The US Army wants to modify SpaceX’s Starlink satellites for unjammable navigation

How to plan your life during a pandemic  

Sponsored by Dassault Systèmes The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology 09.28.20 Good morning! Today: SpaceX internet satellites could double as an unjammable alternative to GPS, how to make plans during a pandemic, and the weird images that show AI is getting smarter. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. The US Army wants to modify SpaceX’s Starlink satellites for unjammable navigation   What’s happening: SpaceX has already launched more than 700 Starlink satellites, with thousands more due to come online in the years ahead. Their prime mission is to provide high-speed internet virtually worldwide. But now research funded by the US Army has concluded that the growing mega-constellation could have a secondary purpose: by doubling as a low-cost, highly accurate and almost unjammable alternative to GPS. The research: Two researchers from the University of Texas at Austin claim to have devised a system that uses Starlink satellites, piggybacking on traditional GPS signals, to deliver location precision up to ten times as good as GPS, and much less prone to interference. Why it matters: The US military relies heavily on GPS, which can be jammed or spoofed. It would be far harder to do this using this new system. However, it would be an expensive undertaking, and would struggle to operate at the Earth’s poles. Read the full story. —Mark Harris How to plan your life during a pandemic  The issue: Life already felt uncertain before the pandemic thanks to automation, geopolitical tensions, and widening inequalities. Now, planning for the future can feel impossible. Even short-term decisions—What will we do this weekend? Should I send my kids to school?—now require us to process a broad set of data and considerations. What’s needed: Strategic foresight offers an alternative to unproductive worry. It’s a way of thinking that uses alternative futures to guide the decisions we make today, letting us anticipate possible circumstances and adapt to them. How to apply it in your own life: Clarify your goals, consider potential outcomes, monitor and adapt, and crucially, accept uncertainty as the norm. Read the full story. —Kristel Van der Elst is CEO of the Global Foresight Group and a fellow at the Center for Strategic Foresight of the US Government Accountability Office.  These weird, unsettling photos show that AI is getting smarter   Hype vs reality: Of all the AI models, OpenAI’s GPT-3 has most captured the public’s imagination. It can spew short stories and songs with little prompting, and has even fooled people into thinking its outputs were written by a human. But its eloquence is more of a parlor trick, not to be confused with real intelligence. The promise: Nonetheless, researchers think the way GPT-3 was trained (using enormous amounts of text data) could contain the secret to more advanced AI. What if the same methods were trained on both text and images? New research from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence has taken this idea to the next level, creating a new text-and-image model that can generate images from a caption. The images look unsettling, but they might demonstrate a promising new direction for achieving more generalizable intelligence, and perhaps smarter robots as well. Read the full story. —Karen Hao 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.)   + Who needs a drummer when you’ve got a washing machine?   + Crows can ponder the content of their own minds, demonstrating an incredible level of intelligence.   + One-pan orzo with spinach, feta, and dill. (NYT $)   + Watch Enola Holmes on Netflix. Sponsor Message Science powering a sustainable and resilient world Join Dassault Systèmes at Science in the Age of Experience – an exclusive, virtual science and technology event, starting October 13, 2020. Here industry leaders, renowned scientists/academics, government leaders, heads of private institutions and Dassault Systèmes executives and experts will set the course for a more efficient, innovative and sustainable future. Some of the most highly sought-after leaders in science and technology will join us – including our conference keynote, Nobel Prize Winner, Dr. Frances Arnold of Caltech. Request registration. The top ten must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Over one million people have now died of covid-19 How we got to this awful milestone. (WP $)   + Cases are going up again in the US. (Axios)   + Where it’s most risky to reopen schools. (Axios)   + How to think about risk during the pandemic. (Wired UK)   + How to know when a vaccine is ready. (Stat)  2 We should worry more about voter fraud misinformation than QAnon It’s paving the way for Trump to cast doubt on the validity of the upcoming election. (Recode)   + How QAnon spread in one town in Colorado. (The Intercept)   + How to protect your social media feeds from election misinformation. (Recode)   + Most Americans would like social media to shut down during the week of the election. (Axios)   + Ransomware could cause chaos during the election. (NYT $)  3 Some cities want to go green post-covid 🌳 The climate crisis is a far bigger, longer-term emergency after all. (Wired $)   4 How Signal became the app of choice for the privacy-conscious Downloads have rocketed in recent months, fueled by protests against racism and police brutality. (Time)   5 How Amazon conquered Italy The pandemic has rapidly boosted the growth of e-commerce all over the world. (NYT $)   6 Jewish teens say they are bombarded with anti-semitism on TikTok This isn’t something anyone should have to deal with, ever. (NBC)   + A judge has given a temporary reprieve to TikTok, letting US downloads continue. (NBC)   + A pop star says he quit TikTok for the sake of his mental health. (BBC)  7 Why Magic Leap failed to take augmented reality mainstream Profligate spending, too much hype, and a founder that was way out of his depth. (Bloomberg $)   8 How the pandemic is changing our dreams 🛌 More time in bed means more REM sleep, when dreams get more bizarre and memorable. (Scientific American)   9 The troubling decline in autopsies The autopsy rate has gone from 60% in the 1960s to under 5% today, meaning the official cause of death is often wrong. (Elemental)   10 Why Spotify is full of SEO spam artists 🎵 “Relaxing Music Therapy” and “White Noise Baby Sleep” are just two examples. (OneZero) EmTech MIT is three weeks away!  Our annual flagship event on emerging technology and trends is going virtual. Join us as we examine the technology driving and the forces influencing our digital world: AI, biomedicine, cybersecurity, diversity, equality, global-scale technology, and more. Register now. Take a stand “It seemed like a cult.” —Recruiter Paul Florence gives his verdict on how eBay’s security division operated to the New York Times, as six employees face cyberstalking charges. Top image credit: SpaceX Please send clever crows 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 Leading with Innovation. Join us online, October 19-22. Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142 Want to change how you receive these emails? 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