to protecting kids and teens online.

Democrats want laws that force tech companies to take down more harmful content. Republicans say the platforms censor conservative views, despite evidence showing that right-wing content and figures thrive on social media.

We won’t tell you what to think about the future, but how to think about it.

critical but not cynical;

shouldn’t shy away from pushing the envelope either

this or that invention would “change everything.”

But whatever the story, you should find something to learn from it—and, ideally, the inspiration to make a positive difference yourself.

You cannot explain the impacts of technology on the world without deeply understanding the motives, incentives, and limitations of the people who build and use it.

What would it take to build a better future?

a false dichotomy

This tug-of-war between optimism and pessimism is the reason why I said this feels like an inflection point in the history of tech

Blockchain is either the most radical invention of the century or a worthless shell game. The metaverse is either the next incarnation of the internet or just an ingeniously vague label for a bunch of overhyped things that will mostly fail. Personalized medicine will revolutionize health care or just widen its inequalities. Facebook has either destroyed democracy or revolutionized society. Every issue is divisive and tribal. And it’s generally framed as a judgment on the tech itself—“this tech is bad” vs. “this tech is good”—instead of looking at the underlying economic, social, and personal forces that actually determine what that tech will do.

Yet debates about tech, like those about politics or social issues, still seem to always collapse into either/or.

an intelligent person should be able to hold opposed ideas in their mind simultaneously and still function.

to think tech itself was the solution—and that we’d now be equally wrong to treat tech as the problem.

with rejecting the binary

What does it mean to be WIRED, a publication born to celebrate technology, in an age when tech is often demonized?

Today, a great deal of media coverage focuses on the damage wrought by a tech industry run amok.

how to think about the issue intelligently and with nuance instead of always falling into the binary trap.

More likely, you—like me—are at neither of these extremes.

is "called to be truly inclusive, not canceling but cherishing the differences and sensibilities that have historically marked various peoples."

The pope slammed those who operate under the "guise of defending diversity" and in the process eliminate "all sense of identity," which he said risks "silencing positions that defend a respectful and balanced understanding of various sensibilities."

“common values of humanity”

Recently, the issue of child safety in virtual reality was raised by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). The campaign group looked at a popular third-party app called VRChat.

"Diplomacy is called to be truly inclusive, not canceling but cherishing the differences and sensibilities that have historically marked various peoples," he added.

Speaking on Monday, the head of the Catholic Church blasted “one-track thinking” in which individuals express a “mindset that rejects the natural foundations of humanity.”

During his address to the diplomats, Pope Francis welcomed the forthcoming opening of the 88th permanent embassy in the Eternal City, that of Switzerland, until now located in Slovenia.

The Holy See has either a local nunciature (106) or a delocalized nunciature (77). In comparison, China has an ambassador in 169 countries, the United States in 168 countries and France in 161 countries.

The Holy See has either a local nunciature (106) or a delocalized nunciature (77). In comparison, China has an ambassador in 169 countries, the United States in 168 countries and France in 161 countries.

In the past, malicious spam focused more on using techniques such as viruses. Now that computers are better at auto-updating to patch security holes, spammers are targeting people with social attacks, using techniques like impersonating real companies or people. They’re exploiting human weaknesses more than computer weaknesses.

there has been a 30 percent increase in the volume of spam this past year across services.

particularly in the past six months — many people using free-email services have noticed a surge of unwanted scam emails

hanks to improvements in automatic filters from email providers and third-party services, the early 2000′s onslaught of sketchy Viagra offers and promised contest winnings were mostly kept out of sight.

she believes that local residents are right in arguing that they don’t get much in return for hosting data centers.

One of the most common arguments against the facility is its huge demand for green energy that was destined for Dutch homes. The data center “uses an enormous amount of electricity, of which a big part is green electricity, which we don't have much of in the Netherlands anyway,” says de Roos. The new Dutch government echoed this sentiment in its December coalition agreement, saying that "hyperscale data centers place an unreasonably large demand on the available renewable energy in relation to their societal or economic value.”

Like Schaap, other residents of Zeewolde are outraged that Meta has chosen their town for its first gigantic data center in the Netherlands. They claim the company will be allowed to syphon off a large percentage of the country’s renewable energy supply to power porn, conspiracy theories, and likes on Meta’s social platforms.

