I’ve scoured the internet to find you today’s funniest/important/scariest/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Big Tech Wants To Kill The Leap Second
The extra time has triggered internet outages and disruptions, they claim. (CNET)
2 The QAnon ideology thrives in the primaries
But savvy Republicans avoid explicitly presenting themselves as believers. (NYT $)
+ Donald Trump refused to read lines condemning the Capitol rioters during a speech. (Reuters)
+ The Pennsylvania Democratic candidate’s social media game is outstanding. (The Guardian)
3 Venture capitalists set to invest record amount in crypto
Completely unfazed for the past six months, then. (Reuters)
+ Hacked crypto platforms beg thieves to return some of their loot. (WSJ $)
4American pedestrians are in real danger
Roads built only for vehicles threaten the lives of humans trying to cross them. (Voice)
+ London is experimenting with traffic lights that give priority to pedestrians. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Facebook is even worse without news
By unplugging the articles, the platform feels like a content graveyard. (Atlantic)
+ Its failure to curb hate speech continues to fuel violence in Ethiopia. (Initiated)
+ Meta’s insistence on copying TikTok is getting a bit embarrassing. (Axios)
+ Instagram’s makeover has not been well received by users either. (Tech Crunch)
6 algorithms are distorting our sense of style
Fueling a flat, generic taste designed to appeal to everyone, but no one. (New Yorker $)
+ We also face pricing algorithms designed to squeeze us for every penny.. (NPR)
7 Roblox bends over backwards to appease Chinese censors
And even that didn’t stop it from having to close there after just a few months. (Motherboard)
+ Chinese gamers use Steam wallpaper app to push porn past censors. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Inside the ongoing war over e-book lending
Physical libraries are embroiled in debates over copyright law. (WP $)
9 tech entrepreneurs sell stocks in their lifetime
Because, why not? (New Yorker $)
10 Prepare For The Return Of The Glasshole
Companies are desperate to sell us smart glasses, but do we really want them? (The edge)
+ Why Facebook uses Ray-Ban to claim our faces. (MIT Technology Review)
quote of the day
“Where will he go next? Good luck there, little bag.
—Finbarr Taylor, whose suitcase went missing on a flight from California to Glasgow, is sadly tracking his bag’s journey around the world with an Apple AirTag tracker, reports Bloomberg.
The big story
Inside the machine that saved Moore’s Law
October 2021
In Wilton, Connecticut, Dutch company ASML builds the world’s most sophisticated lithography machine, a crucial process used to create transistors, wires and other essential components for microchips. The team’s speed and accuracy are key to tracking Moore’s Law, the observation that the number of transistors crammed into a microchip doubles roughly every two years as the components get smaller and smaller, which makes chips cheaper and more powerful.
It took ASML $9 billion of R&D and 17 years of research to refine its industry-leading extreme ultraviolet (EUV) chip machine. But the effort and time it took to get there raises inevitable questions. How long will EUV be able to maintain Moore’s Law? And what will happen next? Read the full story.