the universe. After Brans’ paper, “everybody assumed that inertia à la Einstein was not contained in general relativity,” Woodward says. “That’s still the view of most general relativists.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But as Woodward dug deeper into the history and science of general relativity, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Brans had gotten it all wrong. And as he discovered in the autumn of 1989, if you accepted Einstein’s view that inertia was inextricably linked to gravity, it opened up the possibility for propellantless propulsion. Woodward’s views on gravity and inertia aren’t mainstream, but it’s not crazy to think Einstein might have been right all along. “I'm pretty comfortable with Jim's take on it, because it's very historically oriented,” says Daniel Kennefick, an astrophysicist and historian of science at the University of Arkansas, who has collaborated with Woodward. “He is very much motivated by Einstein's understanding of Mach’s principle. It's not at all unusual for an idea to be discovered, rejected, and then later make a comeback.” In Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc 2 , an object’s energy, E , is equal to its mass, m , multiplied by the speed of light squared. That means if you change an object’s energy, you will also change its mass. An object’s mass is a measure of its inertia—that’s why it takes greater force to push a more massive object than a less massive one—so changing its energy will also change its inertia. And if, per Mach’s principle, inertia and gravity are one and the same, then changing an object’s energy means messing with the very fabric of spacetime. In theory, anyway. Woodward realized that if Einstein was right and inertia really is gravity in disguise, it should be possible to detect these brief changes in an object’s mass as its energy fluctuates. If part of an object accelerated at the exact moment when it became a little heavier, it would pull the rest of the object along with it. In other words, it would create thrust without propellant. Woodward called these temporary changes in mass “Mach effects,” and the engine that could use them a Mach-effect thruster. By combining hundreds or thousands of these drives, they could conceivably produce enough thrust to send a spaceship to the stars in less than a human lifetime. How to keep a person alive in space for decades is still an enormous question. But it is a mere footnote to the more fundamental issue of figuring out how to cross a void trillions of miles wide in any reasonable amount of time. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg By 1995, Woodward’s ideas about Mach effects had coalesced into a full theory, and he turned his attention to building a thruster to prove it. The design he settled on was simple and opportunistic. A local electronics manufacturer was relocating, and an employee had alerted the university it had some leftover materials on offer. Woodward swung by its old office and snapped up a pile of piezoelectric disks the company had left behind. To build his interstellar engine, Woodward mounted the piezoelectric disks to a block of brass and put a cap on the other end to hold it all in place. When piezoelectric disks are hit with a pulse of electricity, they bulge slightly. This expansion causes them to push off of the brass block and accelerate in the opposite direction. According to Woodward’s theory of Mach effects, the electric current would also make the piezoelectric disks ever-so-slightly heavier. This causes them to pull the brass block toward them. When the electricity stops flowing, the whole ensemble will have scooted slightly forward. By repeating this process over and over, Woodward figured, the Mach-effect thruster should accelerate. Fearn, his closest collaborator, compares it to rowing a boat on the ocean of spacetime. 1 / 4 Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Over the next few years, he managed to coax a few hundred nanonewtons of thrust out of his Mach-effect drive. Most of Woodward’s peers dismissed his nearly imperceptible results as a measurement error. It is not hard to see why—when you blow out candles on a birthday cake, you produce around three orders of magnitude more force than what Woodward was reporting. Even if the device did work, it wouldn’t be enough to move a small satellite, much less a starship. Nevertheless, Woodward’s Mach-effect thrusters attracted the attention of researchers in government and industry. In 1997 he gave a presentation on his work at Lockheed Martin, and a few months later officials from the Department of Energy and Sandia National Laboratories paid a visit to his lab. But funding never materialized. So he pressed forward on his own, assisted by his graduate student Tom Mahood and a handful of other collaborators. Then he found out about the cancer. In 2005, doctors found a 2-inch tumor in Woodward’s left lung. The cancer had spread to his lymphatic system, causing the left part of his face and neck to swell. His prognosis was bleak. His doctors told him his odds of surviving the year were 1 in 3; the odds that he’d live five years were 1 in 100. He enrolled in a few clinical trials to try experimental therapies and had extraordinary results. Within months, the cancerous mass in his lungs had virtually disappeared. The treatments came with complications—Woodward experienced heart failure and lost the ability to walk without a pair of canes—but he survived. Woodward beat stage IV lung cancer, but the therapies left him unable to walk without two canes. Photograph: Rozette Rago Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Woodward’s favorite Einstein quote is “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous,” and his cancer ordeal only reinforced his belief in its fundamental truth. “There was just one coincidence after another,” Woodward says. “By all rights, I should have been dead and gone 15 years ago.” Reckoning with his mortality only strengthened his resolve. On the days when he wasn’t in a doctor’s office, he was in the lab trying to breathe life into his machines. Then a twist of fate led him to team up with Fearn. For 20 years Woodward had had an expansive lab in the physics department, but Cal State Fullerton now needed the space to open a new Center for Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy. “If it had been anything other than gravitational physics, I probably would have resisted,” Woodward says. “But since it was gravitational physics, I was delighted to move.” Woodward found some space in an empty back office that technically belonged to Fearn, who was on sabbatical. When Fearn returned, he discovered he was now roommates with the university’s most eccentric scientist. “I was really pissed off, because everything was a jumbled mess with these big computers stacked on top of each other, and all my books had been shoved into my room,” Fearn recalls. “And here's this strange guy in my back room doing these weird experiments.” At first, Fearn took only a casual interest in Woodward’s experiments. But as time passed, he couldn’t help noticing his roommate’s results were improving. “That’s when I started to get interested and talk to him about what he was doing,” he says. Soon, he was hooked. He offered to help, and the duo quickly became inseparable, a professional relationship that’s part The Odd Couple , part Watson and Crick. Although he didn’t fully buy into Woodward’s theoretical explanation for his Mach-effect thrusters, Fearn couldn’t resist the challenge. “How many people can say they’re trying to build a propulsion system to send spaceships to the stars?” Fearn says. “That’s what we’re doing here.” Woodward and Fearn have collaborated on the Mach-effect thruster for a decade. Photograph: Rozette Rago Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The advanced propulsion community is a small one. Perhaps a few dozen physicists and engineers around the world are working on problems such as fusion-powered rockets and faster-than-light travel. Everybody knows everybody, and as in any small community, there’s infighting and gossip. But there’s also a deep bond that comes with having to convince the rest of the scientific establishment that you’re not that crazy. “People will get into shouting matches,” says Greg Meholic, an engineer at the Aerospace Corporation working on advanced propulsion. “But then, when the workday is done or there's a break, everybody's friends.” Meholic says he first met Woodward at an advanced propulsion conference in the ’90s. “The self-skepticism he had at the time was very appealing,” says Meholic. “He didn't ever make the claim that he had the revolutionary thing and we’re going to be flying to the stars in 10 years.” After one of Woodward’s presentations, Meholic offered his engineering perspective on his thruster designs, and they’ve been friends and collaborators ever since. So in 2016, when Meholic heard that Woodward and Fearn had teamed up with the Space Studies Institute, a nonprofit founded by the physicist Gerard O’Neill, to start a conference for advanced propulsion, he knew he had to be there. “Everybody who's ever done any research at all in this kind of work was invited to come,” he says. The workshop was held that September in Estes Park, Colorado. It was good timing. Shortly before the conference began, a research paper leaked on an online space forum that purported to show the first strong results from experiments on another approach to propellantless propulsion, called the EmDrive. Designed by a NASA research group led by physicist Sonny White , the EmDrive was supposed to produce thrust by essentially bouncing microwaves around a closed, conical cavity. It’s the closest thing Woodward’s thrusters have to a rival. Woodward and Fearn also had exciting results to share. Their Mach-effect thruster appeared to be producing a few micronewtons of thrust, a record for the device. Even better, three other researchers who had tried out a Mach-effect thruster in their own labs confirmed they had seen it produce thrust, though not as much as Woodward and Fearn saw. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The work was enough to earn Woodward and Fearn a coveted spot in NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program. In 2017 the duo secured a $125,000 grant from the space agency. It was the first funding Woodward had ever received to work on his device. Over the years, he had poured about $200,000 of his own money into building the thrusters. “Jim is a master of doing amazing things with next to nothing,” says Mahood, his former graduate student who helped him design and build many of the early devices. As part of the NASA grant, Woodward and Fearn were tasked with both boosting the performance of their thrusters and finding a way to put them to practical use. So they collaborated with the physicist Marshall Eubanks, an expert on interstellar mission concepts , to design an uncrewed spacecraft that could reach a nearby star system. Their design, called the SSI Lambda in homage to the Space Studies Institute, is an alien-looking craft that consists of a long triangular truss flanked by three heat radiators that protrude from its body like feathers on an arrow. An array of roughly 1,500 scaled-up MEGA drives situated around its middle provide thrust. A small modular nuclear reactor would power the thrusters. “The SSI Lambda probe using MEGA drive thrusters is a truly propellantless-propulsion spacecraft,” the team wrote of the design in its report to NASA. “It can travel at speeds up to the speed of light in a vacuum with only consumption of electric power. No other method for travelling to the stars and braking into the target system has been put forward to date, which also has credible physics to back it up.” In 2018, NASA awarded Woodward and Fearn a larger grant worth $500,000. But that welcome development coincided with some bad news from Germany: Martin Tajmar, a physicist at the Dresden University of Technology who had earlier replicated Woodward’s work, had tried again and this time failed to detect thrust. Woodward counters that Tajmar was missing a critical piece of equipment. Tajmar isn’t convinced. “I always had the suspicion that the thrust could be some thermal or vibration artifact,” says Tajmar. “My conclusion after many years is that it’s just vibration.” In early 2019, Fearn flew to Germany to deliver another thruster to Tajmar. He stayed long enough to help Tajmar and his team set up the thruster and run some preliminary tests. Although these tests registered thrust, they were much smaller than what Woodward and Fearn had detected in their own lab. Tajmar visited Woodward and Fearn in California later that summer with more bad news. After Fearn had left, he’d run more tests in different configurations and again failed to detect thrust. “We tested it in his original configuration and we tested it by changing their mounting,” Tajmar says. “You can easily change your vibration artifacts by introducing some rubber or changing a screw, and that's exactly what Jim Woodward is doing now.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But while investigating Tajmar’s results, Woodward discovered Fearn had made a miscalculation that caused the thrust to appear several times larger than it really was. He took it in stride. “Everybody makes mistakes,” says Woodward. Although it explained the discrepancy between their results and what Tajmar saw in his lab, it also made their promise to NASA—to reliably produce tens of micronewtons of thrust by the end of the grant—seem downright impossible. They spent the next six months struggling to get their device to put out more thrust. Then last spring, Woodward realized the way they had mounted the thruster was damping the harmonized vibrations that are the key to producing thrust. So he built a new kind of mount that positions the stack of piezoelectric disks in the center of two rods riding on ball bushings. The results were apparent immediately. The MEGA drive started regularly producing tens of micronewtons of thrust and before long it was producing more than 100 micronewtons, orders of magnitude larger than anything Woodward had ever built before. “I never thought I would see the day that I would be saying this to anyone,” Woodward says. “I figured we'd still be struggling along in the 1- to 5-micronewton range.” For the first time, the pair could see the MEGA thruster lurch forward with their own eyes. Sure, it was only scooting a half millimeter, but at least it was visible. Seeing may be believing, but Woodward and Fearn both say they reacted to their results with more suspicion than jubilance. “I was shocked at the huge increase in measured force,” says Fearn. He initially thought that the movement might be due to the device’s balance recalibrating, but he says that doesn’t explain how the device is generating enough force to overcome the friction in the ball bearings so that it could move forward. Woodward is also suspicious, although less than Fearn. The movement is what his theory predicts, after all. “I am confident that a real force is present, but I sometimes wonder if it isn’t accompanied by a spurious part,” says Woodward. Whence the suspicion? “Just years of tracking down false positives, I guess,” he says. With ample new data in hand, they’re now focused on getting their device into the hands of other researchers so they can independently replicate their results. Mike McDonald, an aerospace engineer at the Naval Research Laboratory in Maryland, will be among the first to do so. He leads an internal program for independently testing advanced propulsion systems, which has previously shot down promising results from the EmDrive. Like any good experimentalist , he’s skeptical—but it’s an optimistic sort of skepticism. “I'd say there's between a 1-in-10 and 1-in-10,000,000 chance that it’s real, and probably toward the higher end of that spectrum,” says McDonald. “But imagine that one chance; that would be amazing. That's why we do high-risk, high-reward work. That’s why we do science.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg McDonald is waiting for his lab to resume normal operation next year, once the pandemic eases, to begin testing. He says the first step will involve simply replicating Woodward’s experiments and seeing if he observes the same signal. Then he’ll begin weeding out possible sources of false positives, such as vibration or the thermal expansion of components. One test will be to let the device run at its resonant vibrational frequency for minutes or hours at a time. If the signal persists, there’s a good chance it’s legit. There’s a problem, though: No one is sure what the right vibration frequency is for the device. When Woodward and Fearn conduct their tests, they cycle through a broad spectrum of frequencies, and it’s only when they pass a resonant frequency that they detect thrust. But that resonant frequency constantly shifts as the device heats up. It also varies with the experimental setup. One of their collaborators, the engineer Chip Akins, is building a custom amplifier that will track the resonant frequency as it changes. So rather than producing a split second of thrust as Woodward and Fearn cycle through the frequencies, the MEGA drive will, in theory, be able to produce a sustained thrust. If McDonald and other researchers are able to replicate Woodward and Fearn’s results, the next big step would be an in-space demonstration of the device. He and Fearn hope to have a flight-ready version of the thruster finished within a year. If an in-space demonstration on a small satellite around Earth goes well, more ambitious missions might await. “Do I feel vindicated? No, not really,” Woodward says. “I’ll feel vindicated if I live long enough to see someone publicly say, ‘Yes, these things really work.’” But even if the community accepts that the thrusters work, that doesn’t mean they’ll accept Woodward’s explanation of why they work. “In my opinion there is no merit to Woodward's theory,” says Mike McCulloch, a physicist at the University of Plymouth who has advanced an alternate idea called quantised inertia that he purports can also explain some of Woodward’s results. “I think the experimental results are more interesting than the theory.” Even Fearn, Woodward’s closest collaborator, has his doubts. But he also doesn’t have any other way to explain what he and Woodward are seeing in the lab. “I haven't been able to disprove it, and believe me, I've been trying to disprove it for the last 10 years,” he says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Woodward’s at peace with his critics. If what he’s seeing is real—if his MEGA drive really produces thrust—he is convinced that his theory is the only one that can explain it.“That’ll sort itself out eventually,” he says. But if he was once a skeptic’s skeptic, Woodward now seems almost religious in his faith that what he’s seeing is real. Some of his supporters can’t help but wonder if it’s led him astray. “As time has gone on, Jim has gotten much more staunch in his approach,” says Meholic. “He's literally come out and said at some point that the textbooks are wrong and I'm right.” If it all turns out to be an illusion and Woodward has spent his life chasing vibrations, his colleagues are the first to admit it wasn’t for nothing. “There is a worldwide effort looking at Jim’s devices, because this is really the only game in town at this point,” says Meholic. “It's been wonderful to have someone like him in the community that actually is doing something to advance these things, because that’s what’s really critical." Whether you think Woodward is a lunatic or a visionary is mostly a matter of your perspective on gravity. A kiss on the cheek or a shot from a gun or a vibration in a stack of piezoelectric crystals either implicates a galaxy billions of light years away, or it doesn’t. The experimental data won’t lie, but if Woodward hasn’t discovered the interstellar engine we’ve been waiting for, he’s kept the dream alive for the next generation of would-be star surfers who might. 📩 Want the latest on tech, science, and more? Sign up for our newsletters ! A rocket scientist’s love algorithm adds up during Covid-19 Meet the star witness: your smart speaker How financial apps get you to spend more and question less Parenting in the age of the pandemic pod TikTok and the evolution of digital blackface 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Staff Writer X Topics longreads physics space Angela Watercutter Lauren Smiley Steven Levy Andy Greenberg Brandi Collins-Dexter Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, S22+, S22 and Galaxy Tab S8: Specs, Price, Release Date | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/samsung-galaxy-s22-galaxy-tab-s8-series"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Julian Chokkattu Gear Everything Samsung Announced at Its Unpacked 2022 Event Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Photograph: Samsung Save this story Save Save this story Save It looks like a Note, it acts like a Note. Just don't call it a Note. That's Samsung's new Galaxy S22 Ultra , a massive, 6.8-inch Android phone that's styled like the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra from 2020. The similarity between the new S-series phone and the Note of yesteryear is more than skin deep. For the first time on a Galaxy S, a stylus—the one feature that made Note phones so unique—is embedded inside the device. That might mean the death of the Note branding Samsung has used for its large, S Pen-carrying mobiles since 2011. This $1,200 phablet (are we still saying phablet?) was announced today at Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked virtual event, alongside two other phones: the new Galaxy S22 ($800) and Galaxy S22+ ($1,000). Oh, and three new tablets too. Here’s a breakdown of all six Samsung devices. From left to right: The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, the S22+, and the S22. Photograph: Julian Chokkattu Let's start with the phones. There are minor changes over last year's excellent Galaxy S21 range. The S22 and S22+ , for example, are slightly smaller than their predecessors, with 6.1-inch and 6.6-inch screens, respectively. They don't have the accented color on the rear camera module, which is a downgrade to me. It added a bit of fun to the S21 lineup, and things feel a bit one-note here (pardon the pun). The S22 Ultra gets the biggest redesign. It takes many cues from the Galaxy Note, including the built-in S Pen you can pull out from its underside. Samsung says its stylus is more responsive than ever before, but it can do all the same tricks we last saw on the Note 20 Ultra, including serving as a Bluetooth controller for the camera, acting as a drawing utensil, or being used as a way to take notes so Samsung's handwriting recognition software can convert your scribbles into regular text. There is no S Pen included with the S22 or S22+, and those phones don’t support the stylus either. You’ll have to pay for the Ultra if you prefer to use a stylus with your phone. The other main difference between the Ultra and its smaller siblings is in the camera system. The S22 Ultra remains the only one of the lot with a 10X optical zoom camera—and it has no peer in the US with similar functionality. Its main camera uses the same 108-megapixel sensor as last year's S21 Ultra, whereas the S22 and S22+ have a new 50-megapixel sensor that's 23 percent larger than the sensor in their predecessors. Larger image sensors have more light-gathering capabilities, enabling them to produce brighter and sharper photos. The only cameras that are exactly the same across all the phone models are the 3X optical zoom telephoto, the 12-megapixel ultrawide, and the 40-megapixel selfie cam. Despite different main cameras, Samsung says all three phones use a new image processing technique called Adaptive Pixel to produce brighter high-resolution photos. Weirdly, this process doesn't occur by default. Let me explain. Just like last year, by default, the new devices capture 12-megapixel photos instead of photos that take full advantage of the sensor size—108- or 50-megapixel photos, depending on the phone. This is because it uses a process called pixel binning, where pixels merge and become larger but fewer in number so each one can absorb more light. That produces a photo that's lower in resolution yet brighter. It's an ideal method to use anytime there isn't a ton of light in a scene. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Samsung Galaxy S22+ Photograph: Samsung Samsung has always allowed you to bypass the default behavior and capture a 108-megapixel photo with sharper details, but this mode has always suffered in low light. Not anymore. Now when you force the camera to capture a 108- or 50-megapixel photo, it will employ Adaptive Pixel. This takes a photo at the max resolution as well as a pixel-binned photo and merges the two, supposedly giving you the best of both worlds. Well, except for the fact that these photos have very large file sizes (around 20 megabytes instead of the usual 3 MB). It's hard to say exactly how much of an improvement Adaptive Pixel is, but it clearly can't be as good as Samsung wants, or it'd be the default option when you take a photo. (Maybe larger file sizes are precisely why it's not the default?) I'll have more to say once I get to test the phones. I'm more excited to try Auto Framing. This new video feature can detect up to 10 people in a scene and will automatically try to keep everyone in focus and in the frame. It will zoom in, zoom out, pan around, and follow subjects as they move, meaning you don't need to be as much of an auteur for those TikToks filmed in your bedroom (no shame). Other camera improvements include smoother stabilization when you use Samsung's Super Steady mode when taking videos and a Portrait mode that does a better job of handling hair. Portrait mode also works better on pets now and can work in tandem with Night mode, so you can snap those bokeh-filled selfies in the dark. The AMOLED screens on these phones all have adaptive 120-Hz screen refresh rates like last year, but Samsung specifically calls out a new trick called Vision Booster, which sounds like something my optometrist would prescribe. It cranks up the colors and contrast of the screen in super sunny conditions so that dark scenes are easier to see—handy if you're the type to watch season 2 of The Witcher outside the confines of your home. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Samsung Galaxy S22 Photograph: Samsung There are just a few remaining differences between these devices. Naturally, they all have varying battery capacities, but the S22+'s screen can get a bit brighter than the S22’s. There’s Wi-Fi 6E support on the S22+ and S22 Ultra but just Wi-Fi 6 on the S22. That probably doesn’t matter just yet, because Wi-Fi 6E is still a fairly new standard , and you need new routers to make use of the technology. The two bigger phones also support ultra-wideband ( UWB ), which helps you track certain trackers more precisely, and they can charge faster at 45 watts, whereas the S22 has no UWB and is restricted to 25 watts. The latter also doesn't matter as much, as there's no charger in the box ; you'll need to supply your own. If you use Google Duo, Android's FaceTime equivalent, you'll be happy to hear that these Samsung phones are debuting a new feature called Live Sharing that lets you watch YouTube videos, search locations on Google Maps, and use select other apps with friends during video calls. It's very similar to Apple's SharePlay , though not as expansive. Presumably, this will make its way to other Android devices at a later date, but Google did not share details about its rollout. Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra Photograph: Samsung Google, the company that maintains the Android operating system, is refocusing its efforts on tablets again. That might be why Samsung's Galaxy Tab S8 lineup is the most ambitious we've seen from the company in ages. Sure, Samsung has long maintained a presence in this mobile category, but three luxe tablets is a lot. Today we saw an 11-inch Galaxy Tab S8 ($800), a Tab S8+ ($900), and a behemoth, 14.6-inch Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra for $1,100. All three come with S Pen styluses that magnetically stick to the back of the slate. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Svelte designs and thin bezels mix well with these bright screens. (The Tab S8 uses LCD whereas the other two use AMOLED panels.) But I'm more excited about the placement of the selfie camera—it's in the middle of the bezel when held in landscape mode. That means Zoom calls won't look as awkward as they do on iPads, where the camera is placed all the way over to the side in landscape mode. Samsung is taking a page out of Apple's book with a feature similar to Center Stage on iPads though, where the camera pans and zooms on the subject during video calls. (OK, Facebook did it first. ) These tablets can also cut out background noise better than before, so you shouldn't sound too awful if you take a virtual meeting at the local coffee shop. Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Photograph: Samsung Expect these tablets to also offer easier ways to use multiple apps at the same time in differently sized windows. Samsung says you can even use the Tab S8 as a secondary screen with your Windows PC. If you want to turn ’em into your main computing device, there are keyboard covers you can buy for each. These covers are included free if you preorder a tablet. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So All six of Samsung's new devices are powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor (the successor to last year's Snapdragon 888 chipset). But the best part? They will all receive four Android OS upgrades and up to five years of security updates (Samsung is also backporting this upgrade policy to the Galaxy S21 range , the S21 FE , last year's Galaxy Z Fold3 and Flip3 , and the Galaxy Watch4 ). That's the best software support on anything other than iPhones—even besting what Google offers on its devices. You can preorder the Galaxy S22 and Galaxy Tab S8 families today , and they start shipping on February 25. Keep an eye out for our reviews in the coming weeks. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Here come the underdogs of the robot Olympics Pokémon Legends: Arceus isn't great. It doesn't matter Inside Trickbot , Russia's notorious ransomware gang Use these keyboard shortcuts and ditch your mouse The unnerving rise of video games that spy on you 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Reviews Editor X Topics Shopping phones Samsung tablets Android Brenda Stolyar Julian Chokkattu Julian Chokkattu Simon Hill Julian Chokkattu Reece Rogers Brenda Stolyar Julian Chokkattu WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Doordash Promo Code 50% Off DoorDash Promo Code + Free Delivery Finish Line Coupon Take $10 off Your Order - Finish Line Coupon Code Groupon Promo Code Groupon promo code: Extra 30% off any amount Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"How to Use ProRAW on the iPhone 12 Pro (2021) | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-use-proraw-iphone-12-pro"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Julian Chokkattu Gear How to Use ProRAW on Your iPhone 12 Pro Photograph: Apple Save this story Save Save this story Save Apple's latest version of iOS adds a new camera feature to the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max called ProRAW. Shutterbug or not, it's a perk you'll want to check out. It lets you capture photos in a file format that retains much more image data than the standard file format the iPhone uses by default. The big advantage is that you get to do a lot more fine-tuning during the editing process. Apple leaves this new feature disabled by default, but it's easy to turn it on and begin using it. But first, a primer on what exactly RAW means. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. You're probably familiar with JPEG, the file format most phones and even professional cameras use for photos. It's the most common format due to its ability to compress image data and reduce a picture's file size without dramatically affecting quality. There are similar advantages to HEIC, a newer format Apple uses that creates even tinier file sizes while still maintaining good image quality. But when it comes to editing JPEG photos, on Instagram or your default photo-editing app, the amount of tweaking you can do is limited. You might not be able to fix that over-exposed sky, for example. That's because JPEGs/HEICs don't have as much image data to work with, since a great amount of that data gets discarded when the file is compressed. That's why most professional photographers shoot in RAW. The RAW format is lossless, meaning it contains unprocessed image data straight from the camera's sensor. That richer data set can make all the difference in fixing a blown-out sky, correcting white balance, or tuning the colors of plants and humans to look more natural. The tradeoff is the file size; a RAW image is several times the size of a JPEG or an HEIC. Serious iPhone photographers have been able to shoot in RAW for some time via third-party apps like Halide. But what makes the new ProRAW feature special is that you don't need to use another camera app—ProRAW images can be captured in the iPhone's native camera app. More importantly, it utilizes all of Apple's advanced computational photography features built into the iPhone. So you're getting the benefits of features like noise reduction, Deep Fusion , and Smart HDR, which merges frames before and after you tap the shutter button for a better-exposed photo. Where JPEGs/HEICs are processed images ready to be shared, and RAW photos are unprocessed images ready to be edited, ProRAW is in the middle. It has some image processing, so you have a better starting point than with a RAW image, and you still get the greater editing options for tweaking saturation, contrast, exposure, and other parameters. This new feature is available only on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max. It doesn't work on the other iPhone 12 models—only the more capable (and more expensive) phones. Capturing with ProRAW is very easy. First, you'll need to update iOS. The feature was added to iOS 14.3, so update your phone to get the latest version. Head to Settings > General > Software Update to install it. As usual, make sure your iPhone is backed up as a precaution (we have a guide here ) before updating. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft After it's installed, head to Settings > Camera > Formats and toggle on Apple ProRAW. Now if you open the camera app, you'll see a RAW icon at the top right with a strike through it. That means it's turned off, and your camera is set to capture HEIC/JPEG images. Tap the RAW icon to start shooting RAW photos, and tap it again to go back to shooting HEIC/JPEG. If you want the camera to leave ProRAW turned on all the time, you'll need to have it preserve your settings. To do this, head to Settings > Camera > Preserve Settings and toggle on Apple ProRAW. I'd caution against using ProRAW all the time though. While a photo I snapped in in HEIC mode is 2.5 megabytes, that same shot in ProRAW mode is 29 MB. Shooting RAW all the time will chew through your iPhone's storage fast. ProRAW photos use the DNG file format (a type of RAW), which means it's compatible with a wide variety of photo-editing apps, like Adobe Lightroom. But of course, the DNG format is also supported in Apple's Photos app. When you capture a ProRAW image, you'll see a "RAW" icon in the top left of the Photos app. Tap the edit button, and you'll see the proper ProRAW image to tweak to your heart's content. Most social media platforms won't let you upload a DNG file, so you almost always will have to edit your image before sharing (the Photos app automatically converts the image to a JPEG afterward). ProRAW images can be captured with all the cameras on the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max, including the selfie cam. It's important to know that ProRAW isn't necessarily going to make your photos better. It opens up the potential to get your photo closer to a particular look you're chasing, but it might not make all that much of a difference in certain lighting situations. The best example I have that demonstrates why you may want to toggle on ProRAW is below. The middle is the unedited file without ProRAW turned on. It has a lot of noise and it's too dark in several areas. Now look at what happens when I try to edit it (the photo on the right). It looks … worse. Brightening the image made the streetlights uncontrollably bright, and the rest of the image starts to look unnatural, from the over-sharpening to the over-saturation. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Photographs: Julian Chokkattu Turn your attention to the ProRAW image (the left photo). I edited this in the Photos app (so it's now a JPEG), and it's like it came from a completely different camera; it looks real. The colors look natural, it's not packed with noise like the other two, and it's not masked in darkness. I found the advantages of ProRAW to be more apparent in low-light and high-contrast scenarios, but give it a try and experiment. It's easy to switch back and forth between HEIC/JPEG, and you can easily see the difference when you start editing photos. It might even inspire you to play around with bigger, more professional cameras, whose image sensors can capture far more data and give you even greater flexibility in the editing room. 📩 Want the latest on tech, science, and more? Sign up for our newsletters ! Get rich selling used fashion online— or cry trying The dark side of Big Tech’s funding for AI research Hold everything: Stormtroopers have discovered tactics I tested positive for Covid-19. What does that really mean ? 9 browser extensions to help you search the web better 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Reviews Editor X Topics Shopping software iPhone cameras Eric Ravenscraft Jaina Grey Reece Rogers Jaina Grey Brenda Stolyar Simon Hill Adrienne So Julian Chokkattu WIRED COUPONS Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Dell Coupon Code American Express Dell Coupon Code: Score 10% off select purchases Best Buy Coupon Best Buy coupon: Score $300 off select laptops VistaPrint promo code 15% off VistaPrint promo code when you sign up for emails Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"I Spent a Week Using Only TikTok for Search | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-search-google"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear I Spent a Week Using Only TikTok for Search Photograph: Qi Yang/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Google is reportedly in “ code red ” mode, deploying resources and calling in its cofounders to address perceived threats to its extremely dominant search engine. The threat du jour is ChatGPT—an AI-powered large language model that is also helping us write term papers and poetry, draft regulations, and make medical diagnoses. But there’s another car coming up the rear in the search race. That is TikTok. TikTok for search? you might ask. How could a twitchy video app filled with dancing teens, cat memes, food hacks, and cringey stunts help you find a financial adviser or a train timetable, or even search results for yourself? It depends on what your interpretation of “search” is, but if you’re seeking less specific, more entertaining results—a search process more akin to social discovery—then TikTok is making a strong play. In 2021, content delivery network Cloudflare reported that Tiktok.com had overtaken Google as the world’s most visited web domain. And last year a senior vice president of search at Google noted that 40 percent of young internet users are regularly turning to TikTok or Instagram for search. (TikTok has not responded to inquiries about search trends.) Further evidence: When I shared in a WIRED Slack channel that I would try using TikTok search for a week, two younger colleagues who are generationally distinct from me said, fwiw, they also search for nearly everything on TikTok. So on a recent Tuesday I opened up TikTok and began my experiment, with the quick touchscreen typing of mild desperation. I’m not what you would call super active on TikTok. I follow a few dozen people, and I’ve posted one video (cat). At times I have been sucked into the vortex of the app’s For You page, which shows videos that TikTok’s algorithm has determined I might like. Part of the reason why I don’t use the app much is due to security and privacy concerns. TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, recently admitted that some of its workers had accessed the location data of American journalists to try to identify their sources (i.e. spied on them). Even with this knowledge, I still have a TikTok account, because I test a lot of apps. My colleagues’ use of TikTok search intrigues me. It felt like there was a slight divide before because of age, but now it is a wide yawn, and they are on the side of oxygen intake and I am on the tired side. Was my story already old? The facts that I was post-college when Google went public, or that I was in the room when Steve Ballmer shouted “Bing it!” and revealed Microsoft’s new search engine, give me absolutely no cred here. The first thing I search for is how to pair an AirTag, a gift bestowed upon me because of my habit of losing my keys. TikTok delivers here. I am able to watch the top video in results, 31 seconds long, without ever having to scroll through the dozens of other videos in results. And because it’s a living thumbnail, I don’t even have to tap on the video to hear its audio. It’s quick and easy. This is going to be fun. I wake up and remember I have a job that involves lots of thorough online searches. I open TikTok and search for specific information about Apple’s business, like the number of employees who work in Apple’s retail stores. I can’t seem to find the answer there, but I do discover a couple of helpful hacks (how to write off your $1,100 iPhone on your taxes so you’re paying only half) and parodies of Apple Store interactions (the “employee” apologizes for an hour-long wait time, six people are currently being helped, and there are only 90 employees). My editor says, quite literally, “Let me Google that for you.” TikTok, it turns out, is not a portal to 10-K reports on SEC.gov. It’s a portal to more TikTok. Later that day I open TikTok again, and it recommends an account called “oldloserinbrooklyn,” particularly this person’s 2023 predictions, the top of which is “more print magazines closing.” I am not making this up. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Before bed, I browse lazily on TikTok for things that I suspect, with no real evidence, might make life better. Things like running, or hair serums, or SSRIs. I’m aware at this point that I’m participating in a massive mind-meld experiment, and have been for a decade or more: I am searching for these topics on a social media app because my psyche was rinsed with them, somewhere along the way, on a social media app. Now my searches are putting it all through another rinse cycle. I watch a few TikToks in which people describe their “brain zaps.” I’ve never heard of this and am tempted to Google it, but instead I go to sleep. I want to give up on this stupid experiment. Instead I vow to try using it as an actual utility and search for things like “how to get a tea stain out” or “how to cook zucchini noodles.” The noodles are awful, but that’s because they’re zucchini noodles, not because of TikTok. I write again to a TikTok public relations person hoping they’ll answer some questions I have about search. They are slow to respond. I must admit that by now I’m using Google again. I am poly-searcherous. It’s Saturday, and I decide to use TikTok search to find a local restaurant for a friend’s birthday dinner. This is a true test: to see if TikTok could possibly replace Google Maps or even Yelp. Another time, I had searched for “best coffee near me” and TikTok showed me a video of a coffee shop in Koreatown, Los Angeles, which is not near me. My friend is vegan, so I search for “vegan San Francisco restaurants.” I’m surprised by the robustness of the results, but in this instance it’s more annoying to watch a videoclip about a restaurant than it is to skim some reviews. Some are ads. I also don’t entirely trust some of the reviewers-slash-wannabe-influencers. We decide on pizza, but fancy pizza, at a restaurant with a name that sounds like a venture capital firm. During dinner, I use TikTok to search for “caciocavallo” and learn that it’s a type of cheese, though I don’t bother to watch a video to learn more about its properties. My friend orders a pesce-vegan pie, while I order one with caciocavallo and mushroom, and it’s delicious. I realize my TikTok search journey is morphing into a Grub Street diary , and I’m fine with this. Today I try to stay off TikTok. I run a short road race in the morning. I read a book in the evening. I am free. In between the road race and the dead-tree book, I grab breakfast with friends, one of whom has written a story about Google search. Google has been adding more visual features—and an infinite scroll effect—to search, an obvious ploy to pull in more users from Generation TikTok. One might argue that Google should first tweak its search results so that the top several entries aren’t ads, but I digress. TikTok’s search prowess hits its limits for me today. I search for a breaking news event and am shown breaking news reports repurposed as TikTok videos with some text over them, but I’m left wanting more. I don’t trust the veracity of some of them. I search for a vocabulary word: haecceity. I am not actually expecting to find the definition. Someone on TikTok has an account with that name, but I’m no closer to understanding what it means. I turn to Google. Haecceity is “thisness,” or according to FreeDictionary.com, the essence that makes something the kind of thing it is and makes it different from any other. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Search tools each have their own particular haecceity. There is the underlying function of search, but any individual app might be coated in ads, or experiences, or cheeky videos, or social connections, or linguistics, or personalization, or the relatively new promises of automation. These individualities, though, are becoming interlinked, not only because they’re “borrowing” design features from each other but because under the hood they’re all being powered by an increasingly ferocious AI machine. If the first two decades of search were supposed to serve you, this next era of search is supposed to understand you. It’s writing for you. I ask TikTok for more information about its search operations, such as how personalized its search results are supposed to be and where exactly user search data is being stored, and for how long. I don’t hear back. By day seven, I’m obviously ready to give up TikTok as my primary search tool. But I’ve also discovered some surprising utility in the app, enough that I’ll probably turn to it again. As I write this, I open TikTok to the all-knowing FYP, the For You page. It’s showing me a video of a cat that wakes its owner too early in the morning, exactly the way mine does. You Might Also Like … 📧 Find the best bargains on quality gear with our Deals newsletter “ Someone is using photos of me to talk to men” First-gen social media users have nowhere to go The truth behind the biggest (and dumbest) battery myths We asked a Savile Row tailor to test all the “best” T-shirts you see in social media ads My kid wants to be an influencer. Is that bad? 🌞 See if you take a shine to our picks for the best sunglasses and sun protection Senior Writer X Topics TikTok Search Google Teens Adrienne So Jaina Grey Adrienne So Eric Ravenscraft Simon Hill Reece Rogers Julian Chokkattu Brenda Stolyar WIRED COUPONS Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Dell Coupon Code American Express Dell Coupon Code: Score 10% off select purchases Best Buy Coupon Best Buy coupon: Score $300 off select laptops VistaPrint promo code 15% off VistaPrint promo code when you sign up for emails Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Google’s Search Box Changed the Meaning of Information | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/google-answer-box-information-search"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Elan Ullendorff Ideas Google’s Search Box Changed the Meaning of Information Photo-illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save The hallway is bathed in harsh white, a figment of LEDs. Along the walls, doors recede endlessly into the distance. Each flaunts a crown of blue light at its base, except for the doors you’ve walked through before, which instead emit a deep purple. But these are but specks of sand in the desert of gateways. You are searching for something. You prepare yourself for an arduous journey. Before the first door you come upon a pedestal. The box that lies on the pedestal gives airs of gildedness despite being as plain as the walls that surround it. It isn’t adorned with a title, but its name echoes in your mind, intuitively: the Answer Box. A plaque reads: I have crawled through each and every door. Not just the doors in this hallway, but the doors in every hallway in existence, the doors within doors, as well as some doors that I dare not show you, doors that would make you flee in terror. I have seen everything. I am impartial. I have your best interests at heart. I understand what it is you want to know and it is knowable. I have the answer that you seek. Your finger caresses the latch. Cataloging the web was doomed from the start. In the summer of 1993, Matthew Gray created the World Wide Web Wanderer (WWWW), arguably the first internet bot and web crawler. During its first official attempt to index the web, the Wanderer returned from its expedition with 130 URLs. But even in the baby years of the internet, this list was incomplete. To understand how a simple web crawler works, imagine making a travel itinerary that contains three cities: New York, Tokyo, Paris. While visiting each destination, listen for any mentions of other places and add those to your itinerary. Your world crawl is complete when you have visited all of the cities on your ever growing list. Will you have seen a lot of places by the end of your journey? Undoubtedly. But will you have seen the whole world? Almost certainly not. There will always be cities, or entire webs of cities, that are effectively invisible to this process. A web crawler similarly consults a list of URLs and recursively visits any links it sees. But the resulting index should not be confused with a comprehensive directory of the internet, which does not exist. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg I have a theory of technology that places every informational product on a spectrum from Physician to Librarian: The Physician's primary aim is to protect you from context. In diagnosing or treating you, they draw on years of training, research, and personal experience, but rather than presenting that information to you in its raw form, they condense and synthesize. This is for good reason: When you go to a doctor’s office, your primary aim is not to have your curiosity sparked or to dive into primary sources; you want answers, in the form of diagnosis or treatment. The Physician saves you time and shelters you from information that might be misconstrued or unnecessarily anxiety-provoking. In contrast, the Librarian's primary aim is to point you toward context. In answering your questions, they draw on years of training, research, and personal experience, and they use that to pull you into a conversation with a knowledge system, and with the humans behind that knowledge system. The Librarian may save you time in the short term by getting you to a destination more quickly. But in the long term, their hope is that the destination will reveal itself to be a portal. They find thought enriching, rather than laborious, and understand their expertise to be in wayfinding rather than solutions. Sometimes you ask a Librarian a question and they point you to a book that is an answer to a question you didn't even think to ask. Sometimes you walk over to the stacks to retrieve the book, only for a different book to catch your eye instead. This too is success to the Librarian. There are book reviews that say "I read this so you don't have to" (Physician), and others that say "I read this and you should too" (Librarian). There are apps that put you in a perpetual state of simmering, unrealized wanderlust from the comfort of your couch (Physician) and others that inspire you to get up and go (Librarian). A search engine, at its core, is a product that tries to help you visit pages made by humans, quintessentially Librarian. In a 2004 Playboy interview , Google cofounder Larry page was unequivocal in his assertion that he wanted to “get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible.” But over the past 10 years, let's just say Google has gone to medical school. The answer is king; a mere link is nothing more than failure of technology. Google Search launched five years after the World Wide Web Wanderer, and its main innovation was its PageRank algorithm, which created a trustworthiness score for each website based on how often other "trustworthy" sites linked to it; this score was used not only to decide which sites to index and how often, but also how highly to rank them in search results. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg I'd like to emphasize here the utter audaciousness of this undertaking. I remember when Google first announced in 2007 that it would take 3D scans of the world in order to power Google Street View. The task felt impossibly, absurdly immense. But over the course of a decade, whether through sheer economic might, or creative use (or exploitation) of labor, Google managed to do just that. Or at least, it's convinced us that it has. Every large-scale archival project is a Shakespearian tragedy that always ends the same way: incomplete. It requires players with the hubris to go on every night, as well as an audience willing to suspend disbelief, to believe in a corporate overlord's omniscience and omnipresence. Because there are more streets than it is realistic to scan. And even once scanned, a street continues to evolve: Buildings are torn down, trees grow taller, empires fall. The signified distances itself from the signifier. So difficult decisions need to be made. And hidden within those decisions are ideologies about which places are worth saving. The number of websites outnumbers miles of road by many orders of magnitude. Building an index, while onerous, is only part of the battle. There is also the problem of processing your search query into a list of results. Usually this involves natural language processing (NLP), a set of techniques that help computers interpret human communication. A rudimentary NLP algorithm might split the query "baking a loaf of bread" into individual tokens (baking, a, loaf, of, bread), remove any commonly occurring words that don't add much obvious meaning to the query (baking, loaf, bread), reduce words to their base form to better match word variations (bake, loaf, bread), and expand the query to include common synonyms (bake, cook, prepare, make, craft, loaf, bread). But the more sophisticated NLP techniques that Google uses today involves wielding a concoction of interconnected machine learning algorithms that predict which results will be most useful to a searcher. The underlying goal is to understand a user's "intent" using any contextual clues at its disposal: current events, and the user's location, search history, language, device. When a user searches for the word "mars," are they searching for information about the planet, the God, the gene, the chocolate bar, the present-tense verb, or the city in Nebraska? Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Of course, natural language is a bit of a misnomer. There is nothing "natural" (in the colloquial sense) about the way we talk to Google. We wouldn't walk over to a friend and bark "italian restaurant nearby" or "what watch netflix romcom." In the words of the media scholar Father John Culkin, "we shape our tools and, thereafter, our tools shape us.” Put differently, we evolve to ask our questions in ways that we think our machines can answer them, and over time, privilege questions that are technologically solvable. Can Google ever really understand what our intent is? Can we ? A piece of software that interprets your intent and returns a list of links from a large index is a perfectly usable search engine. However, since the early 2010s, Google has embraced a radically different vision of what a search engine can be: one that can respond directly to questions directly on the results page. This feature has been referred to using a slew of confusing, ever-changing names (rich answers, direct answers, instant answers, quick answers, featured snippets, knowledge panel), but for our purposes we’ll use the colloquial umbrella category: the Answer Box. The Knowledge Graph , a semantic network that perceives the world in terms of discrete entities containing structured data, plays a pivotal role in Google's pursuit of this vision. Under the Knowledge Graph, for example, the band Boygenius is associated with genres, record labels, a discography, images, a list of links and videos, and contains the members Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus, who are each themselves considered entities in the Graph with their own associated data. To cast a slightly wider net of answerable questions, Google also uses a technique it calls Passage Ranking , which picks out specific excerpts from pages that might answer a user's question, whether or not it's the focus of the page. Passage Ranking can tell me, among other things, how Boygenius met ("Julien and Lucy performed on the same bill in Washington, DC, followed by Julien meeting Phoebe a month later"), where the band's name came from (“men are taught to be entitled to space … a 'boygenius' is someone who their whole life has been told that their ideas are genius”), and pluck out of a 1400-word New Yorker profile that Julien Baker is “five feet tall and a hundred and five pounds.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The vision of the world that these rich results represent is one in which everything worth knowing is unambiguous and perfectly atomizable; call it the baseball-card-ification of knowledge. For anything else, well, for that you'll have to scroll a bit. A 2020 investigation by The Markup found that almost half of Google's mobile results page on the most popular queries was taken up by links to Google's own properties via sections like the “knowledge panel,” “people also ask,” and “featured snippets.” All of these technologies—web crawling, PageRank, Natural Language Processing, the Knowledge Graph, and Passage Ranking—converge to convince us of a sequence of lies: I have seen everything. I am impartial. I have your best interests at heart. I understand what it is you want to know and it is knowable. I have the answer that you seek. The Answer Box's decade of glory, at least in its current form, may be coming to an end. Google has announced , to much fanfare, that it is experimenting with injecting generative AI into the results page. This will enable Google to present answers to more oblique queries, like "tell me what makes boygenius' music unique or special," or "write a poem using the titles of unreleased boygenius tracks," queries that we now might associate more with ChatGPT. Ask ChatGPT a question, and you will be given a convincing-sounding answer, what Neil Gaiman calls " information-shaped sentences. " When I asked it to give me examples of how different cultural and historical contexts shape the definition of creativity, it readily rattled off 10 vague but coherent examples of differing expressions of creativity across time and space. But when I asked it to point me to the source of its knowledge about creativity and Indigenous Australian "Dreamtime" stories, it could only say "as an AI language model, I have been trained on a large dataset of written text, including books, articles, and other documents from a diverse range of fields and sources … I don't have direct access to specific sources that I have been trained on." It then began to list some books I might read, many of which were invented whole cloth. Generative AI is far from the beginning of Google’s foray into Physician-based search, but it just may be the straw that breaks the Librarian’s back. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg There is nothing inherently wrong with a Physician. Diving into rabbit holes is time-consuming, and sometimes, with a trusted source, it is worth discarding context to get to the root of understanding. The problem is when that Physician is not a person or a population of people but a monolithic cluster of machine learning algorithms. When we talk about AI, the speed at which we run toward or away from context becomes amplified, and we run along with the three horsemen of generative text—misinformation, economic exploitation, and creative rot—all of which are enlivened by context collapse and allergic to depth. But even scarier is the soft apocalypse of a truth that's reduced to trivia. There is the kind of commodifiable Physician-truth you’d get from an encyclopedia entry: Visit five different webpages and they will tell you the same melting point of gold. But there are other kinds of truth as well, the kinds inherent in the poetry—not poems, mind you, but poetry —of everyday context. There is truth in the aesthetic sensibilities of a webpage, in a text’s surroundings, and in a writer's voice. It's the truth of a speaker's involuntary gestures, the twitch of a lip. Truth in the way words feel tossed about the top of your tongue, in the slanting of letterforms , in slips o fthe pen, in (the volume of the words in) parentheses. A sentence fragment that interrupts a rhythm. A text changes with the knowledge of its provenance. A text changes with the knowledge of how much work was put into it. A reader finds meaning in atmosphere and timbre in the same way that a parent knows whether a baby is crying out of hunger, fear, or exhaustion, or a heart is moved differently by the same song performed in a new key. Like the keen understanding that persists after you awaken from a dream you can't remember, communing with the messy context of human creativity yields a specter that lingers, haunting you with ambiguity and depth. The specter is what Tim O'Brien called a story-truth that's "truer sometimes than happening-truth"; Audre Lorde called poetry "the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought"; and Maggie Nelson (paraphrasing Wittgenstein) called the inexpressible "contained—inexpressibly!—in the expressed." Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg And this inexpressible, poetic story-truth transcends mere knowledge. It is the foundation of conversation, the exchange of ideas, critical thinking, serendipity, and properly valued labor. These are the particles that coalesce into a community of care that gives a shit about its inhabitants, into an internet that doesn't sacrifice the complex beauty of communication for the fleeting satisfaction of knowing. There are hints that Google may be more interested in providing context than ChatGPT. And AI can certainly, at least in a technical sense, serve as a force in the direction of depth. But Google's business incentives and search history make me skeptical. Dividing an analog world into discrete digital bites of information means that we spend more time with Google's products. It also makes the information easily recyclable for other platforms, like Google’s voice assistants. In another world, a web crawler can be training wheels for our own crawling, a language processing algorithm can eschew exaction in exchange for the rich stream of consciousness quality of, well, "natural" conversation, and a search engine can withhold the brick wall of a solution and instead present us with doors. But instead, I worry that the Answer Box is a premonition of where Google wants to go, a future in which we’re hurried toward destinations, journey be damned, and links are only included out of obligation, rather than invitation. I worry that instead of evoking wonder, our tools will treat our wonder as if it’s an ailment. I worry that this will mean not only a Barthesian death of the author, but a death of the humanmade work itself, human language replaced with its simulacrum. I worry that we’re hurtling toward contextual eradication. Which technological future do we want? One that claims to know all of the answers, or one that encourages us to ask more questions? One that prioritizes output, or accessibility? One that sees people as a dataset to mine and an inefficiency to overcome, or one that sees them as valuable and worthy of attention? In being given exactly what we’re searching for, will we lose ourselves? You Might Also Like … 📩 Get the long view on tech with Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter Watch this guy work, and you’ll finally understand the TikTok era How Telegram became a terrifying weapon in the Israel-Hamas War Inside Elon Musk’s first election crisis —a day after he “freed” the bird The ultra-efficient farm of the future is in the sky The best pickleball paddles for beginners and pros 🌲 Our Gear team has branched out with a new guide to the best sleeping pads and fresh picks for the best coolers and binoculars X Topics Search Google WIRED Software Review Meghan O'Gieblyn Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/1994/10/mosaic"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Gary Wolfe The (Second Phase of the) Revolution Has Begun Save this story Save Save this story Save Don't look now, but Prodigy, AOL, and CompuServe are all suddenly obsolete - and Mosaic is well on its way to becoming the world's standard interface. When it comes to smashing a paradigm, pleasure is not the most important thing. It is the only thing. If this sounds wrong, consider Mosaic. Mosaic is the celebrated graphical "browser" that allows users to travel through the world of electronic information using a point-and-click interface. Mosaic's charming appearance encourages users to load their own documents onto the Net, including color photos, sound bites, video clips, and hypertext "links" to other documents. By following the links - click, and the linked document appears - you can travel through the online world along paths of whim and intuition. Mosaic is not the most direct way to find online information. Nor is it the most powerful. It is merely the most pleasurable way, and in the 18 months since it was released, Mosaic has incited a rush of excitement and commercial energy unprecedented in the history of the Net. Intense efforts to enhance Mosaic and similar browsers are underway at research institutes around the world. At least six companies are gearing up to sell commercial versions of Mosaic. In April 1994, Jim Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics Inc., helped spur the frenzy, creating the Mosaic Communications Corporation and hiring a half dozen of the most experienced Mosaic developers away from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where Mosaic was born (see " Why I Dig Mosaic "). Two months later, Digital Equipment Corporation announced plans to ship a version of Mosaic (enhanced by Spyglass Inc.) with every machine it sells. Rumors have circulated that Microsoft was secretly licensing Mosaic to incorporate it into Windows. (Microsoft says only that it is "considering" a Mosaic license.) Jim Clark's partner at Mosaic Communications, a 23-year-old University of Illinois graduate named Marc Andreessen, will tell you with a straight face that he expects Mosaic Communications's Mosaic to become the world's standard interface to electronic information. Long-frustrated dreams of computer liberation - of a universal library, of instantaneous self-publishing, of electronic documents smart enough to answer a reader's questions - are taking advantage of Mosaic to batter once more at the gates of popular consciousness. This time, it looks like they might break through. Mosaic is clumsy but extraordinarily fun. With Mosaic, the online world appears to be a vast, interconnected universe of information. You can enter at any point and begin to wander; no Internet addresses or keyboard commands are necessary. The complex methods of extracting information from the Net are hidden from sight. Almost every person who uses it feels the impulse to add some content of his or her own. Since Mosaic first appeared, according to the NCSA, Net traffic devoted to hypermedia browsing has increased ten-thousandfold. Looks Count Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Ironically, the ingenious network that you see with Mosaic has been around for several years. It is called the World Wide Web, and it was developed by a group of programmers at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (more commonly known by its old French acronym, CERN, for Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) led by Oxford graduate Tim Berners-Lee. Berners-Lee and his colleagues faced the problem of creating a unified hypertext network for high-energy physicists working in a diverse international environment. They came up with a stunning solution. Rather than attempt to impose standards on the hardware or software, they defined standards for the data. They also created a universal addressing system. Using a relatively simple set of commands, World Wide Web users can turn their documents into hypertext: insert the proper bit of code, and a word becomes a link; insert a different bit of code, and a sentence becomes a headline or begins a new paragraph. With the new addressing system, nearly any Net document - text, picture, sound, or video - can be retrieved and viewed on the World Wide Web. The beauty of this approach is that it allows maximum openness and flexibility. All World Wide Web documents are similar, but every World Wide Web reader, or browser, can be different. From the smallest laptop to the most outrageous supercomputer, nearly every machine can hook into the Web. The Web, despite its sophisticated hypertext capabilities, is as catholic as the Net itself. All you need for exploring is a browser. This, of course, is where Mosaic comes in. The first World Wide Web documents and browsers were functional but off-putting. They were not point-and-click. They did not have colors or images. But the Web was free, and as Tim Berners-Lee and other Web developers enriched the standard for structuring data, programmers around the world began to enrich the browsers. One of these programmers was Marc Andreessen, who was working for the NCSA in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. In January 1993, Andreessen released a version of his new, handsome, point-and-click graphical browser for the Web, designed to run on Unix machines. In August, Andreessen and his co-workers at the center released free versions for Macintosh and Windows. In December, a long story about the Web and Mosaic appeared in The New York Times. And by the year's end, browsers were being downloaded from the NCSA at an average rate of more than a thousand per day. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Some programmers active in the World Wide Web community resent all the attention Mosaic has received. They know that the real heart of the World Wide Web is the data standard and the addressing system. They argue that any bozo - or at least any sufficiently talented bozo - can write a browser. "A guy on our project wrote a browser in a week," says one unimpressed programmer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose name I withhold out of sympathy for the administrator of his e-mail account. Other Web wizards agree. "Mosaic is about to get a boot up the backside," says an experienced developer at CERN in Geneva. "There are an awful lot of good browsers coming out. Mosaic isn't the only one." These kibitzers are correct: Mosaic isn't the only one. And yet Mosaic is the one that did the trick. The Web statistics tell the tale plainly. The explosion of interest in the World Wide Web began as soon as Andreessen's first Mosaic browser appeared. At that time, in January 1993, there were 50 known Web servers. By October, there were more than 500. By June 1994, there were 1,500. The secret of Mosaic's success is no mystery. When you browse with Mosaic, you see a series of well-proportioned "pages," with neat headlines and full-color images. You can fiddle with the screen to suit your own preferences. (I like grayish-purple text, with links in blue.) You can mark your progress forward and back in the Web, and make a "hotlist" of places you visit often. On the Macintosh version, which I use, you move up and down the page in the conventional fashion, using a scroll bar on your right. Mosaic may not be a work of technical genius, but it is hard to stop using. Every day, interesting new hypermedia documents appear. Andreessen and other developers claim there are already at least a million copies of Mosaic on computers around the world. At the same time, it's hard not to sympathize with the naysayers' irritation. Mosaic illustrates an axiom that many brain-workers find dismaying: looks count. But advocates of hypertext have been struggling to realize their dreams for years without success, and the shadow of disappointment that surrounds the names of earlier hypertext projects - such as Ted Nelson's Xanadu or Bill Atkinson's Hypercard (both of which represented a set of highly interesting ideas about interconnected information) - contrasts sharply with what Mosaic has achieved. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg This aesthetically pleasing browser has begun a revolution in the way we experience knowledge. In the world of the Web, knowledge is not something you produce, but something you participate in. A document isn't a self-sufficient individual creation, but a perspective, or collection of perspectives, on the entire Web. This may sound abstract, but with Mosaic on your screen, it is suddenly, strikingly concrete. All the documents in the Web are within reach. What path will you take to get to them? What path will you mark for others to take? Going Commercial Although the NCSA versions of Mosaic are still free, a number of for-profit software companies have purchased nonexclusive licenses to sell and support it. The exception is Jim Clark's Mosaic Communications, which, rather than license the source code, simply hired a half dozen programmers away from the NCSA in order to reengineer a Mosaic-like browser of its own. To license Mosaic, as of July 1994, the NCSA is charging an initial fee of US$100,000 plus $5 each for any number of copies. Licensees are encouraged to enhance Mosaic and resell it to consumers. In June, Fujitsu announced a Japanese Mosaic priced at Yen5,000 (about US$50). SPRY Inc., in partnership with O'Reilly and Associates, a San Francisco Bay area publishing company, plans to have a shrink-wrapped, user-friendly product called "Internet in a Box," including Mosaic, on the shelves by fall. Jeff Stockett has other plans. He is one of the owners of Quadralay Corporation, a Mosaic licensee in Austin, Texas, that is retooling the browser slightly and repackaging it as an online customer support and service system. Quadralay has also announced a consumer version of Mosaic for Windows, officially priced at US$249. Stockett admits that Mosaic is not the last word in browsers. "There may be something that comes tomorrow that transcends anything we have seen thus far," he says. "Sometimes I think that Mosaic may be the VisiCalc of the '90s." Maybe, but, then again, maybe not. "When VisiCalc first came out, it could run on every damned 8086 in the known universe, with nothing added, nothing extra," writes Rob Raisch, president of The Internet Company, a technical services firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Raisch insists that the current network is simply not ready for Mosaic and estimates that because graphical Web browsers like Mosaic require a high-speed connection to the Internet, they can run on no more than 2 percent of all currently Internet-connected machines. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On the other hand, entrepreneurs like Stockett know that VisiCalc - a simple spreadsheet program for personal computers - eventually morphed into Lotus 1-2-3 and helped launch a complete transformation in business computing. Mosaic's impact could be even larger, for its potential market includes not only businesses, but every individual who wants access to electronic information. Consumers whose Web browsers choke on the incoming data are likely to join the clamor for a better network with higher bandwidth. Whether the Net can answer this demand - technically, commercially, and socially - remains to be seen. "If people continue to sell Mosaic as the easy way to market to more than 25 million willing Internet consumers, we are heading for a 'marketing crash' of immense proportions," Rob Raisch warns. One thing is clear: with the commercialization of Mosaic, the global network of hypertext is no longer just a very cool idea. It is now a global competition. The second phase of the revolution is about to begin. The Man and the Myth I first meet Marc Andreessen, accompanied by his publicist Rosanne Siino, in the fifth-floor reception area of Mosaic Communications's Silicon Valley headquarters. As Andreessen gets a glass of water from the nearby kitchen, he takes approving notice of the stash of Oreo cookies in the cabinet. We retire to a conference room, which is bare except for a table, chairs, and a large jar of M&Ms. Andreessen mentions that at night, when the office is full and the tables are littered with pizza boxes, Mosaic Communications doesn't seem all that different from the environment back at the NCSA. But this afternoon, the comparison seems forced. Other than Siino and a receptionist, there is nobody else in the office. The air-circulation system is humming. The setting is quiet and corporate. A little way into the interview, Andreessen removes his dress shirt and answers the rest of my questions in a white T-shirt. This gesture, combined with cautious answers to my questions, leaves the impression of a man doing battle against the businesslike backdrop - and losing. Two years ago, Andreessen was one of a handful of programmers who were taking an interest in Tim Berners-Lee's research on the World Wide Web. To Andreessen, who says he majored in computer science because electrical engineering was too much work, the lack of an easy-to-use graphical interface for the Web was a glaring omission. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg "There was this huge hole in the world," says Andreessen, "because a network existed with all these people hooked up to it, and the software was 10 years behind the hardware. This is typical of the personal computer industry today," he continues. "Perhaps because of people like me." Andreessen argues that people who write software are often people who, like him, are daunted by building hardware. Therefore the machines outstrip our capacity to use them. When Andreessen's first Mosaic release at the beginning of 1993 seemed to strike a chord with Web users, other developers joined in the effort. Chris Wilson, 24, who now works for SPRY Inc., went to work on a Windows version. The center retained ownership of the software but made it available free for individual use. As Mosaic spread through the Internet, Wilson could see problems looming. It was tricky to load and operate, and users around the world began besieging the NCSA with demands for help. "The center was just getting swamped," says Wilson. "They were hiring new people as quickly as they could, and there was no way to get through the backlog." "We got calls from people saying, 'How can we get it?'" Andreessen recalls. "Then we got calls saying, 'What do we need to run it?' We even got a couple of calls saying, 'Do you need to have a computer?'" As the Mosaic craze grew, commercial pressure on the young developers was also mounting. The NCSA's mission includes "technology transfer" - the licensing of its inventions to commercial companies. But the developers were not likely to see much of the profit. "Companies started to come to us," reports Andreessen. "They were saying: 'Let us have it, how much do we pay? We'll give you money!'" Neither Andreessen nor Wilson enjoyed being in an environment with many of the pressures of a commercial software company, including user support, and none of the rewards. "It wasn't clear where we stood," Wilson says. "All of a sudden we were working for money, but it wasn't admitted we were working for money. There was a lot of discontent building up." By early 1994, Wilson had left the NCSA and joined SPRY. Andreessen also left the NCSA, departing in December 1993 with the intention of abandoning Mosaic development altogether. He moved to California and took a position with a small software company. But within a few months he had quit his new job and formed a partnership with SGI founder Jim Clark. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg "At the NCSA," Andreessen explains, "the deputy director suggested that we should start a company, but we didn't know how. We had no clue. How do you start something like that? How do you raise the money? Well, I came out here and met Jim, and all of a sudden the answers starting falling into place." In March, Andreessen and Clark flew back to Illinois, rented a suite at the University Inn, and invited about half a dozen of the NCSA's main Mosaic developers over for a chat. Clark spent some time with each of them alone. By May, virtually the entire ex-NCSA development group was working for Mosaic Communications. Andreessen answers accusations that corporate Mosaic Communications "raided" nonprofit NCSA by pointing out that with the explosion of commercial interest in Mosaic, the developers were bound to be getting other offers to jump ship. "We originally were going to fly them out to California individually over a period of several weeks," Andreessen explains, "but Jim and I said, Waita second, it does not make much sense to leave them available to be picked up by other companies. So we flew out to Illinois at the spur of the moment." Since Mosaic Communications now has possession of the core team of Mosaic developers from NCSA, the company sees no reason to pay any licensing fees for NCSA Mosaic. Andreessen and his team intend to rewrite the code, alter the name, and produce a browser that looks similar and works better. The Anti-Gates Clark and Andreessen have different goals. For Jim Clark, whose old company led the revolution in high-end digital graphics, Mosaic Communications represents an opportunity to transform a large sector of the computer industry a second time. For Andreessen, Mosaic Communications offers a chance to keep him free from the grip of a company he sees as one of the forces of darkness - Microsoft. "If the company does well, I do pretty well," says Andreessen. "If the company doesn't do well" - his voice takes on a note of mock despair - "I work at Microsoft." The chair of Microsoft is anathema to many young software developers, but to Andreessen he is a particularly appropriate nemesis. Andreessen believes that Mosaic could become the standard front end to the Net, a universal gateway to the entire stream of digital information. The young developer hopes that the momentum toward a global data environment will create an insatiable demand for Mosaic Communications's proprietary browser. Mosaic, in this scenario, is the DOS/Windows of cyberspace, an achievement that would make its young creators the new millennium's first computer zillionaires. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Of course, there are a few barriers standing in the way, not least of which is the real-life Bill Gates, who is hardly prepared to cede the field. Microsoft has its own ideas about the front end of the Net. Gates is working with cable mogul John Malone to design a set-top box that will control digital televisions attached to the coaxial wires owned by the cable industry. In the short term, Microsoft is casually announcing that the new version of its Windows operating system will be "Internet-ready, right out of the box." Such promises may be mere braggadocio, but the young Mosaic developers know that in leaving the world of the Internet and going after the desktop market they are poaching on the estates of powerful industry notables. When they describe the future of Mosaic, Bill Gates is never far from their minds. "Microsoft, what are they going to do?" asks Andreessen. "The moment Microsoft jumps in, the rules change." At SPRY, Chris Wilson expresses a hope that the momentum of the Web will keep Microsoft at bay. "It could be that Microsoft is going to announce the release of something that has a completely different form of networking," he says. "It is theoretically possible that they could crush us all. But I doubt that. Right now the World Wide Web and Mosaic have so much steam built up." What the Mosaic vendors have going for them, aside from the sheer appeal of their browser, are the established technical and philosophical tendencies of the network world. The popularity of the World Wide Web rests upon the way it satisfies the desire of individuals and groups to make their information universally available, while not imposing any single standard of hardware or software. Tim Berners-Lee, who helped create the Web, is now directing an international effort to extend the Web's capabilities while maintaining an open and platform-neutral environment. Based on this open environment, developers around the world are working on some stunning enhancements to the Web, including better page-layout techniques; artificial-intelligence search engines; smart, distributed data-storage methods; and even interactive, Web-based, virtual reality environments. David Raggett, who is on the technical staff of Hewlett-Packard's research labs in Bristol, England, and who is helping to develop the specifications for the next generation of Web documents, speaks of how the Web could accommodate the millions of new users expected to arrive in the coming months. He imagines the different computers on the Web sharing data in such a way that the most popular information is replicated onto many machines, while the least popular information lives on a single machine. Addresses, in the conventional sense, would disappear. No human being would know where any specific piece of information was stored. The Web would shift its data around automatically, while users could retrieve documents simply by knowing their names. The Web, in this scheme, becomes unlocatable and omnipresent. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg At MIT, a researcher named John Mallery points out how primitive the Web's links are today. They are fun, he agreed, but they are not smart. You can find information on the Web only by drifting through the links other users have created or by knowing the specific address of the document. But if documents and parts of documents were catalogued in more complicated ways, the system itself could build links. Browsing a magazine on the Web might automatically generate links to other magazines. Looking at an archive of photographs of flowers might automatically create links to a botanical database. "With these kinds of systems," says Mallery, "the goal is referential integration. You've got all these people, and people are cultural - the individual has cultural software that he is running. As that culture is expressed electronically, you can integrate it into the Web. You can build a knowledge base that can draw on the experience of not just the individual or a limited group, but a whole country or planet." In Mallery's view, the Web is destined to become not only omnipresent, but also, in a sense, omniscient. Perhaps the most intriguing experiment in Web development is the attempt to create a standard for interactive, virtual-reality environments. According to Hewlett-Packard's Raggett, some of the elements, such as giving a 3-D view and allowing movement and interactivity (for instance, clocks that tick louder as the user approaches), require surprisingly little bandwidth. And there is an ongoing effort to develop practical, present-day virtual reality tools. (For more information , visit http://vrml.wired.com/.) "The approach we are taking now," Raggett says, "is to keep it simple. Get some simple virtual-reality browsers out there. That will motivate people and begin to create opportunities." The Commercial Conundrum Interestingly, at the practical level of commercial Mosaic development, both Wilson and Andreessen expressed doubt about whether the World Wide Web can maintain its open yet unified environment. To keep the Web from fragmenting into smaller communities with more rigid technical requirements, the authors of Web tools will have to share their ideas and coordinate the development of new standards. This is fine in the nonprofit research and academic worlds. But in the private sector, coordination could mean a sacrifice of competitive advantage. Mosaic Communications could hardly become the DOS of cyberspace if it developed its product in a way that encouraged competition from scores of other more or less interchangeable Mosaic browsers. Mosaic Communications has figured this out, which may be why Andreessen no longer shares much information with his colleagues outside the company. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg "At this point I see a lot of fragmentation," Wilson complains. "We are forging ahead in areas that need guidance - in security for instance. That is going to take a lot of standards work. I would like to see what happens with the other companies, and with Mosaic Communications especially. I haven't heard a lot from them." The reason Wilson and other Mosaic developers have not heard much from Mosaic Communications lately, Andreessen admits, is that a unified standard is not of first importance to the company. "Our major concern is our products," he says. "On top of that, we would like to be in an open environment, where other browsers could read our documents. It makes companies and consumers more willing to buy in. But it can't be our primary concern. "We are not going to let it slow us down," he continues. "If we are moving faster than everybody else, then we will simply publish what we have done. We will say, 'This is how it is done, this is how you write documents to it.' We will have our implementation out there, and we will be competing on the basis of quality." As we talk, I sense that Andreessen anticipates that other Mosaic developers will be irritated by his approach. The reason is obvious: if Mosaic Communications releases a stunning version of Mosaic and everybody begins to use it, and if the new version or a later upgrade is not compatible with competing Web browsers, then the rest of the Mosaic companies are going to have to get in step with Mosaic Communications or go out of business. Mosaic Communications is going to be in the position of setting the standards. This top-down approach to standards development is well known: it's the Microsoft model. Andreessen admits that it does not always lead to the most logical standards or the best products. He pauses to tell a well-known Microsoft joke: "How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, they just declare darkness the standard." Of course, a top-down effort to define the standards of the Web may simply fail. Most Web developers I spoke with seemed to think that Mosaic Communications was taking the wrong approach. They were confident that better browsers than Mosaic would be released in short order, and any temporary benefit Mosaic Communications gained from hiring so many developers from the NCSA would quickly disappear as more and more people got into the game. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg As I reviewed my notes from interviews with Andreessen, I was struck by the thought that he may have conjured the Bill Gates nemesis out of the subtle miasma of his own ambivalence. After all it is he, not the programmers in Redmond, Washington, who is writing a proprietary Web browser. It is he, not Bill Gates, who is at the center of the new, ambitious industry. It is he who is being forced by the traditional logic of the software industry to operate with a caution that verges on secrecy, a caution that is distinctly at odds with the open environment of the Web. When I ask Andreessen about how Mosaic Communications's Mosaic will reach consumers, he will not answer directly. He makes it clear that his company does not intend to put a shrink-wrapped product on the shelves. He implies that Mosaic Communications's Mosaic will be licensed and shipped with "Internet-ready" computers and operating systems. But if Andreessen wants to get Mosaic onto the desktop in this manner, then the partnership choice is obvious. Would Mosaic Communications do a deal with Bill Gates? Marc Andreessen isn't telling. "The overriding danger to an open standard is Microsoft," he says. But at the end of our interview, while we are still dancing around the marketing question, Andreessen attempts to resolve it by simply stating his ambition. "One way or another," he says, "I think that Mosaic is going to be on every computer in the world." I wait for more. "One way or another," he repeats. Mosaic is a graphical browser for the Web. Say what? The World Wide Web (aka WWW, the Web) is a unified "information space" that consists of hypertext documents and links between documents. Hypertext is a word coined by Ted Nelson to describe a seamless world of information, in which any part of any document can be linked to any part of any other document. A Web browser is a computer program that retrieves and interprets documents on the World Wide Web. Mosaic is a browser that offers a graphical user interface, but not all browsers do. Lynx, for instance, is a popular text-only browser. HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the high-level programming language in which World Wide Web documents are written. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg A SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol) connection provides a way for hosts and networks to link into the Internet via phone lines. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of a document on the World Wide Web. Why I Dig Mosaic Last night Mosaic blew my mind. It was not the underlying technical elegance of the browser, for Mosaic functions lurchingly, with many gasps and wheezes. Images traveling through the Net don't appear quickly, even when they flow through a 56-KByte line. But Mosaic blew my mind nonetheless. With seamless grace, it brought me in contact with information that I didn't know I wanted to know. I launched Mosaic for a prosaic reason: to track down some details about the World Wide Web on the pages at CERN in Geneva. But I typed the address incorrectly - or had copied it down wrong - and I soon found myself wandering aimlessly along the interwoven strands of the Web, listlessly clicking on links, circling in the near vicinity of CERN (not geographically, of course, but along vectors of association), hoping in a rather lame way to hit on the document I was looking for. Finally, I found myself standing on the NCSA demo page, much as tourists wandering through the complex alleys of an old city will, when their energy runs out, eventually walk along with the flow of traffic and find themselves in one of the main intersections or town squares. Many documents are linked into the NCSA demo page, which is full of links leading out into the Web. I scanned down the lines of gray text and selected a blue link that had nothing to do with my official mission: "An experiment in hypermedia publishing: excerpts and audio from a book reading by author Paul Kafka of his novel LOVE Enter ," it said. This, I hoped, would be a nice breather. Upon entering the page, I was immediately distracted by another link, a quiet alcove halfway down that read "poetry archive". I wanted to see the poetry archive. I clicked. "Unable to connect to remote host," Mosaic responded. I was peeved. The door was locked! I clicked a link at the bottom of the screen, where the name of the author of the page was listed: Paul Mende. After a minute of waiting (not unusual), Mende's picture appeared. He was smiling and young, with bushy brown hair and a large mustache. His page listed his research interests: "String Theory, Quantum Chromdynamics." Then came a section called Odds and Ends, under which were listed New Fiction and Readings, Benjamin's Home Page, and "local docs." What were the local docs? Who was Benjamin? Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Before finding out, I glanced at the rest of the document, and it was then that I began to experience the vertigo of Net travel. On the lower parts of the page were abstracts of Paul's scientific papers, some co-authored with Benjamin Grinstein. "High energy string collisions in a compact space," was one of the titles. This meant nothing to me, of course. But, having sought a respite in poetry, it was dizzying to have wandered into the company of a physicist. It was a type of voyeurism, yes, but it was less like peeking into a person's window and more like dropping in on a small seminar with a cloak of invisibility. One thing it was not like: it was not like being in a library. The whole experience gave an intense illusion, not of information, but of personality. I had been treating the ether as a kind of data repository, and I suddenly found myself in the confines of a scientist's study, complete with family pictures. When I clicked on the link titled Benjamin's Home Page, I found that it did not belong to Benjamin Grinstein, Paul's scientific co-author, but rather to Benjamin Mende, his son, a beaming, gap-toothed 3-year-old, who announced at the top of the page that his research interests were, "Sand. Also music, boats, playing outside." "Playing outside" was a link to a picture that filled my 21-inch screen. Benjamin was sitting on the grass in a hooded sweatshirt, wearing corduroy booties, laughing. It was late. I'd been in Paul Mende's life for an hour. I turned the computer off. It was not until this morning that I remembered I had never made it back to CERN. Cool Web Pages: A Sampler Interactive Frog Dissection See how a frog fits together. Guaranteed formaldehyde-free. Le WebLouvre Tour the world-famous Louvre. Xmorphia Supercomputer-created images and MPEG movies. NetBoy Comics for the hardcore geek. Shoemaker-Levy Everything you wanted to know about the comet collisions last July. Gallery of Interactive On-Line Geometry Create Penrose tiles, generate Escher-like patterns, and use a prototypical 3-D viewer through this page at the University of Minnesota. Library of Congress Offerings from the nation's library. Kaleidospace Material from writers, artists, musicians, and videographers. The Kspace people charge a nominal fee to digitize and publicize unknowns. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Global Network Navigator O'Reilly & Associates's online magazine and resource center. The Web's Edge and What's "Hot and Cool." A well-designed launchpad to offbeat strands of the Web. Sun Microsystems Product info, service and support areas, new-release announcements, and links to other sites using Sun hardware. HotWired What can we say? It's a cross between Pee Wee's Playhouse and Wired magazine. WWW Robots, Wanderers, and Spiders Programs that traverse the Web automatically. Internet Underground Music Archive Indie music on the Net. Links from the Underground Links and commentary providing an alternative view of the Web. More Information on Mosaic: To get the individual version of Mosaic right now, go to the NCSA Mosaic anonymous ftp distribution site : ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu. Program files are in directory /Mosaic. Among the many companies offering SLIP or PPP connections are Performance Systems Inc., +1 (703) 709 0300; CRL, +1 (415) 837 5300; and Netcom On-Line Communications Services Inc., +1 (408) 554 8649. For more information about getting a Net connection that supports Mosaic and other graphical WWW browsers, send e-mail to info-rama@wired.com , containing the line "send getting.wired" in the message body. The file will be returned to you automatically via e-mail. To stay abreast of goings-on at HotWired, Wired's new WWW-based sister cyber-station, send e-mail to info-rama@wired.com containing the line "subscribe hotwired" in the message body. You will be added to an electronic mailing list that provides weekly updates on HotWired's online activities. The Rush to Commercialize: Companies Holding Licenses to NCSA's Mosaic Amdahl Corporation 1250 East Arques Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3470 Contact: Steve Telleen Phone: +1 (408) 992 2693 E-mail: slt50@oes.amdahl.com Product: Not announced. Fujitsu Limited 17-25, Shinkamata 1 - Chome Ota-ku Tokyo 144, Japan Contact: Yasuyo Kikuta Phone: +81 (3) 3730 3174 Fax: +81 (3) 3735 4240 E-mail: kikuta@aisys.se.fujitsu.co.jp Product: Infomosaic, a Japanese version of Mosaic. Price: Yen5,000 (approx US$50). InfoSeek Corporation 2620 Augustine Drive, Suite 250 Santa Clara, CA 95054 E-mail: info@infoseek.com Product: No commercial Mosaic. May use Mosaic as part of a commercial database effort. Quadralay Corporation 8920 Business Park Drive Austin, TX 78759 Contact: Brian Combs Phone: +1 (512) 346 9199 E-mail: INFO@quadralay.com Product: Consumer version of Mosaic. Also using Mosaic in its online help and information product, GWHIS. Price: US$249. Quarterdeck Office Systems Inc. 150 Pico Boulevard Santa Monica, CA 90405 Contact: Robert Kutnick Phone: +1 (310) 314 4263 Fax: +1 (310) 314 4218 E-mail: bob@qdeck.com Product: Not announced. The Santa Cruz Operation Inc. 400 Encinal Street Santa Cruz, CA 95060 Phone: (800) 726 8649; +1 (408) 425 7222 E-mail: info@sco.com Product: Incorporating Mosaic into "SCO Global Access," a communications package for Unix machines that works with SCO's Open Server. Runs a graphical e-mail service and accesses newsgroups. No separate price. SPRY Inc. 316 Occidental Ave. South, Suite 200 Seattle, WA 98104 Phone: (800) 777 9638; +1 (206) 447 0300 E-mail: info@spry.com Products: A communication suite: Air Mail, Air News, Air Mosaic, etc. Also producing Internet In a Box with O'Reilly & Associates. Price: US$149-$399 for Air Series. Spyglass Inc. 1800 Woodfield Drive Savoy, IL 61874 Phone: +1 (217) 355 6000 Fax: +1 (217) 355 8925 E-mail: info@spyglass.com Product: Relicensing to other vendors. Recently signed deal with Digital Equipment Corp., which will ship Mosaic with all its machines. * * ** * ** * ** * ** * * NCSA Information: Software Development Group National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Contact: Jae Allen Phone: +1 (217) 244 3364 E-mail: jallen@ncsa.uiuc.edu Mosaic Communications Corp. 650 Castro Street, Suite 500 Mountain View, CA 94041 Contact: Rosanne Siino Phone: +1 (415) 254 1900 E-mail: info@mcom.com WWW: http://mosaic.mcom.com Topics magazine-2.10 David Nield Brenda Stolyar Steven Levy Julian Chokkattu David Gilbert Scott Gilbertson David Nield Paresh Dave Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The Reddit Blackout Is Breaking Reddit | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/the-reddit-blackout-is-breaking-reddit"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Boone Ashworth Gear The Reddit Blackout Is Breaking Reddit Photograph: Ilona Sakhno/Alamy Save this story Save Save this story Save It’s pretty easy to piss people off on Reddit. Less so to piss off seemingly everyone on the platform. Still, Reddit’s management has succeeded in doing just that as it weathers protests over its decision to charge for access to its API. That ruling risks putting the company in a death spiral as users revolt, the most dedicated community caretakers quit, and the vibrant discussions move to other platforms. The company’s changes to its data access policies effectively price out third-party developers who make mobile applications for browsing Reddit; two of the most popular options, Reddit Is Fun and Apollo, which together have over 41 million downloads, are both shutting down. After some initial backlash from users and disability advocates who said Reddit’s changes would adversely affect accessibility-focused apps aimed at people with dyslexia or vision impairments , Reddit said it would exempt those apps from the price hikes. Those apps also have far smaller user bases than Apollo or RIF. “You can’t inflate the balloon forever. It will pop at some point.” Rory Mir of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Reddit’s plans—driven by an urge to make the company more profitable as it inches toward going public—sparked a protest across nearly 9,000 subreddits, where moderators of those communities switched their groups to private mode, preventing anyone from accessing them. Many of those subs remain inaccessible four days later, and their moderators say they plan to keep up the blackout indefinitely. (Disclosure: WIRED is a publication of Conde Nast, whose parent company, Advance Publications, has an ownership stake in Reddit.) However unfazed Reddit execs appear to be, this subreddit seppuku sure does seem like a surefire way to sink the company. But does it really signal the death of Reddit? “I can't see it as anything but that,” says Rory Mir, an associate director of community organizing at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. (Earlier this week, Mir wrote about what Reddit got wrong. ) “Like with Twitter, it's not a big collapse when a social media website starts to die, but it is a slow attrition unless they change their course. The longer they stay in their position, the more loss of users and content they’re going to face.” The unrest at Reddit is the latest in a string of social media upheavals that have seemingly pitted profit-hungry companies against their users. Platforms like Reddit, Twitter, or even Amazon that started operating at a loss in order to grow their user base eventually face pressures to further monetize their traffic. When a site sidelines the wants and needs of its users in the pursuit of profit, that leads to a downturn—and potential death of the platform—that author Cory Doctorow has termed “ enshittification. ” Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft “Any plan that involves endless and continuous growth is bound to run into scale issues, which is where I think Reddit and Twitter are running into problems,” Mir says. “You can’t inflate the balloon forever. It will pop at some point.” Amy Bruckman is a regents' professor and senior associate chair at Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Interactive Computing. She has also contributed to WIRED and is a moderator of several subreddits, including the very popular r/science , which is restricted until Monday. Bruckman says this era of social media has been rife with sudden changes. “There was an extended period of years, maybe even a decade, where it felt like the way things are is the way they always will be,” she says. “And everything is suddenly shifted.” Reddit charging for access to its API is also about more than just third-party clients, Bruckman says. A move like this has angered so many people on Reddit because it feels like a betrayal of the community’s trust. It might be a vocal minority of users who are pissed off about the changes, but they’re the people who volunteer their time to keep communities functional—and they’re arguably the most important users on the site. “Beyond the fact that it’s in a dozen ways harder to do our job, it’s also just the case that Reddit felt more like an open platform where innovation by committed users was encouraged,” Bruckman says. “And this feels like it's trampling on that.” Reddit has denied that it is specifically targeting third-party apps like Apollo and RIF. The company initially said that limiting its API access is a move meant to control the flow of data being gobbled up by generative artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI training their large language models. But in an interview with NPR , Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said limiting third-party access will also help Reddit keep control over how it displays ads—the company’s primary source of income—to users. Force everyone to interact on one app, and it’s easier to fill their feeds with whatever advertising you want. “They’re shooting themselves in the foot,” Mir says. “The content of the users is what makes the platform worth visiting. These hosts kind of run into this confusion that their hosting is the reason people are going there, but it’s really for the other users on the medium.” Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft And those users are bailing. Bruckman says she knows a moderator who has already quit, saying it wasn’t worth the energy to devote so much time to a company that can just toss all that effort aside. Like with Twitter, no clear alternative has emerged as a replacement. Bruckman advocates for public funding of a nonprofit version of something akin to Reddit. Some more casual users say they’re going back to Tumblr, which is still recovering from its own corporate sanitization in 2018. Still, Mir says, there’s a real hunger for stability on a platform. It’s part of the reason sites like Reddit and Twitter have gotten so big. There are people who have had the same email address for 30 years or the same username on Reddit for a decade. If users have invested significant time in a community, it’s going to be a pain to find something amid the sea of federated upstarts that all claim to be the next best thing. Clearly, Reddit is hoping that inertia and customer loyalty keep people on its site. Even if users grumble about losing their favorite app, the company is expecting they’ll just cave and download the official app. That may work on your typical user, but it’s not going to be as easy to convert the mods—especially ones who feel burned by Reddit’s monetary machinations. Mir offers another business metaphor for the tension on Reddit: “If you have a really good music venue, but you break relations with every notable artist, you’re not going to be a very successful venue. You need to really prioritize the needs of the folks providing the value on your platform.” You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Staff Writer X Topics reddit apis platforms communities Social Media Justin Pot Lauren Goode Matt Jancer Boone Ashworth Erica Kasper Reece Rogers Scott Gilbertson Simon Hill WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Watch Genndy Tartakovsky Answers Animation Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/video/watch/tech-support-genndy-tartakovsky-answers-animation-questions-from-twitter"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Genndy Tartakovsky Answers Animation Questions From Twitter About Released on 05/09/2023 Hello, I'm Genndy Tartakovsky. I'm an animator and director and creator of Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, Primal, and Unicorn Warriors Eternal. I'm here to answer all your animation questions on Twitter. This is Animation Support. [percussive music] @tatsumology, How is 2D animation so smooth and fluid, tell me. For animation, we go at 24 frames per second. Let's say my arm goes from here to here in 24 frames, which is one second. So one-1000, it'll be really smooth. If I don't have the time or money to do it then I'll start going to 12 drawings. And now, all of a sudden, it's not as smooth. And then if I really am running outta money and time, then I'm gonna do it faster and I'm gonna do it in six frames. [pops tongue] And here, now you're losing the fluidity but I'm gaining money so I could do the rest of the episode. But it's a fake. Nobody cares about fluid or smooth. You want great acting, you want good jokes, good stories, good characters. If it's a little choppy, I don't care. So don't obsess over smoother fluidity, obsess over stories, [keyboard tapping] character, humor, storytelling. @Piech42, Why are there so many cartoon characters that don't wear pants? That is a old, timeless question. It's haunted me in my dreams sometimes. It's just somebody's choice to have a character be naked. And it's okay if he has a bow tie on. [keyboard tapping] Let's keep thinking about this one, all right, thank you. @Bezzeroo, Do voice actors try and time their voice to animation or do animators have to animate what the voice actor's saying? The voices come first, before the animation starts. We have the actor come in, they'll read the line, we edit it into the shot, and then the animator starts to animate to the lip sync and we break down the waveform, right? So what's loud, what's accented, and then we'll follow that for the animation. Now interestingly enough, for Primal, I just have grunting. [dramatic music] [Spear screams] We did our dialogue recording after the animation was done. Aaron LaPlante, who voiced Spear, he would then come in, we would play him the picture, [Genndy grunting] and then he would do the grunting to the picture. A lot of anime is actually dubbed, sometimes, after, with the voice cast. But for our style of animation, our mouths are very articulated. We have to do it [keyboard tapping] to the voice recording, not after. @weischoice, or Weis Choice, maybe. When they make sequels [muted Latin music] to animated movies, do animators repurpose shots or elements of them from the former movies? I don't really know much about animation so this could be a very stupid question. For Hotel Transylvania, from the first movie to the second movie, we repurposed most of their character designs and the castle itself. But on the other hand, because technology's going so fast, within a couple of years, Imageworks, the studio that we used, they reprogrammed all their tools so they couldn't just use it. They had to input it, and then change it and upgrade it. But yeah, usually for sequels, unless you change locations, [keyboard tapping] there is some savings in that. @miiccams, What're the 12 principles of animation? Basically, there's squash and stretch. You have a circle, it gets hit by something, and so then it squashes. That's squash and stretch. Then anticipation, before you can go straight, you have to go backwards. For a big, cartoony character doing a punch, the anticipation is crazy. So this's a big anticipation for a punch. And then the punch would be, you know, completely off the page. So there's your anticipation and there's your punch. And follow through is if you go to grab something, things move at different speeds. So if the hand is anticipating this way; and we're gonna grab; then when we move it, my wrist'll go first, my elbow'll go back. And so, you see the wrist is leading, here. And then it catches up after. So that's all about overlapping action and follow-through. And you can put the squash and stretch in there too, because then the hand can be delayed a little bit then there's a little stretch. And really, those three will get you started. There are 10 maybe, maybe there's eight. And I'm not gonna give them to you 'cause those are the earned principles, that you have to first learn the first five principles and then when you get to the eighth principle, sometimes we'll throw in three more principles. And by, you know, 30 years in the industry I know 27 principles. But I'm not gonna talk about them 'cause you can't even comprehend those principles. You know, I'm probably gonna get reamed for forgetting a whole bunch, but, you know, start with those. @ [beep] disorder. How often do animators forget to animate the characters blinking and how often do we just not notice they haven't been blinking for like, five minutes? Blinking is part of keeping a character alive, and sometimes, even breathing. That's an odd thing, because it's really creepy 'cause you almost feel like they are kind of alive. We did that on Fang in Primal, where we had her breathe more 'cause she's such a big creature. Sometimes you forget about the little things, and sometimes the little things say a lot. We're always kinda thinking about it. So I usually, if the character's just standing there we'll always remember [keyboard tapping] to use a blink. But good observation, though. @slowbeef, 3D modeling/animation question, is an armature and a rig the same thing. Rigging, we use the term for... You know what, I'm not gonna explain it. It's hurting my brain. An armature's basically a skeleton. [laughs] This's the worst drawing I've done today. That's your armature. But rigging is actually, in CG animation, you put a point here and you put a point here, and now your elbow and your arm can move. So that's called rigging a character for movement. And the armature is really the proper beginning to the rigging process. It's something I hate [keyboard tapping] to talk about. @jooniebythesea, Why's 'Hotel Transylvania's' animation so good? Hotel is good because we took the principles of classical animation, stuff that was done in the '30s, and '40s, and '50s and we translated it into CG. And what that means is adding, you know, new sculptures to the model and every new expression and pushing the squash and stretch and forgetting about gravity. And actually, one really interesting thing that happened was because our animation was so extreme, what happens is you animate, like, a naked puppet, basically. It goes to a different department and they put the clothe dynamics over it. The computer then knows how to fill in the dynamics. But not when you're moving from here to here in one frame. That doesn't happen in real life. So constantly, the clothes dynamics were broken. The animators had to go back in and actually start animating the clothes, like, how we would do it on paper. And then they would put those key frames in for the dynamics, and then they would follow them a little better. Everyone had so much fun, I think, doing it, because the results [keyboard tapping] were so unique. @iammeessence, or I am Essence, it's a little Popeyeish. [Popeye] I'm me essence. Who knows how to create a cartoon character? I like to really think of a character inside out. Is it a happy character? Is it a sad character? And then you're gonna start to find shape language that suits those personalities. I'm gonna draw it because I like to draw. Let's say we're gonna draw a happy character. Then the posture of that happy character will usually be happy, arched, and there's already a positive vibe to this character. Now, in the same respect, let's say it's kind of a sad-sacky, sad character. And the body posture has to work with the attitude. And that's really the beginning principles of it all, how it all works. Also, once you start drawing your character they're gonna start changing. It's like having a baby. The baby starts as a pile of mush. And then its starts to tighten up, and grow older, and have a personality, and all those things. When we first designed Dexter, Dexter was really tall even though we knew we wanted him to be short. And as we start drawing him as a rectangle, we do hundreds of storyboards and we keep going with it. All of a sudden the shorthand, he starts to shrink. And he gets squatter, [laughs] right? So you can see the the difference. And it's funny, 'cause Dee Dee didn't go through the same transformation. I think her torso maybe got a little smaller. We call it pushing proportions. She was kinda like this, right, in the first season. And then as we, same thing, we drew her, we drew her, we drew her more, and more, and more, and more. And then she became this. Nothing that we really thought about on purpose, but just something that happened organically. So don't be so hard on yourself and draw the character exactly the same every time you gonna draw them. Give yourself the freedom to get comfortable with it. The character will become who they organically wanna be [keyboard tapping] without trying to think about it too much. @littleuzimycousin, Why're the 'Clone Wars' episodes so short? The truth of it is, we were really the first ones to do Star Wars besides, like, really just doing commercials. And initially, George only allowed Cartoon Network to do one-minute episodes and I said Well, one minute is basically a commercial. I don't wanna do that. I need at least three to five minutes. They went back to George, and George and his son, especially, I think, liked Samurai Jack. So they said, We've got Genndy and the team from 'Samurai Jack', but they want more time. And so, then George said, Okay, they can have three to five minutes. I think he was afraid we were gonna mess it up. And I don't blame him, [laughs] 'cause that's like your baby, you know? I wouldn't want somebody else taking it and just doing what they want with it. That's the truth behind the shortness of those first Clone Wars. @She_Ascends, Why did my parents let me watch 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' at such a young age? I don't know why. I think it's okay, it's not that bad. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? helped, actually, bring back animation. Basically, around '88, animation was in really bad shape. TV shows are really bad quality. Even Disney feature animation was about to get sold. Then they were making Who Framed Roger Rabbit? And it kind of reminded people how fun animation could be. And not only technically did they blend live action and animation, but they combined Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse together in the same movie, so it felt something more special. And it was great because of it. @simmykierra, How do you direct an animated show? It's all about having a point of view and having everybody help you to create that vision. I was doing Dexter's Lab, an artist would draw the storyboard. We would pin it all up, and then they would pitch it. We had one storyboard artist, when he pitched the storyboard it was in, like, this funny voice. And so, Dexter come over here. And then there's Dee Dee. And so, the whole room was crying laughing. After he finished I was like, Well, how the hell am I supposed to transfer this performance into this episode? 'Cause he doesn't sound like the characters at all. They don't talk like that. But there was something about it that worked. And so, I realized, Oh right, that's my job. My job is now to take this performance and translate it into something entertaining. And it was like a really big epiphany in my career. Like, Oh right, that's actually what I do. @twistedlilKim, What was your favorite 'Samurai Jack' episode, and why was it the 'Jump Good' one? It's not the Jump Good one, it's probably the Blind Archers one. Because it's the first episode that everything worked at such a high level. The story was simple and super cool, the design of it was very simplistic and great, and we did that thing where we blinded him and it was black, and as the audio came up we started to see it. So it was so artistic but still had badass action. There was something about it that really clicked. You never wanna pick favorites, but that's probably the one that had the most impact on us. @chris_cull, As someone who doesn't work in animation, how often is a storyboard made? Like, every cut in the scene or is it a set number of frames? Generally, the whole rule is every time you cut there's a new storyboard. Every time there's a change of emotion there's a new storyboard. Every time anything semi-significant happens there's a new drawing in the storyboard. Our storyboards have now become, basically, almost extremes. Because the storyboard is so important, now we're drawing more and more panels. Lucky for you I have some storyboard examples for Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, for the first episode. This is Copernicus, who's the robot coming out of his little grave. We'll cut to the hole, and you see his arms come out, [Genndy imitates machinery] a bunch of steam that comes out, and he starts to lift his body up. And he continues up. And now we cut to a different front angle, and he rises up [Genndy imitates rocket] and then [imitates thud] lands and then we start cutting close. And then when I draw this, I'll maybe even break it down even more to a degree. And this, you know, this is all the first episode. I like to do it like this first so then I don't get bogged down with the drawing. All the emotion, and the speed, and the pacing comes out. Storyboards, they're the most important because that's your story. It's everything. [keyboard tapping] Without a storyboard, you got nothing. @Smomotion, Writers often give animation notes. Where do animators get to submit notes for the writers? That's a big question. In a situation, sometimes a writer has too much opinion. And then the artists don't have as strong of an opinion, but the writer gets to tell us what to do. Artists and storyboard artists are a proud bunch. And we know what we're doing, but sometimes we don't. And so, we'll forget the writing, we'll throw it away, and then we'll do it on our own. And it's equally doesn't work. So usually the healthiest relationships are the writer and the animator are both together and they're a unified team. That's why I always write my own stuff for the most part, because I want to have dual power. [laughs evilly] But yeah, usually animation folks don't get a chance to give writers critiques. We just complain about it [keyboard tapping] at our desks for three years. @_qp96, Do you know the difference between animation and cartoon or should I mind my own business? Animation, cartoons, anime, whatever. It's all the same thing. But yeah, in the industry, especially in features, cartoony might have some negative connotations. I love all the old style of animation, the Warner Brothers Tex Avery, all that stuff. I love to use the word cartoon, it's one of my favorite words. [keyboard tapping] So I think you're good! @95vevo, My character design homework is to draw cartoon character using the golden mean. How the fuck? I'm not really familiar with the golden mean. I think what it's trying to say is to be dynamic. We used to say this thing, Keep the proportions of the design special. If you have a character, you don't want all of the elements to feel even, because this's just boring. What you want is your elements of the design to be special. If I'm designing a football player, you can design him like a, you know, human proportions, or it's that. And same thing for composition too. Usually we think of the camera broken down into thirds, and where do you put your horizon line? If you put it in the center and then your character in the center everything is kind of boring. But if you take, you know, your horizon line and you lower it, and then your character's on the side, here, all of a sudden we've got drama, and interest, and scale. So when it says your character design homework is using that principle, it's just big, small, and medium. And think about it as what's special or unique? @unorigusername, Cartoons're better because you can create a world. What limitations do animators face that they can't surpass? It's all about how well you draw. If you can draw it, it can exist. If you can imagine it and you can draw it, it exists. So the only things I can't do're the things that I can't draw. And in my position, I'll then find somebody who can draw those things [laughs] and I'll hire them. But yeah, usually you're just limited [keyboard tapping] by your drawing ability. There is no limitations. And, I guess, your imagination. [mouse clicks] Well, I think [muted Latin music] that about wraps it up. Thank you so much. Thank you for all the questions. And really, thank you for the last 30 years for watching all the shows. It's super special to me and I appreciate all your time, and thank you. 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All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Apple iPhone XS Review: Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/review/apple-iphone-xs-and-iphone-xs-max"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Review: iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max Facebook X Email Save Story Beth Holzer Facebook X Email Save Story $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Rating: 8/10 Open rating explainer Smartphones, for many of us, are emotional objects. We pick them up dozens of times per day. We use them both to deeply connect and mindlessly scroll. We feel frantic when we think we’ve misplaced them. Apple’s iPhones , in particular, trigger a personal connection to an inanimate object. They’re well-designed, satisfying, and covetable. This year's new iPhones? They're last year's phone design with some new internals. One of those new features is an impressive new chip, one of the first of its kind in a smartphone. This chip powers faster FaceID unlocks, better photos, and advanced AI. For the $1,000 you’ll spend on this phone, you’re earning back seconds of your time, getting photos you can adjust after you shoot them, and experiencing sophisticated computer vision in mobile apps. But aside from one of the phones having a giant display, the iPhone XS and the larger iPhone XS Max don’t feel much different from last year’s iPhone X. This year’s phones don’t spark strong feelings—except maybe chagrin that they cost so much. Some people will upgrade because they’re due for an upgrade. Others will buy one of these because they want to have the newest thing. And that’s fine. They’re great phones. Just don’t expect to feel the kind of feelings, as you’re sliding this phone out of your pocket or purse, that you’d get with a radically redesigned piece of hardware. As I used these new phones, I found myself struggling to define, exactly, what felt new about them. It’s there; you just have to dig deep. If you’ve seen an iPhone X , then you already know what the iPhone XS looks like. And really, you already know what the iPhone XS Max looks like: it's a jumbo iPhone X. Aside from the size and battery difference, the XS and the XS Max are exactly alike. I had originally planned to write two reviews, one of each phone, but then decided there was no need for that. Even their cameras are the same. The phones are made of stainless steel, and coated in what Apple says is the strongest glass ever used in its phones. Just like last year’s phone, the XS has a 5.8-inch diagonal display with a 19.5 by 9 aspect ratio, which means it packs a lot of screen into a relatively small body. The iPhone XS Max is roughly the same size as last year’s iPhone 8 Plus , but has a much larger display—6.5 inches on the diagonal, compared to the 8 Plus’s 5.5 inches. Unlocking the phone with FaceID seems slightly faster. App switching feels faster. And then there are the photos. Overall, the OLED displays on these phones are beautiful, though largely unchanged from last year’s X. Apple claims the displays on the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max will deliver 60 percent greater dynamic range on HDR content, and that the screens are more touch sensitive. Personally, I haven’t noticed much of a difference there. Another difference from last year’s iPhone X: the glass on the new phones is supposed to be more durable. However, I’m already seeing a hairline scratch on the face of the iPhone XS, something that the iPhone X was prone to, as well. The iPhone XS and XS Max still have a Lightning port—same as the old phones. But the speakers have been tweaked to give wider stereo sound. They sound great, and louder than previous iPhones. Apple iPhone XS and XS Max Rating: 8/10 $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Beth Holzer If you’ve already decided that you’re getting one of these new phones, but don’t know which one to pick, it really comes down to battery life and bigness. The iPhone XS Max has a larger battery than the iPhone XS, given its larger physical size. It’s supposed to last an hour and a half longer than an ol’ iPhone X. The iPhone XS, meanwhile, only lasts a half hour longer. I found the difference between the iPhone X and XS’s battery life to be negligible; but the iPhone XS Max’s battery never gave me the kind of anxiety I get at the end of the day with a smaller phone. For some, the iPhone XS Max’s big display—the biggest ever on an iPhone—will be worth the occasional fumbles and the times you just need two hands just to hold the thing. Personally, I still think the size of the iPhone XS is the way to go. And while I don’t really notice the “notch” at the top of the iPhone XS (the cut-out that houses the front-facing camera and 3D sensors), I find this same cut-out jarring when I’m using split-screen mode on the iPhone XS Max. Before I go on, we should talk about cost. Like last year’s iPhone X, the iPhone XS starts at $999 for a 64-gigabyte model. The price jumps up to $1,349 for a version with 512GB of internal storage. The iPhone XS Max starts at $1,099, and goes up to $1,449 for the 512GB configuration. These are the first iPhones to have 512 gigabytes of internal storage, something Samsung already offers in its flagship phones. Early benchmark tests also suggest that both phones have 4GB of RAM, one gigabyte more than last year’s iPhone X. (Apple hasn’t confirmed this.) We’ve come a long way from the days of 8GB of storage and 1GB of RAM. Apple iPhone XS and XS Max Rating: 8/10 $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Beth Holzer A lot of people will make the argument that these powerful mini-computers are worth the inflated cost, especially since it's something you use all day every day. I think those arguments are valid. But a thousand dollars for a phone is also a huge expense for the majority of the population. You could hardly be blamed for choosing more affordable options like an older iPhone or a mid-range Android handset, even with the knowledge that you're not getting the best-of-the-best internals. And if you weren’t already annoyed by the price, this might send you over the edge: Neither the iPhone XS nor the XS Max ship with a lighting-to-3.5mm adapter in the box. You might recall that iPhones don’t have headphone jacks anymore. So, if you still used wired headphones, you’ll have to buy your own dongle for them. And the phones still ship with USB-A cables, even though modern MacBooks use USB-C. These are small things, but it’s hard to imagine the Apple of even just five years ago forcing such tradeoffs onto its customers. By far the most important update in the iPhone XS and XS Max is Apple’s new mobile chip. Last year’s A11 Bionic chip was a 10-nanometer chip with a six-core CPU, a three-core GPU, and a neural engine designed for machine learning tasks that could perform up to 600 billion operations per second. This year’s A12 Bionic is a 7-nanometer chip with a six-core CPU, a four-core GPU, and an even faster neural engine. It not only has more cores, but it can process up to 5 trillion operations per second. In short, the new chip is the thing that’s supposed to make your phone feel faster, your photos look better, and your AR and AI apps more useful. The chip giant Qualcomm, which makes the Snapdragon chips that power high-end Android phones, plans to ship a 7-nanometer processor soon. But with the launch of the new iPhones, Apple has just beat it to the punch. Apple iPhone XS and XS Max Rating: 8/10 $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Previously, the neural engine could only be accessed by Apple, which used it to power apps like Animoji and FaceID. Now third-party app developers can tap into it. We saw glimpses of this at last week’s Apple event, when the multiplayer game Galaga AR was demoed on stage alongside HomeCourt , a seriously cool basketball analysis app. HomeCourt can already recognize the lines of a basketball court and, using computer vision, track the shots you take and the ones you make. But right now it doesn’t do that in real-time. In the future, using the new A12 Bionic chip and Apple’s machine learning framework, it’s supposed to be able to do that. The app wasn't available to beta test during my review period, but we can expect more apps like it to roll out very soon. In the meantime, though, the processing power of the new A12 manifests itself in other ways. Unlocking the phone with FaceID seems slightly faster. App switching feels faster. And then there are the photos. 1 / 4 Let’s say you’re not into real-time basketball analysis or cool augmented reality apps or mobile games. You probably still care a lot about your smartphone’s camera. And this new processor, along with a larger camera sensor, mean both the iPhone XS and XS Max have a better camera than the one in last year’s high-end phone. At a glance, the cameras in the iPhone XS and XS Max cameras appear to be the same as the ones in the iPhone X. Two 12-megapixel rear cameras. One 7-megapixel front-facing “TrueDepth” camera. 4K video at 60 frames per second. 1080p slow motion video at 240 fps. All the same. 1 / 5 Apple iPhone XS and XS Max Rating: 8/10 $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Apple says what’s new is that this larger camera sensor equates to larger pixels. The camera is supposed to do a better job of adjusting its exposure to capture more information in each image. Last year’s iPhones already automatically captured high dynamic range images. This year it does it again, but better, grabbing more highlight data, and on more of your photos. I captured a series of images on the new iPhones, last year’s iPhone X, last year’s iPhone 8 Plus, Google’s Pixel 2 XL , and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9 , and compared them all. (iPhone 8 Plus photos weren’t included in all of galleries here, due to a lack of consistency in which phones I used to shoot certain scenes.) Each smartphone camera has its own distinct personality: Samsung’s photos tend to be warm, saturated, and softened, while Google’s Pixel tends to capture crisp images, with cool, almost muted colors. 1 / 4 The photos I captured on the new iPhone XS and XS Max are undoubtedly better than the ones I took on the iPhone 8 Plus, and slightly improved from the iPhone X photos. The new phones performed well in low light, capturing even background imagery in more detail. In some ways the photos from the new iPhone remind me of Samsung’s photos now. Faces look smoother in both selfies and portraits, and the colors look richer in pictures of food, skylines, and natural landscapes. The new iPhones also let you adjust the depth of a Portrait photo after the photo has been captured. This isn’t a new idea—Samsung has offered this in its flagship phones since it launched the Galaxy Note 8 last year. In Samsung cameras, it works by capturing one wide-angle and one telephoto image from the dual-lens camera and merging them together, using one image for the focal point and one for the blur effect. Sometimes the background blur looks too dramatic, and imprecise. Other times it works fine. Apple iPhone XS and XS Max Rating: 8/10 $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Apple’s method sounds similar, but works differently. The iPhone uses images from the two cameras—the wide-angle lens and the telephoto lens—to create a depth map. Then, the bokeh effect is simulated digitally. As you flick the slider through the aperture stops, background objects are blurred proportionally to how close they are to the main subject. Overall, Portrait photos taken on the new iPhones looked a lot better than older iPhone Portrait photos—with or without the depth effect. In nighttime photos I took of my colleague Pia, the new iPhone depth-adjusted photos were better able to capture the car lights and city signs flashing behind her, and generally looked better than Samsung’s blurred photos. Still, it’s not comparable to the bokeh effect you’d get on a DSLR with a fast lens. There are obvious differences between last year’s iPhones and this year’s iPhones, like the new processor and the giant display on the Max. But there are subtle differences too. It’s that subtlety that makes it hard to conjure up strong feelings around the new phones. It is an “S” year for iPhones, after all. But in this case, it’s impressive incrementalism: There’s a noticeably faster chip, and a camera that captures a greater level of detail that you can actually see. Apple has nudged innovation in smartphones forward again, even if some of the results (like new apps that will use the new tech) have yet to be experienced. I still think you shouldn’t feel like you have to upgrade if you invested in last year’s phones—or even if you have a slightly older phone, like an iPhone 7. Is there a palpable difference between these models and your one- or two-year old phone? Yes, absolutely. But that doesn’t mean your older phone is bad. That’s the thing about high-end smartphones, these mini-computers in our pockets: even last year’s models are still pretty darn amazing. Update, September 19, 5 PM EDT: The video in this review misstated the water rating for the iPhone XS and XS Max. While the IP68 standard states that devices must be waterproof to more than 1 meter, Apple's new phones are waterproof up to 2 meters for up to 30 minutes. Apple iPhone XS and XS Max Rating: 8/10 $900 at Best Buy If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED $900 at Best Buy Senior Writer X Topics apple iPhone smartphones Michael Calore David Pierce Michael Calore Adrienne So Michael Calore Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The coming of the eSIM | VentureBeat"

"https://venturebeat.com/2015/10/25/the-coming-of-the-esim"

"Artificial Intelligence View All AI, ML and Deep Learning Auto ML Data Labelling Synthetic Data Conversational AI NLP Text-to-Speech Security View All Data Security and Privacy Network Security and Privacy Software Security Computer Hardware Security Cloud and Data Storage Security Data Infrastructure View All Data Science Data Management Data Storage and Cloud Big Data and Analytics Data Networks Automation View All Industrial Automation Business Process Automation Development Automation Robotic Process Automation Test Automation Enterprise Analytics View All Business Intelligence Disaster Recovery Business Continuity Statistical Analysis Predictive Analysis More Data Decision Makers Virtual Communication Team Collaboration UCaaS Virtual Reality Collaboration Virtual Employee Experience Programming & Development Product Development Application Development Test Management Development Languages Guest The coming of the eSIM Share on Facebook Share on X Share on LinkedIn Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the brightest minds of the gaming industry? Consider getting a custom GamesBeat sponsorship. Learn more. The concept of the “embedded SIM,” “eSIM” or “Virtual SIM” card for mobile devices has been around for a few years now, but it is still new, since even the terminology is not yet well defined. Apple filed the initial patent for its version, the “Virtual SIM” or “Apple SIM,” back in 2011 and has been building on the design ever since. The idea behind an eSIM is that it is embedded as a chip within the device hardware rather than being a removable card. This allows users to avoid locking themselves into a plan with a single operator, or to switch operators without having to unlock or buy a new device. The long-term idea is to create an industry standard eSIM, which will bring added convenience, cost-savings, and security to consumers and organizations using mobile devices. The reality of the eSIM is coming closer with Apple and Samsung reportedly partnering up with the GSMA , the industry association that represents mobile operators worldwide, along with select international networks, to bring the eSIM to life. Apple made the first move to bring the eSIM to market late last year when it began releasing iPads with its own multi-carrier capable “Apple SIM” cards built in, which leveraged existing cell infrastructure around the world to provide access to a wireless network server. It also just began providing the option to buy its iPhone 6s and 6s Plus models SIM free and unlocked, indicating that the industry could be coming closer to a standard, multi-carrier SIM card. While it is likely to face opposition from some network providers, the truth is that manufacturers are quickly becoming the ones with more bargaining power in the market, since consumers no longer need to buy their phones straight from the carriers. Consumers are tired of being locked into contracts, and hardware manufacturers are tired of facing market barriers that restrict them from deploying their hardware on a global scale. Until now, SIM cards couldn’t be implemented everywhere in the world if strict carrier specifications were not met. This is adding fuel to the fire to make the eSIM a reality and bring to life its benefits including: Convenience: Phones will get thinner and lighter since there is no longer a need for a physical card. Additionally, consumers will easily be able to switch between carriers as they please based on cost and other advantages. Moreover, having more than one phone number will be more convenient to manage, since all the user will need to do is register the numbers to their device and switch back and forth. For organizations, this will also eliminate the need to purchase additional devices. Cost-Savings: Old pricing methods will no longer work and long-term contracts, which are already starting to disappear, will hold even less weight as consumers will more easily be able to shop around and switch providers. There is also talk of developing the software to automatically choose a network for the user according to how fast and cheap it is. Travel: Consumers will no longer have to deal with the hassle of picking a local SIM whenever they go to a new country, and the eSIM could provide a much simpler, one-click, activation process. Roaming charges could also be avoided by an eSIM detecting that the user is in another country and automatically switching networks. This would also make it easier on organizations whose employees spend a lot of time traveling internationally and would save time and expense. Security: Since the SIM cards will no longer be physical, there is no longer the threat of thieves jail-breaking lost or stolen phones. For organizations, the eSIM card will also contain security information, such as private key information, which could be used in authenticating user equipment to a cellular network, and will make it easier to locate lost or stolen devices through Data Loss Prevention and Mobile Device Management solutions. It will also lead to more secure devices by containing an IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity), being PIN protected, and featuring a security authentication process for the mobile network. An additional benefit for consumers and enterprises is that network providers will be forced to step up their game in several areas. While the security benefits will definitely make customers and IT admins happier, it will also mean plenty of work carriers. Since consumers will get to easily switch between carriers, the carriers will have to strive to offer constant real-time protection and privacy. Carriers will also need to work out an efficient solution when it comes to provisioning services. The process is already too cumbersome as it is, and carriers will feel even more pressure once the eSIM is out. With all the added benefits the eSIM will provide, we should be seeing a version of the technology hit the market in the near future. Since Apple was the first to file a patent, it will likely strike first, possibly even as soon as 2016 in some countries with the release of the iPhone 7. From there many other manufacturers will likely follow suit. According to research firm Smart Insights , 346 to 864 million handsets with an eSIM will be shipped yearly by 2020, and the traditional SIM card industry will see at least 16 percent of its shipments disappear by the end of the decade, meaning adoption over the next few years is imminent. Roman Foeckl is CEO and founder of CoSoSys. VentureBeat's mission is to be a digital town square for technical decision-makers to gain knowledge about transformative enterprise technology and transact. Discover our Briefings. VentureBeat Homepage Follow us on Facebook Follow us on X Follow us on LinkedIn Follow us on RSS Press Releases Contact Us Advertise Share a News Tip Contribute to DataDecisionMakers Careers Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information © 2023 VentureBeat. All rights reserved. "

"WIRED and CBS Sports Double TV Giveaway Official Sweepstakes Rules | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/about/wired-and-cbs-sports-double-tv-giveaway-official-sweepstakes-rules"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons WIRED and CBS Sports Double TV Giveaway - Official Sweepstakes Rules Administrator & Sponsor CBS Interactive Inc. (" CBSI "), 680 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94103. Sponsor: Condé Nast (“ Wired ”) at One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. Prize Provider: TCL North America (“ TCL North America ”), 1860 Compton Ave., Corona, CA 92881 Sweepstakes Entities: CBSI, Wired, TCL North America and Sideqik, 590 Means St NW #260, Atlanta, GA 30318 (the sweepstakes platform provider). THIS SWEEPSTAKES IS NOT SPONSORED, ENDORSED, RESPONSIBLE OR ADMINISTERED BY FACEBOOK, X (AKA TWITTER), INSTAGRAM, APPLE, TIKTOK OR YOUTUBE. 1. Acceptance of Rules. By entering the " WIRED and CBS Sports Double TV Giveaway " (the " Sweepstakes ") operated on cbssports.com, (the " CBSI Service "), you hereby accept and agree to these official rules (the " Official Rules ") of this Sweepstakes and the decisions of the Administrator in connection with this Sweepstakes, whose decisions are final. No purchase, entry fee or use of a wireless device is necessary to enter or win. If you are a wireless service subscriber and have a smartphone, tablet or other wireless device that allows you access to the Internet, you may also enter this Sweepstakes via any of those devices during the Promotion Period (as defined below). If you chose to access this Sweepstakes via any of those wireless devices, you may be charged data rates in accordance to the Terms and Conditions of the Service Agreement with your carrier. 2. Eligibility. This Sweepstakes is offered and open to persons who are: (a) legal residents of the United States, excludes residents of P.R. and all the Territories and Possessions of the U.S.; (b) at least 18 years old or age of majority, whichever is older in their state of residence, at the date of entry in this Sweepstakes. Employees, directors, and immediate family members of the Sweepstakes Entities and their parents, affiliated and subsidiary companies, advertising and promotion agencies and legal and financial advisors are not eligible to participate in this Sweepstakes. For purpose of the foregoing, " immediate family " means parents, spouses, children, siblings or any members of the same households of such employees and directors. This Sweepstakes is void where prohibited by law. 3. Entering the Sweepstakes: To receive an entry into the Sweepstakes, users need to: (i) access, during the Promotion Period, the Sweepstakes application found on the CBSI Service, accessible at https://www.cbssports.com/promotions/double-tv-giveaway/ or the Wired.com service found at https://www.wired.com/story/tcl-q-series-giveaway-2023 [1] ( ii) sign up for the Sweepstakes by providing name, email address state where you reside and your date of birth; (iii) become a Registered User; (iv) agree to these Official Rules; and (v) hit the "Submit" button. For purposes of these Official Rules, " Registered User " means a person who successfully completes the Sweepstakes entry form on the CBSI Service, including becoming a registered user of the CBSSports.com website and accepting receipt of the: (a) CBS Sports newsletter(s) and the (b) Contest newsletter. There is no cost to register to the CBSSports.com website and/or to receive such newsletter(s), and participants can unsubscribe from receiving the newsletter(s) at any time. NOTE: For purposes of clarity, entries are being collected by CBSSports.com and is subject to the Paramount Privacy Policy. Participants may receive additional entries into the Sweepstakes by performing any or all of the following thirteen (13) different action(s): a) Acquire 4 additional entries by downloading the CBS Sports App at https://cbs-sports.app.link/1AJjcK2Z b) Acquire 2 additional entries by subscribing to CBS Sports on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/cbssports c) Acquire 1 additional entry by following CBS Sports on Instagram at https://www.instagram/cbssports d) Acquire 1 additional entry by following CBS Sports on X (AKA Twitter) https://twitter.com/cbssports e) Acquire 1 additional entry by following CBS Sports on Tik Tok at https://www.tiktok.com/@cbssports f) Acquire 4 additional entry by visiting WIRED's Amazon Storefront at https://amzn.to/3FoMfVP g) Acquire 4 additional entries by visiting to WIRED's Buying Guides at https://www.wired.com/category/gear/buying-guides/?utm_campaign=tclgiveaway h) Acquire 1 additional entry by “Liking” WIRED on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wired i) Acquire 1 additional entry by following WIRED on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/wired/ j) Acquire 1 additional entry by following WIRED on X aka Twitter at https://twitter.com/WIRED k) Acquire 2 additional by subscribing to WIRED's Gift Guide newsletter at https://www.wired.com/newsletter/gift-guide?sourceCode=SweepstakesTCL l) Acquire 4 additional entries by subscribing to WIRED’s Deals newsletter at https://www.wired.com/newsletter/deals?sourceCode=SweepstakesTCL m) Acquire 4 additional entries by subscribing to WIRED Daily newsletter at https://www.wired.com/newsletter/daily?sourceCode=SweepstakesTCL Limit of thirty-one (31) entries per person during the Promotion Period. 4.. Promotion Period. The Sweepstakes begins at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time (“ ET ”) on November 13, 2023 and ends at 11:59 p.m. ET on December 15, 2023. 5. Prizes. The Sweepstakes will award two (2) grand prizes (the " Prizes "). Each Prize consists of one (1) TCL 65-inch Q CLASS 4K QLED HDR SMART TV WITH GOOGLE TV. The approximate retail value (“ ARV ”) of each Prize is Six Hundred Ninety-Nine Dollars (US$699.00). Total ARV of all Prizes to be awarded in this promotion is One Thousand Three Hundred Ninety-Eight Dollars (US$1,398.00). 6. Prize Restrictions, Prize(s) is nontransferable. All income and other taxes are the sole responsibility of the Winner (as defined below). No assignment, transfer, conversion to cash or cash redemption or substitution of any Prize or any portion of the Prize is permitted, except Sponsor reserves the right to substitute a Prize or any of its components with a prize of comparable or greater value should the Prize or any of its components become unavailable or for any other reason needs to be exchanged. Prize(s) is solely for personal use and may not be used in conjunction with any other promotion. All Prize details are at the sole discretion of the Sweepstakes Entities. 7. Odds/Drawings/Winner Notification. Odds of winning a Prize depends on the number of eligible entries received during the Promotion Period. On or about December 18, 2023, the Prize drawings will be conducted at random by Administrator, whose decisions are final and binding in all respects. The potential winners (the " Winner(s) ") will be notified by email. 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Administrator, in its sole discretion, may disqualify any entrant from participation in or use of any or all portions of this Sweepstakes, and refuse to award a Prize, if the Winner engages in any conduct Administrator deems to be improper, unfair or otherwise adverse to the operation of the Sweepstakes or detrimental to other entrants of the Sweepstakes. Such improper conduct includes, without limitation, falsifying personal information required during entrant registration or Prize claim, violating any term or condition stated herein, accumulating entries through methods such as automated computer scripts or any other programming techniques, allowing others to use entrant's personal information for the purpose of accumulating entries, or intentionally trying to defraud, reverse engineer, disassemble or otherwise tamper with the computer programs in connection with this Sweepstakes. 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"Watch How A.I. Is Changing Hollywood | Currents | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/video/watch/wired-news-and-science-how-ai-is-changing-hollywood"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons How A.I. Is Changing Hollywood About Released on 05/17/2022 [Narrator] Behind some of the coolest premium effects in Hollywood content is the invisible aid of AI. Artificial intelligence. It is just blowing the doors wide open on opportunities for new ways to tell stories. This is a good technology to hang our hat on because it is getting so much better every single year. [Narrator] Machine learning is being baked into workflows helping create previously unimaginable moments from big blockbusters to non-fiction TV. I think where AI really is impactful is getting it to do things that human beings can't do. [Narrator] Including raising the dead? As if you know, you had Andy Warhol standing in the studio right in front of you, and you looked at him and said, I want you to say it like this. [AI Voice] I wasn't very close to anyone although I guess I wanted to be. [Narrator] Let's examine a few specific use cases of how AI is changing Hollywood's creative workflow. [gentle music] The entertainment industry was spawned by new technology. So it makes sense that from talkies to television to digital video, Hollywood has a history of leveraging new tech, especially in the world of visual effects. When I saw Jurassic Park that was the moment that I realized that computer graphics would change the face of storytelling forever. In the last 25 years that I've been working in film we've been conquering various challenges doing digital water for the first time in Titanic, doing digital faces for the first time in a movie like Benjamin Button. [Narrator] And now the state of the art is machine learning AI applications, like the kind Matt's company Mars develops in house. You can throw it, you know, infinite amount of data and it will find the patterns in that data naturally. [Narrator] Thanks to thirsty streaming services, Hollywood is scrambling to feed demand for premium content rich in visual effects. Budgets time are not growing in a way that corresponds to to those rising quality expectations. It's outpacing the number of artists that are available to do the work. [Narrator] And that's where AI comes in. Tackling time consuming, uncreative tasks like de-noising, rotoscoping, and motion capture tracking removal. This was our first time ever trying AI in a production. We had a lot of footage just by virtue of being on the project and doing 400 shots for Marvel. When we received the footage, which we call the plates, in order to manipulate Paul Bettany's face there needed to be tracking markers during principal photography. We looked at it. We said, Okay, well, removing tracking markers is going to take roughly one day per shot. In order to replace or partially replace Vision's head for each shot, and a shot is typically defined as about five seconds of footage. The tracking marker removal itself was about a 10th of that. So on a 10 day shot, one day was simply removing tracking markers. We developed a neural net where we are able to identify the dots on the face where the artificial intelligence averaged out the skin texture around the dot, removed the dot, and then infilled with the average of the texture surrounding it. Now Marvel loved it because it's sped up production. They saved money. It's exactly what we wanted these solutions to do. Where the solution was faltering was whenever there was motion blur. When Paul Bettany moves his head very quickly to the right or to the left, there's moments where those dots will reappear partially because in the dataset itself we didn't have enough motion blur data. Another example would be whenever the character turned his head where his eyes were out of the screen you would see those dots reappear as well. And the AI recognition, it's using the eyes as a kind of a crucial landmark to identify the face. And so if I turn my head this way and you can't see my eyes well, the AI can't identify that as a face. Again, you can fix those things with more data, the more data you feed these things, typically the better, right? [gentle music] [Narrator] There wasn't a lot of clean data available on our next AI use case. The star of the film had been dead for 25 years. Yet the director wanted more than 30 pages of dialogue read by iconic artists, Andy Warhol himself. So what do you do? You could hire like a voice actor to do like a great impersonation but we found with his voice you kind of wanted to retain that humanness that Andy had himself. You can get fairly close with the voice actor but you really can't get it. And that's where AI technology really helps. Generative audio is the ability for a artificial agent to be able to reproduce a particular voice but also reproduce the style, the delivery, the tone of of a real human being and do it in real time. [AI Voice] Welcome to Resemble a generative audio engine. When the team initially reached out to us they proposed what they were going to do. We asked them like, okay, well what kind of data are we working with? And they sent us these audio files like recordings over a telephone. They're all from the late seventies, mid seventies. The thing about machine learning is that bad data hurts a lot more than good data. So I remember looking at the data we had available and thinking this is gonna be really, really difficult to get right with three minutes of data. We're being asked to produce six episodes worth of content with three minutes of his voice. So with three minutes, he hasn't said every word that's out there. So we're able to extrapolate to other phonetics and to other words, and our algorithm is able to figure out how Andy would say those words. That's where neural networks are really powerful. They basically take that speech data and they break it down and they understand hundreds and thousands of different features from it. Once we have that voice that sounds like Andy from those three minutes of data then it's all about delivery. It's all about performance. [AI Voice] I went down to the office because they're making a robot of me. And Andy's voice, it's highly irregular. And that's where the idea of style transfer really came in. So style transfer is this ability for our algorithm to take input as voice and someone else's speech. [Voice Actor] I wasn't very close to anyone although I guess I wanted to be. But we're able to say that line. And then our algorithms are able to extract certain features out of that delivery and apply it to Andy's synthetic or target voice. The first one was like automatic generated. No, touch ups. [AI Voice] I wasn't very close to anyone. Although I guess I wanted to be. The second one was like touch up by adding a pause. [AI Voice] I wasn't very close to anyone, although I guess I wanted to be. And then the third one was basically adding the final touch where it's like, okay, you know what? I really want to place an emphasis on this particular syllable. So yeah, let's get a voice actor to do that part to actually place that emphasis on the right words and the right syllable. And then the third output has those features extracted from that voiceover actor and to Andy's voice. [AI Voice] I wasn't very close to anyone although I guess I wanted to be. You have definitely heard AI voices being used in the past for touch ups for a line here or there. This is probably the first major project that's using it so extensively. Most VFX is still a very manual process. Characters can be extremely challenging, creatures, things like fur hair. Those things can be extremely challenging and time consuming. [Narrator] One notable example of where the technology is headed are the scenes involving advanced 3D VFX in Avengers: Endgame. Josh Brolin plays Thanos. We capture tons and tons of data in this laboratory setting with Josh. And then we use that data to train neural networks inside of a computer to learn how Josh's face moves. They'll say lines, they'll look left, they'll look right. They'll go through silly expressions. And we capture an immense amount of detail in that laboratory setting. Then they can go to a movie set and act like they normally would act. They don't have to wear any special equipment. Sometimes they wear a head camera but it's really lightweight stuff, very unobtrusive and allows the actors to act like they're in a normal movie. Then later when the animators go to animate the digital character, they kind of tell the computer what expression the actor wants to be in. And the computer takes what it knows based on this really dense set of data and uses it to plus up, to enhance what the visual effects animator has done and make it look completely real. [gentle music] So there will come a time in the future. Maybe it's 10 years, maybe it's 15 years, but you will see networks that are going to be able to do really creative stuff. Again, that's not to suggest that you remove talented artists from the equation, but I mean, that's the bet that we're taking as a business. Is AI gonna take over my job? What I see happening right now is actually quite the opposite is that it is creating new opportunities for us to spend the time on doing things that are creatively meaningful. Rather than spending lots of time doing menial tasks, we're actually able to focus on the creative things and we have more time for iteration. We can experiment more creatively to find the best looking result. I think that the more that AI can do the menial stuff for us, the more we're gonna find ourselves being creatively fulfilled. Again, the argument for us is like really creating content that isn't humanly possible. So, you know, we're not interested in like creating an ad spot that your real voice actor would do because in all honesty, that real voice actor would do way better than the AI technology would do. It would be way faster if you're just delivering a particular sentence or a particular line. The technology to do deep fakes is so prevalent. You can get apps on your phone now that pretty much can do a rudimentary deep fake. It's gonna be interesting in the future. Are we gonna have to put limits on this technology? How do we really verify what's authentic and what isn't? There are sort of social repercussions for it as well that I think that we don't quite understand yet. I absolutely believe that this technology could be misused. Our number one priority is to make everyone feel comfortable with what we're doing. I think it comes down to educating the general population eventually and making them understand that they should think through whatever they are looking at wherever they're reading and now whatever they're hearing. We feel we're directionally correct in our bet that this is a good technology to hang our hat on because it is getting so much better every single year. And we don't wanna miss what we see as like a once in a lifetime opportunity here. 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"Welcome to Apple’s Dynamic Island | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/gadget-lab-podcast-565"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter WIRED Staff Gear Welcome to Apple’s Dynamic Island Photograph: Apple Save this story Save Save this story Save At a splashy media event this week, Apple announced four configurations of the new iPhone 14, as well as some new Apple Watches and an update to the wireless AirPod Pro. Many of the changes were iterative—some tweaks to phone design here, a new software feature there—but the biggest surprise was the new Apple Watch Ultra, a big, rugged, and expensive version of the wearable that’s aimed at adventurous types like climbers, distance runners, and scuba divers. This week on Gadget Lab, we dig into everything Apple announced this week, including new iPhones 14, AirPods, and that new Apple Watch Ultra. Photograph: Julian Chokkattu Check out our roundup of everything Apple announced during Wednesday’s event. Read Adrienne So on the Apple Watch Ultra competing with Garmin and other premium smartwatch brands. Matt Burgess digs into passkeys replacing passwords in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Watch the event and see our live coverage in our Apple event liveblog. Follow WIRED’s coverage of all the Apple news. Julian recommends portable monitors like those from Espresso , Innocn , or the ones we tested for our Work From Home buying guide. Mike recommends maybe doing the planet a solid by not buying a new iPhone this year unless you absolutely need to upgrade. Julian Chokkattu can be found on Twitter @ julianchokkattu. Michael Calore is @ snackfight. Lauren Goode is @ LaurenGoode and will be back next week. Bling the main hotline at @ GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@ booneashworth ). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed. Michael Calore : Hey everybody, this is Mike. Lauren is out this week, but we've got a special guest and we're going to be talking all about Apple, so stick around. [Gadget Lab intro theme music plays] Michael Calore : Hi everyone, welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Michael Calore, I'm a senior editor at WIRED. Lauren Good is out reporting this week, but I am pleased to say that I am joined here in the room by WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu. Julian, hello. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Julian Chokkattu : Hello, it is very nice to be here face to face. Michael Calore : Sharing the same air. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Michael Calore : Well, it's great to have you here, and here in California, it is quite warm. Julian Chokkattu : Yes, I came perfectly during a heat wave. I love it. Michael Calore : So we are recording this on Wednesday, the afternoon of September 7th. Just a few hours ago Apple announced its new iPhone lineup, just like it does every September. Apple also announced a new rugged Apple Watch called the Ultra, along with the regular Apple watches that we were expecting. Julian, I want to get right into it because you were there in person at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, but it was 97 degrees in Cupertino today, is that right? Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Well, it was going up to there. Thankfully, the Steve Jobs Theater is quite cool. It's underground, so thankfully it was not too hot. But yeah, the event was pretty much exactly like the event back in 2019, it felt the same, prepandemic. We had to send in a Covid test the day before and upload that, and some company certified that. But no one had to wear a mask, it was all optional. Some people did, but obviously I would say 90 percent of people did not wear masks. And you know, it was sitting next to a hundred other people in the theater and watching Tim Cook take this stage—but this is where things differed—instead of an actual live event, like what maybe a lot of people thought might be happening, finally, it was all prerecorded. So Tim Cook physically did come on stage for the first minute, and then he cued the screen, and just like WWDC, we were all in the theater watching a movie, basically. It was— Michael Calore : A big infomercial. A big, 90-minute— Julian Chokkattu : Pretty much. A little weird. I mean, I know that it was popular, but I also feel like it would've been great, if I flew in here, that there was going to be an actual normal, typical Apple event. But I don't know if that's ever going to come back at this point. It seems like they are very happy with how prerecording tapes go, and I guess it's way less work for their part in terms of rehearsals or anything like that. So it seems like prerecorded Apple events are going to be the future. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : And it is kind of creepy to watch those prerecorded videos because all of the narration is voiceover, and they’re zooming in on people standing in the middle of the mountains or people on busy subway trains and their voice sounds absolutely perfect and the lip syncing is eerily perfect. Everything about it is so clean, it really makes me miss the sort of unexpected factor that comes with a live event. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah. There are no awkward gaffs, there are no weird mistakes or anything like that. It’s so clean, so perfect, very automated. I guess that is what Apple has kind of been known for, and I guess that’s kind of good for them, but, yeah, no, it’s definitely not as fun as physically seeing people show up on stage and seeing what they have to say. Michael Calore : We should talk about the iPhones first, because we were all expecting the Apple Watch Ultra to really steal the show today, but the iPhone 14 Pro had some great features that were also pretty impressive. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. So the biggest crazy feature on the iPhone 14 Pro is that the notch, the infamous iPhone notch, which started with the iPhone 10, is finally gone. Now, like most Android phones, I will have to say, there is a hole punch cutout or a little pill-shaped thing that sits at the top center of the display, and that's where the face ID camera is housed. Basically it's a lot slimmer, it takes up so much less space on the iPhone compared to a notch, but Apple is doing some unique things with it. It's called the Dynamic Island—that is what it was called, yes. It's confusing for me because I have a coffee shop next to my apartment back in Brooklyn called Trash Island, and that's all I think about when I hear Dynamic Island. Michael Calore : I think about Fantasy Island. Julian Chokkattu : Sure, yeah. It’s just a strange name. But I guess they’re not wrong, it is an island in a sea of a display—there is a camera there. But what they're doing is, they are optimizing the area around the camera to make it more useful when you’re doing passive things. So for example, if you start playing some music, now you’ll see “Now Playing” album art—with the squiggly line for the music that’s going through—show up right on that little pill. And let’s say, if you started a timer at the same time, now you’ll see a little second circle showing up next to the pill that shows the timer. So that way, in any app that you’re in, you can quickly see that information. Also the same thing for, if you get a phone call and you go away from the phone call screen—you can basically press and hold that little Dynamic Island area and it will expand to show you more call controls and things like that. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Honestly, I think it's a smart idea. It looks amazing and it feels very fluid, way better than a notch that kind of used to just take up a lot of space for not much of a reason other than Face ID, but it was kind of dead space. But now they've kind of taken that around and made it very useful. So I really liked that. And also with the iPhone 14 Pro, similarly with the display, it’s now an always-on display, which I will say Android phones have had for a long time, but it's nice to not have to, I guess, tap your phone and see the notifications or the time, and you can always see it. And of course, if you don't want that, then you can turn it off or not have it turned on. Michael Calore : Earlier today when we were watching the presentation in the office and reporting on it, somebody in the office asked me, "What does always-on display mean?" And I pulled out my Pixel to show them. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Yeah, it has been a long time. And it's one of those things that you're just like, that's a weird headline feature for 2022, but cool, awesome to see Apple finally get on board with it. Michael Calore : I really do think that the Dynamic Island is something that's going to move the needle across all different phones. I think you'll see more phones doing that now, because it's very creative thinking. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Michael Calore : Like you said, taking this area of the screen that has just been a dead zone and turning it into something that's actually kind of fun and interesting and useful. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah. I mean the most we've seen on the Android side is some companies have a little light that goes around the little cutout so that you can indicate it when you're taking a video selfie or taking a photo—it sort of just lights up that circle so that you know where to look basically. But no one has ever done something like this where it's actually way more than that and adding a lot more utilities, so really cool. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : It also stands, I think, in pretty stark contrast to a lot of the things that other phone manufacturers have been doing around notifications, like putting notifications on the back of the phone, making LEDs light up around the outside of the phone. Julian Chokkattu : Right, yeah. No, I mean, I think this is definitely one of the best iterations and versions of that that we've seen. And yeah, I'm waiting for someone else to start copying that and doing the same exact thing on the Android side. Michael Calore : Well, when's the next Samsung event? Julian Chokkattu : Four months. Michael Calore : Oh, did I just say that out loud? So I do want to talk about the cameras, especially on the Pro, because one of the things that Apple claimed for the iPhone 14 Pro is that its camera now has a crazy big sensor that enables it to have twice the performance for low light photos, and a lot of other stats that they named about what's improved. But the low light photos were the thing that really jumped out at me. Julian Chokkattu : Right. I mean, that is something that I will have to take some time to unpack because they basically called it a “photonic engine.” I have zero clue what that means. I believe it’s just a restructuring of how they do image processing, and they’re saying, two times better low light performance for all the cameras. And in general, with the hardware and software combined, you can expect much better, brighter, sharper photos. But with the iPhone 14 Pro, for the first time ever, the primary camera is no longer a 12-megapixel sensor. So, for the first time, now it's a 48-megapixel sensor, which again, I will say that a lot of Android phones have multi-megapixel cameras. Having more megapixels doesn't always mean that you're going to get a better photo, but it's Apple, and I would assume that they've leveraged the bigger sensor, the more megapixels to deliver nicer, sharper images. They are doing what all the other Android phone makers are doing, which is a feature called pixel binning. And what that means is they are merging the pixels so that they can absorb more light. And then you'll still end up with a 12-megapixel image, so your file sizes might be a little bigger, but they should be quite similar to what you've already experienced. But they did say that if you go into ProRAW mode and shoot in that mode for more control over your images, you can actually shoot in the complete 48-megapixel mode and get the super high fidelity images that you probably want. So there are options, but it's just one of those things where you really have to just sit and use it and see what it's like to see how much better it is than the predecessors. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : Right. And we should note that the phones are coming out later this month. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. So I believe you can preorder them all starting on Friday. Weirdly, all of the phones are going to be available officially on September 16th, except for the iPhone 14 Plus, which is another thing that maybe we should quickly mention, is that, yeah, there's no iPhone 14 Mini, there is just an iPhone 14 Plus. And I assume that's because the iPhone 13 Mini and the iPhone 12 Mini were just not popular and people want big screens. So now there's an iPhone 14 Plus and it's 6.7 inches, just like the iPhone 14 Pro Max. It's all very confusing now, there are just way too many different names. But that one is going to be available on October 7th. So it's coming a little later—I assume there are some supply chain constraints or something. I mean, I will say though, that the iPhone 14 versus the iPhone 14 Pro—there's almost very little that's new in the iPhone 14. So if you were looking to upgrade from an iPhone 13, absolutely do not do that. I think it's using the same chip as last year, except with an extra graphics core or something so it's a little more powerful, but pretty much the same phone as last year's iPhone 13, I'd say, with some improvements to the camera. Yeah. Michael Calore : All right, let's take a break. And when we come back, we're going to unpack the rest of Apple's announcements. [Break] Michael Calore : All right, I think we've said about all the interesting things that there is to say about the phones. So let's talk about the watches. You got to wear the watches at the hands-on area after the event. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Michael Calore : You got to strap them onto your wrist and hold them. Look at them closely. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Michael Calore : What stood out to you? Julian Chokkattu : Well, can I start by saying that nothing about the Series 8 stood out to me? I mean, I'm sure it's going to be a great Apple Watch for most people. And everyone, if you want to upgrade to that, then go ahead. But obviously the thing we have to talk about is the Apple Watch Ultra, which was rumored to be called Apple Watch Pro, but of course we need a new name, everything’s “pro” nowadays. So Ultra is a huge watch—I believe it’s 49 millimeters. So it’s pretty big. I have larger wrists so it felt fine to me. The Alpine strap is really nice, very soft and thin, and it was almost like putting on a little shirt, it was really nice. And it didn’t feel too heavy or bulky. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft I really like the fact that the entire edge of the smartwatch is protected by the titanium case, and so there's no worry of, if you accidentally hit your wrist on a wall, that you would scratch the screen or something like that. And it's just the most rugged thing ever. It's super protective, very strong. It has super accurate GPS. It has better diving, water resistance, so you can take it to up to 40 meters, I believe. All of these features that are clearly meant for the most active people on the planet, which—unfortunately, my fear is that everyone's going to want the Apple Watch Ultra because it's just cool and different. Michael Calore : Yeah, probably. Julian Chokkattu : You absolutely should not get it though, because it's $799 and it's expensive. Obviously the killer feature here is the fact that they're claiming 36-hour battery life, and the Apple Watch generally has had poor battery life. So I think a lot of people will flock to this just to be able to have better battery life, although they did introduce a new low power mode which will increase the standard Apple Watch Series 8 battery to 36 hours while disabling certain key features, like auto workout detection. But the Apple Watch Ultra standard battery life is 36 hours, according to them. So I think a lot of people will upgrade to that for the mere fact that they can have an Apple Watch that they don't have to charge every day. Michael Calore : We should note that when the next version of watchOS comes out, that low power mode that extends the battery life will also go back to older watches, I think up to Series 4 and later—Series 5 and later is correct. Julian Chokkattu : Right, yeah. So you don't have to upgrade if you want that extra feature. Honestly, it is kind of weird that they haven't had some type of a low power mode until now, but you know. Michael Calore : Well, I mean the battery life is still a pretty big deal, I think, because 36 hours is good for an all day hike or maybe an overnight camping trip, one overnight camping trip. And even if you put the Ultra into low power mode to get 60 hours, that's still less than three days. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Julian Chokkattu : Right. And Adrienne So, our colleague, constantly talks about how Garmins can last for weeks, if not more. So yeah, they still aren't really capturing a particular type of audience that just wants a watch that can last for a long, long time, but this is a step forward. It does suck that you have to spend this much and also have to get such a huge thing to last that long, but hopefully that means next year we'll see some type of improvement that comes down to the standard Apple Watch, that maybe the battery life for that one will be two days. Michael Calore : You have to switch wrists every other day if you buy an Apple Watch Ultra so that one arm doesn't end up bigger than the other. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah, exactly. Michael Calore : I mean, it is a step forward. It's also a step in a new category, because the price of it, $799—that puts it into what the smartwatch world calls the premium smartwatch category. Apple dominates the sub-$500 smartwatch category—they own something like 36 percent of the market share there. But when you get into premium, the main brand is Garmin, because Garmin sells a lot of watches between $500 and $1,000. So Apple Watch Ultra is going to start competing for that space, and may very well dominate that space and relegate Garmin to second place there. But I think it's important to note that they're going after this category of watches that have all of these crazy capabilities, but those watches that Apple's competing against, they're not Apple watches. They don't have the nice UX, they don't run apps. Julian Chokkattu : Right. And I think that's where they're going to maybe win out at the end— better connectivity with the iPhone, more seamlessness, better user interface. All of that stuff, I think, is definitely going to contribute to a lot of people maybe not caring that their Garmin can last for a whole other week than the Apple Watch Ultra, but that it just looks nicer, it looks better, and they'll just go for that. Michael Calore : I love the bright orange. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah. No, it really does look nice. I love the sort of flat sides to it. The overall design in general looks really attractive, but it's the same price as an iPhone. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : Yeah, exactly the same price as an iPhone. Julian Chokkattu : That's just kind of nuts. Michael Calore : I mean, you know how it is, if you want it you're going to buy it, no matter who you are. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah, I know. Yes. I mean, I am happy that I will have no urge to buy it because I am nothing like Adrienne, our colleague. I'm not going on three day hikes or anything like that. Michael Calore : Or five day hikes. Julian Chokkattu : Or five day hikes. Michael Calore : Or dives in the ocean. Julian Chokkattu : Yes, I'm not scuba diving. Michael Calore : Or you don't own a boat. Julian Chokkattu : No, I just scooter around New York and that's the most I do. But I'm sure I will see tons of people in New York with an Apple Watch Ultra. Michael Calore : Absolutely. And here in the land of Allbirds, we will see a lot of them. I know that for sure. I'll see a lot of them on my daily runs, that's for sure. But no, the orange is such a great move because not only is it nice to have something that's brightly colored in the outdoors, just because when you're covered in snow or when you're underwater, it really pops. But also it's just so badass. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah, also the feature where you can switch the display to go into that red color so that it's easier visibility, all you have to do is—it only works with the Wayfinder watch face at the moment, so you have to use that, but you just scroll the crown down and it switches to that mode and everything looks—well, it's supposed to make it look easier to read in certain conditions. Michael Calore : Yeah, and it doesn't blow your night vision. So if your eyes have adjusted to the dark, looking at a red light is fine. It won't make you have to readjust. Julian Chokkattu : Yes, it looks very slick and it was very nice. Yeah, I mean, it's just a really nice watch and I wish Apple had brought some of that stuff over into the Series 8 to make that watch feel a little more distinct. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : The Series 8 does have a cool new back case that matches the color of the front, is that right? Julian Chokkattu : I have no idea. That's how little I basically—I just threw that out of my mind. The Apple Watch Ultra, I focused on that. I will say the Series 8 does have new features, like car crash detection was another big thing. That was another big theme throughout the event, car crash detection. Michael Calore : Oh god, they scared the shit out of everybody. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah, exactly. Also, I will say that the whole theme of the event was supposed to be “far out”—the invites had these celestial galaxies and stars all over. I was hoping for some type of stargazing type feature, or— Michael Calore : Astrophotography mode. Julian Chokkattu : Astrophotography mode, yeah. No, it’s just, you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere and that’s what all of Apple’s new gadgets will help you with, which, great, but I don’t think it fit the theme of “far out,” at least what I was thinking of. Michael Calore : I thought it was—after watching the presentation—I thought it was, you can go far out, you can go on these extreme adventures now. Julian Chokkattu : Right, but the whole star thing just threw me off, I don't like it. Michael Calore : We'll have to have a word with Apple marketing about all of this. All right, well, we don't have a lot of time left, but should we talk about AirPods Pro? Is there anything interesting to say about those? Julian Chokkattu : Yes and no, mostly no. It is a new chip and it sounds better in terms of active noise cancellation, that was definitely improved. It's hard to say by exactly how much without having put them side by side, but it did a pretty good job of silencing a lot of people around me when I was there. But honestly—there's six hours of listening time, is the battery life claim that they're saying. That should have been way higher in my opinion, because most earbuds these days can get up to nine, sometimes even more. So for Apple to just bump it up slightly is kind of a weird move after several years of not having an AirPods Pro. So overall I thought that was kind of a weaker update. But I mean, it's still the AirPods Pro, they're still pretty good. They're very easy to pair with and they're pretty feature-rich and nice if you have other Apple products, so I'm sure it'll sell just as well. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : Solid. You can charge it on an Apple Watch puck now, too. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. Michael Calore : Have you been able to do that, or is that— Julian Chokkattu : I believe that's new. There's also a speaker in the case now, so that if you ever lose the case it beeps very loudly. I think getting lost is just the whole theme of this event, about losing your case somewhere, losing yourself somewhere. Michael Calore : Yeah, if you're not careful, you may end up drifting all the way to Dynamic Island. Julian Chokkattu : Oh yes, god. Yeah, that's good. Michael Calore : There will be two people standing on the beach in white suits welcoming you to Dynamic Island. I just can't get over it. All right, well, let's take another break and when we come back, we'll do our recommendations. [Break] Michael Calore : All right, welcome back. Julian, you've been on the show a bunch of times, you know the routine. You're our guest, you have to give us a recommendation. Tell the people a thing that they might enjoy. Julian Chokkattu : OK. Well, I think a portable display is something that might be worthwhile, especially if you're someone who is hybrid working, if you are sometimes going into the office and sometimes working from home—which, I think, a lot of people are in that weird state right now, since a lot of companies are potentially mandating returning to the office and some of them are just not. So portable displays is basically just exactly what it sounds like. It's a monitor, but without the stand. You do get a little case sometimes to keep it propped up, or you can get your own little kickstand. And they plug with one single USB-C cable into your laptop, and voilà, you have a second screen to take with you wherever. They're quite thin usually, so it's not too hard to just stuff it next to your laptop in your backpack. And I like it because I have grown way too accustomed to having multiple screens to work with at home. And so— Michael Calore : You do have a strong screen game. Julian Chokkattu : I do. I have an ultrawide and a vertical monitor for my left, and that just gives me all the screen space I need for everything at once. And suddenly going on the road and just working off of a tiny laptop screen is just not cutting it out for me. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : Dude. Julian Chokkattu : I'm spoiled. I'm spoiled. So now I just hook up ... I mean, I look like a douche, I will say. I literally go to a coffee shop and I take out my little portal display and stick it next to my laptop. So I look like maybe someone from back in the day who would bring their whole desktop computer to a coffee shop or something like that, but it's nice. I think they're pretty lightweight, they're getting better and nicer looking and sharper. And if you are someone who just likes seeing all of your stuff in multiple different screens, and I think generally second screens exponentially increase your workflow output and just make everything easier, so I strongly recommend. I guess if you want a specific recommendation you can go to our work from home gear guide on Wired.com. I am currently using the Espresso display. I don't know why it's called Espresso, but it's one of the thinnest displays in the world, and it's very lightweight. It is pricey though, it's about $499. Michael Calore : $499. Are there cheaper ones? Julian Chokkattu : There are a lot cheaper ones. Yeah, there's—I don't know how to say the brand name, I keep forgetting—but it's Innocn, I-N-N-O-C-N. I've tried a couple of the portable displays. Michael Calore : It's like innocent with a silent T. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. And they have some very affordable displays, OLEDs even. And yeah, I mean, I think any type of screen—it doesn't have to be amazing, it just lets you put a lot of your windows into a different area and lets you multitask. Michael Calore : Nice. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah. What's your recommendation? Michael Calore : I'm going to recommend that, maybe, don't buy a new phone this year. Julian Chokkattu : That's totally valid advice. Michael Calore : Yeah. We were talking about this earlier, during the presentation. Apple always shows all these slides about how environmentally responsible they are and how they're doing their best to—they don't put chargers in the box anymore, they have minimal packaging now, they've stepped up their use of recycled materials. But every device that you have, an iPhone, or an Android phone, or a Pixel phone, or an Apple watch, or a Garmin watch—no matter what it is, it's going to be using rare earth minerals that are mined. It's going to be used in a lot of materials that cannot be and are never recycled, so you're still not doing the planet any favors by adhering to this upgrade cycle that all of the Big Tech companies are encouraging us to stick with. There are people who go out and buy a new iPhone every year. You don't need to do that. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Julian Chokkattu : No. Michael Calore : I mean, even if you're paranoid about having last year's camera, it's still like, you're not really getting as much benefit out of the new camera as you might think you are. I mean, maybe you are, I don't know, maybe you're a professional videographer or something. Julian Chokkattu : Right, but that's the outlier. Most people are just posting to Instagram. And honestly, you're probably not going to notice a difference from last year's iPhone or this year's iPhone. Michael Calore : Yeah, your camera's not going to make you hotter. Just get a ring light. But yeah, obviously you know if you need a new phone. And if you're missing out on key security features, if your phone is not supported anymore, or if you're still stuck with a phone that doesn't have a really good biometric authentication or whatever, or if your battery only lasts three hours, then yeah, get a new phone. But use your phone until you reach that point, is what I'm saying. So it's days like today where we all feel that burning desire to buy the new thing, and I'm saying, just throw a glass of water on that, think about the environment and think about how much stuff you buy in general all the time. And our recommendations are often, "Hey, buy a thing." So I'm saying, maybe take the money that you would've spent on an iPhone and buy something else that's not going to hurt the environment. Julian Chokkattu : Sure, or nothing. Michael Calore : Or nothing. Julian Chokkattu : I mean, I'm proud of our social media editor, Alicia. She still rocks an iPhone 8 Plus. Michael Calore : Oh, yes. The fingerprint sensor. Julian Chokkattu : Yes. And she was there at our event and it was working fine, flawlessly. So that is a, what, four or five year old phone? And yeah, so you definitely don't have to upgrade if your phone is working and perfectly fine right now. Michael Calore : But also Alicia might be a bad example, because she shoots TikToks for a living and she's like, "I am absolutely getting the new iPhone." Julian Chokkattu : That's true. Well, I mean, completely valid for her, she's due an upgrade. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Michael Calore : All right, so I'll say if you're on the fence and if you're one of those people who always comes up to me at parties and says, "Should I get the new iPhone?" My answer is like, "Nah, probably not." Sorry, but probably not. The one you have is probably fine, and if it's not, you know. And just buy a new one, and then use that for five years, maybe four years. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah. Yeah, I mean Apple supports their devices for a long time. Four or five years, that sounds good. Michael Calore : Yeah. Yeah. They're committed to keeping old iPhones in circulation, so honor that. Julian Chokkattu : Yeah, exactly. Good advice. Good job. Michael Calore : Thanks. And then buy a portable display. Julian Chokkattu : Whoops. Michael Calore : Well that's all the time we have. Julian, thank you for braving the beautiful California weather. Julian Chokkattu : Wonderful weather, thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Michael Calore : And for joining us. It's going to cool off as soon as you fly home, I know it. Julian Chokkattu : I know it. Yes, of course. Yeah, my partner was saying that it was 70 degrees in New York, and I'm like, "How is that possible that New York is better weather right now than San Francisco?" Michael Calore : It's called climate change, because we buy too many phones. Julian Chokkattu : I know, it's depressing. Michael Calore : Well, thank you all for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter, just check the show notes. Our producer is Boone Ashworth. We will be back next week. Until then, goodbye. 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"The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World's Most Secretive Startup | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/2016/04/magic-leap-vr"

"Hyper Vision The world’s hottest startup isn’t located in Silicon Valley—it’s in suburban Florida. KEVIN KELLY explores what Magic Leap’s mind-bending technology tells us about the future of virtual reality. Hyper Vision The world’s hottest startup isn’t located in Silicon Valley—it’s in suburban Florida. KEVIN KELLY explores what Magic Leap’s mind-bending technology tells us about the future of virtual reality. Hyper Vision The world’s hottest startup isn’t located in Silicon Valley—it’s in suburban Florida. KEVIN KELLY explores what Magic Leap’s mind-bending technology tells us about the future of virtual reality. WIRED Logo The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup Click to share this story on Facebook Click to share this story on Twitter Click to email this story Click to comment on this story. (will open new tab) Don’t call it a lens: Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz displaying his company’s mysterious photonic lightfield chip. Peter Yang for Wired T There is something special happening in a generic office park in an uninspiring suburb near Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Inside, amid the low gray cubicles, clustered desks, and empty swivel chairs, an impossible 8-inch robot drone from an alien planet hovers chest-high in front of a row of potted plants. It is steampunk-cute, minutely detailed. I can walk around it and examine it from any angle. I can squat to look at its ornate underside. Bending closer, I bring my face to within inches of it to inspect its tiny pipes and protruding armatures. I can see polishing swirls where the metallic surface was “milled.” When I raise a hand, it approaches and extends a glowing appendage to touch my fingertip. I reach out and move it around. I step back across the room to view it from afar. All the while it hums and slowly rotates above a desk. It looks as real as the lamps and computer monitors around it. It’s not. I’m seeing all this through a synthetic-reality headset. Intellectually, I know this drone is an elaborate simulation, but as far as my eyes are concerned it’s really there, in that ordinary office. It is a virtual object, but there is no evidence of pixels or digital artifacts in its three-dimensional fullness. If I reposition my head just so, I can get the virtual drone to line up in front of a bright office lamp and perceive that it is faintly transparent, but that hint does not impede the strong sense of it being present. This, of course, is one of the great promises of artificial reality—either you get teleported to magical places or magical things get teleported to you. And in this prototype headset, created by the much speculated about, ultrasecretive company called Magic Leap , this alien drone certainly does seem to be transported to this office in Florida—and its reality is stronger than I thought possible. I saw other things with these magical goggles. I saw human-sized robots walk through the actual walls of the room. I could shoot them with power blasts from a prop gun I really held in my hands. I watched miniature humans wrestle each other on a real tabletop, almost like a Star Wars holographic chess game. These tiny people were obviously not real, despite their photographic realism, but they were really present—in a way that didn’t seem to reside in my eyes alone; I almost felt their presence. Sebastian Kim for WIRED Virtual reality overlaid on the real world in this manner is called mixed reality, or MR. (The goggles are semitransparent, allowing you to see your actual surroundings.) It is more difficult to achieve than the classic fully immersive virtual reality, or VR, where all you see are synthetic images, and in many ways MR is the more powerful of the two technologies. Magic Leap is not the only company creating mixed-reality technology, but right now the quality of its virtual visions exceeds all others. Because of this lead, money is pouring into this Florida office park. Google was one of the first to invest. Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, and others followed. In the past year, executives from most major media and tech companies have made the pilgrimage to Magic Leap’s office park to experience for themselves its futuristic synthetic reality. At the beginning of this year, the company completed what may be the largest C-round of financing in history : $793.5 million. To date, investors have funneled $1.4 billion into it. That astounding sum is especially noteworthy because Magic Leap has not released a beta version of its product, not even to developers. Aside from potential investors and advisers, few people have been allowed to see the gear in action, and the combination of funding and mystery has fueled rampant curiosity. But to really understand what’s happening at Magic Leap, you need to also understand the tidal wave surging through the entire tech industry. All the major players—Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Sony, Samsung—have whole groups dedicated to artificial reality, and they’re hiring more engineers daily. Facebook alone has over 400 people working on VR. Then there are some 230 other companies, such as Meta, the Void, Atheer, Lytro, and 8i, working furiously on hardware and content for this new platform. To fully appreciate Magic Leap’s gravitational pull, you really must see this emerging industry—every virtual-reality and mixed-reality headset, every VR camera technique, all the novel VR applications, beta-version VR games, every prototype VR social world. Like I did—over the past five months. Then you will understand just how fundamental virtual reality technology will be, and why businesses like Magic Leap have an opportunity to become some of the largest companies ever created. Even if you’ve never tried virtual reality, you probably possess a vivid expectation of what it will be like. It’s the Matrix, a reality of such convincing verisimilitude that you can’t tell if it’s fake. It will be the Metaverse in Neal Stephenson’s rollicking 1992 novel, Snow Crash , an urban reality so enticing that some people never leave it. It will be the Oasis in the 2011 best-selling story Ready Player One , a vast planet-scale virtual reality that is the center of school and work. VR has been so fully imagined for so long, in fact, that it seems overdue. The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World’s Most Secretive Startup I first put my head into virtual reality in 1989. Before even the web existed, I visited an office in Northern California whose walls were covered with neoprene surfing suits embroidered with wires, large gloves festooned with electronic components, and rows of modified swimming goggles. My host, Jaron Lanier, sporting shoulder-length blond dreadlocks, handed me a black glove and placed a set of homemade goggles secured by a web of straps onto my head. The next moment I was in an entirely different place. It was an airy, cartoony block world, not unlike the Minecraft universe. There was another avatar sharing this small world (the size of a large room) with me—Lanier. We explored this magical artificial landscape together, which Lanier had created just hours before. Our gloved hands could pick up and move virtual objects. It was Lanier who named this new experience “virtual reality.” It felt unbelievably real. In that short visit I knew I had seen the future. The following year I organized the first public hands-on exhibit (called Cyberthon), which premiered two dozen experimental VR systems from the US military, universities, and Silicon Valley. For 24 hours in 1990, anyone who bought a ticket could try virtual reality. The quality of the VR experience at that time was primitive but still pretty good. All the key elements were there: head-mounted display, glove tracking, multiperson social immersion. But the arrival of mass-market VR wasn’t imminent. The gear cost many scores of thousands of dollars. Over the following decades, inventors were able to improve the quality, but they were unable to lower the cost. Twenty-five years later a most unlikely savior emerged—the smartphone! Its runaway global success drove the quality of tiny hi-res screens way up and their cost way down. Gyroscopes and motion sensors embedded in phones could be borrowed by VR displays to track head, hand, and body positions for pennies. And the processing power of a modern phone’s chip was equal to an old supercomputer, streaming movies on the tiny screen with ease. The cheap ubiquity of screens and chips allowed a teenage Palmer Luckey to gaffer-tape together his first VR headset prototypes , launching a Kickstarter campaign for the Oculus Rift in 2012. And the Rift was the starting signal that many entrepreneurs were waiting for. ( Facebook bought the company for $2 billion in 2014. ) All of today’s head-mounted VR displays are built out of this cheap phone technology. Put on almost any synthetic-reality display and you enter a world born of billions of phones. Lanier, who has contributed to Microsoft’s HoloLens MR system , estimates it would have cost more than $1 million in 1990 to achieve the results that even simple phone-inserted headsets like the Samsung Gear or Google Cardboard do today. Slide: 1 / of 1. Caption: Caption: Optical systems engineer Eric Browy looks through a photonics verification test rig in Magic Leap’s optics lab. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Related Galleries American Gods Gives ‘Faithful Adaptation’ All New Meaning Senseless Government Rules Could Cripple the Robo-Car Revolution This Drone Once Fought Wars. Now It’s Fighting Climate Change Slide: 1 / of 1 Caption: Caption: Optical systems engineer Eric Browy looks through a photonics verification test rig in Magic Leap’s optics lab. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Related Galleries American Gods Gives ‘Faithful Adaptation’ All New Meaning Senseless Government Rules Could Cripple the Robo-Car Revolution This Drone Once Fought Wars. Now It’s Fighting Climate Change 1 O O ne of the first things I learned from my recent tour of the synthetic-reality waterfront is that virtual reality is creating the next evolution of the Internet. Today the Internet is a network of information. It contains 60 trillion web pages, remembers 4 zettabytes of data, transmits millions of emails per second, all interconnected by sextillions of transistors. Our lives and work run on this internet of information. But what we are building with artificial reality is an internet of experiences. What you share in VR or MR gear is an experience. What you encounter when you open a magic window in your living room is an experience. What you join in a mixed-reality teleconference is an experience. To a remarkable degree, all these technologically enabled experiences will rapidly intersect and inform one another. The recurring discovery I made in each virtual world I entered was that although every one of these environments was fake, the experiences I had in them were genuine. VR does two important things: One, it generates an intense and convincing sense of what is generally called presence. Virtual landscapes, virtual objects, and virtual characters seem to be there—a perception that is not so much a visual illusion as a gut feeling. That’s magical. But the second thing it does is more important. The technology forces you to be present—in a way flatscreens do not—so that you gain authentic experiences, as authentic as in real life. People remember VR experiences not as a memory of something they saw but as something that happened to them. Travel experiences—terror at the edge of an erupting volcano, wonder at a walking tour of the pyramids—will be accessible to anyone with a VR rig. Experience is the new currency in VR and MR. Technologies like Magic Leap’s will enable us to generate, transmit, quantify, refine, personalize, magnify, discover, share, reshare, and overshare experiences. This shift from the creation, transmission, and consumption of information to the creation, transmission, and consumption of experience defines this new platform. As Magic Leap founder Rony Abovitz puts it, “Ours is a journey of inner space. We are building the internet of presence and experience.” We haven’t yet fully absorbed the enormous benefit that the internet of information has brought to the world. And yet we are about to recapitulate this accomplishment with the advent of synthetic realities. With a VR platform we will create a Wikipedia of experiences, potentially available to anyone, anywhere, anytime. Travel experiences—terror at the edge of an erupting volcano, wonder at a walking tour of the pyramids—once the luxury of the rich (like books in the old days), will be accessible to anyone with a VR rig. Or experiences to be shared: marching with protesters in Iran; dancing with revelers in Malawi; how about switching genders? Experiences that no humans have had: exploring Mars; living as a lobster; experiencing a close-up of your own beating heart, live. You’ve seen a lot of this in movies and on TV or read about it in books. But you haven’t experienced it, felt it below your intellect, had it lodge in your being in a way that you can call your own. Kent Bye, founder of the podcast Voices of VR , has conducted over 400 interviews with the people creating VR and has seen almost every possible prototype of VR there is. “VR talks to our subconscious mind like no other media,” he says. The most intense and complete sense of subconscious presence that I experienced occurred with a system called the Void, which debuted at the 2016 TED conference. The Void isn’t as advanced as Magic Leap technologically, but it integrates the best off-the-shelf parts available with custom gear to create an unforgettable experience. For several hours I watched a line of people enter the Void. Almost every person squealed with delight, screamed, laughed, and staggered away asking for more. I felt the same; I’d be happy to pay for an hour’s visit. The Void grew out of stage magic, a theme park, and a haunted house. Every year, Ken Bretschneider, one of the three cofounders, stages a gonzo haunted house in Utah that draws 10,000 people in two days. It occurred to him that he could amplify the interactions of his house with VR. Curtis Hickman , the second cofounder, is a professional illusionist, designed tricks for big-name magicians, and is also a visual-effects producer. The third, James Jensen, started out developing special effects for film and unique experiences for theme parks. He came up with the idea of layering VR over a physical playground. The common factor among the three was their realization that VR was a new way to trick the mind into believing something imaginary is real. Real Worlds Virtual, mixed, augmented—that’s a lot of reality. Here’s how to keep it all straight. —­Blanca Myers Virtual Reality VR places the user in another location entirely. Whether that location is ­computer-generated or captured by video, it entirely occludes the user’s natural surroundings. Augmented Reality In augmented reality—like Google Glass or the Yelp app’s Monocle feature on mobile devices—the visible natural world is overlaid with a layer of digital content. Mixed Reality In technologies like Magic Leap’s, virtual objects are integrated into—and responsive to—the natural world. A virtual ball under your desk, for example, would be blocked from view unless you bent down to look at it. In theory, MR could become VR in a dark room. The Void takes place in a large room. You wear a 12-pound vest that carries batteries, a processor board, and 22 haptic patches that vibrate and shake you at the right moments. Your headset or goggles and earphones are connected to your vest, so you’re free to roam without a cord. Untethered, you’re released from worrying about tripping over a cable or tangling or straying too far. That relief heightens the effect of being present in the VR. Inside, you navigate an Indiana Jones -like adventure that seems to take place over a large territory. The illusion of unbounded space, or, as Hickman describes it, “a magical space bigger inside than it is outside,” is achieved by a trick called redirected walking. As an example, whenever you turn 90 degrees in the room your VR will show you the room turning only 80 degrees. You don’t notice the difference, but the VR accumulates those small 10-degree cheats on each turn until it redirects your route away from a wall or even gets you to walk in a circle while making you think you’ve walked a mile in a straight line. Redirected touching does a similar trick. A room could contain one real block but display three virtual blocks on a shelf—blocks A, B, and C. You see your hand grab block B, but the VR system will direct your hand to touch the only real block in the room. You can replace block B and pick up block C, but in reality you’re picking up the same real block. It’s astounding how those tiny misdirections fool your gut into believing that what you’re seeing is real. Stairs can be made to feel endless if they drop down as you walk upward. In fact, at one point in the Void a decaying floor collapses while you’re walking across it, and you see, hear, and feel—in all your body—a plunge down to the floor below. But in fact the real floor only sinks 6 inches. You can easily imagine a room 60 by 60 feet packed with a minimal set of elemental shapes, ramps, and seats, all recycled and redirected for a variety of multihour adventures. Seeing, it turns out, is not believing. We use all our senses to gauge reality. Most of the high-end VR rigs on sale this year include dynamic binaural—that is, 3-D—audio. This is more than just stereo, which is fixed in space. To be persuasive, the apparent location of a sound needs to shift as you move your head. Deep presence includes the sensations of motion from your inner ear; if the two are out of sync with what you see, you get motion sickness. Good VR also includes touch. Jason Jerald, a professor at the Waterford Institute of Technology who wrote the book on VR (called The VR Book ), claims that much of our sense of presence in VR comes from our hands. Gloves are still not consumer-ready, so hardware makers are using simple controllers with a few easily operated buttons. When you wave them, their positions are tracked, so you can manipulate virtual objects. As primitive as these stick-hands are, they double the sense of being present. Touch, vision, and sound form the essential trinity of VR. SCROLL DOWN Andy Gilmore W W hile Magic Leap has yet to achieve the immersion of the Void, it is still, by far, the most impressive on the visual front—the best at creating the illusion that virtual objects truly exist. The founder of Magic Leap, Rony Abovitz, is the perfect misfit to invent this superpower. As a kid growing up in South Florida, he was enthralled by science fiction and robots. He gravitated toward robots as a career and got a degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Miami. While still a grad student, he started a company that built robots for surgery. Before the company got off the ground, his only income was $30 a week drawing cartoons for his college newspaper. Most people find Abovitz’s cartoons more weird than funny. They are stream-of-consciousness doodles featuring alien creatures, annotated by tiny inscriptions that include secret messages to girlfriends. They do not appear to come from the mind of an engineer. As it happens, though, good virtuality takes both fantasy and physics. Abovitz is heavyset, bespectacled, and usually smiling. He is warm and casual, at ease with himself. But he vibrates. He hums with ideas. Overflowing. One idea unleashes two more. He whips his large head around as he speaks, sweeping up more ideas. It’s hard for him to throttle their escape, to slow down how fast they issue from his brain. As in his cartoons, a discussion can leap almost anywhere. Most of his ideas seem to combine physics and biology. In his Twitter bio, Abovitz describes himself as a “friend of people, animals, and robots,” which is pretty accurate. In his conversation and his work he exhibits a rare sensitivity to both the logic of machines and the soul of biology. If you’re making robot arms that help human doctors carve into living flesh, you have to obey the laws of physics, the laws of biology, and the minds of humans. Abovitz has a knack for all three realms, and his surgery robots sold well. In 2008 his company, Mako, went public. It was sold in 2013 for $1.65 billion. Slide: 1 / of 4. Caption: Caption: Magic Leap's UX team, which creates the ways that users will interact with the mixed reality universe and experiences. