In the weeks ahead of IA's efforts to appeal that ruling, IA was forced to remove 500,000 books from its collection, shocking users. In an open letter to publishers, more than 30,000 readers, researchers, and authors begged for access to the books to be restored in the open library, claiming the takedowns dealt "a serious blow to lower-income families, people with disabilities, rural communities, and LGBTQ+ people, among many others," who may not have access to a local library or feel "safe accessing the information they need in public."
During a press briefing following arguments in court Friday, IA founder Brewster Kahle said that "those voices weren't being heard." Judges appeared primarily focused on understanding how IA's digital lending potentially hurts publishers' profits in the ebook licensing market, rather than on how publishers' costly ebook licensing potentially harms readers.
Enlarge/ Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor arrive for President Joe Biden's State of the Union address on March 7, 2024, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Win McNamee )
The US Supreme Court today overturned the 40-year-old Chevron precedent in a ruling that limits the regulatory authority of federal agencies. The 6-3 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo will make it harder for agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission and Environmental Protection Agency to issue regulations without explicit authorization from Congress.
Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion of the court and was joined by Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Elena Kagan filed a dissenting opinion that was joined by Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Chevron gave agencies leeway to interpret ambiguous laws as long as the agency's conclusion was reasonable. But the Roberts court said that a "statutory ambiguity does not necessarily reflect a congressional intent that an agency, as opposed to a court, resolve the resulting interpretive question."
Tesla has denied that "any defect in the Autopilot system caused or contributed" to the 2022 death of a Tesla employee, Hans von Ohain, whose Tesla Model 3 burst into flames after the car suddenly veered off a road and crashed into a tree.
"Von Ohain fought to regain control of the vehicle, but, to his surprise and horror, his efforts were prevented by the vehicle's Autopilot features, leaving him helpless and unable to steer back on course," a wrongful death lawsuit filed in May by von Ohain's wife, Nora Bass, alleged.
In Tesla's response to the lawsuit filed Thursday, the carmaker also denied that the 2021 vehicle had any defects, contradicting Bass' claims that Tesla knew that the car should have been recalled but chose to "prioritize profits over consumer safety."
Enlarge/ EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said the bloc was looking into practices that could in effect lead to a company controlling a greater share of the AI market. (credit: Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)
Brussels is preparing for an antitrust investigation into Microsoftβs $13 billion investment into OpenAI, after the European Union decided not to proceed with a merger review into the most powerful alliance in the artificial intelligence industry.
The European Commission, the EUβs executive arm, began to explore a review under merger control rules in January, but on Friday announced that it would not proceed due to a lack of evidence that Microsoft controls OpenAI.
However, the commission said it was now exploring the possibility of a traditional antitrust investigation into whether the tie-up between the worldβs most valuable listed company and the best-funded AI start-up was harming competition in the fast-growing market.
Britain to make legal arguments over jurisdiction in case of alleged war crimes by the Israeli PM
An intervention by the UK government at the international criminal court is expected to delay a decision over whether an arrest warrant can be issued against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Judges at the ICC ruled on Thursday they would allow the UK to make legal arguments in the case as they consider whether to approve requests made by the ICCβs chief prosecutor for warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.
Politicians are refusing to acknowledge the link between Brexit and falling living standards, says Robin Prior, while Chris Webster says voters must accept responsibility for their choices
Larry Elliott is correct that Brexit is a live issue in this election, even if politicians are doing their best to avoid it (Brexit may have felt absent from this election β but it will still define it, 26 June). And he is spot-on when he says that there is βno real difference between Labourβs growth strategy and its Brexit strategy. If one fails then so does the otherβ.
Keir Starmer says Labour will boost economic growth while continuing to hobble trade and relations with our nearest major market. Itβs as if his shoes are tied together, but heβs refusing to untie them while also promising to win an international running race. Does he really take us for fools?
The UK economy grew at a faster rate than previously thought in the first quarter of 2024, handing the next prime minister an improved economic backdrop.
Gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.7% in the first three months of 2024, revised upwards by the Office for National Statistics from a first estimate of 0.6%.
Labour appears poised to win a historic election victory on 4 July. In the series Life under Labour, we look at Keir Starmerβs five key political missions and ask what is at stake and whether he can deliver the change the country is crying out for.
βIf they came into power, the Labour party would inherit a really terrible set of problems in the NHS that are both broader and deeper than the ones they faced in 1997. This feels a lot worse,β says Siva Anandaciva, the chief analyst at the Kingβs Fund thinktank.
The Toriesβ cuts were an obvious economic blunder, but their disastrous consequences are still piling up β and there is little hope Labour will reverse the damage
Unless the polls are wildly inaccurate, the Conservative party is heading towards a catastrophic defeat in the coming election.
All across the rich world, voters are angry at their governments β they blame politicians for a burst of inflation that happened almost everywhere and is now subsiding almost everywhere, including in the UK. But the Conservatives deserve defeat more than most: they took power 14 years ago promising to deliver responsible policies and economic success. Instead they have presided over economic stagnation and a collapse in public services.
Blinken says Tehran has expanded uranium enrichment project βin ways that have no credible peaceful purposeβ
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has announced fresh sanctions against Iranβs petroleum sector in response to what he described as an expansion of the countryβs nuclear programme which has provoked renewed fears that it is preparing to build an atomic bomb.
The embargoes β on three unnamed entities involved in the transport of Iranian petroleum or petrochemical products β were announced amid a chorus of warnings of a renewed conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Iranβs proxy Hezbollah, the powerful Shia group that dominates Lebanon.
