The Download

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How Chinese short dramas became AI content machines China’s short drama industry is fueled by bite-sized, melodramatic, and smutty shows built for smartphone scrolling. Now, many are being made entirely with […]

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The shock of seeing your body used in deepfake porn When Jennifer got a research job in 2023, she ran her new professional headshot through a facial recognition program. She wanted

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. A plan to make drugs in orbit is going commercial A startup called Varda Space Industries is betting that the future of pharmaceuticals lies in orbit. The company has signed a

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Three things in AI to watch, according to a Nobel-winning economist A few months before he won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2024, Daron Acemoglu published a paper that earned

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Here’s what you need to know about the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak Last week, eight passengers aboard a Dutch-flagged cruise ship contracted a type of hantavirus transmitted by rats. Three have

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. We’ve entered the era of AI malaise AI is spreading everywhere, and it is not going away. But what will it do? What effect will it have on our society? Will

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. What’s next for IVF IVF has brought millions of babies into the world over the last four decades. But the process can still be slow, painful, and expensive—and far from guaranteed

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Inexpensive seafloor-hopping submersibles could stoke deep-sea science—and mining Last week, two oblong neon submersibles started to descend nearly 6,000 meters into the Pacific Ocean. Throughout the rest of May, they will

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Week one of the Musk v. Altman trial: what it was like in the room Two of the most powerful figures in AI—Sam Altman and Elon Musk—are in the middle of