TikTok changed the shape of some people’s faces without asking

The next Venus missions will tell us about habitable worlds elsewhere 

Sponsored by Oracle The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Unfamiliar faces 06.10.21 Good morning! Charlotte here—I'm back! Today: TikTok has been changing peoples' appearances without their consent, and the upcoming two Venus missions will teach us about habitable worlds elsewhere. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. TikTok changed the shape of some people’s faces without asking   A disturbing discovery: In late May, a portion of TikTok’s users looked into the camera and saw a face that wasn’t their own. Their faces looked slimmer and more feminine, with a different jawline to usual. When they waved their hand in front of the camera, blocking most of their face from the lens, their jaw appeared to pop back to normal. Was their skin also a little softer?  The implication: Many suspected the company was secretly testing out a beauty filter on some users. After some investigation, our senior editor Abby Ohlheiser found the issue seemed to only affect Android phones. She contacted TikTok, and the effect stopped appearing two days later. The company later acknowledged in a short statement that there was an issue that had been resolved, but did not provide further details. Why it matters: On the surface it was an odd, temporary issue that affected some users and not others. But it was also forcibly changing people’s appearances—an important glitch for an app that is used by around 100 million people in the US. Read the full story. —Abby Ohlheiser The next Venus missions will tell us about habitable worlds elsewhere A big deal: The two upcoming missions to Venus, announced by NASA last week, will have a tremendous impact not just when it comes to Venus and solar system exploration, but also when it comes to our understanding of habitable, life-bearing worlds outside our solar system itself.  Why? As our exoplanet discoveries continue to pile up (and we've spotted over 11,000 possible exoplanets so far) we need to learn whether an Earth-sized planet is more likely to look like Earth, or more likely to look like Venus. To find that out, we need to understand Venus a lot better. Competing theories: There are two leading theories for what happened to Venus—and they both have implications for what we might expect on other exoplanets. We’ll be able to test both hypotheses with the upcoming missions. Read the full story. —Neel V. Patel Podcast: When AI becomes child’s play Despite their popularity with kids, tablets and other connected devices are built on top of systems that weren’t designed for them to easily understand or navigate. But adapting algorithms to interact with a child isn’t without its complications—as no one child is exactly like another. Most recognition algorithms look for patterns and consistency to successfully identify objects. But kids are notoriously inconsistent. In a new episode of our award-winning podcast, In Machines We Trust, we examine the relationship AI has with kids. Check it out! 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.)   + These beautiful churches have me dreaming of travel...   + Now here's an excellent idea… halloumi waffles! (Thanks to my colleague Tanya for the inadvertent inspiration.)   + What you eat affects your mood more than you might realize.   + Juggling looks possibly even more amazing from above.   + An extremely comprehensive collection of cats doing funny stuff (cheers Donna, you know me well).   + If you want to appreciate just how talented Simone Biles is, watch her in slow motion.   + The world just got a new ocean, according to National Geographic.   + Kudos to this dog, who knows exactly what he wants. Sponsor Message New business models, big opportunity: Retail In a remade economy, retailers are reinventing themselves—boosting e-commerce, adopting new technologies, and delivering value in new ways. Learn more here. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Individualism is still ruining our response to the pandemic If we're not careful, we won't end the pandemic, but just suppress it to a level where it mostly plagues communities privileged people can ignore. (The Atlantic $)   + The virus ruthlessly exposed the vast gulf of inequality in New York. (NYT $)  2 The four most urgent questions about long covid We're still remarkably ignorant about this surprisingly common disorder. (Nature)   + How we could vaccinate the world by the end of 2022. (The Guardian)   + The US is going to buy 500 million Pfizer covid shots for low-income nations. (Bloomberg $)   + A hospital suspended 178 healthcare workers for failing to get vaccinated against covid. (Ars Technica)  3 We're about to experience a productivity boom 📈 You can partly thank the pandemic, and the way we've used technology to overhaul work. (TR)   4 Bitcoin is more traceable than you might think You can thank its underlying, public infrastructure: the blockchain. (NYT $)   + What's really going on with El Salvador's plans to accept bitcoin as currency? (FT $)   + How bitcoin fuels ransomware attacks. (NPR)   + Meat supplier JBS paid $11 million in bitcoin to its ransomware attackers. (ABC)   + China's crackdown on bitcoin mining is beginning in earnest. (The Block)  5 Inside the shady world of Facebook autolikers 👍 "Inauthentic activity" is still rife on the platform in many countries. (Rest of World)   + Facebook-delivered free internet comes with some major catches. (Rest of World)  6 Biden abandoned Trump's TikTok and WeChat bans That doesn't mean either company can breathe easy. (Recode)   7 The alternate reality game that took 15 years to solve Perplex City saw 50,000 people compete in a scavenger hunt that blended real and virtual worlds, with a £100,000 prize for the winner. (Wired UK)   8 Remember Snapchat?! How it became the most overlooked of all the social platforms. (Vox)   9 How do you make work friends when everyone's remote? 🤝 Admittedly, it won't be as natural and spontaneous—but it's still totally doable. (Wired $)   10 A new app debuts… that translates elephants 🐘 Niche! But cool. (Scientific American $) Join MIT Technology Review's Global Panel (membership is free).  Take part in original research on tech and business, and get tools for making smarter decisions. Learn more. Quote of the Day "I feel like I’m tapping a keg that’s been empty for a year." —Jack Innanen, a 22-year-old TikTok star from Toronto, tells the New York Times he's grappling with a feeling familiar to many of us: burnout. Top image credit: LORENZO DI COLA | NURPHOTO VIA AP Please send waffles of any variety 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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