That is at this time’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a each day dose of what’s happening on the planet of know-how.
Recapturing early web whimsy with HTML
Web sites weren’t all the time slick digital experiences.
There was a time when browsing the online concerned opening tabs that performed music in opposition to your will and sifting by partitions of textual content on a coloured background. Within the 2000s, earlier than Squarespace and social media, web sites had been manifestations of individuality—constructed from scratch utilizing HTML, by customers who had some data of code.
Scattered throughout the online are communities of programmers working to revive this seemingly outdated method. And the motion is something however a superficial attraction to retro aesthetics—it’s about celebrating the human contact in digital experiences. Learn the total story.
—Tiffany Ng
This story is from the subsequent journal version of MIT Expertise Evaluation, set to go stay on January 8—and it’s all about innovation. When you don’t already, benefit from our seasonal subscription presents to get a replica when it lands.
2023 is breaking all types of local weather information
This has been fairly the yr for local weather information, with climate disasters, technological breakthroughs, and coverage modifications making headlines around the globe. There’s an abundance of dangerous information, however there are additionally some glimmers of hope, if you already know the place to look.
It’s loads to make sense of, so we took a glance again on the yr, with the assistance of loads of knowledge. A “local weather wrapped,” if you’ll. Test it out, and likewise learn our story about why our local weather staff is extra optimistic than you may think.
—Casey Crownhart
This story is from The Spark, MIT Expertise Evaluation’s weekly local weather publication. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you at this time’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Baby sexual abuse pictures have been present in AI coaching knowledge units
It’s a surprising demonstration of how little we all know concerning the huge quantities of information generative AI fashions are educated on. (WP $)
+ The largest AI picture coaching knowledge set, LAION, has been briefly taken offline whereas it scrambles to reply. (404 Media)
2Apple’s headset might be prepared as early as February 2024
Then we’ll discover out the reply to the large query: who will purchase it? (Bloomberg $)
+ These minuscule pixels are poised to take augmented actuality by storm. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
3 TikTok moderators are struggling to evaluate Israel-Gaza content material
The massive drawback is an absence of native language abilities in content material moderation groups. (The Guardian)
+ Meta’s oversight board has stated AI is main the corporate to take away too many posts associated to the battle. (Quartz)
+ Engines like google assist to spice up misinformation. (Scientific American $)
4 The US pumped extra oil than another nation in historical past in 2023
Sounds dreadful, however the actuality beneath the headline is advanced. (The Atlantic $)
+ Fossil-fuel emissions are over 1,000,000 occasions better than carbon removing efforts. (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
5 What is going to Ozempic’s subsequent act be? 
Most of these medicine are being studied as therapies for every part from habit to liver illness to infertility. (NYT $)
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the web. However what does this imply for folks IRL? (MIT Expertise Evaluation)
6 YouTube is without doubt one of the final bastions of unbiased journalism in India
And even then, reporters who run their very own channels work with few protections and a whole lot of worry. (Remainder of World)
7 X went down for greater than an hour
It’s not the one main outage for the positioning in latest days both. (The Verge)
+ How Twitter died in 2023. (Engadget)
8 Science fiction is kinda ruining the world
Billionaires grew up studying dystopian novels, and now they’re decided to make them a actuality. (Scientific American $)
9 What occurs to our planet when the solar dies?
Learn this for a wholesome serving to of perspective over the vacations(!) (Quanta $)
10 How 2023 went down on social media
It wasn’t a classic yr in honesty, however there have been nonetheless loads of lolz—and drama—to go round. (NYT $)
Quote of the day
“Folks have all the time been capable of lie, however the effectiveness of these lies is now augmented and considerably elevated.”
—Arizona’s Secretary of State Adrian Fontes tells Wired how he expects AI to have an effect on the 2024 elections.
The massive story
A Roomba recorded a lady on the bathroom. How did screenshots find yourself on Fb?
December 2022
Within the fall of 2020, gig employees in Venezuela posted a sequence of pictures to on-line boards the place they gathered to speak store. The pictures had been mundane, if typically intimate, family scenes captured from low angles—together with a revealing shot of a younger lady sitting on the bathroom, her shorts pulled right down to mid-thigh.
The pictures had been taken by improvement variations of a Roomba robotic vacuum. They had been then despatched to Scale AI, a startup that contracts employees around the globe to label knowledge used to coach synthetic intelligence.
MIT Expertise Evaluation obtained 15 screenshots of those personal pictures, which had been posted to closed social media teams. The pictures reveal an entire knowledge provide chain—and new factors the place private data may leak out—that few shoppers are even conscious of. Learn the total story.
—Eileen Guo
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Obtained any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ The brand new yr is approaching, and with it: 30 days of yoga with Adriene!
+ The JWST has gifted us with a plethora of wonderful pictures this yr. Right here are among the most spectacular.
+ There’s by no means a nasty time to eat scrumptious pasta dishes.
+ Shout out to Sally Snowman, the Boston Gentle first and on-line feminine lighthouse keeper.
+ India’s oldest bookshop appears to be like like a stunning place.