Enlarge/ Ozone-producing chemicals come from a variety of sources and don't respect state borders. (credit: John Edward Linden)
On Tuesday, a slim majority of the US Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling that places a stay on rules developed by the Environmental Protection Agency, meant to limit the spread of ozone-generating pollutants across state lines. Because it was handled on an emergency basis, the decision was made without any evidence gathered during lower court proceedings. As a result, the justices don't even agree on the nature of the regulations the EPA has proposed, leading to a blistering dissent from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was joined by the court's three liberal justices.
Bad neighbors
The rule at issue arose from the EPA's regular process of revisiting existing limits in light of changes in public health information and pollution-control technology. In this case, the focus was on ozone-producing chemicals; in 2015, the EPA chose to lower the limit on ozone from 75 to 70 parts per billion.
Once these standards are set, states are required to submit plans that fulfill two purposes. One is to limit pollution within the state itself; the second involves pollution controls that will limit the exposure in states that are downwind of the pollution sources. The EPA is required to evaluate these plans; if they are deemed insufficient, the EPA can require the states to follow a federal plan devised by the EPA.
Temuβthe Chinese shopping app that has rapidly grown so popular in the US that even Amazon is reportedly trying to copy itβis "dangerous malware" that's secretly monetizing a broad swath of unauthorized user data, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin alleged in a lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Griffin cited research and media reports exposing Temu's allegedly nefarious design, which "purposely" allows Temu to "gain unrestricted access to a user's phone operating system, including, but not limited to, a user's camera, specific location, contacts, text messages, documents, and other applications."
"Temu is designed to make this expansive access undetected, even by sophisticated users," Griffin's complaint said. "Once installed, Temu can recompile itself and change properties, including overriding the data privacy settings users believe they have in place."
In 2017, Kathleen Odean thought she had found the last cell phone plan she would ever need. T-Mobile was offering a mobile service for people age 55 and over, with an "Un-contract" guarantee that it would never raise prices.
"I thought, wow, I can live out my days with this fixed plan," Odean, a Rhode Island resident who is now 70 years old, told Ars last week. Odean and her husband switched from Verizon to get the T-Mobile deal, which cost $60 a month for two lines.
Despite its Un-contract promise, T-Mobile in May 2024 announced a price hike for customers like Odean who thought they had a lifetime price guarantee on plans such as T-Mobile One, Magenta, and Simple Choice. The $5-per-line price hike will raise her and her husband's monthly bill from $60 to $70, Odean said.
Exclusive: Shadow health secretary discusses plans for waiting lists and patient safety if Labour wins election
NHS managers who silence and scapegoat whistleblowers will be banned from working in the service, the shadow health secretary has said, as part of a determined drive by Labour to eradicate a culture of cover-ups.
In an interview with the Guardian, Wes Streeting pledged to push through the formal regulation of NHS managers and warned the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that its inspectors must get much better at exposing risks to patientsβ safety in order to regain the confidence of frontline staff.
Enlarge/ Grace Bisch holds a picture of stepson Eddie Bisch who died as a result of an overdose on outside of the U.S. Supreme Court on December 4, 2023 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court heard arguments regarding a nationwide settlement with Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. (credit: Getty | Michael A. McCoy)
While the ruling may offer long-sought schadenfreude over the deeply despised Sackler family, it is a heavy blow to the over 100,000 people affected by opioid epidemic who could have seen compensation from the deal. With the high court's ruling, the settlement talks will have to begin again, with the outcome and possible payouts to plaintiffs uncertain.
Between 1999 and 2019, as nearly 250,000 Americans died from prescription opioid overdoses, members of the Sackler family siphoned approximately $11 billion from the pharmaceutical company they ran, Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, a highly addictive and falsely marketed pain medication, according to the high court's ruling. In 2007, amid the nationwide epidemic of opioid addiction and overdoses, Purdue affiliates pleaded guilty in federal court to falsely branding OxyContin as less addictive and less abusive than other pain medications. Out of fear of future litigation, the Sacklers began a "milking program," the high court noted, draining Purdue of roughly 75 percent of its assets.
Wendy Shillam and Prof Roger Brown reflect on the partyβs proposals to tackle the housing crisis
I enjoy the Guardianβs Today in Focus podcast series as it gives a bit more air to issues of immediate importance. The episode on Labourβs housing plan (24 June) got me thinking. I used to work on Gordon Brownβs eco-towns project and found that the biggest objection was that new towns had failed in the past. We need to convince people that this programme signals change. This time, we need to do better.
Surely the best way is to use the new new towns to repair some of the less successful old new towns. Take Livingston, near Glasgow β not a disaster, but a βcould do betterβ.
Decision could result in retailers being prosecuted if they import goods made through forced labour, campaigners say
The UK National Crime Agencyβs decision not to launch an investigation into the importation of cotton products manufactured by forced labour in Chinaβs Xinjiang province was unlawful, the court of appeal has found.
Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) and the World Uyghur Congress (WUC), which brought the action, said Thursdayβs decision was a landmark win that could lead to high street retailers being prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act (Poca) if they import goods made through forced labour.
Shadow business secretary says trying to rejoin single market or customs union would cause βmore difficultiesβ
Labour would rather have stability in the UKβs relationship with the Europe than try to seek accelerated economic growth by rejoining the EUβs single market or customs union, the partyβs shadow business secretary has said.
Addressing the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) conference on Thursday, Jonathan Reynolds acknowledged that Brexit had been βvery difficult for businessesβ because it erected trade barriers, but said reopening the debate would be worse.
Mar Gunnarsson, swimmer and Manchester student who is due to compete at the Paris Games, says his career is at risk
A Paralympic swimmer due to compete in this summerβs Games has said his career is at risk after a post-Brexit policy change barred him from flying in and out of the UK with his guide dog.
Mar Gunnarsson, a visually impaired Icelandic national studying in Manchester, has been unable to fly to sporting championships to represent his country because his guide dog is not recognised as a service animal by the UK authorities.