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Slide: 2 / of 4. Caption: Caption: Magic Leap uses a pair of robots named Click and Clack to test and calibrate its prototype hardware. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Slide: 3 / of 4. Caption: Caption: A lobby area where Magic Leap staff often holds meetings, with some attending via telepresence bot. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Slide: 4 / of 4. Caption: Caption: Magic Leap test and metrology engineer Mikkel Green. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Related Galleries 'Palm Springs' Is 'Groundhog Day' With a Twist 'Foundation' Has One of the Best Sci-Fi Concepts Ever 'Bill & Ted Face the Music' Strikes the Perfect Note Slide: 1 / of 4 Caption: Caption: Magic Leap's UX team, which creates the ways that users will interact with the mixed reality universe and experiences. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Slide: 2 / of 4 Caption: Caption: Magic Leap uses a pair of robots named Click and Clack to test and calibrate its prototype hardware. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Slide: 3 / of 4 Caption: Caption: A lobby area where Magic Leap staff often holds meetings, with some attending via telepresence bot. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Slide: 4 / of 4 Caption: Caption: Magic Leap test and metrology engineer Mikkel Green. PETER YANG FOR WIRED Related Galleries 'Palm Springs' Is 'Groundhog Day' With a Twist 'Foundation' Has One of the Best Sci-Fi Concepts Ever 'Bill & Ted Face the Music' Strikes the Perfect Note 4 That success sparked a new idea. Could you make a virtual knee good enough to help repair a real knee? Could you augment a knee operation with an overlay of a virtual knee? Abovitz began thinking about the technology that could match virtual worlds with complex real-life surgery. At the same time he began to create a graphic novel. Abovitz has a deep love of science fiction, and he invented a whole world on another planet—flying whales, men in dragonfly gear, a young girl with a pet monkey-bat, and an invading army of robots. Flush with cash from his robotics company, he hired Weta Workshop, the New Zealand special-effects house co-owned by movie director Peter Jackson, to create a detailed realization of that world. The Weta team created all the props and practical effects for The Lord of the Rings, and they helped invent the culture of the Na’vi in Avatar. For Abovitz they designed his world, called Hour Blue, and filled in the details of flying whales and monkey-bats. It quickly mutated from graphic novel into virtual-reality precursor. Because what alien world would not be better experienced in immersive 3-D? Abovitz was already pioneering MR for doctors; this would be an extension of his ideas. The company Abovitz set up to develop this immersive world was Magic Leap. Its logo would be his totem animal, the leaping whale. The hardware to create the MR would have to be invented. By this time, 2012, the Oculus Kickstarter campaign had launched, and other prototypes with similar phone-based technology were in the works. Here Abovitz deviated off the main path. Because of his work in biomedicine, he realized that VR is the most advanced technology in the world where humans are still an integral part of the hardware. To function properly, VR and MR must use biological circuits as well as silicon chips. The sense of presence you feel in these headsets is created not by the screen but by your neurology. Tricks like redirected walking operate in our brain as much as in the Nvidia processor. Abovitz saw artificial reality as a symbiont technology, part machine, part flesh. “I realized that if you give the mind and body what they want, they’ll give you back much more,” he says. Artificial reality exploits peculiarities in our senses. It effectively hacks the human brain in dozens of ways to create what can be called a chain of persuasion. In a movie, our brains perceive real motion in a sequence of absolutely still images. In the same way, you can scan a blue whale from many angles and then render it as a 3-D volumetric image that can be displayed on a headset screen and viewed from any position. Even if we know the object isn’t real—say it’s Godzilla instead of a whale—we feel subconsciously that its presence is real. But if even one small thing is misaligned, that discrepancy can break the gut-level illusion of presence. Something as simple as having to A Gaggle of Goggles As virtual (and mixed) technology improves—and as companies start smelling profits—everyone from phone manufacturers to tech giants is getting into the game. Here’s the hardware that VR’s and MR’s biggest players are cooking up. —Chelsea Leu Availability VR MR Facebook Now In 2014, Facebook bought Oculus, the company that dreamed up the Rift headset and (literally) kick-started the VR revolution. Read more HTC Now The Taiwanese phone manufacturer teamed up with game maker Valve Software to launch a high-end headset, the HTC Vive. Read more Sony October 2016 Unlike the Rift and the Vive, Sony’s PlayStation VR is designed to work not with a PC but its own game console—which more than 36 million already own. Read more Google Now Google created Cardboard, its cheap assemble-it-yourself viewer, to bring virtual reality to the masses via their smartphones. Read more Samsung Now The Gear VR straps a Galaxy smartphone (new models only) to your head to deliver games and apps—all powered by Oculus software. Read more OSVR Dev kit available An open source platform for VR and MR launched in 2015 and backed by a consortium of companies like Intel and gaming outfit Razer. Read more Fove Fall 2016 This startup proposes to use eye tracking to sharpen what you focus on and blur everything else, cutting down on processing power. Microsoft Dev kit available The company’s HoloLens is a wireless, wearable, sensor-packed computer that aggregates its data to embed holograms in the user’s environment. Read more Meta Dev kit, fall 2016 Initially funded via Kickstarter in 2013, the startup has created a visor that projects virtual interactive displays in the wearer’s field of vision. Apple Not Available Cupertino has acquired VR-related companies and patented an iPhone-compatible headset—but hasn’t announced anything yet. Read more worry about tripping over a tethering cable can seed our unconsciousness with doubt. It might look like it’s there, but it won’t feel there. Following his hunch to exploit human biology, Abovitz set off to make an artificial-reality display in a more symbiont way. The phonelike screens used in the majority of head-mounted displays created a nagging problem: They were placed right next to your eyeballs. If the device is generating the illusion of a blue whale 100 feet away, your eyes should be focused 100 feet away. But they’re not; they’re focused on the tiny screen an inch away. Likewise, when you look at a virtual jellyfish floating 6 inches from your face, your eyes are not crossed as they would be in real life but staring straight ahead. No one is conscious of this optical mismatch, but over long use the subconscious misalignment may contribute to frequently reported discomfort and weaken the chain of persuasion. Magic Leap’s solution is an optical system that creates the illusion of depth in such a way that your eyes focus far for far things, and near for near, and will converge or diverge at the correct distances. In trying out Magic Leap’s prototype, I found that it worked amazingly well close up, within arm’s reach, which was not true of many of the other mixed- and virtual-reality systems I used. I also found that the transition back to the real world while removing the Magic Leap’s optics was effortless, as comfortable as slipping off sunglasses, which I also did not experience in other systems. It felt natural. Magic Leap’s competition is formidable. Microsoft is now selling development versions of its mixed-reality visor called the HoloLens. The technology is unique (so far) in that the entire contraption—processor, optics, and battery—is contained in the visor; it is truly untethered. Meta, another startup, has released an MR device that began, like Oculus , with a Kickstarter campaign. The headset is tethered to a computer, and dev kits should hit the market this fall—likely well before Magic Leap. Abovitz realized that VR is the most advanced technology in the world where humans are still an integral part of the hardware. All three major MR headsets rely on images that are projected edgeways onto a semitransparent material—usually glass with a coating of nanoscale ridges. The user sees the outside world through the glass, while the virtual elements are projected from a light source at the edge of the glass and then reflected into the user’s eyes by the beam-splitting nano-ridges. Magic Leap claims that its device is unique in the way it beams light into the eye, though the company declines to explain it further at this time. However Magic Leap works, its advantage is that pixels disappear. Most screen-based, head-mounted VR displays exhibit a faint “screen door” effect that comes from a visible grid of pixels. Magic Leap’s virtual images, by contrast, are smooth and incredibly realistic. But in truth, the quality of displays in all alternative-reality gear—VR and MR alike—is improving rapidly. Month by month the resolution of all visors increases, the frame rate jumps, the dynamic range deepens, and the color space widens. Within two decades, when you look into a state-of-the-art virtual-reality display, your eye will be fooled into thinking you’re looking through a real window into a real world. It’ll be as bright and crisp as what you see out your window. Once this small display perfects realism, it becomes the one display to rule them all. If a near-eye screen offers sufficient resolution, brightness, breadth, and color richness, it can display any number of virtual screens, of any size, inside it. While I was wearing the photonic spectacles of Magic Leap, I watched an HD movie on a virtual movie screen. It looked as bright and crisp as my 55-inch TV at home. With Microsoft’s HoloLens on, I watched a live football game on a virtual screen hovering next to a web browser window, alongside a few other virtual screens. I could fill my office with as many screens as I wanted, as big (or small) as I desired. I could click for a screen overlaid anywhere in the real world. One of Microsoft’s ambitions for the HoloLens is to replace all the various screens in a typical office with wearable devices. The company’s demos envision workers moving virtual screens around or clicking to be teleported to a 3-D conference room with a dozen coworkers who live in different cities. I found virtual screens and virtual media within a virtual reality surprisingly natural and practical. At Magic Leap, the development team will soon abandon desktop screens altogether in favor of virtual displays. Meron Gribetz, founder of Meta, says that its new Meta 2 mixed-reality glasses will replace monitors in his company of 100 employees within a year. It’s no great leap to imagine such glasses also replacing the small screens we all keep in our pockets. In other words, this is a technology that can simultaneously upend desktop PCs, laptops, and phones. No wonder Apple, Samsung, and everyone else is paying attention. This is what disruption on a vast scale looks like. Exclusive Footage of What It’s Like to See Through Magic Leap Peter Jackson agrees. The director strides into a bright sunny room in his film studio outside of Wellington, New Zealand. Dressed in shorts, he looks like a hobbit who has escaped the makeup department down the street. He is short and round with a bulbous nose, his head wreathed in unruly hobbit hair. His bare feet are large and hairy. Jackson says he is less than excited with making movies these days; not the content but the process. He sees artificial reality as virgin territory for telling stories and creating new worlds. Jackson serves on an advisory panel for Magic Leap, and his company will produce content for the new gear. “This mixed reality is not an extension of 3-D movies. It’s something completely different,” he says. “Once you can create the illusion of solid objects anywhere you want, you create new entertainment opportunities.” Jackson has been inspired by working with early prototypes of the Magic Leap glasses. “I find mixed reality much more exciting than VR,” he says. “Mixed reality doesn’t take you out of this world. Instead it adds elements to our real world. And it has great flexibility. You can add as little as you want—a single tiny figure on this tabletop talking to us—or you can replace the walls of this room with a skyscape so we’re sitting here watching clouds float by. If you have your Magic Leap glasses on, you can look up at the Empire State Building and watch it being built in the early 1930s, floor by floor, but sped up. Maybe while you are walking around the modern streets of Chicago you see gangsters driving past with tommy guns. It could be a form of education, entertainment, and tourism. In 10 years I expect that mixed-reality technology like Magic Leap will be used as much as, if not more than, smartphones.” Jackson is sitting in a plush chair and puts his bare feet up on the coffee table. “Most science fiction films contain some form of what Magic Leap is, whether it’s moving data around with a flick of your finger or a holographic phone call or a 3-D chess game. It’s been in our consciousness for a long time. Like flying cars. But this will probably beat flying cars.” Weta’s master skill is in making imaginary worlds believable (and thrilling) by attending to the details. Blockbuster MR and VR worlds will require the highest level of world-building. The inherent freedom of the audience to move around, to peek at the underside of things, to linger and appreciate the details, means that great effort and skill will be needed to preserve the chain of persuasion for all the things that make up that world. Related Stories Magic Leap’s Vision for Augmented Reality, in 32 Patent Illustrations By JOSEPH FLAHERTY Magic Leap Founder: Microsoft’s HoloLens Will Make You Sick By Jessi Hempel The Man Behind the Hidden World of Magic Leap By Jessi Hempel Weta is working with Magic Leap to develop a small virtual world called Dr. Grordbort’s, based on sculpted ray guns. Leading this effort is Richard Taylor, who has been building worlds, often with Jackson, for nearly 30 years. Taylor has been a sculptor all his life. His love of materials—clay, stone, wood, brass, fabrics, glass—is evident throughout his workshop, which is densely crammed with hundreds of indescribably beautiful objects. The move to virtuality is a big step for him. “I was not prepared for the emotional impact of Magic Leap,” he says. “I could not have thought I would crave to be in a world with virtual artifacts and characters. But once I got over the surprise that this really works, I’ve had to rein in my ideas.” SCROLL DOWN Andy Gilmore A A rtificial reality will need world builders like Taylor and Jackson to invent the grammar of VR and MR. It took decades for the grammar of film to evolve. Cinema techniques like the establishing shot, the dissolve, and the close-up all had to be invented and then absorbed until everyone knew what they meant. None of these techniques work very well in virtual reality. It’s already clear that the language of experiences is different from what’s come before. One example: First-person point of view is the default stance for many of the videogame franchises dominating best-seller lists. Among them is Minecraft , which is played by more than 100 million people on the screens of PCs, tablets, and phones. Inside the game you see your hand or a pick. But in the virtual-reality version of Minecraft that Microsoft is building, the experience of holding the pick and chopping the blocks is so immediate and real—even though the blocks are cartoon pixels—that the player’s own presence is greatly amplified. Their sense of being shifts inward. In tests with volunteers, Minecraft developers discovered that performing the same role in VR feels far more intimate than it does in first-person on a flatscreen. We might call this new immersive VR view the “you-person” view, because it’s the position of feeling rather than the position of observing. Researchers found that the you-person view that VR creates is so intense that it’s emotionally taxing. People need a break after an hour. Curiously, if someone stays inside VR but pulls up a virtual flat-screen version of Minecraft and continues playing in the traditional 2-D first-person view on a virtual monitor (still wearing the VR gear), they will feel more at ease. Once rested enough by playing in first-person mode, they often switch back to the fully immersive VR. Oculus’ Palmer Luckey is exuberant. He likes to bounce. He pumps his arms as he speaks. That body language crossed over into VR. The degree of presence can be so strong in VR that you have to tone down the evocation of base emotions and the depiction of brute force. The usual gore and mayhem of a first-person shooter doesn’t work as well in VR. Exaggerated scenarios that are merely compelling in a flat world can be overwhelming when you’re immersed in them. All that said, it was not the reality of artificial reality that surprised me most. It was how social it is. The best experiences I had in VR or MR involved at least one other person. More people made it better. In fact, just a few more people made it exponentially better. It’s a network effect: The joy of VR is proportional to the square of the number of people sharing it. That means VR will be the most social medium yet. More social than social media is today. One of my first tests for the quality of virtual reality was something I call the bat-flinch test. If you stood next to someone who was holding a virtual baseball bat and they swung the bat at you, would you duck? Only if you truly believed in it. Otherwise you’d just laugh or maybe wait to see what getting hit “felt” like. You’d never wait to get hit in real life. But a better test for VR is the poker game test. Do the avatars sitting across from you convey sufficient subtle eye contact, body language, and social presence that you can tell if they’re bluffing? I visited an Oculus demo at Facebook’s campus, and Palmer Luckey, Oculus’ creator, joined in. We shared a virtual playground. In real life, Luckey is exuberant. He likes to bounce. He pumps his arms, not just his hands, as he speaks. That body language crossed over into VR. Even though our avatars did not map our outside visual features, Luckey’s avatar—a ghostly blue head and two ghostly hands—moved just like him. He was playfully throwing blocks at me. They passed the bat-flinch test because I was ducking. Luckey was an expert in lighting virtual firecrackers and fireworks and tossing them my way too. Their explosions were real enough that I needed to back away. His enthusiasm was contagious, so I tried to blow him up with a blaster, but I missed and knocked down a tower. While the physics of this demo, called Toybox , were remarkable—things bounced or collided with amazing verisimilitude—the toys felt real in large part because we could pass them around, share them, and collaborate on moving them. My experience was not with toys but with another person. “Our goal is to make virtual communication even better than real-world communication,” Luckey said. “VR is the only thing that will get us there.” The time is coming when, if someone says “let’s meet,” everyone will know that means let’s meet in VR. The default mode of VR is “together.” AR, VR, MR: Making Sense of Magic Leap and the Future of Reality Very soon, perhaps in five years, the bounded worlds within virtual reality will begin to be networked together into distributed virtual worlds. When you’re wearing the visor of an augmented- or mixed-reality system such as Magic Leap, HoloLens, or Meta, it maps the local environment. To make, say, a virtual teacup appear on your real table, it needs to know where your table is. The visor uses outward-facing cameras and sensors to scan your environment to create this map. Magic Leap (among others) is working on protocols that save a mapped place in the cloud so it doesn’t have to be remapped for each encounter. Your unit (or perhaps another unit in the same location) merely needs to register and update any changes in the space. This in turn will let you share virtual objects across different surroundings, even if participants are in distant places. Someone in Barcelona can drop a virtual flower into your virtual vase in Chicago. Because artificial reality is inherently social, its environments will be inherently social and networked. That’s not to say this will be easy. Don’t let the relatively portable size of VR and MR wearables fool you. As they get smaller and lighter (and they will), the infrastructure behind them must grow larger and larger. The scale of the servers, bandwidth, processing, storage, and cleverness required to run networked virtual places at the scale of the planet for billions of people is beyond Big Data. It is Ginormous Data. Which raises another issue. One of the underappreciated aspects of synthetic reality is that every virtual world is potentially a total surveillance state. By definition, everything inside a VR or MR world is tracked. After all, the more precisely and comprehensively your body and your behavior are tracked, the better your experience will be. During a virtual journey, whether it lasts two minutes or two hours, the things your gaze lingers on, the places you choose to visit, how you interact with others and in what mood could all be captured in great detail to customize the experiences to your preferences and tendencies. But many other uses for this data are also obvious. This comprehensive tracking of your behavior inside these worlds could be used to sell you things, to redirect your attention, to compile a history of your interests, to persuade you subliminally, to quantify your actions for self-improvement, to personalize the next scene, and so on. If a smartphone is a surveillance device we voluntarily carry in our pocket, then VR will be a total surveillance state we voluntarily enter. As far as I can tell, there are no VR systems that currently store the data they track or do anything with it beyond the first-order job of creating the world and your avatar. While they’re aware of this potential, they are simply too consumed with getting the virtual worlds to work to bother with exploiting the data feed. Inevitably, however, some will graduate to view this immense trove of personalized data as a commercial treasure. The familiar puzzles of its legal status, who has access to it, what government claims apply, and what can be done with it will occupy us as a society in the near future. It’s very easy to imagine a company that succeeds in dominating the VR universe quickly stockpiling intimate data on not just what you and 3 billion other people favorite but what you do on weekends, what people you pay attention to, what scares you, where you go when you’re tired, how you greet strangers, whether you’re depressed, and a thousand other details. To do that in real life would be expensive and intrusive. To do that in VR will be invisible and cheap. SCROLL DOWN Andy Gilmore T T he creation of global artificial reality is an enormous project, and its adoption will start slowly. In every VR demo I tried in the past few months, I needed assistance to get the gear on and adjust the fit. Most demos required spotters to watch me. There were straps to deal with, cords to trip over, furniture to avoid. The software was glitchy. And too often, the demo required outsiders to suggest that I “turn around and look over there,” because user interfaces are still lame. “Right now VR systems, particularly the tracking, don’t work without constant technical maintenance,” says Jeremy Bailenson, who directs the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford. “I’ve been running VR for 20 years, and the bane of my existence is driver updates. VR is ready to flourish anywhere it’s worth hiring someone to maintain it.” Some of these problems are the ordinary growing pains of the prototype phase. But there are also some fundamental features missing. Chris Dixon, a partner in venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, who led his company’s early investment in Magic Leap, thinks VR will follow the flywheel effect: sluggish to start, its momentum slowly compounding until it’s nearly unstoppable. “What gives me hope is how good VR is right now,” he says. “Once people experience high-end VR, they’re going to want it. We’ll look back on 2020 as the VR era, but in the next five years I’m bracing for the inevitable trough of disillusionment in the hype cycle.” As the flywheel slowly begins to turn, friction will hinder its rotation. But those friction points should also be viewed as fresh opportunities. These are problems whose solutions will enable many other innovations. Any of the following pain points might be the opening that produces the first VR billionaire: The Dork Factor There’s no getting around the fact that everyone looks like a dork wearing a head-mounted display. It obscures our humanity. The failure of Google Glass was in large part due to the fact that you could not pass the cool test wearing one. Remember the Segway, the stand-up personal transport? If you haven’t ridden a recent version of it, you should; they’re amazing. But even though the scooter really works, it didn’t revolutionize transportation, in part because people looked ridiculous riding it. The form factors of VR and MR have a long way to go before they become culturally invisible. Safety I nearly fell in a recent VR journey because I tried to jump into a pit that wasn’t really there. Oculus weirdly warns its users to “”remain seated at all times. The problem is, if you’re present—really present—in an alternative place, you’re absent from the place your body is. That’s a recipe for accidents. Mixed reality, where the room you’re actually in remains visible, can diminish the clumsiness between realms but doesn’t eliminate it. Then there is our ignorance of the long-term effects of fooling your mind and body. This is so new we don’t even know yet what questions to ask. We do know that motion sickness is real. Jeremy Bailenson found that approximately one in 30 are susceptible. But what other problems will arise after tens of thousands of hours of use? Inadequate Interface At this moment in its development, VR is at the same infant stage as early PCs that required a command-line input. There are no intuitive tools for easy creation. The VR industry is waiting for its Doug Engelbart to invent the equivalent of the mouse. This shortcoming is perhaps the most critical missing piece preventing a rapid takeoff. Without an interface that anyone can grasp in minutes, content can be made only by the truly dedicated. Nearly all of the non-movie VR experiences uploaded to date were created using a computer-game engine from either Unity or Unreal (and nearly all VR so far shares a similar videogamey look too). All these first-generation experiences were created with 2-D tools—screen, windows, mouse. But VR cannot reach ubiquity until the tools for VR creation live in VR itself, until VR is bootstrapped from within VR. The first steps toward native tools were announced this spring. Both Unity and Unreal have demo’d a VR version that permits users to make VR in VR. However, to foster a smooth transition, the VR versions of both creation engines import 2-D metaphors (like menus)—the equivalent of a command line—into VR. Still missing is the breakthrough insight that takes advantage of VR’s peculiarities to deal with VR’s complexities. I had an aha moment inside a VR app called Tilt Brush that was purchased by Google. I was using a brush to paint with light in three dimensions. My traces in the air could be thin, thick, flickering, pulsating, solid sheets, of any color. I was inside my creation, moving around with my whole body, working up a sweat. I was sketching a sculpture or sculpting a sketch or architecting a drawing or dancing up a building of light—I don’t know what to call it, but it was the most fun I’ve ever had in VR. And it’s not just for fun. Trials at Google revealed Tilt Brush could be an ideal prototyping tool. In a few minutes, even an untrained person could sketch out a design for a car or the layout of furniture in an office, and you would instantly see it. My aha was that at its root, VR is as much a creation tool as a consumption tool. As much fun as it was to explore VR, it was more fun to make it. For a long time, no one believed amateurs would make their own videos, but that changed when you could easily film a scene by holding up a phone. VR is in line to reduce the barriers to creation even further. Fame awaits the genius who figures out the elegant VR interface for VR creation. The tools would allow you to manipulate 3-D space with minimal gestures, voice, and gaze. You’d lift, twist, speak, and nod just so. I suspect there would be a beauty in watching a skilled creator work in VR, much like in watching a woodworker or dancer. A universal interface for working in VR would unleash the greatest expression of creativity the planet has yet seen. Narrow Field of View Right now the field of view in mixed-reality devices is too narrow. Of the current crop of MR spectacles, Meta 2’s field of vision is the widest, but even its coverage is inadequate. Virtual objects that are located directly in front of you, within the coverage of the screen, appear present. But when you turn your gaze away, they disappear from your peripheral vision. This breaks the chain of persuasion. Fully enclosed VR devices don’t suffer the same drawback; because you see nothing at all in your peripheral vision (only deliberate blackness), you don’t get contradictory information. Objects disappear when you turn, but the background area does too. All mixed-reality systems labor under a second challenge that VR systems don’t: Ideally, in a mixed reality, the virtual teacup you see on your desk would be lit with the same kind of lighting, from the same direction, with the same color tone, as your real desk. To do that would require outside cameras and software that dynamically computes the lighting in the room in real time. No mixed-reality rig can do that now. The mismatch in the lighting is another weak link in the chain of persuasion. In my experience, this discrepancy tends to produce an effect I would call “artificial things really present.” You don’t confuse artificial objects with real things really present; they are artificial things really present. Tethers It’s hard to overstate the benefit of wearing a lightweight device that is not tethered to a fixed location. Being free to roam deepens the sense of presence, while worry about a cable tends to disrupt the spell. Screens and processors can be made much smaller, even down to a size that will fit invisibly into glasses, but batteries are the bugaboo of VR. The computational load of VR is so huge that untethered headsets will be very difficult to fuel. It’ll be a long while, if ever, before a day’s worth of battery power can be squeezed into the frames of glasses. For now they will be wired to a battery in your pocket. T T he coevolution of science fiction and innovation is slowly being recognized as a paramount cultural force. Talk long enough to any engineer working on VR and they will eventually mention one of two books: Snow Crash or Ready Player One. Ernest Cline, the author of Ready Player One , invented the Oasis, a vast, networked virtual universe with virtual planets, where billions of people remain immersed for school, work, and play. In a delicious example of the recursive nature of science fiction’s sway, Cline’s invention of the fictional Oasis may become reality. “There’s a chance the studios will make a rudimentary virtual experience based on the fictional Oasis in the movie,” Cline says. “If it were to catch on and slowly evolve, then there is the possibility that the Oasis could become an actual real thing used by millions—as a result of me imagining it in my novel.” Among the first people Abovitz hired at Magic Leap was Neal Stephenson , author of the other seminal VR anticipation, Snow Crash. He wanted Stephenson to be Magic Leap’s chief futurist because “he has an engineer’s mind fused with that of a great writer.” Abovitz wanted him to lead a small team developing new forms of narrative. Again, the mythmaker would be making the myths real. The hero in Snow Crash wielded a sword in the virtual world. To woo Stephenson, four emissaries from Magic Leap showed up at Stephenson’s home with Orcrist—the “Goblin-cleaver” sword from The Hobbit trilogy. It was a reproduction of the prop handcrafted by a master swordsmith. That is, it was a false version of the real thing used in the unreal film world—a clever bit of recursiveness custom-made for mixed reality. Stephenson was intrigued. “It’s not every day that someone turns up at your house bearing a mythic sword, and so I did what anyone who has read a lot of fantasy novels would: I let them in and gave them beer,” he wrote on Magic Leap’s blog. “True to form, they invited me on a quest and asked me to sign a contract (well, an NDA actually).” Stephenson accepted the job. “We’ve maxed out what we can do with 2-D screens,” he says. “Now it’s time to unleash what is possible in 3-D, and that means redefining the medium from the ground up. We can’t do that in small steps.” He compared the challenge of VR to crossing a treacherous valley to reach new heights. He admires Abovitz because he is willing to “slog through that valley.” It’s too early to know what virtual reality is or what it will be. Abovitz believes that synthetic reality is the ultimate human medium because it is so directly wired to our brains. “Our brain is an amazing sensory computer. Magic Leap is just the pen and paper, the typewriter, or the canvas and brush for a power that people have had brewing in them since people first appeared. The real way to the future is biology.” One thing we do know: The evolution of technology can take curious turns. Cell phones started out so bulky they needed their own luggage. It was easy to imagine them getting smaller and smaller. Which they did. But they did not merely shrink into miniature versions of themselves. As it got smaller, the mobile telephone lost its keypad, gained a hi-res color screen, started to grow in size again, and eventually stopped being used as a phone. It evolved into something different and unexpected. VR will surprise us too. Related Stories The Inside Story of How Oculus Cracked the Impossible Design of VR By Peter Rubin Oculus Rift Review: Rejoice, for the Age of 8) Has Begun By Peter Rubin Mark Zuckerberg’s Big Bet That Facebook Can Make VR Social By Cade Metz Not immediately, but within 15 years, the bulk of our work and play time will touch the virtual to some degree. Systems for delivering these shared virtual experiences will become the largest enterprises we have ever made. Fully immersive VR worlds already generate and consume gigabytes of data per experience. In the next 10 years the scale will increase from gigabytes per minute to terabytes per minute. The global technology industry—chip designers, consumer device makers, communication conglomerates, component manufacturers, content studios, software creators—will all struggle to handle the demands of this vast system as it blossoms. And only a few companies will dominate the VR networks because, as is so common in networks, success is self-reinforcing. The bigger the virtual society becomes, the more attractive it is. And the more attractive, the bigger yet it becomes. These artificial-reality winners will become the largest companies in history, dwarfing the largest companies today by any measure. I don’t know if Magic Leap will be one of those companies. It’s not going to win the race to be first in this category, but none of the current titans were first to their markets. While Magic Leap has filed for more than 150 patents with the US Patent and Trademark Office, it has not yet publicly demo’d a prototype. 1 Most important, we still don’t know enough about human perception to know what will work in virtual domains; it’ll take more VR to figure that out. We must navigate the treacherous valley before reaching new heights. Yet something certainly has just happened. A threshold has been crossed. After a long gestation, VR is good enough to improve quickly. It’s real. WIRED senior maverick Kevin Kelly ( kk@kk.org ) is the author of the upcoming book The Inevitable , to be published in June. This article appears in the May 2016 issue. Grooming by Chelsea Sule at Ford Miami 1 [9:22 AM PST/04-26-16] This story was amended to clarify Magic Leap’s patent filings. "

"Soon You’ll Be Zooming in Roblox | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/soon-youll-be-zooming-in-roblox"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Soon You’ll Be Zooming in Roblox Courtesy of Roblox Save this story Save Save this story Save Right around the time Meta started making a feverish pitch for the headset-powered metaverse, executives at other tech companies began piping up to point out that the metaverse could already be accessed through hugely popular mobile apps like Fortnite and Roblox. People love these apps—especially kids and teens. Who needs a full-face computer when you can easily spend hours chatting with friends using the screens you already have? Now Roblox, which isn’t just a game but an entire platform of user-generated video games, is adding more power to its metaverse punch. Starting in November, Roblox plans to launch an immersive video-chat option for gamers, Roblox chief executive David Baszucki said in an exclusive interview with WIRED ahead of the company’s developers conference this week. The feature, which is called Roblox Connect, will run on any device that already runs Roblox, provided that device has a camera. The feature uses 3D-animated avatars, not photorealistic video, and will place people in virtual spaces rather than showing their real-life backgrounds. Courtesy of Roblox Face-tracking tech will be used to mimic facial expressions and movements in people’s Roblox avatars. The Roblox app will capture the movements of 40 points on the user’s face, then use that data to give expressions to the user's Roblox avatar that accurately convey their emotions. (Roblox is doing this on the user's device and says it’s not sending any personal data to the cloud.) Only one-on-one video chats will be allowed to start, for ages 13 and up, and Roblox users have to have each other stored as contacts in order to communicate via video chat. “When people see Roblox, they see parts of a Venn diagram, and the big diagram for us is thinking through how people connect and communicate and share stories,” Baszucki says. “In the midst of Covid we all used video systems, and we know that’s going to keep advancing and getting better. And we’re seeing the early signs of that at Roblox, which is moving from audio to video to full 3D.” Baszucki says Roblox may eventually evolve to offer photorealistic video chat in order to support business users. “It’s possible that in a very professional business situation, at some point, we’ll all choose photorealistic avatars on Roblox. And when we’re doing a business call, it will look like this office. But we’ll probably [see] a few other avatars, too, and younger people may lean more ‘cartoony’.” Roblox Connect will be opened up for game developers to use as well. This means developers will not only have the ability to build video chat into their games, they’ll also be able to lean on the machine-learning already deployed in Roblox’s audio-calling feature. Courtesy of Roblox And, since not a single tech event can happen this year without an update on generative AI , Roblox developers will soon be able to chat with a virtual assistant to ask for help with coding or to quickly spin up new virtual scenes, like “Create a forest scene with different kinds of trees and a crackling campfire.” Roblox’s immersive video-chat feature takes direct aim at Meta’s vision for the metaverse , but the two companies are also in a partnership: Roblox says a full version of its app will be available to all Meta Quest headset users this month (it was previously available in beta). And Roblox will “soon” be available on Sony PlayStation, potentially expanding its audience even more. All of this is part of Roblox’s strategy around growth, but also around growing up. In its most recent earnings report, Roblox reported more than 65 million daily active users and 14 billion “engaged hours'' in its app, a 24 percent increase from the year before. From’s initial launch in 2006 until recently, the majority of its users were young people. Kids really, really like Roblox. Just ask the Chicago mom who had to hop into live-action gameplay herself to finally get her daughter’s attention and ask her to take the lasagna out of the freezer, a well-publicized incident that likely had Roblox’s marketing department doing virtual cartwheels. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft But last year, 38 percent of those daily active users were 17 or over, and as of the second quarter of this year, 17-to-24-year-olds became the fastest-growing age group on Roblox. Roblox has leaned into the fact that its core user group is aging and two months ago launched a category of games specifically designed for users aged 17 and up. Chief product officer Manuel Bronstein told The Verge in an interview that this new category would allow more graphic content and adult themes, like “depictions of heavy bloodshed and alcohol use.” Accessing these games requires uploading a selfie and a photo of a government-issued ID. For Roblox, the lasagna-mom incident underscored that communication was going to be a big part of the platform's appeal, beyond gaming. If users—whether they’re 10, 17, or 25—are going to bounce, it’s likely going to be for another app where they can use a camera to connect with friends, be it TikTok, Snap, or FaceTime. Roblox Connect, then, is an attempt to get people to just … hang out in Roblox, even when they’re not gaming. Hanging out equals more engaged minutes; more engaged minutes leads to better advertising opportunities and “bookings,” the purchase of virtual goods using Roblox’s digital currency, Robux. Bookings last quarter for Roblox totaled nearly $781 million, up 20 percent year over year. But the average bookings per daily active user has been going down, and Roblox is looking to squeeze more value out of each player. “We have said publicly that older players tend to monetize better,” Baszucki says. “We’ve actually tended to be pretty conservative and focused on user happiness, user growth, and engagement time. But in parallel to that, yes, we’ve built a virtual economy where traditionally, when we scale these things, we see the bookings go up as well.” Courtesy of Roblox Roblox has been intensely criticized in the recent past for falling short in content moderation, and now allowing real-time video chats could open it up to fresh forms of harmful content and abuse. Just look at Meta’s metaverse, where an early user reported being groped by a virtual stranger in Horizon Worlds. Meta’s response was that the user should have instituted a “safe zone”—putting the onus squarely on the user. But Roblox can’t necessarily insist that a group of 13-year-olds figure out metaversal social dynamics on their own. In early 2022, TechDirt reported that a surge in Roblox users during Covid lockdowns spawned new problems for the company. Creators launched games featuring red-light districts, where users could engage in sex acts with other avatars, and some even re-created disturbing mass shootings. In August 2022, leaked documents obtained by Vice News highlighted how Roblox was grappling with moderating things such as “bulges” in avatar clothing, bullying, sexting, and the grooming of minors by child predators on the platform. During a brief Roblox gaming session earlier this week, WIRED observed a gamer repeatedly call another gamer “ugly” in the text chat on the side of the screen and demand that another gamer “get out” of the room. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Roblox’s content moderation problem is the problem of the internet in general, and like a lot of other influential platforms, Roblox is attempting to solve this with both human moderators and a high dose of technology. A spokesperson for Roblox declined to share how many content moderators it currently employs; in the past it has said it employs 1,600 moderators. In interviews with WIRED, company executives consistently pointed to the machine-learning technology Roblox has developed for audio calling as an example of its technical moderation. Roblox’s chief technology officer, Dan Sturman, says the company has instituted a policy whereby if a Roblox user declines to answer a series of repeat audio calls from another user, the caller will be penalized. Users can mute or block other users. And he says Roblox is rolling out voice-moderation tools that will automatically detect five categories of abuse, harassment, and bullying in “real time or near real time.” A user that violates policies will get immediate feedback “without having to have a human in the loop.” “Roblox Connect hasn’t launched yet, so we’re still finalizing technology and our safety measures,” says Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt, Roblox's head of product communications. “Our strong belief, and our initial trials, tell us that just reminding someone that they’re not behaving well is going to be a huge impetus to behave,” Sturman says. That’s certainly one interpretation of how content moderation could work; a view of the internet, perhaps, as frictionless and idealized as 3D avatars. You Might Also Like … 📩 Get the long view on tech with Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter Watch this guy work, and you’ll finally understand the TikTok era How Telegram became a terrifying weapon in the Israel-Hamas War Inside Elon Musk’s first election crisis —a day after he “freed” the bird The ultra-efficient farm of the future is in the sky The best pickleball paddles for beginners and pros 🌲 Our Gear team has branched out with a new guide to the best sleeping pads and fresh picks for the best coolers and binoculars Senior Writer X Topics Roblox video chat Zoom Metaverse Simon Hill Lauren Goode Lauren Goode Reece Rogers Jaina Grey Lauren Goode Reece Rogers Louryn Strampe WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Doordash Promo Code 50% Off DoorDash Promo Code + Free Delivery Finish Line Coupon Take $10 off Your Order - Finish Line Coupon Code Groupon Promo Code Groupon promo code: Extra 30% off any amount Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. 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"Why the ‘Queen of Shitty Robots’ Renounced Her Crown | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/simone-giertz-build-what-you-want"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Why the ‘Queen of Shitty Robots’ Renounced Her Crown Simone Giertz in her Northern California workshop. Photograph: Joe Pugliese Save this story Save Save this story Save I spot the Tesla long before I see the strawberry-blonde ponytail of its driver. The car is a candy-apple-red Model 3 sedan that appears to have had part of its rear half deleted, so that it looks like a modish Chevy El Camino. Simone Giertz , the YouTuber behind the wheel, is meeting me under a highway overpass in northern Sonoma County so she can lead me to one of the secret workshops where, for the past year, she's been hacking away at the sharky EV to transform it into a pickup truck. Ten days ago, she posted a 31-minute YouTube video about building the “ Truckla. ” Eight million people have already watched it, but barely anyone has seen the mutant EV up close. Leaning out of the Truckla's window, Giertz tells me she's been busy cleaning hay out of its bed. She gestures for me to follow her about a mile down a winding road in my 12-year-old gas guzzler. Thickets of tall trees give way to dry, grassy hills. The workshop where we're headed is a place where Burning Man artists and other tinkerers fabricate their work. As we get closer, a few cottage-sized kinetic sculptures appear in the fields alongside us, as if they'd been dropped from outer space. January 2020. Subscribe to WIRED. Photograph: Joe Pugliese When we arrive, Giertz introduces me to her main collaborator on the Truckla, Marcos Ramirez, an affable, bearded guy in a turquoise cap and overalls. It's midday-hot in the heart of wine country, and in the hangar-like workspace the two begin to rattle off everything they have left to do before the vehicle is truly finished. There's still some welding to do on the panel that divides the cabin from the truck bed, the car's interior needs to be waterproofed, and the tailgate doesn't work yet. In the beginning, Giertz (pronounced “Yetch”) intended to just graft a flatbed kit onto the front quarters of a Model 3. But she ultimately decided to preserve as many of the Tesla's svelte lines as possible—a plan that has required vastly more labor and finesse. For the past couple of years, Giertz's primary vehicle has been a homely 1970s Comuta-Car—a golf-cart-sized electric vehicle sheathed in yellow ABS plastic—that she nicknamed Cheese Louise for its strong resemblance to a wedge of cheddar. Her new ride will no doubt draw just as many stares on the streets of San Francisco. But in contrast to the famously janky Comuta-Car, what matters most to Giertz right now is that the Truckla is functional. Elegant, even. This, to say the least, is not the approach to design that made Giertz internet-famous. Four years ago, she jump-started her YouTube career by building a series of what she calls “shitty robots”—sloppy, hilarious, barely functioning gizmos. There's the Wake-Up Machine , an alarm clock with a rubber hand attachment that repeatedly slaps her awake; the Breakfast Machine , a robotic arm that pours cereal and milk into a bowl with comical lack of precision; and the Hair-Cutting Drone , a quadcopter with automated shears dangling from it by wire. (Giertz notes in her video about the drone that she's just moved to the US and doesn't yet have health insurance, so she opts to test the device on a bewigged mannequin. It goes badly for the mannequin.) When she takes me for a ride in the Truckla, she tells me I'm among the first passengers to sit shotgun, and she's supremely confident behind the wheel. She beams when we stop for pizza in Geyserville and a handful of people pause to admire the parked Frankencar. Related Stories #MeToo Lauren Goode The Alchemist Jonah Weiner Deep Dive Paris Martineau These days, at 29, Giertz is intent on making things that work. She's trying to design and ship useful products. She's in the early stages of producing a video series that she hopes will culminate in her traveling to space—and if there's anything you'd want to go off without a hitch the first time you try it, it's a trip to space. She's confronting for the first time in her life what family and friends describe as a complicated relationship with perfectionism. “I still put a lot of time into things like editing a video and want to make it as good as it can be, but it's not the same as it was before,” she says. “I can't remember the last time I started crying because I felt like I hadn't been enough.” For a long time, building shitty robots meant Giertz never had to face failure, even if the robots themselves failed. “One of the things that I've been trying to figure out is: Was building shitty robots in some way a method for me to minimize myself, to make myself smaller?” Giertz says. “Because that's what I notice—a lot of women being really scared to step up and be an expert.” Giertz's older videos are full of congeniality and persistent self-deprecation, which doesn't feel so charming to Giertz anymore. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft “I think that's one of the reasons that a lot of male audiences didn't really come after me,” she says. “Because I wasn't puffing up my chest and saying, ‘I know what I'm doing.’ In some ways that makes me really sad.” In order to stop undermining herself, Giertz is saying sayonara to shitty robots. She's plotting her next move, trying to navigate past her anxieties over control and failure and competence. At the same time, she's also contending with an entity that has literally taken up residence in her head—a kind of physical insult to the very idea of control and perfection. Simone Giertz has a brain tumor, and she's trying to be as creative as possible while her doctors try to destroy it. Giertz stands atop her heavily customized Truckla. Photograph: Joe Pugliese Giertz grew up in Saltsjö-Duvnäs, Sweden , about 6 miles outside of Stockholm. For 16 years, her mother was a ghost-hunter on Swedish reality TV; Giertz calls her “the face of the paranormal community in Sweden.” Her father was a TV producer who now works in media licensing. Giertz's mother, Caroline, describes her daughter's upbringing as comfortable but middle class—“no fancy cars, summer houses, or big boats.” She was a bracingly self-sufficient child in comparison to her two older siblings, who liked to have their parents linger at bedtime and read story after story. “Simone was not like that,” her mother says. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft As she grew up, Giertz was defiantly creative. She remembers being the only girl in her elementary school class who chose woodworking over sewing. Eventually, she would exhibit a kind of media savvy that may have derived from having two parents in TV. She also became intensely driven. “I think Simone felt obliged to overachieve, from some inner urge,” her mother says. “It was a bit painful to see.” At age 16, Giertz went off as an exchange student to Hefei, China, where she studied Mandarin (and made an appearance on a Chinese sitcom). When she returned home, her mother picked her up at the airport. “It might have been one of the most surreal days in my life,” Giertz recalls. “It took about five minutes in the car before she told me she and my dad had gotten a divorce while I was gone.” “I just said, ‘Oh wow, that's very brave of both of you.’ And then I decided to move to Kenya,” Giertz says. (“That's one of the very few things I feel I could have done better,” her mother says. “I was trying to apologize for that just a week or two ago.”) After three months back in Stockholm, Giertz departed for a Swedish boarding school in Nairobi to learn Swahili—and to flee the confusion of a disintegrating home. Then, after finishing high school, she went back to China for another half year; this time in Nanhai, outside of Guangzhou. As a kid, Giertz was obsessed with getting good grades, but she attended university for only a year before dropping out. In 2012, she took a job as an editor for Sweden's official website, putting her Chinese language skills to work by retooling the Chinese version of the site. The following year she enrolled in a vocational school, this time to study advertising. As part of that program Giertz was required to get an internship. She nabbed one building products at a San Francisco engineering firm called Punch Through Design—which changed everything. Giertz’s workbench. Photograph: Joe Pugliese Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Her first builds involved Bluetooth Arduino boards. She made an iPhone accessory that turned the smartphone's screen into a makeshift guitar fretboard, giving the user actual strings to pluck. She made a motion-triggered bike light so riders wouldn't have to remember to turn it on. “It was fucking great, because I was the only nonengineer in a team of electrical engineers,” Giertz says. “I could come up with these ideas and build them and write tutorials on them.” After her internship, without a visa that would allow her to stay in the US, she decided to move back in with her mom in Sweden and live as frugally as she could, so she could keep making stuff. She was 24 at the time. “I had just been pushing myself so hard my entire life, always trying to do the most difficult thing,” Giertz says. “And I thought, what would happen if I just freed up a bunch of time and let myself spend time on things I was excited about?” Giertz uploaded her first robot video to YouTube in August 2015, and it was then that she introduced the persona of the shitty robot queen. The video was unceremonious and brief; only seven seconds long, more a GIF than a short film. In it, Giertz wears a teal helmet rigged with a robotic arm and a yellow toothbrush. For a few seconds, the arm sends the brush swooshing, paste-free, across Giertz's face while she grins. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Over time the shitty robot videos grew longer and more elaborate. By the end of that year, Giertz had uploaded a dozen clips—all documenting her attempts to build and test devices that solve everyday problems in the most inelegant, brutishly futuristic way possible. One showed a servo-motor-powered contraption that uses two butcher-knife blades to chop vegetables ; watching it makes me instinctively pull my fingers back from my laptop. Another offered up an Arduino hack that sent electric shocks to electrodes on Giertz's face as she responded to YouTube comments. Most of her early videos racked up views in the high hundreds of thousands. But it was a clip uploaded in February 2016 that propelled Giertz beyond YouTube's orbit. In it, Giertz unassumingly reads on an iPad while wearing a professional-looking pinstriped blouse, her hair cascading down the side of her face as a robot arm smears bright red lipstick on and around her mouth. Giertz blinks as if irritated, but she pays no mind to the robot or the makeup. She never seems overly concerned about her appearance. The six-second lipstick robot video —a kind of YouTube anti -makeup tutorial—cemented her image as the smart, funny, self-titled shitty robot queen who couldn't be bothered with your expectations of her. That video was viewed 1.3 million times, and at least once by Adam Savage of MythBusters fame. Giertz's video hit him, as he puts it, like a ton of bricks. “There's something so subversive and yet loving about technology at the same time, right?” he says. “Here was this awesome, jocular Swedish girl building robots, and this is a fairly sophisticated thing to try to do—and yet you're repeatedly watching these bots fail.” Savage and his production team reached out to Giertz soon afterward and asked if she wanted to collaborate with him. They made a helmet that shoveled popcorn into its wearer's mouth , and Giertz later helped create paywalled videos for Savage's website, Tested.com. Despite Savage's delight in her early work, Giertz was intimidated. “I had the worst impostor syndrome,” she said in a video several months later about her first work with Savage. “I'm just a hobbyist. I don't know what I'm doing.” After Savage came calling, so did Stephen Colbert. One night in the fall of 2016, Giertz and three of her barely functioning robots, including the lipstick machine, made an appearance on The Late Show. The clip is as much a display of Giertz's wit as it is of her contraptions, and she glows under the bright lights of late-night TV. “This is perfect for a nutritious meal,” she deadpans as the live studio audience loses it over her vegetable-chopping robot. Then she convinces Colbert to get his makeup done by the lipstick bot. Giertz, in a pinstriped blouse, reads an iPad while a robot arm smears red lipstick around her mouth. One of the more telling signs of Giertz's ascent to internet stardom was that, by the end of 2016, she was turning her arguments with advertisers into video content for her channel. According to Giertz, sponsors were suddenly taking issue with her language on YouTube, young lady. On the heels of the 2016 US presidential election, she teamed up with German YouTuber Laura Kampf to build a Pussy Grabs Back machine , a rubber hand hanging from a belt that's designed to thwart any vagina-grabbing attempts with an uppercut slap delivered to the attacker's groin. Advertisers bristled. Giertz initially bowed to the pressure, deleting five of her videos at the behest of sponsors. Later, she posted a YouTube video titled “Why My Sponsors are Leaving.” (She cursed throughout the video.) Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft “To me, it's crazy that it has such weight,” Giertz tells me, referring to her language. “I really understand that parents are concerned, but kids know these words. I'm waiting for the documentary of someone with the blurred-out face and the morphed voice that's like, ‘Yeah, things really started going wrong for me when I heard shit and fuck on television.’ ” So in December 2016, Giertz launched a page on Patreon , a subscription service platform for internet content creators , and said she would let STEM toymaker GoldieBlox make kid-friendly versions of her videos. It was a very Simone solution: She would publish her work on another platform, one that let her keep “Shitty” in her brand name but also do something nice for the kids. What's notable about Giertz's body of work is that the shitty robots, as entertaining as they may be, aren't her most popular videos. Her most-viewed YouTube video to date is the 31-minute minidoc about the making of the Truckla. Her second most popular—9.4 million views—is titled “ I Locked Myself in My Bathroom for 48 Hours ,” which is exactly what it sounds like. Giertz experimented with confining herself to a small space for two days as part of a DIY astronaut training program of her own design. Her third-most-watched video chronicles the last of the astronaut prep sessions and shows Giertz floating around the padded cabin of a zero-gravity airplane flight. Bathroom captivity aside, these videos would eventually become nods to the kind of projects that Giertz really wanted to spend her time on: long-term builds, products that have an actual purpose and not merely a cheeky one. But among Giertz's most-watched videos, three others stand out. They're videos she would never have willingly set out to make. These are titled “ I Have a Brain Tumor ,” “ Back From Brain Surgery ,” and, in January 2019, “ My Brain Tumor Is Back. ” Having abandoned shitty robots, Giertz is now working on a video series about going to space. Photograph: Joe Pugliese In the spring of 2017 , Giertz started to notice that her right eyelid was swollen. A fan on Twitter even commented on it: “What happened to your right eye? It's like a bump above the eyelid.” A year later, in April 2018, the eye started to ache. MRI scans revealed a noncancerous meningioma growing on the front of her brain. The tumor, which she nicknamed Brian, was remarkable chiefly because of its size: 4.6 centimeters across. “Plot twist,” Giertz says in a subdued voice during a YouTube dispatch about the golf-ball-sized growth at the time. “I don't even like golf. But I like my brain a lot.” Her face crumbles on camera, and she starts to cry, faced with the reality of potentially losing sight in one eye, being paralyzed on one side of her face, or suffering a stroke. By the end of the video, Giertz is joking about eye patch designs and ponders sending the excavated tumor into space. When I ask Giertz about the decision to go public with her diagnosis, she says she's “very external” in how she processes things. “I wanted to tell absolutely everyone. Friends, colleagues, Lyft drivers, waitresses—absolutely everyone,” she says. “Seeing how other people reacted to it became a way for me to navigate the situation when I didn't really trust my own thoughts and feelings.” Her mother echoes this: “I think that was the best thing she could do. Why should you hide something like that? Her audience likes her.” But an internet audience is not the same as a group of real-life friends, something Giertz would become more aware of as her treatment went on. Also, Giertz might not have anticipated how drawn out the process would become. On the day of her surgery, she chronicled her pre-op jitters, posting a 59-second video just before having her skull cut open, closing out with “I hope you're having a good day” and her signature “Byeee.” After a nine-hour surgery (“Shortest day of my life,” she says), Giertz began her recovery process. Doctors weren't able to remove the entirety of the tumor, due to its proximity to other critical structures in her head. What remained of Brian grew, and much more quickly than anyone anticipated. Eight months after the surgery, in January 2019, Giertz announced that her brain tumor was back. She had T-shirts made with an imprint of her holey brain and began selling them in an online Teespring store. But it's clear in the video announcing the tumor's resurgence that Giertz is crestfallen. If the campaign for 2018 was to evict Brian, Giertz says, the goal of 2019 was to burn Brian through radiation therapy. This required rounds of treatment that would sap her of energy, making it difficult for the typically healthy, yoga-practicing, meditating, mostly vegan Giertz to even get out of bed. In her non-vlogging moments, Giertz felt vulnerable and alone, despite her many fans expressing support. Her family had flown in for her surgery, and her mother returned for her radiation treatments, but at some point they all went back to Sweden. Giertz had to ask her Bay Area friends, like her main collaborator, Marcos Ramirez, for help. “Did I tell you that my brain has filled out?” Giertz says, as casually as if she had told me she was taking next Friday off. Giertz's prognosis is good. But Brian has already altered her life deeply. “When you're young and reckless, you think you're never going to need people,” Giertz tells me at the wine-country workshop on that warm day in June. “But that was the first time in my life I've really, genuinely needed people.” In a lot of ways, this required Giertz to embrace a role reversal. “She looks out for everyone on set,” says Laura Kampf, the YouTuber who collaborated with Giertz on the Pussy Grabs Back robot. “She's always worried that someone is hungry or didn't sleep enough.” I see this instinct as well. As I continue to meet with Giertz over a period of six months, she starts probing into how I'm doing and at one point says with a straight face that she's writing a magazine profile on me too. “There've been times when I was working with people, and she's called me up and said, ‘Hey, when you weren't looking that person was kind of shitty to someone else on the crew, and I thought you should know that,’ ” Savage says. “Her values are just never not present in all the things that she's doing.” Giertz lets me sit in on one of her many doctor's visits, provided that I agree not to record audio, take photos, or share the name of her ophthalmologist. (At one point, she texts me, “Asking for a friend: Is it really naive to let a journalist come along to a doctor's appointment?”) Most people in the waiting room are octogenarians, and the still-youthful Giertz, in her faded black jeans, blue denim jacket, and ponytail, won't sit unless everyone else has a seat. After she is moved into an examination room, a doctor comes in and goes over Giertz's most recent scans. Her optical nerve doesn't look stressed, which is good, he says. The internal swelling has gone down, and he doesn't see evidence of persistent pressure on the nerve. The bigger concern is long-term damage, something Giertz has mentioned before. She doesn't know, and might not know for a decade, whether the tumor and subsequent radiation will have a lasting effect on her hormones and pituitary gland. The doctor says he's going to run through some additional procedures today, to determine if Giertz's eye might offer up other subtle indicators of what her long-term recovery will look like. While the doctor and a nurse are examining the scans, Giertz turns to me and says, “Did I tell you that my brain has filled out?” as casually as if she had told me she was thinking of taking next Friday off, or that her neighbor had adopted a puppy. Recent scans show that there's been regrowth in the chunk of her brain that had been pushed aside when the giant tumor had taken up residence in her eye vault. “One side is still a little floofy,” she says. “But I was so, so happy.” Following radiation treatment for her brain tumor, Giertz turned her custom-fit radiation mask into a wall lamp, with LEDs shining through the translucent resin. The video of her making the mask has been viewed over a million times. Photograph: Joe Pugliese In July 2019 , Giertz shared a blog post on Patreon explaining why she was no longer making shitty robot videos. Her energy had been limited since her surgery, she wrote, “so I have tried my best to only spend it on things I really want to do. And for now, that has not been shitty robots.” I ask her whether Brian helped mark this turning point for her. The answer is yes, but also no. Even before the brain tumor, Giertz says, she was starting to feel like “it was harder and harder to come up with ideas. I was always concerned that it was eventually going to be like beating a dead horse, and that the joke was going to be over and I didn't have anywhere else to go.” Abandoning shitty robots was definitely detrimental to the success of her channel, she says, as beneficial as it may be for her well-being. Giertz has never really succumbed to the pressures of the internet content machine. She publishes her YouTube videos weeks, sometimes even months, apart from each other. A video with millions of views is sometimes followed by one with a few hundred thousand. Her Patreon dispatches are slightly more consistent but take different forms. Sometimes they're videos. Sometimes they're simply blog posts, like the one explaining why she wasn't building shitty robots anymore. “She's doing it exactly right,” Kampf says. “I think the brain tumor slowed her down, but it made the community around her so much stronger, and I think she's completely unattached from the pressure of uploading on a regular basis.” Giertz acknowledges that there are plenty of creators who produce more than she does, and that she may be sacrificing views in exchange for what she calls a healthier relationship with YouTube. Basically, by not producing as many videos, YouTube's system may not be bubbling her videos to the top of watch lists as much as it would for creators who post a video every week, or even every day. “The algorithm, it's a black hole,” she says. She won't say much else about YouTube, even as the platform faces continuing scrutiny for facilitating the spread of misinformation, toxic content, and harmful videos, and for its management (or mismanagement) of all of the above. “I think social media platforms are trying to be responsible, but there are also definitely instances where they try to make it seem like they're being responsible, and for revenue or profit they're doing another thing,” Giertz says cryptically. In the car on the way back to San Francisco from her doctor's appointment, Giertz asks me if she can read aloud a draft of something she's been working on. She's nervous about it, she says, and later she'll corner a top newspaper executive at a media confab to try to convince him to print it. It's an open letter to YouTube creators, urging them to reconsider taking sponsor money from fossil fuel companies. Giertz won't call out the YouTubers by name, but she'll speak candidly about what she sees as hypocrisy at a systemic level. “Oil companies trying to convince us that they're green is the gaslighting effort of the century,” Giertz tweeted in November. Every time I talk to Giertz, she's hatching plans. One day over lunch in San Francisco, she is forlorn because the shipments of her Every Day Calendar—a habit-tracking wall calendar that raised more than half-a-million dollars on Kickstarter—arrived at her workshop damaged. She plans to ship them to customers in December, and her old fear of failure has let itself in again. A few weeks later she tells me she's going to build a coffee table made of matchsticks. (When it reaches the end of its useful life, you can just light it on fire.) When I call her again in October to ask about her post-Truckla plans, Giertz head fakes and tells me about her puzzle project. She's building a solid white puzzle with one piece missing, which she wants to ship to provoke the cringey feeling creators have when something is incomplete. The puzzle box reads, “499/500 pieces included.” All of these embody what Giertz calls exploratory building—a grown-up version of playtime. I get the sense that they're important to her, fulfilling that inner drive. I also get the sense that they're projects to fill time while she's incubating bigger ideas. Like Truckla. Her Truckla project has been, by almost all metrics, a success. At over 10 million views, it's her most popular video to date. More important, it proved that a new formula was feasible for Giertz; that she could invest as long as a year on a project and people would respond to it all the more. Even Elon Musk, who has trailed Giertz in his efforts to launch an EV pickup truck, took note of the video. He invited her to his own “Cybertruck” unveiling in late November. It was all so encouraging that for a while last summer, Giertz flirted with the idea of moving to Los Angeles to launch a video series about building cars, almost ditching her San Francisco workshop for a much larger space in Tinseltown. Later, she scrapped that idea as she set her sights on something even bigger. Now she's in contract negotiations with a media company—she refuses to say which one—to make a TV show in space. Or … at least a TV show about space. Giertz alternates between saying “about” and “in” when she's talking about the show she wants to make. I point out that the preposition matters. Will she film this TV series from orbit? Or would the videos just chronicle what it might take to get there? Hopefully both, she says. This thread of space exploration has been running through her work for years: the DIY astronaut training, the zero-gravity flight, locking herself in confined spaces for days, publicly fantasizing about blasting her brain tumor into orbit. I ask her why going to space captivates her so much. “Because it's such a worthy goal,” she says. “I started studying physics because I wanted to be an astronaut. Now I want to show a flawed human going to space.” For the new Simone Giertz, accepting her own flaws and embracing grand, non-shitty designs are of a piece. “There are so many things that are amazing that are not perfect. And there are so many things that are perfect that are fucking boring,” she says. “Perfect is a corset. It doesn't let you breathe. It doesn't let you roll around. It's a small pen to be in.” Space is pretty much the opposite of all that (notwithstanding all those confined capsules). For Giertz, getting there is more a matter of when than if. When I ask if she has a planned timeline for liftoff, she replies, “I mean, I have time next weekend.” Hair and makeup by Amy Lawson and Miranda Gulyash This article appears in the January issue. Subscribe now. Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. Senior Writer X Topics magazine-28.01 Cover Story longreads robots Boone Ashworth Julian Chokkattu Boone Ashworth Louryn Strampe Lauren Goode Scott Gilbertson Eric Ravenscraft Jaina Grey WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Bitcoin’s Greatest Feature Is Also Its Existential Threat | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-bitcoins-greatest-feature-is-also-its-existential-threat"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Barath Raghavan Bruce Schneier Ideas Bitcoin’s Greatest Feature Is Also Its Existential Threat Illustration: Sam Whitney; Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Security researchers have recently discovered a botnet with a novel defense against takedowns. Normally, authorities can disable a botnet by taking over its command-and-control server. With nowhere to go for instructions, the botnet is rendered useless. But over the years, botnet designers have come up with ways to make this counterattack harder. Now the content-delivery network Akamai has reported on a new method: a botnet that uses the Bitcoin blockchain ledger. Since the blockchain is globally accessible and hard to take down, the botnet's operators appear to be safe. It’s best to avoid explaining the mathematics of Bitcoin's blockchain, but to understand the colossal implications here, you need to understand one concept. Blockchains are a type of “distributed ledger”: a record of all transactions since the beginning, and everyone using the blockchain needs to have access to—and reference—a copy of it. What if someone puts illegal material in the blockchain? Either everyone has a copy of it, or the blockchain’s security fails. Barath Raghavan is on the computer science faculty at the University of Southern California. Bruce Schneier is a security technologist who teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the author, most recently, of Click Here to Kill Everybody: Security and Survival in a Hyper-Connected World. To be fair, not absolutely everyone who uses a blockchain holds a copy of the entire ledger. Many who buy cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum don’t bother using the ledger to verify their purchase. Many don't actually hold the currency outright, and instead trust an exchange to do the transactions and hold the coins. But people need to continually verify the blockchain’s history on the ledger for the system to be secure. If they stopped, then it would be trivial to forge coins. That’s how the system works. Some years ago, people started noticing all sorts of things embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain. There are digital images, including one of Nelson Mandela. There’s the Bitcoin logo, and the original paper describing Bitcoin by its alleged founder, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. There are advertisements, and several prayers. There's even illegal pornography and leaked classified documents. All of these were put in by anonymous Bitcoin users. But none of this, so far, appears to seriously threaten those in power in governments and corporations. Once someone adds something to the Bitcoin ledger, it becomes sacrosanct. Removing something requires a fork of the blockchain, in which Bitcoin fragments into multiple parallel cryptocurrencies (and associated blockchains). Forks happen, rarely, but never yet because of legal coercion. And repeated forking would destroy Bitcoin’s stature as a stable(ish) currency. The botnet’s designers are using this idea to create an unblockable means of coordination, but the implications are much greater. Imagine someone using this idea to evade government censorship. Most Bitcoin mining happens in China. What if someone added a bunch of Chinese-censored Falun Gong texts to the blockchain? What if someone added a type of political speech that Singapore routinely censors? Or cartoons that Disney holds the copyright to? In Bitcoin’s and most other public blockchains there are no central, trusted authorities. Anyone in the world can perform transactions or become a miner. Everyone is equal to the extent that they have the hardware and electricity to perform cryptographic computations. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg This openness is also a vulnerability, one that opens the door to asymmetric threats and small-time malicious actors. Anyone can put information in the one and only Bitcoin blockchain. Again, that’s how the system works. Over the last three decades, the world has witnessed the power of open networks: blockchains , social media, the very web itself. What makes them so powerful is that their value is related not just to the number of users, but the number of potential links between users. This is Metcalfe's law—value in a network is quadratic, not linear, in the number of users—and every open network since has followed its prophecy. As Bitcoin has grown, its monetary value has skyrocketed, even if its uses remain unclear. With no barrier to entry, the blockchain space has been a Wild West of innovation and lawlessness. But today, many prominent advocates suggest Bitcoin should become a global, universal currency. In this context, asymmetric threats like embedded illegal data become a major challenge. The philosophy behind Bitcoin traces to the earliest days of the open internet. Articulated in John Perry Barlow's 1996 Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace , it was and is the ethos of tech startups: Code is more trustworthy than institutions. Information is meant to be free, and nobody has the right—and should not have the ability—to control it. But information must reside somewhere. Code is written by and for people, stored on computers located within countries, and embedded within the institutions and societies we have created. To trust information is to trust its chain of custody and the social context it comes from. Neither code nor information is value-neutral, nor ever free of human context. Today, Barlow’s vision is a mere shadow; every society controls the information its people can access. Some of this control is through overt censorship, as China controls information about Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, and the Uyghurs. Some of this is through civil laws designed by the powerful for their benefit, as with Disney and US copyright law, or UK libel law. By WIRED Staff Bitcoin and blockchains like it are on a collision course with these laws. What happens when the interests of the powerful, with the law on their side, are pitted against an open blockchain? Let’s imagine how our various scenarios might play out. China first: In response to Falun Gong texts in the blockchain, the People’s Republic decrees that any miners processing blocks with banned content will be taken offline—their IPs will be blacklisted. This causes a hard fork of the blockchain at the point just before the banned content. China might do this under the guise of a “patriotic” messaging campaign, publicly stating that it’s merely maintaining financial sovereignty from Western banks. Then it uses paid influencers and moderators on social media to pump the China Bitcoin fork, through both partisan comments and transactions. Two distinct forks would soon emerge, one behind China’s Great Firewall and one outside. Other countries with similar governmental and media ecosystems—Russia, Singapore, Myanmar—might consider following suit, creating multiple national Bitcoin forks. These would operate independently, under mandates to censor unacceptable transactions from then on. Disney’s approach would play out differently. Imagine the company announces it will sue any ISP that hosts copyrighted content, starting with networks hosting the biggest miners. (Disney has sued to enforce its intellectual property rights in China before.) After some legal pressure, the networks cut the miners off. The miners reestablish themselves on another network, but Disney keeps the pressure on. Eventually miners get pushed further and further off of mainstream network providers, and resort to tunneling their traffic through an anonymity service like Tor. That causes a major slowdown in the already slow (because of the mathematics) Bitcoin network. Disney might issue takedown requests for Tor exit nodes, causing the network to slow to a crawl. It could persist like this for a long time without a fork. Or the slowdown could cause people to jump ship, either by forking Bitcoin or switching to another cryptocurrency without the copyrighted content. And then there’s illegal pornographic content and leaked classified data. These have been on the Bitcoin blockchain for over five years, and nothing has been done about it. Just like the botnet example, it may be that these do not threaten existing power structures enough to warrant takedowns. This could easily change if Bitcoin becomes a popular way to share child sexual abuse material. Simply having these illegal images on your hard drive is a felony, which could have significant repercussions for anyone involved in Bitcoin. Whichever scenario plays out, this may be the Achilles heel of Bitcoin as a global currency. If an open network such as a blockchain were threatened by a powerful organization—China's censors, Disney’s lawyers, or the FBI trying to take down a more dangerous botnet—it could fragment into multiple networks. That’s not just a nuisance, but an existential risk to Bitcoin. Suppose Bitcoin were fragmented into 10 smaller blockchains, perhaps by geography: one in China, another in the US, and so on. These fragments might retain their original users, and by ordinary logic, nothing would have changed. But Metcalfe’s law implies that the overall value of these blockchain fragments combined would be a mere tenth of the original. That is because the value of an open network relates to how many others you can communicate with—and, in a blockchain, transact with. Since the security of bitcoin currency is achieved through expensive computations, fragmented blockchains are also easier to attack in a conventional manner—through a 51 percent attack—by an organized attacker. This is especially the case if the smaller blockchains all use the same hash function, as they would here. Traditional currencies are generally not vulnerable to these sorts of asymmetric threats. There are no viable small-scale attacks against the US dollar, or almost any other fiat currency. The institutions and beliefs that give money its value are deep-seated, despite instances of currency hyperinflation. The only notable attacks against fiat currencies are in the form of counterfeiting. Even in the past, when counterfeit bills were common, attacks could be thwarted. Counterfeiters require specialized equipment and are vulnerable to law enforcement discovery and arrest. Furthermore, most money today—even if it’s nominally in a fiat currency—doesn't exist in paper form. Bitcoin attracted a following for its openness and immunity from government control. Its goal is to create a world that replaces cultural power with cryptographic power: verification in code, not trust in people. But there is no such world. And today, that feature is a vulnerability. We really don’t know what will happen when the human systems of trust come into conflict with the trustless verification that makes blockchain currencies unique. Just last week we saw this exact attack on smaller blockchains—not Bitcoin yet. We are watching a public socio-technical experiment in the making, and we will witness its success or failure in the not-too-distant future. WIRED Opinion publishes articles by outside contributors representing a wide range of viewpoints. Read more opinions here , and see our submission guidelines here. Submit an op-ed at opinion@wired.com. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Sex tapes, hush money, and Hollywood’s economy of secrets How to set up a 4G LTE Wi-Fi network in your home What do TV’s race fantasies actually want to say ? The woman bulldozing video games’ toughest DRM Email and Slack have locked us in a productivity paradox 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Topics Wired Opinion bitcoin Blockchain cryptocurrency cybersecurity Nika Simovich Fisher Meghan O'Gieblyn Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Inside the Second Coming of Nest | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/inside-the-second-coming-of-nest"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Steven Levy Backchannel Inside the Second Coming of Nest Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz, left, and cofounder Matt Rogers, right. Balazs Gardi Save this story Save Save this story Save “We have better light rings than any other products on the market,” says Adam Mittleman. This is a sentence that I have never before heard uttered by anyone, even after a long time living on Planet Earth. But because I am visiting Nest, and Mittleman is its Head of Product Design, working on a new gadget that this startup-turned-controversial Alphabet division is launching, I can’t say I am surprised. After all, light rings—the shimmering glow-circles that allow digital appliances to provide feedback—have been a leitmotif for Nest throughout its eventful journey of disrupting the home. Thermostats, smoke alarms, and now Nest’s new home security system signal users via rings. Nest has given a lot of thought to them. Literally years of thought. Naturally, there is a light ring on the Nest Guard, which is the hub of the Nest Secure suite. That suite has been in the works since well before the company was acquired by Google in January 2014 and then underwent a second recalibration in October 2015 when Google made Nest one of the divisions (“bets”) in the Alphabet archipelago. Depending on the message the new Nest Guard wants to convey, its ring might glow red, yellow or green. Steven Levy is Backchannel’s Editor in Chief. Sign up to get Backchannel's weekly newsletter, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Mittleman passionately cites the three potential problems that occur if a company does not pay attention to the design of its light rings. “One, the light is too direct, so that calls too much attention to itself,” he says. “Two, color uniformity can be really bad. Say, a yellow might look like some mix between oranges and reds and yellows, and it just doesn't look really good. Three, hotspots. That’s the most common affliction—they’ll be much brighter in one location and then get dim and then bright and then dim and bright and dim.” Red, yellow, green. In its brief history, Nest’s own progress might also be charted by a color-shifting light ring signaling the unit’s varying fortunes. Because Alphabet doesn’t break out sales figures or other numbers for Nest, it’s hard to say for sure what those actual fortunes are, but these days a yellow beam might be cutting the company a break. For a long stretch, Nest’s biggest splashes have been product recalls , destructive public infighting, and the departure of its CEO and cofounder. Meanwhile, Nest hasn’t announced a major new product category in ages. Until today. In Nest’s biggest moment in years, it is announcing a series of products that take it onto new ground—and, it hopes, flips its light ring to green for good. The new products include the aforementioned Nest Secure, a home security system; Nest Hello, an internet-connected doorbell; an outdoor version of its Nest Cam IQ security camera (which uses Google face recognition to identify people who wander into range); and, perhaps most significant, the integration of the voice-based Google Assistant into Nest products, beginning with the indoor IQ camera. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Nest’s new security system (bottom), video doorbell (left), and outdoor security camera (right). Balazs Gardi The launch not only brings Nest into new territory, but also sends a signal that despite changes and setbacks, it’s still powered by the same impulse: to transform the home by reinventing mundane home appliances and services with internet connectivity and cutting-edge design. “The DNA hasn't changed,” says Matt Rogers, who cofounded the company in 2010 with its first CEO, Tony Fadell. “But I think we finally are able to achieve what we’ve always talked about doing. We’re in millions of homes now. We’ve laid this foundation of products that solve really important problems and now we can link them together and do more with them.” Given, of course, that the lights glow green. The face of Nest used to be Fadell, a visionary product designer best known for his iPod work, and a famously exacting leader. (He reportedly tried to cut short his cofounder’s honeymoon so the new bridegroom could address some product crises. Rogers refused.) The new leader would prefer not to be its face. When Fadell left in June 2016, Larry Page replaced him with Marwan Fawaz, a nuts-and-bolts guy who is much in the mold of other recent Alphabet division leaders: experienced, middle-aged guys (always guys) known less for vision than for delivering quarterly results. Though Fawaz is not reticent about invoking his considerable experience, his approach is methodical and straightforward. And decidedly not flamboyant. “They call me No Drama Marwan,” he says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Fawaz’s previous jobs have involved launching and managing products for cable and telecom firms. The jewel of his resume was leading the Motorola Home product, a rare success in the troubled recent history of that firm. Also of note is his chairing the Technical Advisory Board of the security firm ADT. Fawaz says that his marching orders from Alphabet CEO Page were clear: “We want to make sure the presence in the home, and the business, is meaningful and global and [that] it’s successful. That it could thrive on its own as a business. You can interpret that by financial discipline, bringing new products to market, scaling the business.” Though it was widely believed that Alphabet was considering offers to sell off Nest (a rumor confirmed to me by knowledgeable sources), Fawaz assured Nesters on day one that the company was not for sale. He takes pains to assure me that despite what some may believe, the company will not go back on the block. “Selling Nest is not the right decision,” he says. “Nest has so much potential being in the Alphabet family.” Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz. Balazs Gardi Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Fawaz sees his job as carrying forth the Nest mission by scaling its current products to larger audiences and markets. “We’re about creating the conscious home,” Fadell once said about the mission. “To take a truly important device that has had no great innovation and make that device really, really great.” But that message got lost in a series of blunders and corporate shifts. The calamities began soon after the Google acquisition, when the company discovered a serious flaw in its smoke alarm. Its coolest feature, the Nest Wave—the ability to shut down a false alarm by waving your hand—held a potential danger: Under some circumstances it could have kept the alarm silent during a real fire or carbon monoxide release. Though no case like that had ever been reported, Nest halted sales for a few weeks and issued a recall to disable the feature in 440,000 Protect units. During the next few years, news from Nest always seemed to have a bite to it. Users pestered the company with lawsuits about marketing promises and other issues. Rumored products didn’t appear. And everybody wondered just how many gadgets Nest was selling. Alphabet’s silence did not build confidence. Nest's video doorbell system. Balazs Gardi Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In June 2014, Nest bought Dropcam for $555 million, filling a gap in its smart home strategy with the connected camera leader. Though Nest’s painstaking integration of the technology into its system proceeded, however, it failed at combining the two companies’ cultures. Dropcam’s former CEO Greg Duffy, who had joined Nest to head the camera team, became so frustrated—primarily with Fadell—that he reportedly suggested that Page remove Fadell and make him CEO. After Duffy was rebuffed, he took his gripes public in a scathing Medium post. Meanwhile, under the new Alphabet structure, tough-minded CFO Ruth Porat was putting the “bets” on a shorter leash, demanding better quarterly results. This didn’t please Fadell, who believed that investing in innovation was more important at the moment than focusing on profits. (All these woes and more were mercilessly recounted in a well-circulated takedown by The Information. ) Fadell left Nest in June 2016. Fawaz immediately replaced him. (Some wondered why Fadell’s cofounder Rogers did not get the nod. His answer is: not yet. “I love spending time on product and design [but] having a sole product- and design-focused CEO is not enough. You need someone who’s focused on either the business or product, but it's hard to do both. I think the split that Marwan and I have works really well. Maybe I’ll be CEO of Nest one day. Maybe a CEO of a different company.”) Nest cofounder Matt Rogers. Balazs Gardi Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The pileup of calamities might have hurt Nest’s profile among the digerati. But those who remained at the company (though, indeed, some Fadell loyalists have split) say that aside from the personalities of the respective leaders, the culture is still pretty much the same. One positive sign was the return early this year of Nest’s original VP of technology, Yoky Matsuoka, who left the company in 2015 and wound up at Apple. “When I started to look for the place where I can really have the most impact, I was really surprised to see that Nest was on the top of the list,” she says. The real measure of Nest’s success, however, rests on its sales figures. Alphabet keeps those closer than the secrets of its search algorithm—but if you shake the tea leaves just right, you can see signs that Nest has sold pretty well. The fact that it had to recall 440,000 smoke detectors indicates that, even at its high price, the Nest Protect was a hit. Also, Nest products always seem to hold high positions on Amazon’s best seller lists. As I was researching this story, I actually got some concrete evidence: While talking about how he hoped the company would grow in the future, one of Nest’s executives blurted out a number: “Nest is on track to be a billion-dollar run rate company by the end of the year.” And that’s before Nest hits the market with the roster of products it’s launching today. Making a security system —a connection-dependent home appliance whose current incarnations have been driving users crazy—has always seemed to be in Nest’s wheelhouse, and everyone has long assumed the company was working on one. Indeed, Nest has being doing just that—for almost four years. So the introduction of Nest Secure (shipping in November) and the companion video doorbell (out early next year) have been years in the making. In that time, Nest has finished up a communications protocol (Weave) and a wireless standard (Thread) to develop a platform where not only Nest products but also outside developers could plug in together and connect a whole Internet of Things-worth of stuff. But another reason it took so long was the high stakes of getting something wrong. “If a music app fails, people can say, ‘Wow. That’s a crappy product.’ The consequences aren’t so big,” says Matsuoka, who is now Nest’s Chief Technology Officer. “But in security, you have to make sure the door sensor works reliably every time the door cracks open.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Nest CTO Yoky Matsuoka. Balazs Gardi As with most Nest products, the apparent star of the show is a control device that gives users a window into the workings of a tool that was previously buried in analog obscurity. In the case of Nest Secure, that is a sleek tabletop disk—much in the mold of the recent routers from Eero or Google —that replaces the standard (ugly) keypad where customers anxiously tap in their codes before an alarm shrieks. Head of Product for Nest Secure Sophie Le Guen explains the advantages: flexibility in placement (not everybody uses the same door to enter a house); no need to rip open the walls to install wiring; and it looks good. It also provides a number of ways to avoid what Nest discovered was the biggest failing of current systems: false alarms, the majority of which are caused by the same beloved family members (and their pets) that the system is meant to protect. The most important way of defeating those unwelcome, ear-piercing warnings (the Nest Guard is capable of 85db of eardrum misery) is a walnut-sized fob known as the Nest Tag—a $25 personalized pebble that verifies (via near-field communications) someone who’s supposed to be there. If you open a door or window when the system is alarmed, holding the Tag near the Nest Guard prevents the sound blast. “I can give it to my mother-in-law, I can give it to my kid, and they have no stress about how to arm and disarm because you just tag in and tag out,” says Le Guen. Not that you have to give your mother-in-law (or, say, the dogwalker) constant access: Using the Nest App, you can specify limited times and dates that the tag will work. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Nest’s security system. Balazs Gardi Like memorable character actors crushing in cameos, the real showstoppers of Nest products are often its sensors—and this is especially the case with Nest Secure. Called Nest Detect, the security system’s new $59 sensor performs double duty as a motion detector and a magnet-equipped monitor that detects when a door or window is opened. Another advantage of the Nest Detect is something it doesn’t do: light up when it detects motion. “People don’t want to be reminded that there’s a security device [watching them],” says Le Guen. Nest head of product Sophie Le Guen (center) with her team members Andy Hengel (right) and Adam Mittleman (left). Balazs Gardi Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The Nest Secure system sells with a basic kit at $499 including the Guard, two Detects, and two Tags—at which point, unless you live in one of those twee tiny cottages, you will stock up on more sensors and fobs. It’s still cheaper than a “professional” rig from the likes of ADT. And unlike those traditional products, Nest Secure users can get considerable value without having to buy a service contract. For those who do, Nest has contracted with a security company, MONI, to automatically call in the gendarmes when necessary. But many people will be happy to do their own monitoring via the Nest app, especially if they use the system in tandem with internet-connected Nest Cams. A logical companion to a security system is a video doorbell—another product that Nest won’t be the first to release. But with its expertise in cameras, Nest has a shot at making its entry the best, especially if it successfully uses Google’s AI to recognize who’s ringing the bell. What’s clear is that Nest has a tough road ahead of it. The thermostat was an unloved product category that Nest made cool. Now the low-hanging fruit has been plucked. The new categories—security systems, doorbells, smart cameras—already have multiple competitors who are basically using Nest’s playbook. Nest’s best pitch might be its ability to tie all the pieces together in one home network and control them in one app. As the different sensors Nest plants in your home pool their data, they can start to help each other do more—a network effect. All of this makes sense. But though every piece is well thought out—including, of course, the light rings—there is no single jaw-dropping feature like the flashing green leaf on the Nest Learning Thermostat that rewards you for saving energy, or the ill-fated Nest Wave on the Nest Protect. That’s no accident. Nest's outdoor security camera. Balazs Gardi Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Le Guen says that after the Wave debacle, Nest learned a lesson in simplicity: “You really have to focus on the core experience—what is the purpose of the product? Here, it’s, ‘I want to be able to secure my home’ and ‘I want to be able to arm and disarm and be able to trust the system.’ Convenience is important, but it has to be convenience that helps me—not convenience where there is potentially a risk, which is what happened with Nest Wave.” In fact, though Nest certainly won’t be putting this on billboards, the company seems to be recalibrating toward everyday consumers rather than tech-savvy aficionados. The most explicit example of that was the recent release of the Nest Thermostat E, a lower-cost version of the original Learning Thermostat that began Nest’s quest to become a stalwart brand. Director of Product Marketing Maxime Veron, who has been a marketing exec at Nest since 2011, explained to me that the company’s original customers were “people who really care about the kind of furniture, the specific furniture they have in their home, and spend months looking for the right floor lamp.” (Like…the people who work at Nest.) Though there are apparently hundreds of thousands of those people, there aren’t millions of them. So the “E” is for the masses who “don’t want something that stands out, they just want something that blends in, does its job in the background.” MORE FROM THIS EDITION Alexis Sobel Fitts Jason Tselentis Karen Wickre Jessi Hempel That’s why I shouldn’t have been surprised that while its partner Google intones an “AI-first” mantra like a broken record, Nest is downplaying its own machine-learning chops, even with its new product. “I wouldn’t say what we’re shipping is going to be the most amazing AI that nobody has ever seen,” says Yoky Matsuoka. “That’s not what this is about.” In fact, though Nest says it will indeed add AI when appropriate for its products, the company seems more comfortable with tapping the fearsome AI powers of its sister Alphabet company, Google. The prime example of that comes with the announcement that Nest products will begin to utilize Google Assistant, the voice-controlled bot that competes with Amazon’s Alexa and other services. Some observers thought it was a dis when Google, not Nest, built the Assistant-powered Google Home, and other devices like OnHub, a combination router and music speaker. Indeed, there seemed to be a rivalry between Nest and a fortified Google Hardware group under a recently hired Rick Osterloh—like Fawaz, a Motorola veteran. Nest’s Google Home collaboration—first on the IQ Camera, later on other devices—would seem to put a rest to that speculation. