The Download: promising new batteries, and how to regulate AI

This is as we speak’s version of The Download, our weekday e-newsletter that gives a every day dose of what is going on on on the earth of expertise.

Zinc batteries that provide another to lithium simply received a giant enhance

The information: One of the main corporations providing options to lithium batteries for the grid has simply obtained a virtually $400 million mortgage from the US Department of Energy. Eos Energy makes zinc-halide batteries, which the agency hopes might in the future be used to retailer renewable power at a decrease price than is feasible with current lithium-ion batteries.

What they’re product of: Eos’s batteries are primarily created from zinc, the fourth most produced steel on the earth, and use a water-based electrolyte (the liquid that strikes cost round in a battery) as a substitute of natural solvent. This makes them extra secure than lithium-ion cells, and means they gained’t catch fireplace.

Why it issues: While the price of lithium-ion batteries has plummeted over the previous decade, there’s a rising want for even cheaper choices. The zinc-based expertise Eos hopes to commercialize might retailer electrical energy for hours and even days at low price. Read the total story.

—Casey Crownhart

How ought to we regulate AI?

AI is all over the place, however few specialists can agree simply how it ought to be regulated. Next week, on September 12, we’re holding the second MIT Technology Review Roundtable: a 30-minute dialog with our writers and editors—and this one’s all about AI.

Melissa Heikkilä, our senior reporter for AI, will probably be chatting with information editor Charlotte Jee about what ought to be carried out to maintain AI corporations in line. Roundtables are free for MIT Technology Review subscribers, so should you’re not already, what extra purpose do you want to enroll? Become one as we speak from simply $80 a 12 months.

The must-reads

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

1 China is forcing tech companies to disclose their merchandise’ vulnerabilities
The worthwhile info primarily permits Chinese authorities to hack their very own clients. (Wired $)
+ Microsoft has uncovered how Chinese hackers infiltrated US officers’ accounts. (Reuters)

2 Apple is spending hundreds of thousands of {dollars} a day coaching its AI
It’s received huge plans for overhauling how iPhone homeowners management their units. (The Information $)

3 Google is cracking down on AI-generated election adverts
Synthetic content material will want to be declared clearly, or danger deletion. (Bloomberg $)
+ Google’s being investigated in a significant monopoly trial. (NYT $)
+ Six ways in which AI might change politics. (MIT Technology Review)

4 Japan’s rocket is on its means to the moon 🚀
It’s the nation’s fourth lunar try this 12 months, and, to this point, essentially the most profitable. (BBC)
+ The startup behind it’s rife with challenges, although. (FT $)
+ What’s subsequent for the moon. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Phoenix is America’s hottest metropolis
Residents are discovering it more and more tough to dwell in its punishing temperatures. (New Yorker $)

6 Europe is constructing an bold new fighter jet
 But it comes with a colossal price ticket. (FT $)
+ Inside the messy ethics of creating conflict with machines. (MIT Technology Review)

7 Robots have been killing individuals for many years
But we’re failing to take the coverage steps wanted to make them safer. (The Atlantic $)

8 Modern automobiles are privateness nightmares
They’re packed stuffed with sensors monitoring your each transfer. (Motherboard)
+ China’s carmakers are doing huge enterprise abroad. (NYT $)

9 ChatGPT can’t deal with languages that don’t exist a lot on-line
It even included characters that don’t exist within the Tigrinya language. (Rest of World)
+ Why it’s unimaginable to construct an unbiased AI language mannequin. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Crypto is principally an enormous slot machine
In hindsight, the indicators have been all there. (NY Mag $)
+ It’s okay to decide out of the crypto revolution. (MIT Technology Review)

Quote of the day

“I think we are the last generation that has lived in a world without GenAI.”

—Kirsten Rulf, a former head of digital coverage on the German Federal Chancellery, tells Reuters about how the speedy rise of generative AI is exposing age gaps between generations.

The huge story

One metropolis’s battle to resolve its sewage drawback with sensors

April 2021

In the town of South Bend, Indiana, wastewater from individuals’s kitchens, sinks, washing machines, and bathrooms flows by way of 35 neighborhood sewer traces. On good days, simply earlier than every line ends, a vertical throttle pipe diverts the sewage into an interceptor tube, which carries it to a remedy plant the place strong pollution and micro organism are filtered out.

As in lots of American cities, these pipes are mixed with storm drains, which might fill rivers and lakes with poisonous sludge when heavy rains or melted snow overwhelms them, endangering wildlife and ingesting water provides. But metropolis officers have a plan to make its growing older sewers considerably smarter. Read the total story. 

—Andrew Zaleski

We can nonetheless have good issues

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

+ Life on a desert island won’t be all it’s cracked up to be.
+ Forget video vixens—right here’s how the hip hop hunk has advanced.
+ There’s merely nothing higher than an excellent nap.
+ The scent of the Egyptian afterlife sounds… attention-grabbing.
+ The winners of Bird Photographer of the Year are fairly spectacular.