Here are some of the latest images from Israel, where an anti-government demonstration has again attempted to block highways while demanding that Benjamin Netanyahu strike a deal to return Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and to call elections in Israel.
Haaretz reporter Bar Peleg has posted this video, which shows protesters blocking a road by setting a fire.
About 25,000 BMA members begin five-day action at 7am that some union leaders say will achieve little
Junior doctors in England will strike today for the 11th time over pay, amid concern in their union that a stoppage so close to the general election is an βown goalβ.
Senior figures in the British Medical Association (BMA) believe the strike is pointless and βnaiveβ and risks irritating Labour, which looks likely to be in power by next Friday and asked the union to call it off.
The UKβs current trade deal with the EU is not working and the country must stop βwalking on eggshellsβ around the issue of building closer ties with its biggest trading partner, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) is expected to say.
At the annual BCC global conference in London on Thursday, Shevaun Haviland will say that the UK must forge closer ties with the EU and the next government should focus on improving trading relations to grow the economy.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court tossed out claims that the Biden administration coerced social media platforms into censoring users by removing COVID-19 and election-related content.
Complaints alleging that high-ranking government officials were censoring conservatives had previously convinced a lower court to order an injunction limiting the Biden administration's contacts with platforms. But now that injunction has been overturned, re-opening lines of communication just ahead of the 2024 electionsβwhen officials will once again be closely monitoring the spread of misinformation online targeted at voters.
In a 6β3 vote, the majority ruled that none of the plaintiffs suingβincluding five social media users and Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouriβhad standing. They had alleged that the government had "pressured the platforms to censor their speech in violation of the First Amendment," demanding an injunction to stop any future censorship.
Enlarge/ A Tesla Cybertruck at the Viva Technology show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2024 in Paris, France. (credit: Getty Images | Chesnot )
Tesla has announced two more recalls of the Cybertruck, both of which affect over 11,000 vehicles produced since the car first became available late last year. Cybertruck owners will need to bring their cars in for service because of faulty windshield wiper motors and a cosmetic piece that could come off the vehicle while it's being driven.
Tesla previously recalled the Cybertruck in April over a faulty accelerator pedal assembly and in January for a software problem in which the font size of brake, park, and antilock brake system visual warning indicators were too small. The January recall also affected Tesla Model 3, S, X, and Y.
A new recall notice says, "the front windshield wiper motor controller may stop functioning due to electrical overstress to the gate driver component. A non-functioning windshield wiper may reduce visibility in certain operating conditions, which may increase the risk of a collision."
It is one of the oddities of this weirdest of election campaigns that the issue that helped give the Conservatives an 80-seat majority in 2019 has barely been mentioned. As far as the main parties are concerned, Brexit is a done deal. The decision has been made. Time to move on.
To be sure, much has happened since 2019, most notably a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis and the brief β yet drama-packed β premiership of Liz Truss. Making ends meet features more prominently in votersβ lists of concerns than whether the UK should rejoin the single market.
Larry Elliott is the Guardianβs economics editor
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Reviewβs newsletter about technology in China.Β Sign upΒ to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.
Whether youβve flown a drone before or not, youβve probably heard of DJI, or at least seen its logo. With more than a 90% share of the global consumer market, this Shenzhen-based companyβs drones are used by hobbyists and businesses alike for photography and surveillance, as well as for spraying pesticides, moving parcels, and many other purposes around the world.Β Β
But on June 14, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would completely ban DJIβs drones from being sold in the US. The bill is now being discussed in the Senate as part of the annual defense budget negotiations.Β
The reason? While its market dominance has attracted scrutiny for years, itβs increasingly clear that DJIβs commercial products are so good and affordable they are also being used on active battlefields to scout out the enemy or carry bombs. As the US worries about the potential for conflict between China and Taiwan, the military implications of DJIβs commercial drones are becoming a top policy concern.
DJI has managed to set the gold standard for commercial drones because it is built on decades of electronic manufacturing prowess and policy support in Shenzhen. It is an example of how Chinaβs manufacturing advantage can turn into a technological one.
βIβve been to the DJI factory many times β¦ and mainly, Chinaβs industrial base is so deep that every component ends up being a fraction of the cost,β Sam Schmitz, the mechanical engineering lead at Neuralink, wrote on X. Shenzhen and surrounding towns have had a robust factory scene for decades, providing an indispensable supply chain for a hardware industry like drones. βThis factory made almost everything, and itβs surrounded by thousands of factories that make everything else β¦ nowhere else in the world can you run out of some weird screw and just walk down the street until you find someone selling thousands of them,β he wrote.
But Shenzhenβs municipal government has also significantly contributed to the industry. For example, it has granted companies more permission for potentially risky experiments and set up subsidies and policy support. Last year, I visited Shenzhen to experience how itβs already incorporating drones in everyday food delivery, but the city is also working with companies to use drones for bigger and bigger jobsβcarrying everything from packages to passengers. All of these go into a plan to build up the βlow-altitude economyβ in Shenzhen that keeps the city on the leading edge of drone technology.
As a result, the supply chain in Shenzhen has become so competitive that the world canβt really use drones without it. Chinese drones are simply the most accessible and affordable out there.Β
This reliance on one Chinese company and the supply chain behind it is what worries US politicians, but the danger would be more pronounced in any conflict between China and Taiwan, a prospect that is a huge security concern in the US and globally.
Last week, my colleague James OβDonnell wrote about a report by the think tank Center for a New American Security (CNAS) that analyzed the role of drones in a potential war in the Taiwan Strait. Right now, both Ukraine and Russia are still finding ways to source drones or drone parts from Chinese companies, but itβd be much harder for Taiwan to do so, since it would be in Chinaβs interest to block its opponentβs supply. βSo Taiwan is effectively cut off from the worldβs foremost commercial drone supplier and must either make its own drones or find alternative manufacturers, likely in the US,β James wrote.
