Good morning! Today: NASA's Perseverance rover is about to attempt to land on Mars, and we explain the power struggle in Australia between the government, publishers, and Big Tech. Don't forget to get friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. | NASA’s Perseverance rover is about to start searching for life on Mars 
What’s happening: NASA is going to land its Perseverance on Mars today—and begin the search for life on the planet. The rover will enter the Martian atmosphere and attempt to make it to the planet’s surface safely from 2.15pm ET today (you can watch along live). NASA officials have an expression for what it’s like to land a rover on Mars: seven minutes of terror. A million things could go wrong. How it’ll go down: Those seven minutes start when the spacecraft enters the Martian upper atmosphere at around 20,000 kilometers per hour (12,500 miles per hour). It will face temperatures of 1,300 °C (2,400 °F). About four minutes in, the rover will deploy a 21-meter parachute. It sheds its heat shield. At a little less than six minutes into EDL and around two kilometers in the air, the outer shell and parachute separate from the rover, and Perseverance heads directly for the ground. It uses its thrusters to find a safe spot, and slows down to around 2.7 km/h (1.7 mph) before landing. After about ten days, it should deploy a mini-helicopter called Ingenuity. What it’s there for: Should it succeed, Perseverance will explore Jezero crater, a former Martian lake bed and look for fossilized remains of ancient life. We may know if there’s any there really soon. Read the full story. —Neel V. Patel
| | Australia has become the battleground for a power struggle between governments and Big Tech The news: Australians woke up on Thursday to Facebook timelines devoid of any news. Faced with the option of either paying to link back to publishers to comply with an incoming Australian law, or entirely pulling the plug on hosting news, it chose the latter. As it stands, Facebook users in Australia can't use the platform to see or share content from any news outlets anywhere in the world, and no one can post links to Australian publishers, wherever they are. Users say government websites like fire services and meteorology departments have been caught up in the ban too, most likely due to issues with the machine learning system Facebook uses to enforce it. Users and officials in Australia reacted furiously, with the country's prime minister describing Facebook's actions "as arrogant as they were disappointing" and insisting "we will not be intimidated by Big Tech." Why? Lawmakers in Australia are in the final stages of passing a proposed new Media Bargaining law. In essence, the law would require the tech platforms would have to pay publishers to host their content. If they couldn’t agree a price, Australia would create an arbitration panel which would set one. Google has taken the opposite approach to Facebook, and has cut numerous deals with publishers in Australia, including News Corp, to ensure it can comply with the law if it passes, and continue linking to their services. What's next: Australia has essentially become the latest battleground for the years-long fight between governments, publishers, and Big Tech. Facebook's move is a big, ugly power flex, but Australia's law seems pretty crude and unattractive too. It doesn't require publishers to plough any of the money they receive into journalists' salaries or original reporting, and could help to further entrench Australia's already highly concentrated media market. In short, the current situation is unsustainable and undesirable for everyone. Australia’s Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is in talks with Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and the pressure is on for them to come up with a better solution. Read next:
+ Australia's bad bargain with platforms (Platformer)
+ Google Is Suddenly Paying for News in Australia. What About Everywhere Else? (NYT $) | 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.) + Usually it's serious when medical systems go wrong, but in this instance, it's truly hilarious.
+ Are you missing bars? You can at least listen to them. Or, specifically, tune into a jazz bar in Paris.
+ There's getting away from it all… and then there's this.
+ 40 people in Alberta recently took part in the world's longest (and surely coldest) hockey game.
+ Jump in a time machine and listen to radio stations playing hits from the past.
+ How to make soup dumplings. | | The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 The snowstorms are throwing US vaccine distribution into disarray
It's just one disaster on top of another recently. (The Guardian)
+ Why blackouts hit. (CNET)
+ And how the situation got so bad. (Axios) 2 The CDC is ploughing $200 million into sequencing virus variants 🔍 This should help the US to stop flying blind. ( NYT $) + UK researchers are about to start deliberately infecting volunteers with covid-19. ( BBC) + Japan has just started its vaccination program. ( AP) + Global covid-19 cases fell 16% last week. ( The Guardian) + What are the most significant variants, and where are they? ( NYT $) + Just 10 countries have administered 75% of all vaccinations, says the UN. ( AP) 3 How do we stop unethical AI? We need an answer urgently, because relying on the field to self-regulate has failed miserably. ( New Yorker $) 4 Religious-themed social media misinformation poses a challenge It's harder to police when multiple conspiracy theories collide. ( WP $) 5 How do we make virtual meetings less… bad? 👩💻 There are aspects of the in-person we just haven't replicated. Some startups hope to change that. ( NYT $) + Remote workers want to re-create those watercooler moments, virtually. ( TR) + Microsoft’s solution to Zoom fatigue is to trick your brain. ( TR) 6 The gig economy is taking over If we're not careful, low pay, insecurity, and zero benefits will be the default, not the exception. ( Bloomberg) 7 The moral of the GameStop saga? It really is all rigged Here's how the same dynamics apply to the big tech platforms. ( The Atlantic) + A YouTuber has just been hit with a class action lawsuit over his role in encouraging investors. ( BBC) 8 How Amazon secretly tried to dodge the regulators in India Small businesses said it was giving preferential treatment to large sellers. ( Reuters) + Amazon has got a really big fake reviews problem. ( Which?)
9 Meet the LA musician who helped design a microphone for Mars
Projects don't come much cooler than this. (Wired $)
10 Million-year-old NDA has been extracted from mammoth teeth
It sheds light on how these amazing animals evolved. (Nature) | | “People are thirsty for joy.” —Hildemar Diniz, a composer in Brazil, tells the New York Times that the next carnival (this year's has been cancelled) will be a party for the ages. | | | | | |
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