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “The last six months [working together] deepened our relationship,” says Rishi Chandra, VP of product management of Google’s Home Products. “We want to think of ourselves as one company.” Which was exactly the way Google operated when it was one company. This past August, I sat in on a series of product and strategy meetings at Nest. I’d done this in the Fadell days, and in some ways the routine was the same. The agenda and slide decks were displayed side by side on two screens in front of the room. The CEO sat at the head of the table. Of course, this spot was now occupied by no-drama Fawaz, with Rogers sitting to his left—both a sidekick and a corporate conscience. The sessions took place in Nest’s new headquarters in the hills above Palo Alto, an expansive space necessary to accommodate a workforce that has grown to over 1,000. RELATED STORIES Uncategorized Steven Levy Uncategorized Steven Levy Steven Levy As you’d expect in meetings approaching perhaps the company’s most important launch, there were tensions. As launch date loomed, there were still bugs and technical issues to be resolved, from serious ones that absolutely had to be resolved before shipping to others that would certainly be nice to check off. (The feature that let the motion sensors ignore dog activities didn’t work so well with cats.) All that unfinished work led to a problem. With so many projects headed toward completion, there weren’t enough engineers at Nest to dispatch all the issues fast enough—at least not to Fawaz’s satisfaction. It was also clear that the delay—along with other issues that needed to be dealt with—was hugely annoying to Fawaz. Fawaz didn’t mince words. He expressed pique that he hadn’t been alerted to the problem earlier. He prioritized the Google collaboration with Assistant as something that had to be done. But he wanted the other problems addressed as well. When his team noted that there was only a finite number of engineers, Fawaz’s voice turned cold. “We will revisit this,” he said, perhaps aware that an outsider was in the room. Speaking to one of the meeting’s participants afterward, I remarked that for a low-key leader, Fawaz seemed pretty hardcore. I was assured that compared to to Nest’s first volcanic, charismatic CEO, what I saw was pretty mild. Then we returned to the subject at hand: Nest Secure. From here on in, Nest’s fortunes will rise and fall not on its drama but on its products. Photo direction by: Michelle Le Editor at Large X Andy Greenberg Steven Levy Brandi Collins-Dexter Angela Watercutter Lauren Smiley Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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"Amazon's Latest Gimmicks Are Pushing the Limits of Privacy | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/amazon-drone-camera-go-palm-data-privacy"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Lily Hay Newman Security Amazon's Latest Gimmicks Are Pushing the Limits of Privacy The Ring Always Home Cam flies around your house looking for trouble. Maybe think twice before you let it. Photograph: Amazon Save this story Save Save this story Save At the end of September, amidst its usual flurry of fall hardware announcements, Amazon debuted two especially futuristic products within five days of each other. The first is a small autonomous surveillance drone, Ring Always Home Cam , that waits patiently inside a charging dock to eventually rise up and fly around your house, checking whether you left the stove on or investigating potential burglaries. The second is a palm recognition scanner, Amazon One, that the company is piloting at two of its grocery stores in Seattle as a mechanism for faster entry and checkout. Both products aim to make security and authentication more convenient—but for privacy-conscious consumers, they also raise red flags. Amazon's latest data-hungry innovations are not launching in a vacuum. The company also owns Ring, whose smart doorbells have had myriad security issues and have been widely criticized for bringing unprecedented surveillance to traditionally semi-private spaces. Meanwhile, the biometric data that Amazon One will collect is particularly sensitive, because unlike a password you can't simply change it if a hacker steals it or it gets unintentionally exposed. Amazon has a strong record for maintaining the security of its massive cloud infrastructure, but there have been lapses across the sprawling business. The stakes are already phenomenally high; the more data the company holds the more risk it takes on. "Amazon has a major genomics cloud platform , so maybe they hold your DNA and now they’re going to have your palm as well? Plus all of these devices inside your house. And your purchase history on Prime. That’s a lot of information. That’s a lot of personal information," says Nina Alli, executive director of Defcon's Biohacking Village and a health care security researcher. "When you give away this data you’re giving a company the ability to access and manage you, not the other way around." Both new products have features clearly intended to mollify security and privacy skeptics. Ring's Always Home Cam, which integrates with the home security system Ring Alarm, rests in a dock that physically blocks its camera most of the time. This means that the device can only capture video when it's in flight. When you set up the product you walk it around your house on the different flight paths you want it to take and those become the only places the drone can fly. Furthermore, Ring says that the drone "cannot be manually controlled," which would mean that even if hackers were able to somehow access it remotely, they still wouldn't be able to direct it off of its pre-set paths. The camera also emits an audible hum while it's flying so you have a heads up if it mistakenly activates while you're making a midnight snack. "Amazon is throwing terrifying spaghetti at the wall." Evan Greer, Fight for the Future The Amazon One announcement attempted to be similarly proactive about addressing potential privacy and security concerns. In a Frequently Asked Questions section , Amazon physical retail vice president Dilip Kumar emphasized that once customers set up an Amazon One account they can request that their data be deleted online or at an Amazon One kiosk at any time. He also noted that Amazon selected palm recognition, which can include assessment of size, patterns, markings, and ridges of a palm as well as analysis of vein patterns, because it "requires someone to make an intentional gesture by holding their palm over the device to use." And he added that palms aren't as recognizable as, say, your face. "Amazon One uses multiple characteristics of a person’s palm, not just their veins, to identify each person that uses the service," a company spokesperson told WIRED. "Amazon One is designed to work with only living human palms, so if a bad actor attempted to use an improvised palm, it would be rejected by the service." There has already been research, though, into attacks that trick vein-based authentication , as well as work on the limitations of fingerprint scanners that assess surface finger features. Researchers have also found ways to get around efforts to ensure that biometric scanners will only authenticate living people. The more ubiquitous palm scanners become, the more researchers and bad actors will investigate their security features and the more readily people will put out their palms. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg "I'm worried that people could read your palm vein pattern in other ways and construct an analog. It's only a matter of time," says Joseph Lorenzo Hall, a longtime security and privacy researcher and a senior vice president at the nonprofit Internet Society. Additionally, while companies like Apple and Samsung have brought biometric fingerprint and face scanners to the masses by making sure the data never leaves the device, Amazon One takes the opposite approach. Kumar writes that "palm images are never stored" on Amazon One itself. Instead they are encrypted and sent to a special high security area of Amazon's cloud to be converted into "palm signatures" based on the unique and distinctive features of a user's hand. Then the service compares that signature to the one on file in each user's account and returns a match or no match answer back down to the device. It makes sense that Amazon doesn't want to store databases of people's palm data locally on publicly accessible machines that could be manipulated. But the system could perhaps have been set up to generate a palm signature locally, delete the image of a person's hand, and send only the encrypted signature on for analysis. The fact that all of those palm images will be going for cloud processing creates a single point of failure. "Both the home drone and the palm payment are going to rely heavily on the cloud and on the security provided by that cloud storage," the Internet Society's Hall says. "That's worrying because it means all the risks—rogue employees, government data requests, data breach, secondary uses—associated with data collection on the server-side could be possible. I'm much more comfortable having a biometric template stored locally rather than on a server where it might be exfiltrated." An Amazon spokesperson told WIRED, "We are confident that the cloud is highly secure. In addition, Amazon One palm data is stored separately from other personal identifiers, and is uniquely encrypted with its own keys in a secure zone in the cloud." Privacy advocates note, though, that all of this focus on security and data protection belies a larger question about where digital surveillance technologies can lead when they are normalized and become ubiquitous. "Amazon is throwing terrifying spaghetti at the wall," says Evan Greer, deputy director of the digital rights group Fight for the Future. "In the process they're gleaning valuable data about what we will and won't accept. It seems like it's more about stress-testing our tolerance for surveillance in the name of convenience." Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Greer points out that numerous Amazon surveillance technologies have had privacy consequences the company apparently didn't foresee. For example, unbeknownst to customers, Amazon used third-party human reviewers to listen back to audio snippets of people talking to their Echo speakers and other Alexa-enabled products in their homes. Ring doorbell cameras have repeatedly come under fire for both security issues and Amazon's opt-in programs to share neighborhood doorbell footage with law enforcement. The company had to impose a yearlong ban on law enforcement using its facial recognition platform Rekognition after criticism and protests about the service's accuracy and reliability. "Amazon's entire business model is based on surveillance," Greer emphasizes. "With each new product they release it becomes more and more clear that their goal is to amass so much data about everything that their monopoly power becomes unchallengeable." Weeks before Always Home Cam and Amazon Go, the company announced a new wearable called Halo which claims to, among other things, track the emotional tone of your voice. The technological leaps like the ones Amazon has been taking create subtle but powerful guiding forces in society despite, in some cases, unclear gains for users. The Biohacking Village's Alli points out, for example, that as long as everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, scanning your palm doesn't actually provide significantly more convenience than an NFC transaction or displaying a barcode. In its recent spate of announcements, Amazon did add some important pro-privacy features. One is for its smart assistant Alexa, which will now include the option not to have Amazon automatically delete your voice snippets as soon as the service processes your request. The platform will still retain the transcripts of your requests for 30 days unless you manually delete them. The company also announced that users will be able to opt-in to have their Ring video footage end-to-end encrypted by the end of 2020. These are welcome changes, but in the case of Alexa it took six years to implement what should have been at least an option at launch. Amazon is certainly not the only company releasing gadgets that have access to your most deeply intimate data. But the steady drumbeat of new releases from the company that push the boundaries of privacy—this year and in years past—hints at a strategy of pushing as far as the market will bear, and then reshaping what that threshold can be. "What Amazon is doing reminds me of the scene in Jurassic Park where the guy is like, 'Those raptors are smart. They're systematically testing the fence for weaknesses,'" Fight for the Future's Greer says. As privacy advocates have long warned, foundational privacy rights are much harder to restore once they're gone than they are to maintain. Update 10/12 4:10PM ET: This story has been updated to include additional comment from Amazon. 📩 Want the latest on tech, science, and more? Sign up for our newsletters ! The West’s infernos are melting our sense of how fire works Amazon wants to “win at games.” So why hasn’t it ? Publishers worry as ebooks fly off libraries' virtual shelves Your photos are irreplaceable. Get them off your phone How Twitter survived its big hack— and plans to stop the next 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Senior Writer X Topics Amazon surveillance drones privacy David Gilbert Lily Hay Newman Justin Ling Dell Cameron Andy Greenberg Lily Hay Newman Andrew Couts David Gilbert Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"How Nothing Designed 'Ear 1s' to Beat Apple AirPods | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/nothing-ear-1-apple-airpods"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Jeremy White Gear How This Startup Designed 'Ear 1s' to Beat AirPods Nothing's first product, the Ear 1 earphones, launched on Tuesday. Photograph: Nothing Save this story Save Save this story Save When your design motif is transparent tech, the quest to make the tangle of wires and jumble of components look attractive beneath clear plastic can take an unexpected toll. Nothing discovered this the hard way making its Ear 1 earphones, that brand’s first product. Among many unexpected manufacturing hurdles, the company headed by OnePlus cofounder Carl Pei got fired by not one but two magnet factories. This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. The trouble was that, as you can physically see the magnets in both the case and the arms of new Ear 1s , they had to be highly polished. But magnet factories don’t usually do this, so quality control was a problem. “As a startup, we don’t have the biggest volumes. But we were so damn annoying in our requests they were like, ‘OK, just find somebody else.’ So the factory that ended up supporting us was actually the third,” says Pei. It’s fair to say that Pei and the Nothing team have taken the art of drip-feeding news to a new level with the Ear 1s, revealing glimpses of design concepts, issuing press releases on the model name, retail partners, and even attempting to get coverage on the design of just the case. The trouble with these calculated tactics is that after such a manipulated buildup, the final earphones had better be good. Almost annoyingly, they are. The Ear 1s are Nothing’s aggressive attempt at taking on Apple’s mighty AirPods Pro. For just $99 in the US, you get an all-too-familiar design, but crucially one that’s undeniably different from Apple’s offering; You get active noise-canceling; IPX4 water resistance; gesture controls; Bluetooth 5.2; an 11.6-mm driver with a 0.34-cc chamber for bass; a battery life of 4 hours with ANC and 24 hours with the case charge (5.7 and 34 hours with it off); fast charging; a wireless charging case with USB-C port; in-ear detection; and a weight of just 4.7 grams per earbud. So these are lighter, last longer, and have a bigger driver and chamber than the AirPods Pro. They have nearly all the same features (apart from spatial audio), yet cost significantly less than half the price. Plump for the Ear 1s and you save a whopping $150 compared to its Apple rival. You could buy two pairs and still have $50 to buy some over-ears , even. What’s more, we’ve had a listen, and they sound much better than they have any right to. We’ll let you know if they beat the Pros in a few days. Ahead of the launch on Tuesday, we sat down with Pei and Thomas Howard, creative director at Nothing and vice head of design at Teenage Engineering , makers of the much-lauded OD-11 wireless speaker, to talk through exactly how they came up with, on the face of it, such a competitive set of true wireless earbuds to the all-conquering AirPods. Photograph: Nothing WIRED UK: Clear design has been done before. It made Jony Ive famous. Why did you choose this route? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Thomas Howard: When we first started to think about Nothing, there was this idea to ‘own' transparency. We’re not going to win the tech race, that’s for sure. But if we want to even have a chance, we need to get really good at engineering. So let’s just do away with the facade, get rid of everything that’s on the exterior and turn ourselves to the insides, because that’s what matters. From a distance, you get intrigued but things feel quite simple, and then slowly as you start to look at the surface, that’s when the details of the product reveal themselves. But, then again, we didn’t really know what sort of problems transparency would cause. Problems? TH: The biggest thing was the glue to fuse the two sides of the transparent housing together. We have been through many, many, many iterations—even up until last week—to find the right balance. If you do it wrong, you’ll see glue all the way around the edge. So it will not appear transparent anymore. Instead it will be diffused. It throws the whole thing off balance. We tried alternatives to glue, various types of laser welding, ultrasonic welding—things that might be more friendly to the yield, but, of course, it’s a learning process for us. It just wasn’t at the top of our minds [when we started], but for future products now it’s the first thing that we think about. Carl Pei: The yield rate for Ear 1s is only 50 percent. We want to get it to the 90s. We’re improving day by day. Is this why you haven’t opted to make the earbuds or case completely clear? It's just too hard and you get such a high production failure rate? TH: We set ourselves the challenge of revealing as much of the engineering as possible on Ear 1 and the case. But you have to strive to make products that are as neutral as possible. They need to feel balanced and not scream “engineering” at you. So we choose to obscure, or package, some components, to not detract or distract. That’s why we have this large white block inside of the case. But we did as much as we possibly could to make it transparent. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So CP: A lot of us were uninspired by consumer tech looking more and more the same. It was important to find a design language we could stick with. Jesper [Kouthoofd, founder and CEO of Teenage Engineering] showed us a picture from the Sony museum where there were a bunch of products on the wall. You could see a consistent vision. Companies today don’t really have a design vision, they just do whatever is in fashion each quarter. The trick is to find something different that’s also desirable, but not just different for the sake of it. Pure transparent design, where you see everything on the earbuds and also the case, does not fulfill that criteria. We want to make the products accessible to more people. It would have been very niche if it was fully transparent. What is it with all the dots? The dot logo. The texture dots on the case. The red dot on the right earbud. TH: We were trying to remove jobs for ourselves that we don’t like. We had to design a logo. We wanted the look to be industrial. So … [ Howard pulls out something that looks like a large gun. ] This is amazing, this thing. It’s what they use to mark pipes in industrial environments where you can’t print on them. It squirts out a kind of ink. But it’s basically a dot matrix. We thought, let’s let a machine design the logo for us. See where that route takes us. Then we started to use that typeface for a lot of stuff. Is that red dot on the right earbud an attempt to fix one of the continuing annoyances of AirPods Pro, trying to work out which bud goes in which side of the case? TH: Absolutely. We had an advantage. You come into a category where there’s stuff already out, and we’ve all had experience with using others, like the AirPods Pro. And you run into these issues. So what a fantastic opportunity then to be able to jump in and try to solve some of those things. Also one of the great advantages of having a transparent case that you know whether the earbuds are in or out. It’s also about challenging how things are done by our friends over in Silicon Valley. We’re trying to have a conversation, in a way, through our products. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So The Apple references in your design for Ear 1 are interesting. There are so many competitors to AirPods Pro, and most are trying to make ones that clearly signal they are a similar product. Now the Ear 1s do look very like AirPods, but, thanks to that transparency, are sufficiently different to have a separate identity. Is that intentional? TH: Good observation. Yeah, you’re onto something with that sort of thinking. How many prototype designs did you get through? CP: I would say this final one is the third earbud design, and I think it’s the second case design. Our original launch time was April. But changing suppliers over and over again to find people who wanted to support us with the magnets and the glue, and countless of other stuff, delayed us. TH: The design process took just a couple of days. We started with a variant that looked like a pipe [top image, far left]. We were talking about transparency, but when Carl saw this he was like, ‘OK, what happened to all the talk of transparency?’ So then we tried a ‘milky’ look, and then thought maybe we can work with the FPC [flexible printed circuit] and celebrate all of the components of the stick instead. The golden rule is that if you look at something for the first time just for a couple of seconds and then you turn away, and someone asks you to make a sketch of it, you should be able to. There should be some detail that you can remember. For a Porsche, it’s the headlights. Now, the FPC is basically a highway that that holds the microphones. In a typical construction for an earbud that has a stick; you need to have an FPC that’s bringing the microphone from the bottom all the way to the top with some kind of internal structure. We got lucky there that there was already a lot of stuff to work with. We thought, ‘What are the hero things about the earbud? It’s that you can you can listen to music, and that you can talk with it.’ We do that a lot now, and it’s shifted even more in the last couple of years. So we wanted to celebrate the mics in an interesting way. So we brought them to the surface and worked with details like the cover mesh. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So We also tried to create an iconic shape with the FPC, so you have this hanging stick with one microphone and then a tiny little place for all of the circuits to go through up to the other microphone. We sketched a lot with this shape. Usually we work in two dimensions [at Teenage Engineering]. We always sketch flat. That doesn’t work when you’re trying to work with the human ear. Fortunately, a colleague of mine has some experience with this and a lot of papers on the ergonomics of human ears. So she helped us to find the right dimensions to come up with something that we knew we could iterate on that wasn’t going to cause problems down the line with ergonomics. Another problem was the FPC, because we thought we could print on it whatever we wanted. Usually we’re working with bigger products where we do little sketches and artworks hidden on the PCB. We took the same approach here thinking that that would be absolutely possible on a tiny scale at mass volume. It definitely wasn’t. But we have added this knurling done on the top layer of the FPC in copper to show off the surface. A common trick for manufacturers is to go bass heavy, to fool the user into initially thinking they’re getting a better quality listen than they really are. You’ve shunned this approach? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So CP: For the hardware, we considered having two drivers, but we felt the additional weight for each earbud versus the improvement in sound quality just wasn’t worth the tradeoff. Product management is all about tradeoffs, and we felt that with the large 11.6-mm driver we have, with the right tuning, we can produce some good sound. TH: Teenage Engineering helped a lot with that tuning. Who are we to guess or say how we should build on top of any music that a musician or an artist has worked for on for however long? So we always strive to have a profile that’s as balanced and neutral as possible. As a starting point, that’s super, super important. And it’s actually not the easiest way. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to throw a bunch of signal processing on top of things. Apple is doubling down on spatial audio. Why did you not include this? CP: We had some discussions early on about spatial audio. For it to work really well it needs to start at the source. So the recording has to be done in a special way. You can take current recordings and retrofit them into spatial audio, but it doesn’t sound as good. So we made the call. Once there’s more recordings with this at the source, then we will consider it. How have you managed to make these Ear 1s, with most of the AirPods Pro features, for £99 ($138)? What’s the secret sauce? Even the new OnePlus Buds Pro cost much more than this. CP: It goes back to our business model. We’re more direct to consumer. That doesn’t mean we don’t work with sales channels, but a large portion of our business is going to happen on our own website, which means there’s fewer middlemen, and we can deliver a great product at a reasonable price. But that’s not a magic bullet. There’s component costs, manufacturing issues, of which you’ve had more than your fair share. CP: If you look at the bill of materials for this product, it’s been a constant evolving equation. We originally wanted to price the product at £79 ($110)—then we had to revise it up to £99 ($138). You said you were going to be a new kind of audio company when you launched Nothing. But your first hardware is the obvious inaugural product. CP: This is our first category, and we picked a category where we felt we can make a difference. We looked at what was available on the market. A lot of products look like AirPods. And it’s also a fast- growing category. But it’s just the first step for us. we’ll have something else this year as well. You’re stuck with your clear design motif though, aren’t you? Knowing what you know now, dealing with all the issues of transparent design on this first product, do you regret not going another way? CP: No. I couldn’t be happier with the result. It’s better than what I expected. This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! A son is rescued at sea. But what happened to his mother? Loki's season 2 renewal is a clue to Marvel's multiverse Everyday IT tools can offer ‘god mode’ for hackers This AI music engine writes tracks to match your videos Is social media making us … better people? 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Senior innovation editor Instagram Topics Wired UK Headphones audio design Product Design Nena Farrell Brenda Stolyar Brenda Stolyar Jaina Grey Brenda Stolyar Eric Ravenscraft Brenda Stolyar Brendan Nystedt WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. 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"Focals by North Review: They'll Make You Rethink Smart Glasses | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/review/focals-by-north-smart-glasses"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Review: Focals Smart Glasses by North Facebook X Email Save Story WIRED Facebook X Email Save Story $999 at North If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Rating: 7/10 Open rating explainer One night recently I dreamed I was thumbing the little microcontroller for my smart glasses. It’s not the first time technology had seeped from my everyday life into my subconscious mind. There was that time I dreamed up a giant Motorola smartwatch with a kickstand, and the time Justin Bieber pitched me on a new peer-to-peer payments app. But this controller, a tiny joystick on a thick loop around my forefinger, was so satisfying. So addictive. I couldn’t stop playing with it, like a pimple that’s ready to pop. The controller is an accessory to a new pair of smart glasses called Focals. They’re made by North, a Canadian startup. As the story goes, North’s founders gave Google Glass a go back in the day, tried rigging the head-up display to work with a gesture-based armband they themselves had built, and then determined they could make better glasses. Armed with over $100 million in funding from Intel Capital and Amazon’s Alexa Fund, North toiled for four years to build Focals. North’s focus was twofold: First, design and make their own miniaturized components, and second, release a pair of smart glasses to the world that actually look like glasses. And the Focals are tantalizingly close to that. But they also cost $999 and require custom fitting at one of the company’s temporary stores in Brooklyn, Toronto, or wherever their newly launched mobile pop-up might appear. And then there’s the whole experience of wearing them, which I did, and then didn’t, and then did again; all the while peering through the lenses for glimpses of the future. The first time I wore Focals, one of my WIRED editors said he hated the future. Specifically, he said he hated a future in which he’s chatting with a coworker and she’s getting notifications about the Golden Globes in front of her eyeballs. We were in a cab on our way to a press event at CES, the annual consumer electronics fest in Las Vegas, and he might not have noticed I was wearing smart glasses had I not said something. Long hair does wonders to hide the thick arms of the Focals. Even if they’re not obscured, the Focals look distinctly less cyborg-like than other smart glasses on the market (which is still mostly limited to techno-optimist societies). While the arms of the Focals are made of aluminum, most of the product is made with nylon thermoplastic, which is very similar to the acetate that’s used in so many pairs of eyeglasses. The ones I’ve been wearing have a classic silhouette and a tortoiseshell frame. There are other parts of Focals that give them away as smart specs. There’s the projector squeezed into the right arm, the orb that glows on the right lens, the chunky black ring you need to wear to scroll through the information that’s beamed into your eyes. (One of the learnings the Focals creators took away from Google Glass: They didn’t like the experience of having to reach up and touch a swipe pad.) But while I was wearing Focals, not everyone noticed them, which is to say not everyone noticed they were smart glasses. North gets kudos for that. There’s a lot of technology that goes into making these smart glasses smart. But the more important question for a lot of would-be wearers: Why? Why do I need smart glasses? What do they do, exactly? Most smart glasses are called as much because they transfer some of the experience you’d have on another computing device—a smartphone, a PC—onto a display in front of your face. Many are labeled “AR glasses,” but each pair augments the world in front of you to varying degrees. Focals are not designed to project an NBA game (like Magic Leap’s One) or to run Autodesk apps (like Microsoft’s HoloLens head-up display) on your face. Instead, Focals are supposed to mirror the notifications you’d get on your phone, with some voice control and navigation applications thrown in for extra utility. Also, these don’t have a built-in camera (like Snap’s Spectacles). This is the number one question people have asked when I’ve revealed that I’ve been wearing smart glasses. Focals do have a microphone, though, so you can talk to Alexa. The Focals experience is largely powered by your smartphone. They pair over Bluetooth with both iOS and Android phones. If a text message comes through on your phone, it will be shown on your Focals display. Same with an incoming phone call. If you get a notification from Apple News on iOS, it will show up on your Focals. The accompanying ring, called the Loop, is what allows you to clear those notifications, to scroll from page to page, to respond to texts with shortcut responses or voice-dictated messages. When you wake up your Focals or select a menu option using the Loop’s tiny nub of a joystick, you hear a delightful click in your ear. The Loop is what I dreamed about. While I was wearing Focals, I couldn’t stop fiddling with the Loop on my forefinger. It is kind of ugly, and insanely satisfying to use, in the way body-focused repetitive behaviors can be. While I was at CES, I realized that Focals’ killer app might just be its simplest: Telling the time. One quick push on the joystick would show the date and the time of day. It’s a useful thing to have in front of you while you’re at a massive conference, trying to make it to your meetings on time. I also saw news app notifications and, for better or worse, text message notifications. I say “for better or worse” because a group thread with friends about Kohler’s new smart toilet quickly devolved into an ongoing conversation about poop, and I couldn’t avoid it. (“Too bad you didn’t get that scoop, Lauren.”) Fortunately, the Focals only show text, not multimedia messages. North Focals Rating: 7/10 $999 at North If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED There are two voice-control protocols built into Focals: a homegrown one that lets you respond to text messages, and Amazon’s Alexa. If you long-press on the Loop joystick, you’ll summon Alexa, though it’s a version of the virtual assistant that’s tailored to smart glasses. For example, you can’t ask it to stream music, but you can ask it for factoids. Like “What time is it in Germany?” which is one of the things I asked my glasses before I made a phone call last week. You can ask Alexa for the weather, but that information is available as visual imagery on the glasses as well. I also used the Focals’ built-in navigation feature, which relies on data from Mapbox and Foursquare and is designed for walking navigation. If the Focals detect that you’re driving, the glasses are disabled. You can get around this by indicating that you’re a passenger, but the company is careful to say that these are not meant to be used while driving. Anyway, when it comes to the walking navigation, I found it lacking. It was a series of sparse commands —walk 200 feet, turn left here—and I ended up using my phone again after a few minutes. In fairness, there is only so much information you can fit on a small head-up display. When North was designing the glasses, the team was determined not to build something with fixed, flat lenses and an LED micro-projector. Flat glasses, they say, are obviously not “real” eyeglasses; plus, you need a curvature of the lens in order to offer prescription lenses, which North says are in the works. So North built its own micro-projector, which sits in the right arm of the glasses, and created a “holographic” film that goes inside the right lens. The projector spits out rays of light, which bounce off the thin film in the lens and go directly into your eye, which is how you see the visual imagery on Focals. The result is a flat, 2D image that appears in front of your eyes, somewhere around the left shoulder of the person you might be talking to. It’s not volumetric in any way. You can’t walk up to the imagery, walk around it, manipulate it. But as basic as the Focals graphics are, they are surprisingly crisp. The fact that each pair of glasses is custom-fitted helps. Wearable technology is a personal thing, and it’s a very real challenge to make a one-size-fits-all product. North requires Focals customers to sit for 3D scans in its stores and then pick up the glasses in person to have them adjusted. I was able to do this when I was in New York City over the holidays, and then company representatives heated and shaped the glasses for me when I met with them at CES. But this process severely limits the potential customer base for Focals. As convenient as it was to reply to text messages without having to look at my phone, many of my text message exchanges were broken by Focals. This is largely because I had the glasses paired with an iPhone, and iOS has restrictions around how Messages are used by third-party apps. In order for North to craft and send a shortcut response to your Messages, it has to suck up a copy of the message into its servers (the company claims these are anonymized and encrypted) and send them back as an SMS. So every time I responded to an incoming text message through Focals, it created a new SMS thread in my Messages inbox. To make things even more awkward, each new SMS thread started with “Hey, it’s Lauren Goode. I’m messaging you from my Focals by North.” North Focals Rating: 7/10 $999 at North If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED The battery life on the glasses is expected to be around 16 hours on a single charge, and the Loop’s battery should last a few days. A lot of this depends on how intensively you use the Focals. The first time I wore them, they didn’t last 16 hours. They lasted through Sunday evening, a few hours on Monday morning, and another few hours on Tuesday morning before I got a low battery alert at 11:15 am. The case for the glasses doubles as a charging pod, which means you could, in theory, not have to worry about battery life if you plop them into the case each night. The case, however, is bulky as hell. It’s about the size (but not the weight) of a brick. Wearing smart glasses doesn’t just spark questions about how long the battery lasts, or how your glasses handle iOS messaging, or what questions you absolutely can’t ask Alexa. Wearing smart glasses raises critical questions about how technology fits into our everyday lives, and whether we’re opening ourselves to the natural evolution of technology or trying really darn hard to shoehorn it in. Smart glasses sit on our faces; they are literally bumping up against our humanity. At times when I was wearing Focals, I would look down—at a book, at my notes, at another darn screen—and the glasses would slip precariously down my nose. Custom-fitting didn’t help so much there. Other times I would look up and there would be some notification I was happy to see. Or, you know, just the time of day. I cannot say with a good conscience that a person should fly to New York City or Toronto and spend $1,000 on a pair of Focals. But if you were already considering it—if you’ve already done it!—then know that you might be able to wear them and not have people call you out for wearing smart glasses. That you might find their greatest utility to be a simple one. And that you might get the urge to take them off before the day is over, because they’ll feel heavy after awhile. Bottom line: Focals don’t fulfill the ultimate smart-glasses dream, but they come closer than anything I’ve worn yet. North Focals Rating: 7/10 $999 at North If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED $999 at North Senior Writer X Topics Wearables augmented reality Adrienne So Jeffrey Van Camp Adrienne So Adrienne So Scott Rosenfield Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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"The Race Is On to Stop Scalping Bots From Buying All the PS5s | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/scalping-bots-buying-all-the-ps5s"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Will Bedingfield Gear The Race Is On to Stop Scalping Bots From Buying All the PS5s Photograph: Maxim Stukonozhenko/Alamy Save this story Save Save this story Save If you’ve been searching for a PS5 these past months—convinced that the solution to the ennui of lockdown life lies in next-gen gaming—it’s likely that you’ve also made a new, hated enemy: retail bots. WIRED UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. For many, attempts to buy the console have followed the same sad pattern. A store, like Argos, Currys PC World, or GAME, announces it has new stock. Customers descend on the site—more than 160,000 at once , in the case of Currys—crashing it. When the virtual dust settles, the consoles are gone. Almost instantly, hundreds begin to appear on eBay for double the price. The culprits? Scalpers and their weapon of choice: retail bots. And the pandemic has created an ideal hunting ground. There are three kinds of bots at work, explains Thomas Platt, head of ecommerce at Netacea, a cybersecurity company. The first, and most notorious, is called an AIO bot, or all-in-one bot. These move at an inhuman rate, scanning hundreds of websites every second to check if the PS5 is in stock. The instant an item drops, the bot will buy it and check out, faster than a human could ever type their details. These bots, explains Platt, will have multiple accounts loaded with multiple credit cards, so they can pick up large quantities of PS5s. The two other common types of bot are similar. One will check to see if an item becomes available, then send the bot’s owner a text or notification; the other lets you pay a fee to get a checkout slot. “Or they're pausing and holding that stock in rotation until they sell it,” says Platt. “That’s something we saw a lot in the ticket industry a while ago, and we see a lot in the airline industry, where you might hold the item, put it up for retail on another site, and as soon as you get a bid on it, you automatically purchase it.” Scalping bots aren’t new. Online ticket scalping was outlawed in the UK in 2018, and “sneakerbots” drive a secondary retail market for rare trainers worth $2 billion. It’s been typical to see bots target big shopping events like Black Friday. Before the pandemic, they were growing in popularity as a result of the retail industry’s increasing reliance on hype and limited stocks. “We are seeing more and more hard sales recently, with limited stock,” says Benjamin Fabre, CTO of DataDome, a cybersecurity company. But the pandemic has kicked these bots into overdrive, and it’s not just the result of more aggressive sales events and shopping being pushed online (you can’t, obviously, have a retail bot camp out in front of your local GAME store). Damaged supply chains have limited the stock of usually plentiful items, creating scarcity, and scarcity is what scalpers prey on. “We used to see niche groups of people targeting niche groups of things,” says Platt. "And now what we realize is they can target things that aren't so niche, and they can make a lot of money. And that's the real switch for us.” Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft From gym equipment to hot tubs to Magic the Gathering trading cards , the net has widened for these groups, which have grown into huge communities. “It's spreading across the board,” says Jason Kent at Cequence Security, a cybersecurity software company. “The guys that worked on buying the most desirable shoes have realized that they can spread their knowledge, ability, and concepts to whatever.” Data provided by Netacea showed that a botnet which used 300 compromised machines made 1 million attempts to buy PS5s over six hours, and that “cook communities” of would-be scalpers can reach up to 20,000 people. When Google searches for PS5 spike, so do those for scalper bots. Scalpers are aware of this change, too. PC Gamer spoke to numerous scalpers who reported that their business had taken off since the pandemic began, while bot sellers like Carnage Bot have taken to Twitter to brag about picking up more than 2,000 PS5s. The people behind Carnage Bot did not respond to a request for comment. If these figures are true, explains Platt, this represents around £1 million worth of investment, with profits likely double that. “Before, this was a small niche community,” says Platt. “It wasn't something being advertised on Facebook saying, ‘Hey, you can make £200 a month by buying what we tell you to buy.’ That's the real shift. These have turned into commercial businesses with marketing plans, with investment, with budget, getting as much PR coverage as we are.” Not only do these businesses have huge buying power, buying and selling stock all around the world, they also sell their bots to amateurs. These can be worth up to $27,500, and they often sell out, says Platt. Casual users of bots have grown accordingly. “They'll buy two or three pairs of shoes, recover their money, get their shoes, and they're done,” says Kent. So should we be stopping scalpers? From the perspective of a seller, scalping is a disaster, explains Fabre. It damages the brand, overloading websites that cannot handle volumes of bot traffic, infuriating customers who cannot buy products for reasonable prices, and generating fraud—bot creators often use fraudulent credit cards. Retailers have different options for stopping scalping. They can be smarter with their launch, for instance, not informing customers weeks in advance and giving scalpers time to set up their bots. They can hire third-party security firms to check preorders manually or place security filters in front of their sites. Or they can come up with novel workarounds: Currys put the price of the Xbox Series X up to £2,000, then handed out vouchers for £2,005, in an attempt to confuse bots. (Several retailers were contacted for comment but did not respond in time for publication, or declined to comment.) Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Government legislation has been mooted. At the end of last year Douglas Chapman, the MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, brought forward a motion at Westminster to prevent unfair scalping in the game console and computer marketplace. Officials at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport are reportedly discussing this issue with the trade association for the video games industry. “We proposed examining the principles behind Secondary Selling of Tickets legislation drafted to tackle unfair ticket touting as a possible route to prevent scalping,” says Chapman. “Given that experts in the cyber industry now predict the issue of scalping to grow across other important goods and services this year, we are looking at presenting a bill in Parliament on this matter so that we can further explore legislative options to protect consumers from this unfair practice." This chimes with most people’s perception—retail bots aren’t fair. “It is not even or equal for anyone,” says Platt. “And that's why the government should be pushing legislation, like they did with ticketing.” This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! 2034 , Part I: Peril in the South China Sea Why Instacart is laying off workers as deliveries soar Is this a fossilized lair of the dreaded bobbit worm ? How to back up your most important emails Flash is dead— but not gone 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Staff writer X Topics Wired UK Playstation bots Boone Ashworth Lauren Goode Jaina Grey Eric Ravenscraft Simon Hill Simon Hill Louryn Strampe Boone Ashworth WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Doordash Promo Code 50% Off DoorDash Promo Code + Free Delivery Finish Line Coupon Take $10 off Your Order - Finish Line Coupon Code Groupon Promo Code Groupon promo code: Extra 30% off any amount Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"PlayStation 5 Tips (2023): 20 Settings and Features You Should Try | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/playstation-5-tips-and-features"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Simon Hill Gear 20 PlayStation 5 Tips, Tricks, and Hidden Features Photograph: Sony Save this story Save Save this story Save Whether you were lucky enough to snag Sony's new PlayStation 5 on release day, fast enough to grab one when stock resurfaced, or you scored one for Christmas, the important thing is that you have one. Congrats, and welcome to the wonderful world of next-gen console gaming! We've collected a few tips and not-so-obvious features that will help you make the most of your new console. Looking for accessories to kit out your new system? Check out our guides on Best Gaming Headsets , Best Wireless Gaming Headsets , and Best Gifts for PlayStation Lovers for our top picks. If you just want to know more about the PS5, here's exactly what's new. Updated February 2022: We added info on expanding PS5 storage and five new tips, including how to choose notifications, customize the control center, and get game help. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. You may scoff at this first tip. How tough can it be to turn your console off? I certainly didn’t spend 10 minutes trying to find the option … if that’s what you’re suggesting! Turns out you need to press the PlayStation button in the middle of the controller once; don’t hold it down as you would have done on the PS4. After you tap that button, a menu pops up along the bottom of the screen and you’ll see the power icon on the far right. The menu wraps around, so it’s faster to go left. You can also press the physical power button on the hardware itself, which is at the bottom if you have it vertically or the far left if your PS5 sits horizontally on your media console. If you’re upgrading from a PS4, then you might want to transfer games, settings, and other files to your new console. You’ll be prompted to do this during setup, but if you skipped it, you can go back and do it later. Before you start, it’s a good idea to have both consoles plugged in side by side and turned on with an Ethernet cable to connect them (you can use Wi-Fi, but it will take longer). When you’re ready, go to Settings on the PS5, then System > System Software. Choose Data Transfer , Continue, and pick your PS4. When Prepare for Data Transfer pops up, you need to hold down the power button on the PS4 for a few seconds until it beeps. Pick what you want to move over and choose Start Transfer. It's now easier than ever to see how many hours you’ve spent playing PlayStation games. Choose your avatar at the top right on the PS5's home screen and select Profile , then the Games tab. You’ll see total playtime next to each game with trophy progress on the right. While it’s great that you can play PS4 games on the PS5, it can create a bit of confusion at times. Certain older titles have been enhanced for the newer console, so you'll want to make sure you're playing the updated version for the best experience. Take a closer look at the game's title on the home screen. Any PS4 version will say PS4 next to it. You can also scroll to the right and choose Game Library , then tap the Sort and Filter icon on the left and filter your games by Platform. Photograph: Sony The PS5’s DualSense controller is excellent and represents a real step up from the DualShock 4. The feel of the triggers and the range of vibrations add to the immersion, and it changes dynamically in response to the on-screen action. The default settings suit me, but if you want to reduce the vibration intensity or trigger effects, then head into Settings > Accessories > Controllers. Since you can use your old DualShock 4 controllers to play PS4 games on the PS5, there’s also an option here to reduce the brightness of their indicators. A headline feature in the PS5 is 3D Audio, which enables game developers to tie sound effects to everything around you to enhance the illusion that you’re actually in the environment, but you need to use headphones or earbuds to take advantage. 3D Audio is turned on by default, so plug headphones into your controller and you should hear the difference immediately. But you will want to calibrate it for your ears via Settings > Sound > Audio Output. Beneath the option to Enable 3D Audio , choose Adjust 3D Audio Profile and pick the one that sounds best to you from the five levels available. Every PS5 comes with Astro’s Playroom installed, and it’s worth checking out. This fun 3D platformer is positively packed with PlayStation references that will give you a dose of warm and fuzzy nostalgia, but it also does a great job of showing off what the new DualSense controller is capable of. When you’re done with it, you can free up almost 11 gigabytes of storage space by finding and deleting it in Settings > Storage > Console Storage > Games and Apps. Don't worry, you can always download it again for free from the PlayStation Store. One of the ways the PS5 improves on the PS4 is with a lightning-fast solid-state drive (SSD) for storage. The segmentation of games and a reduction in the need for duplicate data also means that game downloads are smaller, but you may still fill up the available 667 gigs quite quickly if you play lots of different games. Sony has included an internal expansion slot that allows you to add an approved M.2 SSD drive. Check out our guide on how to install internal PS5 storage. You can also plug an external SSD or HDD that supports USB 3.0 or higher into a USB port on your PS5. The catch is that you can only play PS4 games stored on that external drive. You can save a little time configuring games for your preferences by going to Settings > Saved Data > Game/App Settings > Game Presets. You can select your preferred game difficulty, choose between performance and graphic quality and tweak camera movement for first- and third-person options, with the ability to set inverted controls by default. Photograph: Sony Sometimes you get called away from the action and forget you’ve left your console on. To avoid wasting power or draining your controller battery, go to Settings > System > Power Saving. You can decide how long your PS5 should wait before entering Rest Mode and have your controllers turn off after a set time period with no input. On that note, when you’re done playing co-op games but your partner wants to keep gaming, or you just want to turn a controller off without shutting down the PS5, you don’t have to dig into the menus; you can just hold down the PS button for 10 seconds. Sony has baked in the ability to capture screenshots and videos of gameplay, as well as the option to broadcast. All you have to do is press the Create button on the left of the controller touchpad. By default, it will take a screenshot if you press and hold it, but you can change this via Settings > Captures and Broadcasts > Captures. One thing to note is the PS5 automatically captures video and a screenshot of every trophy award. I was surprised to find I had more than 3 gigabytes’ worth of these in the Media Gallery. To change this or turn it off, go to Settings > Captures and Broadcasts > Trophies. You'll likely want to set up your PS5 on the big TV in your living room , but this can cause tension when you have guests in and the kids want to play, or if someone wants to watch a movie and someone else wants to play a game at the same time. Remote Play is the solution you’re looking for. You can turn it on via Settings > System > Remote Play. This feature enables you to stream the action from the PS5 to a PS4, a PC, a Mac, or even a smartphone. Everyone hates spoilers, yet the PS5's home screen and menus are awash with screenshots that could potentially reveal things about the game you’re playing. To avoid spoilers, go to Settings > Saved Data > Game/App Settings > Spoiler Warnings. You will be warned about things that have been flagged by developers as potential spoilers by default, but you can ramp that up to include everything you haven’t seen yet based on your current progress in a game (why isn't this the default?). It only works for PS5 games. It’s well worth installing the revamped PlayStation App ( Android or iOS ) on your phone. It gives you access to your profile, allows you to chat with PlayStation Network (PSN) friends, offers the latest news, and lets you browse the PlayStation Store. Even better, you can trigger downloads and updates remotely, manage storage space, and even sign in and launch games, provided your PS5 is turned on. Photograph: Sony To keep things up-to-date, you should make sure the system and games are set to update automatically. This should be the default behavior, but you can check in Settings > System > System Software Update and Settings. For games, go to Settings > Saved Data and Game/App Settings , and choose Automatic Updates. When you’re done playing, consider putting the PS5 into Rest Mode instead of turning it off. You’ll find the option by pressing the PlayStation button and choosing the Power icon. When in Rest Mode, your PS5 will download updates, charge any controllers that are plugged in, and give you the option to control it remotely via the PlayStation App. You can tweak what Rest Mode does in Settings > System > Power Saving > Features Available in Rest Mode. A pop-up telling you one of your friends just came online or that a download has finished can break your immersion in the game you’re playing or the movie you’re watching. Thankfully, it’s easy to decide when, if ever, you want pop-up notifications. Select the Settings cog at the top right of the home screen and choose Notifications. You can pick which notifications you want and decide whether they pop up over games, videos, or broadcasts. If buying a PS5 cleaned you out, don’t worry. There are many free titles and a free trial to keep you busy while you save up. Open the PlayStation Store at the top left on the home screen and go to the Browse tab. On the left, select the downward arrow to open the Filter options, choose Price , then tick the box that says Free. Go to the Subscriptions tab in the PlayStation Store, and you can also get a free 14-day trial of the PS Plus service, which enables online multiplayer and comes with a few free games each month. Just be aware that it will automatically bill you at the end of the 14 days if you don’t cancel. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Photograph: Sony The Control Center pops up when you press the PS button and offers a handful of shortcuts and the power menu. But you don’t have to accept the default lineup. Press the PS button to bring up the Control Center and then tap the Options buttons, and you can press X to select any icon and use the D-pad to move it right or left or press down to hide it from the Control Center altogether. The first time we settled down to watch a 4K Blu-ray on the PS5, I spent half an hour trying to sort the audio because parts of the surround sound were missing in action. But the audio settings for Blu-rays and DVDs are not in the regular PS5 system settings. The disc player has its own audio output settings; to find them, you must insert the disc and hit the Options button on your DualSense controller or Media Remote. A menu will pop up at the bottom of the screen, and you should select the three dots icon, then Settings > Audio Format, and change it to Bitstream. Everyone gets stuck in games from time to time. While it’s easy to find text and video walk-throughs online, identifying the specific hint you need can prove tricky, and there’s a distinct danger of spoilers. For PS Plus subscribers, some PS5 games have a built-in feature called Game Help that can guide you through the task that has you flummoxed. Press the PS button to open the Control Center, and you should see a row of cards. Pick the activity card that shows the level you are stuck on, and you’ll see hints for the missions you are on, with text and screenshots describing what you must do and a video showing you how to complete the objective. To make things easier, you can pin the tip to your screen and refer to it as you play. Now that you've configured the PS5 to your liking, you can get to playing. Wondering what games you should try? These are our favorite PS5 games and our picks of the best PS4 games. Happy gaming! 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! They were “calling to help.” Then they stole thousands Extreme heat in the oceans is out of control Thousands of “ghost flights” are flying empty How to ethically get rid of your unwanted stuff North Korea hacked him. So he took down its internet 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Contributor X Topics Shopping Console Games Playstation how-to video games tips Saniya Ahmed Matt Jancer Boone Ashworth Jaina Grey Simon Hill Simon Hill Brendan Nystedt Simon Hill WIRED COUPONS Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Dell Coupon Code American Express Dell Coupon Code: Score 10% off select purchases Best Buy Coupon Best Buy coupon: Score $300 off select laptops VistaPrint promo code 15% off VistaPrint promo code when you sign up for emails Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Facebook Finally Explains Its Mysterious Wrist Wearable | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-wrist-wearable-human-computer-interactions"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Facebook Finally Explains Its Mysterious Wrist Wearable Facebook is developing a wrist-worn wearable that senses nerve activity that controls your hands and fingers. The design could enable new types of human-computer interactions. Photograph: Facebook Save this story Save Save this story Save It first appeared on March 9 as a tweet on Andrew Bosworth’s timeline, the tiny corner of the internet that offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a Facebook executive these days. Bosworth, who leads Facebook’s augmented and virtual reality research labs, had just shared a blog post outlining the company’s 10-year vision for the future of human-computer interaction. Then, in a follow-up tweet , he shared a photo of an as yet unseen wearable device. Facebook’s vision for the future of interacting with computers apparently would involve strapping something that looks like an iPod Mini to your wrist. Facebook already owns our social experience and some of the world’s most popular messaging apps—for better or notably worse. Anytime the company dips into hardware, then, whether that’s a very good VR headset or a video chatting device that follows your every move, it gets noticed. And it not only sparks intrigue, but questions too: Why does Facebook want to own this new computing paradigm? In this case, the unanswered questions are less about the hardware itself and more about the research behind it—and whether the new interactions Facebook envisions will only deepen our ties to Facebook. (Answer: probably.) In a media briefing earlier this week, Facebook executives and researchers offered an overview of this tech. In simplest terms, Facebook has been testing new computing inputs using a sensor-filled wrist wearable. It’s an electromyography device, which means it translates electrical motor nerve signals into digital commands. When it's on your wrist, you can just flick your fingers in space to control virtual inputs, whether you’re wearing a VR headset or interacting with the real world. You can also “train” it to sense the intention of your fingers, so that actions happen even when your hands are totally still. Facebook's vision for its wrist-worn device includes being able to type on a virtual desktop keyboard. Photograph: Facebook Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft This wrist wearable doesn’t have a name. It’s just a concept, and there are different versions of it, some of which include haptic feedback. Bosworth says it could be five to 10 years before the technology becomes widely available. All of this is tied to Facebook’s plans for virtual and augmented reality, technologies that can sometimes leave the user feeling a distinct lack of agency when it comes to their hands. Slip on a VR headset and your hands disappear completely. By picking up a pair of hand controllers, you can play games or grasp virtual objects, but then you lose the ability to take notes or draw with precision. Some AR or “mixed reality” headsets like Microsoft’s HoloLens have cameras that track spatial gestures, so you can use certain hand signals and the headset will interpret those signals … which sometimes works. So Facebook has been using this EMG wearable in its virtual reality lab to see if such a device might enable more precise hand-computer interactions. But Facebook has visions for this wrist tech beyond AR and VR, Bosworth says. “If you really had access to an interface that allowed you to type or use a mouse—without having to physically type or use a mouse, you could use this all over the place.” The keyboard is a prime example, he says; this wrist computer is just another means of intentional input, except you can carry it with you everywhere. The wearable can discern the wearer's hand movements by sensing the nerve activity in the person's wrist. Video: Facebook Bosworth also suggested the kitchen microwave as a use case—while clarifying that Facebook is not, in fact, building a microwave. Home appliance interfaces are all different, so why not program a device like this to understand, simply, when you want to cook something for 10 minutes on medium power? In the virtual demo Facebook gave earlier this week, a gamer was shown wearing the wrist device and controlling a character in a rudimentary video game on a flat screen, all without having to move his fingers at all. These kinds of demos tend to (pardon the pun) gesture toward mind-reading technology, which Bosworth insisted this is not. In this case, he said, the mind is generating signals identical to the ones that would make the thumb move, but the thumb isn’t moving. The device is recording an expressed intention to move the thumb. “We don’t know what’s happening in the brain, which is full of thoughts, ideas, and notions. We don’t know what happens until someone sends a signal down the wire.” Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Bosworth also emphasized that this wrist wearable is different from the invasive implants that were used in a 2019 brain-computer interface study that Facebook worked on with the University of California at San Francisco; and different from Elon Musk’s Neuralink , a wireless implant that could theoretically allow people to send neuroelectrical signals from their brains directly to digital devices. In other words, Facebook isn’t reading our minds, even if it already knows a heck of a lot about what’s going on in our heads. Researchers say there’s still a lot of work to be done in the area of using EMG sensors as virtual input devices. Precision is a big challenge. Chris Harrison, the director of the Future Interfaces Group in the Human-Computer Interaction Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, points out that each individual human’s nerves are a little bit different, as are the shapes of our arms and wrists. “There’s always a calibration process that has to happen with any muscle-sensing system or BCI system. It really depends on where the computing intelligence is,” Harrison says. A closer look at the prototype wearable. Photograph: Facebook Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft And even with haptic feedback built into these devices, as Facebook is doing with some of its prototypes, there’s the risk of visuo-haptic mismatches , where the user’s visual experience—whether in AR, VR, or real space—does not correlate to the haptic response. These points of friction can make these human-computer interactions all feel frustratingly un real. Even if Facebook can overcome these obstacles in its research labs, there’s still the question of why Facebook—largely a software company—wants to own this new computing paradigm. And should we trust it? This hugely powerful tech company that has a track record of sharing user data in “exchange for other equally or more valuable things,” as WIRED’s Fred Vogelstein wrote in 2018 ? A more recent report in MIT Technology Review highlights how a team at Facebook assembled to tackle “responsible AI” was undermined by leadership’s relentless quest for growth. Facebook executives said this week that these new human-computer interaction devices will perform as much computing as possible “on device,” which means the information isn’t shared to the cloud; but Bosworth won’t commit to how much data ultimately might be shared to Facebook, or how that data will be used. The whole thing is a prototype, so there’s nothing substantive to tease apart yet, he says. “Sometimes these companies have cash piles large enough to basically invest in these huge R&D projects, and they’ll take a loss on such things if it means they can be front-runners in the future,” says Michelle Richardson, director of the Data and Privacy Project at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. “But with companies of any size, any product, once it’s built, it’s so difficult to overhaul it. So anything that can start the conversation on this before the devices are built is a good thing.” Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Bosworth says Facebook wants to lead this next paradigm shift in computing because the company sees tech like this as fundamental to connecting people. If anything, this past year has shown us the importance of connecting—of feeling like you’re in person, Bosworth says. He also seems to believe he can earn the required trust by not “surprising” customers. “You say what you do, you set expectations, and you deliver on those expectations over time” he says. “Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.” Rose-colored AR glasses, activated. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Adoption moved to Facebook and a war began Black tech employees rebel against “diversity theater” If you transplant a head, does its consciousness follow ? Strap on a HoloLens and step into the AR conference room Why can't I stop staring at my own face on Zoom ? 🎮 WIRED Games: Get the latest tips, reviews, and more 💻 Upgrade your work game with our Gear team’s favorite laptops , keyboards , typing alternatives , and noise-canceling headphones Senior Writer X Topics Facebook Interface augmented reality Simon Hill Jaina Grey Eric Ravenscraft Adrienne So Simon Hill Jaina Grey Reece Rogers Brenda Stolyar WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Doordash Promo Code 50% Off DoorDash Promo Code + Free Delivery Finish Line Coupon Take $10 off Your Order - Finish Line Coupon Code Groupon Promo Code Groupon promo code: Extra 30% off any amount Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The Infrastructure Bill: 5 Key Takeaways | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/5-things-may-not-know-infrastructure-bill"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Aarian Marshall Business The Infrastructure Bill: 5 Key Takeaways The infrastructure bill includes $89.9 billion to extend and modernize public transit systems. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save After months of haggling, the House of Representatives on Friday evening passed a major federal infrastructure bill that promises to inject $1.2 trillion over the next five years into supporting trains, planes, automobiles, utility networks, and energy systems. The legislation has been pared down from its original and more ambitious form, when it was worth $2.3 trillion. But it’s still very big, says Adie Tomer, a senior fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. “This bill is enormous in terms of top line numbers, it’s enormous in breadth, and it has a clearer sense of purpose than we’re used to seeing in infrastructure bills,” he says. The bill is stuffed with schemes and plans that, because it runs to 2,700 pages, have still managed to fly under the radar. For those who don’t have a few spare hours to flip through it, here’s a cheat sheet—a few very important provisions that could change how Americans live. For the past half-century, the federal government has shoveled money toward roads and bridges that support cars and trucks. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (that’s its formal name) ups investment in “active transportation” by sending $1.44 billion each year to community projects aimed at pedestrians, cyclists, and others using non-motorized transport. That’s 70 percent more money than the same program got in the last big bill. The money can go toward maintaining or building bike lanes, sidewalks, and trails. Another $200 million program could help connect different communities’ trails to eventually create a nationwide network that allows anyone to get around without a car. The funding could, for example, go toward a long-simmering vision called the Circuit, which is today a 100-mile trail network between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey but could eventually span 800 miles. But Congress will have to appropriate that money annually in budget bills. “It’s a fantastic milestone, as far as we’re concerned,” says Kevin Mills, the vice president of public policy at the Rails to Trails Conservancy, an advocacy group. The bill includes $89.9 billion in funding for public transit, including $39 billion to modernize systems, rather than building new ones. The White House is hyping this as “the largest federal investment in public transit in history.” Transit agencies could use the help, as both their workers and ridership continue to suffer from pandemic-related downturns, and maintenance backlogs are growing. In Washington, DC’s Metro, lax maintenance is reportedly at the root of a derailment and subsequent system-wide upheaval that took 40 percent of its railcars out of service. Advocates aren’t sure it’s enough. After inflation, “the ‘record level of investment’ might just be the status quo, or even less than what it should be,” says Benito Pérez, the policy director at Transportation For America, a progressive advocacy group. Roughly 80 percent of the money in the bill goes to highway-focused funding, he points out. That has “implications for the climate, implications for safety, implications for providing meaningful access to all users,” he says. The legislation directs $65 billion toward internet connectivity and access, a pain point that became especially apparent when many American families turned to the internet for work and school during the pandemic. A big chunk of that, $42.45 billion, will be parceled out as grants to states, which can use the funds to collect data on broadband needs, create plans to address them, and pay telecom companies to increase access. Another chunk, $14.2 billion, will give $30 monthly vouchers for internet service to low-income Americans, replacing a $50 a month voucher program that applied to fewer people. “This is the first comprehensive investment in America’s broadband needs,” says Tomer, the Brookings Institution researcher. “I think that will be an unquestionable part of its legacy.” Another piece of legislation, the hotly contested “Build Back Better” plan still making its way through Congress, is supposed to be the Biden administration’s big push against climate change. But the infrastructure bill contains enough climate resiliency money to make it the country’s largest climate-focused piece of legislation so far. It dedicates $154 billion to climate programs, according to a Brookings Institution tally. There’s a new program written expressly to create resilient infrastructure —roads, subways, and bridges that can resist the extreme heat, cold, and storms of a changing climate. There’s $5 billion for electric school buses and $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which the White House has said will help fund 500,000 public electric vehicle charging stations by 2030. There’s $65 billion to fix and improve the electric grid. Climate activists say the effort doesn’t go nearly far enough, especially after the Build Back Better bill has been curtailed, too. But it’s a start. This one is wonky, but important. In general, federal infrastructure funding gets sent to states and local governments through “formulas,” which are based on factors like population and gas-tax revenue. But some $120 billion of the $550 billion in new federal spending in this bill will get distributed through competitive programs. That gives Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and other officials greater leeway in choosing which projects get money and Congress more power of oversight. Experts expect the change to lead to an uptick in ambitious mega projects , like the Hoover Dam, which require both money and interstate cooperation. The upside could be more experiments and innovation, says Tomer. “It’s really going to push states and localities to bring their best ideas.” 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! 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"Watch "Star Wars Explained" Answers More Star Wars Questions From Twitter | Tech Support | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/video/watch/star-wars-support-2"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons "Star Wars Explained" Answers More Star Wars Questions From Twitter About Released on 01/19/2021 Bruce Heerssen says, I just re-watched the original Star Wars, and I have a question. How did Luke get authorization to pilot an X-Wing solely on his own claim to being a great pilot and that of a single, random Aussie? Well, it's not just his own claim. Biggs Darklighter says, that Luke is the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim. No question. The Incom T-65 X-wing is made by the same manufacturer as Luke's T-16 back home. The controls were said to be nearly identical. So if you know how to fly at T-16, you should know how to fly at T-65. Also, they were just desperate and they needed everyone they could get. They just lost their last Red Five at the battle of Scarif, someone getting that cockpit. So, close enough for the rebels. Hi, I'm Alex Damon. And I'm Mollie Damon. And this is Star Wars Support part two. [upbeat music] At Sadistic Samurai says, I have a Star Wars question for those who follow Star Wars. Oh, that's us. The stormtroopers in the original trilogy signed up for it like joining the army? They aren't clones like in the second trilogy or child soldiers like in the new trilogy? Correct. They are not clones. The clones got phased out in between episodes three and four. They were kind of a mixture of yes, people who believed in the empire and signed up. Occasionally, they were also conscripts, So people forced into the army, but no they weren't kidnapped child soldiers the way that they were in the first order. It's really a good example of how the empire kind of brainwashed the general public, because we see in a new hope how badly Luke wants to go off to the Imperial Academy. Yeah, that's a good point. A lot of people it was just kind of the only escape route. Like Luke didn't like the empire, but to get off Tatooine and he had no other choice but to join the Imperial Academy. At My name is Vador. I have a question for you, who is your favorite character from Star Wars Legends? #StarWars #starwarslegends Star Wars Legends refers to, all of the Star Wars storytelling that was basically before the Disney acquisition. So, it's what used to be known as, the Star Wars EU books and comics. And then the movies started to come back out with the prequels and, honestly, George Lucas kinda changed a lot of stuff. And so, you tried to adapt to make it all still work, but, yeah, basically anything that was prior to 2014 or so got classified as Star Wars Legends and is no longer part of the canon. I jokingly say Gavin Darklighter a lot because if Biggs couldn't survive, I love seeing his cousin pop in, and he is a great pilot. I do love pilots. And I also love the Legends version of Wedge Antilles, just because he's so far has gotten to do a whole lot more in Legends than he has in canon. I'm a big sucker for pilots. I'll go with one that's probably a lot of people's answer and say, Mara Jade. Just cause I can't get enough of awesome female Jedi. And I love how her story starts with her being the emperor's hand evil then turns to a good guy. I think it's pretty cool. Plus, she's got a purple lightsaber. And red hair. Yeah, I am Mara Jane. [chuckles] Black Lives Matters says, question Star Wars stans. I want to start The Mandalorian but I really don't know much about Star Wars like y'all, so is it mad connected to the films or can I just watch it as a standalone? Like is it hard to follow otherwise? I think they did a pretty good job of letting that be an entry point into the galaxy. Yeah, this is one of the things I love the most about The Mandalorian is that normies, as we might say, or people who haven't seen a lot of Star Wars, I think would love the show and there's little bits and pieces in the show for nerds like us to get excited about, but you really don't have to have seen any of the movies or TV shows to enjoy The Mandalorian. I agree, I think that anything that is connected to other material is well explained, and if anything, it might make you more interested in some of those other Star Wars stories that you could dive into. Mara Jade's Publicist says, Honest question, why does everyone in this Star Wars universe know every sub-clause of The Mandalorian creed but no one remembers the Jedi? [chuckles] On this planet we're still talking about the Knights of the Round Table. That's funny. It's a good point. [Alex chuckles] I don't think that there was like a massive smear campaign against the Knights of the Round Table to hide their history. And even then, I don't know the truth of the Knights of the Round Table. I've mostly heard legends and stories, which I would say, probably most people don't know the truth of the Jedi and the Star Wars universe. I do think it's a you right. Everyone seems to know like, aren't you a Mandalorian? Aren't you supposed to do this or this. [Mollie chuckles] With the finger wag. I guess even though the Mandalorians have significantly decreased in their number, thanks to the Great Purge. They still are around to some extent, they still seem to be known. The Jedi were completely wiped out. Also I think that, it's hard to kinda keep this in perspective, but the Jedi at their height numbered about 10,000 people in a galaxy of trillions. So, not that many people really ever met a Jedi. Mandalorians numbered more. [chuckles] There were more Mandalorians than just 10,000. So, I think that they were probably just more prevalent in the galaxy, even when the Jedi were at their height. I'd say also, just on a very basic level, for instance, when Din Djarin goes into the bar and is looking for other Mandalorians, he basically says, someone who looks like me. So, they're pretty recognizable. Abby Simp Hours says, so, I have a lore question for my Star Wars moots. Has the idea of the Jedi supposedly rebelling against the Republic ever been explored? Or Palpatine's use of retroactive history to sully the Jedi. Have there been people who hate distrust the idea of Jedi because of this? Yes, they haven't done a whole lot with it. It's mostly in the books, a little bit in the comics. In Charles Soule's Darth Vader comic right after Revenge of the Sith, everyone seemed to be pretty pleased that the Jedi were killed off. They seem to have bought into the lie that the Jedi rebelled against the Republic and tried to assassinate the chancellor. Wasn't an explored a little bit in season seven of Clone Wars. Like when Ahsoka is kinda out in the world, she isn't telling people outwardly that she's a Jedi. And then once the two sisters find out that she is, they're like, Oh, Jedi are nothing but trouble, we don't want your help. Yes, that's absolutely laying the groundwork for why people so easily we're like, yeah, forget the Jedi. And I think you can see that in the films too. I mean only 20 years later, no one seems to know who the Jedi were. Palpatine was doing his best to just snuff out any mention of them. People were pretty quick to forget who they were. This is Euan says, okay, here's a Star Wars question. With Palpatine being revealed in episode nine and revealed that Snoke was a clone. Doesn't that break the Sith rule of two? Since Snoke was in technical sense Palpatine's apprentice and Snoke had Kylo as an apprentice that means there were three Sith. Oh boy. [Mollie chuckles] The rule of two is this Sith philosophy that there can only be two at any given time. In Legends it was set up by Darth Bane, which is still true in canon, but there were a bunch of Sith at one point and Darth Bane was like, we're not getting anywhere because we keep fighting with each other. So he was like, okay, here's how we fix this. I'm gonna kill everybody except for myself. And then I'm gonna take an apprentice and train them, teach them everything I know until they're strong enough to kill me. Then they're gonna take an apprentice and do the same thing. And then that way the Sith will only get stronger and stronger and they'll be living in secret instead of just taking things by brute force, they're gonna do basically what Palpatine did and rise politically and take power that way. So Snoke and Kylo Ren are not Sith. They do not follow Sith teachings, but that said, Palpatine has never really been a stickler for the rules. Yeah, he seemed to have like one apprentice at a time but then that apprentice would have another apprentice that Palpatine would know about. And he's like, ah, whatever. Yeah, Palpatine had Maul as his apprentice. He didn't work out, gave him the boot. Then he had Count Dooku as his apprentice, found out Dooku had Ventress, got mad at Dooku, told him to kill her. Palpatine was kinda the culmination of the Sith rule of two. And I think that in his mind, he was like, it's not gonna go on without me. He wanted to be the culmination of the Sith forever. They're really bad at following their own rule. Yeah, at Does Art 72 says, question for school, do you think the Rebel Alliance of Star Wars is a good example of desperation forcing others to adapt and survive? I feel like it is, because while the empire had vastly superior numbers and weapons, the Rebels had a reason to fight and managed to pull off the Battle of Scarif, Yavin, Endor, Jakku and abunch of others ones. Yes, I feel like that's exactly what George Lucas has said, that the rebels were supposed to represent the scrappy group of underdogs coming up to win against the technologically superior force that was supposed to win. It's just like the Vietnam War, the American Revolutionary War, it's happened a ton of times in history. Yeah, it's the idea of the good guys always have a better reason to fight. They have hope on their side as Star Wars loves to say. Yeah, I think that that's a perfect description of how that works. Let's talk Max Mercury asks, question for my Star Wars moots, do we think that the Mandalorian is set before or after the Battle of Jakku? They sound like they're keeping it a little vague on purpose so they can be flexible. But the initial estimates, Jon Favreau said, that it takes place about five years after Return of the Jedi, which means that would be four years after the Battle of Jakku. I think that there's room for them to mix it up. But the new Republic is pretty much established at this point in the show. I think it's well beyond the Battle of Jakku. The Mechanic at comms open says, Star Wars fans quick question is the Clone Wars movie just a sum up of the series or did it happen before? Also rebels is after the Clone Wars. And I saw someone made an order to watch the episodes but isn't it watchable normally? [Mollie chuckles] Oh boy, lots to unpack real quick. The Clone Wars movie is basically just two or three episodes of the clone Wars crammed into a movie. And so, it doesn't sum up the entire series. It also didn't really happen before the series. It happens like four episodes into the series. As you said, someone made an order to watch the Eps. You can watch it as it's listed on Disney+, but there is a chronological episode list because the series is very much out of order. Yeah, you can find that list on starwars.com. I prefer chronological. I would watch it chronologically. Yeah, I think I would too, because it just makes more sense. It's a little bit of a hustle because you have to like check the list and you're gonna have to change episodes. It gets to be more chronological after the first like two seasons. You're not bouncing around as much. Yeah, I'd say the most important thing about the Clone Wars movie is it introduces Ahsoka into the story. Yes. Rebels is after the Clone Wars. Yeah, Rebels takes place after Clone Wars. Neil Rhombus says, serious question. If the Jedi are so strong why are there so few of them and why are they always trying to rebuild The Jedi Order? I think a lot of people think that the force makes Jedi just super powerful all the time, they're superheroes and they can do anything they want. Being a Jedi accessing the force, it's not something you can just turn on and off. Everyone has good days and bad days in the real world. The same is true for the Jedi. It's more of a mental thing of how balanced are you? How connected to the universe are you? How compassionate are you to the people around you? It's not something that it's just all the time I'm pulling Star Destroyer out of the sky. Yeah, I wouldn't even say that the Jedi are that strong. There are a few select Jedi that are pretty strong in the force, but overall, It's a fair assumption to make though. I never fault anyone for acting like that's the case because I mean like the comics and some of the, a lot of legends material, The video games, definitely. The video games, yeah. I mean the video games are video games, they want you to feel like you can do anything with the force, but what George Lucas has said, what the movies have said is, that it's more about keeping a mental balance within yourself. Around the Galaxy says, question for my canon friends. Was the Maw Installation from the Legends novel, Jedi Search, which also features Kessel, the inspiration for/related to the Maw and Solo a Star Wars story? I would say probably, [chuckles] can't say for sure, but Solo had so many little Legends Easter eggs in it that, yeah, I think they were like, Oh, let's throw the Maw in there. It's a little different, at least the way we see it in Legends it was like a bunch of black holes near each other. And Solo it's like just one big black hole. Yeah, I don't think they would name it the Maw unless they were trying to make that little connection. Yeah, I do think it's cool that after looking into so much trivia about all of the movies and TV shows that the Maw is not the monster a lot of people kinda got those two confused, the monster that attacks them and then get sucked into the Maw is the summa-verminoth. That's even Han goes, is that the Maw? [Alex chuckles] Yeah, and it's like, nope, that big black hole sucking that into it as the Maw. [chuckles] Mark's Forever Mandalorian says, here's a question for you. Does Order 66 trigger the kill instinct for only Jedi or any nearby force users not named Palpatine or Skywalker? I've made this joke before, but I like to think that Palpatine basically had like a Google Doc, that he was adding and subtracting names too. So, at first he has like all the Jedi on this spreadsheet. And then if he starts to think like, Oh, there's a someone I think I could get to be an inquisitor. I'll just take them out of there. And like, Oh, well I think Anakin is probably gonna be my apprentice. I'll just move him off the list. Yeah, and then anyone who maybe owed him money added to the list, like, yeah, this person's a Jedi, this person's definitely a Jedi. Just take them out too. I like that. [Mollie chuckles] But also like Ahsoka, it's not like she leaves the Jedi order and he's going to be like, Oh, well I guess she's safe now. Yeah. The Supreme Jedi says, question, why didn't Rey's body disappear when she died? What the force and Jedi stuff say about this? What's the theory. So this is another hard one to talk about because Vader's body didn't die or disappear when he died but he still became a Force ghost. And that's like a whole big thing where you're supposed to like go through specific training to become a Force ghost. But Anakin also didn't go through that. So why is he allowed to be a Force ghost at all? I don't think Ben went through that training, so, In my mind, I like to think of it as them being a Jedi. How they died, if they died doing something that was like funneling them into the force, become basically yet becoming one with the force. Obi-Wan kinda does it in a very brief moment on the Death Star. He kinda backs off and he's like, okay, my job is done. I put Luke and Rey together. Ben kinda does it by funneling his life force to save Ray. Luke dies or fades away shortly after doing the big force sacrifice. I do think that there's something to that. I would say that they are like becoming one with the force. I think that Obi-Wan, I mean he knew, he like closes his eyes, he's preparing. I don't know if he died because Vader hit him with a saber or if he just chose to become one with the force. Yoda knew that he was old and sick, and he may have just said like, okay, I'm gonna become one with the forest now. Same with Luke. And I think that it's possible that Ben was like, I'm going to give Ray my life force and I will become one with the force. He knew that he was gonna die doing that. So yeah, I think that there's something to that. Ray maybe didn't have that intent. I could also say, that maybe she didn't disappear because the force like the cosmic force knew like, okay, hold on, we know something's about to happen, like leave her body. Yeah, I like that theory. The idea that she didn't automatically disappear because let's say the wills just knew, okay, Ben is going to do the right thing finally and save Ray, so yeah. At Overlord Mikey says, I just thought about this, but if the baby Yoda creature is over 50 years old how old is Yoda supposed to be? How do you live that long and never questioned Jedi teachings, which I'd like to point out are incredibly unhealthy and messed up. Guess they just had a long time to brainwash him. So yeah, Yoda is supposed to be 900 years old when he dies. I do think they're going to talk about this. I don't know how he relates to Jedi teachings because he's going to be in the High Republic Era. It sounds like the Jedi are going to be very different 200 years prior to like the prequels and everything. So I think we're gonna get to see maybe Yoda's mindset change over that period of time. Yeah, I've I've said it before but I hope the Yoda that we see in the High Republic is like bad boy Yoda. Just sticking it to the man, questioning everything. I don't think that'll happen, but that would be my dream. I think he'll be different. [Mollie chuckles] Brian C. Wood says, I have a Star Wars question I don't think anyone has ever asked , if a funeral pyre is the traditional Jedi funeral. Then how long do the mourners stand around the Pyre and what happens to the ashes? Are they stored someplace? And who collects them? Temple monks? I don't know how long everyone has to stand around and respectfully watch a body burn. [Mollie chuckles] Maybe that is up to the Jedi and how great their deeds were. [Alex chuckles] I assume the ashes would be taken back to the Jedi temple. In the case of Vader, Luke didn't stick around for a long and we know that Vader's mask got picked up. Yeah, it sounds like Luke just kinda set it on fire and like watched for a second was like, all right, I'm going to the party. But we also know that funeral pyre wasn't the only way the Jedi funerals happened. Like Jetta, there were tombs. There were a bunch of different alternatives. So maybe Qui-Gon just had in his will, like a funeral pyre please. Yeah, we talked recently about whether or not Jedi's had wills. And I think that that's plausible. The Lady of the Lake says, a question about The Rise of Skywalker I have is, was Snoke like a meat puppet that Palpatine used via the force or was he his own living, breathing entity that was just being manipulated? Or was he a clone grown poorly? Well, I think you could argue that he's all of these things. [chuckles] Yeah, that's kinda true. So Palpatine does claim to be every voice that Ben solo has ever heard inside his head. I don't think that Snoke was strictly a meat puppet. I do think that he had free will so to speak. I don't think he was aware of who or what he was, but from what I've gathered, I think Palpatine put in, he was basically a programmed person of saying like, here's where you come from. Here's what your goals are. You need to train this kid, like seduce him to the dark side, bring him over and then train him. He basically had a preloaded Yeah. Disposition. Yeah, I don't think he had free will so to speak, but also I don't think he was just constantly controlled, in that same scene Palpatine does say, Snoke trained you well, I don't know. It can go either way, frankly, but that's just my best guess. Do you think that Palpatine purposefully made him to look mangled and scarred so that Kylo would think that Luke did that to him. There's comic, The Rise of Kylo Ren and he meets up with Snoke and says, what did master Luke do to you? Which suggest that Snoke didn't always look that way, but then why is there a vat of those clones in The Rise of Skywalker, looking already messed up? [Mollie chuckles] I don't know. I think that was maybe a Palpatine on purpose. I think maybe he wanted another gross looking person to hang out with so he wasn't the only one. [Mollie chuckles] Thank you so much for your questions. They were great. There were some funny ones. There were some questions that I had never even thought of before. So, we always love when we're surprised by Star Wars questions. We talk about Star Wars basically every day and we're still learning new things and it's fantastic to see so many people, so interested still in the franchise. Yeah, so thank you again. And this has been Star Wars Support. 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"Can a Wearable Detect Covid-19 Before Symptoms Appear? | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/wearable-covid-19-symptoms-research"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Can a Wearable Detect Covid-19 Before Symptoms Appear? A wrist-worn wearable like the Fitbit Versa 2 can measure the user's heart rate, which is the key data point researchers hope to collect from volunteer Covid-19 patients. Photograph: Fitbit Save this story Save Save this story Save The first thing you might notice about Michael Snyder is just how many gadgets he has strapped to his hands and wrists on any given day—an Apple Watch , a Fitbit , a Biostrap. The second is his enthusiasm for such devices. For more than a decade, Snyder, a biology researcher at Stanford University, has been using consumer wearables to determine whether these kinds of biosensors—and the data collected from them—can help track the onset of infections or illness. Now Snyder and his team are launching a new research project. It’s one that he hopes will eventually alert people that they might have viral illnesses, including Covid-19 , up to two to three days before symptoms of the virus show up. The team of about a dozen researchers has just started soliciting participants for the study, after what Snyder described as a fast-tracked approval process through Stanford’s Institutional Review Board. They’re using software algorithms that have been trained on health patterns shared during a previous study, and they’re opening this new study up to data from different brands of consumer wearables—Fitbit, Apple Watch, and more. It’s an ambitious study, one made all the more complicated by how rapidly this particular virus spreads, the myriad symptoms of the novel coronavirus, the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers , the lack of available testing (which could make it challenging to confirm if and when the study participants have contracted Covid-19), and the inconsistencies in biometric tracking across different brands of wearable devices. But Snyder’s group is not limiting the study to tracking just Covid-19, nor is it not alone in its efforts. Researchers at UC San Francisco have equipped health care workers with “smart” Oura rings, which track heart rate and nighttime respiratory rate, with the goal of building an algorithm that would help track Covid-19. And Scripps Research Translational Institute will be sucking in data from Fitbits, Apple Watches, and other wearables to help with “real-time surveillance of contagious respiratory illnesses.” In some cases, these disparate research teams might eventually merge data. “We’d like to impact the current pandemic by detecting Covid-19, but we’re also hoping this is a general detection tool, because even before Covid-19 that was the goal,” says Snyder. “In the next phase, maybe we’ll be able to tell you, ‘Your heart rate is up, maybe you don’t want to go into work that day.’” Read all of our coronavirus coverage here. Snyder believes that heart rate is the physiological signal that will be most significant in this newly-launched study, which Fitbit has donated 1,000 activity trackers for. Based on previous studies, including one that focused on collecting heart rate and oxygen saturation levels during airline flights , Snyder says his team has been able to detect when people are fighting some kind of infection before they’re symptomatic because their baseline heart rates have gone up. “I know some people are focused on [tracking] skin temperature, and there’s no question that has value, but wearables are sampling heart rate more frequently,” he says. Even if a wrist wearable doesn’t record a baseline heart rate or active heart rate with 100 percent accuracy, it’s the variation in measurements—the delta, as Snyder puts it—that will be most telling. Stanford hopes to attract thousands of participants who either have been wearing a smartwatch for awhile and can share past data, or who will start to wear one now and establish a baseline for heart rate. The study is “device-agnostic”; if it’s not a Fitbit, an Apple Watch or Garmin watch with heart rate sensors will work too. Based on all of this data, the goal is to build a new algorithm that could spot unusual patterns in heart rate data, possibly tipping people off to when their bodies have started to fight an infection. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So They’re not starting from scratch. That report Snyder published back in 2017, the one that showed a correlation between deviation patterns in physiological signals and the body’s inflammatory response, helped pave the way. Snyder’s team gathered 2 billion measurements from 60 people, all who were wearing consumer smartwatches. A postdoctoral scholar, Xiao Li, developed an algorithm for that study, called the “change of heart” algorithm. Snyder’s latest research will build off of this. Scripps Research is doing something similar. In late March it put out a call for Fitbit, Apple Watch, Garmin, or Amazfit wearers to download a Scripps-designed mobile app and join a new prospective study called Detect. The researchers say they plan to track participants’ heart rate, sleep, and overall activity patterns to try to detect the emergence of “influenza, coronavirus, and other fast-spreading viral illnesses.” Again, it’s not the first time Scripps has launched this kind of study. But now there’s an added urgency and increased interest on the funding side because of Covid-19. Earlier this year, Scripps, in collaboration with Fitbit, published the results of a two-year study on influenza tracking. The researchers analyzed Fitbit data from more than 47,000 users in five states, paying particular attention to increases in resting heart rate and abnormal sleep patterns; then compared that sensor data to weekly estimates of flulike illnesses at the state level as reported by the CDC. The Fitbit data significantly improved flu-prediction models, the researchers concluded. “Our overall goal isn’t Covid-specific. We really want this Detect platform to help public health responders and individuals in the study identify when they’re getting a viral illness, whether it’s Covid-19, flu, or something else,” says Jennifer Radin, an epidemiologist at Scripps’ Digital Medicine Division and the lead author on the previous influenza study. “But I think especially as we go into summer and other respiratory illnesses such as flu decline, more of the cases that we’re seeing that report Covid or flu-like symptoms will likely be from Covid versus other respiratory infections.” “The basic idea is that in the future, it would be nice if we had some intelligence in our health infrastructure around who’s getting sick where,” says Benjamin Smarr, a bioengineering researcher at UC San Diego. “Individuals want to know that, as a society we want to know that, and these wearables right now are the best way to get that data. So in some ways this is a test case for whether we can rally around Covid as a way of smoothing out public-private partnerships, the ways in which individuals share data, and from there, come up with the physiological patterns that identify Covid.” Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Smarr’s data science lab at UC San Diego has been tapped to process the data that’s being collected as part of the new TemPredict study at UC San Francisco. TemPredict isn’t relying on smartwatches, but smart rings : The $299 Oura ring, which its makers claim is one of the most accurate consumer activity and sleep trackers out there. It tracks respiratory rate in addition to heart rate. USCF plans to provide 2,000 health care workers with the ring, which has to be custom fitted through a take-home kit, and then says it will expand the study to the general population. As with the other studies, the researchers say they’ll build an algorithm to identify “patterns of onset, progression, and recovery, for COVID-19.” By Meghan Herbst It may seem obvious, but at this point we’re still a long way from your Fitbit or Apple Watch alerting you that you have Covid-19. Most researchers who spoke to WIRED were careful not to over-promise, emphasizing that these studies with wearables might help identify changes in physiological signals, and that those changes might point to illness, and that could include coronavirus, but that the findings may not be specific to coronavirus. There are all kinds of other complications that could affect the methodology and outcomes of these studies. The first, something Snyder referenced, is the wearables themselves. While Apple Watches, Fitbits, and other wearables all generally track the same metrics these days—your steps, your sleep, your heart rate—they may sample, or pull the data from your wrist, at different rates. This is particularly true with heart rate, which means researchers relying on that as a key piece of data have to build their own software tools to crunch the data drawn from different devices. Some wearables track respiratory rate; others do not. Many wearables, like Fitbit and Oura, are designed to be worn while sleeping; the Apple Watch is currently not. While some wearables measure skin temperature , they don’t measure core temperature; an elevated core temperature is one of the possible symptoms of Covid-19. (Smarr, the bioengineering researcher from UC San Diego, contends that proxies for core temperature can still be useful in determining whether someone might have a fever.) Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So There are plenty of external factors and biases that could influence these studies as well. Wearable users may not be representative of the general population; the previous Scripps study on influenza-like illnesses notes that “in general, owners of wearable devices are usually wealthier than the general population, potentially making them less likely to have comorbidities that could make them more susceptible to severe infections.” The same paper identifies several external factors that could affect a person’s health and trigger changes in resting heart rate and sleep, particularly in winter months. Holidays, changes in activity or weather, alcohol consumption, and increased stress could all play a part, and increase susceptibility to infection. And, again, that infection may not necessarily be Covid-19. The woeful lack of testing for Covid-19 in the US is also a real challenge for any research group right now. And currently, all Covid-19 diagnostic tests are biological, requiring a patient to supply body fluids. One study that was launched as a joint effort between the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University Medicine, and Oura plans to administer multiple Covid-19 tests to participants over a 12-week period. But those tests will be stored for processing at a later date. Otherwise, researchers may be relying on a combination of physiological signals, self-reported data (someone telling an app they don’t feel well, or that they developed a fever), and very scattered testing to try to spot meaningful patterns. “That’s why we need people [in the study] who have been tested or who are known to be Covid-19 positive,” says Snyder. “In the end we may only be able to say, ‘You’ve got some sort of respiratory viral infection.’” But Snyder also notes that his lab has teamed up with Stanford Health Care’s drive-through program to offer high-priority Covid tests to first responders—exactly the people Snyder hopes will slap on a wearable and enroll. “That’s the key. That’s not just grabbing for data. You’re valuable to us, but you’re not as valuable as if you’ve been tested.” WIRED is providing free access to stories about public health and how to protect yourself during the coronavirus pandemic. Sign up for our Coronavirus Update newsletter for the latest updates, and subscribe to support our journalism. Why are some people getting so sick? Ask their DNA New Yorkers, once again at ground zero, in their own words Un-miracle drugs could help tame the pandemic WIRED Q&A: We are in the midst of the outbreak. Now what ? What to do if you (or a loved one) might have Covid-19 Read all of our coronavirus coverage here Senior Writer X Topics Fitness Trackers fitbit coronavirus COVID-19 Apple Watch Scott Gilbertson Reece Rogers Virginia Heffernan Scott Gilbertson Carlton Reid Boone Ashworth Boone Ashworth Boone Ashworth WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Tech That Could Help Pro Sports Adapt to the Pandemic | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/tech-that-could-help-pro-sports-adapt-to-the-pandemic"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Eric Niiler Science Tech That Could Help Pro Sports Adapt to the Pandemic Technological adaptations to pro sports are being driven by the need to keep athletes safe from the novel coronavirus, while still playing and recouping some of the estimated $5 billion in revenues lost during the pandemic. Photograph: David Madison/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save As some US sports leagues return to play, a few athletes will be trying out ring-finger health trackers or new helmet-plus-mask designs that sports officials hope will keep them from suffering the same Covid-catching fates as Florida beachgoers or Texas bar-hoppers. Soccer and basketball games this July will be played in empty stadiums and arenas without spectators , but when the fans do return, they might also find a few changes, including facial recognition scans being used as a way to buy a beer or check a ticket, a method of reducing physical contact. “This coronavirus crisis is an opportunity for innovation,” says Pete Giorgio , a sports practice leader at the consulting firm Deloitte. “A lot of things that teams are doing right now that feel short term will become long term. People will be asking, ‘Why didn’t we do this 10 years ago?’” Giorgio says these technological adaptations to pro sports are being driven by the need to keep athletes safe from the novel coronavirus while still playing—and recouping some of the estimated $5 billion in revenues lost by the five major sports leagues, plus the National Collegiate Athletic Association, during the first few months of the pandemic shutdown. The National Football League is gearing up for its fall kickoff with a new face shield and mask combination designed by sunglasses manufacturer Oakley, according to Thom Mayer , medical director of the NFL Players Association, the union that represents pro football players. Mayer says it will be made with the anti-ballistic, anti-fog lenses that Oakley uses to make combat goggles. “We are close to getting prototypes to the players,” Mayer says. “They want to see how it works.” Oakley signed a deal with the NFL in 2019 to provide contrast-boosting tinted face shields to some players, the first time the league permitted visor use since a 1998 ban over safety concerns. At the time, NFL officials believed tinted visors would prevent doctors from checking on a player’s eyes after an injury. That design was fixed last year, making it easier to remove. As of press time, an Oakley public relations representative had not returned requests for comments about the new face shield project. