Physicists in China report that they have built a tractor beam capable of moving objects on the macroscale. In the latest issue of Optics Express, the group reports that when using a 90mW laser, their […]
arketyp. News Feed
Digital, tech & innovation narratives curated from across the web
Artificial Neural Networks Made from Memristors for Brain-Inspired Computing
Research in neuromorphic computing aims to emulate the architecture and properties of the brain to create a new generation of computers that are as small and frugal as a laptop but as powerful as a […]
Inside the Global Battle Over Chip Manufacturing
Professor Chris Miller’s new book “Chip War” explains the complicated global politics inside your iPhone. Afew weeks ago, President Joe Biden was in the Netherlands, where he asked the Dutch government to restrict export from […]
Why VR/AR Gets Farther Away as It Comes Into Focus
When Neal Stephenson wrote “Snow Crash” in 1992, he set it in the future – at a time where more than a hundred million people used AR/VR glasses regularly. When do you think it was? […]
Leaked Messages Show How CNET’s Parent Company Really Sees AI-Generated Content
“Disclosing AI content is like telling the IRS you have a cash-only business.” When prominent tech news site CNET was caught last month using AI to quietly publish dozens of articles, it produced widespread alarm. […]
Why The “Service” of SaaS Matters More to Banks
Vendors that underestimate the value that banking executives place on a trusted and lasting service can expect to get left behind in the big banking SaaS bang. Banking executives “get” SaaS. They understand that the […]
Don’t Be Sucked in By AI’s Hype Cycles
Let’s all chill out. AI is a promising new technology, but the conversation isn’t always genuine, and it’s generating more heat than light. It’s obvious there’s a lot of potential in something like ChatGPT, but […]
Twitter Now Wants to Become a Payments Platform
The platform would essentially compete with PayPal and even Apple Pay, which lets users not only pay in stores, but also transfer money between them. Since Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter, the company […]
The Meme That Defined a Decade
Over the past 10 years, the “This Is Fine” dog has evolved from a joke into an indictment. Memes rarely endure. Most explode and recede at nearly the same moment: the same month or week […]
What the Tech and Media Layoffs Are Really Telling Us About the Economy
About 130,000 people have been dismissed from their jobs at large tech and media companies in the past 12 months. Why? These layoff announcements have become depressingly common, even rote. But they’re also kind of […]
Becoming Strange in the Long Singularity
A sudden increase in AI capability suggests a weirder world in our near future. I already know people who are training GPT on their own writings, and interrogating “themselves” to discover new insights. I have […]
Alphabet Brings AgTech Startup out of Stealth with Data from 10% of World’s Farmland
This month Alphabet, the parent company of Google, publicly launched Mineral, an agtech business it’s been incubating in stealth within its so-called “moonshot factory” X since 2017. Mineral aims to provide foundational and actionable data […]
Crypto’s Greatest Experiment Looks All But Over
Never say never, but some of DeFi’s boldest explorers might view the last year as an experience not to be repeated. The weeks of chaos in decentralized finance that followed the $60 billion collapse of […]
Last Year Marked the End of an Era in Spaceflight – Here’s What We’re Watching Next
2022 was a momentous one in spaceflight, bringing to a close many of the most significant storylines that have dominated this industry in the last 10 to 15 years. Consider the state of play in […]
What Does It Mean to Align AI With Human Values?
Making sure our machines understand the intent behind our instructions is an important problem that requires understanding intelligence itself. any years ago, I learned to program on an old Symbolics Lisp Machine. The operating system […]
The Banality of ChatGPT
Despite being the culmination of a century-long dream, no better word describes the much-discussed output of OpenAI’s ChatGPT than the colloquial “mid.” Just as Hannah Arendt reckoned with “the banality of evil” so we must […]
These Scientists Created Jewellery Out Of the Striking Shapes of Chaos Theory
Not just inspired by chaos theory, but directly created from its mathematical principles. A team of Italian scientists has figured out a way of turning the striking, complex twisting shapes of chaos theory into actual […]
MIT’s Superthin Solar Cells Convert Any Surface Into a Power Source
MIT engineers have developed ultralight and thinner-than-hair fabric solar cells that transform any surface into a power generator within seconds of plastering them. The durable and flexible solar cells are pasted to a super-light fabric, […]
Why We Need New Stories on Climate
So much is happening, both wonderful and terrible – and it matters how we tell it. We can’t erase the bad news, but to ignore the good is the route to indifference or despair. Every […]
Neanderthals Produced the Oldest Paintings Found on Earth
As early as 250,000 years ago, Neanderthals were mixing minerals such as haematite (ochre) and manganese with fluids to make red and black paints — presumably to decorate the body and clothing. One of the […]
Don’t Let Disney Monopolise A.I.-Generated Art
The indie artists suing Stable Diffusion may not realise it, but they’re doing the Mouse’s dirty work. Disney and the rest of Hollywood have been eerily quiet about the launch of Stable Diffusion, despite the […]
Pirate Enlightenment
Acclaimed “Anarchist Anthropologist” David Graeber’s second posthumous book “Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia” is out today. Pirates have long lived in the realm of romance and fantasy, symbolizing risk, lawlessness, and radical visions of […]
Extremely Hardcore
Twitter’s staff spent years trying to protect the platform against impulsive ranting billionaires — then one made himself the CEO. In April 2022, Elon Musk acquired a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, making him the […]
3AC Founders Zhu and Davies Pitch to Raise $25 Million for New Crypto Exchange
The founders of 3AC, who are currently on the run, are raising $25M for a new crypto exchange called (no joke) GTX. Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, the founders of collapsed crypto hedge fund Three […]
This Amazing Interactive Map of the Universe Takes You All the Way Back to the Big Bang
An astronomy professor from Johns Hopkins University has given us the chance to zoom way out in both time and space with an interactive map of the observable universe. “In this map, we are just […]
The Physics Principle That Inspired Modern AI Art
Diffusion models generate incredible images by learning to reverse the process that, among other things, causes ink to spread through water. Ask DALL·E 2, an image generation system created by OpenAI, to paint a picture […]
How Music Casts Its Spell on Us
“Music so readily transports us from the present to the past, or from what is actual to what is possible.” “Music,” the trailblazing composer Julia Perry wrote, “has a unifying effect on the peoples of […]
Texas Project Will Use Wind to Make Fuel Out of Water
Oil made Texas an energy giant, but even this petroleum powerhouse is working hard to secure a footing beyond fossil fuels. Texas already generates more wind energy than any other U.S. state, and soon the […]
Herbert Read: The Art of Everyday Life
Critic and philosopher Herbert Read was a contradictory figure — an anarchist and a knight, a lover of medieval art and industrial design — but at the center of his work was the belief that […]
Tether Exposed: The Most Well-Known Secret In Crypto
While Tether enjoys a reputation as one of the most ‘useful’ assets in the world of crypto today, it has a long and sinister backstory, pockmarked by fraud, conspiracy and all flavours of criminal activity. […]