Facebook wants machines to see the world through our eyes

The case for mixing and matching vaccines is becoming stronger

The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology Improving AI's sight 10.14.21 Good morning! Today: how Facebook is training AI systems to see more like we do. Also: why mixing-and-matching may be the way forward for covid-19 vaccines. Get friends and colleagues to sign up here to get The Download every day. Facebook wants machines to see the world through our eyes Machines can recognise what they see in photos and videos thanks to large datasets like ImageNet, a hand-curated collection of millions of photos used to train most of the best image-recognition models of the last decade.  But the images in these datasets portray a world of well-framed objects—a picture gallery quite unlike everyday life as humans experience it. To get machines to see things as we do will take a wholly new approach. And Facebook’s AI lab wants to take the lead. It is kickstarting a project, called Ego4D, to build AIs that can understand scenes and activities viewed from a first-person perspective—how things look to the people involved, rather than to an onlooker. Think motion-blurred GoPro footage taken in the thick of the action, instead of neatly framed scenes taken by someone on the sidelines. Facebook wants Ego4D to do for first-person video what ImageNet did for photos.  Such tech could support people who need assistance around the home, or guide people in tasks they are learning to complete. However, the potential misuses are clear and worrying. This is Facebook, after all. Read the full story.   —Will Douglas Heaven 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.)   + What if… the universe has no beginning?   + Delve into the archives of one of rock's top photographers.    + Got to admire the sheer persistence of this squirrel.    + Fall snacks, ranked.   + This little girl has the best Halloween costume.    + A visit to St Kilda, a remote outcrop off the Scottish coast. (NYT $)   + The lost pop of '80s Yugoslavia. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The case for mixing and matching vaccines is becoming stronger 💉 A small study suggests people who received the J&J shot should get a Pfizer or Moderna booster. (Ars Technica)   + China has just launched its booster program. (NYT $)   + Booster shots have now overtaken first doses in the US. (Axios)   + Protection against infection seems to wane several months post-vaccination (although still keeps people out of hospital). (The Guardian)  2 How Amazon rigged its site to boost its own products in India Amazon has denied it does this for years—but these documents show senior executives knew about it. (Reuters)   + Senators in the US are trying to pass a bill to block tech companies from prioritizing their own products over rivals'. (WP $)   + There is no bipartisan consensus on Big Tech. (Wired $)   + What the US can learn from China's efforts to regulate algorithms. (WSJ $)   + Australia is gearing up for another showdown with Big Tech. (CNBC)  3 Facebook is clamping down on internal message boards So… the plan is to stop people discussing the problems rather than addressing the problems themselves. (NYT $)   + Advocacy groups are working together to turn up the heat on Facebook. (Gizmodo)  4 Apple is studying whether AirPods could improve your health Ideas include enhancing hearing, improving posture, or monitoring body temperature. (WSJ $)   5 Scientists are increasingly under attack The pandemic has unleashed a wave of fury directed towards researchers, and it could have a deeply chilling effect. (Nature)   6 China's bitcoin mining ban has succeeded Research suggests its share of global mining activity has gone from 76% to effectively 0% in the space of just three months. (Wired UK)   + The US has been the biggest beneficiary. (BBC)  7 How a teenage hacker's crimes caught up with him Edwin Robbe carried out one of the most serious hacks in the Netherlands’ history when he was just 17. (The Guardian)   8 Zoom meetings when half the people are in the office are weird It was so much easier when we all had our own squares. (WSJ $)   + How the pandemic changed employee perks. (WP $)  9 How to complete all the Squid Game games Minus the, erm, imminent threat of death. (Wired $)   + North Korea says the show proves capitalism is terrible. (WSJ $)   10 True Crime is rotting our brains It isn't possible, or indeed necessary, to live in a state of permanent hypervigilance. (Gawker) Which technologies were just emerging the year you were born? Interested to see how our yearly predictions of the 10 breakthrough technologies have turned out? Purchase a Premium subscription to MIT Technology Review for access to our entire magazine archive, going all the way back to our first issue in 1899. Subscribe now. Quote of the day "I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now… I don’t want to lose it." —What William Shatner had to say after he landed back on Earth yesterday. Top image credit: MIT Technology Review | Envato Please send your best Squid Game strategies 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? 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