If the ban on DJI sales in the US is eventually passed, it will hit the company hard for sure, as the US drone market is currently worth an estimated $6 billion, the majority of which is going to DJI. But undercutting DJIβs advantage wonβt magically grow an alternative drone industry outside China.Β
βThe actions taken against DJI suggest protectionism and undermine the principles of fair competition and an open market. The Countering CCP Drones Act risks setting a dangerous precedent, where unfounded allegations dictate public policy, potentially jeopardizing the economic well-being of the US,β DJI told MIT Technology Review in an emailed statement.
The Taiwanese government is aware of the risks of relying too much on Chinaβs drone industry, and itβs looking to change. In March, Taiwanβs newly elected president, Lai Ching-te, said that Taiwan wants to become the βAsian center for the democratic drone supply chain.βΒ
Already the hub of global semiconductor production, Taiwan seems well positioned to grow another hardware industry like drones, but it will probably still take years or even decades to build the economies of scale seen in Shenzhen. With support from the US, can Taiwanese companies really grow fast enough to meaningfully sway Chinaβs control of the industry? Thatβs a very open question.
A housekeeping note: Iβm currently visiting London, and the newsletter will take a break next week. If you are based in the UK and would like to meet up, let me know by writing to zeyi@technologyreview.com.
Now read the rest of China Report
Catch up with China
1. ByteDance is working with the US chip design company Broadcom to develop a five-nanometer AI chip. This US-China collaboration, which should be compliant with US export restrictions, is rare these days given the political climate. (Reuters $)
2. After both the European Union and China announced new tariffs against each other, the two sides agreed to chat about how to resolve the dispute. (New York Times $)
Canada is preparing to announce its own tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles. (Bloomberg $)
3. A NASA leader says the US is βon scheduleβ to send astronauts to the moon within a few years. Thereβs currently a heated race between the US and China on moon exploration. (Washington Post $)
4. A new cybersecurity report says RedJuliett, a China-backed hacker group, has intensified attacks on Taiwanese organizations this year. (Al Jazeera $)
5. The Canadian government is blocking a rare earth mine from being sold to a Chinese company. Instead, the government will buy the stockpiled rare earth materials for $2.2 million. (Bloomberg $)
6. Economic hardship at home has pushed some Chinese small investors to enter the US marijuana industry. They have been buying lands in the States, setting up marijuana farms, and hiring other new Chinese immigrants. (NPR)
Lost in translation
In the past week, the most talked-about person in China has been a 17-year-old girl named Jiang Ping, according to the Chinese publication Southern Metropolis Daily. Every year since 2018, the Chinese company Alibaba has been hosting a global mathematics contest that attracts students from prestigious universities around the world to compete for a generous prize. But to everyoneβs surprise, Jiang, whoβs studying fashion design at a vocational high school in a poor town in eastern China, ended up ranking 12th in the qualifying round this year, beating scores of college undergraduate or even masterβs students. Other than reading college mathematics textbooks under her math teacherβs guidance, Jiang has received no professional training, as many of her competitors have.
Jiangβs story, highlighted by Alibaba following the announcement of the first-round results, immediately went viral in China. While some saw it as a tale of buried talents and how personal endeavor can overcome unfavorable circumstances, others questioned the legitimacy of her results. She became so famous that people, including social media influencers, kept visiting her home, turning her hometown into an unlikely tourist destination. The town had to hide Jiang from public attention while she prepared for the final round of the competition.
One more thing
After I wrote about the new Chinese generative video model Kling last week, the AI tool added a new feature that can turn a static photo into a short video clip. Well, what better way to test its performance than feeding it the iconic βdistracted boyfriendβ meme and watching what the model predicts will happen after that moment?
The United Stateshas an official web design system and a custom typeface. This public design system aims to make government websites not only good-looking but accessible and functional for all.
Before the internet, Americans may have interacted with the federal government by stepping into grand buildings adorned with impressive stone columns and gleaming marble floors. Today, the neoclassical architecture of those physical spaces has been (at least partially) replaced by the digital architecture of website designβHTML code, tables, forms, and buttons.Β
While people visiting a government website to apply for student loans, research veteransβ benefits, or enroll in Medicare might not notice these digital elements, they play a crucial role. If a website is buggy or doesnβt work on a phone, taxpayers may not be able to access the services they have paid forβwhich can create a negative impression of the government itself.Β Β
There are about 26,000 federal websites in the US. Early on, each site had its own designs, fonts, and log-in systems, creating frustration for the public and wasting government resources. The troubled launch of Healthcare.gov in 2013 highlighted the need for a better way to build government digital services. In 2014, President Obama created two new teams to help improve government tech.
Within the General Services Administration (GSA), a new team called 18F (named for its office at 1800 F Street in Washington, DC) was created to βcollaborate with other agencies to fix technical problems, build products, and improve public service through technology.β The team was built to move at the speed of tech startups rather than lumbering bureaucratic agencies.Β
The US Digital Service (USDS) was set up βto deliver better government services to the American people through technology and design.β In 2015, the two teams collaborated to build the US Web Design System (USWDS), a style guide and collection of user interface components and design patterns intended to ensure accessibility and a consistent user experience across government websites. βInconsistency is felt, even if not always precisely articulated in usability research findings,β Dan Williams, the USWDS program lead, said in an email.Β
Today, the system defines 47 user interface components such as buttons, alerts, search boxes, and forms, each with design examples, sample code, and guidelines such as βBe politeβ and βDonβt overdo it.β Now in its third iteration, it is used in 160 government websites. βAs of September 2023, 94 agencies use USWDS code, and it powers about 1.1 billion page views on federal websites,β says Williams.