Like Schaap, other residents of Zeewolde are outraged that Meta has chosen their town for its first gigantic data center in the Netherlands. They claim the company will be allowed to syphon off a large percentage of the country’s renewable energy supply to power porn, conspiracy theories, and likes on Meta’s social platforms.

despite China controlling approximately 60 percent of rare earth ore, producing 85 percent of the oxides, and accounting for more than 95 percent of the rare earth manufacturing, there is no comparable response.

Rare earths have become a fundamental part of modern life. Cell phones, computers, televisions, and cars are among the indispensable products powered by the strong internal magnets manufactured from rare earths. Modern medical devices, communication systems, and a sustainable, “green” energy transition are entirely dependent on successful exploitation of this non-renewable resource and, as can be easily inferred, rare earths are vital for the development of military technology.

Rare earth metals, or simply “rare earths,” are the essential, irreplaceable materials powering most of modern technology and, since 1985, China has systematically gained near complete control over the global supply chain.

Rare earth metals, or simply “rare earths,” are the essential, irreplaceable materials powering most of modern technology and, since 1985, China has systematically gained near complete control over the global supply chain.

Iran demonstrated they are not working. Iran’s economy might suffer, but not its scientific progress.

Amid all this, we remain perplexed and vexed by the anomalous health incidents, or Havana syndrome, that have stricken some 200 U.S. officials and family members in multiple countries. The cause and source still unknown, one strong theory is targeted microwaves.

By establishing agreed-upon norms of behavior in space and generating binding restrictions on ASAT testing, the international community can ensure that space is stable, secure and accessible to all for generations to come.

a verification regime needs to be developed that will enable all countries to monitor whether or not the conditions of any agreement are being followed

what incentives are driving the testing of ASAT weapons and how those can be shifted.

no agreed-upon space arms control lexicon; one is needed to overcome the existing cultural, language, and geopolitical differences amongst the major space powers.

In October 2021, the U.N. First Committee voted to hold a new Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on space threats (and formalized it in the UNGA with a vote in December 2021). The OEWG would be open to all countries and would meet in 2022 and 2023 to develop concrete proposals for addressing space threats.

The other main multilateral body where one might expect to see negotiations on space arms control, the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, has been bogged down in disagreement over what the real threat to space is. Russia, China and their allies argue that the focus should be on banning the placement of space-to-Earth weapons in orbit. The United States and its allies instead argue that threatening behavior in space—such as uncoordinated close approaches to another country’s satellite, or the deliberate creation of large amounts of debris—is what is destabilizing. Furthermore, the two sides are split over whether the steps taken should be a legally binding treaty or voluntary guidelines and political norms of behavior.

The international community has been trying for decades to limit the development or use of space weapons, such as ASATs, through discussions of what has been called the Prevention of an Arms Race in Outer Space (PAROS) at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

And it happened at an altitude of approximately 480 kilometers; both the International Space Station and China’s Tiangong space station orbit at an altitude of around 400 kilometers.

And some of this orbital debris is long-lived, meaning that it could pose a future risk to anything that might launch into the same altitude for years to come.

A new solution to Africa’s remittances problem

With Nigeria’s crypto ban dominating headlines throughout 2021,

As we’ve witnessed from China, blanket bans do little in terms of limiting trading activity and protecting consumers but engaging experts who understand the nuances of new and complex technology like cryptocurrencies can provide a huge amount of value on how to protect consumers from its risks.

Gibson wrote in 2012 that “video games represent one of the most difficult challenges for digital preservationists,” noting they are made for a “diverse array of hardware and software platforms, rife with rights issues.” He also wrote that they are “expressive creative works objects which one hopes to attend to the highest levels of artifactual qualities.”

Game history is part of general culture as well as intellectual and media history. It’s not possible to include a full history of any of those topics without including games from the 1970s forward.

“Game history is part of general culture as well as intellectual and media history,” said Henry Lowood, curator for film and media collections as well as science and technology collections in the Stanford University Libraries. Lowood is one of the academics pushing for increased access to games for the purposes of study. “It’s not possible to include a full history of any of those topics without including games from the 1970s forward.”

the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade organization that lobbies on behalf of game publishers.

have touted gaming’s cultural impact as the equal of literature, film and music.

have touted gaming’s cultural impact as the equal of literature, film and music.

air purifier that goes around your neck.

