MIT Technology Review - Astronauts on the ISS are hunting for the source of another mystery air leak

How Russia's everything company works with the Kremlin 

Sponsored by IBM The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology 10.01.20 Good morning! Today: astronauts are racing to find and plug a leak on the ISS, and how Russia's tech giant Yandex works with the Kremlin. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. Astronauts on the ISS are hunting for the source of another mystery air leak   In the middle of the night on Monday, the two cosmonauts and one astronaut on the International Space Station were woken up by a call from mission control. They were told that there was a hole leaking precious air out of the $150-billion spacecraft. Now they had to patch it up. The ISS has been dealing with the air leak for over a year. The problem has never posed a threat to crews on board. It was only in August, after ground crews noticed the leak was getting worse, that an investigation was launched to finally find the source and remedy the problem.  Since then, the astronauts have spent multiple weekends hunkered in a single module while they close the rest of the station’s hatches and make measurements of the air pressure changes in the other modules. Mission control determined the location of the leak was the Zvezda module (which provides life support to the Russian side of the station), leading to Monday night’s search party.  The ISS always loses a tiny bit of air, and that simply requires replacing the nitrogen and oxygen tanks during regular resupply missions. But the fact that the leak was getting worse would require the tanks to be replaced sooner than expected. It also means the hole that’s allowing the leak may have got bigger, and could still grow if not dealt with soon. The trio now need to find the leak and patch it up as soon as possible. Read the whole story. —Neel V. Patel How Russia’s everything company works with the Kremlin Russia’s biggest technology company enjoys a level of dominance that is unparalleled by any of its Western counterparts. Think Google mixed with equal parts Amazon, Spotify and Uber and you’re getting close to the sprawling empire that is Yandex—a single, mega-corporation with its hands in everything from search to ecommerce to driverless cars.  But being the crown jewel of Russia’s silicon valley has its drawbacks. The country’s government sees the internet as contested territory amid ever-present tensions with US and other Western interests. As such, it wants influence over how Yandex uses its massive trove of data on Russian citizens. Foreign investors, meanwhile, are more interested in how that data can be turned into growth and profit.  For the September/October issue of MIT Technology Review, Moscow-based journalist Evan Gershkovich explains how Yandex’s ability to walk a highwire between the Kremlin and Wall Street could potentially serve as a kind of template for Big Tech. This week on our podcast, Deep Tech, he joins our editor-in-chief Gideon Lichfield to discuss how, in a world where the debates over regulating Big Tech are intensifying, this isn’t just a Russian story. 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.)   + Otters like to juggle rocks.    + Snapshots of people’s lives in lockdown. (NYT $)   + Look at the size of this robot that’s being built at an amusement park in Japan.   + It really is too easy to laugh at high fashion sometimes.   + How a dog would give a home tour. (New Yorker $) Sponsor Message Here are 5 things we know now Disruption is inevitable for today’s global supply chains. The only thing most companies know for certain is that the future is uncertain.     But it is possible to manage through complexity and preserve business continuity, while leaning in to cost optimization.    To help you optimize supply chain operations today and be better prepared for tomorrow, IBM has identified five innovations that leading organizations are integrating to change how their supply chains work: Intelligent workflows, AI, IoT, blockchain and intelligent order management.    Read the full report to discover how you can deliver better business outcomes, even in times of change. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.  1 We need to focus on minimizing superspreading events A small proportion of people are responsible for a majority of infections, usually in crowded, poorly ventilated rooms. (The Atlantic)    + Why six feet of space from others may not be enough to protect you. (Slate)   + You still don’t want to get on a cruise ship. (Axios)  2 Trump’s voter fraud lie is disenfranchising Americans And laying the groundwork for him to cast doubt on the result if he loses. (NYT Magazine)   + Influencers are getting political. (Buzzfeed)    + Snapchat says it’s got one million young people to register to vote. (NBC)   + Where are the deepfakes in this election? (NPR)  3 What’s the true coronavirus death toll? Researchers warn it’s way higher than the official one million, and could easily triple by January. (Nature)   + Coronavirus cases are rising in 25 US states. (Axios)   + A study identified Trump as the single biggest driver of covid disinformation. (NYT $)   + What we learned from a huge study of coronavirus patients in India. (NYT $)   + Abbot wants to create “immunity passports” for the US. (Quartz)  4 We may never return to the office  As Twitter shows, this pandemic has radically accelerated existing remote work trends. (WP $)   5 Facebook is making itself harder to break up You’ll soon be able to chat to friends across Instagram and Messenger. (CNN)   6  The pandemic is helping to fuel the rise of the robots 🤖 They’re being deployed around the world to take swabs, run hospital errands, zap germs, and much else besides. (IEEE Spectrum)    + Toyota is using AI to teach robots how to clean homes. (Wired $)  7 China is preparing to investigate Google for anti-competitive behavior The case was proposed by Huawei. (Reuters)   + Big tech companies could be banned from favoring their own services under new EU rules. (Bloomberg $)  8 Greenland’s ice is melting faster than at any time in the last 12,000 years This alone could lead to sea level rises of up to 10cm by the end of the century. (The Guardian)   9 Historians fear AI-corrected color videos could obscure the past People bumping into them online may not even realize they’ve been adjusted. (Wired UK)   10 Imagine alchemy, but with lasers ⚡ A new technique could theoretically be used to “almost make anything look like anything.” (Quanta) Time is running out to register for EmTech MIT.  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 “It's just layer upon layer of inadequacy.” —Terri Gerstein, senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, delivers her verdict on Amazon’s measures to protect its workers from covid-19 to NBC. Top image credit: NASA | JSC Please send dog-led home tours 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 From prevention to response Join us online | December 2-3, 2020 View this in a browser You received this newsletter because you subscribed with your email address *Edit email preferences   |   *Unsubscribe from all emails Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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