That is immediately’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a every day dose of what’s occurring on the planet of know-how.
Meta’s new AI can flip textual content prompts into movies
What’s occurred: Meta has unveiled an AI system that generates quick movies primarily based on textual content prompts. Make-A-Video enables you to sort in a string of phrases, like “A canine carrying a superhero outfit with a pink cape flying by means of the sky,” after which generates a five-second clip that, whereas fairly correct, has the aesthetics of a trippy outdated house video.
The way it works: Meta mixed knowledge from three open-source picture and video knowledge units to coach its mannequin. Customary text-image knowledge units of labeled nonetheless photos helped the AI study what objects are referred to as and what they seem like. And a database of movies helped it find out how these objects are supposed to maneuver on the planet.
Why it issues: Though the impact is reasonably crude, the system presents an early glimpse of what’s coming subsequent for generative synthetic intelligence, and it’s the subsequent apparent step from the text-to-image AI techniques which have precipitated large pleasure this 12 months. Nevertheless it additionally raises some large moral questions. Learn the total story.
—Melissa Heikkilä
China is betting large on one other fuel engine various: methanol vehicles
Because the Chinese language authorities works to achieve formidable carbon objectives, the nation has change into a world chief within the adoption of electrical autos. However that’s not the one greener automobile various it’s pursuing.
Whereas methanol gas has been mentioned and piloted in China for a decade, its adoption has lengthy lagged. Now the federal government is attempting to speed up the adoption of methanol vehicles, together with different state efforts within the final 12 months to draft methanol automobile requirements and help related industries, reaffirm its dedication to the choice gas.
This issues as a result of, identical to EVs, the know-how may change into each a industrial success and a political increase to China’s climate-tech ambitions. Learn the total story.
—Zeyi Yang
Can we discover methods to stay past 100? Millionaires are betting on it.
Scientists and biotech corporations have been networking with uber-wealthy traders at a swanky convention in Switzerland this week, making the case for longevity science and anti-aging methods. My colleague Jess Hamzelou, our senior biomedicine reporter, joined them, and obtained a peek at a number of the most cutting-edge work within the area. Examine what she found.
Jess’s story is from The Checkup, her new weekly publication providing you with the within observe on all issues well being and tech-related. Signal as much as obtain it in your inbox each Thursday.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the web to search out you immediately’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.
1 Hurricane Ian has left huge swathes of Florida underwater
Because it heads in direction of South Carolina, Biden has warned it may change into the deadliest in Florida historical past. (The Guardian)
+ Coral reefs are an efficient pure protection towards hurricanes. (Vox)
+ The storm is a potent mixture of highly effective and unpredictable. (The Atlantic $)
+ It may very well be on the right track to affix the record of storms as extreme as Katrina. (New Yorker $)
2 Iran is ramping up web blackouts and censorship
So far, it’s not attaining the federal government’s desired final result. (Slate $)
+ A distinct segment tech writer is shining a lightweight on China’s surveillance machine. (The Atlantic $)
three What makes plastic so helpful additionally makes it a nightmare to recycle
A brand new technique of breaking it down may assist. (Economist $)
+ A French firm is utilizing enzymes to recycle one of the frequent single-use plastics. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
four Why Russia’s cyber struggle by no means actually materialized
The assaults it did land didn’t ship the supposed penalties. (FT $)
+ Right here’s how the struggle in Ukraine may finish. (New Yorker $)
+ Russian males are reportedly pretending to have HIV to flee conscription. (Remainder of World)
5 Jack Dorsey tried to get Elon Musk a spot on Twitter’s board
However the different members noticed the appointment as too dangerous. (CNBC)
+ The previous CEO additionally tried to get Musk and CEO Parag Agrawal off on the fitting foot. (WSJ $)
+ Musk wished to seek for ‘Trump’ in his hunt for bot knowledge. (Bloomberg $)
+ Musk additionally toyed with appointing Oprah to Twitter’s board. (The Info $)
6 The Arctic Ocean is quickly changing into extra acidic
Unsurprisingly, local weather change is the offender. (Motherboard)
+ China, the world’s largest greenhouse fuel emitter, is struggling. (Vox)
7 Reboosting the Hubble Telescope would give it a brand new lease of life
NASA and SpaceX assume they might do exactly that. (BBC)
+ NASA has taken gorgeous pictures of Jupiter’s moon Europa. (New Scientist $)
eight Brace your self for a brand new wave of at-home assessments
They’re not only for covid, both. (Neo.Life)
+ Genome sequencing has by no means been so low cost, or simple. (Wired $)
9 Why voice notes are so controversial
Ship yours with warning. (WSJ $)
+ Lasers can ship a whispered audio message immediately to 1 particular person’s ear. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
10 AI is creating horrible new Pokémon
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. (WP $)
+ This artist is dominating AI-generated artwork. And he’s not blissful about it. (MIT Expertise Evaluate)
Quote of the day
“I suppose you study who your actual mates are when you possibly can’t get allocation of their seed spherical 
”
—Maia Bittner, an angel investor, jokily tweets concerning the pitfalls of investing in mates’ startups, Bloomberg experiences.
The large story
Meet the wannabe kidfluencers struggling for stardom
December 2019
On YouTube, youngsters can change into millionaires—seemingly in a single day, with out attempting. The very best paid of them, eight-year-old Ryan Kaji, made $22 million in 2018 by taking part in with toys on his channel Ryan ToysReview (now Ryan’s World). There at the moment are hundreds of equally well-known little one YouTubers: infants who’ve been vlogged for the reason that second of their beginning, 10-year-old streamers exhibiting off video-game tips, teenage ladies giving zits recommendation from their bedrooms.
Why achieve this many youngsters need to be YouTubers? Do they solely search fame, or is there extra to it: creativity, neighborhood, and a future profession? How are their dad and mom serving to them? And what occurs if, after spending hundreds of {dollars} or dropping out of college, it doesn’t work out? Learn the total story.
—Amelia Tait
We are able to nonetheless have good issues
A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)
+ Francis Ford Coppola’s glorious chiller Bram Stoker’s Dracula is again in film theaters this Halloween. Benefit from the opulent 4K trailer right here.
+ These scallops can’t get sufficient of brilliant lights.
+ Cher’s sprawling house is each bit as lavish as you’d anticipate.
+ Nope, it’s not a joke, they are surely turning The Matrix right into a dance present.
+ Controversial take klaxon: are these actually the perfect songs of the 90s?
