The Download: music-making AI, and Kasparov’s defeat

AudioLM was developed by Google researchers. It generates audio that matches the prompt, including complex sounds such as piano music or people speaking in a way that is nearly indistinguishable to the original recording. It doesn’t require labor-intensive transcription and labeling, unlike other AI-generated audio. Find out more and listen to the sounds it made, here .

–Tammy Xu

I Was There When: AI mastered chess

I Was There When is an oral history project that’s part of our award-winning In Machines We Trust podcast. This podcast features stories from people who witnessed breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and computing.

In the latest episode we meet one of the world’s greatest chess players, Garry Kasparov, and hear why his loss against IBM’s Deep Blue computer 25 years ago still matters today. You can listen to it on Apple podcasts ,, or wherever you normally go for podcasts.

Is a covid and flu “twindemic” coming?

If you’re feeling a bit under the weather, rest assured, you’re not alone. It’s the hottest time of year for those of us living in the Northern Hemisphere. That’s partly why health authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are urging people to get vaccinated–against both the flu and covid-19.

In recent months, there have been warnings about a flu epidemic and a covid “twindemic”. Are we to be concerned? Let Jessica Hamzelou , our senior biomedicine reporter, walk you through the risks ..

Jess’s story is from The Checkup, her new weekly newsletter giving you the inside track on all things health and tech-related. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday.

The must-reads

I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.

1 This is what life in the metaverse is like
It might be pretty fun–if you can afford it. (NYT $)
But Meta employees themselves aren’t convinced. (The Verge)

2 A winter covid wave looks likely
And this time, we’re doing next-to-nothing to stop it. (Ars Technica)
Long covid is still disabling millions of Americans. (Axios)
How the Chinese doctor who sounded the alarm over covid spent his final days. (NYT $)

3 Elon Musk has three weeks to buy Twitter
If he doesn’t go through with it in that timeframe, it’s back to the courtroom. (Quartz)
What happens now? (The Guardian)
Lost track of all the twists and turns? Here’s a handy timeline. (FT $)
Musk says he’ll turn Twitter into a ‘super app’. These apps work (BBC)

4 Self-driving cars still seem to be on the road to nowhere
Even after $100 billion has been poured into their development. (Bloomberg $)
Uber is still betting it can make robotaxis work. (The Verge)
The big new idea for making self-driving cars that can go anywhere. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Google has unveiled two text-to-video AI systems
The videos they produce are impressive, and vaguely unsettling. (The Verge)
This is what the next generation of AI looks like. (MIT Technology Review)

6 An influencer is suing TikTok over scam ads that use her videos
This sort of fraudulent marketing is rife online–and there’s a growing political consensus in favor of a crackdown. (WP $)

7 Crypto exchange Binance says hackers stole $100 million
This is yet another example of a ‘bridge’ attack between two blockchains. (WSJ $)
These commonplace hacks demonstrate how security is an afterthought in the crypto industry. (MIT Technology Review)

8 Boston Dynamics has pledged not to weaponize its robots
Great, but the next question is: how do they stop customers from doing it? (Axios)

9 This is why you can’t tickle yourself
Your brain knows what’s coming. (Wired $)

10 It’s cool to hate on candy corn online
If you live in the US, it’s simply impossible to avoid at this time of year. (The Atlantic $)

Quote of the day

“I sent it to the whole team. We did that–look at that.”

–Elena Adams, the lead engineer for NASA’s asteroid-smashing DART spacecraft, tells the New Yorker what she did with the telescope images of the aftermath of the collision last week.

The big story

India’s water crisis is already here. It will be exacerbated by climate change.

Severe droughts have drained rivers, reservoirs, and aquifers across vast parts of India in recent years, pushing the nation’s leaky, polluted water systems to the brink.

More than 600 million Indians face acute water shortages. Seventy percent of the nation’s water supply is contaminated, causing an estimated 200,000 deaths a year, and some 21 cities could run out of groundwater as early as next year. Climate change will only make the problem worse. It is unclear what role higher temperatures played in recent droughts. Climate models have primarily predicted more intense Indian monsoons. The longer-term forecast predicts that extremes will become more severe, threatening more frequent flooding as well as longer droughts. Read the full story.

–James Temple

We can still have nice things

A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. Have any other ideas? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me. )

This list of the world’s 50 best bars is guaranteed to be hotly contested. There is only one way to find out, I suppose. I better pack my bags!
The moustache is officially back in fashion.
Don’t even think about visiting somewhere new without doing a vibe check on Google Maps.
Here’s how long it takes to paint an enormous (and seriously impressive) mural.
Stephen King–of comedy.