Just take the Ameca robot from Engineered Arts, a true-to-scale, metal-and-plastic robot person who blinks, shrugs and grimaces just like you and me — if you and me were stilted human facsimiles.

People still don’t have legal protections for the personal data they generate in normal old smartphone apps, yet consumer tech is marching forward into virtual reality.

Some door locks, for example, worked only with Apple phones and not Androids; some thermostats were controlled by talking to Google Assistant and not to Siri.

The metaverse could still turn out to be a fad, depending on what products emerge and who buys them.

But throughout Year 2 of the pandemic, a critical mass of factors came together to make the metaverse more realistic,

“The next phase takes that visual representation and dimensionalizes it. You go into an environment and express yourself through an avatar.”

Many of the same “trends” appear again and again because, to put it simply, technology takes a long time to mature before most of us actually want to buy it.

Latin American countries are also fortifying their “Active Non-Alignment” stance, using stronger relations with China as leverage to achieve relative state autonomy from the U.S. and to extract benefits from both the U.S. and China.

on an Oculus headset from Facebook parent company Meta or clicking into a desktop application.

Smaller data sets make it easier for algorithms to cheat that way and create blind spots that cause poor results in the clinic.

they use powerful algorithms on data sets that are too small.

Accessing health data is harder because of privacy concerns and creaky IT systems.

can be highly accurate at specific tasks, such as finding skin cancers or predicting patient outcomes.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t find those shining stars; we found a lot of problems.”

when the UK’s Alan Turing Institute looked for evidence of how artificial intelligence had helped with the crisis, it didn’t find much to celebrate.

to explain an idea clearly

But for the structured thought it demands, and the ease with which it can be shared and edited, the written word is made for remote work.

But for the structured thought it demands, and the ease with which it can be shared and edited, the written word is made for remote work.

But good prose and useful prose share the same essential qualities: brevity, structure, a clear theme.

“Brainwriting” is a brainstorming technique, used by Slack among others, in which participants are given time to put down their ideas before discussion begins.

Gitlab’s answer is “textual communication”.

teams with high-quality documentation deliver software faster and more reliably

so is turning up to a meeting and not having the foggiest what was decided last time out.

When veterans depart an organisation, they should leave knowledge behind.

When new employees start work on something, they want the back story.

“In my experience, discussion expands the space of possibilities while writing reduces it to its most essential components.”

“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen,” reckoned Lee Iacocca

slow, time-intensive writing

an old form of communication—writing—is also flourishing.

Acknowledgements

But however professional, a chargé d’affaires running an embassy often lacks the clout that comes with being the president’s chosen ambassador, endorsed by the Senate

now

The NSD outline delves into the interaction between the process of developing technical standards and driving forward technological innovation.

Why is the Chinese government pulling out all the stops on its standardization program in the current political climate?

The timing of the project can be linked to China’s recent successes in the standards domain with Huawei dominating the 5G standards and with China exporting standards through Belt and Road projects in regions like Central Asia and Africa.

to open standardization to the outside world.

China has successfully captured the renewable energy market being the global leader in solar power and EV batteries.

views technical standards through the lens of green and sustainable development.

by acquiring the first-mover advantage in key sectors.

The Chinese government believes that the strategic and geopolitical game is no longer limited to market domination and is inherently influenced by system design and rulemaking.

better economic gains in the form of licenses and royalties

the optimization of the industrial supply chains (production, distribution, circulation, and consumption),

to dictate the terms of technological innovation in certain critical technologies

banking on technical standards to achieve technical competence and excellence in critical technologies

China views standardization as a way to strengthen its research and development in critical and emerging technology areas like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and biotechnology.

the National Standardization Development (NSD) outline document

The FSB arrests of alleged REvil gang members sent a message of the benefits of cooperation with Russia, while at the same time underscoring the potential costs to the United States if relations worsen.

Although that attack was claimed by a different Russian-speaking hacker group, DarkSide, it is not uncommon for hackers to work for more than one group, and it is quite possible that the hacker shown worked for both REvil and DarkSide, analysts said.

but Friday’s arrests are Russia’s first major operation to halt Russia-based ransomware attacks around the globe.

marked a rare positive moment in U.S.-Russia relations after a flurry of diplomatic efforts in Europe this past week failed to deter Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine and persuade Moscow to de-escalate.