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Mayer says he has been pushing for a face shield that would be combined with an internal N95 respirator mask to block viral particles. “We want to know if it can filter the air going out, and maybe keep the splash from coming in,” Mayer says. “We’ve got to figure out a way to take out this virus. This is a contact virus in a contact sport.” The NFL has time to plan before teams hit the field this fall, but pro soccer and pro basketball, which launch their seasons this month, are already facing some big hiccups in their reset. Major League Soccer starts a six-week tournament on Wednesday at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Florida, a 220-acre resort adjacent to Walt Disney World. The complex is also in the middle of a region facing a major coronavirus outbreak, with more than 35,000 cases active in central Florida as of Monday. A coach and nine members of the FC Dallas soccer team tested positive earlier this month after arriving in the team’s hotel, and the team announced on Monday that the entire team was pulling out of the tournament. In June, Orlando’s women’s soccer team pulled out of a Utah restart tournament after six players and four staff members tested positive for coronavirus. NBA players are cocooning at another resort on the same ESPN/Disney property and will begin regular season games on July 30. But as the players start training together, there are ominous signs in the Covid-19 case numbers. The Denver Nuggets and Brooklyn Nets closed their basketball training facilities at home for several days in late June after some players tested positive. On July 2, league officials announced another nine positive tests , making a total of 25 positives from a batch of 351 tests—a 7 percent positive rate. All tests were conducted before players arrived at the ESPN NBA tournament. To give players, coaches, and staffers an early warning if they might be getting sick, some may be using a new ring-shaped tracker to monitor their vital signs. Oura CEO Harpreet Rai told WIRED that the NBA has purchased 2,000 custom-fitted Oura rings that track users’ activity and sleep levels, as well as respiratory and heart rates, and changes in body temperature. The data is crunched into a “risk score” that the ring maker claims can flag some potential early symptoms of illnesses like Covid-19. Rai says the rings will be used by NBA players in conjunction with daily Covid-19 swab testing. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg NBA team officials won’t have access to players’ actual data—but they would be informed when the athlete’s risk score suggests the early signs of physical stress or an illness, such as a fever, Rai says. The risk score will be calculated every morning when the player wakes up, and a message will be sent to both the league and the player’s association indicating that a follow-up swab test may be needed. “We felt this was an interesting partnership,” Rai says. “You will have an environment that is a bubble, and they are already doing daily testing. Not every other organization will do this. What the NBA is doing is actually looking at the data from Oura that indicate a player has a higher physiological risk, then test those individuals twice.” Rai says so far about half the league’s 300 players have agreed to wear the device, as well as most of the staff and coaches. He says he expects most players will be wearing the ring once games begin later in July. But some players have already balked at the idea. Los Angeles Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma tweeted that the ring “looks like a tracking device.” Responding to privacy concerns, Rai says the location and activity data that the rings generate will not be shared with coaches or managers. Wearing the devices would be voluntary, and team officials are prohibited from using the data once the season is over. While it's one thing to use a wearable to track how well players are sleeping and how healthy they are during a grueling NBA season, it's another to use it to flag an infection. And the jury is still out on whether wearables can do that. Last week, John Rogers, a materials scientist at Northwestern University, published a review of existing wearable medical technologies and their value in early detection of Covid-19 in the journal Science Advances. His review concluded that the most popular wearables, such as the AppleWatch, FitBit, and Oura Ring, do not provide key Covid-19-related diagnostic data, such as measurements of pulse oximetry. Rogers says the Oura ring data might be of some use, but the medical value of these wearable devices in tracking signs of Covid-19 infections hasn’t been proven yet. “Technologies that most directly measure the symptoms of interest—coughing, respiratory abnormalities, fever, and blood oxygenation—from the most relevant anatomical locations and with proven, clinical-grade in accuracy, will have the greatest likelihood of making a difference,” Rogers wrote to WIRED in an email. “This is the future, in our view. Consumer wearable gadgets, initially designed for other purposes, will provide some value in the meantime, given their existing wide availability.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In response, Rai says that the Oura ring is in early stages of development and that the device’s primary use will be not to diagnose but to indicate when a player needs a second test. (Some rapid Covid-19 tests aren’t 100 percent accurate and have been shown by the FDA to give false negatives. ) Pro basketball and soccer players must also follow strict social distancing guidelines, and will be sequestered in a hotel bubble during the upcoming tournaments in Orlando. Families won’t be allowed to see MLS players, for example, while players and staff must have written permission to leave the resort grounds, except in the case of a medical emergency. That prompted one Philadelphia Union player to call the Disney/ESPN setup a “luxurious prison.” Down the road, once a Covid-19 vaccine is available, many team owners and league officials are hoping that fans will come back to stadiums. When they do, facial recognition technology may be used to reduce lines at concession stands as well as contact between fans and staff. Shaun Moore played football for Southern Methodist University before starting his own facial recognition company, TrueFace , that works with government and airport industry clients. Moore says he has been in discussions with two pro football teams and one pro soccer team who are interested in using facial recognition software to recognize people who have purchased tickets as they come in through the gate. This system would allow ticket-holders entry, eliminating the need for ticket-takers who would be exposed to thousands of fans. (Moore wouldn’t name the teams, since the discussions are still ongoing.) The same facial recognition technology could be used for fans to pay for concessions, Moore says. Season ticket holders, for example, might register with their team ahead of time, and have a credit card linked to their image. That account could be used to pay for food and drinks, cutting down on the need to handle cash or a credit card. “I look at it as the future of the stadium,” Moore says. “Where are the touch points that we can reduce?” Moore says his software will work with existing security cameras that are already set up at stadiums, while other cameras might be deployed at kiosks near concession stands. He understands concerns over privacy, or from customers who don’t have a credit card to use with this system. “There are some hurdles there,” he says. “But I don’t see them as reasons to halt the conversation or stop trying to test this technology.” In fact, pay-by-face may be ready sooner than a Covid-19 vaccine. Moore says his company is already testing algorithms that may be able to recognize people wearing masks. “China has published algorithms claiming they can get a high degree of accuracy with a mask on ,” Moore says. “I don’t have the results yet from our tests—I would imagine if they are able to do it, we will be able to do it as well.” The country is reopening. I’m still on lockdown What's confusing about calling cases “asymptomatic“ Should I send my kid back to day care ? If the virus slows this summer, it may be time to worry Glossary: Too many buzzwords? These are the ones to know Read all of our coronavirus coverage here Topics coronavirus COVID-19 Sports Wearables public health Rob Reddick Maryn McKenna Matt Simon Matt Simon Rhett Allain Emily Mullin Rhett Allain Ramin Skibba Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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"Watch Nick Offerman Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions | Autocomplete Interview | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/video/watch/nick-offerman-answers-the-web-s-most-searched-questions"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Nick Offerman Answers the Web's Most Searched Questions About Credits Released on 03/18/2020 Hello, this is Nick Offerman and I'm doing the Wired Autocomplete Interview. Why, why. [laughing] This probably gets typed in the most. Why Nick Offerman? Is Nick Offerman attractive? Clearly. Is Nick Offerman married? Hell yeah, girl. 20 years. Is Nick Offerman a ballet dancer? Surprisingly, yes. I had two semesters of ballet and I still got it. Follow up question, what is my favorite ballet I ever danced? The third. Is Nick Offerman anything like Ron Swanson? Uh, sure. He looks and sounds an awful lot like him. Loves meat. Loves making things with wood. Loves scotch, particularly Lagavulin single malt and he really gets randy for women that look like Megan Mullally. Is Nick Offerman show appropriate for kids? Yeah. If you're talking about my touring show which I think is what they're asking. If your kids are conservative, they might get their feelings a little bit hurt. When I intimate that they're indecent. Is Nick Offerman really a woodworker? Yes in fact. I was a carpenter, then I became a scenery carpenter, then I became a woodworker. I still am. Is Nick Offerman in Cats? Is that a sex thing? Is Nick Offerman Canadian? No. But thank you. Take that as a compliment. Is Nick Offerman left handed? He is not. Is Nick Offerman funny? Sometimes. Is Nick Offerman missing a tooth? I have the teeth I have. Let's leave it at that. Is Nick Offerman a minister? God damn right. I am actually a minister. I've married some people. I'm registered with one of those cool online churches. Not to brag. What is Nick Offerman drinking? Mainly water. When I was younger, that would have been beer. What does Nick Offerman look like now? Is that a trick question? This is a visual medium, right? A lot like this. I'm sorry, if you are vision impaired, like a handsome-er George Clooney. What does Nick Offerman drive? I have two vehicles. A sensible vehicle is an Audi that is for mileage and safety and parking ability. Then at my shop I have a Ford F-250 super duty diesel which is for hauling pieces of trees. What does Nick Offerman do for a living? This. What college, [mumbling], what college did Nick Offerman go to? The University of Illinois at Champagne Urbana. Does Nick Offerman play a guitar? He does. He plays several. Does Nick Offerman have tattoos? He does, two. One on each python. One is a heart viney thing with a rose. The rose looks kind of like lady parts. It's called a Georgia O'Keefe rose and it has a banner that says mater, Latin for mother. It's my pretentious mother tattoo. The other one are these sort of Mississippi Indian band, wrap around with an ankh right here and that tattoo says I'm a very big fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers right after Blood Sugar Sex Magick came out. I stand by it. Does Nick Offerman have siblings? Yes, I have three. Two sisters and a brother. All magnificent creatures. Does Nick Offerman have a podcast? He does, it's called In Bed with Nick and Megan and it's driven, it's the brain child of Nick Offerman's wife, or me, I'm Nick Offerman. My wife. She thought of it. I get to do it with her. That makes Nick Offerman lucky. Did Nick Offerman die? No. Why, why. [laughing] This probably gets typed in the most. Why Nick Offerman? Why Nick Offerman hates the internet. Why anyone in their right mind hates the internet. Have you seen it? Why does Nick Offerman say fremulon? My friend and hero, Mike Schur, who wrote on Saturday Night Live, he wrote on The Office, also plays Mose Schrute, super fun fact, created Parks and Rec, created Brooklyn Nine Nine. When we were making Parks and Rec, they were making their producer card for Brooklyn Nine Nine for his company called Fremulon. He asked me to say Fremulon and it's the greatest compliment I've ever received. Why is Nick Offerman so popular? There's no accounting for taste. How Nick Offerman stays in character. It's all in the breath. How is Nick Offerman beard style? I ask myself that every day. How am Nick Offerman beard style? I think that's improper grammar. Beard style, Nick Offerman today am heavy stubble. How did Nick Offerman become famous? To the degree that he did, by winning the actor lottery and being cast in the role of Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation. How to meet Nick Offerman. Politely. How did Nick Offerman meet Megan Mullally? We met doing a play in Los Angeles called the Berlin Circle by Chuck Mee. Thank my lucky stars. Chuck Mee is a cool absurdist writer. He calls himself a collage writer and has characters like Eric Honaker and Megan played New York socialite Pamela Harriman and it ended with the celebratory, everybody gets together and sings the Beatles' All You Need Is Love in German, [speaking in German] I believe and the rest is history. Put a ring on that. Yeah. Can Nick Offerman sing? God damn right. Can Nick Offerman actually play the saxophone? Ah, hell yeah. Can Nick Offerman break dance? I don't know, can he? Was Nick Offerman in the military? No. Has Nick Offerman hosted SNL? No, Lorne. Nick Offerman Freemason. We met on the level, we parted on the square. Nick Offerman Baywatch. Almost. Nick Offerman is my spirit animal. I believe that is no longer a cool thing to say politically. Cultural appropriation from Native Americans so now you have to say my inner beast, please and thank you. My inner beast, Tim Curry as Frank Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Frank N. Furter. Nick Offerman, Lord of the Rings. Nick Offerman, quotes to live by. Stick around, they're coming up any moment now. Nick Offerman, shirts on making it. Some are flannel by the Carhartt clothing company. Some, the denim looking ones are made by a cool company in Hartford, Connecticut, Hart and Co. Check 'em out, their stuff is dope. Nick Offerman yule log. A brilliant idea by a young man named David Philips. I shoot commercials for Lagavulin Scotch. One of them for Christmas is me sitting by a roaring fireplace meant to be put on the television to a company, your office party, your family gathering, as I sip scotch in a satisfying manner. You're welcome. Nick Offerman quotes about love. Love is where it's at. It all turns on affection. I feel pretty, like that was pretty nice and harmless and I'm surprised frankly, you know, that there weren't any like why don't we put Nick Offerman in prison. 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All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The Best Samsung Galaxy S21 Deals, Cases, and Accessories (2021) | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/samsung-galaxy-s21-deals"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Julian Chokkattu Gear The Best Deals and Cases for Every Galaxy S21 Photograph: Samsung Save this story Save Save this story Save Samsung's three flagship smartphones of 2021—the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21+, and Galaxy S21 Ultra —are nearly a year old, but they're still great buys. They're usually available for a few hundred dollars off their original retail price. These Android devices are packed with the latest in mobile technology, from the speedy Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor to impressively bright 120-Hz AMOLED displays. If you're enticed, we've rounded up some advice on which model you should buy—if you should buy them at all—along with cases and accessories we've tested, plus the best deals and promotions around so you get the most phone for your buck. Updated November 2021: We've added cases and shopping advice for the S21 range. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year Subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Galaxy S21 Ultra. Photograph: Caseology Samsung's three phones ( 8/10, WIRED Recommends ) have a lot in common. They all utilize the same aforementioned processor, support fast 120-Hz screen refresh rates , have 5G connectivity, and can record video in 8K resolution. None comes with a charger in the box (exactly like the latest iPhone models), and Samsung also stripped out the MicroSD slot, so you can't expand the base 128 gigabytes of storage. We talk about the fine details here , but here's a recap of the differences. This is the Galaxy to get. It's the most affordable of the bunch (it's still very expensive!), but it also has the smallest screen at 6.2 inches, making it a great option if you dislike big-screen phones. It has a 4,000-mAh battery that should provide enough juice to last a full day, and a capable 8 GB of RAM. It also has a polycarbonate back, so unlike the other two glass-backed Galaxy phones, this model has one less part that can crack or break. You get the same camera experience in the S21 and the larger S21+. Both models have a 12-megapixel main sensor, a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, and a 64-megapixel zoom camera that offers up to 30X hybrid optical/digital magnification. The 6.7-inch screen on this larger model is much better for viewing movies or shows, and the larger body means you get a bigger, 4,800-mAh battery. The S21+ skips the plastic on the back in favor of a more premium Gorilla Glass Victus material that looks nice but is more fragile. If you want to get the best camera system Samsung has to offer, go with the Ultra. It has a 108-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens, and two 10-megapixel telephoto cameras that support 3X and 10X optical zoom. This camera snaps wonderfully crisp zoomed-in shots. The rest of the phone is similar to the S21+, but there are minor changes. The screen is slightly bigger, at 6.8 inches, though the display has a speedy 120-Hz refresh rate that works at the screen's maximum resolution. (The lesser models can only hit that high refresh rate at a reduced resolution.) The phone has 12 gigabytes of RAM for faster performance. It also supports Samsung's S Pen (not included, $40 extra ). The 5,000-mAh battery is the biggest in the 2021 Galaxy lineup, and it comfortably lasts a full day. There are other good phones: You don't need to spend $800 on a phone. We like plenty of other devices that cost around half the price, like the Google Pixel 5A ( 9/10, WIRED Recommends ), a $450 Android phone that has a great camera, 5G, smooth performance, and nearly two-day battery life. Our favorite high-end phone at the moment is Google's $599 Pixel 6 ( 9/10, WIRED Recommends ), which has many of the same perks, like wireless charging, not to mention better cameras and smarter software. Read our Best Android Phones and Best Cheap Phones guides for more. From left to right, the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, the S21+, and the S21. Photograph: Samsung You should buy your smartphone unlocked. Buying the phone unlocked (instead of from a wireless carrier) makes it easier to switch networks later on. Unlocked phones also have a better resale value , come with less preinstalled bloatware, and receive software updates faster and more frequently. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft How much should you pay for one of these phones? The Galaxy S22 series isn't far off, so you should not pay full price. The Galaxy S21 frequently drops to $650 on Amazon and at select other retailers. The S21+ usually falls to around $800, and while the S21 Ultra has hovered around $1,000 before, it has gone lower—as low as $900. You should try not to pay more than that. However, the S21 range seems to be low in stock everywhere. Here are the best places to find them: Samsung usually has a few sales of these devices during the year, and you can expect prices to dip again before the year's end. Your purchase includes four months of YouTube Premium for free (no ads), and six months of SiriusXM Streaming. If you trade in a compatible phone in good condition, you can get up to $600 deducted from the price of the phone. Samsung even lets you trade in cracked phones for up to $550 in credit. Stock is fluctuating at Amazon lately, but there's a chance you'll see steep discounts on these phones again soon. Amazon does have a trade-in program that accepts phones from more manufacturers than Samsung, but you should try selling your old phone first to see if you'll get more money back. We have a guide on how to do it. Some models are out of stock at Best Buy. If it's available, make sure to choose the unlocked model when shopping at Best Buy. You can trade in a compatible phone in good condition to get up to $900 off. The downside is that you must visit a Best Buy store so a clerk can inspect the phone you're trading in. If you plan to stick with your carrier or want to upgrade your plan or add a new line, you can also get deals from your provider. Verizon : Got an unlimited plan? If you buy a Galaxy S21 or another in the range, you can get $150 off a Samsung Galaxy Watch4. The savings come in the form of promo credit over 24 or 30 months. T-Mobile : You can get up to $800 off the S21, S21+ , or S21 Ultra when you activate a new line on a Magenta Max rate plan. The savings come via 24 monthly bill credits. AT&T : If you're a new or existing customer, you can get up to $800 off if you trade in a compatible phone and buy an S21 series phone on a 30-month payment plan with an unlimited data plan. Visible : Visible has the S21 and S21+ for slightly discounted prices ($792 for the former and $984 for the latter). You'll get either a $100 or $200 virtual gift card to spend anywhere after 3 full months of service payments, but you need to be a new subscriber and have to transfer your number from an eligible carrier. You can also get a pair of Beats Studio Buds for free. Samsung Wireless Charger Trio. Photograph: Samsung Unless you like to live on the edge, a case is a must-have to protect your investment. Just know that no case can completely prevent cracked glass if you drop your phone. Still, it can be helpful to use a case, even to prevent everyday scuffs. Here are a few we've tested and like. Out of the many cases I tested, this is my favorite. It has a wonderful texture on the back that makes it pleasant to the touch and a simple design, and it evens out the rear camera bump so the phone doesn't rock on a table much. It's still fairly thin, and the bumper has decently raised lips to keep the screen off the ground. This case is so slim it weirdly makes the S21 Ultra feel thin. The bumper is grippy, though the back is pretty slippery, and it doesn't gather dust, lint, or fingerprints. You can also swap out the buttons for a neon yellow pair (included) if you want a color accent to make it pop. For something different, I also like Cyrill's Floral cases ( S21 , S21+ ). If you hate the bulk a case typically adds, consider Totallee. The company is known for making some of the thinnest cases around. The silicone clear cases we've linked to will offer some drop protection, but it's mostly for protecting your device from everyday scratches. It's the option to pick if you want to admire the design of the S21. Spigen has long offered simple, cheap cases, and the Liquid Air series is my top pick from its varied selection. It's slim, has a decent grip, and doesn't look hideous. In case you didn't know, two subbrands Spigen owns are Cyrill and Caseology, our top two picks above. Razer Arctech Pro. Photograph: Razer Razer claims its Thermaphene Cooling technology can quickly dissipate the heat generated from the Galaxy S21 when it's running some heavy-duty games. Whether that's true or not is hard to tell—the phone was still fairly warm after long playthroughs of Pokémon Unite, but performance remained smooth, so maybe it helped. Either way, buy it if you're a Razer fan and because it's stylish, with clicky buttons. Only the S21 Ultra supports the S Pen, Samsung's stylus. The stylus is not as feature-filled as the one in Samsung's Note phones, but it has pressure sensitivity and a fine tip that make it nice for drawing and writing. Samsung has a case that comes with the S Pen ($70) and provides a way to store the stylus. It's worth picking up if you plan on using the pen on the go, but the case picks up dust and lint too easily and makes the phone even wider. Want to wirelessly charge your new phone? I like Samsung's wireless charging pads—they're simple and do the job. If you have Samsung's Galaxy Watch4 , Galaxy Watch3 , Active2, or Active, get the Duo or Trio to recharge it alongside the phone. We have more wireless chargers we tested here. The new Galaxy phones don't come with a charging adapter , but they do include a USB-C to USB-C cable. If you don't have a USB-C charging adapter, this one from Samsung will charge your phone at the fastest speed. This one from Nimble is another good option and includes a USB-A port alongside the USB-C. Need a tracker to avoid losing your nonconnected belongings? The S21+ and the S21 Ultra both have ultra-wideband tech that enables you to get precise location tracking when you use Samsung's Galaxy SmartTags. Attach it to anything—car keys, a pet's collar, a backpack—and use the SmartThings app to find the exact location of an item you misplaced. It works with the regular S21 too, but only with Bluetooth tracking. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! 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"Watch Korean Phrases You Missed in 'Squid Game' | Currents | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/video/watch/wired-news-and-science-korean-phrases-you-missed-in-squid-game"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Korean Phrases You Missed in 'Squid Game' About Released on 10/29/2021 [Narrator] Korean speakers watching the Netflix series Squid Game were quick to point out that the English translations didn't always match up to the dialogue. Wired reached out to Korean language professor Joowon Suh, to see what English speakers might be missing out on. This part, the translation is definitely sanitized. Two main differences I noticed in translations are address terms [Ali speaks in Korean] and the swearing expressions. [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] [Narrator] Today we're gonna be talking about English subtitles. Not the dumb version. Do you know where your son happens to be now? On business in the United States. [Narrator] That's a whole nother video. So let's start with the address terms. [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] [Deok-su speaks in Korean] [Ali speaks in Korean] [Gi-hun speaks in Korean] [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] [Narrator] Pay attention to the translated word sir in this scene in episode two, between Ali, the Pakistani immigrant and Sang-woo, the stockbroker. [Sang-woo speaks in Korean] The meaning of Sajangnim is the president of company or CEO of the company. The meaning itself is extended to many different situations, so anybody who looks like in a suit and then a little bit older, and then everybody starts calling that person Sajangnim. [Ali speaks in Korean] Ali is using that Sajangnim and calling a lot of male characters that in the show. [Narrator] Korean speakers use honorifics constantly when speaking to each other. You can hear it here, [Ali speaks in Korean] here, [Gi-hun speaks in Korean] and here. [Gi-hun speaks in Korean] It would be impossible to translate all of these in Squid Game because they're so ubiquitous, but the way the characters address each other shows the evolution of the relationship. Listen carefully when Sang-woo asks Ali to call him by his first name. [Sang-woo speaks in Korean] he's actually using this term. [Sang-woo speaks in Korean] Sang-woo asks Ali to call him Hyung, then he's using intimate ending. In the Korean language, we don't call each other by our first names. We are not really first name based society. Hyung refers to older brother, elder brother of a man. That Hyung word as a big brother is extended to other social relationships. So then it means that we are close. Before, we didn't know each other well, but now we know each other and we are getting closer. That's why that marble scene, it was really heartbreaking when Ali keeps calling [she speaks in Korean] [Ali speaks in Korean] So basically he thinks that Sang-woo is almost like a brother to him, that he was betrayed. [somber music] [Ali speaks in Korean] In that sense, it's more heartbreaking if you know what Hyung and Sajangnim mean in the Korean language. [Narrator] Another example of an honorific-sharing relationship is Han Mi-nyeo's use of Oppa. [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] [Deok-su speaks in Korean] [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] I don't think babe is a accurate translation for Oppa. Oppa means older brother to a woman. Oppa is definitely a family term, a family relationship term but at the same time, it's extended to a romantic relationship between a man and a woman. So when you start between man and a woman, a woman starts calling the other man Oppa, that means that it's like, okay, we are getting closer as a woman and a man. Han Mi-nyeo character was trying to do that with the Jang Deok-su character. [Mi-neyo speaks in Korean] [Deok-su speaks in Korean] [Narrator] Because Oppa implies that the woman is younger than the man, when Deok-su says, Is that right? [Deok-su speaks in Korean] he's actually saying he's not older than her. It's not like, I'm not a man or you are not a woman, it's more like you look older than I am. There's a switch to age difference and she asks him, How old do you think I am? and then he's saying 49 and 39, 29 and he was playing with that age thing. Address terms are extremely difficult when you have to translate the Korean into English. [Narrator] Next up, let's talk about swearing. In some translations, Korean cursing words are translated into scumbag, jerk and idiot. They don't really convey the harshness of the Korean cursing words, cursing expressions. [Deok-su speaks in Korean] [Gi-hun speaks in Korean] [119 speaks in Korean] The word sae-kki is translated into jerk most of the time but I don't think it's the right translation. Sae-kki literally means the baby animal, like a baby of any animals. If you do that, you are basically cursing at your mother. [Deok-su speaks in Korean] So that's the whole idea, but I think it's a little bit more serious than jerk. [Deok-su speaks in Korean] [Narrator] One of the difficulties of translation is conveying meaning quickly because subtitles are rarely over two lines. But what's lost in translation when a swear word is translated to a PG term? It's not just about swearing words and some expressions are very vulgar and that also kind of stands out to me. [Narrator] Let's take a look at the character Han Mi-nyeo. [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] This part, the translation is definitely sanitized. [Mi-nyeo speaks in Korean] That's definitely not scumbag. Shibalnom is like- okay, I just said it. Oh my gosh, on camera. Okay. It's like F word. It's, I would say [beep] bastard. That kind of thing. No one even says scumbag anymore. An interesting thing is, her background was really not explained in the show. I think the cursing and using all this low-class expressions, the way she's expressing that I gotta go to the bathroom. in a very vulgar way, it's not cursing word but the way she describes her state was just really very bad. Linguistically it's kind of interesting to see her background through her use of language. [Narrator] Translation is an incredibly difficult job and the success of Squid Game shows how well the show did overall. Overall, it's pretty accurate in terms of conveying the storyline. I could ask a little bit more in subtlety and a little bit like nuance. If you don't know the language and you have to depend on the subtitles, of course you miss a lot of things. It's not because it's the Korean language and English translation, it's any kind of language and translation. [Narrator] Netflix international language series continue to gain in popularity. Squid Game's success likely means we're gonna see more and more translations. So what can audiences take away from discussing the nuances of the original Korean? English is the lingua franca so everybody speaks English. Even if you go to France, then you can travel speaking English. Sometimes the English speaking people think that the other languages are not as a sophisticated because you don't know, and you don't speak that language. Through subtitled shows, you can say, okay, the other language I don't know, but it has a lot of cultural nuances and are richer in its own way. 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The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Let’s Dive Into the Metaverse. Don’t Forget Your Goggles | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/gadget-lab-podcast-527"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter WIRED Staff Gear Let’s Dive Into the Metaverse. Don’t Forget Your Goggles Photograph: Hiroshi Watanabe/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Facebook has a new name. This week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced at the Facebook Connect conference that the company is changing its name to Meta. The title comes from something Facebook has been calling the metaverse—a VR/AR experience that allows users to interact remotely with a mix of virtual and in-person elements. It's a very deliberate change, of course, for the company, and one that comes at a time when Facebook is embroiled in a weeks-long controversy about how its product may harm its users. But while the company may have a new name, that doesn't mean its problems are over. This week on Gadget Lab , WIRED senior writer Arielle Pardes joins us to talk about Facebook's rebranding, its push into the metaverse, and the challenges that come with that shift. Read Arielle Pardes’ story about Facebook’s name change. Here’s Lauren’s story about Facebook’s metaverse ambitions. Read WIRED’s series about the Facebook papers. Also check out Peter Rubin’s stories about Facebook’s camera glasses and Horizon Workrooms. Here’s how to change the algorithmic ranking of Facebook’s newsfeed. And here’s how to delete your account , permanently. Arielle recommends the new Dune movie. Mike recommends the most recent episode of The War on Cars podcast with food writer Alicia Kennedy. Lauren recommends WIRED’s story package about the Facebook papers. Arielle Pardes can be found on Twitter @ pardesoteric. Lauren Goode is @ LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @ snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @ GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@ booneashworth ). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. If you have feedback about the show, or just want to enter to win a $50 gift card, take our brief listener survey here. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed. Lauren Goode : Mike. Michael Calore : Lauren. LG : Mike, what is your favorite part of the metaverse? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : It's the part where you log off and go outside. LG : I wish I could disagree, but I can't. I agree, wholeheartedly. Well, for the sake of this podcast though, can we maybe just step into the metaverse for a little bit? MC : All right. Let me put on my Oculus glasses and I'll be right there. LG : All right. Activated. [Gadget Lab intro theme music plays. ] LG : Hey, everyone. Welcome to the metaverse. I mean, welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED. MC : And I'm Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED. LG : We're also joined in the metaverse by WIRED senior writer Arielle Pardes, who joins us from … where are you, Arielle? Arielle Pardes : Does it really matter in 2021 where we are, if we're all in the metaverse? LG : No, you could be anywhere right now. You could be in a forest. You could be in Oakland. You could be in Nazare. AP : Let's just say I'm inside of the mind of Mark Zuckerberg. LG : Well, we're talking about Facebook again. In case you haven't been refreshing your newsfeed this week, there's a lot of news out of Facebook. They had their annual software developers conference, held virtually on Thursday. We saw a bunch of new stuff that is supposed to enable developers to build things for this idea of the metaverse. We heard a little bit more about Mark Zuckerberg's vision for what the metaverse will look like. And we heard about Facebook's name change. I don't even know if we should be calling it Facebook right now. Arielle, what are we supposed to be calling Facebook? Tell us about this. AP : The company formerly known as Facebook is now called Meta, as in metaverse, as in a metastasizing cancer, as AOC tweeted today. This is supposed to signal that the company is not just a social media company anymore. It's not just the News Feed. It's not just Instagram. It's in fact a company. And that's all about the metaverse. LG : Back up just a little bit, because earlier this week, Facebook reported its third-quarter earnings, and it talked about how it was going to break apart some of the top line for another one of its divisions, right? So there are all these different products and divisions of Facebook, tell us how that works and how it's going to be broken out now. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft AP : The Facebook that you know right now, which Facebook sometimes calls the family of apps—Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, stuff like that—is now going to be broken into this division that it calls the Family of Apps. On the other hand, it has this new thing called Facebook Reality Labs, which is the new home for all of its products that deal with the metaverse and whatever else the future of computing looks like. MC : Can we just take a moment? And I know we've done this on the show before, but can we define what the metaverse is? Because we all sort of had an idea of what it was, going into Facebook Connect today, and I think it's probably changed. LG : I'm happy to take a stab at this, because I just went on the BBC earlier this week at an ungodly hour in the morning, Pacific Coast time, to talk about this. My answer was, it depends on who you ask, but the most consistent description I've heard from different technologists is that it is the successor to the mobile internet. The way in which we experienced the web 20 years ago was very different from the way we have experienced it over the past decade or so with mobile phones in our hands, and the way in which we share information with apps and pull or receive information from apps. And the metaverse is kind of the next version of this, where it extends beyond, or sort of transcends, the current internet. It's still a place where apps run and exist, and developers will be building for the metaverse, but it's supposed to create this kind of persistent experience of connectivity, where you go from one virtual space to the next, and you can bring your digital assets with you from space to space. And like you experience people not as these little boxes in Zoom, like we are right now as we tape this podcast, but they are around you. "It's an embodied internet," Mark Zuckerberg said. It sounds so dystopian. AP : A lot of what we thought was this idea that you'll have an avatar that moves through various spaces online. You might be working remotely on a different planet in the metaverse, and then you might move into a sort of shopping mall where you get to buy things, like real things, you're paying real digital money for. And then you might move into a video game, and you bring a sort of cohesive identity with you through all these spaces, but they're not really physical spaces. It's kind of pushing the physical world into the digital one. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : So this is actually used for NFTs. Like if I want to buy an NFT hat, I can wear it in the metaverse. AP : Exactly. And it really explains a lot of the other Zuckerbergian ambitions that we've heard about lately. It explains why the company has an interest in developing cryptocurrency, explains why the company's put so much effort into the backend interoperability, if it's various apps. All of this starts to make sense when you think about a company that wants to be more than just social media and messaging and wants to actually be the place that you spend all of your time when you're online. LG : So I think in the second half of the show, we're going to get back to this idea of the metaverse. We're going to talk about what it takes to plug into the metaverse and who the different players are that are building stuff for this next layer of the internet. But I want to go back quickly to the name change because Arielle, you've written about this for WIRED a couple of times this week, and there've been a lot of references to Google—Google having done this and become Alphabet a few years ago. What actually is the significance of Facebook changing its name right now? AP : There are couple of reasons that corporations would change their name. Google renamed itself Alphabet to kind of signal a corporate restructuring and to show that the company wasn't just a search engine, it has all these other entities as well. Apple did something similar when it put out the iPhone and it became just Apple, whereas before it was Apple Computers. There's benefits to corporations renaming themselves to clarify what they do or how they're structured, and certainly Meta has some elements of that. But Facebook is also in one of the most difficult moments in its entire history. Like there's never been more scrutiny, both from Congress, from the public, from Wall Street, on this company. There's one clear benefit in changing the name, which is that it allows you to change the narrative. Of course, the company is still the same. Mark Zuckerberg is still the same, but by calling it something else, you have the benefit of maybe distancing yourself from some of the bad press, from some of the bad sentiment, that exists with the name Facebook and sort of moving into a space where people might be willing to give the company a bit more trust … maybe. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : And the primary app is still going to be called Facebook. Like we're not going to open our phones tomorrow and it's going to refresh, and all of a sudden we're going to be tapping on an app called Meta. AP : Right. The app remains Facebook, but Facebook the company is now Meta. And I think that's really important, actually. A lot of the bad sentiment around Facebook, which is one of the most recognizable brands in the world, really goes back to that blue app. I mean, people have beef with Instagram. People have beef with Oculus. People have beef with WhatsApp, but not really to the same extent that the Facebook app has left a bad taste in people's mouth. And so I think a clear benefit in this name change is that you get to kind of erase some of that bad taste by saying, "No, no, no, our brand is something totally new. The thing you hate is that app that your parents uses to post weird memes. Like that's something totally different. We, the company, are Meta, and we're bigger than that. We're better than that. We're headed in a new direction." And whether or not people buy that, I think, remains to be seen, but that's certainly the intention. LG : Do we have any sense of what other names Facebook had been considering? AP : I don't. I heard a lot of rumors. For example, I heard that Horizon could be the name. That's what they call some of their new metaverse VR apps. Interestingly, Horizon is the name of the big evil tech company in HBO's new Scenes From a Marriage. So I was hoping that would be their new name, so I could make some memes, but you can't always get what you want. LG : We heard a lot of new names today beyond Meta, or at least we heard project names and code names. On the hardware side, there's Project Cambria, which is a new high-end heads-up display that Facebook's been working on. It's still in the prototype phase. There's Project Aria, which is their AR glasses. They've also talked about Project Nazare, and I have to be honest, I'm not a hundred percent sure what that is. I have to go back and rewatch that part of the presentation. And then within the virtual environment, you mentioned Horizon, Arielle, but like, there's a lot going on there. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft It's like you use the Oculus Quest to get into your home, then you go into Horizon, which now has Workrooms, which is the virtual Zoom thing that our friend Peter Rubin did a couple of months ago. It was part of a Facebook demo. It just feels like this is all part of this land grab for Facebook to lay claim over parts of the metaverse. And all the while it's saying it's going to be a very open experience. But what I keep hearing are these containerized apps, like here's another environment, here's another environment, here's another environment. And by the way, we're Facebook, and we own all this. AP : They're Meta, and they own all this. LG : They're Meta and they own all this. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to continue the conversation about the metaverse. [ Break ] LG : Welcome back to this metaverse edition of Gadget Lab. What will podcasts sound like in the metaverse? That's a good question. We'll have to tackle that another time. Arielle, for people who are not super familiar with the whole idea of the metaverse, or maybe haven't used a VR headset before, or just don't know what it's like to be in this really immersive computing experience, take us through how Zuckerberg presented this idea visually, like how much of it was real and how much of it was some kind of cartoon fantasy of what the metaverse will look like? AP : I mean, the line between those two things is so thin. Connect started with Mark Zuckerberg in real life, in a room that looked like it might be his living room, or someone's very, very nice home. One of the first things that he did was create an avatar for himself. In his case, he chose something that looked identical to him and his kind of like boring uniform. But once he created this avatar, he moved into what we're meant to understand is the metaverse. And that's basically like being in a space that looks very similar to the one he's in, in real life, except that he can interact with people who are at a great distance away and they might show up in a weird avatar costume, like Andrew Bosworth showing up like a robot. He kind of moved fluidly through spaces that were meant to be more like home spaces or were meant to replicate a virtual workplace, various video games, and sort of entertainment spaces. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft It's not exactly like just being in a virtual reality world, although some of it certainly is. The concept of the metaverse is that you might be wearing a VR headset, interacting in a completely virtual space as an avatar. And then, for example, your wife might call and send you a video of your dog running around, which is actually like a thing that happened during Connect. Mark receives his call from Priscilla and watches this sort of 2D, Web 2.0 image of his dog and then kind of falls right back into his virtual world. I think the idea is that you're not just in VR or AR, in the way that you could be right now with a particular game or a particular platform. Like all of these games, platforms, spaces, and environments kind of merged together, as if you're wandering some sort of giant metaverse mansion. And every door opens up a new opportunity to be somewhere else with other people doing something totally different. MC : About that VR headset that he was wearing: Facebook owns Oculus, which is one of the leading manufacturers of VR headsets, but it feels like there has to be a level of interoperability here for this to work. Because like, what we're talking about with the metaverse, we're talking about this layer between you and all of the computing that you do. Well, all of the computing that you do is not necessarily something that you can view through VR glasses. Like you use your phone, you interact with your voice assistant, Siri or Google assistant, or Alexa, you have televisions that are part of your computing experience. So how does all that stuff fit in? I guess the second part of this question is, does it work on any other VR headsets, or does it just work on Oculus headsets? LG : That's a really good question. And I will say that earlier this week, prior to Facebook Connect, there was a briefing that Facebook did with a group of journalists. WIRED was a part of that. I attended the briefing, our friend, Peter Rubin attended the briefing, and we got a little bit of a high-level overview of what we might expect to come down the pipeline on Thursday. Mark Zuckerberg presented at the start of this briefing, just gave kind of like a 10-minute overview of like, here's the vision I plan to lay out. And then the rest of the briefing was pretty much run by Andrew Bosworth and a couple of other folks within the Facebook Reality Labs team. I'll be honest, Zuckerberg did not seem inclined to want to answer questions. He was just going to hop off the call, but I really, really wanted to ask him about interoperability. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft I just keep thinking about it. And I said this earlier, this idea that the metaverse is going to be the successor to the mobile internet. But as we know, the mobile internet right now, depending on which operating system I suppose you're on, which is one of two, for the most part, in the world, it can be a pretty closed-off experience. People call Apple a walled garden for good reason. And even when you're sort of living in an app environment, there are some apps that you can't really like share data super easily, or take your data with you from app to app. Is the metaverse just going to be an extension of that? That was a question I had for Zuckerberg. Both he and Bosworth said they thought that interoperability was a really high priority, especially since one of the fundamental elements of the metaverse is supposed to be this idea of openness. And then Zuckerberg said something like, because the metaverse is going to be designed around people, not apps, that's what's going to make it different, but that all sounded very loosey-goosey to me, like really nebulous, and I didn't have a clear understanding of what that meant. But then it was interesting, because later on in the briefing—I have to give credit to the Verge reporter, Adi Robertson, because she just kept asking, she kept saying, "So, am I going to be able to access Facebook Horizon, this app, on any headset other than the Oculus Quest headset?" And then Bosworth gave an answer. And then Adi said, "Yeah, but am I going to be able to access Facebook Horizon on anything other than the Oculus headset?" And then Bosworth answered again. And then she said, "But am I going to be able to use Horizon on the HTC Vive?" And he was like, "Well, no, but like, not currently, but like we hope for that," or whatever. And so there is this presentation of this vast metaverse, it's just like a totally open landscape, and we're all just kind of roaming the internet freely and taking our digital assets with us everywhere we want to go. But right now you do have to have this thing on your face or on your head that is made by a specific company that wants to sell you, even if it's not charging you, wants to sell you on its services more than other companies services, I think. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft AP : I think the interoperability piece is really interesting, because without it, this plan doesn't really work—or maybe it does work, but Facebook has to build every single piece of it, itself, and acquire every single competitor so that this universe-sized piece of computing is all owned by Meta. I guess Lauren, Mike, I'd be curious if you had thoughts on this, but do we have any sense of other companies that plan to work with Facebook? My sense right now is that they are really spinning a vision here, but without having announced any partners, or plans to partner, or plans to make this work across companies, platforms, and producers. MC : I think a lot of the interoperability stuff is going to come from the software development side, like you'll be able to put on your VR headset and then have Slack and Zoom. AP : That's the dream, isn't it? MC : It's a little difficult to think about, but the types of experiences you're going to have are going to be dictated by the companies that decide they want to build for this platform. It's the same thing with every platform, like the platform succeeds or fails based on the quality and the volume of the software that's available for it. And if putting on a headset and doing a chat app is a experience, then maybe the thing that's going to drive the metaverse is going to be games or it's going to be like social hangouts or concerts or something like that. I can't imagine that watching a concert in a VR headset is better than watching it on my awesome television with an awesome soundbar in my living room, where I can get up and move around without having to pay particular attention to where I'm going. LG : I kind of wonder how it's going to shake out. And it's hard to know, because I don't want to draw exact parallels between the metaverse and our current internet, because that would be sort of limiting in how we might want to think about the metaverse. But like, when I think about the way that entertainment apps have worked in recent years, or the way that stores run right now, they're always like these strategic partnerships that happen where a large tech company will say, "And now we're offering Roku on this TV platform." Or Microsoft might say, "And now we're working with Google Android on this mobile phone project. But we're still going to really promote Microsoft apps more than anything else." They all make these kinds of strategic partnerships—we're working with Dropbox or whatever it is. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft But then, when it comes to the big platforms like Apple versus Google versus Amazon versus Microsoft, they're not super fast to support each other and run each other's apps and support each other's stores and things like that, or prioritize each other's products, which makes sense. They're all competing in some way or another. I just have a hard time envisioning it. Microsoft Mesh is probably the closest parallel to what Facebook, I would say, is building right now with Facebook Horizon. It's hard to imagine a world in which the two of them decided to become super friendly and work together, but you can see a world in which a smaller company—one of the most interesting VR companies I've written about recently is called Spatial, out of New York. They're working with Microsoft and they're working with Facebook. Like you could see a world where that happens. Let me ask you both one more quick question before we wrap, which is, Facebook announced that some 2D apps will be available in the virtual environment. Mike, you mentioned earlier Slack, and Dropbox is another one, which I've mentioned. So I think the idea is, if you do enter Horizon Workrooms and you're working with your colleagues, but then a Slack comes through, rather than having to take the headset off to check your laptop on your desk—how old-fashioned—that you would just check your Slack within the VR headset. Does that sound more or less enticing to you? MC : I guess it does get around that problem of what I was saying about the concert experience, like having to always take off the headset and look at something in the real world. It allows you to just have that pass-through type experience. I think that's fine. It does not sound appealing at all, because I mean, basically what we're talking about is just adding a bunch of stuff to VR, and just making a VR room that is like a simulacrum of a real room. That does not sound appealing to me just because I've been using a computer in actual space, in an actual room, for a really long time. And like, when I think about putting on a VR headset, the type of experience that I'm craving by putting on a VR headset is not the thing that they're pushing with these apps that show up on virtual screens in a virtual room. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft However, if I am in a workflow where it is like I'm in VR exactly half the time and in non-VR apps the other half of the time, then it makes sense to be able to interact with those apps without having to take the headset off and put it back on continuously. I can just like put it on, and it's the same thing, it eventually becomes the same type of behavior as sitting down at my desk and turning on my monitor and just getting to work that I do now. You know what I mean? It's like, that becomes the new norm, then that's a good way to get us to that norm. AP : I think that's a really good way of putting it, Mike. I guess that's one way to look at the metaverse, is not just as a concept that mostly lives in software, but actually like the new form factor for computing, where you're in a digital space and the tools that you want to use to interact with your computer, like a keyboard and mouse, might be replaced by what Facebook is calling sort of neural interfaces, a sort of wrist-worn device that picks up on signals from your brain and helps simulate the experience of typing, but without ever having to have a keyboard or a mouse around you, that kind of stuff is very exciting to me. I think it's cool to watch what this next phase of computing might look like. Of course, Mike, I agree with you that, as presented today, I'm not totally sure if the metaverse is a place I want to live in, especially if it ends up being the remote office, but in VR. But I think this is just the beginning, and we'll have to see where things turn out in a couple of years. LG : I would also like to extend the invite to all of you, including Boone, our excellent producer, to come over and use the super natural fitness app sometime with the Oculus Quest too. They'll call it the sweat-a-verse. I don't know. It's a fitness app that's supposed to be fun. That's all I know. What is fun? All right. We're going to take another quick break. And when we come back, we're going to give our very real-world recommendations. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft [ Break ] LG : Arielle, as our guest of honor, coming straight to us from the metaverse, what's your recommendation this week? AP : I would like to recommend a film, really more of an experience. If you do not want to be in this world anymore, the film is Dune , which just came out in theaters recently. It's so good. I haven't read the book, which I know is very shameful as a WIRED writer, but having gone in totally fresh with no idea what Dune was really supposed to be about, I felt completely in love with it. It is such a magical experience. I hope I don't get canceled for saying this. MC : I don't think you will. There's a lot of people who never read the book, or people who tried to read it and abandoned it after, I don't know, 870 pages, which is like halfway through, I think. AP : Have you guys seen it? MC : Yes. AP : What'd you think? LG : No. MC : Loved it. LG : I'm reading it right now. MC : You're reading the book? AP : She's reading it. LG : I'm reading the book on the Microsoft Surface Duo 2. MC : OK. LG : Which is a whole other story. MC : Probably easier than reading it through a pair of goggles. LG : And I would say that the Kindle app is one of the good apps on the Surface Duo 2. MC : Nice. LG : But full review TKTKTK. MC : Nice. LG : Mike, what's your recommendation this week? MC : My recommendation is that you serve only one master, and that master is Shai Hulud. I'm just kidding. That's a Dune joke, come on. I want to recommend a podcast. It is a podcast that I've recommended on this show before, in general, it's called The War on Cars podcast, but I want to recommend a particular episode. This podcast is about transportation. It's about city design. It's about driving. It's about riding a bike. It's about pedestrians. It's about policy. So if you have any interest in these things, if you live in a city, if you ride a bike, if you drive a car, if you're in the world of Uber and Lyft and self-driving cars, it's always fascinating. They always have great guests. The guest on the most recent episode, which is episode number 71, is the food writer Alicia Kennedy, and having a food writer on a podcast about transportation and infrastructure sounds like an odd mix. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft So I was intrigued. I also have always really loved Alicia Kennedy's work. She does a newsletter. She writes a lot about food for different publications. She's also a vegan and vegetarian. So, like, go team V. Anyway, they talk about the parallels between driving and eating meat. If you're a person who decides to stop driving a car and start riding a bicycle or walking everywhere because you want to save the environment, people will often consider you some sort of righteous crusader, and it's the very similar thing that happens when you stop eating meat and decide to go vegetarian or vegan and people see you as some sort of crusader. It's a really interesting conversation. It gets a lot into how we make the choices that we make about our behaviors, and how our intentions shape our behaviors, really fascinating. You should check it out, The War on Cars podcast. You should subscribe to the podcast, but also check out the new episode, episode 71, with guest Alicia Kennedy. LG : That's a great recommendation. AP : That sounds great. MC : Well, thanks, Lauren. What is your recommendation? LG : Well, some of you may be so distracted by the metaverse as put forth by the company formerly known as Facebook that you forgot about the Facebook papers, but earlier this week, Monday morning, many of us woke up to a deluge of news reports about these so-called Facebook papers. And WIRED had its own package of stories tied to the papers, that were shared by a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, who has now testified before Congress and has shared these sensitive documents with people, just to show how much Facebook has been aware of the social harms that it has been doing to society, and it has just sort of proceeded in the direction of relentless growth at all costs. Our WIRED colleagues Stephen Levy, Gilad Edelman, and Tom Simonite have all been poring over the documents and they wrote a series of stories. One is about the ways in which Facebook employees have been trying to lobby for change in recent years and how the executive leadership team has in some cases, ignored those pleas. Steven Levy wrote about how Facebook badge posts, which are exit posts from people who are leaving the company with those site. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft MC : They take a picture of their security badge? LG : And then like post to the internal, I think they call it Facebook workplace. Steven Levy wrote about that and what that reveals about the sort of temperature within the company right now. And then Tom Simonite wrote about Facebook's problems with content moderation in regions outside of the US, or how it turns out the company dedicates most of its resources where it tends to have the biggest public relations problems or face the threat of regulation. But obviously Facebook is a global company. It's very popular in different parts of the world as well. And they are not dedicating as many resources to content moderation outside of the US, so I highly recommend checking out this small package we've put together. It's just a few stories, but you can learn a lot about what's going on inside of Facebook from reading them. There'll probably be more stories as we see more of the documents that are part of the Facebook papers. So it's a very Facebook-heavy show, and that is my recommendation this week. MC : Nice. Yep. Highly recommended to read all three of those, plus the intro written by Brian Barrett. LG : Plus the intro written by our own Brian Barrett. All right. That's our show. Arielle, thanks so much for joining us this week. AP : Thank you so much for having me. LG : And thanks to all of you for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter, just check the show notes. The show is produced by the excellent Boone Ashworth. Goodbye for now. We'll be back next week, hopefully talking about something other than Facebook. MC : Yeah, that's not the metaverse. [Gadget Lab outro theme music plays. ] 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! 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"8 Best Baby Monitors (2023): Wi-Fi, Radio (No Internet), and More | WIRED"

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"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Emily Peck Nena Farrell Gear The Best Baby Monitors for Peace of Mind Facebook X Email Save Story Facebook X Email Save Story If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED What to Look For Read more Best All-Arounder $180 at Target Best Audio-Only Monitor $37 at Amazon In-Depth Detection $299 at Amazon New parents, here's a tip: You might not need a baby monitor. A healthy, hungry baby can shriek in tones piercing enough to bend metal, let alone your poor eardrums. Nevertheless, baby monitors can provide high-quality audio and crystal-clear video streams from the camera directly to a separate device like a smartphone or tablet. This means you can move freely around the house while keeping a close eye on the baby as they sleep or play contentedly in their crib. We tested the most intuitive models available online, looking at design, features, and picture and audio quality. These are the best baby monitors that can keep a watchful eye on your bundle of joy. Be sure to check out our other baby gear guides, including the Best Strollers , Best Breast Pumps , Best Baby Gear , and Best Baby Carriers. Updated October 2023: We've added the Eufy SpaceView Baby Monitor and removed a few discontinued monitors. Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com , full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. Adrienne So contributed to this guide. Photograph: twomeows/Getty Images What to Look For The best baby monitors have quick response times and come well-equipped with technology that picks up the slightest cry or fuss. They’ll give you a heads-up the moment they detect any sound or movement from the baby, so you know when it’s time to gulp down your coffee and attend to their needs. If you just want to be able to hear your baby from another room, you may want to consider a simple but effective audio-only monitor. Monitors with cameras that can capture video and stills go up to 1080p resolution, but 720p HD is plenty of pixels for a good view of your child. A video monitor that streams footage to a separate wireless “parent unit” that you can carry around the house can be very convenient. You get real-time sound and motion alerts whenever your child moves or stirs. You may also like to consider a smart baby monitor with a camera that streams footage to an app on your smartphone or tablet. You'll want to make sure these models have secure two-factor authentication for added peace of mind. If you’re limited to using just your smartphone, this can sometimes be a pain if you’re keen to limit screen time and turn your phone off when you’re at home. Also, check whether the storage of the monitor footage is in the cloud or on an SD card. If you want to record and save video, you may have to sign up for a monthly subscription plan. Photograph: Hubble Best All-Arounder Hubble Nursery Pal Premium With both a parent unit and smart app control, we think this Hubble Connected Nursery Pal Premium baby monitor is a great value buy. It gives you the flexibility of being able to view your child via the 5-inch HD touchscreen unit while you’re in the house and within the 300-meter range. You can then switch to the HubbleClub app ( iOS , Android ) for monitoring from your smartphone when you leave the house and have the babysitter in. We particularly like the touchscreen capability of the parent unit, which makes it easy to see your baby on the display. You can simply move your finger to pan, tilt, and zoom around the room, so you get a clear picture of the nursery. Once it’s charged, you can use the parent unit wirelessly to walk around the house without having to worry about cables getting in the way. To make use of live video streaming features from the nursery camera to your smartphone, you need to download the HubbleClub app and follow the steps to connect to Wi-Fi—this is a process we found simple and straightforward. Both the parent unit and app give you access to lullabies and white noise, which you can play to the baby through the camera unit. You can even record your own songs to play back to the baby should you feel the need to go all American Idol for the night. What’s rather unique about this design is that the parent unit also doubles as an interactive kids' tablet. While it’s pretty basic, there is a range of child-friendly games, videos, and stories for them to watch. These may come in useful when you want them to keep still while you’re changing diapers or you just want an extra five minutes of peace. $180 at Target $180 at Hubble $118 at Walmart Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Photograph: Vtech Best Audio-Only Monitor VTech DM221 Audio Sometimes, when you’re tired and need a little downtime, the simplest things are best and an audio-only monitor is all you need. While it doesn’t give you the reassurance of being able to see your child, this VTech audio baby monitor provides great support. It’s a small and compact set, with Dect 6.0 technology providing a reasonably clear audio transmission that eliminates most background noise. The parent unit has rechargeable batteries that last up to 18 hours and a clip so you can carry it with you as you potter around the house. It has a range of up to 1,000 feet, which makes it easy to roam freely—that’s more than enough for you to enjoy a little backyard evening sun while the kids slumber. We think the night light on the loop of the baby unit makes for a nice touch, as does the talk-back feature that lets you talk to your baby through the unit so you can soothe them back to sleep. $37 at Amazon $48 at Walmart Photograph: Cubo In-Depth Detection Cubo Ai Plus This clever baby monitor is designed to support you from the newborn stage up until your child is 5 years old and beyond. The Cubo Ai Plus sends real-time alerts to your smartphone if it hears your baby fussing or crying. It’s particularly sensitive in its monitoring and will send you instant alerts not only when it detects a baby moving, but if your baby’s face is covered or if they have rolled over or have their face down. Its “danger zone” detection also comes in useful when you have a curious toddler. This means you can set up a zone in your house—be it the kitchen or stairs—and you will get alerted on your smartphone if your child enters that area. Made from child-friendly polycarbonate, the Cubo Ai Plus is designed to look like a bird and comes complete with bird-chirping alert sounds—a sweet touch. In the box you get an attachment to place the device on the crib or on a stand so you can position it for the best view. This was a little fiddly to set up, but it sat firmly in place once finished. Should you want to move the monitor from room to room or travel with it, you can make use of the small stand. The Cubo’s 1080p Sony lens is wide-angle and rotatable, which means it gives a good range of view of the crib and provides a crystal clear picture. The app is easy to navigate too and features customizable alert settings. If you’re someone who loves a lot of data, you won’t be disappointed, as there's also information on how much sleep your child had and how many times they woke in the night. You can also use it to access photos and videos that the camera auto-captures of your child as they sleep via the livestream (secured via two-factor authentication). Perhaps superfluous for anyone who isn't that interested in reliving the previous night’s (lack of) sleep. You get one-year free access to the Cubo Ai Premium service, which means you can view the sleep analytics for longer and download some of the data and up to 18 hours of video playback. After the first year, you’ll have to sign up for the $5 monthly fee. $299 at Amazon $199 at Cubo Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Photograph: Hubble Split-Screen View of the Room and Crib Hubble Nursery Pal Dual Vision Hubble’s Nursery Pal Dual Vision stands out from the crowd because of its unique camera design that provides a normal and wide-angle view from the same device. The set comes with a 5-inch HD-screened parent unit that streams the pictures from both cameras on a split-screen view. While the camera has a 1080p resolution, it’s worth noting that the parent unit displays images in 720p, but we found that this is more than enough for you to get a good view—either in daylight or via the infrared night vision when dusk falls or the blackout blinds go down. On the unit, you can also make use of two-way talk so you can hear the baby and speak to any caregiver in the room as well as track the nursery's room temperature. The most convenient aspect of this monitor is that you can also get a live feed of the baby directly to the HubbleClub app on your smartphone with the option to get notifications when sound, motion, or temperature fluctuations are detected. While the top camera will stay pointed at a baby in the cot, the lower camera will use motion-tracking tech to follow the movement of the person in the room by panning and tilting. This dual-camera functionality is a great concept, as it means you needn’t take your eye off your baby when you want to scan the nursery. There’s also a ConnectChat button on the base of the baby unit. When pressed, it creates a one-way video call with the Full HD HubbleClub app, so you can speak to whoever is in the room with the baby or use it to soothe the baby back to sleep. If your partner is in the nursery trying to find the baby’s pacifier in the dark or needs you to bring up another bottle of milk from the kitchen, this can also make communication around the house easier. $230 at Hubble Connected $197.98 at Walmart Photograph: Owlet Heart Rate and Oxygen Level Readings Owlet Dream Duo 2 This smart baby monitor goes a little further than your standard monitor. It combines a “Dream Sock” wearable that you attach to your baby's foot and a Cam 2 monitor that you place in the nursery. You can then keep an eye on your baby as it streams 1080p HD video over Wi-Fi to the very comprehensive Owlet App on your smartphone. With the sock wearable in place, you can track your baby’s heart rate and average oxygen level. We found this effective enough, though of course it won’t be as accurate as a hospital-grade tracker. The app comes with lots of useful extra info, and it can monitor the nursery room temperature, humidity, and noise level. We like the fact that it comes packed with lots of useful sleep data—possibly more than you’ll ever need, but it’s a bonus. As well as watching and saving video clips of your baby, you can analyze your baby’s sleep patterns using the data from the app. The “Predictive Sleep Technology,” for example, will try to identify your baby’s sleep patterns to get to know when their next nap or sleep time is. (It’s a great idea in theory, but good luck with that.) The Owlet monitor itself sends real-time motion and sound alerts direct to your smartphone when your baby moves or makes a noise. It has a 4X zoom, wide-angle view, and night vision, and it also gives you the option for two-way talk when you want to soothe your baby with your voice through the camera. The entry-level wearable sock is designed to suit babies up to 18 months old, but you can opt for a larger design that works up to 5 years. (We suspect, though, that it will work best when the baby is younger, as they’re less likely to pull it off.) We do wish the kit included a separate parent unit so you weren't entirely reliant on your smartphone, but that would be icing on the cake. We're still big fans of this baby monitor. $399 at Amazon $399 at Owlet Care $399 at Walmart Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Photograph: Simshine Rollover Alerts Simshine Baby Monitor You’ll need to connect to the SimHome app ( iOS , Android ) on your smartphone to access real-time video of your baby when using this monitor. While its design is styled to blend into your nursery decor and comes in sweet blue, pink, and yellow options with wings that look like a little bird, its clever onboard tech is far from cutesy and will give you a reassuring, crystal=clear picture of your baby. Simshine’s smart baby monitor is, in fact, packed with heaps of high-tech features that you can make use of as you see fit. With 360 degree rotation and 2K resolution, the camera can pan and tilt and track your baby’s every movement. With real-time sleep and awake data and alerts for rollovers, “face covered,” and more, there’s plenty covered in the app should you feel the need for reassurance in those first six months. Whenever your baby rolls over in their sleep or their face gets covered by a soft toy or swaddling blanket, you’ll get real-time alerts on your smartphone or tablet. The camera can also be set to detect when your baby cries and can automatically play soothing music as it sends you an alert. This is rather special as it will give you a tad more me-time, and as any new parent will confirm, every second or minute counts. $130 at Amazon Photograph: Infant Optics No Wi-Fi or Smart Apps Infant Optics DXR-8 PRO What we like most about this Infant Optics monitor is that it operates on a frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) connection in a closed-loop system that doesn’t require connecting the device to Wi-Fi. This means there’s no need to fuss around with Wi-Fi and there’s no smart app to contend with. All you need to do is set up the camera for optimum viewing, plug in, and you’re good to go. In the kit, you get a 5-inch screen on the parent unit that provides 720p HD playback picture of your baby. While this isn’t the clearest-resolution picture you can find, it’s sharp enough. There’s also night vision for when the lights go out. The viewing control is particularly impressive, as the compact camera allows you to pan, tilt, and zoom around the crib as much as you need to. With a decent speaker on the parent unit, the set provides a noticeably loud volume and crisp sound playback. With its active noise-reduction feature that cuts out any background noise, you’ll also hear your baby only when they make a sound. This works well if there’s a fan in the room or, say, the distant hum of a lawnmower when you’re trying to settle the baby. And when you’re trying to settle the baby, there’s always a distant hum of something in the background. $200 at Amazon $200 at Target $200 at Infant Optics Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Photograph: Eufy A Cheaper No-Wi-Fi Baby Monitor Eufy SpaceView Baby Monitor A major appeal of the Eufy SpaceView monitor ( 8/10, WIRED Recommends ) is that you don't need to connect it to your Wi-Fi network. It operates on a closed-loop FHSS system, meaning you simply turn it on and start using it. The large, billiard-ball-sized camera has a 330-degree horizontal rotation, a 110-degree vertical rotation, and an optional wide-angle lens that increases the viewing angle to 110 degrees. Eufy also sells accessories to let you attach it to the wall or clamp it onto the crib. (While the clamp is easier to set up and move around, a toddler can likely reach a crib-clamped camera.) The handheld monitor unit offers just 720p video quality. It's easy to see whether your kiddo's eyes are open and where the pacifier rolled to, but it isn't high definition by any means. Eufy says the camera and monitor unit have 460 feet of range, but WIRED editor Adrienne So got around 250 feet from the camera before it lost connection. You're able to control night vision, change the camera angle, adjust screen brightness, and much more from the control unit, but the interface feels a little dated compared to newer smart devices. Still, it works great and is more reliable in my bedroom than my phone's Wi-Fi signal ever is. $160 at Amazon $160 at Eufy WIRED contributor Writer and Reviewer Topics Shopping buying guides parenting Julian Chokkattu Adrienne So Jaina Grey Brenda Stolyar Simon Hill Eric Ravenscraft Julian Chokkattu Adrienne So WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Doordash Promo Code 50% Off DoorDash Promo Code + Free Delivery Finish Line Coupon Take $10 off Your Order - Finish Line Coupon Code Groupon Promo Code Groupon promo code: Extra 30% off any amount Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"LG V60 ThinQ Review: The Android for Audiophiles | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/review/lg-v60-thinq"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Julian Chokkattu Gear Review: LG V60 ThinQ Facebook X Email Save Story Photograph: LG Facebook X Email Save Story $800 at LG If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Rating: 6/10 Open rating explainer Like a lot of LG devices, the V60 ThinQ feels like a different take on a Samsung Galaxy phone—packed with enough to make it a great phone, but lacking any polish to stand out. After using it for more than a month, I've determined it's best for one specific audience: audiophiles. The V60 is one of the only flagship phones with a headphone jack, and the sound it puts out is excellent, thanks to its high-quality digital-to-analog converter (DAC). The rest of the phone's features sit a rung below what you'll find from competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S20 , Google Pixel 4 , or OnePlus 8 Pro —despite a similarly high price tag. LG is not selling this phone unlocked, so you can only buy it from a wireless carrier (locked to that network) at the moment. AT&T is selling it bundled with LG's dual-screen case for $900 , T-Mobile has it for $800 ($900 with the dual-screen case , which we'll get to later), and Verizon has it bundled for $950. The pearlescent V60 fares well in the places that matter most: performance, screen, and battery life. Inside is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 865, the same new 2020 chipset powering the likes of the Galaxy S20. It's difficult to challenge its performance. It handles well even two hours into a hectic Call of Duty session. Photograph: LG Its endurance feels limitless. The V60 is equipped with a large 5,000-mAh battery, and it steadfastly stood by my side for two days before it needed time to rest. It's hard to say how it handles itself on a normal "workday," since there's nothing normal about being stuck at home in quarantine , but it will easily last a full day, even if you spend all six work hours watching videos on TikTok. The OLED screen you'll TikTok on is also gorgeous. It's sharp, and goes toe-to-toe with Samsung's displays in terms of color and how deeply black its blacks are. It also gets incredibly bright, like a shield reflecting the sun's light. It lights up my favorite reading apps with ease as I walk my dog on bright, sunny days (while I'm wearing my cloth face mask! of course). The in-display fingerprint sensor also works well. The rest of the bits that make up the V60 are what make it versatile, appealing to folks that shun the Pixels and iPhones of the world: 128 GB of storage, a MicroSD card slot if you want more storage, and a headphone jack. Plus, the usual flagship offerings like wireless charging support and an IP68 water-resistance rating. The positives continue with the cameras. LG has always had solid imaging, but the question usually is how good. The photos coming out of the V60 are noticeably better than any LG phone I've ever tried before—largely thanks to a bigger image sensor that can take in more light. The main 64-megapixel camera uses binning technology to merge pixels and produce brighter, 16-megapixel photos. The results are great in daylight, though the V60 still struggles in scenes with contrasting lighting. (You might see blown out skies occasionally.) You can also take photos in their full 64-megapixel resolution. You should give this mode a shot, as images are brilliantly detailed; I can see every strand of fur on my dog. The downside is bigger file sizes, which will eat up storage. There’s only one extra camera on the back, and it’s an ultrawide. That’s unusual in an age when we’re seeing three to four cameras on most high-end (and even budget ) phones, and previous LG phones have come with five cameras. The ultrawide camera’s quality isn’t as good as the main camera, but it can take some nice, sweeping scenes in daylight. Portrait mode works well too, but it struggles as the sun goes down. LG V60 ThinQ Rating: 6/10 $800 at LG If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Poor low-light performance is the biggest problem with the V60’s cameras. Low-light photos are a step behind competitors, specifically the Pixel 4 and the iPhone 11 Pro. It manages to retain a decent amount of detail, especially when using the dedicated Night mode, but colors are often drastically washed out. Still, it’s markedly better than any LG camera that came before. 1 / 10 The flashy feature on the camera side is 8K video recording. Footage is incredibly detailed, and you can crop without losing much quality. I do think the Galaxy S20 edges out a bit with its 8K recording in terms of exposure and colors. But this feature runs into the same problems as 64-megapixel photos—most people don't need or have a place to watch 8K videos, and they take up a lot more storage. Like high-speed 5G connectivity, it's nice to have 8K video recording, but it's also a little pointless. The V60 does do a great job with stabilization, though. If the standard stabilization isn't enough, there's also a Steady Cam mode that lets you shoot at HD (1080p) for ultra-smooth clips. Oh, and about that 5G connectivity. I haven't been able to travel to a lot of places to test data speeds, but from what I did test, speeds aren't much better than 4G LTE. (I'm using T-Mobile.) Right now, 5G is extremely limited in the US, and you might need to upgrade your data plan to access it. I don't recommend buying the V60 for it, but it's a small perk if you do live in an area with 5G. While it's (mostly) smooth sailing with the V60, it's quirks are tiring. First, it's too big. I have large hands, and I regularly have trouble reaching parts of the screen. That also means this all-glass slab is prone to slipping out of my hand (please get a case ). It just doesn't make it very fun to use. Second, its Android 10 software feels like it came straight out of 2016, and the interface feels bizarrely silly at times. For example, any time you install an app, you need to go into the app drawer and sort it alphabetically (otherwise new apps are added to the end of the list). I keep having to fiddle with the auto-brightness, too; it frequently doesn't give me the levels I need, and I often manually change it. LG V60 ThinQ Rating: 6/10 $800 at LG If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED I’m also worried about updates. Samsung's S20 is already running the April security update from Google, but the V60 is stuck on February‘s patch (LG hasn’t responded to my query on what the security update cycle will be). The company doesn't have the best track record with updates, and that's not good enough for a phone that costs this much. Finally, there's the dual-screen accessory. I discussed it in detail when I reviewed the LG G8X , and my opinion hasn’t changed. It’s a case that attaches to the phone via the USB-C port and allows you to use a second screen to multitask. I like the idea of having a second screen, but the case remains bulky and cumbersome to hold, and the screens are so big that it’s difficult to use either. It’s great for certain situations, like when I’m playing a mobile game but want to keep an eye on a messaging app or social media like Twitter, but it really needs to be ultra-thin and lightweight so that you don’t hate having it on the phone. The V60 is a great phone in many ways, but its $800-$900 peers are simply better. If a headphone jack is all you really want, Google’s Pixel 3A is a great option for under $400 (or wait for the upcoming Pixel 4A ). You could also get last year’s LG G8, which I’ve seen dip as low as $400 , or wait a few months. The V60 will likely get a few hundred dollars cheaper by this summer. A one-time poultry farmer invents the future of refrigeration Rivian wants to bring electric trucks to the masses Muscle giants, Zoom orgies, and the new erotics of isolation Delivery apps offer restaurants a lifeline—at a cost This is not the apocalypse you were looking for 👁 Why can't AI grasp cause and effect ? Plus: Get the latest AI news 📱 Torn between the latest phones? Never fear—check out our iPhone buying guide and favorite Android phones LG V60 ThinQ Rating: 6/10 $800 at LG If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED $800 at LG Reviews Editor X Topics Shopping Android lg phones Reviews review Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Google Stadia Review: It's Getting There | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/review/google-stadia"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Jaina Grey Gear Review: Google Stadia Facebook X Email Save Story Photograph: Google Facebook X Email Save Story $55 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Rating: 6/10 Open rating explainer Gaming on PC has always been an expensive hobby. Growing up, I used to dream about being able to afford a real gaming computer. Our family PC was running Windows 3.1 well into the heyday of Windows 98. I used to tear pages out of PC Gamer , and even WIRED magazine, and pin them to my wall the same way boys did with sports cars—except my Lamborghini and Ferrari were Falcon Northwest and Alienware. To that young girl, and every other kid like her, Google Stadia would seem like magic. It's a lot easier to sell your parents on $10 a month than it is to convince them that several thousand dollars’ worth of gaming hardware is a worthwhile investment. Stadia is Google’s first deep foray into the world of gaming. It’s part game console, part streaming service—like Netflix but for videogames. For a single subscription fee of $10, Google promises to stream PC-quality games to practically any device that can run a web browser. That's one hell of a promise. If Google can pull it off, Stadia is positioned to substantially lower the financial barriers to PC and console gaming. Google is not the first company to design this kind of service. OnLive, PlayStation Now, even Nvidia have tried—and mostly failed. The difference here is what I like to call the Apple phenomenon. Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, but it sanded off all the edges and made a really good MP3 player. That's what Google aims to do here for streaming games. If Google has its way, PC and console gaming are about to become more accessible to millions of users, and that’s an incredible feat no matter how you slice it. But as always, there's a catch. The promise of Stadia is that you can play your games anywhere. You could do it right now, on your work or school laptop, just as easily as you'd sign into Gmail. The service lets you stream games over the internet like you might watch a YouTube video—no downloading required, no pesky updates. You don’t really need to buy anything, either. You just need a Stadia subscription and a compatible device. You can play on a TV with a Google Chromecast Ultra attached, a Google Pixel phone, any computer with a Google Chrome browser. That means, essentially, that you decide how much you want to invest in the Stadia ecosystem. Photograph: Google Big spenders who want a console-like experience can buy the Stadia Premiere Edition, which includes a Chromecast Ultra, a Stadia controller, three months of Stadia Pro (more on subscriptions below), and one additional game, for $129. The Premiere Edition's official Stadia controller is great. It’s a familiar design, a hybrid of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers with soft rounded edges and a pleasantly textured surface. The buttons are snappy and the joysticks feel smooth. After a while, I've begun wishing I could use it with more than just Stadia games. It doesn't beat my current favorite, the Nintendo Switch Pro controller, but it's at least as good as a DualShock or Xbox One gamepad. The Stadia service is out now if you buy the Premiere Edition, but it’s still in an early access period. In February 2020, the service launches for real. When it does, it will have a tier with no subscription fee where users can buy games (currently they're about $60 apiece, but Pro subscribers often get discounts) and stream them at 1080p and 60 frames per second. For $10 a month, the Pro tier will offer access to a roster of free games slated to grow regularly. Right now it just includes Destiny 2. With Stadia Pro, you can play games in 4K HDR, with all the graphics settings cranked up to max no matter what kind of hardware you’re running (as long as it’s a compatible device). That’s possible because you’re not actually playing the game on your device. A Google server farm is running the game and streaming the video output to your TV, web browser, or Pixel phone. You don’t have to download anything; it just streams like a YouTube video, albeit one you control. This has some serious consequences for the gameplay experience, though. For instance, one of the launch titles on Google Stadia is Mortal Kombat 11 , and it’s a bizarre choice. Fighting games are notoriously finicky when it comes to latency. It's already frustrating to play a fighting game online because any lag means botched combos or mistimed reactions. When you add on the few extra milliseconds Stadia requires to communicate with its servers, there’s a substantial lag between your button press and the punches, kicks, and blocks you execute. Google Stadia Controller Rating: 6/10 $55 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Even under ideal conditions (fiber connection, directly plugged into the router, 4K HDR OLED TV), there is a noticeable difference between playing a game on Stadia and running the game on local hardware, like a PC or PS4. There’s a certain clarity, depth, and sharpness you get when a game is rendered in real time, and that’s absent with a stream, no matter how high quality it is. With Stadia, games sometimes look like you’re watching an ultrahigh-resolution gameplay video rather than actually playing the game yourself. They look drab. If you want to understand, go watch this video , make it fullscreen, set the quality to the highest your display can support. This is what it looks like to play games on Stadia. It's better quality than you'd get trying to play a game on mid-tier hardware, but not quite as crisp and crystal-clear as it would be if you played it on a really nice display. Stadia excels in that middle ground just shy of ultrahigh-def. Despite these deficiencies, I did find myself dipping into Destiny 2 on a humble Chromebook instead of one of the dedicated gaming laptops I've been testing for other reviews. Having an 11-inch Chromebook on my lap is kind of nice, and that’s another advantage here: Stadia doesn’t generate any heat. Well, not any more heat than watching YouTube does. That’s huge. Gaming laptops usually heat up your lap to uncomfortable levels, but that doesn’t happen here because the hardware isn't working overtime to render the game. A Google server farm is doing that. Even playing Stadia games on a smartphone doesn’t heat it up anymore than watching a movie does. When you compare Stadia's online interface to a traditional console like an Xbox One, PS4, or even the Steam store, you will notice there’s a substantial lack of meat on these bones. Stadia doesn’t support achievements, and it’s unclear whether or not you’ll be able to play games with players on other consoles or be limited to only other Stadia players. Google says cross-play is the goal, but it won’t be available at launch. Family sharing is also absent. Even if you have Stadia set up in your living room, you’ll only get one account and one profile for the time being. Any time you look too hard at Stadia's launch features, chances are you're going to see more than a few vaguely listed as "coming soon." Photograph: Google Google Stadia Controller Rating: 6/10 $55 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Even when Stadia is at its best though, there’s a catch: You will never own your Stadia games. You will never have local copies on your hardware, which means you have access to your games (games you paid for) only as long as they stay in the Stadia library. If Google decides to remove certain titles, or shutter the service entirely ( it happens , pretty often in fact ), the games you paid for will be gone. This differs from buying a digital copy of a game. When you buy a copy of a game on Steam or a console, a hard copy of that game lives on your hardware. But with Stadia, you’re only ever renting access to a game, even if you paid full retail price for it. As of this writing, games are listed in the Stadia store at full retail price ($30 to $60), but Google says final pricing for game purchases has yet to be determined. Then there’s the problem of archiving games. There have been serious efforts in recent years to preserve games for posterity. Preserving the history of gaming as an art form is a lot more difficult if nobody has access to copies of the original titles. Taken as a whole, Stadia’s strength lies in its versatility, and that’s never more apparent than when you’re playing a game on a laptop without a graphics card. There’s something delightfully subversive about firing up Destiny 2 on the kind of Chromebook they hand out to high school kids. This isn’t a service meant to supplant the Alienwares and Razers of the world. It’s never going to be as sharp and responsive as gaming on a local machine will be, and latency will always be an issue, no matter how good the technology gets—and no matter what Google says about "negative latency." Google has a lot of features to flesh out and issues to address, but Stadia lives up to at least some of its lofty ambitions. It's positioned to bring gaming to more people on more platforms than ever before, and there’s something very exciting about that prospect. If you’re on the fence about investing $129 in an unproven service, you’re not alone. The Premiere Edition is basically for true believers who don't mind dropping serious money on what amounts to a pay-to-play beta test. When February rolls around and those free trials are offered, you should give it a shot. You might be surprised. Google Stadia Controller Rating: 6/10 $55 at Amazon If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED $55 at Amazon Writer and Reviewer X Instagram Topics Shopping review Google streaming PC Games video games Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. 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"57 'Buy It for Life' Products: Cast-Iron, Tools, Speakers, Chairs, and More | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/buy-it-for-life"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Parker Hall Gear Team Gear WIRED’s Favorite ‘Buy It for Life’ Gear Photograph: Wilson Hennessy Save this story Save Save this story Save We're all tired of spending money on stuff that breaks. Whether it's a tool that wears out instantly or a pair of pants that gets a hole too soon, it seems like more things in this world should be something you buy for life. They're not as common, but there are numerous companies that aim to make excellent products that last a long time and can be repaired when or if they fail. Anyone who has spent time on the Buy It for Life subreddit on Reddit likely knows about many of these products already, but we have a few rules for our guide. For one thing, everything you see here can be bought right now. You can definitely purchase them used—buy them this way if you want!