This is the first image taken by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Now the search for life begins.

How Australians reacted to the Facebook news block

Sponsored by Darktrace The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Touchdown on Mars 02.19.21 Good morning! Today: the search for ancient life on Mars begins, and how Australians reacted to Facebook's news block. Don't forget to get friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. This is the first image taken by NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. Now the search for life begins.   The news: NASA’s Perseverance rover has landed safely on Mars. The spacecraft survived its journey through the Martian atmosphere and made a soft touchdown at Jezero crater. Shortly after landing, it sent back this picture from the surface. The image is partially obscured by a dust cover. What’s it doing on Mars? Thanks to Perseverance’s predecessors, we know that Mars was once a warm planet teeming with lakes and rivers, and that it’s home to complex organic molecules. Together, these ingredients suggest Mars could have been habitable to microbial life in the ancient past. Perseverance is armed with 23 cameras and a host of instruments designed to find and identify evidence of such life. It will also drill into the Martian rock and collect samples that will be returned to Earth in the 2030s for closer laboratory study—which could be the first-ever sample return mission from Mars. Read the full story. —Neel V. Patel Read next:   + Why frigid Mars is the perfect place to look for ancient life. (NYT $)   + What's next for Perseverance. (Ars Technica)    + Its arrival heralds a new era of exploration. (Nature)   + What we’ve learned about the red planet from 260+ Martian meteorites. (The Next Web)   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.)   + You might be bored of your family by now. But are you THIS bored?   + This photographer specializes in dog portraits. Quite simply fantastic.   + It's astonishingly easy to make fresh ricotta.   + A magnificent 12th century Islamic bath house has been discovered in a bar in Madrid.   + A lovely tale about the merry-go-round in Griffith Park, LA.   + It may shock you to learn this, but some people actually like Grape-Nuts.   + You can now rickroll people in nice, clear 4K. Sponsor Message Cyber Security is Now a Machine Fight AI is being used to create increasingly customized, targeted, and hard-to-detect cyber-attacks at scale.  Autonomous Cyber AI learns ‘normal’ for your organization and stops advanced threats in their tracks.  Learn more > The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 How Australians have reacted to the Facebook news block Some are furious at Facebook, while others blame the new law. (NYT $)   + Why it's the best decision Facebook has ever made. (Wired UK)   + Facebook accidentally blocked its own page in Australia. (Gizmodo)   + Facebook reported revenue "it should never have made" by inflating user numbers to advertisers. (FT $)  2 The internet is having a lot of fun with Ted Cruz's trip to Cancún 🏖️ Yep, the Texas senator fled during one of the state's worst ever crises. (Forbes)   + How everything went wrong in Texas, all at once. (Ars Technica)  3 How to sign up for a covid-19 vaccine in your state This should all be so much less stressful, but we are where we are. (NPR)   + Americans are having to turn to social media to find vaccine slots. (Axios)   + Local governments are turning to influencers to drive more vaccinations. (The Atlantic)   + The US will pledge $4 billion to get more vaccines to poorer countries. (Reuters)   + The UK is going to donate most of its vaccine surplus. (BBC)   4 The UK has ruled that Uber drivers have to be treated as workers Tens of thousands of Uber drivers are set to be entitled to a minimum wage and holiday pay. (BBC)   + Gig workers in California say they're earning less after Prop 22. (The Guardian)   + Uber shut down an app that told its drivers if they'd been underpaid. (Vice)  5 How the internet is saving Gen Z in middle America It's not all bad. (Vice)   6 The story of one young man's fight against the UK's exam algorithm  And who makes algorithms? People. (The Guardian)   + Google is going to reorganize its AI teams in the wake of Timnit Gebru's exit. (Bloomberg $)   7 Someone owns $2.1 billion in dogecoin 💸 When did life become such a relentless joke? (WSJ $)   8 OnlyFans has been life-changing for some performers Everything has moved online now. Even sex work. (GQ)   9 The first black hole ever discovered is more massive than we thought  We found it more than half a century ago, but it continues to teach us new things. (TR)   10 Lucid dreamers may be able to communicate with the outside world 😴 Some can even answer questions. (The Economist $) AI implementation is hard. Be one of the few who get it right.  Join us at EmTech Digital, our 9th annual event on artificial intelligence, to get the engineering, organizational, and social know-how to successfully enable AI at your enterprise. Register now. Quote of the day "Australia is the canary in the coal mine." —Claire Wardle, US director for First Draft and misinformation expert, tells the Washington Post we can expect many more Facebook vs government clashes in the years to come.  Top image credit: NASA Please do not send Grape-Nuts 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 The age of implementation Join us virtually | March 23–25, 2021   Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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