That is as we speak’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s happening on the planet of expertise.
Introducing: the Accessibility situation
Relating to occupied with accessibility, so lots of the dominant tales round applied sciences for incapacity, entry, and mobility paint them as objects of empowerment or heroic, life-changing panaceas for social in poor health.
Don’t accept half the story.
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In actuality, a lot of the bugginess and time-suckiness of recent tech is rarely talked about.
Within the newest situation of MIT Expertise Assessment, which is all about accessibility, we dig into the favored narratives about these approaches—shining a light-weight on the tales we inform about expertise, and the tales we inform about incapacity.
Opening ourselves as much as all-access pondering and disabled experience will imply a extra livable world—one which all of us can inhabit.
Learn the opening essay to the journal by our visitor editor Ashley Shew, an affiliate professor within the Division of Science, Expertise, and Society at Virginia Tech.
And right here’s a number of the good tales you’ll be able to learn within the new situation:
+ A new app designed to make immigration on the southern border extra orderly has became an impediment for households hoping to hunt refuge within the US.
+ Entry technologist Chancey Fleet explains how tactile graphics assist blind and low-sighted individuals navigate the world.
+ Meet the startups who need to construct futuristic blimps, airships, and hot-air balloons.
+ The iPad promised to revolutionize accessibility—however 13 years on, its legacy is blended, to say the least.
+ How US state authorities vans captured a wealthy visible historical past of America’s roads and highways over a long time.
+ A expertise that transforms data into sound is opening up astronomy to a complete new viewers.
+ An app known as Reclamo helps migrant employees to reclaim tens of millions of {dollars} in misplaced wages.
Learn the complete journal, and in case you haven’t already, reap the benefits of our restricted provide to subscribe from simply $60 a 12 months.
Shein’s allure offensive is off to a rocky begin
Shein has launched a allure offensive. The once-obscure Chinese language fast-fashion web site has change into more and more mainstream. And to reply to accusations of horrible labor situations, the corporate invited US influencers to its operations in China.
In accordance with social media posts, the six trend and wonder influencers went to an unnamed provider manufacturing facility, a Shein “innovation heart” in Guangzhou, and a distribution heart within the close by metropolis of Zhaoqing. But when they have been impressed, different social media customers clearly weren’t. Learn the complete story.
—Zeyi Yang
Zeyi’s story is from China Report, his weekly e-newsletter supplying you with the within monitor on all issues tech in China. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Tuesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.
1 The overwhelming majority of Google’s video advertisements could violate its personal requirements
And advert patrons need their a reimbursement. (WSJ $)
+ AI advertisements are coming in your TV. (NYT $)
2 The US is contemplating even harsher chip restrictions towards China
Nvidia is caught in the course of the warfare of attrition. (FT $)
+ In actual fact, Nvidia’s inventory fell following the information. (Bloomberg $)
+ The chip patterning machines that can form computing’s subsequent act. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
3 Sam Bankman-Fried misplaced his bid to dismiss some legal prices
As a substitute, he’ll face all 13 prices leveled towards him in October. (CNN)
+ FTX has paused the sale of its stakes in Anthropic. (Bloomberg $)
4 China is hellbent on beating the US’s AI achievements
It’s an formidable aim that’s uniting rival Chinese language firms. (Bloomberg $)
+ China isn’t ready to set down guidelines on generative AI. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
5 These startups are combating hearth with tech
Wildfires are getting worse—however human innovations aren’t all the time useful. (Motherboard)+ Defending the grid is key to combating worsening warmth waves. (Wired $)
+ Local weather policymakers are caught between a rock and a tough place. (Economist $)
+ What the complicated math of fireplace modeling tells us about the way forward for California’s forests. (MIT Expertise Assessment)
6 We’re going to want extra knowledge facilities
However discovering sufficient land to host them is proving tough. (NYT $)
7 Google has killed its AR glasses challenge 👓
Farewell, challenge Iris, we hardly knew ye. (Insider $)
8 Small nuclear reactors maintain massive promise
The nuclear trade is pinning its hopes on them, however discovering funding is hard. (Vox)
+ We have been promised smaller nuclear reactors. The place are they? (MIT Expertise Assessment)
9 Beware the web apocalypse
If the web have been to go down, it might take months to repair.(WP $)
10 YouTube is popping us all into digital vacationers 🏝️
Tens of millions are tuning into meandering movies strolling via far-flung cities. (Wired $)
Quote of the day
“We really feel like guinea pigs.”
— Ivana Saula, analysis director for the Worldwide Affiliation of Machinists and Aerospace Employees, tells the Wall Avenue Journal her group’s members are disgruntled at changing into case research for utilizing AI within the office.
The large story
Mind implants might be the subsequent laptop mouse
Dennis DeGray is paralyzed from the neck down, however a virtuoso at utilizing his mind to manage a pc mouse. For the final 5 years, he has participated in a sequence of medical trials by which surgeons have inserted tiny silicon probes into the brains of greater than 20 paralyzed individuals.
Utilizing these brain-computer interfaces, scientists have enabled these with the implants to know objects with robotic arms and steer planes round in flight simulators.
Whereas such expertise is therapeutic and restorative for individuals reminiscent of DeGray, entrepreneurs together with Elon Musk are pouring funding into mind implant initiatives which can be for elective enhancement, creating an moral maze for medical researchers. Learn the complete story.
—Antonio Regalado
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Obtained any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Twins actually are magical 👯
+ We could lastly understand how the annual Geminid meteor bathe got here to be.
+ This proficient artist reimagines album covers with Snoopy because the star.
+ Sadly, a Pompeii fresco showing to depict a tasty-looking pizza did no such factor.
+ Lastly—we’re studying extra about Paddington 3.