—but we wanted to make sure each item can be bought new with its original factory warranty and is still supported by the company that made it. The second major rule? A WIRED Gear reviewer has to have personally used each product for years and vouch for it. That way, you know who to scream at in the comments if yours breaks. Here's a good rule of thumb: Just because something is well made doesn't mean it doesn't require proper maintenance. Take care of your stuff, and it'll last years. Kitchen Home Clothing and Apparel Tools and Outdoor Gear Music and Instruments Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED. com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Kitchen Shun Knife Photograph: Amazon I'm a fan of all things Japanese, so my most prized knife is an 8-inch Shun chef's knife, a Christmas gift from my then girlfriend (now wife!). I have used this knife nearly daily for about a decade, sharpening it every six months to keep it employed. It shows a few scuffs (my fault), but no signs of stopping. It's also among the sharpest knives I have ever used. This is my personal recommendation, but there are plenty of other high-end knives worth considering, including those from German and American brands. Read our Best Chef's Knives guide for more. $100 at Amazon The Home Depot Photograph: Food52 Skip the Ove Glove , and step away from the dish towel you’re considering using on a hot pan. Silicone oven mitts offer better protection than fabric oven mitts and are especially safer than a dish towel that isn’t designed for heat protection in the first place. The silicone offers a strong grip, which is important when handling hot cookware. These mitts are also waterproof, so your hands will stay safe if hot liquids splash onto your gloves, a one-up over fabric mitts. They’re easier to keep clean and show less wear and tear from stains and spills too. Five Two’s pair are my favorite silicone oven mitts, thanks to the large size that provides plenty of protection and fits every hand in my household. Plus, they come in pretty colors! —Nena Farrell $40 at Food52 Photograph: Wilson Hennessy Originating in France in 1927, these perennially popular glasses can be found in cafés and kitchens across the world. The scalloped look, heat-resistant glass, and chunky proportions make them almost impossible to smash, and while they lack the Michelin-starred sophistication of an Iittala or Reidel , we can’t imagine decimating steak frites and a bottle of chateau-du-plonk with anything else. They’re also equally suited to drinking espresso, having been tempered to withstand heat up to 130 degrees Celcius. Sadly, the carafe has long been discontinued, but WIRED’s own 15-year-old sample here stands as a testament to design and durability. Glass with class. — Chris Haslam $40 at Amazon (6-Pieces) $105 at Amazon (18 Pieces) Photograph: ZOJIRUSHI If you’re cooking any kind of rice dish, you deserve a good rice cooker. You might think to yourself, why change? My rice cooker is fine, isn’t it? Sure, it’s fine, but don’t you want rice to be delicious? With a better rice cooker, you’ll get rice that’s akin to stopping at a restaurant, with the help of a few more buttons. Zojirushi is the name of the game when it comes to rice cookers, not only for great cooking results but for its long lifetime on your kitchen counter. The rice cooker and warmer models like the NS-LCG05 are a great choice , but our favorite is the NP-NWC10, which is a pressure cooker for even tastier rice. —Nena Farrell $486 at Amazon $550 at Target $486 at Walmart Photograph: Amazon My Mom has made apple sauce in the same cheap Crockpot since the early 1990s and it still gets warm every time. Crockpots are still made well, as are, in my experience anyway, the more modernized version: Instant Pots. Most of them will last a long time and have replaceable seals and lids, including this model I've had since college. Just be sure to clean and dry it properly before storage and you can make all kinds of stuff in it for years. I prefer ones with simpler controls, but I've had the Wi-Fi connected model for a long time and barely used it with the app. I found it a buggy experience, but the buttons work just fine. $40 at Amazon $40 at Target Photograph: Breville I bought the Barista Express for my now wife five years ago, and it's been pumping out espresso almost daily ever since. We usually make an Americano, but we also make iced and hot lattes, depending on the weather. It still works just as new. You do need to maintain it by descaling the machine every so often and changing the water filter. Breville also sells tons of parts for years in case something gets damaged over time. I highly recommend getting the freshest beans you can (we get ours from Trade ) because the Barista Express can be a bit snobby about the kinds of beans you pour in. That said, I see no signs of it stopping anytime soon. —Julian Chokkattu $750 at Amazon $750 at Best Buy Photograph: DualIt Every Classic Dualit toaster is hand-assembled at the company's factory in West Sussex, and because the product was conceived to cope in commercial kitchens, they’re impressively robust and refreshingly repairable. You’ve got two choices if your toaster fails—you can either send it back for a quote and full repair or, if you fancy yourself with a screwdriver, Dualit sells spare parts including heating elements and timers, with prices from just £3.60 (roughly $4.50) for a new control knob. — Chris Haslam $260 at Amazon $300 at Food52 $300 at Williams-Sonoma Photograph: Amazon Despite the more popular insulated stainless steel water bottles that have taken over, a Nalgene is probably the most durable water bottle you’ll find, and they remain beloved among adventurers the world over. I’ve dropped them from crazy heights, taken them on journeys, and drank liters and liters of water out of the lightweight plastic bottles, and they’re still the longest-lasting vessel I’ve tried. $16 at Amazon $17 at Target $17 at Walmart KitchenAid Artisan 5-Quart Tilting Stand Mixer Photograph: KitchenAid Your grandma has one, your mom has one, and your brother has one: The KitchenAid stand mixer is perhaps the most universally beloved buy-it-for-life item in existence. This simple yet colorful mixer can be used to make bread, cookies, cakes, and even pasta (with the right attachments ). I’ve yet to hear of one that can’t be fixed, and I’ve also yet to encounter a family member who actually had to do any repairs. This is the 7-quart version that lets you raise and lower the bowl, which makes it easier to make larger batches. $450 at Amazon $450 at Best Buy $468 at Walmart Photograph: Amazon This cooler is so popular that Igloo made the guard tower of the Igloo factory look just like it. A solid plastic lid that slides with a press of a button is the secret sauce here, making it easy to grab something and quickly pop the lid back on. They’ve been making them essentially the same way for decades, and they’re great for picnics, lunches, or bringing a few cold ones to a gathering. $28 at Amazon (7 Quart) $23 at Walmart (16 Quart) Photograph: Amazon My wife loves eggs. On a trip to Japan, we went to a restaurant that offered all-you-can-eat eggs to add to your meal, and she returned to the table with five massive eggs on a plate. The Dash Rapid Egg Cooker was a natural fit. For three years now, she's been using it regularly to make soft-boiled and poached eggs. She likes it because you can set it and forget it; a chime plays to indicate when the eggs are ready. (I know exactly what the chime sounds like at this point.) No need to stand over a stove. It's cheap and plasticky, and I'm not expecting it to last my entire lifetime, but it has yet to show any signs of wearing down after all these years. —Julian Chokkattu $20 at Amazon $17 at Target Weber Kettle Grill Photograph: Weber Weber’s basic charcoal kettle is a cult classic for a reason: This grill can be used for everything from charred veggies to smoked brisket if you know what you’re doing. The tried-and-true design is cheap and practical, with plastic wheels, metal legs, and a simple tub and ash catch. The secret to making these last forever? Get a cover, or store it in a garage or shed between uses. (They can quickly corrode if you don't.) I also recommend snagging a set of cast-iron grates and a chimney for starting the thing, for ever better searing potential. Read our Best Grills and Best Portable Grills guides for more recommendations. $119 at Amazon $119 at Walmart $120 at Target Lodge Cast Iron Skillet Photograph: Amazon Pretty much any cast iron will last a lifetime. I’m a fan of vintage Griswold and Wagners , which are lighter and smoother than modern cast iron and come with mysterious markings you have to try to decipher using websites dedicated to their lineage. But there’s no need to spend your weekend thrifting or take your chances on the wilds of eBay when Lodge makes such excellent pans at such reasonable prices. A Lodge frying pan will set you back less than $30. It’s all but indestructible, comes out of the box well-seasoned, and will one day be sold on Etsy for way too much money by someone in your grandkid's generation. $25 at Amazon $24 at Lodge Photograph: Amazon All Pyrex is not the same. The Pyrex familiar to most Americans and often made in America is made from soda lime glass. It’s fine. However, the French have their own special Pyrex, made of tempered borosilicate glass through a unique manufacturing process. French Pyrex can endure an extreme temperature change without breaking—a 200-degree shift from the freezer to a preheating oven is no sweat. You’re going to want the one that’s all in capital letters with a French flag or marked “Origine France Garantie.” It does tend to be expensive and is a bit of a hassle to acquire. (Think $40 for a measuring cup that you can buy at Walmart for $10.) But, you’ll never want (or need) to replace it. —Martin Cizmar $45 at Amazon (Baking Pan) $32 at Amazon (Roasting Pan) Photograph: Moccamaster A welcome antidote to all the pod machine waste and artisanal barista BS surrounding the coffee industry, the Moccamaster has been hand-made in the Netherlands since 1968 and makes a delicious cup (well, four to 10 cups to be precise) of filter coffee. The secret lies in the heating element, which maintains an optimal brew temperature of between 92 and 96 degrees Celcius to help produce a smooth, flavorful drink without bitterness. It’s fully repairable, is available in cool colors, and is completely recyclable. — Chris Haslam $359 at Amazon $359 at Target All-Clad Pan Photograph: All-Clad I'm frugal first and a gearhead second. Here’s what my fellow gearheads are sometimes reluctant to tell you: Sometimes “the best” gear isn’t all that much better than second- or third-best. But when it comes to kitchenware, All-Clad gets first place, and it’s not even close. Cooking gets so much easier when your pots and pans have heat retention! All-Clad nonstick holds up well over time, and the vast majority of its pots and pans come with lifetime warranties. I have yet to use an All-Clad product that didn’t impress me. It might be an investment, but you’ll only have to make it once. You’ll never regret it. —Louryn Strampe $890 at Amazon $890 at Walmart Photograph: Amazon WIRED UK managing editor Mike Dent has been enjoying these tri-ply stainless steel pans (yes, these actual ones) for the past eight years, and his guests have appreciated not being served up Teflon flakes from compromised nonstick pans. There are various sets you can choose from, but the premium-grade pans offer fast and impressively even heat distribution, as well as infinitely scrubbable surfaces. “Life after nonstick has been a revelation. Beyond a decent frying pan, you should go steel for everything else. I honestly can't see myself replacing these anytime in the near, or far, future,” Dent says. — Chris Haslam $440 at Amazon (Various Sets) $440 at Sur La Table Photograph: Amazon One of the first things my grandma gave me when I moved out was a pair of Nordic Ware baking sheets. Those sheets have now lasted me well over a decade and are still working great with no warps. Pair them with any cheap silicone baking pads, and you're liable to be baking cookies for decades with no problems. $13 at Amazon $20 at Walmart Photograph: Amazon I love mounting stuff to the wall. Why waste valuable counter or desk space when you can just have it floating? For years I've had a simple aluminum paper towel holder for my Bounty rolls that sat on the countertop, but that's where this SimpleHuman holder comes in. It's incredibly sturdy on the wall, super easy to remove the exact amount of paper towels you need, and swapping in a new roll is dead simple. It's been holding up well for years, and SimpleHuman offers a five-year warranty in case anything goes wrong. — Julian Chokkattu $30 at Amazon Jump to a Topic: Kitchen , Clothing and Apparel , Tools and Outdoor Gear , Music and Instruments Home Photograph: Herman Miller They may not last you as long as a cast-iron pan will, but Herman Miller chairs are some of the most revered (and copied) in the industry for good reason. WIRED reviews editor Julian Chokkattu has been using the Embody since 2020, and it still feels new. It does take some time to get used to the seat—it's more comfortable the longer you sit in it—but it improved his back problems after years on a gaming chair. It's not the only Herman Miller chair you should consider. The Aeron ($1,410) is another staple in the office chair world. Both come with a 12-year warranty too. The kicker? You can most definitely find them far below the MSRP on eBay, Facebook Marketplace, and local furniture resellers. Read our Best Office Chairs guide for more options. $1,935 at Herman Miller $1,935 at Design Within Reach Photograph: Wilson Hennessy French café culture has produced some of the most iconic, and indestructible, designs of the past 100 years. Based on Xavier Pauchard’s 1934 Tolix H chair, the stackable Tolix H stool was originally designed for factory workers and is available in eight heights to suit a range of tasks and desks. They’re still in production today, and available in some 28 finishes, including perforated seats for outdoor use. But we’re taken with this set of three 70-year-old originals, sourced by Merchant & Found, that illustrates just how durable they really are. — Chris Haslam $273 at Design Public $215 at Dyke & Dean Photograph: Vitsoe While Swedish couple Nils and Kajsa Strinning conceived the versatile String shelving system in 1949, it’s Dieter Rams' deliberately “timeless” 1960 design for the 606 shelving unit that tops our modernist wish list. The system, manufactured by Vitsoe, has been in production ever since and is based around the versatile E-Track system that can be wall-mounted, semi-wall mounted, or fitted to ceiling and floor and then adorned with a wide collection of interchangeable shelves, cabinets, and tables. And because the design hasn’t changed in decades, a 50-year-old shelf unit will slot in perfectly with those just out of the factory. — Chris Haslam Prices Vary at Vitsoe Photograph: Stokke No middle-class family is complete without at least one—and there’s a rabid secondhand scene on eBay for them too. But far from it being just another totem for Scandi style, the Tripp Trapp is a true icon of versatility. Launched in 1972 by Peter Opsvik, the height-adjustable beech- and oak-ply chair was designed to fit your child from newborn to adulthood, with the angled form and large footplate enabling the user to get close to the dining table at the correct height to feel involved. It’s simple, effective, and robust, and little wonder you can find it in the permanent collection at MOMA in New York, the Design Museum and Victoria and Albert in London, and the Vitra Museum in Germany. — Chris Haslam $349 at Amazon $299 at Target $299 at Stokke Photograph: Thuma There was a period in my life after college when I moved around a lot. Let me tell you, bed frames are annoying to break apart and put together. I used to have a cheap, bulky, and ugly one from Zinus that was a pain to move around. In 2020, with nothing better to do at home, I decided to upgrade and spend some serious cash (for me) on The Bed from Thuma. It's gorgeous and made from repurposed wood, with cork-padded bottoms on the legs to prevent scuffs on your floor. The slats have a felt lining made from recycled plastics to keep them protected, and they have never fallen out of place after all this time. But the best part? It is dead simple to take apart and reassemble. You don't need any tools. The company uses Japanese joinery to keep the pieces together with zero screws. (OK, there are two screws in total, but you can insert them without a screwdriver!) I've moved once since I bought it, and it was a relief to only spend minutes putting the whole thing back together so I could get some much needed rest. — Julian Chokkattu $1,195 at Thuma Photograph: Build I used to live in a rental house with four roommates, and we did a number on the washer and dryer. But once the landlord paid for Speed Queen washers and dryers, we were good to go. These machines are still made with metal baskets and other easy-to-replace parts that are stocked for years. I had a repair done on our older model for less than $100 after it failed, and I know many folks with newer models that have been able to do simple fixes. That said, this is an appliance, and the chances of it lasting a whole lifetime are slim; they just tend to last much longer than other washing machines I've used. $2,858 at Build $2,458 at Build (With Knobs) Photograph: Amazon This particular Henry vacuum cleaner is now 18 years old, and thanks to the 10-meter-long cable, it has bounced up and down the stairs of a tall London townhouse without complaint. He’s not as presentable as he once was, but we can’t picture a posh Dyson taking this kind of punishment. True, Henry lacks the bells and whistles of the latest battery-powered and bagless designs, but the availability of spare parts makes him an affordable and highly modular option. There’s a whole family available, with Charles happy to suck up liquid spills and George adept at washing carpets, so it’s little wonder more than 14 million have now been sold. —Mike Dent $419 at Amazon $389 at Wayfair Jump to a Topic: Kitchen , Home , Tools and Outdoor Gear , Music and Instruments Clothing and Apparel Photograph: Tanner Goods They might not last a lifetime, but they sure last a long time. My first proper leather belt came on a pair of shorts I got from J.Crew in middle school, and it finally bit the bullet when I turned 30 (thanks in no small part to my expanding waistline). As a replacement, I bought an even sturdier model from Tanner Goods that has been going strong now for two years. Given that it’s even nicer than my last one, I expect this to last me until my 50s. $115 at Tanner Goods $115 at Madewell Photograph: Hanks Belts Leather wallets or clutches are an excellent way to store your cards and cash, and they also have the benefit of lasting a very long time. I have an Italian leather wallet that’s now five years old and looks brand-new, despite being tossed around, sat on, and generally mistreated. My dad, I’m fairly certain, had his last one for three decades. $50+ at Hanks Leather Goods Photograph: Amazon When I decide to be clean-shaven (it does happen), my favorite tool is a safety razor. Not only do I feel like an action hero when I lather up my face and slot in a new blade, but I also haven't spent more than $10 on razor blades in nearly a decade. There are many decent brands and options, but I highly recommend you get a stand, brush, and bowl with soap for the full luxury experience. Safety razors and straight razors are actually quite easy to shave with (and get you a close shave), but there is a small learning curve. Be sure to have a quality aftershave balm for when you're done. $100 at Amazon $100 at West Coast Shaving Photograph: Wilson Hennessy I have been dragging trusty North Face duffel around for 23 years, and, like its owner, despite looking a little worse for wear these days, it just keeps going strong. Tardis-like with space enough for ski boots, helmet, and a week’s worth of outerwear and evening clothes, the extra-wide straps help distribute the weight more evenly than other bags he’s tested. Unlike all the other identikit cases on the luggage carousel, it’s always easy to spot. The latest iteration features the same robust build and chuck-about-ability but has been consciously upgraded with phthalate-free, recycled PVC and recycled nylon that’s treated with a non-PFC water-repellent (DWR) finish. Got a battered old one like ours? The company repairs “pre-loved” versions. —Jeremy White $129 at REI $129 at The North Face Photograph: Amazon Rainbow sandals are a staple in my house for a reason. The leather sandals aren’t just iconic for the little rainbow logo on the toe piece, but for their ability to last, which is a refreshing change from typical flimsy plastic sandals that barely last a summer. The brand guarantees that the classic problems with sandals—straps coming undone, layers coming apart—won’t happen. And if they do, Rainbows will repair or replace them for you. That’s right, no more toe-snapped sandals. If you walk through the soles, you’re on your own to replace them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes you a lifetime to deal that kind of damage to these sturdy sandals. —Nena Farrell $64 at Amazon (Women's Sizing) $64 at Amazon (Men's Sizing) Photograph: Danner Danners aren’t the lightest hiking boots around. Nor is the fit the most dialed in (especially if you have narrow feet), or the sole the most nimble. However, they are iconic and will last you decades. Each piece of the upper is made from a single piece of dense, smooth, full-grain leather, including the attached tongue. No leaking, no seams coming undone. All you need is a wipe-down with a damp cloth and to dress it with Danner conditioner, one tin of which will also last you a few years. When you’ve finally beat them to hell—which will take a while, because mine are 15 years old and still going—you can send them back to Danner for a full recrafting. It gives a whole new meaning to the term “breaking in.” —Adrienne So $430 at REI (Women's Sizing) $440 at REI (Men's Sizing) Photograph: Birkenstock My mom bought me my first pair of Birkenstocks as a part of my first-day-of-school outfit in the fifth grade. They were light brown Boston Clogs, and I wore them for years. Eighteen years later, Birkenstocks are still my shoe of choice in the warmer months. I’ve had the same Arizona Suede Leather sandals for so long, I can’t even remember when I bought them. They’ve survived rainy days, beach days, and accidental spills. When I dusted them off while spring cleaning last month, I had no doubt they’d be able to get me through yet another summer. My partner, who has the same pair, has owned his for about five years now, and they’re also still going strong. Birkenstocks require a certain level of care to shield them from the elements. Depending on the type of shoe you own, the company offers a variety of products you can buy—cork sealer, water and stain repellent, and cleaner and refresher—to help protect them. I admit I haven’t used any of them on my Birkenstocks, and they still look acceptable, but they’d look even better if I gave them a little TLC. —Brenda Stolyar $70 at Amazon (Women's Sizing) $91 at Amazon (Men's Sizing) $110 at Birkenstock Photograph: Adidas Originally designed for the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain, the Copa Mundial remains one of the most popular football shoes, which is some accolade given all the hyperlight 3D-printed, micro-chip performance analyzing tech being used in the modern game. The classic firm-ground K-leather shoe (that’s kangaroo leather) has been upgraded over the years and worn by such legends as Zinedine Zidane, Diego Maradona, Gary Lineker, and Eric Cantona, and it remains the official shoe for officials in leagues all over the world. — Chris Haslam $150 at Amazon (Men's Sizing) $170 at Adidas (Men and Women's Sizing) Patgonia Houdini Rain Jacket Photograph: REI From the brand that famously told customers not to buy their clothes, Patagonia knows more than most when it comes to getting gear repaired. If one of its products fails, the company will repair it no question, but it now also offers the means to fix your clothing at home (or halfway up a crag) with a range of superb Tenacious Tape peel-and-stick patching kits and the Worn Wear Repair Roll, made from recycled polyester and sewn under Fair Trade principles, that has space for repair tools and supplies. Plus there’s a handy QR code that links you to a host of how-to repair videos. — Chris Haslam $49 at Patagonia (Repair Roll) $19 at Patagonia (Patch Kit) Photograph: Wilson Hennessy Barbour makes jackets so great for dreary weather that Queen Elizabeth II had hers rewaxed multiple times throughout her long life. The iconic jacket costs a lot up-front, but it can be repaired by the brand for life. In fact, during November and December 2022, Barbour’s South Shields repair center in the northeast of England rewaxed a remarkable 4,233 jackets. These extraordinary numbers—and Barbour estimates 60,000 jackets are rewaxed globally through its service centers each year—highlight how consumers are starting to think more sustainably, but it’s by no means a new service. Barbour has been rewaxing its classic cotton jackets for more than 100 years, helping to maintain performance and extend product life. It also sells over 100,000 tins of wax annually, for an ever-expanding DIY audience. — Chris Haslam $415 at Barbour (Men's Sizing) $395 at Barbour (Women's Sizing) Photograph: Rimowa It's not the extravaganza of the larger check-in or trunk , but a metal Rimowa case of any size is a solid airport flex for those who know, and WIRED managing editor Mike Dent has had many an approving nod since first rolling this one out back in 2014. On the rare occasion it's been checked in, it's come out the other side, if not unscathed, then at least with some impressive (dare we say, sexy?) battle scars that belie its status as a casual traveler—though Dent tries not to think of what exactly the handlers did to put a ding in anodized aluminum. Perversely, he’s looking forward to the unlikely day when the gorgeously smooth wheels need replacing, as Rimowa does a natty line of swap-ins in popping colors, to further burnish your case's unique patina. — Chris Haslam $1,500 at Rimowa Jump to a Topic: Kitchen , Home , Clothing and Apparel , Music and Instruments Tools and Outdoor Gear Photograph: Amazon Battery-powered quartz watches, which use speedy oscillations of a quartz crystal to tell time, are some of the most durable watches on the planet, as well as some of the cheapest. Invented in the 1970s by Seiko, they’re now the global standard for all but expensive mechanical watches. Classics like the Casio F91W are mainstays on the wrists of many people you know (and even some famous ones you don’t) for good reason. Once you buy a quartz watch, all you need to do is swap a battery every few years (or never, in the case of solar-powered watches). The kicker? These watches are also nearly always more accurate (and durable) than your friend’s 007 Omega ($8,480). You might not look as rad, but you can take comfort in knowing that if James Bond were real, he’d probably wear a Casio G-Shock. $12 at Amazon (Casio F91W) $106 at Amazon (Casio G-Shock) Seiko 5 Automatic Watch Photograph: Watch Hut OK, it's hard to recommend one mechanical/automatic watch, but they are extremely robust. They’re made of small parts like springs and balance wheels that can be replaced if damaged (for a relatively high price, it must be noted), which makes these a great option if you’re looking to purchase a functional heirloom to wear and pass down. Or if you’re just someone who likes the idea of a bunch of tiny cogs and gears allowing you to pretty accurately tell the time. In any case, there's no reason to make fun of your buddy who splurged on a Rolex: They’re likely to have that watch in good working order for as long as you know them. Brands that will last a lifetime worth checking out range dramatically in price, but the most popular options many folks wear include Seiko, Hamilton, Rolex, Omega, Tag Heuer, Tudor, Cartier, Longines, Sinn, Tissot, and more. We've linked a few popular automatic watches below for some ideas. $207 at Amazon (Seiko SRPG27) $489 at Amazon (Hamilton Khaki Field) $620 at Amazon (Tissot PRX) Lamy 2000 Medium Photograph: Lamy A nice refillable ballpoint or fountain pen is a great tool that can last multiple lifetimes. I often use a Parker Vacumatic fountain pen from the 1930s, and it works properly, which is an incredible feat for a nearly 100-year-old object. A testament to this fact: Lamy hasn't changed the design of my beloved Lamy 2000 since the 1960s, and it remains among the best-selling pens of all time. I recently found out that the dean of music at Juilliard also uses and loves his Lamy. Write like a musical pro! $164 at Amazon (EF) $223 at Goldspot Pens $223 at Yoseka Stationery Benchmade Folding Knife Benchmade A quality folding knife can last for years of hard use. Here at WIRED, we open a lot of boxes, which means I use my Benchmade every day, often multiple times a day. I have yet to get it sharpened after nearly a year and a half of use (Benchmade will do it for free for life), and it still works great. They're also awesome presents. My coworker Scott Gilbertson and his wife gave each other Benchmade knives as a gift, and they still look as shiny as their relationship after a few kids. $180+ at Benchmade Opinel No. 8 Photograph: Opinel Don't want to fork out hundreds on a higher-end pocket knife? Opinel’s folding wood-handled pocket knives are the ultimate classic. The design of this French-made knife is the same as it was during the Benjamin Harrison administration. The carbon steel blade will keep an edge about that long too, if you keep the blade dry. The No. 8 indicates the blade’s size relative to the other sizes Opinel makes (No. 7 is slightly smaller, No. 9 slightly bigger, etc). The wood handle has a satisfying feel and gets darker with age, but the real genius of the design is the simple and elegant spinning ring to lock and unlock the blade. — Martin Cizmar $19 at Amazon $19 at REI $19 at Opinel Photograph: Leatherman An essential in every toolbox , camping kit, or, if you’re so inclined, utility belt, this Leatherman has interchangeable wire cutters that can be removed, sharpened, or replaced, two exceptionally sharp CPM S30V steel blades, file, and saw—all of which are accessible from the outside, without opening the pliers. Inside there’s a screwdriver, bottle/can opener, bit holders, scissors, and pliers, which all lock when open for safety. Leatherman products come with a lifetime warranty. — Chris Haslam $160 at Amazon $190 at REI (Titanium) Photograph: Hults Bruk Like a good knife, a nice hatchet is a tool that’s simple and will last you forever with proper sharpening. They’re great to have on hand for splitting kindling or banging in tent stakes, and they make you feel like a real woodsman. This one is forged in Sweden and features heirloom-quality construction; I've used mine for a couple years now, and it still looks brand-new. $169 at Amazon $181 at SH Forestry Supplies Photograph: Amazon Round balls of iron? Yeah, they’re pretty durable. That makes kettlebells some of the best tools you can buy for working out. I have owned my set of four kettlebells for years now, and they still look brand-new, despite repeated slams on my concrete floor and countless thousands of swings. $95+ at Amazon $60+ at Walmart Photograph: Amazon I’ve had my Zippo since I was 14 years old. It was from an Army-Navy surplus store that advertised its existence with a giant road sign that said “There Ain’t No Such Thing as a $50 Jeep So Don’t Ask.” It’s the slim size, chrome with pinstripes on one side, and it’s been all over the country with me. Zippo lighters will last forever with new flints and wicks, both of which I’ve replaced over the years. I’ve bought a few other Zippos since, including one of the new butane ones, but like all bomb-proof and timeless products, the one I’ve had for 30 years is my favorite and still works like it did the day I got it. —Martin Cizmar $16 at Amazon $20+ at Zippo $16 at Walmart Photograph: Trusco Designed by Keiyu Hisashi in 1947, the Trusco toolbox is still made in Japan to exacting levels of quality workmanship. Blue, of course, is the classic color, and once unfolded you’ll find a series of containers, dividers, and clutter controllers to keep all your assorted tools—or, in our case, piles of screws and Ikea pencils—in check. — Chris Haslam $60 at Amazon $40+ at Toyo Photograph: PB Swiss Tools Not only is this set of hexagon socket screws aesthetically pleasing and beautifully color-coded, but the combination of 100-degree angle and ball-point ends makes it considerably easier to access hard-to-reach screws and bolts. Each is made from an alloy based on that used to manufacture steel springs, combining both durability and elasticity. — Chris Haslam $59 at Amazon $107 at Hoffman Group Photograph: Surly It is difficult to describe the grip the iconic Surly Cross-Check has on a cyclist’s psyche. Surly released it as its first complete bike in the late 1990s. It’s a burly steel road bike that can take almost any damage and do pretty much anything. In the intervening years, people have repurposed Cross-Checks as gravel racers and cyclocross racers, and they’ve loaded them up with racks and fenders hither and yon for touring. It comes in the most striking colors I’ve ever seen, and most importantly, the company accommodates a wide variety of people—I’ve always owned a Surly because it’s one of the few manufacturers that makes a frame in a 42-cm size. For adults, anyway. Paint it, beat it, bang it up, pass it on. —Adrienne So $1,099 at Surly Yeti Tundra Photograph: Yeti When camping season kicks around, we’re always asked if Yeti’s hard coolers are “worth the money,” and while value is subjective, we can’t fault its ability to keep our drinks cool, even in the most extreme situations. We’ve seen videos of charred and melted Yeti coolers pulled from truck and house fires, with still-cold beer safe inside! Made using rotomolded rigid plastic with pressure-injected polyurethane insulation, the cold will not prematurely escape (unless you leave it open), and they’ve even been certified as “bear-proof” by the wonderfully titled Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee (IGBC). — Chris Haslam $325 at Amazon $325 at REI $325 at Dick's Sporting Goods Jump to a Topic: Kitchen , Home , Clothing and Apparel , Tools and Outdoor Gear Music and Instruments Tavenly Record Storage Cube Photograph: Tavenly Physical records are pressed into plastic, which means that unless you treat them horribly (you never clean them, use them on poorly set up record players, or store them improperly), your favorite music will last forever. Grab your favorite LPs , EPs, and singles whenever you see them, and snag a few simple plastic covers and a record bin while you’re at it. Store them upright with as little pressure on them as possible to prevent warping, and try to clean your records every 10 to 20 plays, and every time you get a new one (solutions from the record press plant can mean new records collect grime faster). I highly recommend you look for local record shops, but Discogs is always a safe bet. Discogs Audio-Technica LP-120XUSB Photograph: Audio Technica A quality record player with a replaceable stylus and cartridge is a great long-term buy. If you are especially low maintenance, look for direct-drive models, where the motor is directly below the disc, rather than off to the side and connected by a belt. Belt-driven models are fine, you just want to make sure you get one with a new belt (or a new turntable, which will come with one). The LP120 is iconic, with fantastic durability and USB so that you can plug it into your computer to rip your records as MP3s to your PC. $399 at Amazon $399 at Target $350 at B&H Photograph: NAD Much like guitar amps, high-quality stereo amps can last a long time if they are properly maintained every few years. They are often easy to repair, with replaceable parts like tubes and capacitors instead of PCB boards and more confined enclosures that are hard to work in and troubleshoot. I know multiple people rocking decades-old amps at home, and all of them sound as good as ever. $799 at NAD $799 at Crutchfield KEF LS50 Meta Photograph: Kef Since they’re not powered and have robust build materials, high-quality speakers need only basic maintenance every decade or so (replacing capacitors in crossovers between drivers, or re-foaming speakers that have become separated from their surrounds). Other than that, a good quality pair will last you your entire life, letting you jam out forever. The KEF LS50 Meta are my most recent favorite pair, with clever dual drivers that sit the tweeter right inside the woofer for better imaging. These also feature KEF's proprietary metamaterial acoustic baffling (hence the name), which helps the low-end stay smooth and tight. $1,600 at Amazon $1,600 at Best Buy $1,600 at KEF Fender American Vintage II Stratocaster Photograph: Fender Because they’re made to be played for hours a day, and they’re designed to be repairable from the ground up, musical instruments are a perfect thing to buy once and maintain for life. I play cymbals from the 1950s and snare drums from the 1920s, and I regularly perform on a drum set from 1963—and guess what? If anything, they sound better with age. Even electric guitars age just fine: Sting still plays his original 1950s P bass, and folks like Jason Isbell can regularly be seen rocking a 1959 Gibson Les Paul. Go into Western classical or global classical instruments and you’re likely to find instruments in use that are much older. In college, a friend of mine played a bass that was built in 1850s Germany, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Violins that are hundreds of years old still have seats in the top symphony orchestras around the world. Safe to say, a quality instrument is a good bet to pass on, provided you store it and care for it properly. Reverb.com Sweetwater Musician's Friend Photograph: Wilson Hennessy Not all amplifiers are built alike, but classic tube amps from Fender , Vox , Marshall , and many others are a great long-term investment in your sound. Most of them use relatively simple point-to-point wiring, tubes, and transistors—all of which can be repaired if something goes wonky. Plus, they hold value! I bought my 1963 Fender Bassman amp for $700 a few years ago, and now they cost well over $1,000—a testament to how long these things last and how many folks still use them daily. Musician's Friend Reverb Sweetwater Shure SM7B Photograph: Shure Some of the most revered microphones on earth are vintage tube mics from the 1940s that were made in Germany, which still regularly see use in the top studios on earth. But they’re not the only ones! Because microphones are relatively simple and durable, they’re also easy to repair. Classic mics like the Shure SM7B, Shure SM57, and SM58, and many, many others last for decades in studios and at home and barely depreciate in price on the used market for a reason. If you are looking to up your sound for podcasts , making music, or just work calls, buying a decent mic is a solid investment that will last you a long time. The SM7B is the mic you're likely familiar with from podcasters, with a crisp midrange that's great for the human voice. The other two, the SM57 and SM58, are iconic studio and stage workhorses that you'll see everywhere. They sound great, take a beating, and don't cost too much, but they're not quite as hi-fi as the more expensive vocal mic if you're singing or podcasting. $399 at Amazon (Shure SM7B) $99 at Amazon (Shure SM58) $99 at Amazon (Shure SM57) As we continue to test gear here at WIRED, we'll be updating this guide with even more products that you can rely on for many years. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Writer and Reviewer X Topics Shopping buying guides tips household apparel Medea Giordano Adrienne So Adrienne So Scott Gilbertson Richard Baguley Louryn Strampe Adrienne So Brenda Stolyar WIRED COUPONS Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Dell Coupon Code American Express Dell Coupon Code: Score 10% off select purchases Best Buy Coupon Best Buy coupon: Score $300 off select laptops VistaPrint promo code 15% off VistaPrint promo code when you sign up for emails Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. 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"Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Review: Finally, a New Note (Kind Of) - CNET"

"https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/samsung-galaxy-s22-ultra-review"

"X Black Friday 2023 Live Blog Can You Trust AI Photography? Best TV for 2023 Thanksgiving Travel Times Snoozing Is Fine Solar EV charging 6 Best TV Gifts Tech Money Home Wellness Home Internet Energy Deals Sleep Price Finder more Tech Mobile Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Review: Finally, a New Note (Kind Of) Editor's Choice: The Galaxy S22 Ultra offers new Note-inspired features, but otherwise isn't that different from the S21 Ultra. Updated Feb. 23, 2022 2:00 p.m. PT Written by Lisa Eadicicco Lisa Eadicicco Senior Editor Expertise Apple, Samsung, Google, smartphones, smartwatches, wearables, fitness trackers Why You Can Trust CNET 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25+ Years of Experience 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Hands-on Product Reviewers 6,000 7,000 8,000 9,000 10,000 11,000 12,000 13,000 14,000 15,000 Sq. Feet of Lab Space CNET’s expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. Read how we test products and services. 8.9/10 / 10 SCORE Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Pros S Pen is included with the phone and there's a slot for storing it Great low-light photography Closer zoom than most competing phones Distinct design Cons Expensive Camera is mostly the same as Galaxy S21 Ultra Battery life isn't as long as the S21 Ultra 2022 Fans of Samsung's Galaxy Note should worry no more. The company's giant, stylus-equipped phones live on in the form of the Galaxy S22 Ultra. The new handset, which starts at $1,200 (£1,149, AU$1,849) and goes on sale Feb. 25, is the Note sequel we never got last year, with a sharper design. It inherits the Galaxy Note's most distinct qualities, such as the S Pen stylus that you can store inside the phone. Plus, it has the same characteristics that the Note and Ultra shared in the past, like a giant screen and a more sophisticated camera. Samsung Event This fresh coat of paint makes the Galaxy S22 Ultra feel like a big departure from the Galaxy S21 Ultra -- at least on the outside. But on the inside, the S22 Ultra is just a modest upgrade compared with its predecessor. It has a newer chip, a camera that performs better in low light and faster charging than the S21 Ultra, but is otherwise mostly the same. Still, it's a welcome upgrade for Galaxy Note fans who haven't gotten a new option in more than a year. Samsung's Galaxy S22 Ultra. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET With that in mind, I'd only recommend upgrading if you have a phone that's older than the Galaxy S20 Ultra or Note 20 Ultra, both of which launched in 2020. If you're trying to decide whether the Ultra is worth buying over the S22 Plus, the S Pen, larger screen and extra telephoto lens should be your deciding factors. Many of the other benefits of the S22 Ultra -- like the upgraded processor and better low-light camera -- are available across all three new phones. 08:25 The Galaxy S22 Ultra is a Note clone, but that's a good thing The Galaxy S22 Ultra comes with a stylus that you can store inside the phone, just like the Galaxy Note. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET To say that the Galaxy S22 Ultra looks like the Galaxy Note would be an understatement. During the course of writing this review, I accidentally typed "Note" instead of "Ultra" more times than I can count. The Galaxy S22 Ultra has the same harsh, angular edges that Note fans are familiar with, which gives the phone more of a notepadlike feel. In this regard it's an improvement over last year's Galaxy S21 Ultra , which in some ways felt like a larger and heavier Galaxy S21. I'm glad Samsung found a way to make its top-of-the-line phone stand out a bit more. The Galaxy S22 Ultra, like its predecessor, is the largest phone in Samsung's Galaxy S lineup. It has a 6.8-inch screen like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, while the Galaxy S22 Plus has a 6.6-inch display. The standard Galaxy S22's screen measures 6.1 inches, making it about the same size as an iPhone 13. The new Ultra is also slightly wider than last year's phone, which can make it a little challenging to use with one hand. It's around the same width as Apple's iPhone 13 Pro Max , although the Samsung's screen is a hair larger. Samsung also says the screens on the Ultra and the Plus are its brightest yet. I haven't seen a noticeable difference when using the S22 Ultra alongside the S21 Ultra. But it certainly feels luminous enough even with the brightness set to just about 25% or less. Samsung's new phones also have a new display feature called Vision Booster, which adjusts the screen depending on your surroundings and makes it more visible in bright scenarios. I noticed that websites with white backgrounds felt a little easier on the eyes and didn't seem to have as much blue light as on the Galaxy S21 Ultra, much like Apple's True Tone feature. But the phones felt equally easy to see in direct sunlight with my sunglasses on. The S Pen is a nice bonus The Galaxy S22 Ultra's S Pen has lower latency than previous models, meaning what you draw appears onscreen instantly. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET What really makes the Galaxy S22 Ultra feel like a Galaxy Note replacement is the inclusion of the S Pen. Samsung says it has improved the S Pen by reducing its latency, meaning it should be better at predicting where you're going to scribble next. It's been a while since I've used an older S Pen model, but the Galaxy S22 Ultra's feels very responsive and smooth. I've been using it to write down reminders and to-do lists so far, and it feels almost like writing on paper. The overall experience feels just like the Galaxy Note. Simply pop the S Pen out of its slot, and the S22 Ultra will pull up the Air Command menu, which includes S Pen-friendly apps like S Note. However, editing a Google Doc with the S Pen can still be awkward. When I tried using the handwriting-to-text tool in Google Docs, I noticed that words weren't spaced properly unless I tapped the space bar after each word, which doesn't feel natural when you're handwriting. That said, the S Pen is still useful for jotting down quick thoughts since the phone can serve as a notepad even when the display is off. That's not new -- the Galaxy Note supported this functionality too -- but it's appreciated nonetheless. During the course of writing this review, I've used the S Pen to write down quick impressions and thoughts when away from my computer, which has been helpful. You can also mark up screenshots and documents with the S Pen, which may be useful for those who need to review documents on their phone. But I'm still questioning how valuable the S Pen is now that many people have likely shifted to hybrid or remote work. When testing Galaxy Note phones in the past, I found the S Pen came in handy for scrawling quick notes during a meeting or interview. But now most meetings happen virtually via my laptop, where I have a full keyboard in front of me for taking notes. So far, the S Pen seems like a "nice to have" feature rather than a necessity. But considering Samsung hasn't raised the price of its Ultra model compared with last year's S21 Ultra -- which didn't include an S Pen -- I'm totally fine with that. 05:19 A better low-light camera The Galaxy S22 Ultra has a quadruple-lens camera. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Like last year's Galaxy S21 Ultra, the Galaxy S22 Ultra comes with a 108-megapixel main sensor, a 12-megapixel ultrawide sensor and two 10-megapixel telephoto lenses. But Samsung says it's made some under-the-hood improvements that should make the S22 Ultra better at snapping photos in dark scenarios and processing detail. As far as low-light photos are concerned, the Galaxy S22 Ultra delivers for the most part. But this is the only meaningful difference in terms of camera performance between the Galaxy S22 Ultra and the Galaxy S21 Ultra. I noticed slightly more detail and contrast in the S22 Ultra's photos overall, but I had to look closely to pick out these differences. Since the camera specs sound very similar on paper, you might be wondering what makes the S22 Ultra better at taking low-light photos. Samsung says it's because of a new feature called Adaptive Pixel, which is on all three new Galaxy S22 phones. It allows the camera to combine the resolution from its main sensor with a process known as pixel binning, which blends data from multiple pixels into one giant pixel to improve brightness. Pixel binning isn't new to Galaxy phones, but the ability to fuse it with higher resolution from the main sensor is. That improvement is reflected in the low-light photo samples from the Galaxy S22 Ultra shown below, particularly when it comes to photos of people. It might be difficult to see at this size, but there's more detail in the S22 Ultra's photo than the Galaxy S21 Ultra's. Galaxy S22 Ultra This photo was taken with a Galaxy S22 Ultra in a very dark room. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Galaxy S21 Ultra And here's a photo of the same scene taken with the Galaxy S21 Ultra in low light. It's not as detailed as the S22 Ultra's. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Even though the S22 Ultra focused well on the subject in the photo above, I did notice that it sometimes struggled to focus on still objects in the dark. You can see an example of this in the photos of Funko toys below, which are slightly out of focus. (That being said, I still think the S22 Ultra's camera produced better color). Galaxy S22 Ultra This photo was taken with the Galaxy S22 Ultra's camera in a room with all of the lights turned off. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Galaxy S21 Ultra This photo was taken in a dark room with the Galaxy S21 Ultra. It's not as colorful as the Galaxy S22's, but the focus is better. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET The Galaxy S22 Ultra also performed decently well against competitors like the Google Pixel 6 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro in dimly lit scenarios, although Apple's phone is definitely Samsung's closest rival. Both phones can produce impressive details and color even with little lighting. But the iPhone 13 Pro sometimes had punchier colors than Samsung's phone, and was also able to focus more clearly on still objects in the dark. I thought the Galaxy S22 Ultra produced brighter and bolder low-light photos than the Pixel 6 Pro. The S22 Ultra and iPhone 13 Pro were also both pretty close when it came to recording videos in a dark room. The iPhone's video was a little sharper than the Samsung's, for example, but it also had a yellowish tint, unlike the Galaxy S22 Ultra's footage. iPhone 13 Pro This photo taken with the iPhone 13 Pro in a dark room has great color and is more in focus than the Samsung's. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Pixel 6 Pro This photo was taken in a dark room with the Pixel 6 Pro. It's not as bright as the Samsung's, but the focus is better. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Take a look at the photos in the gallery below to see more photos taken with the Galaxy S22 Ultra and how they compare with photos taken with the S21 Ultra. We Put the Galaxy S22 Ultra's Camera to the Test +12 more See all photos Zoom is Samsung's biggest camera advantage, but that's not new Like the Galaxy S21 Ultra, the S22 Ultra has up to a 10x optical zoom, giving it a big edge over rivals when taking photos from a distance. The Pixel 6 Pro, by comparison, has a 4x optical zoom, while the iPhone 13 Pro can zoom in optically up to 3x. The Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus also have a 3x optical zoom. Take a look at the images below to see the difference. As you can tell, the S22 Ultra is capable of capturing a much closer perspective than the Pixel 6 Pro, S22 Plus and iPhone 13 Pro. Galaxy S22 Ultra This photo was taken with the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which has a 10x optical zoom. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET iPhone 13 Pro This photo was taken with the iPhone 13 Pro, which has a 3x optical zoom. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Pixel 6 Pro This image was taken with the Pixel 6 Pro, which has a 4x optical zoom. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET The Samsung also has more to offer when it comes to digital zoom, considering it can zoom in at 100x. The Pixel 6 Pro maxes out at 20x, while the iPhone 13 Pro can zoom up to 15x digitally and the S22 Plus has up to a 30x digital zoom. That being said, the 100x zoom isn't usually very useful since it's not very crisp and can be difficult to focus. In terms of general camera performance, Samsung also says the Galaxy S22 lineup is capable of processing four times as much data. I noticed this most in Portrait Mode photos, which had better contrast than the S21 Ultra's images. Galaxy S22 Ultra A slightly zoomed-in portrait taken with the Galaxy S22 Ultra. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Galaxy S21 Ultra A zoomed-in portrait taken with the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET The S22 Ultra also beats the Pixel 6 Pro when it comes to zoomed-in Portrait Mode photos, in my opinion. Although the Pixel 6 Pro may have had better detail, the background was more heavily blurred and didn't look as natural as the Samsung's. Plus, the Samsung's zoomed-in portraits had much better detail than the Pixel's. But overall, I still thought the iPhone 13 Pro provided the best mix of detail and color accuracy of the three phones. iPhone 13 Pro A slightly zoomed Portrait Mode photo taken with the iPhone 13 Pro. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Pixel 6 Pro A Portrait Mode photo on the Pixel 6 Pro. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET Samsung also has an app called Expert Raw for pro photographers who want to capture more data and have more control over elements like ISO, shutter speed and white balance. But that app isn't exclusive to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, so anyone looking to take advantage of that extra control could still use it on the cheaper S22 phones. As for video improvements, Samsung says the new phones should be better at framing multiple people, up to 10 people in a shot, and adjusting the zoom level accordingly. I briefly tried this when taking a video of my husband during the workday, and the camera zoomed in to frame him once it detected him as the subject. I imagine this could be useful for capturing moments like surprise parties or sporting events. The bottom line is that the S22 Ultra's zoom performance is still the biggest characteristic that sets it apart from the competition as well as from Samsung's cheaper phones. The most noticeable upgrade Samsung has added to the S22 Ultra compared with its predecessor is to low-light photography. Portrait Mode photos also look better, but the difference isn't as noticeable. All told, the S22 Ultra feels like an upgrade that refines elements that were already there, rather than adding something wholly new. Battery life and performance The Galaxy S22 Ultra runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. Lisa Eadicicco/CNET The Galaxy S22 Ultra runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor in the US and Samsung's Exynos processors in some other regions. But Samsung says there shouldn't be any noticeable differences between the two. So far, using the Galaxy S22 Ultra has felt as smooth as you would expect from a high-end smartphone. Apps launch quickly and swiping between home screens and settings menus feels fluid. Part of this is also likely thanks to the screen's ability to boost its refresh rate up to 120Hz, a feature also found on Samsung's cheaper S22 models and last year's S21 lineup. But any phone that costs $1,200 should be capable of these things. The value that new processors bring to smartphones comes down to the new features they power, particularly when it comes to camera performance. Samsung, for example, has said that its camera refinements are thanks in part to the Galaxy S22 lineup's new processor. Google similarly says its Tensor processor brings machine learning enhancements to Pixel 6 phones that improve translation and other capabilities. Still, if you're interested in general performance, see below for the Galaxy S22 Ultra's benchmark results. The results roughly match the Galaxy S21 Ultra's in tests that measure both general computing in everyday tasks and graphics. The S22 Ultra also scored lower than the iPhone 13 Pro in the general computing test but higher in the graphics processing benchmark. Geekbench 5 Single Core Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 1,190 Apple iPhone 13 Pro 1,741 Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 1,107 Geekbench 5 Multicore Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 3,206 Apple iPhone 13 Pro 4,771 Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 3,414 3DMark Slingshot Unlimited Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra 11,299 Apple iPhone 13 Pro 8,919 Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 10,088 As far as battery life goes, don't expect to see any improvements here. The Galaxy S22 Ultra comes with a 5,00-mAh battery like its predecessor and lasts for about a day and a half of everyday use. That's about the same as the S21 Ultra , based on my colleague's review. That's not bad, but it would have been nice to see an improvement. The S22 Ultra also didn't perform as well as comparable phones during CNET's battery test, which involves putting the phone in Airplane mode, setting the brightness to 50% and playing a video on repeat. It lasted for 18 hours, 11 minutes, while last year's 21 Ultra kept going for 22 hours, 57 minutes. The Galaxy S22 Plus barely outlasted the S22 Ultra at 18 hours, 38 minutes during the same test. It's important to note that I had the refresh rate set to 120Hz for both phones during this test, which is turned on by default. You can get longer battery life by lowering the refresh rate to 60Hz. You should also remember that battery life will vary depending on many factors, including settings such as screen brightness and which apps you're using. We've asked Samsung about the Galaxy S22 Ultra's battery life and will update this review accordingly. We also plan to run the battery test again in both 120Hz and 60Hz mode in the near future. Should you upgrade? The Galaxy S21 Ultra (left) alongside the Galaxy S22 Ultra (right). Lisa Eadicicco/CNET The Galaxy S22 Ultra is mostly an iterative update to the S21 Ultra, but wrapped in a new Galaxy Note-inspired look. It has the standard upgrades you'd expect from a next-generation phone -- such as a newer processor -- but is otherwise very similar. This feels like an update really aimed at Galaxy Note fans, especially those who may have passed on the Note 20 Ultra and are looking to upgrade from a phone that came out more than two years ago. The inclusion of the S Pen and better low-light photography are the most noticeable improvements by far. If you already have an S21 Ultra, there's no need to upgrade since you can always buy an S Pen separately. Since Samsung hasn't raised the price of the S22 Ultra since last year, I don't mind the two phones' many similarities. I only wish Samsung had improved the S22 Ultra's battery life. If you own a Galaxy S20 Ultra, the biggest changes you'd get with the S22 Ultra are an additional telephoto lens, the S Pen, a processor that's substantially newer and better low-light photography. Note 20 Ultra owners, meanwhile, will also see a bigger leap forward in camera performance, considering Samsung's last high-end Note only has one 12-megapixel telephoto lens and a 5x optical zoom. The S22 Ultra also has a slightly larger battery than the Note 20 Ultra. That might be worth an upgrade for some people, but where you really start to see a difference is when upgrading from older phones in the S10 generation and earlier. Not only does the S10 Plus run on a much older processor, but it also lacks the 108-megapixel main camera Samsung began putting in its high-end phones starting with the S20 Ultra. If you're trying to decide between the S22 Plus and S22 Ultra, the biggest considerations should be screen size, the S Pen and the camera's telephoto lens. Those are the major elements that set this phone apart from Samsung's 6.6-inch Galaxy S22 Plus. Yes, the S22 Ultra has a higher-resolution main camera lens, but the S22 Plus still takes great photos that are almost just as good as the Ultra's in some cases. All told, the S22 Ultra is the Galaxy Note upgrade we never got last year. It doesn't push things forward in a major way compared with last year's Ultra, so it's only worth upgrading if you have a phone that's at least two years old. But since Samsung isn't raising the price, I'm alright with that. Looking for more Samsung discounts? CNET has the current best Samsung coupons and promo code offers, updated and verified daily. 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"Laughing at Quibi Is Way More Fun Than Watching Quibi | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/quibi-schadenfreude"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Kate Knibbs Culture Laughing at Quibi Is Way More Fun Than Watching Quibi Former eBay and Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman serves as Quibi's CEO. Photograph: Martina Albertazzi/Bloomberg/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Taking pleasure in the failure of others has long been considered a grubby, poisonous quality. So bad that philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer called schadenfreude “the worst trait in human nature.” More recently, British tabloid The Daily Mail claimed in a headline that a person who enjoys others’ misfortune “may be a PSYCHOPATH.” A tad dramatic, but it’s true enough that people who revel in their neighbor’s plight are often exhausting sourpusses with iffy morals. Yet, occasionally, circumstances arise where someone or something so high and mighty takes such a ludicrous tumble that the pratfall practically begs for a gleeful response, even from the most generous of spirits. Case in point: the disastrous debut of Quibi , a lavishly funded new streaming service that may currently have more jokes made at its expense than loyal subscribers. Yet, I’d argue that there’s nothing psychopathic or “the worst” about finding mirth in Quibi’s tribulations. It’s not sinful. In fact, there’s something akin to virtue in recognizing why Quibi deserves a ribbing. Related Stories Adam Rogers decade in review Steven Levy TV Peter Rubin Short for “quick bites,” Quibi is helmed by its founder, former Disney executive and DreamWorks cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg, and its CEO, former eBay and Hewlett-Packard chief executive Meg Whitman. Both of these people have already established their legacies: 70-year-old Hollywood big-shot Katzenberg has had a long, successful career ushering classic films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Shrek into existence. The 63-year-old Whitman, meanwhile, is one of the wealthiest women in California after a career spent hopping Silicon Valley C-suites. Instead of resting on their gilded laurels, this high-net-worth duo secured the astronomical sum of $1.75 billion in funding to make their dream of convincing people to pay for short-form video content into a reality. Quibi spared no expense to create the slickest, most luxurious-looking video player for mobile, and then acquired projects with big, pricy names attached for its original catalog , including Jennifer Lopez, LeBron James, and Reese Witherspoon. Several of its offerings, like an adaptation of Most Dangerous Game starring Liam Hemsworth, are essentially chapterized films. A few are actually decent—the Anna Kendrick sex-doll comedy Dummy sucked me in, despite exuding strong “rejected TNT pilot” energy. (Others are plain upsetting, like the Keeping Up With the Kardashians spoof Kirby Jenner , a one-joke turd that rudely pretends Rob Kardashian doesn’t exist.) Nothing broke through as a must-see in the way that The Mandalorian drew people to Disney+. Despite a fat pile of cash and all the Hollywood connections in the world, Quibi has sputtered since its launch, plummeting down the list of most-downloaded apps and reportedly struggling to retain subscribers who signed up for its free trial. To be fair, the timing wasn’t great. Quibi debuted in April, as the Covid-19 pandemic flared in New York and much of the country held its breath at home—a tough break for a product intended for commutes and other in-between moments. Then again, people had more time than ever to watch stuff on their phones. And other factors in its struggle were clearly avoidable, like the decision to make its shows impossible to screenshot , which discouraged social media chatter. With the streaming market brimming with competitors offering programming in more familiar formats, it’s not particularly shocking that Quibi’s premise (“what if TV … but, uh, less?”) whiffed it hard. While it has failed to secure a huge subscriber base or drum up much hype for its actual content thus far, Quibi has already been the subject of several juicy behind-the-scenes reports, detailing a cocky, out-of-touch workplace run by two Boomers too rich and self-assured to be told no. People aren’t avidly watching Quibi’s shows, but they’re busting out the popcorn to follow its real-world drama. In one telling detail from a Vulture rundown, Whitman admits she’s not an “entertainment enthusiast,” despite helming a fledgling entertainment company, and then name-checks the History Channel’s Ulysses S. Grant bio-show Grant as the one title she really likes. It’s enough to make a saint snicker. Crucially, the stakes here are remarkably low. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman will be just fine. Watching them flail is like watching aristocrats in tuxedos plunge into a dunk tank disguised as a throne. They can survive a far bigger bath. And while the creators of the shows featured on Quibi may be disappointed that their work is being beamed into a very expensive, well-designed void, getting a show made at all in Hollywood is still a kind of miracle, and there’s never a guarantee of finding an audience. The employees of Quibi are in the least-enviable situation—and, sincerely, there’s nothing funny about precarious employment—but working for a struggling startup is a farce, not a tragedy. Nor is it shocking that this fiasco has made people smile. “We tend to see schadenfreude as a form of respite,” Tiffany Watt Smith writes in her 2018 book, Schadenfreude. “The failures of others appease our own envy and inadequacy, and give us a much-needed glimpse of superiority.” Quibi’s cock-up provided this sort of satisfying glimpse, which functions as reassurance that money does not always buy success or guarantee quality. Also—and not to get too “in these troubled times” about it, but whatever—things suck right now, for so many people, in profound, flagrant, and deeply unfunny ways. The pandemic has made it hard to ignore wealth inequality. Having Quibi to kick around for a moment feels like a cosmic wink. A more guilt-free incident to mock could not have been engineered by a deity. In fact, this is such an innocent iteration of schadenfreude, it deserves its own name: Quibenfreude. In the past five years, a cascade of Jackass Icarus narratives have outraged and delighted the public that consumes them. From Fyre Fest to Theranos to the rich parents behind Operation Varsity Blues, this is a flush era for grifting, trickery, and fraud. One of the central pleasures of taking in these stories is watching the players at the center get their comeuppance. They are morality fables, capped off with finales that produce shivers. While the emotional response it elicits is similar to that of a scam story, Quibi isn’t a scam. Delighting in Quibi’s foibles is distinct from, say, rejoicing when Elizabeth Holmes’ hubris was finally exposed. What’s the difference? Quibi is a good, clean goof, a majestically pure screw-up. No malice, no harm—just a flop. It’s “snackable.” It is a symptom of a fundamentally absurd system, an example of the rot of Hollywood patronage and American kakistocracy. Katzenberg’s folly looms even larger when you zoom out—only someone so thoroughly insulated from the economic conditions circumscribing the lives of the vast majority of Americans could blow so much cash on a stinker and maintain optimism that it’ll all work out. This wasn’t a good idea. It was a rich person’s idea. Failing to distinguish between the two? That’s entertainment. Global warming. Inequality. Covid-19. And Al Gore is ... optimistic ? Linkin Park T-shirts are all the rage in China 5G was going to unite the world— instead it’s tearing us apart How to passcode-lock any app on your phone The seven best turntables for your vinyl collection 👁 The therapist is in— and it's a chatbot app. Plus: Get the latest AI news 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? 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"Hollywood’s Strikes Will Disrupt Podcasts, Games, and TikTok Too | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/gadget-lab-podcast-606"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Michael Calore Gear Technology Is Eating Hollywood (Along With Everything Else) Photograph: Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save in May, the Writers Guild of America went on strike—partly over disputes about compensation and partly over fears that studios could use generative artificial intelligence tools to replace human writers and creators. This month, when the actor’s union SAG-AFTRA announced its own strike, things really started to heat up as some of the biggest and most recognizable movie stars joined the picket lines. Production in Hollywood has now mostly ground to a halt, negotiations with studios have stalled, and this stalemate looks as though it will persist for some time. What do these strikes mean for the movies, shows, podcasts, and video games we consume? Will the celebrity podcasts and chat shows also go dark? Are our streaming options now going to be limited to reruns and reality shows? Senior writer Kate Knibbs joins us from WIRED’s Culture desk to discuss the shifts that technology, economics, and income disparity have wrought in Hollywood. Read our coverage of the WGA strike and the actors’ strike. Learn how AI is being used in Hollywood and in video games. We also have a report from a Hollywood-free Comic-Con. Read WIRED’s entire series on the future of entertainment. Kate recommends two music artists, Nation of Language and Yaya Bey. Lauren recommends the episode of WTF With Marc Maron featuring Cillian Murphy. Mike recommends the film How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Kate Knibbs can be found on Twitter @ Knibbs. Lauren Goode is @ LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @ snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @ GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@ booneashworth ). Our theme music is by Solar Keys. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts, and search for Gadget Lab. If you use Android, you can find us in the Google Podcasts app just by tapping here. We’re on Spotify too. And in case you really need it, here's the RSS feed. Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Lauren Goode : Mike. Michael Calore : Lauren. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Lauren Goode : It's time for Gadget Lab to go on strike. Michael Calore : What? Really? Lauren Goode : No, we're not actually going on strike. Though we are both members of the News Guild. Michael Calore : Yeah. Lauren Goode : And we have agitated before. Michael Calore : Mm-hmm. Lauren Goode : But no, we are not actually going on strike today. Michael Calore : All right, phew. Lauren Goode : Yeah. However, this is an episode about a strike, the epic Hollywood strike that's happening right now, and we're going to talk about what it means for streaming media watchers, for podcast listeners, and for the writers and actors who are fighting for fair wages. Michael Calore : So it's more like a solidarity episode of Gadget Lab. Not exactly a strike episode. Lauren Goode : Yeah, it's a solidarity episode. Michael Calore : All right, well, I can't wait. Lauren Goode : Let's do it. [Gadget Lab intro theme music plays] Lauren Goode : Hey, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I am Lauren Goode. I'm a senior writer at WIRED. Michael Calore : And I'm Michael Calore. I'm a senior editor at WIRED. Lauren Goode : And our colleague Kate Knibbs, who is also a WIRED senior writer, is back on the show, joining us from Chicago. Kate, it's great to have you back in the Lab. Kate Knibbs : Hi, comrades. I'm so happy to be here. Lauren Goode : All right, so we're going to talk about Hollywood today, and before some of you tune out or wonder what the historic Hollywood strike has to do with you, well, this is the Gadget Lab, and this is where we talk about ways tech and digital media are changing our lives. So we want to talk about how all of this is affecting the creation of some of the most culturally significant films and TV shows that we all now stream. So a little background first. Back in May, the Writers Guild of America went on strike, and this was partly over who makes money, ultimately, from streaming media and partly over fears that studios could use AI to replace human writers and creators. And then, earlier this month, the Screen Actors Guild, SAG-AFTRA, announced its own strike, and things really started to heat up, because in this case, some of the most recognizable faces—big, big movie stars—were on the front line of this. And so now most of the production of movies and shows in Hollywood have grounded to a halt, and it's all at a stalemate, which means it might not be over anytime soon. Kate, as our friend of the pod and one of our preeminent culture writers, we wanted to ask you what these strikes mean for the media we consume, the celebrity podcasts we listen to, and whether this means we're going to be watching only reruns in reality TV a year from now. OK, so first, what productions or films that we know of were in production at the time of this strike now have paused. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Kate Knibbs : So if you know of any really big name movies or TV shows that are currently in production, they're almost all on pause. For instance, Gladiator 2 , the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's masterpiece is—production has been halted. Euphoria , season three. There's like a whole slew of adaptations. There's a Wicked movie, a live-action Lilo & Stitch , a new version of Interview With a Vampire. Every major Hollywood production is halted right now. So this is going to have a tremendous impact on the media that we consume in the next year, and maybe even the next few years, depending on how long the strikes last. Michael Calore : So it's true that the directors have their own guild, the Director's Guild of America, and producers have their own guild, and they have contracts, so they're not striking. So if something is wrapped with shooting and wrapped with ADR, like dialog and looping and all of that, and all they're doing is editing the movie or putting the finishing touches on it. Then the movie will probably still come out, right? Kate Knibbs : I think most of them will, but there's some exceptions. I believe that Dune 2 is pretty wrapped, but they're considering pushing it back just because this strike, in addition to actors and writers not coming to work and doing their jobs, they're also not promoting the films. And I think there's major concerns that, especially with the actors, because let's be real, people are paying more attention when someone like Tom Cruise is promoting a movie versus who, whoever, whatever wonderful mind wrote Mission Impossible. If there's like an absolute blackout on movie promotion, that might seriously negatively impact big blockbusters that are nearly ready to go. So it might end up even affecting movies that you might think would still be able to come out, just because there's a whole machine involved with getting a movie to the top of the box office. Lauren Goode : We should probably talk about what it is the unions are demanding. Kate Knibbs : Absolutely. There's a variety of demands. Obviously, economic demands are the big ones. In the streaming age, the way that writers and actors are being compensated has changed quite significantly, and it's usually in favor of executives and studios and a big disadvantage to actors and writers, especially actors and writers who are emerging or even mid-career. People used to be able to make a living off of residuals, like journeymen actors, writers who would be working steadily but not necessarily household names. Those people would be able to eke out a good middle-class or even upper-middle-class lifestyle, largely because they were being compensated more or less fairly, and they were making money off residuals. That has changed in the streaming era. So writers and actors aren't getting the residuals they used to get, or in some cases they're not getting any at all. There's a viral TikTok that really illustrated this with one of the actors from Orange Is the New Black who—and that's like one of Netflix's most popular shows ever, and this is not a bit actor, it's one of the main characters. I forget exactly what her name was in the show, but she was a big deal. Anyways, she showed her residuals and it was sometimes 0.01 cents. It was nothing. And it sort of demonstrated how these residuals that used to be things that you could buy a house with are now things you can't even buy a coffee with. So that is one of the major demands of these guilds. Additionally and very relevant to WIRED is there's a huge discussion about how AI is going to be used in films going forward and what that's going to mean for the actors and writers involved in making the movies, whether it's AI being used instead of a writer for a screenplay, or it's AI replacing background actors in scenes that are being shot. So they're demanding at least a seat at the table and having conversations about how AI is used, not just having studios completely control this new technology. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Michael Calore : I think the discussion of background actors is really important because a lot of people are probably reading the news and listening to this show and thinking like, "OK, yeah, Hollywood actors, Hollywood writers, they're all super rich, why should we care?" But that's what you're seeing is the tip of the iceberg in the industry. And there are hundreds of thousands of people who make a living off of this industry who make as much or less than you do. And background actors are a big part of that. These are people who never have speaking roles or very, very occasionally have speaking roles, people who are just getting started out in their careers and they show up and they stand around all day and they get a payment for doing that because they're on camera, they're in costume, they've gone through makeup, they do all the things that an actor does except for speak lines. These people could get replaced by digital simulacra of them. I'm sure that there are companies that are working on it. There are companies that offer this now as a plug-in in Adobe Software, basically, where you can just fill in a scene with people just like you fill in a scene with a castle in the background or a beach scene or something like that. So AI is actually already costing human beings work. And I think what they're arguing for is not only that protection, but also the protection against AI being used to change what they say. So if they want to do a rewrite and they don't want to pay to fly the actor into a studio where they can sit in front of a microphone and do it again, or they don't want to pay for a reshoot, they can just use a computer to create that reshoot, virtually. Actors don't want that to happen because they want control over their performance. And also they want to make sure that if they're being asked to do something in a movie, that they're getting paid for that work. Lauren Goode : And Kate, what has been the primary argument of the major studios and the media moguls, like David Zaslva or Bob Iger, in this fight? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Kate Knibbs : It's been pretty jarring how out of touch a lot of the executives' arguments have been. They are tending to say, you know, "It's show business, it's not something we're doing for fun. We are trying to make a profit." I think there's been a lot of attempts to play off people's sympathies about how, especially the movie industry has gone through a very rocky patch. During Covid when theaters were shut for a long time there were really great concerns that the movie industry wouldn't recover. And so there's been a lot of attempts to play off people's genuine love of cinema and to say, "Look, we're just doing what needs to be done to turn a profit in an increasingly difficult business." Which would be a line that I think would hold much more appeal if we weren't able to look up how much these executives were making and then compare it to what people are demanding and see that hundreds of million dollars of executive compensation doesn't necessarily correlate in a persuasive way with a studio that has no choice but to underpay and exploit its actors and writers and all the people who are actually making the products that people want to watch. Lauren Goode : And have there been any concessions so far, particularly maybe with the Writer's Guild since that had a nearly two-month head start? Kate Knibbs : It seems very much in flux still, like I think people are surprised that this hasn't been resolved. I think people on both sides were hoping it would be resolved more quickly. But I'm curious … I think that the fact that SAG-AFTRA jumped in and are now striking alongside the WGA is going to be a huge boon to the WGA and to the workers in the industry in general. But right now it's completely unresolved. I'm assuming in my optimistic heart that there will be compromises made. But yeah, so far, I mean there's no contracts, there's no agreements. It's unclear how exactly this will shake out. Lauren Goode : All right, let's take a quick break and we're going to come back with more strike talk. [Break] Lauren Goode : We've now covered what the Hollywood strike is about and what exactly it is that writers and actors are fighting for here. And for what it's worth, all of us being union members here, we get it. So our next conversation isn't us expressing dismay around the pauses in production or suggesting that people should cross the picket line for our entertainment. But we do want to talk about the trickle down effects of this and what the film and TV industry might look like, say a year from now. Kate, what happens if the strike goes on for months? What then? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Kate Knibbs : We're definitely going to see a change in what new content is available to watch or listen to. There's going to be a point where there aren't as many Hollywood based productions coming out because there's currently a pause on them being made. And that doesn't mean there's going to be no TV shows or movies. I'm expecting Netflix will be leaning really heavily on the fact that it's a global company and that it can put out productions from countries where the actors and writers are indifferent unions or not unionized at all. I think that network TV shows and very US-centric movie studios will be the most negatively impacted because they won't have the ability to do that. So Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, the big streamers are better positioned to handle the strike than their legacy competitors. It will be very interesting. So one thing, I used to be in the WGA when I worked for The Ringer, I was messaging my coworkers asking them if they were going to be on strike, and the answer is no. Even though they're part of the WGA, the people who are part of the digital wing of the WGA are not on strike. They're not even allowed to go on strike because they have no strike clauses in the contracts that they've created with their digital media companies. So like podcast studios will continue to put out a lot of content. It'll be interesting to see if Hollywood stars who also have podcasts will lean into podcasting even more since that's something they can do without becoming scabs. And then of course, game shows will definitely be more prominent. Apparently there's a celebrity Wheel of Fortune already coming out in September, reality shows. I'm very interested in how AI will play into all of this because it seems like something that executives might be very tempted to use to create scripts and even actors, but that's also going to really enrage the people that they're currently in this conflict with. So I would bet the AI will be experimented with, but I'm not sure how broadly, I guess it depends how hostile things get. My larger level predictions are, podcasting is going to continue to grow because that's something that people can do, and then reality TV and game shows. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Lauren Goode : Although on podcasts, there are still limitations for who, if celebrities can appear on podcasts to promote a film, right? Kate Knibbs : No, they can't promote their films. They can't, like we couldn't have someone on to talk about a movie that they were doing. But you know how there are celebrities, for instance, Marc Maron, I'm assuming he's in the WGA and SAG-AFTRA... He's definitely in SAG. He can still do his podcast though, where he interviews other people. So there's this whole genre of celebrity podcasters like Dax Shepard, the guys on Smartless , they can all still do their podcasts. They just can't have fellow celebrity guests on come to promote their work. So that will definitely change the dynamics, especially in interview shows where a lot of times people are on specifically to promote their work, but it won't complete, it won't completely halt those productions. Michael Calore : I think as time goes on, we might see solidarity showing up in different places. For example, I know Snoop Dogg recently canceled his 30th anniversary Doggy Style concert at the Hollywood Bowl because he doesn't feel like he can do it in Hollywood, given the current situation. Also with nobody to promote television shows that are already in the bag and that are coming out, studios have been reaching out to social media influencers to ask them if they would promote the shows on their TikTok feeds or on Instagram. And some of them are doing it because they're paying a lot of good money and that's how they make their living. But some of them are saying no, partially out of solidarity, but also partially because those influencers have aspirations at being on shows at some point in their careers and they don't want to get on the bad side of the unions by- Lauren Goode : They don't want to scab. Michael Calore : Right, they don't want to scab. Lauren Goode : Yeah, that's interesting. Kate Knibbs : Yeah, actually, the was a really good New York Times piece out today talking about influencers in this, and it was noting that SAG has a rule that if you do scab, they won't give you membership. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Michael Calore : Yes. Kate Knibbs : So it's like an explicit rule. So I think people who might be in the influencer world now but are hoping to get on scripted TV, they're not going to, they're probably not going to take the short term profit over the long arc of their career. Lauren Goode : So we sent a writer to Comic-Con to cover it for WIRED, and it was a mixed bag because there were some people, there's a big intersection of Hollywood and TV and film in the comic world. And so I think the writer said there was definitely a smaller crowd than in years past. And some people were still getting really into cosplay and showing support for their favorite franchises and that sort of thing. But other people showed up to effectively strike in a sense. And there was this quote in the article that I thought was really interesting. Someone the writer spoke to said, "I really feel we're at the beginning of a middle class stand in this country. One of the reasons people are so sympathetic to us is that the problems of writers as labor mirror the problems of labor as labor right now." So I'm curious how you both think this is reflective of the broader labor movement happening in the United States. Kate Knibbs : I think that one of the main lines that you'll get from executives who oppose unionization is if an executive is trying to denigrate a group of people who have unionized who are writers, white collar professionals, they'll sort of make fun of them and be like, "You're not farm hands, what do you need a union for?" And what this strike and what unionization efforts at places like Starbucks have shown is that the similarities between these groups are so much bigger than the differences. Exploitation is exploitation regardless of the exact flavor. And I think even though maybe some people are looking at the bigger names who are involved with these strikes and thinking, "Wow, is it so bad for Brian Cranston, he's famous," or "How is it so bad for the writers of Succession ?" Are there, I think more people are looking at what they're asking for and seeing how reasonable it is and seeing how it's very, it's I think a very good example of the widening gulf between workers who are creating something and executives who are profiting off of those things in this country across industries. One big way I think it's reflective is when people hear about the specific demands, how residuals used to be the backbone of a writer's compensation and way to earn a living, and now it's just sort of evaporated. They understand that even though writers might be a little more high profile than a lot of professions, the things that have happened to make it harder for them to earn a middle class living are near universal in this country, regardless of what industry you're in. Whether it's residuals, evaporating, or pensions getting taken away, or executive compensation ballooning, while wages stay stagnant despite rapid inflation, there's a very clear through line of workers losing access to opportunities to earn a middle class lifestyle as their bosses continue to become wealthier and wealthier. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Michael Calore : And in the case of SAG-AFTRA and the WGA, it also has to do with the proliferation of technology in their industry. The technology has evolved to the point where we can all stream in high definition now, that has changed the economics of how these shows work. There are more shows, there are fewer opportunities to find out exactly how many people are watching those shows. Seasons are much shorter. It used to be 24, 25, 30 episodes per season. Now it's like eight to 12 episodes per season. All of the pace of production is accelerated to the point where you don't spend as much time working on things. And with the proliferation of AI in all of these creative processes, people are left sort of scratching their heads wondering what's next. So I do think that those problems, while they are very specific to the entertainment industry and Hollywood, we can see the correlation between how technology has affected that industry and how it's affected other industries, when you look at things like warehouse workers and fulfillment workers and what's going on with Amazon and how they use technology and how that's affected their workers. So I do think that it's tech is coming to eat all of us, and Hollywood is just a very high profile example of that. Lauren Goode : How do both of you feel about what would be an AI generated film? People right now are sitting there, executives are sitting there with Chat GPT open, and they're tinkering around with just writing a script. Michael Calore : I'm sure there will be one. Lauren Goode : It's already been... I'm certain these have already landed on assistance desks somewhere. Michael Calore : At some point this year, there will be a show that comes out that is written and acted by AI, and they're going to hold it up as how about this? And everybody in our industry is going to dunk on it. And I can't wait to read Kate's story about how bad it is. Lauren Goode : I can't wait for the WIRED group outing of that. But truly, how would either of you feel if you knew one of the characters in Barbie or Oppenheimer were completely AI generated? Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Kate Knibbs : I would probably feel unhappy because of this context that that generation was occurring in. I think five years ago, I honestly wouldn't have cared. I was thinking about when I said Gladiator 2 is currently halted, Gladiator , I remember because I was a huge fan of that movie. There was this behind the scenes little featurette about how they had created, a lot of the extras in that movie are computers way back when. They're very early computerized extras. They had to fill the whole Colosseum, and that's not all real people. And back then, that just seemed like a cool new use of technology. And I'm not completely against using AI in creative contexts at all. The distaste for it primarily comes from the fact that it's happening as there's this ongoing effort to make it harder for writers and actors and set designers and everyone who's involved in the making of films to earn a living. So yeah, if there is a movie coming out right now with a totally AI character, my reaction would be sort of anger or disgust. But largely because of the larger ideological conversation and not because there's something inherently wrong with the tech. Yeah, it's just hard to cheer for it now because of how this is happening. If there was a way for these technologies to be experimented with that ensured that people were still being compensated or that it didn't completely disrupt the industry, it would be a lot easier to just think of it, it's like a neat innovation and not something that's going to make the world less friendly to creative endeavors by humans. Michael Calore : Yeah. I think with audio mediums, audio media, things like audio books, podcasts, radio DJs, it's a little bit harder to detect when something is AI generated. I'm sure that there are AI generated radio DJ voices on the dial right now, and we don't know, because like our brains, it's harder for us to, the uncanny valley is much slimmer. Lauren Goode : I think... Isn't Spotify already experimenting with that? Michael Calore : Yeah, they have an AI... Lauren Goode : Yeah, AI DJ. Michael Calore : AI DJ to get the party started... Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Lauren Goode : Right. Michael Calore : On your Spotify feed. And I think about video games. The characters on the screen are already computer generated. They're made with a virtual engine. And the voices often for at least games that are driven by plot, they use real voice actors for the voices in the games. And video games have long used computer generated voices. Maybe we'll see more of that in video games, maybe we'll have sound alikes, like an actor who sounds sort of like Tom Holland but is clearly not Tom Holland, just to evoke the Tom Holland-ness of the Spiderman character in the game. Maybe we'll have things like that start to show up more often. And I don't mean just because of the strike, I mean because the strike is sending the clear signal about the role that these technologies are going to play and what's safe and what is not. And people are going to start experimenting even more than they already are. Lauren Goode : And just to be clear, this podcast really is hosted by us. We have not yet defaulted to using AI generated voices, but we did an episode on this a few months back. At this point, Boone here, our producer has been storing up all this data on us and he created some scary Mike and Lauren voices. Michael Calore : Yup. Lauren Goode : It was really quite unnerving. Michael Calore : Yeah, so unnerving. The things that he made me say, I'll never forgive him. Lauren Goode : We just have to go into our back catalog and listen. All right, Kate, stick around because we're going to come back and do our weekly recommendations. [Break] Lauren Goode : Kate Knibbs, our guest. What is your recommendation this week? Kate Knibbs : My recommendation is a crossover material from another Conde property because I went to Pitchfork Music Fest last weekend, and I'm an old Millennial who's not super hip. So I didn't know most of the artists playing. And I had one of those very lovely experiences where I went to shows... A total, I didn't know anything. And then I walked away being a huge fan of a few different bands and artists that I saw. One was called Nation of Language and they're a cool sort of pop band and I had literally never heard of them. And now I have one of their albums coming on the way to my house. I liked them so much that I went out and bought it. And then the other one that really, I mean, I didn't see a bad show there, but the other one that really blew me away was a Queens based singer named Yaya Bey. She put on one of the funnest performances I've seen in years. So Nation of Languages and Yaya Bey. Very different music, but both phenomenal and those are my recs. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Lauren Goode : Awesome. Michael Calore : That's nice. And that's Bey, B-E-Y. Kate Knibbs : B-E-Y, yeah. Y-A-Y-A, B-E-Y. Michael Calore : Nice. Lauren Goode : Kate, I saw on your Instagram, if I may share this, you posted a photo of your son standing in a field of grass wearing these cool sunglasses. He's a little guy. And you posted at Pitchfork and I honestly thought it was ironic. Like I was... Because he looked like a little festival goer and then... Kate Knibbs : No, he was really at Pitchfork. Lauren Goode : And then I saw your next photos and I was like, "Oh, rad. Kate's at Pitchfork. Cool." Kate Knibbs : He only lasted two hours and then we had take him home. Lauren Goode : Still, baby's first Pitchfork. That's amazing. Kate Knibbs : Yeah, baby's first music fest. It was fun. Michael Calore : Nice. Lauren Goode : So great. And you were there with our friend Puja Patel. Kate Knibbs : Yes. She's the best. Lauren Goode : Cool. She was on Have a Nice Future , our other podcast recently, which everyone should go check out. Michael Calore : I was waiting for that. Lauren Goode : You're welcome. Mike, what's your recommendation? I'm surprised you weren't there. You're such a music guy. Michael Calore : Yeah, it was like halfway across the country. Lauren Goode : Clearly you're not that big of a music guy. Michael Calore : I guess not. I would have flown out to see Julia Jacqueline. But I understand that her set was cut short by... Lauren Goode : Oh, yeah. Your girlfriend. Why? Michael Calore : By a storm, right? Didn't a storm blow through during Julia Jacqueline's set? Kate Knibbs : Julia Jacqueline, yeah. There was like Julia Jacqueline, Panda Bear, Snail Mail all got cut short because they, we had to evacuate. It was a bummer. Michael Calore : OK. So my recommendation this week. Lauren Goode : Yeah, tell us. Michael Calore : I want to recommend a movie about a bunch of brainy do-it-yourselfers who go out to the desert in order to construct a bomb... Lauren Goode : OK, so Oppenheimer. Michael Calore : That they think will cause great change in the world and promote peace among humanity. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Lauren Goode : And it's not Oppenheimer. Michael Calore : It's not Oppenheimer. It's called How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Lauren Goode : OK. Michael Calore : It's a narrative feature. It's very low budget. It looks like it was shot for a few thousand dollars and some coffee, but it's very good, very good acting, really great direction, great writing, and a wonderful message. It is about a group of people who go out to the desert. They don't know each other. They've all met... Well, some of them know each other, but most of them are strangers to each other. They all meet over Signal and they go out to the desert in Texas to blow up a pipeline. And they're doing it because they believe that the destruction of corporate property that disrupts the industry of oil production is the thing that is going to draw attention to the climate crisis. And it's a movie about putting those beliefs into action. It's a movie about how strong are your convictions, what are you willing to sacrifice, and what are your motivations for doing these things? So you learn about the inner lives of the characters and what is driving them to make these decisions. It's really excellent, especially right now. I mean, the movie's very urgent. People feel very urgently about the climate crisis and the movie is not necessarily encouraging people to go blow things up, but it is showing how to do that, which is also feels a little transgressive, I think, a little bit dangerous. And I like that about it, because I like things that are edgy, but it's also just a beautiful experience. I really liked it. Lauren Goode : And what did you stream it on? Michael Calore : I streamed it on the internet. Lauren Goode : OK. Michael Calore : Which is just to say you can rent it everywhere. Lauren Goode : It's everywhere. OK. Michael Calore : It came out last year, I think it premiered at Toronto Film Festival in 2022, and it is now available for rent on all the streaming platforms. Lauren Goode : OK. Michael Calore : Yes. Lauren Goode : So it was at Tiff. That's what the cool kids say, right? Tiff. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Michael Calore : Tiff, yeah. Not like JPEGs, but Toronto International Film Festival, yeah. Lauren Goode : Right, exactly. That's a great recommendation. Thank you. I'm going to try to watch it. Michael Calore : Great. I hope you enjoy it. What is your recommendation? Lauren Goode : Kate mentioned the Marc Maron podcast earlier. I do like a good Marc Maron podcast. I think I've recommended it before on this show, right? Michael Calore : Oh, yes. Lauren Goode : Which episode? Do you remember? Michael Calore : All of them? Lauren Goode : No. There was a specific episode. I don't remember which one. So one of the more recent episodes, he interviews Cillian. I'm one day going to get that right. Cillian. Michael Calore : Cillian Murphy. Lauren Goode : Oh, it's just my brain just goes to Cillian. Isn't that weird? I mean, I also... Michael Calore : It's because he's silly beautiful. Lauren Goode : He's got a silly baby face, when you think about, I used to drink a lot of Killian's beer, so you would think that I would get that right. Sorry, Marc Maron interviews Cillian Murphy. Two reasons why I like this episode in particular: one is because for basically the first 15 minutes of it... Would you say, Mike, you listened to it as well... Marc talks about the strike, the Hollywood strike and makes an impassioned case for it. And also makes clear that he did this interview with the actor Cillian Murphy before all the actors went on strike. And so he was airing it a little bit later. But two, because I think Cillian Murphy is having this kind of breakout moment because of Oppenheimer. I think a lot of people knew who he was from his prior work and Peaky Blinders , which I had never really gone into. But I think of all of the potential critiques you could make of the film Oppenheimer... And they're out there, you can find them. And we talked about it a little bit on last week's episode as well. The fact that it fails the Bechdel test, I do think that his performance is great. And so it was a fun listen to listen to. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Michael Calore : That's great. Lauren Goode : Just to learn a little bit more about him. Michael Calore : Yeah. Lauren Goode : Although you still don't learn a whole lot, but that's OK. Yeah. And so I recommend checking out the Marc Maron WTF podcast episode with Cillian Murphy. Michael Calore : I think that movie is going to sweep the Oscars. Lauren Goode : Yeah. Michael Calore : There's critical consensus about it being good. It's a box office hit. It's Christopher Nolan and there will be no other movies this year because of the strike. So I think it's like this is what we get. We get Oppenheimer and Barbie and Barbie 's, the bigger hit, but I think Oppenheimer is the one that is going to win all the Oscars. It's going to win all the acting awards, the directing awards, the editing awards, the sound awards, the cinematography awards, all of it. That's my prediction. Lauren Goode : That's your prediction? Michael Calore : That's my prediction. Lauren Goode : All right. Well, that's good because we might be watching that till the end of time. Next year, if there's no new films out, we might just be like, "Let's watch Oppenheimer again." Michael Calore : Will there be an Oscars? Lauren Goode : That's a good question. Michael Calore : Will there be a telecast? Will it just be like the president of the society... Lauren Goode : I don't know. We're all going to be stuck watching... Michael Calore : Reading names. Lauren Goode : Zucker versus Musk Cage match. We're all going to be stuck watching Zuck versus Muck, Musk cage mass. I can't fucking talk. We're all going to be stuck watching a Zuck versus Musk cage masses from... No. I can't say it. Fuck it. I give up on the joke. I tried work shopping it, it didn't work. Sometimes you have to let things go. Michael Calore : You do. Kate Knibbs : Zuck versus Musk is a very awkward thing to say. It doesn't come out of the mouth very nicely, but I agree. We're going to be stuck watching... Lauren Goode : Yeah. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Kate Knibbs : Musk versus Zuck. Lauren Goode : It's the reality TV future we deserve. Kate Knibbs : Yeah. Lauren Goode : All right. This has been a great conversation, Kate. Thanks so much for joining us. It's always great to have you on the pod. Kate Knibbs : Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to come back and I can't wait until you finally make me the friend of the pod merch that you promised to make me last time. Lauren Goode : That's right. That's right. We need to make that for Kate. We also want to, we're going to get some WIRED running merch. Michael Calore : Yeah. Lauren Goode : We've been talking about that, too, the a group of us who go run this race in Oakland once in a while. Michael Calore : And train for it together Lauren Goode : And train for it together. Mike and I go running together and we've been saying for a while we're going to get some WIRED merch. Michael Calore : Yup. Lauren Goode : As though … Does that convert to subscriptions, do you think? Us like running like fools around a lake in Oakland a few times and people are like, "You know, I should subscribe to that magazine." Michael Calore : Maybe we should try and negotiate it into our … Lauren Goode : They look like they're having fun. Michael Calore : Maybe we should try and negotiate it into our union contract. Lauren Goode : And on that note, thanks to all of you for listening. If you have feedback, you can find all of us on Twitter. Just check the show notes. Someone actually did leave us feedback recently. Yeah. They call this a bunch of journalism majors that know nothing about tech. And I just have something to say to that. Michael Calore : Not a journalism major. Lauren Goode : Who know nothing about tech. Michael Calore : Yes. Lauren Goode : Our producer is the excellent Boone Ashworth. We'll be back next week. Goodbye for now. 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"Watch The Biology Behind The Last of Us | Currents | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/video/watch/wired-news-and-science-the-last-of-us-real-life"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons The Biology Behind The Last of Us About Released on 01/13/2023 [Narrator] This gruesome infection at HBO's The Last of Us is actually based on this very real parasitic fungus that turns certain insects into zombies Growing from her head, that is the fruiting body that contains the spores. [Narrator] The creators of the game and the new show were inspired by zombie carpenter ants, specifically. They even gave the bugs a quick cameo. [Dr. de Bekker] So it's a pretty cool Easter egg that's in the game. [clicker noises] [Narrator] The zombies in The Last of Us go through four stages of infection, which have parallels in nature. Wired spoke to an expert on the real fungus reference in The Last of Us. Those are a lot of spores. [laughs] [Narrator] To compare those zombies with similar examples in nature. Most zombies in TV and film are depicted as reanimated corpses, but not in The Last of Us. Viruses can make us ill, but fungi can alter our very minds. One thing it does right where a lot of movies do it wrong is that the infected are still alive when they're manipulated. There's lots of examples of this in nature. [Narrator] The brains of living crickets, cockroaches, and even mammals can get hijacked by different types of zombie parasites that alter their behavior. New research shows that gray wolves get infected with toxoplasma by interacting with cougars and their feces, which carry the parasite. Those that are infected are more risk taking, more bold, becoming the leader of the pack. The behaviors that we're seeing are rather are complex. [Narrator] And in the case of ants, the Cordyceps parasites spreads throughout the body as a yeast which secretes chemicals that behave similarly to neurotransmitters in the brain. [Dr. de Bekker] It looks like the fungus is avoiding the nervous tissue. It's not chewing on it, it's not eating it. These cells might be close to the brain and then secretes molecules that manipulate it in such a way it behaves so precisely to help this fungus spread. [Narrator] In the first stage, the infected humans don't show outward signs of their condition. In the beginning, the ants don't behave differently. After a few days, you see that the behavior of the ants definitely is changing. [Narrator] In the video game, it starts with a twitch. Twitching, we also see this in our ants. They seem to have sometimes whole body convulsions. The fungus is producing a compound that is similar to Aflatrem. Certain fungi produce this, and when an animal ingests this they get staggers syndrome, so they get these tremors. [Narrator] Then the humans in The Last of Us get a little hyper, moving at high speed as if stimulated by chemicals excreted by the fungus. A similar thing happens with the zombies in Professor de Bekker's lab. They're out and about all times of the day in constant locomotion. [Narrator] Soon The Last of Us runners lose the ability to speak. So do infected ants in a sense. They don't communicate so well with other nestmates anymore. Ants will sniff each other out with their antennae. The smell of these ants definitely change. So if an ant starts to smell differently because she is sick, they basically will kill her and put her on a discard pile. [Narrator] There might be a similar social immunity dynamic at play in The Last of Us. [Dr. de Bekker] I see a pile of humans infected by this fungus and sprouting mushroom bodies. Definitely a pile I wouldn't wanna get near, you know. [laughs] [Narrator] Stage two, the stalker phase of The Last of Us zombies is characterized by obvious fungal growth. The stalker definitely looks more Cordyceps like. So all those strings growing off of the head they very much remind me of the stalks that we see on our ants, for instance. It looks like the first bit of a mushroom body coming off of the left side of her head. That looks pretty gnarly. [Narrator] Similarly in nature, the parasitic Masopora fungus radically transforms its host's physical shape and gives it a desire to seek out new hosts to infect. This cicada, you'll see that its missing a part. It's behind it's genitals, aptly named the butt fungus 'cause it loses its butt. That's a fungal plug, and the powder are the fungal spores. This is how the fungus is able to release its spores and infect other cicada. In the game and in the show has fungus is able to reproduce by biting other humans or by contact with spores off of other humans that have these fruiting bodies sprouting off of them. Masopora resembles the fungus in the game a little bit. [Narrator] Because in The Last of Us and in nature, zombies have increased energy and they start to spread out and wander. Normally, these ants would go forge for food with their nest mates and nicely follow ant trails. Instead, they actually just wander around aimlessly. [Narrator] Could a similar wandering dynamic be at play with gray wolves infected with a protozoan parasite? [Dr. de Bekker] Wolves infected with toxoplasma are more likely to wander away from their former pack to find a new one and are more risk taking, more bold. [Narrator] The wolves studied recently in Yellowstone National Park could be drifting near to the source of their infection, cougars, because toxoplasma reproduces only in the stomach of felines. In The Last of Us, during the clicker phase, the fungus has really taken over. In the clicker, the morphology is changed entirely, so it makes me think more of the fungus called chicken of the woods, which is an edible fungus. [Narrator] At this point, the zombies rely on echolocation after losing their sight. In real life, zombie ants might also become impaired because they start randomly climbing towards light. [Dr. de Bekker] They will climb up plants at certain light levels because they don't perceive light so well anymore and they're trying to search for it or they're getting themselves off the ground. This is what we call summiting behavior. Something that a lot of parasites have evolved to use as a strategy to transmit better. The fungus is making the ant find some sort of microclimate that helps the fungus to develop its mushroom that releases the spores. But if you're higher up in the air, then your spores can be more easily carried by the wind. [Narrator] And can land on or be eaten by a new host. Another example of infected hosts acting in the interest of their parasite are cockroaches that get stung by jewel wasp, which inject their victims with a kind of mind control venom along with a brood of eggs. This changes the behavior of the cockroach entirely, doesn't wanna fight anymore. It's this very docile creature that then follows the wasp back to its borough. Fully gets eaten alive by this developing egg that eventually becomes a larva and not a situation that is beneficial to this cockroach, but very beneficial to the offspring of the wasp. [Narrator] Similarly, crickets infected by the Gordian worm are compelled to act self destructively. The worm needs to be in water to mate. So what this worm does is it makes these crickets jump into water. This cricket has no business being in the water. So basically they have committed suicide. [Narrator] And now the worm can breed in its natural habitat, the water. A similar process happens with toxoplasma and mice which breeds in the digestive system of cats. [Dr. de Bekker] Rodents that get infected with toxoplasmosis actually makes these rodents attracted to cat urine. It's making it more likely that this rodent will get eaten. Definitely behavior that is beneficial to toxoplasma, but absolutely not for the rodent. [Narrator] In The Last of Us game, it takes years for the fungus to cover the skin completely and turn a human into a slow-moving bloater. But for zombie ants in real life to succumb completely takes about three weeks and the beginning of the end starts with a hyper contraction of the jaw muscles. Ants bite a branch, can't let go, and die as they're eaten by the fungus within. [Dr. de Bekker] When the ant is in place, the fungus quickly changes its strategy and starts to eat everything including the brain to produce a fruiting body. This is when the fungus will change from being a yeast to forming a mycelium. Everything inside is just mycelium bursting out of the host. So this is what we often call the stalk. You see that on that stalk, there's this brown bulbous thing attached. That's the fruiting body, so that carries the spores. Those are all mushrooms, if you will. Those are all fruiting bodies. As the spore gets into the air and as the air moves, it can easily take it to different places. So this is why we think that the summiting behavior is actually helping the fungus to spread its spores. See the spore cloud, those are a lot of spores. [laughs] This one would be exuding spores like crazy, looks, you know, very similar to what we envision the spores would look like. They're microscopically small so we can hardly see them but people that recorded spores coming from mushrooms, that's kind of what it looks like. [Narrator] According to a recent World Health Organization report, fungal infections are estimated to kill at least 1.6 million people yearly. Aspergillus Fumigatus can even spread to the brain of the immunocompromised. Other fungal pathogens are even showing resistance in settings like hospitals. Should we be worried? Most of the fungi that we know of at least, they like to grow at a lower temperatures than our body temperature. Our bodies are just not great hosts to infect because the temperature would be too high. However, in climate change and the Earth's getting warmer, fungi need to adapt to be able to grow at higher temperatures as well. Their optimal temperature will become closer to our body temperature, making it more likely that in the future we'll have more fungal infections. [Narrator] Yikes. But there is one reason why all of humanity isn't likely to be wiped out by a mutant zombie fungus apocalypse. Like in The Last of Us. In the game and in this show what you see is that humanity is under brink of being extinct there and aren't that many humans left. That's actually not a very smart strategy. 