A new NASA telescope will look at our galaxy’s most energetic objects

How AI is giving a woman back her voice 

Sponsored by PwC The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology X-raying the stars 12.08.21 Good morning! Today: NASA is about to launch a new x-ray telescope that will answer questions about high-energy objects like black holes, pulsars and neutron stars. Also: how voice technology is shaking up healthcare. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. A new NASA telescope will look at our galaxy’s most energetic objects   New insights: Tomorrow NASA plans to launch a new x-ray telescope to help answer questions like what’s inside a black hole and how bright pulsars can get. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, known as IXPE, will be the first x-ray telescope capable of measuring polarization, a property of light that describes the orientation of its electrical and magnetic energy.   The details: IXPE has three telescopes, each equipped with a set of mirrors and a detector that’s able to track and measure four properties of light: its direction, arrival time, energy, and polarization. Data about the incoming x-rays from all those detectors is combined to create an image.  Practical applications: IXPE is set to observe more than 50 of the most energetic known objects in the universe in the next two years, including the supermassive black hole nestled in the middle of the Milky Way. Read the full story. —Tatyana Woodall  Podcast: How AI is giving a woman back her voice Voice technology is one of the biggest trends in the healthcare space. In the latest episode of our award-winning podcast, In Machines We Trust, we look at how it might help care providers and patients, from a woman who is losing her speech, to documenting healthcare records for doctors. But how do you teach AI to learn to communicate more like a human, and will it lead to more efficient machines? Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you usually go for podcasts. 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.)   + Minnesota has entered the Funny Snow Plow Names contest! Although its runners-up were frankly better than its winners last year. Edward Blizzardhands made me laugh more than it should have, and I liked the local Prince reference with Raspberry Brrr-et.    + Could not stop giggling at this video of a man who keeps roping his dog into a series of eating challenges.    + A British teenager found a 3,000-year-old axe on her third day out with a metal detector.    + Some lovely footage of 1960s San Francisco. Worth watching just for the beautiful cars.   + A poem in the shape of a Christmas tree.   + Take a virtual walk around the White House and admire its Christmas decorations.    + An early (and I mean EARLY) electric car. Join MIT Technology Review's Global Insights Panel (membership is free).  Take part in original research and gain valuable business insights into today’s most important technology trends. Join our Global Insights Panel. Sponsor Message How people-led, tech-powered convergence is shaping our future The upcoming wave of tech innovation is not about replacing humans; it’s about increasing their capacity to work smarter. Tapping into the promise of extended reality by using VR or AR along with other tech like AI, people can upskill, collaborate and perform in new ways. See how creating new ways to collaborate with VR and four other ways emerging tech is reshaping the business world. Learn more The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The Pfizer vaccine still helps protect against catching omicron But not as much as before. The big question is whether the vaccines hold up for preventing severe disease. (WP $)   + We won’t know how bad omicron is for weeks. (TR)   + Researchers have found a form of omicron that’s harder to track. (The Guardian)   + Our response to omicron is making things worse. (Nature)   + Home tests are great, but the attendant lack of reporting leaves health authorities in the dark. (STAT)   + The White House mocked the idea of sending Americans free tests—despite it being an approach that’s working in other countries. (Gizmodo)   + Vaccination rates have been rising in the US since the discovery of the omicron variant. (Axios)   + 60% of US adults are now fully vaccinated. (Axios)   + The UK has tightened its testing requirements for arriving travelers. (NYT $)  2 Yet again, big money men are fighting over resources in the Congo The last US-owned cobalt site was sold to the Chinese last year. A lot of chancers are jumping into the vacuum.  (NYT $)   + Some Malaysians have paid for the global chip shortage with their lives. (Bloomberg $)  3 Gig workers are asking to see the algorithms that manage them These jobs claim to offer flexibility and autonomy—they mostly do nothing of the sort. (Wired $)   4 Tesla drivers can play video games, even while the car is moving Just insane. (NYT $)   5 A giant outage reminded us how reliant we are on Amazon Web Services Everything from banking apps to home deliveries to Christmas lights stopped working yesterday. (Quartz)   + The outage ground the company’s warehouse and delivery network to a halt, too. (The Verge)  6 The price Apple pays for doing business in China Agreeing to invest over $275 billion was just one of the terms of a deal CEO Tim Cook signed in 2016. (The Information $)   + How much control should Apple have over your iPhone? (Recode)   7 AI researchers are turning to biology to fight adversarial attacks Machines don’t see the world how we do, and that makes them vulnerable. (Quanta)   8 Your family might try to give you an NFT for Christmas 🎁 Or even better, a tungsten cube! (WSJ $)   9 Europeans are getting sick of e-scooters 🛴 Crashes and clutter are driving crackdowns in numerous cities. (Wired $)   10 An Indian IT company paid Americans to… do nothing Kinda sounds like a dream frankly, yet many of them hated it. (The Verge) Quote of the day “Twitter’s policy is written so vaguely that it invites abuse.” —The Anonymous Comrades Collective, an anti-fascist group that works to expose far-right extremists, tells The Guardian how neo-Nazis are weaponizing new Twitter rules to evade scrutiny. Top image credit: BALL AEROSPACE Please send tungsten cubes 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 Advancing the promise of technology Make MIT Technology Review your go-to resource for insights, analysis, and news about the world of technology. Get unlimited access when you subscribe today. Subscribe now Want to change how you receive these emails? 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