I scoured the internet to find you today’s most interesting/important/scary/fascinating stories about tech.
1 Big Tech wants to kill leap seconds
They claimed that the extra time caused network outages and internet disturbances. (Cnet)
2 QAnon ideology is thriving in primaries
But savvy Republicans are avoiding going out as believers. (NYT $)
+ Donald Trump refused to read lines condemning the Capitol rioters in a speech. (Reuters)
+ Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party nominee’s social media game is exceptional. (Guardians)
3 Venture Capitalists Set to Invest Record Amounts in Cryptocurrency
Then completely unfazed for the past six months. (Reuters)
+ Hacked crypto platforms are begging thieves to return part of their funds. (WSJ $)
4 Pedestrians in America are in real danger
Roads built entirely for vehicular traffic are threatening the lives of people trying to cross them. (Vox)
+ London is testing traffic lights that put pedestrians first. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Facebook is even worse when there is no news
Dragging buttons on articles makes the platform look like a content graveyard. (Atlantic)
+ Failure to curb hate speech continues to fuel violence in Ethiopia. (Insiders)
+ Meta’s insistence on copying TikTok is making you a little embarrassed. (Axios)
+ Instagram’s makeover has not gone well with users either. (TechCrunch)
6 Algorithms are changing our style
Promotes a generic, flat taste designed to appeal to everyone, but no one. (New Yorkers $)
+ We are also competing with valuation algorithms designed to squeeze us for every penny. (NPR)
7. Roblox leans back to appease Chinese censors
And even that didn’t stop it from shutting down after just a few months. (Motherboard)
+ Chinese gamers are using the wallpaper app on Steam to bypass porn censors. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Inside the ongoing war on digital book lending
Physical libraries are embroiled in debates over copyright law. (WP $)
9 tech entrepreneurs are selling stakes in their lives
Because, why not? (New Yorkers $)
10 Courage for the Return of the Glass Pit
Companies are desperate to sell us smart glasses — but do we really want them? (The Verge)
+ Why is Facebook using Ray-Ban to make claims about our faces. (MIT Technology Review)
Quote of the day
“Where will it go next? Good luck out there, little bag.”
—Finbarr Taylor, whose suitcase went AWOL on a flight from California to Glasgow, regretfully tracking his bag’s journey around the world with the permission of an Apple AirTag tracker, reports Bloomberg.
Big story
Inside the machine is stored Moore’s law
October 2021
In Wilton, Connecticut, Dutch company ASML is building the world’s most complex lithography machine — a key process used to create transistors, conductors and other essential components of microchip. The team’s speed and precision are key to keeping up with Moore’s law — the observation that the number of transistors crammed into a microchip doubles every two years as components become increasingly smaller, making the chip cheaper and more powerful.
It took ASML $9 billion in R&D and 17 years of research to refine its industry-leading ultraviolet microchip (EUV). But the effort and time it took for it to happen raised some inevitable questions. How long will the EUV be able to maintain Moore’s Law? And what will happen next? Read full story.