To ensure clear and consistent typography, the free and open-source typeface Public Sans was created for the US government in 2019. βIt started as a design experiment,β says Williams, who designed the typeface. βWe were interested in trying to establish an open-source solution space for a typeface, just like we had for the other design elements in the design system.β
The teams behind Public Sans and the USWDS embrace transparency and collaboration with government agencies and the public.
And to ensure that the hard-learned lessons arenβt forgotten, the projects embrace continuous improvement. One of the design principles behind Public Sans offers key guidance in this area: βStrive to be better, not necessarily perfect.β
Jon Keegan writes Beautiful Public Data, a newsletter that curates visually interesting data sets collected by local, state, and federal government agencies (beautifulpublicdata.com).
The philosopher Karl Popper once argued that there are two kinds of problems in the world: clock problems and cloud problems. As the metaphor suggests, clock problems obey a certain logic. They are orderly and can be broken down and analyzed piece by piece. When a clock stops working, youβre able to take it apart, look for whatβs wrong, and fix it. The fix may not be easy, but itβs achievable. Crucially, you know when youβve solved the issue because the clock starts telling the time again.Β
Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World Guru Madhavan
W.W. NORTON, 2024
Cloud problems offer no such assurances. They are inherently complex and unpredictable, and they usually have social, psychological, or political dimensions. Because of their dynamic, shape-shifting nature, trying to βfixβ a cloud problem often ends up creating several new problems. For this reason, they donβt have a definitive βsolvedβ stateβonly good and bad (or better and worse) outcomes. Trying to repair a broken-down car is a clock problem. Trying to solve traffic is a cloud problem.Β Β
Engineers are renowned clock-problem solvers. Theyβre also notorious for treating every problem like a clock. Increasing specialization and cultural expectations play a role in this tendency. But so do engineers themselves, who are typically the ones who get to frame the problems theyβre trying to solve in the first place.Β
In his latest book, Wicked Problems, Guru Madhavan argues that the growing number of cloudy problems in our world demands a broader, more civic-minded approach to engineering. βWickednessβ is Madhavanβs way of characterizing what he calls βthe cloudiest of problems.β Itβs a nod to a now-famous coinage by Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, professors at the University of California, Berkeley, who used the term βwickedβ to describe complex social problems that resisted the rote scientific and engineering-based (i.e., clock-like) approaches that were invading their fields of design and urban planning back in the 1970s.Β
Madhavan, whoβs the senior director of programs at the National Academy of Engineering, is no stranger to wicked problems himself. Heβs tackled such daunting examples as trying to make prescription drugs more affordable in the US and prioritizing development of new vaccines. But the book isnβt about his own work. Instead, Wicked Problems weaves together the story of a largely forgotten aviation engineer and inventor, Edwin A. Link, with case studies of man-made and natural disasters that Madhavan uses to explain how wicked problems take shape in society and how they might be tamed.
Linkβs story, for those who donβt know it, is fascinatingβhe was responsible for building the first mechanical flight trainer, using parts from his familyβs organ factoryβand Madhavan gives a rich and detailed accounting. The challenges this inventor faced in the 1920s and β30sβwhich included figuring out how tens of thousands of pilots could quickly and effectively be trained to fly without putting all of them up in the air (and in danger), as well as how to instill trust in βinstrument flyingβ when pilotsβ instincts frequently told them their instruments were wrongβwere among the quintessential wicked problems of his time.Β
To address a world full of wicked problems, weβre going to need a more expansive and inclusive idea of what engineering is and who gets to participate in it.
Unfortunately, while Linkβs biography and many of the interstitial chapters on disasters, like Bostonβs Great Molasses Flood of 1919, are interesting and deeply researched, Wicked Problems suffers from some wicked structural choices.Β
The bookβs elaborate conceptual framework and hodgepodge of narratives feel both fussy and unnecessary, making a complex and nuanced topic even more difficult to grasp at times. In the prologue alone, readers must bounce from the concept of cloud problems to that of wicked problems, which get broken down into hard, soft, and messy problems, which are then reconstituted in different ways and linked to six attributesβefficiency, vagueness, vulnerability, safety, maintenance, and resilienceβthat, together, form what Madhavan calls a βconcept of operations,β which is the primary organizational tool he uses to examine wicked problems.
Itβs a lotβor at least enough to make you wonder whether a βsystems engineeringβ approach was the correct lens through which to examine wickedness. Itβs also unfortunate because Madhavanβs ultimate argument is an important one, particularly in an age of rampant solutionism and βone neat trickβ approaches to complex problems. To effectively address a world full of wicked problems, he says, weβre going to need a more expansive and inclusive idea of what engineering is and who gets to participate in it.Β Β
Rational Accidents: Reckoning with Catastrophic Technologies John Downer
MIT PRESS, 2024
While John Downer would likely agree with that sentiment, his new book, Rational Accidents, makes a strong argument that there are hard limits to even the best and broadest engineering approaches. Similarly set in the world of aviation, Downerβs book explores a fundamental paradox at the heart of todayβs civil aviation industry: the fact that flying is safer and more reliable than should technically be possible.
