Meet the designer printing houses with salt and clay
Read our interview with Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, disruptive designers who 3D print entire buildings using natural materials.look at the amazing pictures in the full story, from the latest issue of our print magazine. To get future questions, Sign up subscription.
required reading
I combed the internet to find you the funniest/most important/scary/fascinating stories about technology today.
1 China is struggling to cope with the huge new crown death toll
Satellite imagery showed overcrowded crematoria and funeral homes. (wettable powder $)
+ The number of infections could climb further as China celebrates the Lunar New Year. (wired $)
2 US under pressure to oust Bolsonaro
The former Brazilian president has been charged with inciting domestic terrorism. (Financial Times $)
+ Facebook and YouTube say they’re taking down footage of riots (Reuters)
+ Priceless paintings were destroyed in the Holocaust. (protector)
3 Microsoft’s new AI can simulate voices from just three seconds of audio
Chillingly, VALL-E is reported to be good at maintaining the speaker’s pitch. (technical art)
+ Microsoft is considering investing $10 billion in OpenAI. (signal)
+ DALL-E-style AI models are creating new proteins. (New York Times $)
4 The EU wants to regulate your favorite AI tool
However, this is easier said than done. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Britain’s first space mission attempt was a soggy squib
Virgin Orbit’s rocket carrying the first satellites blasted off from the UK but failed to reach high altitude. (Bloomberg $)
+ Apparently, an “anomaly” was the culprit. (new scientist $)
+ The crowd that gathered to watch the launch still had a good time, though. (Reuters)
6 What the Abortion Pill Represents in a Post-Roe World
Anti-abortion advocates are more determined than ever — but so are their opponents. (sound)
+ The cognitive dissonance of watching Roe’s finale unfold online. (MIT Technology Review)
7 What is cancel culture without Twitter?
If Twitter dies, there’s no obvious replacement for expressing displeasure. (Atlantic Organization $)
+ We’re witnessing Twitter’s brain death. (MIT Technology Review)
