California’s air conditioner-driven blackouts are only the start

What do political databases know about you?

Sponsored by IBM The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology 09.01.20 Good morning! The Download is back and raring to go—thanks for your patience during our break. Today we look at why California's air conditioner-driven blackouts are a sign of things to come, investigate what political databases know about you, and sort the hype from the reality after Elon Musk's big Neuralink event. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. California’s air conditioner-driven blackouts are only the start Rolling blackouts: As record-breaking heat waves baked Californians last month, the collective strain of millions of air conditioners forced the state’s grid operators to plunge hundreds of thousands of households into darkness. Why it matters: It’s a small hint of what’s likely to come in California and far beyond. Growing populations, rising incomes, increasing urbanization, and climbing summer temperatures could triple the number of AC units installed worldwide by 2050, pushing the total toward 6 billion. Air conditioning represents one of the most insidious challenges of climate change, and one of the most difficult technological problems to fix. The more the world warms, the more we’ll need cooling. But air conditioners themselves produce enough heat to measurably boost urban temperatures, and they leak out highly potent greenhouse gases too. Plus, energy-hungry new units will push up electricity demand. What’s needed: The basic technology operates much as it did when it was introduced nearly a century ago. But a number of startups and research groups are trying to create cleaner and more efficient cooling technology. However, the most crucial fix needs to occur outside the AC industry: transitioning the electricity grid to greater use of clean energy sources, like solar and wind. Read the full story. —James Temple What do political databases know about you? Democracy, meet data: If you live in the US, you’re almost certainly being tracked by political organizations. They all rely on capturing and devouring data about millions of people in America, sold by a handful of data vendors. These companies can provide data on virtually all US adults, regardless of whether they are registered voters. Where’s the data from? The main source is public voting records, which include a voter’s names, address, and party affiliation. But it’s hard to get a full picture of everything that is fed into the vendors’ databases since they keep it secret. It’s debatable how accurate these databases are. Some data points are very accurate, but others are really just predictions or guesses. Party and race, for example, are often inferred on the basis of someone’s name and location. How’s it used: Campaigns use all this data to try to identify adults who will respond to a specific issue, say climate change. Your social media information can be combined with other data to try to build better predictive models, but the effectiveness of such techniques is up for debate. Why does it matter? Polling data suggests it is likely that this election will be decided in the suburbs. And suburban voters use Facebook… a lot. So far, Donald Trump has spent twice as much on Facebook ads as Joe Biden. Read the full story. —Tate Ryan-Mosley Elon Musk’s Neuralink is neuroscience theater Bold promises: In a “product update” on Friday, Elon Musk said his company Neuralink will use electronic brain-computer interfaces to vastly augment human capabilities. Applications could include seeing radar with superhuman vision, curing blindness or mental illness, or even listening to a symphony inside your head. What was actually announced? Musk said Neuralink is working toward an affordable, reliable brain implant. There’s nothing anyone can buy or use yet. It is, however, engineering a super-dense electrode technology that is being tested on animals. Neuralink says it hopes these brain implants will one day be installable in a doctor’s office in under an hour. They are currently being tested in pigs, but the demo didn’t reveal anything new: neuroscientists have been able to record electrical impulses from brains for decades. Woah there: Throughout the event, Musk deftly avoided giving timelines or committing to schedules on questions such as when Neuralink’s system might be tested in human subjects. And as yet, four years after its formation, Neuralink has provided no evidence that it can (or has even tried to) treat depression, insomnia, or a dozen other diseases that Musk mentioned in a slide. Read the full story. —Antonio Regalado We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + A Twitter thread of the most beautiful libraries in the world.   + If you’re stuck in a creative rut, hang out with a four-year-old. And adults could do with rediscovering the joy of playtime, too. (NYT $)   + How a wandering cat in New Zealand ended up being the subject of a museum exhibition.   + This artist in Japan does amazing work with flowers.   + Wombats are hard work as pets.   + If forced to play Monopoly, this is how you win.   + A mesmerizing video of a process dubbed “augmented bricklaying.”   + A painfully accurate parody of every single social interaction this summer.   + Meet the people turning their basements into secret fantasy worlds. Sponsor Message How to evolve your supply chain for the new normal The pandemic has pushed many global supply chains to the breaking point. But there are practical steps you can take now to mitigate extreme disruption while positioning your supply chain for long-term success. Join this webinar to hear leading IBM experts outline strategies to navigate the new normal. They’ll also discuss technology—like Continuous Intelligent Planning—that can make the biggest difference for your business and your customers. Register for the webinar. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Wear your mask and be quiet 🤫 Why it’s time to start using your inside voice more. (The Atlantic)   + How the coronavirus swept through San Quentin State Prison. (The Verge)   + Indonesia has detected a potentially even more infectious strain of covid-19. (Vice)   + Coronavirus rates are rising rapidly among children in the US. (NYT $) 2 Facebook isn’t enforcing its ban on armed militia groups This is a familiar pattern: announce policy, get acclaim, fail to implement it. (Recode)   + A Kenosha militia event on Facebook was reported 455 times, but it still wasn’t taken down. (Buzzfeed)   + It was an “operational mistake,” says Zuckerberg. (The Verge)   + Facebook has quietly ended racial ad profiling. (The Markup)   + Facebook will study how it influenced the 2020 election—once it’s over. (Protocol)   + Facebook has partially lifted the lid on how its recommendation algorithms work. (TechCrunch) 3 Contact tracing works elsewhere. Why not the US? There are too many cases, testing takes too long, and people are too afraid of the government. (The Atlantic)   + You can also blame spam calls. (Vice) 4 The Chinese government will have to approve the sale of TikTok Essentially, Beijing is calling Trump’s bluff. (Bloomberg)   + Why is Walmart interested in buying TikTok? (CNN)   + TikTok is drawing up contingency plans in case it is shut down in the US. (Reuters)   + TikTok creators will soon be able to sell stuff directly through the app. (The Verge) 5 Covid-19 ”long-haulers“ finally got a meeting with the WHO These young, healthy people are sick for months. (Buzzfeed)   + They are also organizing online to study themselves. (TR) 6 Amazon got the go-ahead to start delivering by drone in the US It’ll still be a while before it’s an option for customers, though. (NBC) 7 How Uber and Lyft played dirty over their drivers’ gig worker status A social media campaign even posted the home addresses of activists online. (CNET) 8 The real deepfake threat is porn Non-consensual videos that demean women rack up millions of views. (Wired UK) 9 Anti-vax beliefs might stop us reaching herd immunity 💉 Aaarrrggghhh. (The Economist $)   + A monkey shortage in the US is complicating efforts to find a vaccine. (The Atlantic) 10 Is it ever okay to tweet from a dead person’s Twitter account? Herman Cain’s family seems to think so. (WP $) Join us online at EmTech MIT as we reset, rethink, and rebuild.  This year, we're focusing on emerging technologies and trends that you can leverage to help you lead with innovation. You'll get actionable insights from experts at Facebook, Google, Salesforce, Twitter and other leading organizations. Register now. Take a stand “Here we go again.” —Julia Bautista, a 58-year-old retired office administrator who lives in Spain, tells the New York Times the country is in the grip of a second wave of the pandemic. Top image credit: SERGEI AKULICH | PEXELS Please send beautiful libraries to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up for free Don't settle for half the story. Subscribe to MIT Technology Review today. 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