The Obtain: company displays, and carbon removing funding

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That is right this moment’s version of The Obtain, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what’s occurring on the planet of know-how.

Subsequent slide, please: A short historical past of the company presentation

PowerPoint is in all places. It’s utilized in non secular sermons; by schoolchildren making ready guide reviews; at funerals and weddings. In 2010, Microsoft introduced that PowerPoint was put in on greater than a billion computer systems worldwide. 

However earlier than PowerPoint, and lengthy earlier than even digital projectors, 35-millimeter movie slides had been king. They had been the one medium for the sorts of high-impact displays given by CEOs and prime brass at annual conferences for stockholders, workers, and salespeople. 

Identified within the enterprise as “multi-image” reveals, these displays required a small military of producers, photographers, and stay manufacturing workers to tug off. Learn this story to delve into the fascinating, flashy historical past of company displays. 

—Claire L. Evans

This story is from the following upcoming subject of our print journal, which is all about ethics. Should you don’t subscribe already, enroll to obtain a duplicate when it publishes.

The US simply invested greater than $1 billion in carbon removing

The information: The US Division of Vitality has introduced that it’s offering $1.2 billion to develop regional hubs that may draw down and retailer away at the least 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per 12 months as a method of combating local weather change. 

The main points: The primary recipients will embody Occidental Petroleum’s proposed carbon-removal undertaking in Kleberg County, Texas, in addition to a partnership between Battelle, Climeworks, and Heirloom to develop amenities in southwestern Louisiana. Billions of {dollars} extra funding and extra hubs are set to be introduced additional down the road. 

Why it issues: A rising physique of analysis has discovered that, to maintain local weather change in verify, nations could have to not solely radically minimize greenhouse fuel emissions but in addition draw down billions of tons of carbon dioxide per 12 months. This newest transfer represents a significant step ahead within the effort to determine a marketplace for doing this. Learn the complete story. 

—James Temple

AI isn’t nice at decoding human feelings. So why are regulators concentrating on the tech?

Just lately regulators have been ramping up warnings in opposition to emotion recognition: the try and establish an individual’s emotions or way of thinking utilizing AI evaluation of video, facial photos, or audio recordings.

The thought isn’t tremendous difficult: the AI mannequin may even see an open mouth, squinted eyes, and contracted cheeks with a thrown-back head, as an illustration, and register it as fun, concluding that the topic is glad. 

However in apply, that is extremely complicated—and, some argue, a harmful and invasive instance of the kind of pseudoscience that synthetic intelligence usually produces. However why is that this a prime concern now? Learn this story from senior reporter Tate Ryan-Mosley to search out out. 

This story is from The Technocrat, Tate’s weekly e-newsletter providing you with the within monitor on all issues tech, coverage and energy. Join to obtain it in your inbox each Friday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to search out you right this moment’s most enjoyable/essential/scary/fascinating tales about know-how.

1 Survivors say there was no warning siren earlier than the Lahaina wildfiresBut it’s unclear what went incorrect. (BBC)+ Researchers are beginning to take inventory of the losses in Maui. (Science)+ This is the reason the wildfires occurred—and what might be achieved to stop future ones. (Wired $)2 The clear power transition is going on quicker than you may thinkRenewables are actually anticipated to overhaul coal because the world’s largest supply of electrical energy by 2025. (NYT $)+ Sure, we’ve got sufficient supplies to energy the world with renewable power. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)3 Regulators have accepted a driverless taxi enlargement in San FranciscoAutonomous cabs can now function throughout all the metropolis 24/7. (CNN)4 TikTok ‘twin’ movies are set to destroy our brains even additional Pity our poor, over-stimulated, already-obliterated consideration spans. (Wired $)+ Persons are going to excessive lengths to make the proper TikTok clip. (WSJ $)5 Why is it so onerous to create new forms of ache relievers? The sphere is suffering from failures, however a brand new research provides a small glimmer of hope. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

6 Why everybody went so loopy over the LK-99 superconductorThe claims don’t appear to face up. However the episode reveals how determined Silicon Valley is for the following huge factor. (WP $)+ A physique of proof has piled up that disproves the preliminary claims. (The Verge)7 AI means hackers can simply discuss computer systems into misbehavingTools like ChatGPT radically decrease the limitations for all kinds of assaults. (WSJ $)+ 3 ways AI chatbots are a safety catastrophe. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)8 How China is utilizing apps to woo Taiwanese teenagersA excellent instance of sentimental energy in motion. (The Guardian)

9 How tech is altering how we grieveWe now go away behind reams and reams of stuff on-line for our households to pore over once we’re gone. (The Atlantic $)+ Contained in the metaverse meetups that permit folks share on dying, grief, and ache. (MIT Know-how Evaluation)

10 Zuckerberg says that cage battle isn’t happeningIt appears fairly apparent that Musk has chickened out. (BBC)

Quote of the day

“That they had an understanding that I wasn’t your best option — I used to be the one selection.”

—German director and actor Werner Herzog tells the New York Instances why he’s voicing a brand new assortment of AI-generated poems.  

The massive story

Tech’s new labor motion is harnessing classes realized a century in the past

ANDREA DAQUINO

June 2021

Again in 2020, because the world struggled to deal with the pandemic, employees on the Amazon achievement middle in Bessemer, Alabama, had been being pressed to work more durable and longer. They felt dehumanized. They needed dignity, not simply larger wages.

Staff pushed to hitch the Retail, Wholesale, and Division Retailer Union, however Amazon waged battle on the marketing campaign, and ultimately a vote handed in favor of holding the established order. Elsewhere, nonetheless, different employees throughout the nation had began agitating. 

Their exercise displays a brand new groundswell of curiosity in organizing amongst tech employees, who’re up in opposition to the world’s richest corporations. However for each side on this wrestle, the underside line will not be cash however energy. Learn the complete story.

—Sarah Jaffe

We are able to nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction to brighten up your day. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ London’s skater women absolutely must be a number of the coolest folks on the planet. + Let the talk start over the most effective 100 films.+ You’ll be able to study rather a lot about somebody from how they spend their cash.+ Diane Morgan’s Netflix present Cunk on Earth had me in stitches final weekend. + Just a little bit of information can delude us into considering we all know much more than we actually do. ($)

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