Jetliners are an example of what Downer calls a βcatastrophic technology.β These are βcomplex technological systems that require extraordinary, and historically unprecedented, failure ratesβof the order of hundreds of millions, or even billions, of operational hours between catastrophic failures.β
Take the average modern jetliner, with its 7 million components and 170 milesβ worth of wiringβan immensely complex system in and of itself. There were over 25,000 jetliners in regular service in 2014, according to Downer. Together, they averaged 100,000 flights every single day. Now consider that in 2017, no passenger-carrying commercial jetliner was involved in a fatal accident. Zero. That year, passenger totals reached 4 billion on close to 37 million flights. Yes, it was a record-setting year for the airline industry, safety-wise, but flying remains an almost unfathomably safe and reliable mode of transportationβeven with Boeingβs deadly 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 and the companyβs ongoing troubles.Β
Downer, a professor of science and technology studies at the University of Bristol, does an excellent job in the first half of the book dismantling the idea that we can objectively recognize, understand, and therefore control all risk involved in such complex technologies. Using examples from well-known jetliner crashes, as well as from the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown, he shows why there are simply too many scenarios and permutations of failure for us to assess or foresee such risks, even with todayβs sophisticated modeling techniques and algorithmic assistance.
So how does the airline industry achieve its seemingly unachievable record of safety and reliability? Itβs not regulation, Downer says. Instead, he points to three unique factors. First is the massive service experience the industry has amassed. Over the course of 70 years, manufacturers have built tens of thousands of jetliners, which have failed (and continue to fail) in all sorts of unpredictable ways.Β
This deep and constantly growing data set, combined with the industryβs commitment to thoroughly investigating each and every failure, lets it generalize the lessons learned across the entire industryβthe second key to understanding jetliner reliability.Β
Finally is what might be the most interesting and counterintuitive factor: Downer argues that the lack of innovation in jetliner design is an essential but overlooked part of the reliability record. The fact that the industry has been building what are essentially iterations of the same jetliner for 70 years ensures that lessons learned from failures are perpetually relevant as well as generalizable, he says.Β
That extremely cautious relationship to change flies in the face of the innovate-or-die ethos that drives most technology companies today. And yet it allows the airline industry to learn from decades of failures and continue to chip away at the future βfailure performanceβ of jetliners.
The bad news is that the lessons in jetliner reliability arenβt transferable to other catastrophic technologies. βIt is an irony of modernity that the only catastrophic technology with which we have real experience, the jetliner, is highly unrepresentative, and yet it reifies a misleading perception of mastery over catastrophic technologies in general,β writes Downer.
For instance, to make nuclear reactors as reliable as jetliners, that industry would need to commit to one common reactor design, build tens of thousands of reactors, operate them for decades, suffer through thousands of catastrophes, slowly accumulate lessons and insights from those catastrophes, and then use them to refine that common reactor design.Β Β
This obviously wonβt happen. And yet βbecause we remain entranced by the promise of implausible reliability, and implausible certainty about that reliability, our appetite for innovation has outpaced our insight and humility,β writes Downer. With the age of catastrophic technologies still in its infancy, our continued survival may very well hinge not on innovating our way out of cloudy or wicked problems, but rather on recognizing, and respecting, what we donβt know and can probably never understand.Β Β
If Wicked Problems and Rational Accidents are about the challenges and limits of trying to understand complex systems using objective science- and engineering-based methods, Georgina Vossβs new book, Systems Ultra, provides a refreshing alternative. Rather than dispassionately trying to map out or make sense of complex systems from the outside, Vossβa writer, artist, and researcherβuses her book to grapple with what they feel like, and ultimately what they mean, from the inside.
Systems Ultra: Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World Georgina Voss
VERSO, 2024
βThere is something rather wonderful about simply feeling our way through these enormous structures,β she writes before taking readers on a whirlwind tour of systems visible and unseen, corrupt and benign, ancient and new. Stops include the halls of hype at Las Vegasβs annual Consumer Electronics Show (βa hot mess of a Friday casual hellscapeβ), the βmemetic gold mineβ that was the container ship Ever Given and the global supply chain it broke when it got stuck in the Suez Canal, and the payment systems that undergird the porn industry.Β
For Voss, systems are both structure and behavior. They are relational technologies that are βdefined by their ability to scale and, perhaps more importantly, their peculiar relationship to scale.β Sheβs also keenly aware of the pitfalls of using an βexperientialβ approach to make sense of these large-scale systems. βVerbal attempts to neatly encapsulate what a system is can feel like a stoner monologue with pointed hand gestures (βHave you ever thought about how electricity is, like, really big?β),β she writes.Β
Nevertheless, her written attempts are a delight to read. Voss manages to skillfully unpack the power structures that make up, and reinforce, the large-scale systems we live in. Along the way, she also dispels many of the stories weβre told about their inscrutability and inevitability. That she does all this with humor, intelligence, and a boundless sense of curiosity makes Systems Ultra both a shining example of the βcivic engagement as engineeringβ approach that Madhavan argues for in Wicked Problems, and proof that his argument is spot on.Β
Bryan Gardiner is a writer based in Oakland, California.
The Biden administration on Thursday said itβs banning the company from selling its products to new US-based customers starting on July 20, with the company only allowed to provide software updates to existing customers through September 29. The banβΒthe first such action under authorities given to the Commerce Department in 2019Ββfollows years of warnings from the US intelligence community about Kaspersky being a national security threat because Moscow could allegedly commandeer its all-seeing antivirus software to spy on its customers.
Verizon Wireless agreed to pay a $1,050,000 penalty to the US Treasury and implement a compliance plan because of a 911 outage in December 2022 that was caused by a botched update, the Federal Communications Commission announced today.
A consent decree explains that the outage was caused by "the reapplication of a known flawed security policy update file." During the outage, lasting one hour and 44 minutes, Verizon failed to deliver hundreds of 911 calls in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, the FCC said.
"The [FCC] Enforcement Bureau takes any potential violations of the Commission's 911 rules extremely seriously. Sunny day outages, as occurred here, can be especially troubling because they occur when the public and 911 call centers least expect it," Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal said.
Microsoft may be hit with a massive fine in the European Union for "possibly abusively" bundling Teams with its Office 365 and Microsoft 365 software suites for businesses.
