The Download: heat pumps for everyone, and fake Twitter accounts in China
Here is lately’s edition of The Safe, our weekday e-newsletter that affords a everyday dose of what’s occurring on within the area of technology.
The fine reality about which properties have heat pumps
The news: Warmth pumps, which exercise electricity to each heat and frigid properties, are now lawful as total in low-income households within the US as they’re in wealthier ones. This bucks the pattern amongst client climate technologies, a form of which are worthy extra more possible to be adopted by the neatly off.
Why it matters: Heating buildings is a expansive climate self-discipline—roughly 10% of world emissions reach from our efforts to care for our indoor areas happy. But while governments are eager for folk to adopt contemporary appliances that would possibly possibly change systems that burn fossil fuels, historically, such adjustments haven’t been distributed equally. Warmth pumps, no longer lower than within the US, seem like diverse. That’s neatly suited news.
The considerable image: The necessity of households that count on heat pumps is mute runt, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll proceed to be adopted at equal charges by households with diverse incomes. But monetary incentives would possibly possibly attend to bring the pricetag financial savings and climate progress connected to heat pumps to everybody, no longer lawful the rich. Read the fleshy account.
—Casey Crownhart
The Twitter accounts that impersonate Chinese language celebrities for clout and cash
A rising need of Twitter accounts have been impersonating outspoken Chinese language intellectuals or celebrities. Their posts, which step by step criticize the Chinese language authorities, step by step scheme hundreds of thousands of followers sooner than the deception is publicly uncovered.
Although Twitter has been banned in China since 2009, extra Chinese language customers have been getting access to the platform with VPN tools in contemporary years. It’s additionally change into a job rife with unsolicited mail, scams, and impart farms, which has only gotten worse below Elon Musk’s reign. However the emergence of accounts that impersonate Chinese language celebrities who don’t have a Twitter presence—more possible to farm followers—is a recent, and caring, pattern. Read the fleshy account.
—Zeyi Yang
Zeyi’s account is from China Document, his weekly e-newsletter giving you the internal video display on all things China. Study in to secure it on your inbox each Tuesday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the net to search out you lately’s most fun/critical/upsetting/charming reports about technology.
1 Reddit is doubling-down on its controversial API plans
Its CEO is committed to pushing thru the adjustments, in spite of client pushback. (The Verge)
2 Microsoft has been temporarily blocked from buying Activision Blizzard
Which is neatly suited news for US regulators, and a blow to Microsoft’s ambitions. (BBC)
3 Nvidia is officially a trillion greenback company
And demand for its chips is showing no indicators of waning. (WSJ $)
+ Oracle’s critical person is on the upward thrust, too. (Economist $)
+ These straightforward make principles would possibly possibly flip the chip industry on its head. (MIT Know-how Overview)
4 Binance has pushed aid against US regulators
The embattled crypto exchange argued that its industry used to be at risk of folding. (NYT $)
5 NASA has designed a climate alternate-fighting aircraft
It’s lighter, sooner, and a total lot extra green than feeble airplanes. (Vox)
+ Here’s what’s retaining electrical planes from taking off. (MIT Know-how Overview)
6 How the 2024 US election would possibly possibly play out on Twitter
Republican candidates are more possible to get hang of special therapy, for starters. (New Yorker $)
7 Interior the speed to bring flying taxis to market
A handful of companies are vying to be the first—nonetheless security concerns abound. (FT $)
+ Saudi Arabia is launching a recent airline provider in 2025. (Bloomberg $)
+ These aircraft would possibly possibly alternate how we cruise. (MIT Know-how Overview)
8 Silicon Valley’s jobseekers are pivoting to AI
While it’s mute considerable to search out a job, specializing in AI is dapper profession future-proofing. (Bloomberg $)
+ Much less brutal commutes would attend to lure workers aid to offices. (NY Mag $)
+ How ChatGPT will revolutionize the financial system. (MIT Know-how Overview)
9 We would possibly possibly merely mute strive to contain the area’s noises 👂
Over-reliance on noise-canceling tech can leave us hypersensitive to the slightest sound. (Wired $)
10 Creator financial system commence up-united statesare in freefall 📉
Their hopes of capitalizing on creators’ recognition have been dashed. (The Files $)
Quote of the day
“It’s a rattling ghost metropolis.”
—Rachel Leamy, who runs a shoeshine industry in San Francisco, tells the Washington Put up how the once-brilliant metropolis is vastly emptier than it used to be pre-pandemic.
The considerable account
Why are products for older of us so terrifying?
August 2019
On a drizzly Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco, of us are filtering exact into a runt conference room appointed with a whiteboard and subdued gloomy-and-white photography. They’re here to chat about technology—a scene that wants to be fully unremarkable in a metropolis filled with runt white conference rooms the save of us are doing exactly the identical.
The important thing contrast is that the long-established age of the 11 girls folk and 5 males gathered here is somewhere within the mid-70s. They are the Longevity Explorers, fragment of an experiment to boost the vogue technology is developed for older adults.
Specialists command older adults who mute work, or who spend time with younger relations who exercise technology, are extra true to determine on it up. But the checklist of abominable products for older of us is prolonged—and progress is incremental. Read the fleshy account.
—Andy Wright
We can mute have good things
A job for comfort, fun and distraction in these irregular instances. (Got any tips? Fall me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ It turns out that folk would possibly possibly merely have been knocking about in South-East Asia significantly longer ago than we previously idea.
+ This graphic house is like living in an edgy Patrick Caulfield screenprint.
+ What fabricate hand devices fabricate all day? In the raze, some answers!
+ Journey this frigid pictures of a bubble of plasma exploding in front of the solar.
+ While the Prohibition period would possibly possibly possibly be connected to alcohol, it turns out it used to be a golden age for ice cream. 🍦
