Facebook substitutes forthe public square, civil society, and the social safety net, creating ablockchain-based currency that gains widespread usage

drawing citizens into a digital economy that disintermediates the state.

give Europe achance to reassert itself as a savvy bureaucratic player capable ofdesigning the rules that allow technology companies and governments toshare sovereignty in digital space.

In the case ofWashington, that means pulling back from an industrial policy designedto convince companies that they can thrive as national champions; forBeijing, it means preserving the independence and autonomy of theprivate sector.

. eirworst fear is that the United States and China will continue to decouple,forcing them to choose sides in an economic war that will raise barriersto their attempts to globalize their business

Tencent is also a globalist butcooperates far more deeply with China’s internal security apparatus thanAlibaba.

Apple and Google would arguably have the most to gain from thisoutcome.

will harm innovation and,ultimately, governments’ ability to create jobs and meet global challenges.

regulators accept that governments willshare sovereignty over digital space with technology companies

the state’s position as the provider of last resort in therst place.

ueling impressions inBeijing that Taiwan is being dragged further into the U.S. orbit

Facebook might have the hardest timenavigating a landscape that favored national champions if it is seen asproviding a platform for foreign disinformation without also oeringuseful assets for the government

itraises costs and regulatory risks for companies

. e increasingly fragmented nature of the Internet,

As the United States and China decouple, companies that can recastthemselves as national champions are rewarded

Europe’s technology sector has little choice but to follow Washington’sagenda.

Europe is the big loser here, as it lackstechnology companies with the nancial capacity or technologicalwherewithal to hold their own against those of the two major powers.

Systemicshocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and long-term threats, such asclimate change, coupled with a public backlash against the power oftechnology rms, entrench government authority as the only force thatcan resolve global challenges.

one in which the state reigns supreme,rewarding the national champions; one in which corporations wrestcontrol from the state over digital space, empowering the globalists; orone in which the state fades away, elevating the techno-utopians.

If it tightens its grip too much, it risksharming the country itself by smothering innovation.

thereum’s design includes smartcontracts, which enable the parties to a transaction to embed the terms ofdoing business into hard-to-alter computer code. Entrepreneurs haveseized on the technology and the surrounding hype to cook up newbusinesses, including betting markets, nancial derivatives, and paymentsystems that are almost impossible to alter or abolish once they have beenlaunched. Although much of this innovation to date has been in thenancial realm, some proponents believe that blockchain technology anddecentralized apps

Whereas globalists want the state to leave them alone

Microsoft’s growing role in policingdigital space on behalf of the United States and allied democracies andtargeting misinformation spread by state actors

in “mask diplomacy”by shipping badly needed medical supplies to needy countries to enhanceChina’s soft power.

Huawei andSMIC are China’s core national champions in 5G and semiconductors

Governments and technology companies arepoised to compete for inuence over both worlds—hence the need for abetter framework for understanding what the companies’ goals are andhow their power interacts with that of governments in both domains.

If Europeanstates want greater control of the technology sector, they’re going to haveto invest much more money.

whether a group of companies operating under greatergovernment supervision can still produce cutting-edge digitalinfrastructure that is globally competitive.

l. e EUand inuential member states, such as France, are also calling fortechnology-focused industrial policies—including billions of euros ofgovernment funding—to encourage new approaches to pooling data andcomputing resources

In the United States, a combination ofcongressional dysfunction and Silicon Valley’s potent lobbying power willlikely continue to preclude expansive new regulations that could pose aserious threat to the digital giants. It is dierent in Europe, where thelack of homegrown cloud, search, and social media conglomerates makespassing ambitious legislation easier. And it is certainly dierent in China,where a recent round of regulatory crackdowns has sent shares of thecountry’s own technology heavyweights reeling.

China created the so-called Great Firewall to control theinformation its citizens see, and the United States’ spy agenciesestablished the echelon surveillance system to monitor globalcommunications.

Companies are subject tonational laws

Governments aretaking steps to tame an unruly digital sphere:

s. e biggesttechnology companies are building the backbone of the digital world andpolicing that world at the same time.

Private-sector technology rms are also providing national security, a rolethat has traditionally been reserved for governments and the defensecontractors they hire.

they are increasingly providing a full spectrum ofboth the digital and the real-world products that are required to run amodern society.

they are also shaping behaviorsand interactions

eople are increasingly living out their lives inthis vast territory, which governments do not and cannot fully control.

It is onething to wield power in the smoke-lled rooms of political powerbrokers; it is another to directly aect the livelihoods, relationships,security, and even thought patterns of billions of people across the globe.

by atechno-elite that assumes responsibility for oering the public goodsonce provided by governments?

