Introducing: The Cities Issue

How Indians are crowdsourcing aid as covid surges

Sponsored by Darktrace The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology The Cities Issue 04.28.21 Good morning! Today: a guide to the latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, all about cities. Also: Indians are being forced to crowdsource aid online to help relatives with covid as the country battles its worst crisis yet. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. Introducing: The Cities Issue   Concerts—remember those? Or maybe you miss restaurants most, or plays, musicals, art galleries, museums, nights out at the pub, the club, a ball game ... ah, those were the days.  The thrill of gathering, of being a part of something, is the hallmark of the city. Cities bring us together, inspire us, spur our creativity. At their best, they are monuments of human achievement that draw people from far and wide. But for the past year, cities have felt like perhaps the worst place to be. Density has been the enemy.  City life as we knew it ended, and felt as if it might never come back.  The latest print issue of MIT Technology Review, conceived in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic, has come together when the future of cities looks more uncertain than at any other time in recent memory. But the closer we looked, the more we found reason not just to maintain hope but to celebrate all that cities are, and all they could become. Technology is and will be a huge part of that story. That can be a good thing, as Joseph Dana found in South Africa, where cities are demanding the right to use newly available, cheap sources of renewable energy to avoid the blackouts that occur nearly every day there. But it can be a double-edged sword too, as the story by Jennifer Clark below shows, and as Rowan Moore Gerety demonstrated in his reporting from Ogden, Utah, where police are using a vast array of surveillance techniques.  —Michael Reilly, executive editor of MIT Technology Review These are just a few of the fantastic stories in this latest cities-themed issue of the magazine. I’ll be drip-feeding you more of them over the coming days and weeks in each day’s edition of The Download. If you want to enjoy the magazine stories in full, you know what to do… subscribe! What cities need now Urban technology projects have long sought to manage the city. The latest “smart city” projects have much in common with previous iterations. Again and again, these initiatives promise novel “solutions” to urban “problems.”   The hype is based partly on a belief that technology will deliver unprecedented value to urban areas. The opportunity seems so vast that at times our ability to measure, assess, and make decisions about it almost feels inadequate. The message to cities is: You don’t know what you’re dealing with, but you don’t want to get left behind. After a decade of pilot projects and flashy demonstrations, though, it’s still not clear whether smart city technologies can actually solve or even mitigate the challenges cities face. A lot of progress on our most pressing urban issues—such as broadband access, affordable housing, or public transport—could come from better policies and more funding. These problems don’t necessarily require new technology.  What is clear is that technology companies are increasingly taking on administrative and infrastructure responsibilities that governments have long fulfilled. If smart cities are to avoid exacerbating urban inequalities, we must understand where these projects will create new opportunities and problems, and who may lose out as a result. And that starts by taking a hard look at how cities have fared so far. Read the full story. —Jennifer Clark How Indians are crowdsourcing aid as covid surges  What’s happening: India’s residents are being forced to seek help online for their loved ones as the country battles a full-blown crisis. Officially, India is recording more than 350,000 new covid cases a day, a dramatic spike that began in early April. The real number is likely to be much higher. Specifically: Without enough government help, ordinary citizens are turning to social media to crowdsource everything from financial help to medical equipment. They’re inundating Twitter and Instagram with requests for hospital beds, oxygen supplies, and antiviral drugs. They’re creating Google docs, websites, and web apps to aggregate what’s being shared and to play matchmaker between buyers and sellers. People are even turning to Tinder to try to find convalescent plasma donors. The problem: Even twinned with international aid, it’s not clear that an on-the-ground hustle can help overcome supply shortages. Online crowdsourcing is also mostly limited to the wealthy and privileged, helping just a fraction of those who need it. India has a population of 1.36 billion, roughly half of whom are online. Just two million are on Twitter. Read the full story. —Varsha Bansal 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.)   + Happy Ed Balls Day to those who celebrate it. (NYT $)   + An Instagram account dedicated to kerbside rocks in Tokyo.   + Digital florists.   + A bunch of men called Josh gathered to fight with pool noodles to establish the winner as the one TRUE JOSH.   + Learn about masala chai's history as a tool of rebellion against the British (and how to brew a good cup.)   + A dog really enjoying a new carpet. Sponsor Message Defend against cyber-threats with AI Darktrace AI identifies malicious activity hiding in your digital ecosystem and acts autonomously to neutralize the threat. Find out why McLaren relies on self-learning AI to detect and disrupt cyber-attacks at machine-speed. Learn more > The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 What is the true death toll in India? Statisticians say it could already be in the millions. (New Yorker $)   + Experts believe India could have up to 500 million covid-19 cases. (Gizmodo)   + What it's like to be in New Delhi right now. (NYT $)  2 How we persuade people to get vaccinated 💉 The evidence shows that minds can definitely be changed. (Slate $)   + I regret to inform you that Americans are displaying brand loyalty towards vaccines. (NYT $)  3 Google's contact tracing app isn't as private as it claims This could be a pretty devastating blow for a technology that has been proven to save lives. (The Markup)   + Why people don’t trust contact tracing apps, and what to do about it. (TR)  4 You can read Facebook's own report about its role in the US insurrection The question is… will it ever learn from it? (Buzzfeed)   + Congress is way behind on algorithmic misinformation. (The Verge)   + How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation. (TR)   + Facebook is failing to deal with vaccine misinformation. (Mashable)  5 Artificial intelligence doesn't know how you feel Yet that simple scientific fact may not be enough to stop you from losing out on a job, or being flagged as a suspected shoplifter. (The Atlantic $)   + How close is AI to decoding our emotions? (TR)  6 Tesla makes more money trading bitcoin than selling cars Don't forget—it's never made a profit. (WSJ $)   7 How reality TV drives online harassment When you turn people into heroes and villains, you dehumanize them. (Vice)   8 Basecamp shows how not to handle internal dissent Its ban on "societal and political discussions" is heavy-handed, tone deaf and ignorant. (The Verge)   9 Ultra high-energy cosmic rays have been mapped for the first time And you can play around with the map for yourself! (Quanta)   10 An Argentinian bought Google's domain name for just under $3 Enterprising, but sadly too much fun to last. (The Guardian) Join MIT Technology Review and Harvard Business Review virtually at EmTech Next. Discover the technologies propelling organizational growth, the impact of AI and automation, the urgency to upskill the workforce, and more. Register today. Quote of the Day “At Amazon, it’s like a death sentence.” —Masafuni Ito, a fired Amazon employee and unionizer in Tokyo, tells Rest of World how the company uses its notorious performance improvement plan to push out employees who ask difficult questions. Top image credit: Associated Press Please send chill vibes 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 today Don't settle for half the story. Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for paywall-free access to our journalism. Subscribe now   Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142

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