Russia’s domestic security agency on Friday arrested 14 alleged members of the REvil ransomware gang and announced that it had eliminated the group at the request of Washington.

one of humanity’s longest-running cultural traditions, involving the expression of identity and relationships.

the existence of a long-distance social network that stretched over thousands of miles, connecting people in far-flung regions.

Careful analysis suggests that people who made the beads – which are still manufactured and worn by hunter-gatherers in Africa today – were exchanging them over vast distances, helping to share symbolic messages and to strengthen alliances.

Two of Tokayev’s decisive moves have been the replacement of Nazarbayev as the head of the National Security Council and the dismissal of the country’s powerful intelligence chief Karim Masimov (who has since been arrested along with other unidentified suspects as part of a probe into “high treason.”)

Why is Kazakhstan a sought-after partner? Simply put, the country provides unique access to ethnic Russian and Chinese groups as “specimens” for conducting field research involving highly pathogenic potential biological-warfare agents. Kazakhstan has 13,364 kilometers of borders with its neighboring countries Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The EU should respond to the challenge by focusing on four pillars of European Green Deal diplomacy: trade, bilateral financial agreements, multilateralism through the United Nations, and domestic implementation of its Fit for 55 climate package.

Wealthy Western powers such as the US, the United Kingdom, and the EU still fail to see that climate justice and efficiency in dealing with the global climate crisis are two sides of the same coin.

The European Commission has proposed a version of the CBAM that is designed to be compatible with the rules and principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO). But legality is not the real test of such a measure. The EU and its member states need to prepare to face trade retaliation for the CBAM.

Most countries – rich and poor, large and small – view the CBAM as green trade protectionism.

However, lawyer Kian Bone claimed that Djokovic could only benefit from diplomatic immunity if he entered Australia on official state business. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade also state on their website that holding such a passport will not lead to special rights of privileges.

According to Li, the moon simulator could also be used to test whether new technology such as 3D printing could be used to build structures on the lunar surface. It could help assess whether a permanent human settlement could be built there, including issues like how well the surface traps heat, he said.

According to Li, the moon simulator could also be used to test whether new technology such as 3D printing could be used to build structures on the lunar surface. It could help assess whether a permanent human settlement could be built there, including issues like how well the surface traps heat, he said.

The frenetic social media action follows an end-of-year announcement by Kosovo’s government of an immediate, albeit temporary, ban on all crypto mining activity as part of emergency measures to ease a crippling energy crisis.

That was because of the nations’ “soaring” negative perceptions towards each other, economic issues being politicised and affected by national security scrutiny, and both sides seeking support from allies “in a sustained geostrategic competition”, he said.

a hot peace rather than a new Cold War.

“Despite escalating political difficulties, Chinese and American businesses remain deeply integrated in terms of financial, intellectual and production networks,” Wang wrote. “The vast majority of Chinese and American companies are not embracing the idea of decoupling.”

Wang noted that Beijing was grappling with an economic slowdown and trying to contain the spread of Covid-19, while the pandemic and financial stability were also key issues for Washington.

He said US President Joe Biden would be under fire at home if his administration moved away from confrontation with China before the 2022 midterm elections. And he also expected Beijing to show stronger resolve to resist US challenges to its legitimacy and authority in the run-up to the Communist Party national congress in autumn.

STANDARDS FOR IOT SENSORS

The devices have become key enablers for a host of new technologies essential to business and to everyday life, from turning on a light switch to managing one’s health.

tates, the progress enjoyed by the LGBTQI+ community rests on the shoulders of thousands of brave pioneers with the courage to live their lives openly a

on Julian on Wednesda

The device is powered by a Qualcomm

the U.S. government passed a sweeping cybersecurity bill called the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020 at the very tail end of that year. The law is a more flexible and adaptable approach to cybersecurity than previous laws. Crucially, it requires the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish best practices that other government agencies must then follow when purchasing IoT devices. The initial rules unveiled by NIST in 2021 include requiring an over-the-air update option for devices and unique device IDs. And while the law pertains only to devices purchased by the U.S. government, there’s little reason to suspect it won’t have ongoing and broad effects on the IoT industry. Companies will likely include NIST’s cybersecurity requirements in all of its devices, whether selling to the U.S. government or elsewhere.

