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This is at the moment’s version of The Download, our weekday publication that gives a each day dose of what’s occurring on this planet of know-how.
Next slide, please: A quick historical past of the company presentation
PowerPoint is in all places. It’s utilized in spiritual sermons; by schoolchildren getting ready e-book studies; at funerals and weddings. In 2010, Microsoft introduced that PowerPoint was put in on greater than a billion computer systems worldwide.
But earlier than PowerPoint, and lengthy earlier than even digital projectors, 35-millimeter movie slides have been king. They have been the one medium for the sorts of high-impact displays given by CEOs and high brass at annual conferences for stockholders, staff, and salespeople.
Known within the enterprise as “multi-image” exhibits, these displays required a small military of producers, photographers, and dwell manufacturing workers to drag off. Read this story to delve into the fascinating, flashy historical past of company displays.
—Claire L. Evans
This story is from the following upcoming challenge of our print journal, which is all about ethics. If you don’t subscribe already, enroll to obtain a duplicate when it publishes.
The US simply invested greater than $1 billion in carbon elimination
The information: The US Department of Energy has introduced that it’s offering $1.2 billion to develop regional hubs that may draw down and retailer away at the very least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12 months as a way of combating local weather change.
The particulars: The first recipients will embrace Occidental Petroleum’s proposed carbon-removal venture in Kleberg County, Texas, in addition to a partnership between Battelle, Climeworks, and Heirloom to develop amenities in southwestern Louisiana. Billions of {dollars} extra funding and extra hubs are set to be introduced additional down the road.
Why it issues: A rising physique of analysis has discovered that, to maintain local weather change in verify, nations could must not solely radically lower greenhouse fuel emissions but in addition draw down billions of tons of carbon dioxide per 12 months. This newest transfer represents a serious step ahead within the effort to ascertain a marketplace for doing this. Read the total story.
—James Temple
AI isn’t nice at decoding human feelings. So why are regulators concentrating on the tech?
Recently regulators have been ramping up warnings towards emotion recognition: the try to establish an individual’s emotions or mind-set utilizing AI evaluation of video, facial photographs, or audio recordings.
The thought isn’t tremendous sophisticated: the AI mannequin may even see an open mouth, squinted eyes, and contracted cheeks with a thrown-back head, as an illustration, and register it as amusing, concluding that the topic is glad.
But in follow, that is extremely complicated—and, some argue, a harmful and invasive instance of the type of pseudoscience that synthetic intelligence typically produces. But why is that this a high concern now? Read this story from senior reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley to seek out out.
This story is from The Technocrat, Tate’s weekly publication supplying you with the within observe on all issues tech, coverage and energy. Sign up to obtain it in your inbox each Friday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to seek out you at the moment’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Survivors say there was no warning siren earlier than the Lahaina wildfires
But it’s unclear what went incorrect. (BBC)
+ Researchers are beginning to take inventory of the losses in Maui. (Science)
+ This is why the wildfires occurred—and what may be completed to stop future ones. (Wired $)
2 The clear vitality transition is going on sooner than you may suppose
Renewables at the moment are anticipated to overhaul coal because the world’s largest supply of electrical energy by 2025. (NYT $)
+ Yes, we’ve got sufficient supplies to energy the world with renewable vitality. (MIT Technology Review)
3 Regulators have accepted a driverless taxi enlargement in San Francisco
Autonomous cabs can now function throughout the whole metropolis 24/7. (CNN)
4 TikTok ‘dual’ movies are set to destroy our brains even additional
Pity our poor, over-stimulated, already-obliterated consideration spans. (Wired $)
+ People are going to excessive lengths to make the proper TikTok clip. (WSJ $)
5 Why is it so arduous to create new sorts of ache relievers? 
The subject is plagued by failures, however a brand new research presents a small glimmer of hope. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Why everybody went so loopy over the LK-99 superconductor
The claims don’t appear to face up. But the episode exhibits how determined Silicon Valley is for the following huge factor. (WP $)
+ A physique of proof has piled up that disproves the preliminary claims. (The Verge)
7 AI means hackers can simply discuss computer systems into misbehaving
Tools like ChatGPT radically decrease the limitations for all types of assaults. (WSJ $)
+ Three methods AI chatbots are a safety catastrophe. (MIT Technology Review)
8 How China is utilizing apps to woo Taiwanese youngsters
An ideal instance of soppy energy in motion. (The Guardian)
9 How tech is altering how we grieve
We now depart behind reams and reams of stuff on-line for our households to pore over after we’re gone. (The Atlantic $)
+ Inside the metaverse meetups that permit folks share on loss of life, grief, and ache. (MIT Technology Review)
10 Zuckerberg says that cage combat isn’t occurring
It appears fairly apparent that Musk has chickened out. (BBC)
Quote of the day
“They had an understanding that I wasn’t the best choice — I was the only choice.”
—German director and actor Werner Herzog tells the New York Times why he’s voicing a brand new assortment of AI-generated poems.
The huge story
Tech’s new labor motion is harnessing classes realized a century in the past
June 2021
Back in 2020, because the world struggled to deal with the pandemic, staff on the Amazon achievement heart in Bessemer, Alabama, have been being pressed to work more durable and longer. They felt dehumanized. They wished dignity, not simply greater wages.
Workers pushed to affix the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, however Amazon waged warfare on the marketing campaign, and finally a vote handed in favor of conserving the established order. Elsewhere, nonetheless, different staff throughout the nation had began agitating.
Their exercise displays a brand new groundswell of curiosity in organizing amongst tech staff, who’re up towards the world’s richest corporations. But for each side on this battle, the underside line shouldn’t be cash however energy. Read the total story.
—Sarah Jaffe
We can nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ London’s skater ladies absolutely need to be a few of the coolest folks on the planet.
+ Let the controversy start over the perfect 100 motion pictures.
+ You can be taught lots about somebody from how they spend their cash.
+ Diane Morgan’s Netflix present Cunk on Earth had me in stitches final weekend.
+ A little bit bit of information can delude us into pondering we all know much more than we actually do. ($)