Big Techdecisively wrest control of digital space from governments, freeing itselffrom national boundaries and emerging as a truly global force

there are three broad forces thatare driving their geopolitical postures and worldviews: globalism,nationalism, and techno-utopianism.

digitalspace

l. esecompanies are increasingly shaping the global environment in whichgovernments operate. ey have huge inuence over the technologies andservices that will drive the next industrial revolution, determine howcountries project economic and military power, shape the future of work,and redene social contracts

. e same goes for Chinese technologycompanies, such as Alibaba, ByteDance, and Tencent.

se technology companies’ reactions

The problem is that if you give a super-powerful entity a goal- a value function- and it follows it literally- bad things can happen.

Finnish-US undersea cable to strengthen Europe’s digital trade with Asia

For defense contractors, war means massive profits by definition. In just the last few years, the U.S. has spent more than $2 billion on military aid to this nation called Ukraine that most people couldn't identify on a map. Just the other day, the administration announced $200 million more. 

Polls show that most Americans are completely opposed to fighting Russia over Ukraine because they're not demented.

The core problem is that in America, elected officials no longer decide when we go to war, as in, say, a democracy. 

to rising productivity

And Europe may soon pass a sweeping Digital Markets Act, aimed at regulating big technology companies “ex ante”—that is, constraining such firms’ behaviour upfront, rather than punishing them later with antitrust cases

there are the decentralised blockchain services owned and operated by users, loosely known as Web3.

but future forms of AI may not.

The problem is that nobody knows what it will be. But it will probably involve new physical devices that will supersede the smartphone as the dominant means of connecting people to information and services. Whoever makes such devices will therefore control access to users. This explains why Apple is planning a virtual-reality headset to compete with Meta’s Oculus range and Microsoft’s HoloLens. Alphabet, Apple and Amazon have also all placed expensive bets on autonomous cars. And vast sums are being spent on designing specialised chips, and pursuing new approaches like quantum computing, to provide the processing power for whatever new devices emerge.

were brought down not by regulators, but by missing the next big thing.

Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft—call them MAAMA.

it is crucial that concerted UN-backed Contact Group diplomacy

a third actor could set a match to the whole system of rival alliances—much as was the case for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in July 1914.

The fear of alliance defection could then impel Washington to whip its allies into line by making them spend even more money on defense—even though the U.S. itself already spends more on the military than 11 countries combined.

more like the alliance systems before World War I and World War II than like the “bicentric” Cold War.

The winner of such a war could be the side that possesses the most advanced technological capabilities and systems of Artificial Intelligence.

make “limited” nuclear war possible in certain regions

The Cold War doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is dead

Likewise, China’s dam and water policies are augmenting regional tensions by creating friction with Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam over the Mekong River. China’s diversion of rivers in Xinjiang has had a devastating downstream impact upon Central Asia while its plan to dam the Brahmaputra river in the Himalayas has enraged India.

the fact that Beijing is seeking to monopolize its political control over the “rare earth” resources that are needed for the new “green” economy has begun to spur worldwide neo-imperialist rivalries for access to, and control over, those resources.

The neoliberal belief that economic inter-dependence will help prevent major power wars does not apply to Imperial Germany whose economic inter-dependence with Britain did not prevent World War I.

Interstate wars thus become more likely when political elites call for national unity and alliance solidarity in the effort to deflect attention from both domestic quarrels and international tensions—rather than fully engaging in both domestic socio-economic reforms and full-fledged diplomacy with foreign rivals.

more extensive social and political conflicts

through proxy wars

Upload tools for adding your own markers and other map elements. For instance, you may want to add a hamburger icon to identify restaurants on your map.

Full interactivity, with features for clicking to get directions and viewing more information like phone numbers and store hours.

Options to place your maps in other places besides pages. We like to see shortcodes and widgets for sidebars, posts, and footers.

Support for quick geographical searches using coordinates or addresses. It shouldn’t be required to have the exact coordinates of a place when making a map since no one knows these and it takes a while to find them online. Mapmaking excels with rapid address search tools.

It’s a huge undertaking that would require standardization and cooperation among tech giants, who are not prone to collaborating with competitors

The boy straps on his headset, reminiscent of a pair of VR goggles, and escapes into a trippy virtual universe, dubbed “Oasis.”

Companies will struggle with how their apps affect kids' mental health and safety

They would also force companies to crack down more on harmful content, such as child sex abuse and terrorism, and give users more control over how their data is used to target ads.

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.

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

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.

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.