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That is right this moment’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what’s happening on this planet of expertise.

Recapturing early web whimsy with HTML 

Web sites weren’t at all times slick digital experiences. 

There was a time when browsing the online concerned opening tabs that performed music towards your will and sifting by means of partitions of textual content on a coloured background. Within the 2000s, earlier than Squarespace and social media, web sites have been manifestations of individuality—constructed from scratch utilizing HTML, by customers who had some information 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Scattered throughout the online are communities of programmers working to revive this seemingly outdated method.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 following journal version of MIT Know-how Evaluate, set to go dwell on January 8—and it’s all about innovation. In case you don’t already, reap the benefits of our seasonal subscription gives to get a duplicate when it lands.

2023 is breaking all kinds of local weather information

This has been fairly the yr for local weather information, with climate disasters, technological breakthroughs, and coverage adjustments making headlines around the globe. There’s an abundance of dangerous information, however there are additionally some glimmers of hope, if the place to look.

It’s quite a bit 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 crew is extra optimistic than you may think. 

—Casey Crownhart

This story is from The Spark, MIT Know-how Evaluate’s weekly local weather e-newsletter. Enroll to obtain it in your inbox each Wednesday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to seek out you right this moment’s most enjoyable/necessary/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.

1 Baby sexual abuse photographs have been present in AI coaching knowledge units
It’s a stunning demonstration of how little we all know in regards to the large quantities of information generative AI fashions are skilled on. (WP $) 
+ The largest AI picture coaching knowledge set, LAION, has been quickly taken offline whereas it scrambles to reply. (404 Media)

2Apple’s headset could possibly 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 Know-how Evaluate)

3 TikTok moderators are struggling to evaluate Israel-Gaza content material
The large drawback is a scarcity of native language abilities in content material moderation groups. (The Guardian)
+ Meta’s oversight board has mentioned AI is main the corporate to take away too many posts associated to the battle. (Quartz)
+ Search engines like google and yahoo 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 under the headline is advanced. (The Atlantic $)
+ Fossil-fuel emissions are over one million occasions larger than carbon elimination efforts. (MIT Know-how Evaluate)

5 What’s going to Ozempic’s subsequent act be? 
All these medication are being studied as remedies for all the things from dependancy to liver illness to infertility. (NYT $) 
+ Weight-loss injections have taken over the web. However what does this imply for individuals IRL? (MIT Know-how Evaluate)

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 loads of worry. (Remainder of World)

7 X went down for greater than an hour
It’s not the one main outage for the location in current 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 at all times been in a position to 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 large story

A Roomba recorded a girl 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 photographs have been mundane, if typically intimate, family scenes captured from low angles—together with a revealing shot of a younger girl sitting on the bathroom, her shorts pulled all the way down to mid-thigh.

The photographs have been taken by improvement variations of a Roomba robotic vacuum. They have been then despatched to Scale AI, a startup that contracts employees around the globe to label knowledge used to coach synthetic intelligence.

MIT Know-how Evaluate obtained 15 screenshots of those non-public photographs, which had been posted to closed social media teams. The photographs reveal an entire knowledge provide chain—and new factors the place private info may leak out—that few shoppers are even conscious of. Learn the total story.

—Eileen Guo

We will nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Bought 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 a number of the most spectacular.
+ There’s by no means a foul 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 seems to be like a beautiful place.

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