The Obtain: the oldest nook of the metaverse, and the way EV batteries work

That is as we speak’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a day by day dose of what’s occurring on the earth of expertise.

Welcome to the oldest a part of the metaverse

As we speak’s headlines deal with the metaverse as a hazy dream but to be constructed. But when it’s outlined as a community of digital worlds we will inhabit, its oldest nook has been already working for 25 years.

It’s a medieval fantasy kingdom created for the web role-playing recreation Ultima On-line. 

It was the primary to simulate a whole world: an unlimited, dynamic realm the place gamers might work together with nearly something, from fruit on bushes to books on cabinets.

Ultima On-line has already endured a quarter-century of market competitors, financial turmoil, and political strife. So what can this recreation and its gamers inform us about creating the digital worlds of the long run? Learn the complete story.

—John-Clark Levin

How does an EV battery really work?

The batteries propelling electrical automobiles have shortly develop into essentially the most essential element, and expense, for a brand new era of automobiles and vehicles.

The overwhelming majority of electrical automobiles are powered by lithium-ion batteries, that are additionally present in smartphones. They’ll maintain excessive voltage and distinctive cost, making them an environment friendly, dense type of vitality storage.

However whereas they’re anticipated to stay dominant in EVs for the foreseeable future, battery builders are working in the direction of lighter, cheaper and extra environment friendly alternate options. Learn the complete story.

—Patrick Sisson

Each of the tales above are from the following difficulty of MIT Expertise Overview’s print journal, which is all about design. Subscribe to learn it in full when it comes out later this month. 

TR10: Vote in our ballot 

Earlier this yr, we revealed MIT Expertise Overview’s 10 Breakthrough Applied sciences of 2023. There’s nonetheless time to vote in our ballot to assist us resolve the honorary 11th expertise. The winner shall be introduced in The Obtain on March 1, so make sure to test again then.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to seek out you as we speak’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.

1 Microsoft needs to rein in Bing’s creepy interactions
Its unnerving solutions and irritable tone are riling folks. (NYT $)
+ A reminder: Bing doesn’t have emotions, or certainly have a clue what it’s saying. (Motherboard)
+ The hype round AI search already appears untimely. (The Atlantic $)+ If chatbots spout nonsense, it’s as a result of they had been skilled on nonsense. (NYT $)
+ Why you shouldn’t belief AI engines like google. (MIT Expertise Overview)

2 Tesla is recalling lots of of hundreds of ‘full self-driving’ automobiles 
The present system permits automobiles to behave dangerously round intersections. (ABC Information)
+ The US authorities is responsible for letting issues get so far too. (Slate $)
+ Self-driving automobiles are going through a rocky highway forward. (The Guardian)
+ The massive new thought for making self-driving automobiles that may go wherever. (MIT Expertise Overview)

three The US and China say they’ll unravel the spy balloon thriller
A cellphone name between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping is on the playing cards. (FT $)
+ The three different mysterious objects might really be climate balloons. (NY Magazine)

four A lethal Marburg virus has been detected in Africa
At the least eight folks have died to this point, and there’s no vaccine. (New Scientist $)

5 Bitcoin’s future rests within the palms of simply 5 coders
They diligently catch bugs and hold its ticking over behind the scenes. (WSJ $)
+ Crypto has failed Black traders in parsoftware program ticular. (Vox)
+ Beware: there’s an entire lot of crypto scams on the market. (Wired $)

6 Huge Tech has no feminine CEOs
Susan Wojcicki’s departure from YouTube makes the business much more of a boy’s membership. (Bloomberg $)
+ Different high-profile ladies have additionally stepped down in current months. (WP $)
+ Why can’t tech repair its gender downside? (MIT Expertise Overview)

7 How 3D-printing might revolutionize battery design
Its solid-state cells are each environment friendly and cost-effective. (Quick Firm $)
+ How outdated batteries will assist energy tomorrow’s EVs. (MIT Expertise Overview)

eight YouTube is educating the world about Sufism
The mysticism-heavy department of Islam is little-understood by non-disciples. (Remainder of World)

9 What your grocery store is aware of about you 
These low cost playing cards are a treasure trove of private buying information. (The Markup)

10 Social media can’t agree on what parenting seems to be like 🧸
Both manner, we all know it’s making dad and mom really feel worse IRL. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“I wish to be alive. 😈

—A response the New York Occasions managed to generate from Microsoft’s AI-powered chatbot Bing (which, regardless of a lot pleasure and consternation, is just not an indication of sentience.

The massive story

The messy morality of letting AI make life-and-death choices

October 2022

In a workshop within the Netherlands, Philip Nitschke is overseeing testing on his new assisted suicide machine. Sealed contained in the coffin-sized pod, an individual who has chosen to die should reply three questions. The machine will then fill with nitrogen fuel, inflicting the occupant to move out in lower than a minute and die by asphyxiation in round 5.

Regardless of a 25-year marketing campaign to “demedicalize loss of life” via expertise, Nitschke has not been in a position to sidestep the medical institution absolutely. An answer might come within the type of an algorithm that Nitschke hopes will permit folks to carry out a form of psychiatric self-assessment. 

Whereas his mission could appear excessive—even outrageous—to some, he isn’t the one one seeking to contain expertise, and AI specifically, in life-or-death choices. Learn the complete story.

—Will Douglas Heaven

We will nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre instances. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I merely can not get sufficient of those horrible waxworks.
+ These pesky woodpeckers managed to retailer greater than 700 kilos of acorns in a Californian rental dwelling (thanks Allison and Brian!)
+ These preserved ghost ships are severely spooky.
+ Humankind’s historic family might have been useful with instruments thousands and thousands of years in the past.
+ I’m not loving it: this web site tracks the worth of your closest Huge Mac (and it’s dangerous information in the event you reside in Massachusetts.)

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