On Tuesday, the European Commission (EC) announced preliminary findings of an investigation into whether Microsoft's "suite-centric business model combining multiple types of software in a single offering" unfairly shut out rivals in the "software as a service" (SaaS) market.
"Since at least April 2019," the EC found, Microsoft's practice of "tying Teams with its core SaaS productivity applications" potentially restricted competition in the "market for communication and collaboration products."
Enlarge/ Julian Assange in an airplane in a photo posted by WikiLeaks on June 25, 2024. (credit: WikiLeaks)
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal charge, ending a long extradition battle with the United States government. Assange will reportedly avoid further jail time and be allowed to return to his home country of Australia.
Assange won't have to travel to the continental United States. He is scheduled to plead guilty tomorrow in US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory in the western Pacific Ocean.
In a court filing in Saipan, the US government said:
Enlarge/ Michael Jackson in concert, 1986. Sony Music owns a large portion of publishing rights to Jackson's music. (credit: Getty Images)
Universal Music Group, Sony Music, and Warner Records have sued AI music-synthesis companies Udio and Suno for allegedly committing mass copyright infringement by using recordings owned by the labels to train music-generating AI models, reports Reuters. Udio and Suno can generate novel song recordings based on text-based descriptions of music (i.e., "a dubstep song about Linus Torvalds").
The lawsuits, filed in federal courts in New York and Massachusetts, claim that the AI companies' use of copyrighted material to train their systems could lead to AI-generated music that directly competes with and potentially devalues the work of human artists.
Like other generative AI models, both Udio and Suno (which we coveredseparately in April) rely on a broad selection of existing human-created artworks that teach a neural network the relationship between words in a written prompt and styles of music. The record labels correctly note that these companies have been deliberately vague about the sources of their training data.
The European Commission today said it found that Apple is violating the Digital Markets Act (DMA) with App Store rules and fees that "prevent app developers from freely steering consumers to alternative channels for offers and content." The commission "informed Apple of its preliminary view" that the company is violating the law, the regulator announced.
This starts a process in which Apple has the right to examine documents in the commission's investigation file and reply in writing to the findings. There is a March 2025 deadline for the commission to make a final ruling.
The commission noted that it "can impose fines up to 10 percent of the gatekeeper's total worldwide turnover," or up to 20 percent for repeat infringements. For "systematic infringements," the European regulator could respond by requiring "a gatekeeper to sell a business or parts of it, or banning the gatekeeper from acquisitions of additional services related to the systemic non-compliance."
IA reported in a blog post this month that publishers abruptly forcing these takedowns triggered a "devastating loss" for readers who depend on IA to access books that are otherwise impossible or difficult to access.
To restore access, IA is now appealing, hoping to reverse the prior court's decision by convincing the US Court of Appeals in the Second Circuit that IA's controlled digital lending of its physical books should be considered fair use under copyright law. An April court filing shows that IA intends to argue that the publishers have no evidence that the e-book market has been harmed by the open library's lending, and copyright law is better served by allowing IA's lending than by preventing it.
Earlier this week, the US Senate passed what's being called the ADVANCE Act, for Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy. Among a number of other changes, the bill would attempt to streamline permitting for newer reactor technology and offer cash incentives for the first companies that build new plants that rely on one of a handful of different technologies. It enjoyed broad bipartisan support both in the House and Senate and now heads to President Biden for his signature.
Given Biden's penchant for promoting his bipartisan credentials, it's likely to be signed into law. But the biggest hurdles nuclear power faces are all economic, rather than regulatory, and the bill provides very little in the way of direct funding that could help overcome those barriers.
Incentives
For reasons that will be clear only to congressional staffers, the Senate version of the bill was attached to an amendment to the Federal Fire Prevention and Control Act. Nevertheless, it passed by a margin of 88-2, indicating widespread (and potentially veto-proof) support. Having passed the House already, there's nothing left but the president's signature.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) yesterday rejected AT&T's request to end its landline phone obligations. The state agency also urged AT&T to upgrade copper facilities to fiber instead of trying to shut down the outdated portions of its network.
AT&T asked the state to eliminate its Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) obligation, which requires it to provide landline telephone service to any potential customer in its service territory. A CPUC administrative law judge recommended rejection of the application last month, and the commission voted to dismiss AT&T's application with prejudice on Thursday.
"Our vote to dismiss AT&T's application made clear that we will protect customer access to basic telephone service... Our rules were designed to provide that assurance, and AT&T's application did not follow our rules," Commissioner John Reynolds said in a CPUC announcement.
The EU has passed a nature restoration law which, despite its reduced scope appeared to be headed for the policy graveyard. The law was saved by Austria's climate minister, Leonore Gewessler, whose vote of conscience hit the bar of support of 55% of EU member states representing 65% of EU population. Her government attempted to have her vote disregarded, and she now looks likely to face criminal prosecution. (Via fixthenews)
The Biden administration will ban all sales of Kaspersky antivirus software in the US starting in July, according to reporting from Reuters and a filing from the US Department of Commerce (PDF).
The US believes that security software made by Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab represents a national security risk and that the Russian government could use Kaspersky's software to install malware, block other security updates, and "collect and weaponize the personal information of Americans," said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
βWhen you think about national security, you may think about guns and tanks and missiles,β said Raimondo during a press briefing, as reported by Wired. βBut the truth is, increasingly, it's about technology, and it's about dual-use technology, and it's about data.β
Pornhub will soon be blocked in five more states as the adult site continues to fight what it considers privacy-infringing age-verification laws that require Internet users to provide an ID to access pornography.
On July 1, according toΒ a blog post on the adult site announcing the impending block, Pornhub visitors in Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, and Nebraska will be "greeted by a video featuring" adult entertainer Cherie Deville, "who explains why we had to make the difficult decision to block them from accessing Pornhub."