Widening digital divide between high- and low-income households with greater long-run risks of human capital depreciation and intergenerational mobility for low-income households

exacerbated the digital divide between the haves and the have-nots as telecommuting opportunities and remote education have not been equally accessible by low-income households, hurting their long-run income prospects, including intergenerational mobility. The pandemic will likely further fuel the digitalization and automation that had been underway before the pandemic and may disproportionately affect low-skilled workers. Policies fostering financial inclusion are also critical for reducing the inequality of opportunities. Policies that focus on greater accessibility of financial services to low-income households have been shown to be important for sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development

olicies to foster equal access to technology and financial inclusion. The COVID-19 pandemic has

The pandemic may accelerate a pre-existing global trend toward digitalization, automation and robotization, as firms increasingly seek to replace low-skilled workers with automated processe

The “digital divide” is exacerbated by less accessible high-speed internet and tele-commuting technologies for low-income households

side from the benefits, however, this may contribute to rising income inequality and form a long-term setback for intergenerational mobility and human capital accumulation among low-income households

the pandemic has exacerbated the digital divide as telecommuting opportunities and remote education have not been equally accessible by low-income households.

Investing in digital infrastructure and technological diffusion is also key, as it enables better access to jobs, finance, and schooling during crises. To this end, policies need to be geared to ensuring that firms can leverage the COVID-19 digital dividend, including through the provision of training for small firms and policies that support e-commerce, fintech, and business-to-business digital technologies. Enhancing regula-tory frameworks that favor innovation and competition in the telecommunications market is also important

To cement productivity gains related to the accelerated adoption of digital technologies, policy makers can foster competition among digital firms including by reducing barriers to entry.

rapid adoption of digital financial technologies could reduce financing costs and expand access to credit among small- and medium-sized firms

faster pace of technological diffusion across firms and countrie

Global growth could also benefit from a prolonged period of accelerated technological change, which may, over time, become a positive side-effect of the pandemic. Many corporations were forced to innovate in order to survive the initial pandemic shock, rapidly adopting new digital technologies and shifting some of their business activities online. If sustained, the acceleration of digitalization brought on by the pandemic could contribute to faster productivity growth (Hallward-Driemeier et al. 2020; IMF 2021a; Mischke et al. 2021). The installation of new productive capital such as telecom-munications equipment could contribute to a rise in total factor productivity, in contrast to the declines experienced after some past global recession

continued rapid adoption of digital technologies could help sustain a more robust global economic recovery than projected.

bor-saving digital technologies could spur the reallocation oflabor toward higher-growth sectors, provided it is accompanied by proper labor and social protection policies, helping to raise potential output and sustain the global recovery (Dieppe 2020).

er. The printi

y printer. The printing cost is inversely proportional to the cost effectiveness, which means the lower the c

Of the big three vendors, only Huawei is not a member, citing its belief that Open RAN systems cannot perform as well as the company's proprietary systems

Open RAN is here to stay.

When an operator buys an end-to-end system from Nokia or Ericsson or Huawei, it also knows it can depend on that vendor to support the network when problems crop up. Not so with Open RAN deployments, where no single vendor is likely to claim responsibility for interoperability issues. Larger operators will likely be able to support their own Open RAN networks, but smaller operators may be reliant on companies like Mavenir, which have positioned themselves as system integrators.

Rakuten, in particular, faced some initial setbacks when its Open RAN network's performance didn't match the performance of a traditional end-to-end system

After a mandate from the British government to strip all Huawei components from wireless networks, England-based Vodafone is replacing those components in its own networks with Open RAN equivalents. Because of similar mandates, local operators in the United States, such as Idaho-based Inland Cellular, are doing the same.

RAN Intelligent Controller. The RIC collects data from the RAN components of dozens or hundreds of base stations at once and uses machine-learning techniques to reconfigure network operations in real time.

Every generation of our networks basically rely on special-purpose hardware with tightly coupled software. So every time we need to have an upgrade, or new release, or new fractional release, it takes years." In order to move away from a hardware-centric attitude, the O-RAN Alliance is also encouraging the wireless industry to incorporate more software into the RAN. Software-defined networks, which replace traditional hardware components with programmable software equivalents, are more flexible.

The goal in creating open standards for multiple kinds of splits is that operators can then purchase better-tailored components for the specific kind of network they're building. For example, an operator might opt for Split 8 for a large-scale deployment requiring a lot of radios. This split allows the radios to be as “dumb," and therefore cheap, as possible because all of the processing happens in the centralized unit.

inevitably create more points in the network for cyberattacks