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"'The Last of Us Part II' and Its Crisis-Strewn Path to Release | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/last-of-us-part-ii-sequel-release-pandemic"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Darryn King Culture The Last of Us Part II and Its Crisis-Strewn Path to Release Much of The Last of Us Part II is set in Seattle, four years after the events of the first game. There are ferns and firs growing in the streets, and a river of floodwater running alongside the ivy-covered concrete guideway of the monorail. Illustration: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment Save this story Save Save this story Save It's crunch time in the offices of Naughty Dog, the storied videogame developer in Santa Monica, California. On the morning of February 6, more than 300 artists, designers, and programmers are assembled in a maze of workstations, applying thousands of final micro-touches to a game they have been crafting for nearly six years called The Last of Us Part II. Neil Druckmann, the game's 41-year-old director, inspects the computer-lined trenches with the swept-back hair, frizzled beard, and beleaguered look of Jon Snow during a long battle. Druckmann's adversaries? Time, his own perfectionism, and the reactions of a bunch of strangers off the street. Since February 2017, Naughty Dog has been inviting scores of gamers to its offices to test out the active construction site that is the unfinished game. These playtesters, as they're called, consent to being filmed as they move through the game; then they fill out questionnaires and meet in groups to discuss what's working and what isn't. Back in the early stages of playtesting, Naughty Dog was troubleshooting the rough infrastructure of the game: how its world holds up, what people felt drawn to, where they got lost. Now, during this agonizing final stretch of development, Druckmann's team is watching for players' minute responses to the narrative and emotional beats. In the videofeeds piped out of the playtesting room, the dev team logs and annotates every clench of the jaw and widening of the eyes. Druckmann has even taken to spying on the gamers live from his office. Related Stories Backchannel Darryn King valorant Cecilia D'Anastasio Culture Laura Hudson This week, some of the team is focused on a particular sequence that needs attention. The animators are finessing a certain character's performance, while artists adjust the lighting, all in hopes of eliciting different responses from the playtesters on the next go-round. All of it stems from Druckmann's obsession with stretching the narrative dimensions of videogames to offer players more than just fun. “Certain sequences have to be tense. Certain sequences have to feel claustrophobic. Certain sequences have to feel lonely,” he says. “I'd just like us to expand the vocabulary.” Back in the early 2000s, gaming pioneer John Carmack told writer David Kushner that “story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.” And true enough, knuckle-whitening gameplay and drool-inducing visuals are still typically top priority for the major videogame studios. But for many years Naughty Dog has dedicated its whole pipeline and decisionmaking process to the contrary proposition—that story is everything. Very few games have vindicated that proposition as strongly as Druckmann's hugely successful 2013 opus , The Last of Us. It was a game in the basic guise of a zombie shooter, but with a plot inspired by Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men , a vision of a depopulated planet inspired by the book The World Without Us , and a severity of atmosphere inspired by the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men. The story takes place in a world ravaged by a pandemic. A parasitic fungus has made the leap from insects to humans, turning its victims into zombies that sprout fruiting bodies from their heads, an idea Druckmann picked up from a Planet Earth segment about a real insect-zombifying parasite. ( Scientific American commended the game's scientific plausibility. ) You play as the bone-tired, battle-hardened Joel, a middle-aged smuggler not yet over the death of his daughter, who teams up with Ellie, a 14-year-old orphan whose infection-resistant DNA may be humankind's last hope. Twenty years after the outbreak, the duo sets off on a cross-country odyssey, through urban spaces reclaimed by nature, contending with the roaming infected, plus a ruthless military, vicious anarchists, and cold-blooded cannibals. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But there are tender shoots of beauty amid the rubble: the introspective melancholy of the soundtrack by Brokeback Mountain composer Gustavo Santaolalla with its spare, down-tuned guitar; the wonder with which Ellie beholds the remnants of civilization; and, at the center of it, the sense of found family, anchored in the deeply felt motion-capture and vocal performances of the actors who play Joel and Ellie, Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson. Did you play online games before the pandemic began? How have your habits changed? Share your experience by taking our 10-minute survey. Over its 15 to 20 hours of gameplay, The Last of Us conveys the immensity of cinema, the intimacy of a novel, and the sheer storytelling payload of, let's say, one or two seasons of an HBO series. It leads to an explosive climax that taps into the full power of the interactive medium: In a final violent showdown, Joel has no choice but to damn the world in order to save Ellie. It would be a heart-stopping scene if you were to watch it spool out on TV. But experiencing it while playing the character of Joel yourself? The ending generated Red Wedding-like shock waves, inspired passionate debate, and expanded people's ideas of what videogames are capable of. Which all means, of course, that the sequel has a huge act to follow—and maybe even a target on its back. The more invested fans become, the greater the chance they will eventually turn against the creators. (See Game of Thrones , Star Wars , Mass Effect , et al.) And Last of Us fans are seriously invested; after all, they haven't just binge-watched the game's characters, they've inhabited them for hour upon hour. There's a TED talk , as well as numerous YouTube videos and Reddit threads with titles like “ The Last of Us Changed My Life. ” An astonishing number of expectant fans are already sporting elaborate Last of Us Part II tattoos. Druckmann and Naughty Dog, meanwhile, are determined to one-up themselves. The Last of Us Part II is arguably the biggest, most ambitious, most ravenously anticipated game in the notoriously ambitious studio's 36-year history. But for a team that has nudged games closer to the sensibilities of prestige television, the sequel's rollout has itself been subject to some pretty outrageous plot twists. First came a self-inflicted delay. The sequel was originally due to come out at the end of February, but in fall 2019, the studio pushed the release date back to May. (“The size and scope of this game got the better of us,” Druckmann explained in a blog post.) Then came the plague. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg At the time of my visit to Naughty Dog in early February, floor stands of Purell hand sanitizer dotted the office; the World Health Organization had just declared a “public health emergency of international concern” over a novel coronavirus that emerged out of Wuhan, China. In short, the rollout of a videogame set in the aftermath of a fictional pandemic was about to be thrown into disarray by a real one—and also, for good measure, by a group of hackers, an army of trolls, a sea of restive fans, and the storm of resentments and transformations that have roiled gaming for nearly a decade. Neil Druckmann (center) works with actors Robert Clotworthy and Shannon Woodward during a performance-capture session for The Last of Us Part II. Photograph: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment Neil Druckmann was born in Israel in 1978, and he spent countless hours of his childhood on the family computer, learning English partly by playing text-based adventure games like King's Quest and Space Quest while consulting a Hebrew-English dictionary. Every night, the family would watch the news together: “Local conflicts, terrorism, threats of war and retribution,” he says. “It was ubiquitous.” Partly to escape that tense atmosphere, Druckmann's family moved to the US when he was 10. His awe at seeing his new home for the first time, he says, was part of what inspired Ellie's reaction to seeing the ruins of great American cities in The Last of Us. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Druckmann, who still retains traces of an accent, was a precocious reader and wannabe animator, but his parents steered him away from pursuing an education in the arts. Instead, he studied criminology at Florida State University, thinking he could be an FBI agent who wrote novels on the side. He took a programming class as an elective, though, and something clicked. “Wait,” he recalls thinking, “ this is how people make videogames!” A natural coder, he switched his major to computer science and eventually picked up a master's in entertainment technology at Carnegie Mellon. In 2004, he took a summer internship with Naughty Dog and never left. After a grueling year and a half of programming, he talked his way into the creative departments, working as a writer and designer on the action-adventure title Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. He took on an even larger role in the sequel, still straddling writing and design. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves boasted epic set pieces that unspooled, in the parlance of the industry, “on the stick”—as the player played—instead of in passive cinematic cut scenes. It was a thrilling exercise in how to intermesh story and interactivity—in what he and his cocreators called “the active cinematic experience.” Inspired, Druckmann began attending writing seminars. He inhaled a copy of Robert McKee's screenwriters' bible, Story , which would become a yearly read. By the time he'd gained enough clout in the studio to pitch a new game, he was hooked on a concept: Could you represent the growing bond and shifting dynamics between two contrasting characters through gameplay, and do it in a way that mirrors the connection between the player and the characters? That idea became the main kernel of inspiration for The Last of Us. In an early version of The Last of Us , then titled “Mankind,” only women were susceptible to the parasitic fungal infection that brings down civilization. In that version, Ellie was the only female believed to be immune. But that concept, Druckmann said in a 2013 speech, was a terrific failure. “The reason it failed is because it was a misogynistic idea,” he confessed. “A lot of the female workers at Naughty Dog came up and said, ‘I don't like this idea. I understand what you're trying to do—it is ultimately a story about the love of a girl—but the way it's coming off is you're having a bunch of women turn into monsters and you're shooting them in the face.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Druckmann reworked the plot. Then he became a father. Having an infant daughter quickly charged him with the awe and terror of caring for a child. It also deepened his growing conviction that videogames had to do better at representing female characters—beginning with his own. This “awakening,” as Druckmann calls it, further cemented his desire to turn Ellie into the most fully realized, nonsexualized female protagonist in videogames—an ambition that met with no small amount of resistance from other quarters in the gaming community. Early focus groups reacted poorly to Ellie, and later, marketing gurus advised against featuring her on the box art. Druckmann stood his ground. By any measure, he was vindicated: The Last of Us sold 1.3 million units in its first week and went on to reach a total of more than 17 million, making it one of the highest selling PlayStation games ever. Among its many accolades, The Last of Us won Game of the Year at the annual awards presented by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, gaming's take on the Oscars. So Druckmann and Naughty Dog kept pushing the envelope. In 2014 they released Left Behind , an expansion pack for The Last of Us —a kind of minigame that takes place, in part, before Joel and Ellie meet. This time, gamers played not as Joel but as a teenaged Ellie, and during the game, Ellie kisses her female best friend. One gaming critic called it “the first example of intimacy in a videogame that's meant anything.” In a scene from Part II , Ellie (left) shares a dance with a new female character named Dina. Illustration: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Then in 2018, Ellie came fully out of the closet. At that year's E3 Expo , the game industry's marquee annual event, Naughty Dog unveiled a scene from The Last of Us Part II , with Ellie sharing a dance, and a kiss, with a new female character named Dina. “I remember being in the room when that trailer was first shown,” says Keza MacDonald , The Guardian 's videogames editor, who is queer, “and thinking, you know, a few short years ago I was sitting here with my head in my hands because the latest Assassin's Creed had four playable men and no women, because female characters were ‘too hard to animate.’ And this year Sony is leading its E3 conference with a game starring a gay woman. Maybe everything isn't terrible.” Before teaming up with Druckmann to cowrite The Last of Us Part II , Halley Gross worked on the first season of HBO’s Westworld. Photograph: Luke Fontana/Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment At Naughty Dog, says Druckmann, the goal of deepening narratives in videogames has wedded itself naturally to the studio's commitment to represent diversity in game characters—which in turn has attracted new talent. To help him cowrite The Last of Us Part II , in 2016 Druckmann brought in a television and film screenwriter named Halley Gross. “Our goal is absolutely to create the most multifaceted characters you've seen in games,” says Gross, who spent 13 months working on the first season of HBO's Westworld. By comparison, she has spent three and a half years writing The Last of Us Part II. And she and Druckmann have drawn extensively from the rest of the team, Gross reports; queer staffers have helped in the writing of queer characters, adding dimension and complexity: “I think we're doing right by the LGBTQ+ community, who have often been drawn with a broader brush.” Not long after the release of Left Behind in 2014, the Gamergate controversy erupted, turning questions of representation and gender in videogames into some of the most toxic issues in American cultural discourse. Today there are plenty of gamers who proclaim that political correctness has ruined videogames, or to quote the title of a discussion of the issue on a gaming forum, “liberal politics infected Naughty Dog.” But it is these players' loyalty to The Last of Us that fills them with such distrust of its creator. “ TLoU is my favorite game of all time,” one fan tweeted at Druckmann “Please try to keep your personal politics out of Part 2. Thank you very much.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Compared with the first game, perhaps the simplest thing to say about The Last of Us Part II is that it is bigger: It has more characters, more room to explore, more to do. Your allies and opponents are smarter. Even the haptic-triggering signals delivered to the DualShock controller in your hands have been more carefully calibrated. The setting, for much of the time, is Seattle, four years after the events of the first game. There are ferns and firs growing in the streets of Pioneer Square, and a river of floodwater runs alongside the ivy-covered concrete guideway of the monorail. Naughty Dog artists traveled to the city, capturing photorealistic textures, topography, the precise quality of the overcast city's ambient lighting. Seattleites will be able to visit the debris-ridden remains of downtown coffee shops. Part II follows Ellie on a personal quest for vengeance, while a war rages between two rival militia factions. Illustration: Naughty Dog/Sony Interactive Entertainment Ellie, after being playable for just a couple of riveting sections in the first game, takes center stage this time. Now 19, her appearance is more detailed and more closely resembles Ashley Johnson, with facial performance-capture tech used for the first time in the franchise. The artists worked hard to get her clothes to wrinkle authentically, while one sound designer invented a system that tracks Ellie's exertion level and plays respiratory audio effects to match. Animators even labored over such blink-and-miss-it details as, well, blinking—the mere opening and closing of eyelids feels more fleshy and organic. “Real life is the bar,” says the game's codirector Kurt Margenau. In comparison, he says wryly, “ The Last of Us was a baby game for babies.” During my visit, everyone at Naughty Dog vigilantly guarded details of the game's plot. What's clear is that Part II follows Ellie on a personal quest for vengeance, while a war rages between two rival militia factions called the Washington Liberation Front and the Seraphites. The game's cycles of violence faintly mirror those in the part of the world where Druckmann was born, along with the factions and divisions in the US today. “This one was much more inspired by real-world events,” Druckmann says. The idea is to complicate the player's feeling of inherent righteousness. “Justice is so much about perspective,” Druckmann says; the sequel is built to challenge your sense of “the morality of the character you're inhabiting.” “Our hope is that players who might not have related to someone like Ellie will find a part of her that is familiar,” Gross says. “You're walking in her shoes, you're empathizing with her.” Compared with the usual videogame depictions of meaningless and over-the-top violence, there's a terrible weight to the bloodshed in The Last of Us Part II. Go on, take out another anonymous baddie with a rifle or nail bomb or flamethrower or brick—and then feel your satisfaction curdle when his buddies cry out his name in shock and grief. Even the dogs in The Last of Us Part II —which sniff out your scent trail and attack when they find you—are some of the most intelligent, realistic dogs in videogames ever. In Naughty Dog's offices, playtesters have been horrified to find themselves committing acts of canine carnage. Yelps and whimpers and whines ring out, not all of them from the dogs. “It makes players feel dirty, and that's part of the point,” Druckmann explains. The game also goes to the trouble of realistically grappling with trauma, according to Gross, who says that she drew on her own experience with post-traumatic stress. “Joel and Ellie are complex people who've done really rough things,” she adds. “We have to honor not just that but the trauma in their world.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Ideally, despite these bleak, heavy elements, players will be so caught up in the story they're unable to put the controller down. “We want you to try to empathize with that character, understand what they're doing, and say, ‘OK, I'm going to role-play,’ ” Druckmann says, “‘I'm going to try to think the way this character thinks.’” But Druckmann understands from his hours of watching playtesters that not everyone appreciates that. In fact, he says, some players hate the game. And he knows it will be the same for certain fans of The Last of Us out in the wild. “Some of them are not going to like this game, and not like where it goes, and not like what it says or the fate of characters that they love,” Druckmann notes. But he believes developers like him must learn to tolerate more discomfort: “I'd rather have people passionately hate it than just be like, ‘Yeah, it was OK.’ ” It's nearly 7 pm when I leave the studio that day in February. Much of the team is still at work, and dinner is being laid out. “The game is a living, breathing thing that's still evolving and growing and changing,” Gross tells me, bringing to mind an interminable videogame boss battle—or a virus. But the game isn't all that's changing. That day, just over 300 miles away, a San Jose resident dies, in what would later be considered the first diagnosed Covid-19 fatality on US soil. On one level, the faint connective threads between the news and the world of The Last of Us are simply eerie. “We did a lot of research about pandemics and outbreaks,” Druckmann says, referring back to the days when he and his team were developing the first game. “Now we're witnessing superficial similarities that are surreal. Art imitating life imitating art.” (A couple of fake Twitter accounts, created to promote The Last of Us in 2013, make for discomfiting reading today: “If you must travel outside,” tweeted @SpringsHospital , “we recommend wearing a face mask.”) A few weeks after my visit, even before the government required it, Naughty Dog started shifting its team to working from home. “If we end up missing a production date, so be it,” Druckmann declares. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But in the actual event, it isn't the creative process that holds things up: In early April, Naughty Dog announces that the game's release will be postponed indefinitely. In an interview, Druckmann indicates that it was due to concerns about coronavirus-related disruptions in international distribution. Gamers' impatience—the release date had been postponed once already—begins to mutate into indignation. On social media, anger and invective start flowing. On Monday, April 27, Naughty Dog announces that the game will in fact be released on June 19, news that ought to turn fans' mood around. But the bigger news that day is that hackers have leaked a trove of potential plot spoilers and gameplay footage to YouTube. The leak opens the floodgates of vitriol from the gaming community even wider. As Druckmann had predicted, there are plenty of people who don't care for the game's apparent politics or where the story seems to go—even though they lack the full context of the narrative that Naughty Dog's obsessives have been stitching together for six years. Druckmann is bombarded with anti-Semitic slurs, death threats, and messages informing him he has ruined the franchise; one YouTube personality posts a video arguing that The Last of Us Part II “could damage gaming for years,” which quickly racks up hundreds of thousands of views. The term “release date” has rarely seemed so doubly apt, suggesting the devs' liberation from what has become a strange extended nightmare. For Druckmann, at least, the Last of Us saga continues: In March, HBO announced that it will be adapting the game into a series, with Druckmann writing and executive producing alongside Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin. But in the meantime, the game's creators get by on optimism: Maybe, just maybe, the narrative and empathic power of a game like The Last of Us Part II can move even its skeptics. “Our hope is that players who might not have previously related to someone like Ellie will find a part of her that is familiar,” Gross says. “You're walking in her shoes, you're empathizing with her struggles and dreams.” Indeed, I'm told of at least one playtester who came away from Part II saying, “I think I have to change my beliefs.” Druckmann's hours watching all those videofeeds of people playing his unfinished game revealed its raw emotional power. “I saw one girl get to this sequence that took us a long time to get to land. And she's bawling. I'm watching her, and I'm starting to cry because she's crying, and I'm like, all these years of work for a couple-of-minutes sequence,” he says. “It's all for this—just to be able to get this person to feel this experience.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On May 4, Druckmann posted a video to Naughty Dog's Instagram page announcing that his team had finally finished the game and had handed it off to be pressed and distributed. “No matter what you've seen or heard or read, nothing compares to playing this thing from beginning to end,” he says. “It's a videogame. You've got to play it.” If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. Learn more. DARRYN KING (@DarrynKing) wrote about the making of Gemini Man in issue 27.10. This article appears in the July/August issue. Subscribe now. Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. The confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the hacker who saved the internet The NSA’s secret tool for mapping your social network The first shot: Inside the Covid vaccine fast track What happened when I switched from Mac to Windows How to sleep when the world is falling apart 👁 Is the brain a useful model for AI ? Plus: Get the latest AI news ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Topics magazine-28.07-28.08 longreads Playstation video games Megan Farokhmanesh Megan Farokhmanesh Matt Kamen Matt Kamen Matt Kamen Gabrielle Niola Megan Farokhmanesh Jennifer M. Wood Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"'The Last of Us' Does What No Show Has Done Before | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/last-of-us-does-the-impossible-hbo"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Will Bedingfield Backchannel The Last Of Us Does What No Show Has Done Before Pedro Pascal stars as Joel Miller in HBO's adaptation of The Last of Us. Courtesy of HBO Save this story Save Save this story Save It’s day one in America. September 26, 2003, and a girl named Sarah wakes in her suburban Austin home to the searchlights of military choppers. Her dad, Joel, is gone; the TV is blaring a national emergency warning. The neighbor’s dog starts scratching on the window. Sarah goes to the house across the street and steps in a trail of smeared blood in the kitchen. Following its line, she finds the elderly mother of her neighbor Connie hunched on all fours, Connie’s throat between her teeth. Sarah races outside and the mother chases her, jerked along as if on puppet strings. Just in time, Joel screeches up in a truck with her uncle Tommy and beats the mother’s head in with a wrench. As Sarah, Joel, and Tommy escape in their pickup, a house burns on the horizon. “Everybody had the same fucking idea,” Tommy says as cars cram the highways. This Is the Way Hemal Jhaveri TV Will Bedingfield The Worst of Us Gabriel Aikins As Joel and Sarah soon learn, billions of people have become infected by a parasitic fungus that turns them into vicious zombie-like husks who bite their prey to multiply. By the time the father and daughter pull into downtown Austin, the “infected” swarm the streets. A plane falls out of the sky; their car flips in the explosion. Sarah’s ankle is broken. Joel carries her through a diner while the infected give chase. The pair finally reach a soldier, who asks if they are sick. Then, following orders, he opens fire on them, killing Sarah. This is the riveting opening to HBO’s new show, The Last of Us. But to the many fans of the PlayStation game of the same name released by Naughty Dog in 2013, the sequence is already iconic. More than that, it’s personal. They’ve padded around that quiet suburban home. They’ve watched that neighbor’s house burn. As Joel, they’ve pulled Sarah from the wreck and carried her down alleys and streets as hordes of infected lurched closer. And they’ve watched her die. The game goes on to follow Joel and Ellie, a young girl he’s tasked with protecting years later. She is the one human immune to infection and therefore the key to ending the pandemic. The game has sold more than 17 million copies; a sequel sold 4 million in its first week, a triumph for a title released at the height of Covid-19. The opening of the game is a technical miracle. Naughty Dog filmed motion-capture performances from real actors to put tangible fear in Joel’s and Sarah’s eyes, and it gave the characters movie-worthy dialog. The game’s world was designed to make players feel like they’d walked into a film about the first day of the apocalypse: They can explore every angle of a scene and find nothing artificial. The TV adaptation—cocreated by Neil Druckmann, who made the game, and Craig Mazin, the mind behind Chernobyl —translates the famous opening faithfully, maintaining the tension and horror of Joel ( Pedro Pascal ) and Sarah (Nico Parker)’s attempted escape. Their terror is note-perfect. The sequence is heightened by scenes that wouldn’t work in a game but show us what Joel and Sarah’s lives were like before the world started to fall apart. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Fans of the video game The Last of Us will recognize the title's iconic opening in the HBO series' opening scenes. Courtesy of HBO HBO's series is doubly remarkable considering the notoriously undistinguished history of game adaptations. A few fantastic animations aside, Hollywood has never turned a video game into a truly smart, thoughtful film or TV show. Somehow, a 10 on IGN inevitably morphs into a 10 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. And gamers are not exactly the quietest critics, posting petitions to get German director Uwe Boll ( Postal ) to stop making movies, churning out memes of Sonic’s frightening milk grin. "And on the fifth day god said: ‘I want Sonic to have human teeth,’” they tweet, leading to massive, expensive studio revisions. “Historically, video game adaptations have suffered from a lack of understanding of the source material—generally made by non-gamers but targeted toward game fans,” says Casey Baltes, who heads up interactive programming for the Tribeca Festival (formerly the Tribeca Film Festival). “This has resulted in projects that can feel inauthentic to the game-playing audience and be downright confusing to the non-gaming viewer.” Adapting a game offers challenges very distinct from adapting, say, a novel or comic book. Films are linear; games are interactive. When players control Joel as he carries Sarah, they aren’t simply watching him—they’re embodying him. Druckmann says he’s often seen players of his games shout things like, “They’re going to grab me , they’re going to get me —oh my God, I barely survived by the skin of my teeth.” He adds: “You don’t make those comments when you’re watching a show.” As the novelist and screenwriter Gabrielle Zevin told me , the move from controlling to watching a character feels like paralysis. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg At the same time, there are things that linear, cinematic storytelling can do that a game can’t. Where beloved TV and movie characters are compelled by complex dreams, fears, conflicts, and bonds, game characters are often mercurial ciphers, just there to complete tasks. It’s that quality that led Steven Spielberg to claim that when “you pick up the controller, the heart turns off”—a false but still common belief in Hollywood. Usually, when writers try to bridge the gap between the two mediums, says Mazin, “you either make something that has no characters, or you make something that’s so far afield from the video game, what was the fucking point anyway?” HBO’s The Last of Us may be the first show to finally crack the code. In the video game, Last of Us players kill infected people by the dozen. The show doesn't need to do that. Courtesy of Naughty Dog The first video game adaptation was of the most famous game of all time, and when the Super Mario Bros. film hit cinemas in 1993, it was met with widespread dismay. Gone were the blue skies and green hills of the Mushroom Kingdom. Mario’s Italian accent was replaced with Bob Hoskins’ attempt at New Yorker tawk. The movie transformed Mario into a plumber in a dark and smoky metropolis who must battle Dennis Hopper’s bug-eyed maniacal King Koopa. In the 2000s, Boll churned out game adaptations such as BloodRayne and Alone in the Dark that were widely panned by audiences and critics alike. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg It would be wrong to say there has been no improvement with time. But while movies like Detective Pikachu and Werewolves Within are entertaining, they’re not exactly considered prestigious, and there’s still a perception that Hollywood just does not get games. Spielberg’s recent Halo series was superfluous and derivative, with fans particularly annoyed that the Master Chief, a chemically castrated super-soldier, sleeps with a prisoner of war while his AI companion Cortana watches on lamely. “They’ve cuckolded Cortana,” went the memes. Druckmann and Mazin are acutely aware of what they call “the video game curse.” In a roundabout way, it's what led them to team up on the show. Several years back, Druckmann had tried to turn his game into a movie with Sam Raimi. At the time, Mazin had been looking to adapt something and told the producers at Sony, “Come back to me when The Last of Us comes up, because that film Druckmann’s making won’t work.” He was right: The game proved too big for a single film. When the two were introduced by Shannon Woodward, who plays Dina in The Last of Us Part II , it seemed like a perfect match. Mazin is a devoted gamer; Druckmann loved Chernobyl. During a series of meetings at Naughty Dog’s offices starting in 2020, the duo produced the screenplay bible that they went on to follow almost to the letter on the series’ nine-episode first season. Druckmann, who is 44, is the more reserved of the pair. Over Zoom, he often pauses and sits back in his chair before answering. Mazin, 51, is energetic and emotive, leaning forward as he talks. His love of the game is infectious. He is convinced that its central moral—about the violent potential of unconditional love—has particular relevance to our current moment; he sees it as the source of the tribalism that divides our world. Mazin and Druckmann obsessed over how to avoid the video game curse. When writing the script, they came up with a few interrelated precepts: action into drama , dramatize the mundane , and, the starkest, dump the gameplay. Trying to replicate game mechanics just felt like pandering. “People think, ‘Oh, if it’s a first-person game, we need to have a first-person sequence in the movie, because that’s what makes it special,’ And you probably know what I’m referring to,” Druckman says, without qualifying. “That’s not what the fans of those games want to see.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg This meant that any moment that drew its power from interactivity went on the chopping block—even parts of the game’s memorable opening scene. In the show, the sequence of Joel carrying his daughter is significantly shorter. The killing throughout the season is also (somewhat) reduced. In the game, players beat, snipe, garotte, stab, stomp, blast, and burn infected by the dozen. As Druckmann explains, the high body count is necessary to render the mechanics instinctive for the player. The show doesn’t need to do that. Instead, it has to deepen the characters’ motives in other ways. And so the pilot of The Last of Us spends a whole day with Sarah and Joel on his birthday, the day the pandemic breaks out. It conjures a slow-burning dread that lasts just a few minutes in the game. Sarah makes eggs for her dad and goes to school, where a student in class twitches ominously. Later she visits the neighbor’s house to make cookies, and viewers witness a spectacular bit of body horror: Behind Sarah’s back, Connie’s catatonic mother shudders in her wheelchair, then screams silently as the fungus takes control of her body. Druckmann also points to a moment when Sarah visits a watch repair shop to retrieve Joel’s timepiece (players of the game will know that this watch has a special significance throughout the game). Any of these moments could have been cutscenes in the game, but they would have felt weak. “The player would be like, ‘When do I get to kill stuff, when do I get to punch things, when do I get to the action?’” Druckmann says. Neil Druckmann created The Last of Us video game series and cocreated the show based on it. Courtesy of Naughty Dog Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Turning action into drama also helped flesh out some of the game’s more derivative aspects. There’s no getting around the similarities to Station Eleven, The Walking Dead , Children of Men , I Am Legend , and The Road. But the show transforms The Last of Us into a full-blown environmental fable. Before the action-packed scenes of Joel and Sarah fleeing their home, there is a preamble: a Jack Paar-like talk show in 1968 featuring two epidemiologists. One warns that humanity is at great risk from a pandemic caused by a flu-like virus. The other scoffs: The real threat is not mere bacteria, but a fungus like Cordyceps , which controls its victims by flooding their brains with hallucinogens and turning them into “billions of puppets with poisoned minds,” he says, “with one unifying goal: to spread the infection to every last human alive.” ( Cordyceps is a real fungus that has a comparable effect on ants.) The host wants to crack LSD gags, but the expert is serious. It would take just a few degrees of global warming to encourage the fungus to jump to humans. The second episode visits the infection’s place of origin, a flour and grain factory in Jakarta. The fungus grasps out of a victim on a mortician’s table. “Makes more sense than monkeys,” Ellie ( Game of Thrones ’ Bella Ramsey) says at one point, referring to the outbreak’s origins. For Mazin, the zombie is about mortality, forcing us to confront the corpse we will all become. Cordyceps is the great leveler, spawned by our relentless consumption. “I think the thread underneath it is: You don’t want to be too successful on planet Earth,” says Mazin. ”I’m not an anti-progress, back-to-the-Stone-Age guy. But we must regulate ourselves or something will come and regulate us against our will.” There’s also a genuine attempt to explore the traditional tropes of the apocalyptic setting, like the descent into Hobbesian sadism. In the game, Joel and Ellie encounter Bill, an eccentric who has taken control of a town and littered it with hare-brained traps. His story in the show is much more poignant. Played by Nick Offerman, Bill is a full-blown prepper, eager to ring in the apocalypse. But when he captures a wandering survivor in his trap, the pair begin a 20-year-long love story. As they rebuild the town, Bill eventually discovers the poverty of his worldview. Even though some of his paranoid views were right—the world did end and the government was overrun by Nazis—he had lived a meaningless life waiting for the end of the world. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Later in the season, Mazin promises an exploration of the roving lunatics, sadistic gangs, and religious fanatics that typically populate the zombie genre and provide simplistic cannon fodder for the player. In a scene set in Kansas City, an analogue to the game’s Pittsburgh section, Mazin and Druckmann wanted to explore why these people trick, murder, and rob innocent travelers for their supplies. “Neil and I felt: Let’s get under the hood, let’s understand some of these people, and let’s not steal their humanity, because it cheapens the impact of their sins,” says Mazin. More than anything, the show offered an opportunity to build out the game’s strongest narrative asset: the central relationship between Joel and Ellie. The protector-protected dynamic isn’t new, and in the game the pair’s road trip through the ruins of America often echoes the dysfunctional travels of the Hound and Arya in Game of Thrones. But there is something particularly moving about Pascal and Ramsey’s bond. At one point, Joel describes Ellie as “not family, just cargo,” and it is her move from the latter to the former that anchors the game and the show. In that episode, he teaches her about the wonders of coffee—“What the fuck is this? Smells like horseshit,” says Ellie. They spend the night camping under the stars, yearning to share their immense traumas. HBO's The Last of Us stars Pedro Pascal as Joel and Game of Thrones ' Bella Ramsey as Ellie. Their relationship is the show's emotional center. Courtesy of HBO Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg If any source material had the potential to break the video game curse, it was The Last of Us. Games have always drawn on film, but no studio has done so as ideologically as Naughty Dog—which, in the years since Druckmann joined in 2004, has begun branding its products as “active cinematic experiences.” The tagline goes beyond stealing compositional techniques like dramatic editing or wide-angle shots. Druckmann believes “emotional emphasis” can heighten gameplay—that it’s worth spending as much time and money on a scene where Ellie bonds with her crush in a photo booth as one where she guns down hordes of infected while swinging upside down from a rope trap. Naughty Dog’s offices teem with TV writers who have worked on shows like Westworld. Druckmann, who has only ever worked at Naughty Dog, boasts an eclectic range of influences. He cites the political horror of Night of the Living Dead director George A. Romero ( The Last of Us grew out of a rejected university pitch to him), the game Ico , David Attenborough’s documentaries, and (“I know the cinephiles won’t like this,” he says) Signs by M. Night Shyamalan. Yet his clearest influence is Cormac McCarthy. Druckmann explains that No Country for Old Men exerted a double influence on him. Its minimalist storytelling drove the intimate scope of the game’s story, and the way the Coen brothers’ film “plugs into the poetry of the prose” remains for him a polestar of successful adaptation. Druckmann is also an adherent of Robert McKee, the legendary screenwriting lecturer, and he treated McKee's book Story as a bible for writing the game (although McKee himself doesn’t believe games are art). Druckmann tells me that by “adhering to McKee’s philosophy,” he created a game perfectly suited for adaptation. The Last of Us is touted as one of the most cinematic video games of all time. Courtesy of Naughty Dog Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Mazin is an avid gamer, but what impressed him about The Last of Us was separate from its gameness. To him, Ellie and Joel felt like people, not vessels. “The characters had this remarkable relationship that developed in this very human and grounded way for video game characters,” he says. “It made me feel things I had never felt playing a video game before. It seemed to me like this was a drama that was hiding in the skin of a video game, as opposed to vice versa.” Though Mazin thinks including game developers in adaptations is essential, he was also “terrified,” because game creators don’t always understand the process of translating their work to another medium. But Druckmann, he said, was a perfect collaborator, never afraid of changing the source material. Druckmann insists he didn’t set out to make a game in the style of prestige television, but he agrees that everyone who worked on it was immersed in the kind of storytelling that underpins his favorite shows: The Wire, Six Feet Under, and The Leftovers. The game was revolutionary for telling a blockbuster cinema story. But watching the TV show, there is a nagging sense that this is the story Druckmann always wanted to tell, released from the confines of his favored medium. So I ask: Was gameplay in some ways a burden to him? “I think they’re two separate things. And there are always trade-offs,” he says. “They each give you a different type of experience for the same story, and I find them both compelling in very different ways.” It’s not that The Last of Us is a groundbreaking TV show in and of itself. But it is, at last, a game adaptation that stands alone as a great live-action TV show, one poised to appeal to skeptical gamers and those looking for their next Sunday night watercooler fix. “I love the idea that someone will watch the show and love it, and then they would hear that it’s based on the video game and be like, ‘Wait, what? A video game? They’re telling these kinds of stories?’ And they’ll be introduced to a wealth of storytelling,” says Druckmann. In the streaming era, where all IP seems destined to be franchised into the ground, it’s likely that any success experienced by The Last of Us TV show will lead to other adaptations—some good, some less so. Jason Momoa as Kratos in God of War is a rumor; Oscar Isaac as Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid is another. And as the industry pushes for more cinematic games, it will only be a matter of time before those get adapted too. Finally, the curse has been lifted. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg You Might Also Like … 📧 Find the best bargains on quality gear with our Deals newsletter “ Someone is using photos of me to talk to men” First-gen social media users have nowhere to go The truth behind the biggest (and dumbest) battery myths We asked a Savile Row tailor to test all the “best” T-shirts you see in social media ads My kid wants to be an influencer. Is that bad? 🌞 See if you take a shine to our picks for the best sunglasses and sun protection Staff writer X Topics TV HBO video games Lauren Smiley Angela Watercutter Steven Levy Andy Greenberg Brandi Collins-Dexter Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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"Meet the Immigrants Who Took On Amazon | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/meet-the-immigrants-who-took-on-amazon"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Jessica Bruder Business Meet the Immigrants Who Took On Amazon Hibaq Mohamed demonstrating outside of Amazon's MSP1 facility in Shakopee, Minnesota. Photograph: Jenn Ackerman Save this story Save Save this story Save It was 11 days before Christmas in 2018, and Amazon’s warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota, was operating at full tilt. At the rear of the facility, waves of semi trucks backed up to a long row of loading docks, some disgorging crates of new merchandise and others filling up with outbound packages. Inside the warehouse, within dark, cyclone-fenced enclosures, thousands of shelf-toting robots performed a mute ballet, ferrying towers of merchandise from one place to another. And throughout the cavernous interior, yellow bins brimming with customers’ orders zipped along more than 10 miles of conveyor belts, which clattered with a thunderous din. Negotiating all the distances and tasks that fall between those pieces of machinery were the people. Like most of the 110-plus US facilities that Amazon calls fulfillment centers, the warehouse known as MSP1—named for its proximity to the ­Minnea­po­­lis-Saint Paul airport—employs more than a thousand workers, including hordes of temps brought in for the holidays. They power-walked (running was forbidden) across roughly 850,000 square feet of polished concrete, following green-taped paths on what amounted to a giant game of Pac-Man the size of 14 football fields. Additional reporting by Saraswati Rathod. Among them was William Stolz, 24, a lanky Wisconsinite who’d been at Amazon for a year and a half. As a “picker,” his job was to hover at the dim perimeter of a cyclone fence and retrieve customers’ orders from the robot-borne storage pods that came to his station. He would stoop, squat, or climb a small ladder to grab items and then rush to place them in one of the yellow bins that sped off to the packaging department. There, another crew of workers boxed orders, reportedly at a rate of 230 per hour, sending them off in cardboard cartons bearing the trademarked Amazon smile logo. Stolz says he and his fellow pickers were expected to fetch more than 300 items every 60 minutes. And, according to workers, Amazon’s inventory-tracking system closely monitored whether they were hitting their marks. The pace that Amazon demanded was inhumane, Stolz thought. Many of his coworkers endured pain from leg, back, and shoulder injuries as they strained to hit their hourly rate—which was one of the many reasons Stolz had decided to walk off the job that afternoon, December 14, at precisely 4 o’clock. December 2019. Subscribe to WIRED. Photograph: Jessica Chou Stolz and several coworkers had been planning the coordinated walkout for weeks, but now, as he counted down the minutes, he felt anxious and alone. “I was watching the clock at my station. You know, ‘3:57 … 3:58 …’” he recalls, “just getting really nervous.” His work station was relatively isolated, and he couldn’t see anyone else around him who planned to participate. He was momentarily gripped by the fear that he’d be the only one to go through with the plan. Reminding himself that he’d made a commitment, Stolz summoned his courage; when the clock struck 4, he logged off his computer and headed for the stairwell. As he reached the ground floor, he felt a sense of relief. Trickling down the stairs after him he saw the familiar faces of other workers he’d been getting to know over the past several weeks as they had discussed what to do about conditions in the warehouse. Unlike him, most of his fellow strikers were Somali Muslim immigrants. Many of their faces were framed by hijabs. Clocking out quietly, they walked through airport-style metal detectors, past private security guards. They stopped at their lockers to bundle up in heavy coats, gloves, and hats. “We gathered by the front doors for a few minutes,” Stolz recalls. “That way, if anybody was coming out late, they wouldn’t get scared.” Stolz estimates that about 50 workers assembled before they streamed out into the bracing air. (Amazon says the number of workers who walked out that day was more like 15.) A cheer rose up from the far side of the warehouse parking lot, where a crowd of off-duty Amazon workers and local community allies—more than 200 by some estimates—had been watching the doors and waiting for them. They stood amid patches of crusted snow as the strikers crossed the asphalt to meet them. The protesters brandished signs that said, “Safe jobs now!” and “Respect the East African community.” Stolz settled into a place at the edge of the crowd. He had joined friends at political protests before, but he’d never participated in anything like this. As American labor rallies go, this one offered a striking remix of the genre’s usual conventions. The organization presiding over the event was not a union but a fledgling organization called the Awood Center, whose motto was “Building East African Worker Power.” ( Awood is the Somali word for power.) In the middle of the crowd was a portable PA system, and the first speaker received an ecstatic welcome: US representative Ilhan Omar, who had just weeks before become the first Somali American elected to Congress, promptly led the group in singing “Aan Isweheshano Walaalayaal” (“Let’s Get Together With Our Brothers and Sisters”), a classic Somali solidarity anthem. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “I’ve had many jobs,” the congresswoman told the crowd. “I cleaned offices, I worked on assembly lines, I was even a security guard once. I’ve had jobs where we did not have enough breaks, where we used to try to go to the bathroom just so that we could pray.” The East African community, she said, demanded better. “Amazon doesn’t work if you don’t work,” she said. “It’s about time we make Amazon understand that.” “Amazon doesn’t work if you don’t work,” US representative Ilhan Omar said. “It’s about time we make Amazon understand that.” Then the mic went to a young warehouse worker from Somalia named Khadra Kassim, who delivered a jibe about working for the richest man in the world. “It’s sad to see that the head of Amazon—God is the greatest, and God is above all of us—doesn’t know who his workers are, and what they are faced with,” she said to laughs from the crowd. As the sun set, the protesters began marching toward the warehouse, back to the glass doors where Stolz and the other strikers had emerged, so that managers could hear them. As if on cue, several Shakopee Police Department patrol cars rolled up to intercept them, misery lights blazing. Flashes of red and blue strobed through the twilight, illuminating the marchers’ faces and picket signs. The officers called for backup. Squad cars arrived from five other towns—Bloomington, Burnsville, Eden Prairie, Jordan, and Savage—and the Scott County Sheriff’s Office. Within minutes, some 15 vehicles, including an ambulance, had converged on the scene. Armed with pepper spray, police formed a human barricade across the glass doors of the lobby. The crowd started to dissipate when darkness fell. But not all the protesters went home. For several, it was time to start the night shift. Wending their way through the police barricade, they presented their Amazon badges in the lobby and disappeared through the turnstiles, back to the grind of robots and conveyor belts and Christmas. All told, the walkout at MSP1 lasted less than two hours. Amazon characterizes it as a “small protest” rather than a strike, arguing that it had no appreciable impact on operations. But according to multiple labor experts, it marked the first coordinated strike at an Amazon warehouse in North America—and it wouldn’t be the last time that workers in Shakopee would set precedent. As the protesters cleared away from the police line, they chanted “Amazon, we’ll be back,” and they would soon make good on the promise. Related Stories Nomadland Jessica Bruder Don't Be Evil Nitasha Tiku Year in Review Paris Martineau and Louise Matsakis In the 25 years since Amazon was founded, it has become the second-­largest private employer in the United States. Over that time, the company has displayed an extraordinary knack for dictating its own terms to suppliers, local governments, and laborers. For years, the company has induced cities and states to compete to host Amazon facilities; it has managed to extract tax breaks, costly infrastructure upgrades, and valuable public data, even as it builds out a logistics network without which Amazon’s retail empire couldn’t function. What Amazon offers those communities in turn are jobs with competitive wages and benefits for full-time workers, and the expectation that workers—managers, pickers, or stowers—will do their part to uphold the company’s principles of “speed, innovation, and consumer obsession.” In presiding over that bargain, the company has enjoyed tremendous leverage over its US employees, terminating workers if they fail to meet their hourly productivity rates and going to great lengths to fend off labor organizers. In recent years, however, Amazon’s leverage has weakened ever so slightly. With US unemployment nearing record lows, workers have become harder to find and to replace. And though opinion surveys suggest that Amazon remains one of the most highly regarded American companies, it has been caught in a riptide of public criticism over its enormous market power and its treatment of workers. Numerous stories have tracked the bodily impacts of the company’s devotion to speed: In 2018, accounts began coming out of the UK that Amazon warehouse workers were peeing in bottles for fear of missing their required productivity rates. (Amazon disputed this account of its working conditions.) Then came stories that Amazon delivery drivers—who, according to ProPublica, are required to deliver 999 out of 1,000 packages on time—have been involved in scores of serious road accidents. (Amazon countered that “the vast percentage of deliveries” arrive without incident.) Donald Trump has frothed against the company’s effect on retailers on Twitter; US senator Elizabeth Warren has made breaking up Amazon a theme of her presidential campaign. In September of 2018, with Amazon in his sights, US senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders introduced a bill to tax large corporations whose low-wage workers rely on government assistance. He called it the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies—or Stop Bezos—Act. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Last year, in a rare concession, Amazon raised the minimum wage for all of its US employees to $15 an hour. In a statement, Bezos said that Amazon’s leaders had “listened to our critics.” But critics keep lining up, some of them inside Amazon’s own buildings. In many ways, MSP1 is just like the dozens of other Amazon fulfillment centers in the US. But it differs in at least one significant respect: At least 30 percent of its workers are East African. Many are Somali Muslims who have been in the country for only a few years. Some are refugees who survived years of civil war and displacement, only to face anti-immigrant sentiment and Islamophobia in their new home. This relatively small group—bound together by shared neighborhoods, mosques, cafés, and Somali shopping malls—has managed to pull off feats of organizing unmatched by workers at any other Amazon warehouse in America. The group has staged walkouts, brought management to the negotiating table twice, demanded concessions to accommodate Muslim religious practice, and commanded national attention—all without the clout of a traditional union. Of course, Amazon is still in a hugely dominant position; Somalis in Minneapolis sometimes compare it to a lion. So how did a two-year-old organization made up of immigrants become such a thorn in the lion’s paw? Nimo Omar Photograph: Jessica Chou One of the most important people at the rally on December 14 was neither a politician nor an Amazon employee. Running operations behind the scenes alongside workers was a 23-year-old college student named Nimo Omar, who also helped cofound the Awood Center. The American-born daughter of East African refugees, Omar stands 5' 1". A devout Muslim, she wears a headscarf, black plastic-framed glasses, and a slender hoop in her nose. She speaks four languages—English, Somali, Oromo, and Amharic—and her favorite expression of approval is “dope.” At the Awood Center, people affectionately call her “the lioness.” In the early 1990s, in the midst of the Somali Civil War, Omar’s parents, who had fled to Kenya as refugees, emigrated to Atlanta, Georgia. Not long afterward, the couple split up, and Omar’s teenaged mother found herself isolated with two small children in a sprawling Southern city with few Somalis. “She didn’t know English and had never driven across the country,” Omar says. “But she knew she had relatives in Minnesota.” So she bundled Omar and Omar’s older brother into their car seats for the 16-hour road trip north. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Somali refugees had been clustering in the Twin Cities since the ’90s, with each new migrant reinforcing the attraction for the next. Eventually, some 52,000 people who live in Minnesota would report Somali ancestry, the largest population in the US. Omar’s family moved in with a cousin in Rochester, a city about an hour and a half south of Minneapolis. Omar’s father, meanwhile, began spending much of his time back in East Africa, eventually remarrying there. So in 2006, Omar and her brother temporarily moved to join him in an ethnically Somali region of Ethiopia. Nimo Omar was the only girl who wore the hijab in her high school. White boys taunted her, threatened to trip her on the stairs, and called her a terrorist. Those years in Africa made Omar conscious of how many advantages she had relative to other Somalis. “I was a 10-year-old girl who grew up in this privileged country,” she says. During one trip, a relative who had recently given birth visited Omar’s father’s house, then lost the newborn to preventable illness; Omar watched her grief-stricken family wash the infant’s body, preparing it for a funeral. When she was 15, not long before she moved back to the US, Omar and her brother were detained by Ethiopian immigration agents who claimed they owed $3,000 in fees. Omar spent three nights sleeping on the concrete floor of a jail cell, sharing the space with around seven Somali women who’d been trying to make their way to France. What stuck with Omar, once her family had raised enough money to free her, was the women: how they’d told her about surviving without food or water in a series of detention centers, how curious they were about America—and again, how much privilege she had relative to them. Life back in the States, meanwhile, would make her conscious of how little privilege she had relative to other Americans. By the time Omar returned, her mother had relocated to Las Vegas. There, Omar was the only girl who wore the hijab in her high school. White boys taunted her, threatened to trip her on the stairs, called her a terrorist, and asked her what she thought of Osama bin Laden. She remembers thinking, “I’m not a part of the fabric of this country.” Omar was alienated but ambitious. During her senior year of high school, she moved back to Minneapolis, where she later enrolled in community college; by her sophomore year of college, she’d been elected president of the student senate. She also began getting involved with Black Lives Matter—just in time for the protest movement to swing its attention to the Twin Cities. On November 15, 2015, police in Minneapolis shot and killed Jamar Clark, 24, an unarmed black man, after responding to a domestic violence call. Many witnesses claimed that Clark was already handcuffed when police shot him in the head. Police denied it and said he’d engaged them in a scuffle, during which Clark allegedly reached for one officer’s gun. Local Black Lives Matter activists took to social media, organizing a march to the city’s Fourth Precinct police station under the hashtag #justiceforjamar, which evolved into an open-ended occupation of the street outside the precinct, with tents and banners stretching down the block. Omar settled in for the long haul. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On the night of November 23, eight days in, Omar happened to be helping with security for the encampment when four masked men rolled up in a car. She approached one of them, a guy in red flannel, and asked him to leave. As other protesters helped her escort him away from the crowd, Omar heard what she mistook for fireworks. Another of the masked men had shot five protesters. Two of the victims—brothers she’d met earlier—were lying on the pavement near her, one shot in the leg, the other in the stomach. Omar and her friends rushed to use winter coats to stanch the blood. (None of the victims suffered life-­threatening injuries, and the assailants were later arrested.) The attack was terrifying, but the protesters didn’t disband. Three days later, the occupiers celebrated “Blacksgiving” together, feasting on donated turkey and sweet potato pie, huddled around fire pits in the slushy drizzle. “That was the best Thanksgiving I ever had,” Omar said. The ensuing year brought a string of disillusioning events for Omar: On the 18th day of the occupation, police used bulldozers to clear the encampment, and county authorities eventually declined to press charges against the officers involved in the Clark shooting, concluding that Clark was not handcuffed when he was shot. Other developments were broadly terrifying for Somalis: In Minnesota and other Midwestern states, the run-up to the 2016 election saw enthusiasm for Donald Trump fused with increasingly virulent anti-­Somali, anti-­Muslim, anti-refugee rhetoric. Weeks before the election, federal agents intercepted a plot by three men to blow up a Kansas apartment complex full of Somalis just after voting day. And when Trump announced his ban on refugee admissions during his first week in office, it felt personal. But still, Omar was invigorated by activism. In the fall of 2016, she heard that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was looking for someone who was fluent in Somali to help organize workers, many of whom were East African, at ­Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. Omar took the job. After a month of intense work, a majority of the roughly 600-­person workforce voted to unionize. Omar was thrilled. On a warm June evening several months after the airport victory, Omar was sitting on the cushion-strewn front porch of an SEIU organizer named Dan Méndez Moore. They chatted about their next moves. Nearly a decade earlier, Méndez Moore’s wife, Veronica, had cofounded a workers’ center—a nonprofit focused on training non-union workers to organize themselves around their own goals—originally for the local Latinx population. The group went on to help wrangle victories for employees at fast-food restaurants and Target stores and to organize all kinds of people. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Given the success of the campaign to organize East African airport workers, Omar and Méndez Moore thought that a similar kind of effort might work for Somalis. And they knew just where to start. The summer before, Amazon had opened a warehouse in Shakopee after officials agreed to spend $5.7 million to improve local roadways. To fill jobs in a city with just 3.5 percent unemployment, Amazon went all out to attract East African workers. Recruiters hired people virtually on the spot in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, known colloquially as Little Mogadishu. Recognizing that many immigrants lacked cars, the company chartered coaches to shuttle workers between the neighborhood and the Shakopee warehouse. They ran multiple times a day, seven days a week. Omar’s brother and uncle had both worked for Amazon, so she knew a little about what went on in the warehouse: the productivity quotas, the relentless pace. She wanted to learn more. So she started visiting the Amazon shuttle stop before dawn, greeting bleary-eyed workers as they headed off to the warehouse. “At first, people didn’t want to talk to me,” she says. Some were downright rude. But gradually people started offering up their phone numbers, saying they’d be willing to meet up later. A robot enclosure at MSP1. Photograph: Jenn Ackerman When MSP1 first opened in the summer of 2016, things weren’t so bad. Hibaq Mohamed, a Somali refugee, started that August as a stower—a worker who scans and shelves products that have just come into the warehouse. She says she was required to process just 90 items per hour. Amazon’s shuttle service made for a pleasant, efficient 45-­minute commute. And in November, just before the peak shopping season set in, the warehouse’s workers were given the chance to win gifts for good performance: speakers and big-screen TVs, as well as credit to spend on gas, food, and Amazon’s website. But the honeymoon didn’t last, she says. With the holidays came greater demands. Mohamed says she now had to stow 120 items per hour, the first of several productivity upticks. And relations between the warehouse’s managers and its East African workers were becoming increasingly testy. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The managers at MSP1 were predominantly white, and barely any of them spoke Somali. The language barrier, Mohamed says, led to frequent, excruciating misunderstandings. Once, Mohamed watched a manager admonish an East African worker who thought he’d been paid a compliment; he smiled, giving the boss a thumbs-up. Mohamed, who spoke English better than many of her colleagues, often tried to step in and translate. Mohamed was a natural leader. As a teenager in Somalia, she had worked on an aid convoy, which once thrust her into a verbal confrontation with armed men trying to interfere with emergency food deliveries. She had also traveled to small villages dispensing mosquito nets and advice to local women on caring for newborns—all before the age of 17. In Shakopee, her superiors soon tasked her with showing new workers the ropes. In February, they offered to officially designate her as a “fulfillment center ambassador,” a role that involves training other workers and boosting morale—but with no authority and no increase in pay. Mohamed turned the offer down. She did, however, continue informally orienting workers to life in the warehouse, serving as a sounding board and dispenser of advice. And as the summer of 2017 approached, Somalis were becoming more and more nervous about how Amazon would accommodate them during Ramadan, the monthlong religious observance when Muslims fast during the day, which would begin that year on May 26. Working at Amazon already created challenges for devout Muslims, who answer the call to prayer five times a day. While federal law protects their right to worship, there were no designated prayer rooms in the warehouses at the time; instead, workers say, they prayed on the work floor or by the coffee machines in the break room. Workers also say they were losing time against their rate during every minute that they faced Mecca. It was hard enough to meet the escalating quotas, and Muslims worried about how they would keep up during Ramadan, when they weren’t eating or drinking and as the temperatures rose in the warehouse. Sure enough, when Ramadan came around, it was an ordeal. The Shakopee warehouse had no air conditioning on the work floor at the time, and some days were sweltering. Because the latter part of Ramadan that year coincided with the summer solstice, Muslim workers’ daily periods of fasting were especially long. Several Muslim workers reported exhaustion and dehydration, though Amazon disputes those reports. Managers, for their part, seemed largely unprepared for the holiday’s demands on observant Muslims, workers say. By the time Ramadan was over, East African workers were desperate to avoid a repeat of the debacle. They just didn’t know how. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Safiyo Mohamed, an Amazon worker. Photograph: Jenn Ackerman The grievance that first made workers truly interested in talking to Omar was a relatively small one. In October, Amazon announced that it would cancel its direct shuttle service from Cedar-Riverside to the Shakopee warehouse. In its place, the company had convinced the Minnesota Valley Transit Authority to add a permanent Shakopee warehouse stop to an existing bus route. Now the trip would include a transfer and take an hour and a half—twice as long as the shuttle ride had been. To William Stolz, the picker, Amazon’s cancellation of the shuttle seemed like a bait and switch. Stolz lived in Cedar-­Riverside, and he dreaded making the longer commute in freezing winter months. Having just graduated from college with a liberal arts degree, Stolz had taken a job at Amazon thinking he would put his head down and pay off his student loans. What he hadn’t anticipated was how much he would come to enjoy the company of his coworkers. Working among so many immigrants, he says, was like being in “a small United Nations.” And now Stolz was worried that few of those coworkers seemed to be aware of the impending shuttle change. Amazon says it announced the transition in morning meetings and posted notices of the news, but many of Stolz’s colleagues seemed not to have gotten the memo. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Stolz had met Omar amid her efforts to chat up Amazon workers. So now he started to help her spread the word at the bus stop, letting people know what was coming. “Workers were super furious,” Omar recalls. It didn’t help that the new pickup point was farther than the shuttle stops had been from the area where many of the workers lived. Some of them—particularly Muslim women who wore the hijab—worried about their safety walking to and from the bus stop after dark. Eventually, Omar would post herself outside the Shakopee warehouse itself, greeting workers who had just clocked out and bringing up the canceled shuttle. “Y’all, this is an issue that we all need to talk about,” she remembers telling them. One night, some 20 people followed her to a nearby Caribou Coffee. They went on to form a new group they called the guddiga xalinta —Somali for “problem-solving committee.” In November, the Awood Center launched its website and officially opened its doors, with funding from the SEIU and support from the Council on American-­Islamic Relations, a major Muslim advocacy group. A Friday night kickoff event drew about 50 people for a catered Somali dinner at the center’s new headquarters at Bethany Lutheran Church, a weathered brick structure across the street from a halal grocery near Cedar-Riverside. Just a few days later, Awood made its presence known to Amazon. While Omar had been chatting with MSP1 workers about their commutes, she had also been talking to East African delivery workers at two nearby Amazon facilities that sends vans, trucks, and cars out to dispense packages to customers. One driver claimed that an Amazon subcontractor owed him hundreds of dollars. So Awood’s first outing became a protest against alleged wage theft by Amazon contractors. (Neither the worker nor his previous employer could be reached for comment, and Amazon has since ended its relationship with that subcontractor.) On November 20, Omar, Stolz, and a handful of delivery drivers gathered outside a delivery station in the suburb of Eagan. They stood in the parking lot, bundled up in hats and puffy coats, holding a giant Awood banner. When an Amazon manager emerged to see what was going on, the drivers said that they were getting stiffed by Amazon’s subcontractors. The manager listened and promised to look into their concerns, then hustled back inside. Now it was certain: Awood was on Amazon’s radar. Abdirahman Muse Photograph: Jessica Chou William Stolz Photograph: Jessica Chou That fall, Stolz and a few other workers began bringing a petition to work with them at the Shakopee warehouse; it was addressed to Jeff Bezos, and it asked the CEO to restore direct bus service between Cedar-Riverside and Shakopee. As Hibaq Mohamed tells the story, she and Stolz happened to meet each other one day while they were warming up their food in the break room microwave. He told her about the petition (which she signed) and about Awood (which she hadn’t heard about), and eventually they agreed to meet up later with other workers at a local library not far from the warehouse. Mohamed, who worked in a different part of the warehouse from Stolz, was energized by the chance to air all the frustrations she’d been hearing about. She was quickly brought into the fold and started attending the meetings that Awood was holding once or twice a month at Bethany Lutheran. Amazon workers would file into the church’s doors, past signs advertising the parish’s soup kitchen and its LGBT-friendliness, to learn about their rights under US labor law and compare notes about problems in the warehouse. When Representative Ilhan Omar came to one meeting to hear about Amazon workers’ experiences, Mohamed and Stolz were among those who stood up to talk. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In general, the workers shared a deep sense of dread over the pace of Amazon’s hourly stowing, picking, and packing rates—which they saw as not only exhausting but unsafe. People were getting hurt in the course of meeting their quotas. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires companies to log any work-­related injuries or illnesses that involve loss of consciousness, work restrictions or reassignments, or treatment that exceeds basic first aid, along with a few other criteria. In 2017, according to OSHA documents obtained by WIRED, the warehouse in Shakopee reported an average of eight such events a week, mostly sprains, strains, and contusions. The month of July, which includes Prime Day, Amazon’s summer version of Black Friday, saw the most logged incidents. The other two months with the most such events were November and December—the peak holiday rush. (In 2018, the company says, it invested more than $55 million in safety improvements.) The workers who gathered at Awood were also constantly afraid of being fired or “written up” for falling behind on their quotas amid breaks for prayer. But above all, they came to focus on one fact that heightened all their other anxieties: Ramadan was coming around again, and they wanted to do something to avert how bad it had been the previous year. In early May, Amazon management announced that they’d heard some concerns about Ramadan, so they scheduled two open meetings where workers could discuss the holiday with them inside the warehouse. Small crowds showed up for the sessions, which took place inside a conference room with managers at the front. Workers rattled off a number of desires: lower productivity rates for the holiday, more breaks, some kind of respite from heat, time off for Eid al-Fitr, the festival that concludes the holy month. According to Stolz, the managers’ replies were noncommittal. (Amazon says the purpose of these meetings was just to hear from the workers.) Awood’s response, meanwhile, was tactical. That month the center had hired its first executive director, Abdirahman Muse, a 36-year-old Somali immigrant who had worked as a warehouse laborer, organizer, and policy aide to the mayor of Minneapolis; Muse says that his first goal, now that Awood had built up a base of support, was to “take the fight to Amazon publicly.” Amazon would not budge: Workers who stopped for prayer, the company made clear, were still expected to meet the same quotas, unless they wanted to dip into their unpaid time off. So workers in Shakopee promptly began to hand out leaflets calling for Muslim employees to show up for work on the first day of Ramadan—May 15—wearing shirts and hijabs that matched the color of the Somali flag. The show of force, called Blue Day, was meant to draw media attention to Amazon’s failure to accommodate Muslim workers for the holy month. Soon after those flyers went out, Awood says, warehouse management agreed to create dedicated prayer rooms and promised to lighten quotas for Ramadan. Blue Day was called off. Shortly thereafter, an Awood organizer spotted two Amazon managers at Karmel Mall, a Somali shopping center, negotiating with a merchant over the cost of 60 to 80 new prayer rugs. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On May 15, 2018, Amazon distributed its new prayer rugs and agreed to convert a conference room into a quiet prayer room, though it would be available only on Fridays. The company also says it began allowing workers to transfer to the night shift so they wouldn’t have to work during periods of fasting, approving leaves of absence for Ramadan—though workers say these were unpaid—and offering unlimited time off to workers who wished to celebrate Eid. (An Amazon spokeswoman says, “Our policies on religious accommodations were made as part of long-term plans, not as a direct result of Blue Day.”) The promise of a prayer room heartened the activists, and it helped that the warehouse was also now cooled by large fans. But then Ramadan began, and workers say the quota system didn’t change. When Amazon fired one Somali American who fell behind on her rate while fasting, the Awood Center posted an online petition that would receive more than 12,000 signatures. It read: “Before Ramadan, Amazon promised its Muslim employees that the company would ease off its usual grueling daily productivity requirements during the holy month. But just three days into Ramadan, [a Muslim worker] was fired by Amazon for—you guessed it—not meeting her productivity requirements.” The group demanded that the worker get her job back. (The worker could not be reached for comment. Amazon does not speak publicly about individual cases but said that productivity quotas are evaluated over a long period of time and that the company provides dedicated coaching to underperforming employees. Amazon did not comment on whether it ever committed to lighter quotas.) Awood upped the ante again, inviting reporters to a protest outside the Eagan delivery station on June 4. That day, a handful of Amazon employees stood chanting “Yes, we can!” in Somali (“ Haa waan awoodnaa! ”) and English. They presented managers with a list of demands, including lighter workloads during the Ramadan fast. Stories about the protest appeared on Minnesota Public Radio and in local news outlets, and the media blitz put Amazon on the defensive; the company responded by touting its workplace benefits and its plans to build a permanent prayer room for Muslim workers at the facility. But on some points, Amazon would not budge: Workers who prayed, the company made clear, were still expected to meet the same hourly quotas, unless they wanted to dip into their unpaid time off. The principle of speed, it seemed, was not up for negotiation. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Behind the scenes, Amazon agreed to meet with the workers who had organized under Awood. And on September 25, after much back and forth, about 12 workers, three Islamic community leaders, Muse, Nimo Omar, and four Amazon managers met in a rented conference room at a Minneapolis institution called the African Development Center. The walls were decorated with paintings of Somali pastoral scenes. The group of workers explained their concerns about hourly productivity quotas, the warehouse’s response to workplace injuries, and the lack of African managers, among other things. Amazon, which says it welcomes diversity at all levels, promised to look into the issues they had raised. One of the workers, Khadra Kassim, was delighted to notice that the managers seemed nervous. At a second meeting, on October 28—for which Amazon flew in a Libyan American manager from Texas—the company presented the group with some responses to their concerns. The workers then broke away to discuss whether they were satisfied with Amazon’s presentation. They weren’t. So they gave Amazon until November 15 to give them a better answer. Amazon’s second response felt like more of the same. On November 20, The New York Times published a story about Awood’s meetings with Amazon under the headline “Somali Workers in Minnesota Force Amazon to Negotiate.” The story underscored how rare the Minneapolis workers’ successes seemed to be: “Labor organizers and researchers said they were not aware of Amazon coming to the table previously in the United States amid pressure from workers.” Amazon’s response to the story, meanwhile, showed how ambiguous labor organizing without a union can be. In comments to the press, the company has repeatedly classified its meetings with Awood as mere community engagement, analogous to its outreach with veterans groups and LGBT advocates: “We were never ‘coming to the table’ in the sense that’s described,” says an Amazon spokeswoman. The purpose of the meetings with Awood, she says, was to “deepen our understanding of the East African community and deepen their understanding of Amazon.” Nonetheless, for Awood, it was a moment of triumph. The scrappy Somali workers had created a classic David versus Goliath tale, and as soon as the Times posted its story, calls of support started rolling in from around the country. Seizing the momentum, Awood announced on Facebook that it was planning its biggest event ever: a protest at the Shakopee warehouse on December 14. Everyone was invited. With the Awood Center suddenly commanding national attention, Amazon projected a measure of seemingly strategic benevolence during the week before the protest. The company held a job fair in the heart of Cedar-­Riverside on December 10, advertising it with a video in English and Somali. On December 13, Bezos pledged $2.5 million to Simpson Housing Services, a Minneapolis nonprofit that serves the homeless. Awood organizers decided to escalate their plan further: They would stage a walkout in the thick of the preholiday rush. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On December 14, as Stolz watched the minutes tick down to 4 pm, Awood members, supporters, and reporters gathered on the far side of MSP1’s parking lot, hugging themselves against the cold. It was a moment of euphoria. But in the days and weeks after the protest, some workers would come to feel less secure than they had before. Khadra Kassim, an Amazon worker. Photograph: Jessica Chou Amazon has fended off unions ever since it was young. In 2000, when the company was still largely a bookstore, the Communications Workers of America tried to organize the company’s customer-service employees. Amazon ultimately closed the call center that had been the focal point of the organizing drive, calling the move a reorganization that “had absolutely nothing to do” with the unionization effort. In 2013 and 2014 the company repelled an organizing push in Delaware, reportedly with the help of an anti-union law firm. And in September 2018, when whispers of a union drive began passing through the workforce at Whole Foods, Amazon sent out a roughly 45-minute training video to the grocery chain’s managers about how to snuff out organizing campaigns while steering clear of US labor law violations. The video, which later leaked to the press, crystallizes the company’s attitude toward organized labor, which Amazon regards as incompatible with its core principles of speed, innovation, and customer obsession. “We are not anti-union, but we are not neutral either,” the video’s narrator says. “We will boldly defend our direct relationship with associates.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In one sense, Awood doesn’t threaten that direct relationship the way a union would. Omar and Muse take pains to clarify that Awood does not represent workers as a bargaining agent, it only helps them organize themselves—which perhaps also helps explain why Amazon doesn’t classify its meetings at the African Development Center as “coming to the table.” But that hardly means that coordination between even small groups of workers is exactly welcome. Amazon prefers to deal with workers not only directly, but as individuals—to resolve issues one on one. And as the leaked training video makes clear, the company trains managers to keep tabs on “warning signs” of workers organizing in numbers. In animations vaguely reminiscent of South Park , the video instructs managers to stay alert for workers who suddenly start to linger in break rooms after their shifts are over, or clumps of workers who scatter when managers approach, or the use of terms like “living wage” or “grievance.” The video tells supervisors what they must not do, according to labor law—threaten workers, interrogate them, spy on them, or promise rewards if they reject a union—but then coaches managers through lawful ways of achieving many of the same ends. (“To avoid your comments being an unlawful threat,” the video says, “avoid absolutes. Speak in possibilities instead.”) In general, says Janice Fine, a professor of labor studies at Rutgers University, the workplace at Amazon “is one that makes it really clear to workers that they’d better not engage in any kind of collective action.” Within days of the rally in Shakopee, several workers say they began to feel distinctly uncomfortable in the warehouse. One Somali night-shift worker, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, says that as she approached one of her supervisors, she realized he was reading news about the walkout on a warehouse computer. She says he zoomed in on a photo of her face and then told her that he was very interested to see who was at the protest. She felt shaken; his look suggested that it wasn’t idle interest. Then, in May, three East African workers filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying that, almost immediately after their participation in the December 14 protest, they “began experiencing a campaign of retaliatory harassment from Amazon management.” Amazon, for its part, says it has a zero-tolerance policy toward harassment and retaliation. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Meanwhile, some workers in Shakopee noticed that, for the first time, the warehouse appeared to be hiring only temporary workers. So on March 8, 2019, nearly 30 stowers at Shakopee—about a third of the department working that shift, by Stolz’s estimate—walked off the job around midnight. (Amazon puts the number at less than 15.) Together with Stolz and Nimo Omar, most of them decamped to a Perkins restaurant. Three hours later, they returned with a list of demands, handwritten on a sheet of notebook paper. They included “stop temp hiring” and “end unfair firings.” (At one point during the night, Omar and one of the men who had walked off the job recognized each other. He was one of the workers who had initially been rude and dismissive to her back when she was hanging around shuttle stops in the wee hours of the morning, asking about what it was like to work at MSP1.) Amazon is a nearly $1 trillion company with almost unlimited resources for legal fights, public relations campaigns, and strategic planning. But in the church where Awood and warehouse workers met to strategize, there was no falling back. They decided to plan a new strike, this one to be held on Prime Day itself. European Amazon workers had been doing it for years, but as with a number of things Awood was doing, it had never happened before in the US. An inspirational display at MSP1. Photograph: Jenn Ackerman On July 15, 2019, MSP1 was decked out as if for a pep rally, with Prime Day banners and mylar balloons and free commemorative T-shirts for everyone. Amazon had decided to expand its annual consumer bonanza into a two-day affair, featuring a brand-new service: free one-day shipping for Prime members. Analysts predicted the event would drive a record-breaking $5.8 billion in global sales. For the company, the stakes were high. Mandatory overtime was in effect. In the early morning, managers stood outside the lobby, high-fiving workers as they arrived for 11-hour shifts. A week earlier, the Awood Center had announced its plans for the strike. Since then, it had drawn widespread attention. A group of white-collar Amazon tech workers was flying in from Seattle to attend the protest and lend their support. In Germany, where a Prime Day strike was also planned, a participant composed an ode called “Flowers of Dignity” for his Minneapolis comrades. That morning, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren had tweeted: “I fully support Amazon workers’ Prime Day strike. Their fight for safe and reliable jobs is another reminder that we must come together to hold big corporations accountable.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The strike was due to start at 2 pm. By 1:30, about 50 people—including off-duty Amazon workers and local labor activists— were marching in a circle with picket signs in the warehouse’s truck lane. Ashley Robinson, a senior Amazon public relations manager, had flown in from Seattle and was greeting reporters at the warehouse. Outside, as the temperature hit 91, the air was thick with humidity. Torrential storms were predicted for later that day. “The weather might work in our favor,” she said. Meanwhile, Omar was stationed outside the lobby, waiting for people to walk out. “My job is to corral workers and make a march,” Omar said. As had happened back in December, the rally was taking place on the far side of the massive parking lot. On the hot summer day—under the scrutiny of managers—the expanse seemed like an impassable desert, and the idea was to give workers a feeling of strength in numbers. 1 / 4 Inside the warehouse, however, things weren’t going as planned. Stolz, who’d arrived around 5:30 that morning to hand out strike flyers in the parking lot, was trying to rally the day shift. He made the rounds of the break rooms, where he saw managers handing out snacks and chatting up employees. People were getting nervous. Some told Stolz they didn’t want to lose their unpaid time off. Others balked when they neared the lobby, where Shakopee Police officers and Amazon’s in-house security team had gathered. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Only a few people trickled out to strike, and Omar gave up on the idea of leading workers away from the warehouse in a parade. According to Awood, about 35 ­people took part in the walkout; Amazon would later say, yet again, that only 15 employees participated and it didn’t see the event as a strike, either. Inside the warehouse, reporters were handed the following press statement: “An outside organization used Prime Day to raise its own visibility, conjured misinformation and a few associate voices to work in their favor, and relied on political rhetoric to fuel media attention,” it read. “The fact is that Amazon provides a safe, quality work environment in which associates are the heart and soul of the customer experience, and today’s event shows that our associates know that to be true.” By 4 pm, a stage had been set up across the parking lot. Despite the heat and the poor showing of strikers, the protest took on a festive mood. More than 200 people had gathered. There were trays full of beef sambusas, large thermoses of chai tea, and a performance by a Somali dance troupe; at one point, Hibaq Mohamed jumped into formation with them. Finally an emcee—an Amazon worker named Sahro Sharif—took the stage. “There were a lot of people who were afraid to come out and stand out here today because of the management that’s going on inside,” Sharif declared. “For the ­people that actually came out tonight, I want to say thank you and welcome, and let’s make it great!” “Tech workers are in this situation where they’re trying to figure out: Where is their leverage? Where is their ground to stand on? How do you negotiate with an algorithm?” When the speeches were done, Omar and a small group of activists walked back to the warehouse to see if more strikers would emerge. The shifts were changing, and an employee leaving the warehouse looked at the activists disdainfully. “There’s plenty of jobs for you!” he hollered. “There’s Target! There’s UPS! There’s Walmart!” The air smelled sharply of ozone, and forecasters were now issuing a tornado warning. Omar and her group posed for a selfie in front of the warehouse, and then the sky opened up. Drenched, they hustled back across the parking lot to help break down tables and shade tents. Today, there is no end in sight to the jousting match between Amazon and Awood. Immediately after the Prime Day strike, 13 members of Congress—led by Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Bernie Sanders—led a call to investigate Amazon for workplace abuse. Less than a month later, 50 to 80 workers staged a walkout at the Eagan delivery facility, wearing yellow reflective vests and singing “Aan Isweheshano Walaalayaal,” the same anthem Representative Omar had sung the year before. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg When labor experts characterize what Awood has accomplished overall, they tend to focus not on any specific concessions the group has extracted thus far (which Amazon denies are concessions anyway) but instead on the national attention the group has attracted—and its implications for other workers in warehouses and in tech. Awood bears a certain resemblance not only to worker centers that focus on low-wage industries, but to recent efforts by Google employees and other tech workers to organize themselves and learn labor law without the structure of a union. “Tech workers are in this situation where they’re trying to figure out: Where is their leverage? Where is their ground to stand on? How do you negotiate with an algorithm?” says Fine, the labor scholar at Rutgers. Awood has become one of the prime examples to learn from. Amazon, in other words, is not the only one watching a few Somalis very closely. Jessica Bruder (@jessbruder) is a New America fellow and the author of Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. This article appears in the December issue. Subscribe now. Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. When you buy something using the retail links in our stories, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Read more about how this works. The super-optimized dirt that helps keep racehorses safe What's blockchain actually good for, anyway? For now, not much How to free up space in Gmail Trying to plant a trillion trees won't solve anything The untold story of Olympic Destroyer, the most deceptive hack in history 👁 Prepare for the deepfake era of video ; plus, check out the latest news on AI 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones. Topics magazine-27.12 longreads Amazon immigration unions workers Amit Katwala David Gilbert Kari McMahon David Gilbert Andy Greenberg Khari Johnson Amit Katwala Joel Khalili Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. 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"How to Get Your 4 Free At-Home Covid-19 Tests (2023) | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-get-free-covid-19-tests"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Medea Giordano Gear How to Order Your Free At-Home Covid-19 Tests Photograph: Jay L. Clendenin/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Another Covid-19 variant is spreading, but there's an updated vaccine and four more free tests are available for every household in the US—including US territories and military addresses—starting September 25. While you don't need to panic , it's good to have tests on hand so you can find out if you have Covid. That way, you can prevent the spread of the virus to others. If you need a test right now, we have a guide to finding the best at-home tests and have outlined the process of ordering and taking tests below. Also, see our guides to the best N95 masks and other reusable masks we like. You can follow our Covid-19 coverage here. Updated September 2023: We added information on how to get free tests and how to check if your old tests have expired. Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com , full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. How to Order Tests How to Check If Old Tests Are Still Good If You Need a Test ASAP Common Problems When Using the Site Vaccinations and Boosters Head directly to the US Postal Service’s Covid-19 page. If you go through Covid.gov , on the front page you should see “Order Free At-Home Tests” in a blue bubble. Clicking that redirects you to the right USPS page. There, you'll fill out your name and address. Include your email address so you can get shipping notifications. Once you've filled in your address, click the green Check Out Now button to the right. It's completely free, including shipping. Only one person per household should place a request. If there is someone in your life who doesn't have access to the internet, the easiest thing to do is to fill out this form for them. They can try to call the Covid.gov helpline at 1-877-696-6775, though they will likely be on hold for a while. Don't call USPS, as no one you speak to will be able to place orders on your behalf. The first round of tests took several weeks to arrive, but the second and third rounds arrived within a few days. There's no guarantee as to what brand you'll be getting, and you can't choose, but the site says these are Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–authorized at-home rapid antigen tests. You'll likely receive the iHealth tests we recommend. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So You should take a test as soon as you start to notice symptoms or within five days of exposure, according to the Centers for Disease Control. If you're asymptomatic and your first test is negative, take another test based on the manufacturer's instructions. This is usually within two to three days of the first test—most tests come with two tests per box for this reason. If your test is positive, take another test to verify it and quarantine for five days. You might already have a few tests on hand from past government shipments or that you've bought separately. They're likely fine to use. Check the FDA's list of authorized at-home tests. If the expiration date was extended, that means the manufacturer provided data to the FDA showing that the shelf-life is longer than it thought when it was first authorized. If you need a test ASAP, please check our guide on Rapid At-Home Covid-19 Tests and Where to Find Them. It also has more information about accuracy. Rapid tests usually show results in about 15 minutes, and they're about 85 percent accurate. The Tests We Recommend (see our guide for more retailers). Abbott BinaxNow Antigen Rapid Self-Test Kit for $24 FlowFlex Covid-19 Antigen Rapid Test for $10 QuickVue At-Home OTC Covid-19 Test Kit for $24 Intrivo Diagnostics On/Go Antigen Self-Test for $20 iHealth Covid-19 Antigen Rapid Test for $18 InteliSwab Rapid Antigen Home Test Kit for $18 Even though the government had two years to figure out this plan, it was not without bugs at launch. Hopefully, you'll be able to complete your request in minutes. But here are a few common problems we've seen. During the first round, many apartment dwellers found themselves unable to request tests because their multi-unit building was classified as a single residence. If anyone in the entire buildin g placed an order for tests, the system thought they were requesting more than the allotted number per household. This should be resolved, and we didn't run into this problem the last time we ordered tests in December, but if you find this happening again, file a service request here. You may be able to resolve the issue by making sure your address is entered accurately using the USPS’ zip code search. You can also try entering your apartment's unit number in the same box as your address instead of the Apt / Suite / Other box. The same issue happened for those who reside in a live-work building, which is common in the San Francisco Bay Area. The system sees these addresses as businesses and won't ship tests to the location. You'll need to file a service request. If you've used all your tests or you just have a bigger family, you're out of luck when it comes to a free at-home kit. You can purchase more if you need them. Health insurance providers were reimbursing the cost of tests, but as of May 2023, that is no longer guaranteed. Private insurance companies can choose to reimburse customers or not, so it's worth asking and saving receipts. If you're on Medicaid, you'll be able to receive free tests until September 30, 2024. These tests are sent to valid residential addresses and residential PO boxes only. One of the FAQs asks if tests can be picked up at another location or held at the USPS, and the answer is, unfortunately, no. If you're homeless, reach out to your local health social service agency to find a free test. Being vaccinated won't stop you from getting Covid-19, but it could alleviate the worst and most dangerous symptoms. We recommend getting vaccinated if you haven't already, and if you have, get a booster shot. Vaccines.gov should help you find somewhere near you with vaccines available—a search of my zip code showed 50 places within six miles. You Might Also Like … 📨 Make the most of chatbots with our AI Unlocked newsletter Taylor Swift, Star Wars, Stranger Things , and Deadpool have one man in common Generative AI is playing a surprising role in Israel-Hamas disinformation The new era of social media looks as bad for privacy as the last one Johnny Cash’s Taylor Swift cover predicts the boring future of AI music Your internet browser does not belong to you 🔌 Charge right into summer with the best travel adapters , power banks , and USB hubs Writer and Reviewer X Topics COVID-19 public health CDC coronavirus Shopping how-to Simon Hill Jaina Grey Julian Chokkattu Adrienne So Adrienne So Simon Hill Brenda Stolyar Reece Rogers WIRED COUPONS TurboTax Service Code TurboTax coupon: Up to an extra $15 off all tax services h&r block coupon H&R Block tax software: Save 20% - no coupon needed Instacart promo code Instacart promo code: $25 Off your 1st order + free delivery Doordash Promo Code 50% Off DoorDash Promo Code + Free Delivery Finish Line Coupon Take $10 off Your Order - Finish Line Coupon Code Groupon Promo Code Groupon promo code: Extra 30% off any amount Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"How to Set Up a PS5: Pro Tips, Settings to Change, and More | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-set-up-playstation-5"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Eric Ravenscraft Gear Snagged a PS5? Here Are Tips for Setting It Up Photograph: Sony Save this story Save Save this story Save The PlayStation 5 is still one of the hardest gadgets to get your hands on , even a year after its release. If you somehow snagged one anyway—well, you may want to try your luck on the lottery next. After that, you're going to need to do the usual song and dance to get your console set up—which can take a few hours. Here's what you need to do, and how to do it a little bit easier. Also, now that you have your PS5, read up on how to increase your storage space by installing an internal M.2 SSD or customize your PS5's home screen to save you time. You can also check out our guide to the best accessories for your PS5. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED. com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. The first time you set up your PS5, you'll need to connect your controller directly to the console using a USB cable and press the PlayStation button. Once the two devices are connected, you can disconnect the USB cable and continue the setup process wirelessly. The onscreen wizard will walk you through most of the next steps, including getting online. It can be a little tedious typing out your Wi-Fi password with the controller, but once that's done you'll be asked to handle basic settings, like HDR calibrations, your time zone, and power saver options. If you have the disc version of the PS5, you'll also have a chance to insert a game disk to install while the setup process continues. Since downloading games on the first day can take forever, it's not a bad idea to get one or two of your favorite games on disc ahead of time. If you do, this is a good opportunity to expedite the installation process a bit. Next, while you're downloading a system update—because of course there's always one of those, right?