Pornhub explained thatβsimilar to blocks in Texas, Utah, Arkansas, Virginia, Montana, North Carolina, and Mississippiβthe site refuses to comply with soon-to-be-enforceable age-verification laws in this new batch of states that allegedly put users at "substantial risk" of identity theft, phishing, and other harms.
A 911 vendor's malfunctioning firewall caused a statewide outage in the emergency calling system in Massachusetts on Tuesday afternoon, the state government said. A Massachusetts government press release issued yesterday said the state's 911 vendor, Comtech, "has advised State 911 that they have applied a technical solution to ensure that this does not happen again."
"A preliminary investigation conducted by the State 911 Department and Comtech determined that the outage was the result of a firewall, a safety feature that provides protection against cyberattacks and hacking," the announcement said. "The firewall prevented calls from getting to the 911 dispatch centers, also known as Public Safety Answer Points (PSAPs)."
Comtech's initial review "confirmed that the interruption was not the result of a cyberattack or hack," but "the exact reason the firewall stopped calls from reaching dispatch centers remains under review," the state said. A full review is continuing.
Meta got hit Tuesday with a lawsuit alleging that the company knowingly overlooks sexist treatment of female employees. That includes an apparent practice of hiring and promoting less qualified men to roles over more qualified female applicants.
The complaint was filed in a US district court in New York by Jeffrey Smith, an engineer who joined Meta in 2018. Smith alleged that Meta was on the brink of promoting him when suddenly his "upward trajectory stopped" after he started speaking up about allegedly misogynistic management practices at Meta.
Smith claimed that instead of a promotion, his Meta manager, Sacha Arnaud, suggested that he resign shortly after delivering Smith's first-ever negative performance review, which reduced his bonus payout and impacted his company stock. Smith has alleged he suffered emotional distress and economic injury due to this alleged retaliation.
AT&T is imposing $10 and $20 monthly price hikes on users of older unlimited wireless plans starting in August 2024, the company announced. The single-line price of these 10 "retired" plans will increase by $10 per month, while customers with multiple lines on a plan will be hit with a total monthly increase of $20.
"If you have a single line of service on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by $10. If you have multiple lines on your plan, your monthly plan charge will increase by a total of $20. This is the total monthly increase, not per line increase," AT&T said.
AT&T has offered a dizzying array of "unlimited" data plans over the years, all with different limits and perks. While unlimited plans let customers avoid overage fees, speeds can be slowed once customers hit their high-speed data limit. There are also limits on the usage of hotspot data.
Elon Musk is still frantically pushing to launch X payment services in the US by the end of 2024, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.
Launching payment services is arguably one of the reasons why Musk paid so much to acquire Twitter in 2022. His rebranding of the social platform into X revives a former dream he had as a PayPal co-founder who fought and failed to name the now-ubiquitous payments app X. Musk has told X staff that transforming the company into a payments provider would be critical to achieving his goal of turning X into a so-called everything app "within three to five years."
Late last year, Musk said it would "blow" his "mind" if X didn't roll out payments by the end of 2024, so Bloomberg's report likely comes as no big surprise to Musk's biggest fans who believe in his vision. At that time, Musk said he wanted X users' "entire financial lives" on the platform before 2024 ended, and a Bloomberg review of "more than 350 pages of documents and emails related to money transmitter licenses that X Payments submitted in 11 states" shows approximately how close he is to making that dream a reality on his platform.
T-Mobile has agreed to change its advertising for the "Price Lock" guarantee that doesn't actually lock in a customer's price, but continues to defend the offer.
T-Mobile users expressed their displeasure about being hit with up to $5 per-line price hikes on plans that seemed to have a lifetime price guarantee, but it was a challenge by AT&T that forced T-Mobile to agree to change its advertising. AT&T filed the challenge with the advertising industry's self-regulatory group, which ruled that T-Mobile's Price Lock ads were misleading.
As we've reported, T-Mobile's guarantee (currently called "Price Lock" and previously the "Un-contract") is simply a promise that T-Mobile will pay your final month's bill if the carrier raises your price and you decide to cancel. Despite that, T-Mobile promised users that it "will never change the price you pay" if you're on a plan with the provision.
Apple has abruptly discontinued its "buy now, pay later" (BNPL) service, Apple Pay Later, which turned Apple into a money lender when it launched last March in the US and became widely available in October.
The service previously allowed users to split the cost of purchases of up to $1,000 into four installments that were repaid over six weeks without worrying about extra fees or paying interest. For Apple, it was likely a move to increase total Apple Pay users as the company sought to offer more core financial services through its devices.
Now, it appears that Apple has found a different route to offer short-term loans at checkout in Apple Pay. An Apple spokesperson told 9to5Mac that the decision to end Apple Pay Later came ahead of the company's plan to start offering new types of installment loans globally.
Adobe prioritized profits while spending years ignoring numerous complaints from users struggling to cancel costly subscriptions without incurring hefty hidden fees, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) alleged in a lawsuit Monday.
According to the FTC, Adobe knew that canceling subscriptions was hard but determined that it would hurt revenue to make canceling any easier, so Adobe never changed the "convoluted" process. Even when the FTC launched a probe in 2022 specifically indicating that Adobe's practices may be illegal, Adobe did nothing to address the alleged harm to consumers, the FTC complaint noted. Adobe also "provides no refunds or only partial refunds to some subscribers who incur charges after an attempted, unsuccessful cancellation."
Adobe "repeatedly decided against rectifying some of Adobeβs unlawful practices because of the revenue implications," the FTC alleged, asking a jury to permanently block Adobe from continuing the seemingly deceptive practices.
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