From a consumer perspective, there's never been a worse time to be online. I'm far from the first to write about this ' it's a phenomenon dubbed 'Enshittification' by Cory Doctorow and written about at length by folks like Ed Zitron and others. The premise is simple. The quality of your experience as an internet user relies on user-generated content, or UGC. Whether you're looking for information, entertainment or something in the middle, the vast bulk of content you'll engage with is created by someone else, for free. What drives people to create online' In the early days of the internet, it was ' basically ' for bragging rights, and because they could. Forum posting was an exercise in creativity and humor. The incentive structure, for the most part, worked ' and you still see companies trying to create that (e.g., Reddit, where karma is currency). Why did this change' We realized that a captive audience is a good audience to advertise to. 'Eyeball time' became an incredibly valuable commodity. We built walled gardens so we could more effectively manage communities to advertise to. Your identity online became that of a consumer, not a user....

Three separate research groups have demonstrated quantum entanglement ' in which two or more objects are linked so that they contain the same information even if they are far apart ' over several kilometres of existing optical fibres in real urban areas. The feat is a key step towards a future quantum internet, a network that could allow information to be exchanged while encoded in quantum states. Together, the experiments are 'the most advanced demonstrations so far' of the technology needed for a quantum internet, says physicist Tracy Northup at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. Each of the three research teams ' based in the United States, China and the Netherlands ' was able to connect parts of a network using photons in the optical-fibre-friendly infrared part of the spectrum, which is a 'major milestone', says fellow Innsbruck physicist Simon Baier. A quantum internet could enable any two users to establish almost unbreakable cryptographic keys to protect sensitive information. But full use of entanglement could do much more, such as connecting separate quantum computers into one larger, more powerful machine. The technology could also enable certain types of scientific experiment, for example by creating networks of telescopes that have the resolution of a single dish hundreds of kilometres wide....

For decades, San Francisco has served as the flagship hub for innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. The big ideas and bold thinking that have shaped the city's reputation are led by innovators trailblazing new forms of technology that have changed the way we do business and how we connect with one another. However, despite being the epicentre of innovation, the city has faced stagnant recovery downtown since the COVID-19 pandemic, with occupancy at roughly one-third of pre-pandemic levels. As the city bounces back to its roots of innovation, the innovators who built it are the key to helping revitalize it. Just who are these innovators and how do we support them' Enter the Yes San Francisco (Yes SF), Urban Sustainability Challenge, a collaboration between Deloitte, Salesforce, World Economic Forum, Citi, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, and more than 20 other organizations focused on revitalizing our city by the Bay. Launched in June 2023, Yes SF is the first location-based UpLink Challenge created in direct response to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 11 of making cities more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Yes SF invited entrepreneurs to submit their revolutionary ideas and bold solutions aimed at the sustainable revival of downtown San Francisco ' and innovators rose to the challenge....

Many 3D printers create objects using liquid resins that turn into robust solids when exposed to light. But many of these are derived from petrochemicals that are difficult to recycle. To overcome this a team has developed a new type of resin, which they've made using a bodybuilding supplement called lipoic acid. Their resin can be printed, recycled and reused multiple times, which they hope could in future contribute to reducing waste associated with 3D printing. Many buildings are designed to prevent collapse by redistributing weight following an initial failure. However, this relies on extensive structural connectedness that can result in an entire building being pulled down. To prevent this, researchers took a new approach inspired by the ability of some lizards to shed their tails. They used this to develop a modular system, which they tested by building ' and destroying ' a two-storey structure. Their method stopped an initial failure from spreading, preventing a total collapse. The team hopes this finding will help prevent catastrophic collapses, reducing loss of life in aid rescue efforts....