—you'll get a prompt to download the PlayStation mobile app. You can use this to create a PSN account if you don't already have one. Even if you do, downloading the app will save you a little bit of time in just a few minutes when, instead of typing out your account details with your controller, you can scan a QR code in the app to sign in to your account. There's a good chance you won't be the only person using your PS5, so making sure players don't get their games' save data mixed up is important. Fortunately, you can create multiple profiles and even tie them to separate PSN accounts, which you'll need to do if you want to save any game data. Guests can create a temporary profile to play with, but data will be deleted when they're done. To add another user, press the PS button on your controller and select the profile picture of the current user along the bottom of the screen, then choose “Switch User.” (You can also find this screen when you turn your console on.) Choose the plus icon to add a new user. You'll then be asked to sign in to a PSN account, either by typing in your credentials manually or by scanning a QR code through the app. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So By default, you'll also be able to share any games or media you've bought with other users who are signed in on the console. Unfortunately, game saves don't automatically sync to the cloud on PlayStation consoles, so if you want to bring over your data from your PS4, you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. You can start by connecting both consoles to the same Wi-Fi network or, even better, running an ethernet cable between the two. You may have been prompted to transfer data when you first set up your console, but if not, you can head to Settings > System > System Software > Data Transfer on your PS5 to get started. Once you see Prepare for Data Transfer , press and hold the power button on your PS4 for one second until you hear a beep. Back on your PS5, you'll now be able to choose what data you want to transfer. One of the coolest new features of the PS5 is 3D audio. The entirely software-based Tempest audio system lets developers design soundscapes in a 3D space, making characters or environments sound different depending on where they are relative to the player. Best of all, the system doesn't require you to have any special hardware to pull off. Simple stereo headsets or speakers will do. (Check out our guide to the best gaming headsets for every system to find one that works great with your PS5.) The 3D audio feature might not be enabled by default, though. If it's not, head into Settings > Sound > Audio Output and choose your audio device. There, you'll find an option to Enable 3D Audio for your headset or speakers. Games still have to support the feature—but several of the big ones, like Death Stranding: Director's Cut and Demon's Souls do, so check those out. The newest consoles can support some pretty high-powered gaming, including outputting 4K, HDR, and up to 120 fps all at once—assuming your TV supports all these features, that is. If your console doesn't automatically detect these features and enable them by default, you can head to Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output to turn them on. However, you might not always want to—4K and 120fps gaming each add heavy processing loads to your console, and if you throw in other next-generation features like ray tracing, the problem can get worse. Depending on the game and your priorities, you might prefer more accurate lighting over 120 fps, or vice versa. Some games let you choose which features to enable within the games themselves, but if you'd rather set it at the system level, you can do it here. On the Games tab of your home screen, you'll find the Game Library. This is where you can start downloading all of your games. You'll also find tabs for any games you've claimed from PlayStation Plus—or PlayStation Now if you subscribe to that service as well. Between these tabs, you'll probably have plenty of games to download. That's great in the long run, but on Day One of your new console, it can mean agonizing hours of downloads—and that's after you've already waited for system updates to install. If you're giving the console to someone, it's usually a good idea to open the box and start loading up on games a day or two before, if you can. 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is ready to blow your mind Need to test a space suit ? 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All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"What’s in Wildfire Smoke, and How Dangerous Is It? | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/whats-in-wildfire-smoke-and-how-dangerous-is-it"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Matt Simon Science What’s in Wildfire Smoke, and How Dangerous Is It? Photograph: Robyn Beck/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save The West Coast’s wildfire crisis is no longer just the West Coast’s wildfire crisis: As massive blazes continue to burn across California, Oregon, and Washington, they’re spewing smoke high into the atmosphere. Winds pick the haze up and transport it clear across the country , tainting the skies above the East Coast. But what are you breathing, exactly, when these forests combust and waft smoke near and far? Charred trees and shrubs, of course, but also the synthetic materials from homes and other structures lost in the blazes. Along with a variety of gases, these give off tiny particles, known as PM 2.5 (particulate matter 2.5 microns or smaller), that weasel their way deep into human lungs. All told, the mixture of solids and gases actually transforms chemically as it crosses the country, creating different consequences for the health of humans thousands of miles apart. In other words, what you breathe in, and how hazardous it remains, may depend on how far you live from the Pacific coast. When vegetation catches on fire, it releases a whole lot of carbon in many forms. The sooty stuff you can see is known as black carbon. The major components you can’t see are carbon monoxide—obviously very toxic—and carbon dioxide. When trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they sequester it in their tissues and release oxygen. When those trees catch on fire, that CO 2 goes right back into the atmosphere. Scientists have been sampling wildfire smoke in the atmosphere with a special plane loaded with a bevy of instruments connected to little tubes that stick out of the aircraft. “Basically, it's my laboratory,” says Rebecca Hornbrook, an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. These instruments measure conditions like humidity and temperature, along with particulate matter and carbon dioxide, benzene, and formaldehyde—the last two are quite toxic. “By combining all that data together, we're able to get a really full picture of what's going on chemically inside the plume, both in the gas phase and in the particle phase,” she says. Hornbrook has been exploring how the chemical components of wildfire smoke change the longer they remain in the atmosphere. Benzene, a highly flammable compound that easily evaporates into the air , can stick around for two weeks. Formaldehyde lasts only a day or two. Other components may last only a few hours, so Hornbrook can actually watch their levels decrease as she flies through a smoke plume. The smoke’s trip across the country takes four or five days, but it will then linger in the atmosphere on both coasts—and the most persistent components will survive the journey from coast to coast. “Some of those harmful chemicals remain in the smoke, remain in the atmosphere, far, far downwind from where they're emitted,” Hornbrook says. “Clearly the most toxic environment is very close to the fires where the concentrations are at levels that can be harmful.” By Katie M. Palmer and Matt Simon As the smoke plume travels through the atmosphere, “the heavier particles are going to start to fall out as time moves on,” says Rebecca Buchholz, an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “But then those sticky, partially burnt carbon gases are going to start to coagulate and become more particles again. So you're losing particles out of the smoke, but you're also gaining particles as the air processes through time.” Another atmospheric nasty we’re all too familiar with forms as well: ozone, which inflames your airways. “Ozone requires carbon-containing gases, nitrogen-containing gases, and sunlight,” says Buchholz. “And so the more processing time you have, the more ozone is going to get created in that smoke plume.” By the time it reaches the East Coast, a California smoke plume will have changed in a number of ways: Because it’s spent so much time aloft, the bigger particles have fallen out, but new particles will have formed. And because the cloud has spawned ozone, “it can be extremely impactful if you already have some health condition, let's say asthma,” says Tarik Benmarhnia, a climate change epidemiologist at the UC San Diego’s Scripps institution of Oceanography and School of Medicine. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The solid stuff in wildfire smoke may also contain nasties. “Some particulate matter has more heavy metals than others,” says Mary Prunicki, director of air pollution and health research at Stanford University’s Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy Research. “Lead for example, or cadmium. There's also other types of cancer-causing toxins. There's things like PAHs—polyaromatic hydrocarbons,” which are found in fossil fuels. Keep in mind that when a wildfire tears through a residential neighborhood, it’s burning through the synthetic materials that make up homes, cars, and everything else in the built environment. “I think a lot of times we don't know, when we're talking about residential areas burning, how much more toxic it is to human health,” Prunicki adds. With this handy map , you can actually see a forecast of where the smoke will end up. On the left side of the map, click “Vertically Integrated Smoke” to see what’s loading the East Coast atmosphere right now. (Red indicates high levels, blue means low.) The “Surface Smoke” option shows what you’d actually be breathing. As you can see, the latter is snaking a plume of bad air quality all the way to the Midwest, though at the moment not much of it is reaching the ground along the Eastern Seaboard. Which is not to say that it won’t —the weather could change and push the stuff down to ground level, at which point air quality will suffer. Meanwhile, the West Coast has its own ozone problems because smoke has been recirculating through the region. “It's staying in the same place, and you're getting the same pollution from yesterday,” says Buchholz. The more time that goes by, “the more this ozone can be produced with sunlight.” It’s not helping matters that the West Coast has been suffering extreme heat as these fires have burned—indeed, this and other consequences of climate change are supercharging blazes, because hotter temperatures and drier brush are making wildfires burn more intensely. That heat leads to the formation of yet more ozone at ground level. Hot air rises, so the fiercer the wildfire, the higher it propels smoke into the atmosphere to be carried across the US. Wherever the smoke lands, we know it won't be good for human health. “There's a lot of literature in air pollution research showing associations with PM 2.5 and different types of diseases, in addition to shortened life expectancy, throughout the world,” Prunicki says. Her own research confirms that wildfire smoke specifically leads to inflammation in the lungs. She and her colleagues studied teenagers in Fresno, California, which suffers from bad air quality in general, but also endures blasts of wildfire smoke from forested areas to the east. “We looked at a group that was exposed to a wildfire versus not, and there was an increase in some of the systemic inflammatory biomarkers,” Prunicki says. “So we know that the smoke itself will cause systemic inflammation.” This is unhealthy for anyone, much more so for people with asthma or other respiratory issues. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Prunicki has also found that wildfire smoke causes an immune gene to be turned down, specifically one that produces what are known as T regulatory cells. “And T regulatory cells are needed to kind of have a healthy immune system,” Prunicki says. “It's a good type of immune cell, not an inflammatory type of immune cell.” How all of this might interplay with Covid-19, a disease that in part attacks the lungs, is a bit tricky. For weeks, West Coasters have been heeding warnings to stay inside and keep their windows shut. If people aren’t going out, they’re cutting their exposure to the virus—but if they are going out, smoke inhalation might exacerbate their symptoms if they do catch it. “I don't think we'll see a huge increase in new infections from Covid,” says Benmarhnia, of UC San Diego. “Maybe the opposite, because people may stay more at home.” “But then,” Benmarhnia adds, “even if we assume a stable incidence of new cases of Covid-19, we expect more severe symptoms, because of this kind of alteration of the immune system from PM 2.5 exposure.” Benmarhnia and his colleagues will be watching over the next few weeks to see if there’s a spike in severe cases as wildfire smoke continues to hover over the West Coast. And Covid-19 won’t be the only bug that exploits smoke's effect on the immune system—we’re coming up on flu season. So that’s a triple whammy: out-of-control forest fires, the Covid pandemic, and influenza. “All of those things on their own can take a big hit to the immune system,” says Prunicki. “But compiled, I honestly don't think we've experienced anything like that before.” 📩 Want the latest on tech, science, and more? Sign up for our newsletters ! “Dr. Phosphine” and the possibility of life on Venus Meet this year’s WIRED25: People who are making things better How we’ll know the election wasn’t rigged Dungeons & Dragons TikTok is Gen Z at its most wholesome You have a million tabs open. Here’s how to manage them 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Staff Writer X Topics wildfires fire pollution public health COVID-19 diseases carbon dioxide carbon climate environment smoke Jim Robbins Matt Simon Matt Simon Rob Reddick Matt Simon Charlie Wood Sushmita Pathak Tammy Rabideau Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Covid's Summer Wave Is Rising—Again | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/covids-summer-wave-is-rising-again"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Amanda Hoover Science Covid’s Summer Wave Is Rising—Again Photograph: Tom Williams/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save It’s the summer tradition no one wants to partake in: Covid-19 cases are on the rise again. Hospitalizations from the virus ticked up in mid-July, increasing by 12 percent to just over 8,000 across the US for the week ending July 22. That’s nowhere near the pandemic peaks that overwhelmed health workers, but July brought the first weekly increases in hospitalizations since the US ended the federal Covid-19 public health emergency in May, just a week after the World Health Organization did the same with its global public health emergency. The end of Covid-19 emergency status meant the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking the virus as closely. But metrics show infections are still spreading. The pharmacy chain Walgreens reported a 42 percent positivity rate for tests during the last week of July, up from 29 percent in late June. And wastewater samples show concentrations of the virus moving upward across the country. Cases of Covid have also increased in Japan and the United Kingdom. SARS-CoV-2 has spiked every summer since 2020. “There’s no reason that we wouldn’t see [a wave] this summer,” says Katelyn Jetelina, who writes the online health newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist. “We’re slowly but surely starting to see one summer wave and one winter wave.” But experts have a hazier view of the building wave than in prior years. In the US, publication of hospitalization data comes a week behind the dates it captures. The CDC no longer tracks community levels of transmission. When the WHO emergency declaration was in effect, we saw more cross-government communication, but that’s less available now. “Our magnifying glass is a bit smudged compared to where we were a year ago,” says Josh Michaud, an associate director for global health policy at KFF, a nonprofit research group. “Many of the data points and indicators that we relied on in the past are no longer available to us.” But there are still signs to watch. Wastewater testing, which can find traces of the virus expelled in feces, has shown a “sustained” increase in Covid-19 concentrations over several weeks, says Mariana Matus, CEO and cofounder of Biobot Analytics, a company that tracks Covid-19, Mpox , and opioids in US wastewater. The data from Biobot Analytics draws from about 600 wastewater data collection points and is valuable, Matus says, because it doesn’t exclude people who can’t afford testing or don’t report the results of at-home tests—and it can show the presence of Covid-19 in a community before large numbers of people get test results or are hospitalized. But ensuring a bigger picture will require additional steps, such as expanding wastewater sampling. The decision to test wastewater largely relies on individual communities opting do their own testing. Matus imagines a more robust system that could help people make decisions based on pathogen concentrations in different regions, analogous to the Air Quality Index—data that could be easily displayed on something equivalent to a weather app. “We’re very excited about a vision and a future where people interact with wastewater data similar to how they interact with weather data, where it’s that pervasive in our society,” Matus says. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg At this point, it’s too early to say there’s a massive wave of infections building—but the hospitalization data is enough to pique the attention of epidemiologists and public health experts. Although case and hospitalization numbers are still relatively low, the virus does kill hundreds of people in the US each week. And as of early 2023, it had left an estimated one in 10 survivors fighting long Covid , which can include persistent health issues like breathlessness and brain fog. There could be a few reasons for the current uptick in cases, waning immunity among them. Just around 17 percent of the US population has received bivalent vaccines , which became widely available in the fall of 2022 and are meant to offer better protection against Omicron variants. With lower case numbers over the past few months and many people not receiving a booster shot in 2023, immunity from vaccinations and prior infections could be decreasing, making more people susceptible to the virus, says Sam Scarpino, director of AI and life sciences at the Institute for Experiential AI at Northeastern University. Experts guessed that Covid-19 would become seasonal, peaking in the fall and winter like the flu and the common cold , but other factors have kept the virus around in warmer months. “It’s true that you have cyclical patterns for most of these respiratory diseases,” Scarpino says. “I don’t think it’s really well understood what drives those.” There could be some particular factors at play this year. Much of the US is enduring a suffocating summer. Wildfire smoke from Canada has engulfed the East Coast and Midwest, and exposure to the particulate pollution that comes with the smoke may weaken the immune system. Those were the findings of a 2021 study : In 2020, parts of California, Oregon, and Washington that experienced wildfire smoke saw excess Covid-19 cases and deaths. Meanwhile, dangerously high temperatures are keeping people indoors in the southern part of the US, and as a respiratory virus, SARS-CoV-2 spreads most easily indoors. People also traveled at record rates during the summer’s early months, which meant more opportunities for Covid to spread. But it’s not yet clear whether one, all, or none of these factors may be driving infections. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Genomic sequencing from the CDC shows that, as of June, offshoots of the Omicron variant are responsible for all of Covid-19 cases in the US. “On one hand, this is a good sign,” says Jetelina. “We can hopefully predict where SARS-CoV-2 is going.” That’s helpful for formulating updated coronavirus vaccinations. But it’s not certain that the virus’s evolution will continue down this Omicron path. In May, experts estimated the possibility of a highly mutated variant of concern arising during the next two years at about 20 percent. In June, the US Food and Drug Administration recommended the development of an updated Covid-19 shot, preferring a formula that would target the XBB.1.5 Omicron variant. The FDA may authorize such a shot by the end of the month. But it’s hard to know whether people will be eager to get a fifth or sixth vaccine—pandemic fatigue, distrust of public health officials, and an overall return to normal life left many unenthused about last year’s booster and contributed to the low uptake rates. And while the US government previously bought doses directly and helped distribute them for free, the distribution of vaccines is now expected to move to the private sector. Officials are unlikely to roll out wide-ranging restrictions on masking and social distancing—and barring a threatening new subvariant or a massive peak in cases, people are unlikely to change their behaviors after living alongside the virus for more than three years. It’s too soon to know whether the latest Covid-19 cases are a blip or a big wave. But as the dog days of summer linger, Covid is hanging around too. You Might Also Like … 📩 Get the long view on tech with Steven Levy's Plaintext newsletter Watch this guy work, and you’ll finally understand the TikTok era How Telegram became a terrifying weapon in the Israel-Hamas War Inside Elon Musk’s first election crisis —a day after he “freed” the bird The ultra-efficient farm of the future is in the sky The best pickleball paddles for beginners and pros 🌲 Our Gear team has branched out with a new guide to the best sleeping pads and fresh picks for the best coolers and binoculars Staff Writer X Topics COVID-19 coronavirus diseases epidemiology health public health CDC vaccines Maryn McKenna Maryn McKenna Emily Mullin Maryn McKenna Emily Mullin Grace Browne Emily Mullin Matt Simon Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Scientists Put Masks to the Test—With a Cell Phone and a Laser | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/scientists-put-masks-to-the-test-with-an-iphone-and-a-laser"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Megan Molteni Science Scientists Put Masks to the Test—With a Cell Phone and a Laser Photograph: Matthew Roharik/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Eric Westman needed a laser. And someone who knew how to use it. It was April, and the pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was still burning through New York City. Five hundred miles away, in Durham, North Carolina, Westman had been hard at work for weeks, raising money to pay out-of-work costume designers and sewing hobbyists who’d organized online to make hundreds of cloth masks out of hard-to-find fabric and elastics donated by a local ballet company. A physician and obesity researcher at Duke University, Westman had teamed up with other doctors and community organizers to distribute the masks for free to nursing homes, jails, homeless encampments, and to other places with vulnerable populations in the Research Triangle. They focused on reaching people who couldn’t easily socially distance , like farm workers , bus drivers, and grocery store employees, especially in Black and Latinx neighborhoods, which were expected to be hit the hardest. By Eve Sneider Their work had caught the eye of local government officials, who backed their efforts by giving them funds to buy off-the-shelf cloth masks. Before Westman’s team made any bulk purchases, though, they wanted to test each mask’s claims of virus-impeding powers. A common rule of thumb is the so-called sunshine test—if light gets through the cloth, the weave isn’t tight enough to stop infectious particles. But that didn’t seem scientific enough. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health had recently shown they could use lasers to visualize the stream of droplets people produce while speaking, whether or not they are wearing a face mask. Westman wondered if anyone at Duke could do something similar. “We were about to spend tens of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money on these masks,” he says. “We wanted a more systematic way of evaluating them than just holding them up to the sun.” As cloth masks have become a must-wear accessory in Covid-era America, there remains scant information about how well various designs and materials stop the spread of viral particles. Researchers in high-tech aerosol labs are actively working on this question. But without established standards for fiber-count and filtration performance, people are still mostly winging it when it comes to figuring out which mask is right for them. That could soon change. Westman’s quest for answers led to the publication last week of the first blueprint for a low-cost testing device which promises to aid efforts to make masks that work, and to weed out ones that don’t. In May, Westman started calling and emailing his contacts at Duke, looking for anyone who could help. His request eventually reached Martin Fischer, a chemist and physicist who specializes in using ultrafast light-pulsing technologies to peer beneath the surfaces of objects, from human skin to 14th-century paintings. In other words, he’s a laser expert. Fischer had some ideas about how to get Westman’s team the data they wanted. He’d need a box, a laser, a video camera (he settled for a cell phone), and a pixel-to-particle conversion algorithm. Getting that stuff would be easy. But he’d also need another person to help him operate his imagined contraption—one to speak into it, and one to record them doing it. Duke officials had enacted strict restrictions against people from different households commingling on campus. So Fischer entreated his daughter Emma, a Duke neuroscience student, to help him out. She agreed, and the school granted them special permission to get into Fischer’s lab. Over the course of a single weekend this spring, the duo hacked together a simple device for recording and measuring how many particles escape from a person’s mouth when they are speaking. It worked like this: Step one, lab lights off. Then in the dark, one person put their face flush up to a funnel attached to the cardboard box and repeated a stock phrase five times in a row. (Fischer the elder chose “Stay healthy, people.”) As he spoke, the plume of respiratory particles—tiny spheres of mucus and other mouth, nose, and lung gunk—escaping from his lips was channeled through the funnel and into the enclosed box. Inside, those droplets encountered a band of green light created by a laser the duo had positioned to shine through a slit on one side of the box. Every time the particles crossed the beam, they lit up in a fireworks display of bright green flashes. The cell phone’s camera, staged opposite to the funnel, captured the show. Even for someone who works with lasers all the time, Fischer was shocked at the amount of ejecta produced by his own speech: ”It was like Christmas in there.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Thanks to the reliable laws of physics that describe the relationship between the size of a particle and the amount of light it gives off when it gets scattered by a laser beam into the lens of a camera, Fischer was able to back-calculate the size of the smallest particle they could detect: half a micron. Knowing that, he was able to quickly write a bit of computer code that opened the video footage, tracked individuals particles from frame to frame, and quantified the number of detectable particles emitted. In the end, this produced a picture of how many particles built up in the box during about 35 seconds of talking. That was the control. Next, he repeated the experiment wearing 14 different masks, including N95s—valved and unvalved—surgical masks, a bandana, a spandex-blend neck gaiter, and cotton masks of varying designs. Then his team, which included a handful of physics and engineering colleagues collaborating remotely, compared the ratio of droplets produced while wearing each one to the no-mask control and ranked each one accordingly. These results were published Friday in Science Advances. By far, the mask that was best at blocking a speaker’s exhaled particles was the fitted, unvalved N95, for which “we did not detect any particles at all,” says Fischer. The surgical mask performed similarly well, blocking almost all detectable speech particles, followed by cotton masks that contained a layer of polypropylene. Most other cotton masks fell into the middle of the pack, along with valved N95 masks, which are designed to protect the user from inhaled environmental threats like wildfire smoke, pollution, and pathogens—but because they contain an exhalation valve, do little to block potentially infectious particles from escaping. The bandana did next to nothing. But that wasn’t even the worst. The neck gaiter, made out of a lightweight, breathable fabric favored by runners and cyclists, let through even more particles than the control group—110 percent relative to wearing no mask at all. If you’re wondering how that is even possible, you’re not alone. Fischer was similarly stumped. Then he went back and looked at the footage again of himself wearing the neck gaiter. “You can see that it’s not just that there are more particles, but that on average, the particles are much smaller,” he says. His team believes the stretchy, porous material is actually fracturing bigger, heavier droplets, splintering them into tinier particles that can more easily remain suspended in the air. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg If that’s true, it would blow up the maxim that any mask is better than no mask, says Kimberly Prather, an environmental aerosol researcher at UC San Diego who was not involved in the study. But there’s another possible explanation: Maybe the extra particles aren’t all respiratory droplets. Instead, they could be fibers shedding off the material itself. This has been shown to happen before, and would be easy enough to test—but Fischer and his coauthors didn’t. “Splintering would be bad, but we don’t know for sure that’s what’s going on,” says Prather. She also points out that the sample size for most of the mask testing is precisely one person. The study doesn’t capture all the variability in how people’s face shapes and speaking patterns might affect the effectiveness of different kinds of masks. So, while this project’s results are in line with other, larger, more rigorous studies , one shouldn’t read too much into the performance outcomes of individual masks based on this study alone, she says. Still, Prather is impressed that the Duke team’s technique can detect particles down to half a micron. Most laser visualization methods are sensitive only to about 20 microns. “That’s a big deal, because this captures aerosols—the particles that come out during speech—not just bigger droplets emitted during coughing or sneezing,” she says. “Keeping it in perspective, I think it’ll be a great comparison tool to look at variability between people, more conditions. There’s a lot of different things you can do with the setup they’ve developed.” Fischer and Westman also recognize the study’s shortcomings. “This was never going to be a definitive ranking of all masks under all types of conditions,” says Fischer. Doing that would require hundreds, or even thousands, more people testing lots more masks. “What we don’t want people taking away is: ‘This mask will work. This will not.’ It’s not a guide to masks. It is a demonstration of a new, simple methodology for quickly and somewhat crudely visualizing the effect of a mask,” he says. Read all of our coronavirus coverage here. The publication has enough information for many researchers to reproduce the device. But Fischer’s team is now working on refining the design and creating step-by-step instructions so other people can create their own versions. For one thing, you don’t need to use a laser as powerful as the one in Fischer’s lab—a pump laser that costs upwards of $200,000. A simple 2-watt green laser, “basically a laser pointer on steroids” will get the job done and can be purchased online for about $100, he says. Other modifications, design specifications, and safety protocols will make up the blueprint, which they are planning to distribute later this year. Over the weekend he got an email from a North Carolina museum interested in building an interactive laser box exhibit so people could come in and see the effects of wearing a mask for themselves. As for Westman’s team, Fischer’s contraption helped them rule out the masks that did little to limit one’s particle plume, and identify designs that appeared to block particles almost as well as the N95 masks that hospital administrators and elected officials were scrambling to acquire for their health care workers in the spring. “The most important thing for us was learning that we could feel confident that two-layer cotton masks would be a product that would work,” says Isaac Henrion, a Durham community organizer who Westman hired to help procure masks and assist with scaling the distribution effort. Both he and Westman declined to name specific suppliers they chose to work with—or not. But with data in hand, they started signing purchase agreements. To date, they've given away at least 125,000 reusable cloth masks for people in North Carolina. Still, months after he started his face-covering crusade, Westman is still seeing patients every day who refuse to wear masks outside the doctor’s office. “It’s totally vexing,” he says. He had expected that by this point the public debate would be focused on which type of masks people should wear, not whether to wear one at all. “If people knew—if they could just see —how many particles come out of their mouth when they speak, maybe that would make a difference,” he says. “It should be obvious, but it seems like there are a lot of people who just don’t know.” He’s hoping they can change that, one laser at a time. How Taiwan’s unlikely digital minister hacked the pandemic A summer camp Covid-19 outbreak offers back-to-school lessons Anthony Fauci explains why the US still hasn’t beaten Covid Tips for planing and cooking family meals in lockdown The hobbies and products getting us through quarantine Read all of our coronavirus coverage here X Topics coronavirus COVID-19 public health lasers Innovation Celia Ford Ramin Skibba Maryn McKenna Sushmita Pathak Brent M. Foster Matt Simon Rhett Allain Emily Mullin Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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"Peloton Bike+ and Tread+: Price, Release Date, Details | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/peloton-new-bike-home-gyms"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Lauren Goode Gear Peloton Is Betting You’ll Never Go Back to the Gym The new Peloton Bike+ has a touchscreen that swivels. It goes on sale this month for $2,495. A new treadmill will follow early next year. Photograph: Peloton Save this story Save Save this story Save At one point John Mills and his wife, Erica, were members at three different gyms, where John could lift weights and Erica could take indoor cycling classes. Still, something about the ads he kept seeing for Peloton intrigued John, a 50-year-old software architect in Bloomfield, Connecticut. In October 2016, he took the plunge and bought Erica a Peloton bike. They converted a kids’ playroom–their children are now grown—into a makeshift home gym. Mills quickly figured out how to cast Peloton classes from the bike’s tablet to the playroom’s giant projector screen, using a native Android streaming option. When Peloton started selling an expensive treadmill in 2018, the Mills bought one of those too. And in late 2019, they splurged on a second bike. So when Covid-19 forced millions of people into shutdown in early March, the Mills were well ahead of the home gym trend. They canceled their gym memberships. The only logical thing to do was to keep building, Mills figured. He started looking into new flooring for the playroom, purchased weights, and preordered a $4,295 Yves Behar-designed fitness mirror and resistance system called Forme Life. It’s these kinds of all-in-one, internet-connected fitness products that people chat about in Mills’ Facebook group, Run, Lift & Live , which has more than 4,000 members. “Back in March or April, folks would either say, ‘I’m never ever going back to a gym,’ or they’d say ‘I get that I have to work out at home for now, but I like the social aspect of the gym and want to go back,’” Mills tells me. “Now in the group, it’s ‘What’s the Tempo device like? How about Tonal? When will Carbon ship?’ No one is talking about the gym anymore.” That sentiment is exactly what Peloton is hoping to capitalize on with its latest offerings. The seven-year-old fitness tech company, which has attracted more than a million paying subscribers with its blend of live-streamed and on-demand classes, was already a pandemic success story. Today it’s officially revealing its long-rumored new products: a new indoor cycling bike; a less expensive version of its old bike; a cheaper treadmill; a new series of bootcamp classes; and some software updates, including integration with Apple’s GymKit. (Much of this was previously reported by Bloomberg late last week.) “You want to be able to excite people to work out, and we saw that formula come to life with the first Peloton Bike and Tread,” says Tom Cortese, Peloton’s chief operating officer and a cofounder of the New York City-based company. “So the idea that we could make this more accessible to more folks and more homes in more markets, just felt like, Yes. We’ve got a runner here. Let’s do that next step and make it more compact and at a lower price point.” There are still elements of in-person exercise that can’t be replaced by AI mirrors, VR workouts, and sensor-packed dumbbells. The new Peloton indoor cycling bike, called Bike+, has a 23.8-inch swivel touchscreen, compared to the 22-inch touchscreen that stays fixed in position on the first bike. That means riders will be able to rotate the screen and transition more easily to other kinds of workout classes, like the “Bike Bootcamp” classes Peloton will soon roll out. The new bike also has a four-speaker sound system—an improvement over the first bike, which blares sound outward from the back of the tablet rather than towards the rider. And riders can opt to have their resistance auto-adjusted throughout a workout, rather than manually turning the resistance knob. The new Bike+ ships this month and costs $2,495, while the “old” Bike is getting a price drop, from $2,245 to $1,895. (To appease customers who may have just spent $2,245 on the first bike, Peloton will issue a credit for the difference if their purchase was made within the last 30 days.) Peloton is also expanding its treadmill lineup, although to start that will only include a name change. The $4,295 Peloton Tread is now being called the Tread+; otherwise, it’s the same hefty slat-belt treadmill and 32-inch touchscreen as before. The new, lower-priced Tread won’t ship until early 2021. That one will cost $2,495 and will ave a traditional treadmill belt and smaller display. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So The subscription cost of Peloton, where the company typically sees a healthy gross margin, is staying the same: $39 per month for “all access” to Bike and Tread content and app-based workouts, and $13 for classes streamed via mobile apps only. It’s arguably this subscription content that’s more important than any hardware updates to an exercise bike or treadmill, any swivel screen or slat-belt. It’s the Peloton instructors—their personalities, catchphrases, and playlists—that tend to win people over. “It’s about incentives,” Peloton’s Cortese says. “I like to say that gyms are the worst in terms of having their incentives aligned to the consumer. They want you to show up in January, pay for the membership, and then never go, right? Our incentives are aligned to our members. We employ thousands of people whose jobs it is, every single day, to find out how we can cause you to want to work out more.” Peloton fanatics—and company executives—might be thrilled by the idea of a Pelo-filled future, one where the home gym effectively replaces the big-box spaces we used to drive to for the chance to sweat and grunt in front of strangers. But, while our post-Covid future is still unclear, some say the death of gyms may be greatly exaggerated. For one, home gyms require both a certain amount of space and disposable income. And some makers of home fitness products are struggling to keep up with demand. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So The high costs could be justified over time. Peloton, for example, likes to point out that up to five household members can use the same machine under the same $39 per month subscription cost. And one set of weights could serve the entire family. But space could still be a barrier for some people, along with installation needs. A product like Tonal, a $2,995 all-in-one training display with an electromagnetic resistance engine, needs to be bracketed to a suitable wall; whereas something like the $1,495 Mirror home gym system can be leaned against a wall. (In another sign that the home fitness space has been heating up, Mirror was recently acquired by Lululemon for $500 million. ) Speaking of free weights for your home gym: Good luck finding them. The overwhelming majority of free weights sold in the US are made in China , and disruptions to the supply chain early on in the pandemic have created a serious backlog for dumbbells, just as demand has soared. Stephen Owusu, the founder and chief executive of JaxJox , says business has been booming since March. JaxJox sells a nifty, Wi-Fi-connected kettlebell system for $199, and just last week announced plans to ship a modular, interactive display with weights for $2,199. But the waitlist for JaxJox kettlebells is currently 3,000 customers deep. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So “If you take our situation, there’s no way we could have forecasted a 347 percent increase in sales [earlier this year],” Owusu says. “You do your best. You say, ‘We’ll place an order for X amount.’ And when the products come in, they all go. I think the whole market has experienced this.” Carbon, an all-in-one fitness system that’s been touted as the first “AI-powered” fitness mirror, won’t ship until sometime in 2021, according to its Indiegogo fundraising page. John Mills says that he hasn’t received an update about Forme Life, the $4,295 home workout system he preordered this spring. In July he received a set of Forme Life towels as a thank-you for preordering, but his notes to the company have gone unanswered. (The company’s website says delivery is expected sometime this fall.) And the wait time for Peloton bikes is something its community members complain about regularly on the company’s official Facebook page. Right now, the average wait time for a Peloton is around 45 days, Cortese says, though that varies based on zip code. One analyst has warned that one of the biggest challenges for the company—which reports its fiscal fourth quarter earnings on September 10—is keeping up with demand. JaxJox’s Owusu says he believes the future of fitness looks more like a hybrid model, where people work out at home more frequently than they did before, but eventually return to the gym. “Rather than the home being a supplement to their gyms, the gyms will become a supplement to what they do at home,” he says. That’s why JaxJox is building the upcoming JaxJox interactive system to be portable and content-agnostic, Owusu says. The display part of the system will work just like a TV, one that can serve as the entertainment hub in your living room. And Owusu says the company wants to partner with boutique fitness franchise OrangeTheory , with an eye towards the future. Some days people might want an in-person workout in an OrangeTheory studio, and other days they might want to stay home. Owusu isn’t alone in that thought. Around the US, gyms are slowly reopening , though with lots of social distancing and sanitizing, and with little available data on the potential risk of infection. Also, some gym members are missing the sense of community that they feel in fitness centers. Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Gear You’ll Be Able Buy Cars on Amazon Next Year Boone Ashworth Gear The Best USB Hubs and Docks for Connecting All Your Gadgets Eric Ravenscraft Gear The Best Black Friday Deals on Electric Bikes and Accessories Adrienne So Even proponents of online fitness classes say there’s a social element that’s lacking. Nt Etuk is one of those people. The founder and chief executive of FitGrid, which sells customer management software to boutique fitness studios, Etuk says he thinks “the fitness industry has moved forward five years in the space of four months” in terms of how it has embraced technology. Earlier this year FitGrid surveyed around 2,000 fitness studios; 95 percent of them said they would offer both digital and in-studio classes once they’re fully reopened. Yoga and high-intensity interval classes classes, in particular, have been popular in online formats. “But the other side is that energy you get from being around people,” Etuk says. “And fitness studios are one of those spaces where people may come back to more of those social instincts, that ambient awareness that there are other people around you doing the same stuff.” In other words, the pandemic may have accelerated the digital fitness space, but there are still elements of in-person exercise that can’t be replaced by AI mirrors, VR workouts, and sensor-packed dumbbells. For someone like John Mills, that social element still doesn't feel worth the risk. He’s content to work out at home, and he posts to his Facebook group multiple times a day about all of the developments in the digital fitness world and how it might affect Peloton, which he holds stock in. “If I did go back to a gym, it would likely be after the creation of a vaccine, and after that vaccine had been proven, validated, and the country and society in general would be comfortable that this is not a risk,” Mills says. “And my mind keeps telling me that’s three, four, five years out.” 📩 Want the latest on tech, science, and more? Sign up for our newsletters ! The furious hunt for the MAGA bomber How to ditch those phone apps you never use—or wanted She helped wreck the news business. Here’s her plan to fix it This cobalt-free battery is good for the planet— and it actually works Is your chart a detective story? Or a police report ? ✨ Optimize your home life with our Gear team’s best picks, from robot vacuums to affordable mattresses to smart speakers Senior Writer X Topics Exercise fitness health Scott Gilbertson Scott Gilbertson Carlton Reid Reece Rogers Virginia Heffernan Boone Ashworth Boone Ashworth Boone Ashworth WIRED COUPONS Dyson promo code Extra 20% off sitewide - Dyson promo code GoPro Promo Code GoPro Promo Code: save 15% on your next order Samsung Promo Code +30% Off with this Samsung promo code Dell Coupon Code American Express Dell Coupon Code: Score 10% off select purchases Best Buy Coupon Best Buy coupon: Score $300 off select laptops VistaPrint promo code 15% off VistaPrint promo code when you sign up for emails Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"Your Rooftop Garden Could Be a Solar-Powered Working Farm | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/your-rooftop-garden-could-be-a-solar-powered-working-farm"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Matt Simon Science Your Rooftop Garden Could Be a Solar-Powered Working Farm Solar cell against of green trees Photograph: Acnakelsy/Getty Images Save this story Save Save this story Save Long the territory of cats, weather vanes, and the occasional fiddler, roofs are growing thick with solar panels. A home or business rooftop is an ideal place to site them because sunlight there is less obstructed by shadows and rooftops are generally unutilized spaces—it’s better for the environment to add panels to an existing structure than to clear new land for a solar farm. But even panel-covered rooftops may not be as well-utilized as they could be. A new scientific field known as rooftop agrivoltaics asks: What if we also grew crops under them? These wouldn’t be ordinary green roofs, which are typically small gardens, but rather working farms. The panels would provide shade for the plants—actually boosting their yields—as well as for the building, simultaneously reducing cooling costs and generating clean energy for the structure. Urban populations are projected to more than double by the year 2050. As people continue to migrate into metropolises, rooftop agrivoltaics could both feed people and make city life more bearable. A roof is actually a fairly challenging place for plants to grow. Up there, a plant is exposed to gusty winds and constant bombardment from sunlight since there aren’t any trees around to provide shelter. (Accordingly, hardy succulents are the preferred plants for green roofs.) Yes, plants need light, but not this much. “Plants end up going into what we call photorespiration mode, where it's too bright and sunny for them to efficiently photosynthesize,” says Colorado State University horticulturalist Jennifer Bousselot, who’s studying rooftop agrivoltaics. “They start trying to take oxygen and break it down, rather than carbon dioxide, and so they waste energy.” Photograph: Thomas Slabe Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg By contrast, think about how a forest works: All the plants, except the tallest of trees, are getting some measure of shade. For the plants closest to the forest floor, the light is diffuse, bouncing off surfaces around them. The taller trees surrounding them also make them less exposed to wind and temperature swings than they'd be if they were growing out in the open. The idea of agrivoltaics is to replicate this forest environment for crops. In Colorado, scientists have been experimenting with terrestrial agrivoltaic gardens and are finding that the plants tend to grow bigger in the shade. That’s likely a physiological response to the need to soak up more light, and it’s great for leafy crops like lettuce because it increases their yields. Pepper plants, too, produce three times as much fruit in agrivoltaic systems as in full sun. As a bonus, the shaded plants require about half the water they do otherwise because there’s less sunlight to cause evaporation. The same concept would work up on a roof: Solar panels would provide the shade that makes plants happier and less thirsty. Under rooftop panels, Bousselot has found, it’s cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and the panels act as windbreaks. The plants wouldn’t have to be food crops to benefit the surrounding landscape—adding native plants to rooftop agrivoltaics, for instance, would provide flowers for local pollinators. Scientists are also playing around with designs for semi-transparent solar panels , which would theoretically work better for species that require less sunlight than out in the open, but not total shade. Jack's Solar Garden in Longmont, CO. Photograph: Thomas Hickey Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg The plants, in turn, boost the efficiency of the panels. Plants sweat, in a sense, giving off water vapor as part of the photosynthetic process. This vapor rises into the panels, cooling them. That’s ideal because solar panels don’t generate as much electricity when they overheat. They produce a current when photons hit atoms and knock out electrons, which are already overexcited at higher temperatures. “The cooling effect is actually good for voltage,” says Carmine Garofalo, operations manager at Occidental Power, which develops rooftop agrivoltaic systems. “The cooler the area, the more efficiently the panel works.” That’s why scientists are also researching how to slap solar panels above canals , where the flowing water can provide cooling. Bringing down the temperatures of not just buildings, but whole cities, is critical because urban areas can be up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than surrounding rural areas. This is known as the urban heat island effect. The built environment absorbs the sun’s energy during the day and slowly releases it at night, but the country has enough vegetation to cool things off—just like crops under a solar panel do. Temperatures can even vary wildly across a city: Poorer neighborhoods with more concrete are consistently hotter than richer neighborhoods with more trees, and climate scientists are urging city officials to create more green spaces to mitigate this effect. By Katie M. Palmer and Matt Simon But the challenge is that you can’t just convert any roof to solar agrivoltaics. It has to be flat, for one thing. It might require a significant retrofit to support the extra weight of the soil, plants, and panels. And you’d need to be damn sure it’s waterproofed. “Trying to sell a building owner, or certain stakeholders, on this concept probably isn't going to be the easiest thing,” says Thomas Hickey, research associate at Sandbox Solar, which develops agrivoltaic systems. Hickey thinks it would be much easier to incorporate rooftop agrivoltaics into new building projects, and that governments—especially in countries that are rapidly urbanizing—can step in to subsidize them, as governments have subsidized solar panels in general. In the long term, such a system would generate both solar power and crops in perpetuity. “You get that energy coming in no matter what,” Hickey adds. “And then you get food, or herbs, or whatever it might be, provided right there in the middle of the city.” Bousselot has calculated that in Denver County, Colorado, which has 5,000 acres of suitable roof space, rooftop agrivoltaics might produce 5,000 pounds of food per acre. That’s 25 million pounds of food in just one county, if all those roof owners committed to agrivoltaics. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Growing crops locally like this would have other climate benefits. It would reduce the need to ship produce long distances on carbon-spewing trucks. And that layer of green would save building owners some green by insulating the roof. “In general, you can expect a 10 percent energy savings in a year by adding a green roof,” says Bousselot. “And then your energy budget gets even better if you calculate in the solar panels.” To be clear, Bousselot’s research is still in its early days. Scientists are still learning which crops do best under agrivoltaics on the ground, and doing the same for rooftops might require finding hardier species. While the panels will provide some shade, it’s still harsh up there. But agrivoltaics could exploit wasted rooftop space all over the world, helping provide clean energy and food for a ballooning urban population. It’s not a bad deal for the plants, either, says Bousselot: “If you can just give them a little bit of a break from that intense sun and temperature, those plants actually just thrive.” 📩 The latest on tech, science, and more: Get our newsletters ! Amazon's dark secret : It has failed to protect your data “ AR is where the real metaverse is going to happen” The sneaky way TikTok connects you to real-life friends Affordable automatic watches that feel luxe Why can’t people teleport ? 👁️ Explore AI like never before with our new database 🏃🏽‍♀️ Want the best tools to get healthy? Check out our Gear team’s picks for the best fitness trackers , running gear (including shoes and socks ), and best headphones Staff Writer X Topics climate change Solar agriculture carbon emissions Emissions Energy renewable energy clean energy carbon carbon dioxide Matt Simon Matt Simon Rob Reddick Matt Simon Jim Robbins Charlie Wood Rhett Allain Tammy Rabideau Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "

"The Kremlin Has Entered Your Telegram Chat | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/story/the-kremlin-has-entered-the-chat"

"Open Navigation Menu To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Darren Loucaides Backchannel The Kremlin Has Entered the Chat Play/Pause Button Pause Videos by IRENE SUOSALO Save this story Save Save this story Save Updated 4/27/2023 3:00 pm et: This story has been updated with additional comments provided by Telegram. On the chilly, clear afternoon of February 24, 2022—the day Vladimir Putin’s forces launched their full-scale invasion of Ukraine—a handful of Russian opposition politicians gathered in front of Saint Petersburg’s palatial Law, Order, and Security building. They had come to officially request permission to hold a rally opposing the war, which they knew would be denied. Among the group was Marina Matsapulina, the 30-year-old vice chair of Russia’s Libertarian Party. Matsapulina understood that the gathering was a symbolic gesture—and that it posed serious risks. Nine days later, Matsapulina was awoken around 7 am by someone banging at her apartment door. She crept up to the entrance but was too frightened to look through the peephole, and she retreated back to her bedroom. The pounding continued for two hours, as Matsapulina kept seven friends from her party apprised in a private Telegram group chat. “They’re unlikely to bust it down,” she wrote, wishfully. But at 9:22 am, she heard a much louder noise. She had just enough time to lock her phone before the door caved in. Eight people surrounded Matsapulina’s bed. They included, she recalls, two city police officers, a two-person SWAT team wielding guns and shining flashlights in her face, and two agents from either the Center for Combating Extremism or the Federal Security Service or the FSB—the successor to the KGB. The officers told her to lie on the floor facedown. They told Matsapulina she was suspected of emailing a police station with a false bomb threat. But when she was taken into the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ investigation department, she says, a police officer asked whether she knew the real reason she’d been arrested. She guessed that it was for her “political activities.” He nodded and asked, “Do you know how we knew you were home?” “How?” He told her that the FSB has equipment that can pinpoint a phone’s location to within one meter, which didn’t surprise her—Russia’s state-owned telecoms often cooperate with security forces, allowing them to track Russian SIM cards. Then the officer said something that left her stunned. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg “There you were, sitting there, writing to your friends in the chat room,” she recalls him saying. He proceeded to dispassionately quote word for word several Telegram messages she had written from her bed. “‘They’re unlikely to bust it down,’” he recited. “And so,” he said, “we knew that you were there.” Matsapulina was speechless. She tried to hide her shock, hoping to learn more about how they’d accessed her messages. But the officer didn’t elaborate. When she was released two days later, Matsapulina learned from her lawyer that on the morning she was arrested, police had searched the houses of some 80 other people with opposition ties and had arrested 20, charging each with terrorism related to the alleged bomb threat. A few days later, Matsapulina gathered her belongings and boarded a flight to Istanbul. In April, after having made it safely to Armenia, Matsapulina recounted the episode in a Twitter thread. She ruled out the chance that anyone in her close-knit group had been cooperating with security forces (they’d all also left Russia by then), which left two conceivable explanations for how the officers had read her private Telegram messages. One was that they had installed some kind of malware, like the NSO Group’s infamous Pegasus tool, on her phone. Based on what she’d gathered, the expensive software was reserved for high-level targets and was not likely to have been turned on a mid-level figure in an unregistered party with about 1,000 members nationwide. The other “unpleasant” explanation, she wrote, “is, I think, obvious to everyone.” Russians needed to consider the possibility that Telegram, the supposedly antiauthoritarian app cofounded by the mercurial Saint Petersburg native Pavel Durov, was now complying with the Kremlin’s legal requests. Telegram would later posit a third possible explanation: That in the few hours after Matsapulina’s arrest and before she was questioned, FSB officers had extracted her messages using a phone-hacking tool like Cellebrite. Matsapulina’s case is hardly an isolated one, though it is especially unsettling. Over the past year, numerous dissidents across Russia have found their Telegram accounts seemingly monitored or compromised. Hundreds have had their Telegram activity wielded against them in criminal cases. Perhaps most disturbingly, some activists have found their “secret chats”—Telegram’s purportedly ironclad, end-to-end encrypted feature—behaving strangely, in ways that suggest an unwelcome third party might be eavesdropping. These cases have set off a swirl of conspiracy theories, paranoia, and speculation among dissidents, whose trust in Telegram has plummeted. In many cases, it’s impossible to tell what’s really happening to people’s accounts—whether spyware or Kremlin informants have been used to break in, through no particular fault of the company; whether Telegram really is cooperating with Moscow; or whether it’s such an inherently unsafe platform that the latter is merely what appears to be going on. In the decade since its founding in Russia, Telegram has grown to become one of the biggest social networks in the world, with 700 million users—yet only about 60 core employees. “For us, Telegram is an idea,” Durov has said. “It is the idea that everyone on this planet has a right to be free.” The platform, now based in Dubai, has minimal content moderation aside from a stated commitment to taking down illegal pornography, IP rights violations, scams, and calls for violence. Often described in the press as an “encrypted” or “secure” messaging app, Telegram has fashioned itself as a refuge for safe, anonymous communication, but in fact it requires users to go out of their way to set a chat as “secret”; unlike on WhatsApp or Signal , end-to-end encryption is not the default. Still, Durov has repeatedly managed to benefit from the stumbles of other tech giants, particularly when user privacy is at stake. In January 2021, a PR crisis surrounding WhatsApp’s data-sharing with Facebook helped drive millions of people to Telegram, an exodus Durov called possibly the “largest digital migration in human history.” Telegram has the capacity to share nearly any confidential information a government requests. Users just have to trust that it won’t. In the US, Telegram has been relatively slow to catch on, though in the wake of Donald Trump’s ban from Facebook and Twitter in January 2021, it has increasingly become a hotbed for far-right groups like the Proud Boys and followers of QAnon. But in many parts of the world, Telegram is mainstream. In Brazil, where the app has been downloaded on more than half of the country’s smartphones, much of the January 2023 insurrection was planned on the platform. Telegram has also been crucial for pro-­democracy activists in Hong Kong and in countries under Russia’s thumb, like Belarus and Ukraine. In the latter, it has become the preferred app for disseminating government advice for avoiding air strikes—as well as for Russian disinformation. But it is in Russia itself that Telegram has become nearly indispensable over the past year, thanks to the Putin regime’s wartime clampdown against Western tech. Since the conflict began, Russian authorities have branded Telegram’s main rival, Meta, an “extremist” organization, in part for permitting certain users in Ukraine to post calls for violence against the Russian military. Russia then blocked Meta’s Facebook (which had some 70 million users in the country) and Instagram (80 million). Telegram’s Russian user base has soared from 30 million in 2020 to nearly 50 million today, surpassing WhatsApp as Russia’s most used messaging platform. (The Kremlin controls all of the most popular internet companies based in Russia, including ­VKontakte, a ­Facebook-like social network cofounded by Durov in 2006 that has nearly 70 million users.) Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg As soon as the war began, cyber­security experts raised concerns about Telegram users’ exposure to Russian authorities—even users who are outside Russia. On February 24, Moxie Marlin­spike , the cofounder of Telegram’s US rival Signal, posted on Twitter, “Telegram is the most popular messenger in urban Ukraine. After a decade of misleading marketing and press, most people there believe it’s an ‘encrypted app.’ The reality is the opposite.” Aside from “secret chats,” Telegram’s messages are accessible to people inside the company. “Every msg, photo, video, doc sent/received for the past 10 yrs; all contacts, group memberships, etc are all available to anyone w/ access to that database,” Marlinspike tweeted. Elies Campo, who says he directed Telegram’s growth, business, and partnerships for several years, confirmed this general characterization to WIRED, as did a former Telegram developer. In other words, Telegram has the capacity to share nearly any confidential information a government requests. Users just have to trust that it won’t. But in many ways, Russian authorities may not even need Telegram’s cooperation to monitor users at scale. That’s because Telegram has effectively built that capability into its generous application programming interface. An API is a software portal through which app developers and researchers can essentially jack into a platform and pull data out of it for their own projects. In Telegram’s case, that data includes the text contents and metadata from any public group chat or channel, and even a record of when users were last online. Like most APIs, Telegram’s requires a key for access; but those are available to any user who requests one. For years, Durov touted the platform’s open API as an emblem of Telegram’s commitment to transparency, allowing anyone to inspect Telegram’s source code or create automated bots that can, among other functions, broadcast news briefs, process payments, or pass commands to any internet-connected device. But it also makes Telegram a potentially powerful tool for mass surveillance. Campo, who’s now a fellow at Citizen Lab, a research facility that specializes in spyware, says the app’s API enables any user to automatically save and catalog a vast number of public channels and group chats, a function that isn’t possible on platforms like WhatsApp and Instagram. This would explain, he says, how authorities might have scraped even small channels by indexing at scale. “Telegram could create security measures to make this more difficult, especially if it suspects the Kremlin is doing this and wants to counteract it—for example, more barriers to bots; barriers that identify whether users joining groups or channels are human or not.” (A Telegram spokesperson says that the company’s server “limits the frequency of requests and which data accounts are allowed to access.”) Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg (Campo was quoted extensively in a 2022 WIRED story about Telegram’s global rise. The company claimed, after that story’s publication, that Campo had never been employed by Telegram, was only briefly a volunteer, and “was never authorized to sign any agreements on behalf of the company." Campo provided WIRED with documentation from 2016 to 2021 that included copies of email correspondence he carried on, using a Telegram address, with executives at Apple, Spotify, and Stripe on behalf of Telegram, and copies of contracts between Telegram and other companies with Campo’s signature. Durov was also included in the correspondence.) As for the access its API offers to public channels, “Telegram gives you pretty much anything,” says Jordan Wildon, an investigator at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks disinformation and extremism. The API has been invaluable to Wildon’s research, he says, but “there are obvious risks with it. It can be abused.” At the start of the war, for instance, he and another researcher found that it was possible to spoof Telegram’s locations API to pinpoint any user within a 2-mile radius if they had recently turned on the "Find People Nearby" location feature. Countless users were “accidentally setting [themselves] as a homing beacon,” Wildon says. (Telegram says that the feature is “impossible to turn on by accident” and that “less than 0.01 percent of Telegram users ever used it.”) He was able to locate four people near Chernobyl with an accuracy of 1 yard just as Russian forces were trying to seize the area. Telegram disputes this level of accuracy, but shortly after Wildon’s research partner went public with their methods, Telegram altered its code to decrease the feature's accuracy. But Wildon has found it’s still possible to locate other users with an accuracy of around 600 yards. Although it would make his research more difficult, Wildon believes accessing data about Telegram’s users should be as “hard as possible.” Currently, he says, “with enough willpower, decent servers, and enough API keys, you could archive nearly the lot of Telegram”—every one of the hundreds of billions of texts, audio files, and images shared publicly on the platform. (Telegram says “public messages are only a minor part of Telegram.”) Indeed, some private companies have archived significant swaths of Telegram. TGStat, for instance, is a Russian firm that provides metrics about Telegram channel and user growth in different countries. In its privacy policy, TGStat states clearly that it is obliged by law to hand over data to the “state authorities of the Russian Federation.” Because the company has been archiving publicly available data for years, Wildon says, security forces could hypothetically go directly to TGStat to obtain a striking amount of information about a user without any direct assistance from Telegram. Data such as a user’s telephone number and the groups they are members of could be obtained, the latter by aggregating the member lists of many groups or chat histories. “If you can identify a single user and have enough chats on record,” says Wildon, “it’s also possible to generate a file containing every message a user has sent into any [public] group.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In an email to WIRED, TGStat founder Yury Kizhikin wrote, “The situation in Russia and the world has no influence on the activities of TGStat.” He confirmed that data can be transferred to Russian authorities but said that “all companies operating in Russia have a similar clause in their policies” and that TGStat had not received any requests from authorities or law enforcement agencies. Stanislav Seleznev, a lawyer for Agora, a human rights group that has represented thousands of people who’ve come under Kremlin scrutiny since 2005, says he has “absolutely no doubt” the Kremlin is exploiting Telegram’s API at scale. Russia has spent lavishly to track its citizens on Telegram and other platforms. In September 2021, Reuters reported that the Kremlin was projected to spend $425 million on tools to bolster its internet infrastructure, including those that automatically search for illegal content on social media platforms. Seleznev says the Kremlin is also working with Russian tech firms like SeusLab, which processes a billion social networking pages and instant messaging chats a day, to produce detailed profiles of users based on their “political activity.” SeusLab director Evgeny Rabchevsky told Reuters that “authorities use the product to assess social tensions, identify problematic issues of interest [and] adjust their activities.” A burgeoning pro-war open source intelligence community has also built an army of bots on Telegram to search for users via username and see which public groups they’re in and which channels they follow, making them easier to identify. According to Ksenia Ermoshina, a researcher at Citizen Lab and the Center for Internet and Society, people who know how to navigate the system can sometimes get a fairly detailed portrait of a user’s public activities just by entering their Telegram ID, “which is quite scary.” According to a report in Reuters, one member of that open source intel community is a pro-Putin NGO called the Center for the Study and Network Monitoring of the Youth Environment, which has developed an AI tool to scan social media for what it describes as socially dangerous content. The system, founder Denis Zavarzin has said, is “constantly monitoring” about 1.5 million accounts. But those tools, however powerful, can peer only into Telegram’s public chats and channels. To access private chats like Marina Matsapulina’s exchange with her friends the day the SWAT team banged down her door—let alone end-to-end encrypted “secret chats”—Telegram’s API is not enough. To reach into those chats, the Kremlin seems to have found other methods and, perhaps, other accomplices. On March 4, 2022, the day before the police detained Matsapulina for “terrorism,” Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill that introduced prodigious jail terms and fines for anyone who published “knowingly false information” about the Russian military. In effect, anyone criticizing the war in Ukraine on social media could face up to 15 years in prison. The law quickly became the basis for a mounting series of arrests and prosecutions. When Telegram emerged as one of the last remaining oases of information and discussion for Russians, it also became a kind of funnel for Kremlin agents. Agora’s Seleznev believes that Telegram’s API allows investigators to monitor public groups at a large scale and then zero in on potential suspects, who can subsequently be pursued into private channels by undercover agents—or perhaps via a court order to Telegram. The opposition activist Ania Kurbatova realized that both her regular messages and secret chats were showing up as “read” when she knew the recipient had not read them. This should have been impossible. In early April, a music producer and bus driver in Russia named Richard Rose posted a video on Instagram that accused Russian troops of murdering hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in Bucha—an event that has been internationally condemned as a massacre. According to the independent Russian outlet Meduza, the video quickly gained the attention of an FSB officer in Rose’s home city of Kirov. In the days that followed, Rose also sent messages on Telegram asking about ways to help Ukrainian soldiers. Rose suspects that at times he was communicating with FSB officers. In a written message to WIRED through his lawyer, Rose says his suspicions escalated when these interlocutors began to persuade him to take certain actions. “I regarded this as an inducement to commit a terrorist act,” Rose says. Agora believes that police infiltration of Telegram is widespread. In neighboring Belarus, security services work from a manual that describes “tools and methods” for “deanonymizing” users on Telegram, including tips for infiltrating groups. Ermoshina suspects that much the same is happening in Russia, judging from the uptick in criminal cases that cite a suspect’s Telegram activity—a development she blames partly on the platform. “Telegram could have become a place where Russian authorities are not welcome,” she says. A Telegram spokesperson writes, “Like ordinary users, representatives of police organizations around the world are likely to use every available internet service for communication. Telegram is not aware of any cases where we could have influenced their choices.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On April 13, the FSB was reported to have secured a court order to monitor Rose’s phone calls and read his messages. (Telegram says it is not aware of this order, and “in any case, would never have shared any messages with the FSB.”)The next day, Rose and his wife, who had also posted the video about Bucha, were arrested on charges of spreading “knowingly false information,” with investigators citing Telegram messages Rose had sent to an unknown person with a Latvian phone number in which he asked about evacuating his family from Russia. While in pretrial detention, Rose learned that Russian authorities had labeled him an “extremist.” As Meduza reported, it’s unclear whether investigators accessed Rose’s messages before or after they arrested him. A Telegram spokesperson told WIRED that the company has never shared user information or messages with the FSB or the Kremlin. It’s possible that Rose’s Latvian interlocutor was an undercover agent or that investigators physically accessed Rose’s messages when he was forced to give up his phone during interrogation. (According to recent reporting from the Israeli newspaper Haaretz , Russian authorities possess software that allows them to get around passcodes on locked phones. ) Even more mystery surrounds some ghostly activity that dissidents have encountered in Telegram’s most secure settings. The platform claims its end-to-end encrypted “secret chats” feature (from which messages cannot be forwarded) is “safe for as long as your device is safe in your pocket.” But in early May, the opposition activist Ania Kurbatova realized that both her regular messages and secret chats were showing up as “read” when she knew the recipient had not read them. She also noticed at times that when she logged out of a secret chat, the session would still be marked “open” and messages could still be read. This should have been impossible: Each chat receives a unique encryption key that disappears once a session is over. To continue the conversation, users need to start a new chat and receive a new encryption key. The private conversations, Kurbatova says, included one with “a Ukrainian journalist who was looking for information about people who were taken to Russia from the filtration camps from the Donetsk and Luhansk region.” There was also “an important chat” with Kurbatova’s partner, Ivan Astashin, an activist who in 2009 was sentenced to 10 years in prison for throwing a Molotov cocktail at an FSB office. Kurbatova says Astashin noticed the same oddities in his own secret chats. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Kurbatova and Astashin sought help from Ermoshina, who asked them to check the app’s “active sessions” feature, which shows the other devices they have the app open in. Nothing turned up. Then she had them reinstall the app. Even after these precautions, secret chats continued to show as read, and old sessions could still be reopened. Ermoshina was at a loss for a technical explanation but noted that, as a well-known activist couple, Kurbatova and Astashin are a valuable target for the Kremlin. And their case isn’t isolated. In August, Yana Teplit­skaya, a human rights activist who has investigated the alleged torture of Russian prisoners, says she noticed that many of her secret chats were erroneously marked as read. (Telegram explained that messages may be accidentally marked as read if a user leaves their phone unlocked with the chat open. A spokesperson said that, “after a time the phone’s screen might lock automatically and you wouldn’t notice that you had the chat open.” Kurbatova and Astashin say their messages appeared as read even though they hadn’t left the chat open on any other device. The company also claims that it has never found any “security flaws that would enable a third-party to intercept of decrypt Secret Chats.”) While it’s possible spyware was involved, such cases have turned dissidents’ suspicions to Telegram itself. For many activists, this represents a precipitous loss of faith. What happened to Marina Matsapulina in her apartment eerily mirrors something that once happened to Pavel Durov—an event that serves as the founding myth of Telegram. In December 2011, in the wake of a highly controversial round of parliamentary elections, Durov, then the 27-year-old CEO of VKontakte, received a request from the FSB to take down the pages of opposition groups. Durov refused, then theatrically taunted the government on Twitter. As he later told The New York Times , a SWAT team soon arrived at his apartment. As they pounded on his door, Durov called his older brother but quickly realized he had no secure means of communication. In that moment, Durov claimed, he saw the need for a platform that could skirt authoritarian surveillance. “That’s how Telegram started.” For more than a decade, “Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg” has taken pains to maintain a larger-than-life persona as a brash, black-clad, libertarian crusader against authoritarian surveillance, whose primary foil has been the Russian state. But as Matsapulina suggested in her Twitter thread last April, Telegram’s relationship with the Russian state seems to have changed markedly over the past few years. Who actually blinked? What terms had Telegram and Roskomnadzor agreed to? Both sides offered sparse explanations. As she reminded her followers, relations between the platform and authorities were at a low point in 2018. That April, Durov refused an order from the FSB to hand over the encryption keys of Russian users. In response, the Kremlin banned Telegram from Russia, and telecom regulator Roskomnadzor set about blocking access to Telegram from the Russian internet. Thousands of people protested the decision in Saint Petersburg, some brandishing posters that depicted Durov as a glowing religious icon holding Telegram’s paper-plane logo. Adding to the defiant-hero narrative, Durov’s staff hid Telegram behind Google’s and Amazon’s hosting services to disguise and constantly change its web addresses. In a brief bit of collateral damage, Roskomnadzor accidentally blocked some 16 million IP addresses in Russia, including much of Twitter and Facebook. Telegram, for most users, kept running. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg But in June 2020, Russia suddenly announced it had reached an agreement with Telegram to unblock the app, the exact terms of which remain undisclosed despite requests for transparency from cybersecurity researchers, journalists, and human rights groups. (A Telegram spokesperson said that "no deals were made to inspire the unblocking of Telegram. That decision was made solely by the authorities in Russia.”) Most Russians, Matsapulina noted in her thread, laughed off the possibility that Telegram had made any concessions to the Kremlin. But when Russian authorities announced the agreement, she wrote, they “literally stated” that the two sides had reached it “in the context of terrorism,” the very context invoked in the arrest of Matsapulina and others. In fact, the fuller story surrounding Telegram’s ban and reinstatement does raise the question of whether Moscow has gained some leverage over Durov. Back in 2018, while playing cat and mouse with Roskomnadzor, Telegram was also working to develop something it had always lacked: a means of making money. As the platform had never hosted ads or offered subscriptions, the company set out to build an entire economy on top of Telegram, creating the Telegram Open Network, or TON, a blockchain platform with its own cryptocurrency, called grams, that would be integrated into the main app. Like many blockchain startups, it would raise money through an initial coin offering, allowing investors to buy grams. Ambitions were high: Two weeks before Roskomnadzor blocked the app, Telegram announced that the ICO had raised $1.7 billion, the largest in history at the time. (Much of the investment, as independent Russian media reported, came from oligarchs, including a rumored possible $300 million from key Putin ally Roman Abramovich. Telegram says Abramoavich’s investment “didn’t exceed $10 million.”) But in 2019, disaster struck. Just as TON was set to launch, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Telegram with illegally failing to register the crypto­currency and claimed the company had appropriated funds designated for TON to pay its bills. Durov fought the SEC’s emergency action for a year but bitterly announced the end of TON in May 2020. Forced to pay back investors and saddled with Telegram’s soaring server costs, Durov needed a massive influx of cash. At that moment, Telegram’s relationship with Russia began to thaw. A few weeks after the TON project ended, two pro-Kremlin party deputies in Russia’s parliament proposed that the ban on Telegram be lifted, arguing that it could be an important communications tool for the government in times of crisis. Durov posted his support of their proposal on Telegram, arguing that the company’s presence in Russia could help bolster the country’s technological innovation and “national security.” He also claimed that since 2018 his team had improved “methods for detecting and removing extremist propaganda,” as well as “mechanisms that allow preventing terrorist attacks around the world” while still protecting user privacy. He didn’t elaborate on how this was possible. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg On June 18, Roskomnadzor lifted the ban. To Western users and media at the time, the détente seemed to show that Durov’s antiauthoritarian cunning had prevailed. Telegram, one expert told The Washington Post , “seems to have won a staring contest with Putin and the security state.” But who actually blinked? What terms had Telegram and Roskomnadzor agreed to? Both sides offered sparse explanations. In a statement, the regulator praised Durov’s new, helpful attitude: “We commend the readiness expressed by Telegram’s founder to combat terrorism and extremism.” Unnamed government sources told the Russian news agency Interfax that Telegram had agreed to cooperate with security services in specific cases. Those sources also noted that technological developments had rendered the need for encryption keys “irrelevant” but didn’t explain further. Telegram disputes these claims. A spokesperson told WIRED: “Telegram’s understanding is that the statements by the Russian authorities were referring to a post by Pavel Durov where he mentioned Telegram had expanded its moderation efforts globally to better address public calls to violence. Durov’s post itself was a response to Russian officials who publicly suggested the block be ended due to it being unenforceable and hurtful for the "prestige" of the state.” In a Telegram post after the decision, Durov assured Russian users there’d be “no changes in terms of the safety of personal data.” Putin himself celebrated the announcement on live TV a year later during his annual Direct Line Q&A. “We have reached an agreement with Telegram,” he said. “You can see that everything is working fine.” According to a government source familiar with the June 2020 agreement, the Russian state-owned bank VTB, which has close ties with the Kremlin, was also involved in the negotiations. In January 2021, reporting came out that VTB had estimated the company’s value: as high as $124 billion by 2022. Telegram also said it would start selling five-year bonds. VTB would help shop them around to investors. (When WIRED asked about the terms of the agreement, a Telegram spokesperson wrote: “We never discussed anything related to unbanning Telegram with anyone working at VTB.” VTB did not respond to requests for comment.) By March 2021, Telegram had raised more than $1 billion from these backers. Although little is known about their identities—Durov wrote on his Telegram channel only that they were “some of the largest and most knowledgeable investors all over the world”— The Moscow Times reported that the investments included $75 million from a joint partnership between an Abu Dhabi state fund and a Kremlin sovereign wealth fund. (The Abu Dhabi fund Mubadala said in a statement that the Kremlin fund had participated through “the Russia-UAE joint investment platform." Telegram told Bloomberg at the time that the Kremlin fund hadn’t participated in the original sale, and “appears to have bought a small quantity of funds on the secondary market.”) Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Three weeks after Russia unblocked Telegram, the company’s vice president, Ilya Perekopsky, appeared at a conference outside Kazan to talk about growing Russia’s IT industry and both he and prime minister Mikhail Mishustin made pledges to fight the dominance of American tech. Introducing a speech by Perekopsky in which he noted Telegram’s “Russian roots,” deputy prime minister Dmitry Chernyshenko also stated that it was “great news” that Telegram was operating in Russia once more. Human rights groups, opposition activists, and independent Russia media found this sudden harmony between once bitter foes as fascinating as it was concerning. Several noted the fortuitous timing. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Telegram and the Kremlin have appeared even more in sync. Allowed to remain standing in a decimated internet sector, Telegram has become useful not only to security services but also to the state’s propaganda machine. Blanket censorship of Russian media has made Telegram a vital source of information for Russians, with Meduza and other outlets sharing reports via public channels on the platform. But pro-Kremlin disinformation far outpaces journalism. “Telegram now is the central backbone for Russian disinformation machinery,” says Jānis Sārts, director of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. “It’s also the way they overcome all the roadblocks built by Western platforms.” Two weeks before Facebook was banned, a post on the Russian government’s Telegram channel summarized a meeting between deputy prime minister Dmitry Chernyshenko and IT industry leaders in which Chernyshenko stated that “government agencies are recommended to create accounts on Telegram and VKontakte.” Telegram is now the platform of choice for Kremlin officials. (A Telegram spokesperson said: “Creators of government-sponsored propaganda often artificially inflate the number of subscribers and views using a large number of fake accounts, perhaps with the aim to receive additional state funding. However, given that Telegram does not use any content recommendation algorithms, such as those employed by Facebook or Twitter, such actions have no chance of affecting what is seen by real users.”) The relationship between Telegram and VTB has also grown: A few months after the invasion began and Apple and Google had removed VTB’s app from their stores, the company announced it was launching a digital bank on Telegram “to overcome restriction of sanctions for customers.” In addition to Roskomnadzor’s press office, WIRED contacted three current and former employees from the regulator about the agreement, as well as one current and one former government minister thought to be familiar with it. None agreed to speak. WIRED messaged, via Telegram, the deputy head of Roskomnadzor, Vadim Subbotin, about the 2020 agreement; he said to direct questions to the regulator’s press office, and then deleted the chat history. Vadim Ampelonsky, a former spokesperson for the regulator, responded, “I am a vatnik ”—literally a quilted jacket, slang denoting a devout follower of government propaganda. He added that “in the current situation, participating in research for an American publication is zapadlo ”—vulgar slang that means beneath one’s dignity. He signed off: “Take care of yourself!” At the end of Matsapulina’s April 2022 Twitter thread, she said that she and her colleagues had moved from Telegram to Signal. “I don’t want to spread panic, I don’t want to pretend I’m some kind of expert on this issue, but I want to urge everyone to be careful what they say on Telegram. It is possible that this is no longer the safe space everyone used to think it was.” According to Ksenia Ermoshina, much of the Russian opposition movement has likewise abandoned Telegram. To widespread dismay, she says, pro-war channels started posting activists’ personal information with impunity—“compiling databases of Russian anti-war activists with their faces and links to their [social media], and sometimes even home addresses and other personal data.” When users reported these incidents, she says, Telegram’s initial response was slow or nonexistent. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Many chats and groups where users organized opposition movements have been shut down. “No one has organized anything on Telegram since February,” Ermoshina says, describing a “digital migration” of Russia’s opposition movement from Telegram. “People moved out of Russia in exile,” she says, “and they moved out of Telegram in exile!” Natalia Krapiva, a lawyer at the digital rights group Access Now, notes that Telegram has never responded to requests for clarity, including an open letter sent by her organization and a coalition of groups asking for dialog on “safety and security issues plaguing” the app. Regarding concerns that the platform is facilitating state surveillance, she says, “Telegram hasn’t done much to demonstrate that, in fact, they’re not cooperating” with the authorities. Meanwhile, cases of Telegram cooperating with governments outside Russia have emerged. In January 2022, after Telegram ignored multiple requests from German authorities to stanch a wave of violent anti-Covid-­lockdown protests that had been coordinated on the platform, the German government debated banning it. By June, Der Spiegel reported, Telegram had provided German federal police with personal data of users suspected of terrorism and child abuse. And in India, where there are more than 100 million Telegram users, the company in November provided the Delhi High Court with the names, phone numbers, and IP addresses of users accused of illegally sharing a teachers’ copyrighted course materials on the platform. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Pavel Durov has not given an interview to Western media since 2017. He declined to speak on the record for this story. But in a video call last fall, one of Durov’s associates offered insights into the mindset of Telegram’s founder. Georgy Lobushkin used to be VK’s head of PR and remains in contact with his old boss, having attended Durov’s 38th birthday in Dubai in October. He often posts unofficial information about goings-on at the company on his Telegram channel: “​​Sometimes in Russia people call me the gray cardinal of Telegram because I say things on behalf of Telegram, but I’m not formally part of the team.” “The Russian market is very important to Durov,” Lobushkin said, noting that it represents about 7 percent of Telegram’s 700 million users, not to mention its symbolic importance. Sure, Durov has said he will never cooperate with Russian authorities and would leave the market if push came to shove, Lobushkin says, but that might be “a bluff” since Russia holds such a significant percentage of the platform’s users. Lobushkin says he has no special information about why Telegram was unblocked in 2020. But he believes the Kremlin saw potential in the platform. “The Russian propaganda machine learned how to use Telegram effectively and efficiently,” Lobushkin says. Pavel Cherkashin, a Russian-born venture capitalist based in San Francisco who invested in the TON project before its collapse, argues that Durov is comfortable operating in a gray zone—willing to turn a blind eye to the Kremlin because the relationship is good for growth. “Putin becomes a great ally for developing his business, and he accepts this as a serendipity,” Cherkashin says. He adds that because Putin controls which platforms can operate in Russia, “he’s forcing all of the business—all of that is now on Telegram.” It’s true that a huge number of Russians continue to depend on Telegram, and its growth in the country and globally has been spurred by the war in Ukraine rather than deterred—even The New York Times opened a Telegram channel to disseminate news about the war. “People still trust Telegram for some reason,” says Andrei Soldatov, an independent journalist who has investigated Russian security services for more than 20 years. “But I don’t know why.” Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg In late April 2022, three days after posting her thread, Matsapulina received an anonymous message through Telegram’s official support account. She later took to Twitter to recount the exchange. “We read your story on Twitter,” it began. “We’d like to express our sympathy with your case and share the results of an investigation our team did.” The message said that only two authenticated devices had access to her Telegram messages: her phone and her computer. It also noted a failed login attempt “after your detention.” Someone, whom Matsapulina presumed to be a police officer, had correctly entered an SMS verification code but incorrectly entered her password. “From Telegram’s side, access to your private messages has not been granted.” The message concluded there were two most likely scenarios. One was that someone had taken physical possession of her device. This seemed highly improbable to Matsapulina, given the short time between her arrest and when her messages were recited back to her. (Telegram later disputed this with WIRED, claiming that a hacking tool like Cellebrite could have been used to quickly extract her messages, and that “no app can defend against such a scenario.”) The other possibility, the message noted, was that her friends in the group chat had been compromised. Matsapulina and her friends then asked Telegram to check their logs. She says the company reported that they hadn’t been compromised either. This left Matsapulina back where she began: How did the officers read her messages? After discussing her case with experts, Matsapulina now believes her Telegram messages may have been compromised by a form of spyware. When she was told that a hacking device would need to be physically nearby to infiltrate her phone, a memory resurfaced: At times before her arrest, she had noticed an unmarked truck with a dome on its roof parked outside her building. She had even jokingly mentioned it to friends on Telegram. Now, she remembered, as the police were banging on her door that morning, she’d spotted the same mystery vehicle parked outside. By the time the police stormed her home, the vehicle was gone. Matsapulina has since started using Telegram again. For one, she says, even if Russian security services were tracking her account, she has already left the country. It’s also her only way of reaching friends and family: For Matsapulina and millions of Russians alike, the cipher of a platform remains indispensable. Business What Sam Altman’s Firing Means for the Future of OpenAI Steven Levy Business Sam Altman’s Sudden Exit Sends Shockwaves Through OpenAI and Beyond Will Knight Gear Humanity’s Most Obnoxious Vehicle Gets an Electric (and Nearly Silent) Makeover Boone Ashworth Security The Startup That Transformed the Hack-for-Hire Industry Andy Greenberg Additional reporting by Vadim Smyslov. Let us know what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor at mail@wired.com. 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"Tempo Studio Review: The Future of Gyms | WIRED"

"https://www.wired.com/review/tempo-studio"

"Open Navigation Menu To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Close Alert To revisit this article, select My Account, then View saved stories Close Alert Search Backchannel Business Culture Gear Ideas Science Security Merch Podcasts Video Artificial Intelligence Climate Games Newsletters Magazine Events Wired Insider Jobs Coupons Early Black Friday Deals Best USB-C Accessories for iPhone 15 All the ‘Best’ T-Shirts Put to the Test What to Do If You Get Emails for the Wrong Person Get Our Deals Newsletter Gadget Lab Newsletter Parker Hall Reviews Review: Tempo Studio Facebook X Email Save Story Photograph: Tempo Facebook X Email Save Story $2,500 at Tempo If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Rating: 8/10 Open rating explainer Even before gyms closed down (because they'd quickly become coronavirus Petri dishes ), I always found it intimidating to walk through the door. Growing up, all I'd ever done to stay fit was participate in youth sports. I played soccer, ran laps, and did the occasional push-ups, planks, and other bodyweight exercises as coaches demanded them. But as I got older and it came time to tame my steadily expanding beer belly, I’d walk past the free-weight section of my local gym and head straight to the treadmill. I know strength training is important, but I had no idea where to begin. That’s where the Tempo Studio comes in. It's a large digital workout screen, and it feels like the home gym alternative built for the pandemic. Similar to its competitors such as Mirror , it aims to make digital exercise classes feel like one-on-one training sessions. But what makes the Tempo stand out is its use of 3D sensors, which track your movements to improve your form. In my first test session, my knees went over my ankles as one of the onscreen trainers had me doing weighted squats. The 3D sensors on the front of the Tempo noticed, and immediately triggered a red warning on the bottom left corner of the screen. One rep later, I corrected my positioning. The Tempo Studio is the perfect machine for learning in solitude. But the barrier that will put a lot of people off is the price. It starts at $2,500, and then there's the subscription, which costs $39 per month. But if following along with free YouTube videos while working out hasn't been cutting it for you, maybe it's worth considering the investment. Photograph: Tempo The Tempo isn't as gaudy as you might expect. It's essentially a 6-foot white triangle with a 42-inch vertical touchscreen TV on the front. I'd go so far as to call it aesthetically pleasing for a workout machine, especially given how well it hides its own accessories between uses. A cabinet below the screen opens to reveal hangers holding four sizes of weights, ranging from 1.25 to 10 pounds. You can combine plates to create weights that range from from 7.5 to 100 pounds. On the back, you'll find a bench press bar and two dumbbell bars, discreetly stowed. There’s even an open, triangle-shaped hole between the back of the touchscreen and the back side, a perfect place to store the included heart rate sensor, workout mat, and foam roller. When you’re not exercising, it looks like a digital armoire. The Tempo Studio is also better for small spaces than a Peloton or other "smart" workout machines. As long as your downstairs neighbors don’t mind hearing you jump squat, you can easily fit it in an apartment. All you really need is an outlet, ceilings high enough to lift weights fully above your head, and about 6 feet of space in front of the machine to place the included workout mat. The problem with most workout machines is that they’re not very personal. You can typically compare yourself with a leaderboard of other wealthy adults based on wattage or mileage, but it’s not like there’s someone on the other side of the screen telling you how your form might be hurting you or offering real-time feedback on how fast you’re doing your reps. The Tempo solves that with special infrared sensors that create a 3D model of your body based on 80,000 individual points. It takes this data and puts it into an artificial intelligence engine that reduces it to 25 pivot points on your body. Feet, ankles, knees, shoulders, neck, back, wrists, and hands are all accounted for in real time. If you're worried about privacy, the company says the sensors don't take the type of images that are identifiable to you—think a skeletal figure—and it doesn't capture any photos of your home. Tempo Tempo Studio Rating: 8/10 $2,500 at Tempo If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED It can detect the range of motion of your lifts and count your reps as you do them, say whether you need to slow down or speed up, and call you out when one of those pivot points isn’t where it should be—like my knees-over-ankles problem. It even uses heart rate and the speed of your reps, among other data points, to suggest raising or lowering weight levels and helps you understand which workouts are particularly challenging for you. At the end of each session, you can offer feedback on how hard the workout was, so the AI can provide better exercise suggestions. Video: Tempo Given what you get in the whole package, the Tempo centers around free-weight exercises like weighted squats, rows, and presses. But I was still impressed to find a vast array of workout styles, whether you’re trying to get ripped or just looking to supplement running or other workouts. Your first workout on the machine is a fitness assessment of sorts. The Tempo learns what weights to suggest during later workouts. Then the exercises range from quick stretching and mobility sessions to longer strength-training grinds and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Everything is well designed. I love that the workouts vary in time and intensity, and that warm-ups and cool-downs are included in every workout. You can even choose multiweek training plans, all of which are great for beginners like me. The instructors that lead each prerecorded class do so with real skill. They help motivate you through tougher workouts and give great advice on form for various lifts and exercises. Also, real-time analysis of my form and rep counting, plus a big timer in the upper right corner of the screen that notes how much longer I have to suffer, made everything less daunting. They weren't available during my early review period, but the company has now begun offering live classes, where instructors can use multiple screens in front of them to monitor each participant's heart rate and rep counts, as well as look for common form issues in the group. The rollout was initially delayed due to coronavirus concerns in production. It's worth noting that even if you don't like live classes, new prerecorded workouts are continuing to be made available. Photograph: Tempo It’s all so easy. Press a button on the back of the device, pick your account, and pick a workout (only one person can use it at a time, but you can make multiple home profiles for other folks in the house). It asks for your height, weight, and age, to help it calculate calorie burn and determine logical starting weights, and also to store your workout data for future viewing. It even gives you time to prep the weights before classes. Tempo Tempo Studio Rating: 8/10 $2,500 at Tempo If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED The only problem I had was that it occasionally miscounted reps when I was doing pushups. Full disclosure: My partner and I were using it in a small room without much space behind the workout mat. All other exercises counted reps nearly perfectly, though dropping a count did happen on rare occasions. I wasn’t too bothered by it; it works very well the vast majority of the time. But $1,995 is a lot to pay for anything. It becomes a little less painful when you think about how much your monthly gym membership costs in the before times. To soften the price, you can make $55 monthly payments with zero interest for 36 months, though you'll still have to shell out $39 a month on top of it for access to the content. If it helps, you can use the 30-day free trial to test the waters, and you can ship the product back for a full refund minus shipping. Plus, you get a three-year warranty on the machine. If you’re already a master of free weights or at-home exercise like WIRED senior writer Arienne So , you don’t need this machine to keep you sweating. But if you’re looking for a gym-free way to supplement outdoor activities like running or cycling, you might be hovering over the buy-now button at this very moment. One thing's for sure: The Tempo Studio brings a new level of personalization to onscreen workouts. It's an excellent example of AI assistance done right. Updated on July 6, 2020: A previous version of this review stated that live classes weren't available yet. We've updated this review to reflect that they are now available. Tempo Tempo Studio Rating: 8/10 $2,500 at Tempo If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED $2,500 at Tempo Writer and Reviewer X Topics fitness Exercise Fitness Trackers household Shopping Facebook X Pinterest YouTube Instagram Tiktok More From WIRED Subscribe Newsletters Mattresses Reviews FAQ Wired Staff Coupons Black Friday Editorial Standards Archive Contact Advertise Contact Us Customer Care Jobs Press Center RSS Accessibility Help Condé Nast Store Do Not Sell My Personal Info © 2023 Condé Nast. All rights reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Condé Nast. Ad Choices Select international site United States LargeChevron UK Italia Japón Czech Republic & Slovakia "