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.
Elon Musk, DOGE, and the Evil Housekeeper problem
—Dan Hon is principal of Very Little Gravitas, where he helps turn around and modernize large and complex government services and products.
In trying to make sense of the wrecking ball that is Elon Musk and President Trump’s DOGE, it may be helpful to think about the Evil Housekeeper Problem. It’s a principle of computer security roughly stating that once someone is in your hotel room with your laptop, all bets are off.
It’s incredibly hard to protect a system from someone—in this case, the evil housekeeper, DOGE—who has made their way inside and wants to wreck it.
This administration is on the record as wanting to outright delete entire departments. But, if you can’t delete a department, then why not just break it until it doesn’t work? That’s why what DOGE is currently doing is such a massive, terrifying problem. Read the full story.
Meta has an AI for brain typing, but it’s stuck in the lab
Back in 2017, Facebook unveiled plans for a brain-reading hat that you could use to text just by thinking. “We’re working on a system that will let you type straight from your brain,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared in a post that year.
Now the company, since renamed Meta, has actually done it. Except it weighs a half a ton, costs $2 million, and won’t ever leave the lab. Still, it’s pretty cool. Read our story to learn why.
—Antonio Regalado
How the tiny microbes in your mouth could be putting your health at risk
—Jessica Hamzelou
This week I’ve been working on a piece about teeth. Well, sort of teeth. Specifically, lab-grown bioengineered teeth. Researchers have created these teeth with a mixture of human and pig tooth cells and grown them in the jaws of living mini pigs.
Part of the reason for doing this is that although dental implants can work well, they’re not perfect. They don’t attach to bones and gums in the same way that real teeth do. And around 20% of people who get implants end up developing an infection called peri-implantitis, which can lead to bone loss.
It is all down to the microbes that grow on them. There’s a complex community of microbes living in our mouths, and disruptions can lead to infection. But these organisms don’t just affect our mouths; they also seem to be linked to a growing number of disorders that can affect our bodies and brains. If you’re curious, read on.
This story is from The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Thursday, sign up here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 DOGE staffers are feeding sensitive federal data to AI systems
It’s just one of many alarming security lapses at this point. (WP $)
+ The courts are slamming the brakes on some of Trump’s executive orders. (NBC)
+ The trauma and anguish this is all causing is a feature, not a bug. (New Yorker $)
+ And it’s really got nothing to do with saving money either. (Vox)
2 Thousands of sick people worldwide are being abandoned mid-trial
Due to the US abruptly withdrawing funding via USAID. (NYT $)
3 Last month was the hottest January on record
Which was a shock, as scientists expected the La Niña weather cycle to cool things down. (FT $)
4 DeepSeek is sending sensitive data over unencrypted channels
This really doesn’t look good. (Ars Technica)
+ US lawmakers are pushing to ban DeepSeek from government-owned devices. (WSJ $)
+ DeepSeek might not be such good news for energy after all. (MIT Technology Review)
5 Google had to re-edit a Super Bowl advert for its AI tool
After yup, you guessed it, the AI spewed out factually inaccurate stuff (about cheese.) (BBC)
+ OpenAI is making its TV advertising debut at the Super Bowl. (Quartz $)
6 US shoppers are being charged $50 or more to get packages from China
The new tariffs seem to be throwing e-commerce, shipping and US border services into disarray. (Wired $)
7 US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations
Seems you don’t need to change reality these days. You can just change search engine results. (The Guardian)
8 This is what Apple’s future home robot might be like
It might even be fun. (The Verge)
+ Will we ever really trust humanoid robots enough to welcome them into our homes? (MIT Technology Review)
9 An asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Well that would be something for us all to look forward to. (Ars Technica)
10 Intentionally bad ‘conservative girl’ make-up videos are all over TikTok
“It’s giving drained, it’s giving dusty.” (Fast Company)
Quote of the day
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.”
—What Marko Elez, one of Musk’s 25-year-old DOGE acolytes, tweeted last July, the Wall Street Journal reports (he has since resigned.)
The big story
Is the digital dollar dead?
July 2023
In 2020, digital currencies were one of the hottest topics in town. China was well on its way to launching its own central bank digital currency, or CBDC, and many other countries launched CBDC research projects, including the US.
How things change. Three years later, the digital dollar—even though it doesn’t exist—has become political red meat, as some politicians label it a dystopian tool for surveillance. And late last year, the Boston Fed quietly stopped working on its CBDC project. So is the dream of the digital dollar dead? Read the full story.
—Mike Orcutt
We can still have nice things
A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.)
+ Want to cook the perfect boiled egg? First, set aside half an hour…
+ Well that’s a side to Elvis Presley I’d certainly never heard about before.
+ Kudos to Electric Six for making (surely) one of the cheapest music videos of all time.
+ Here’s a fun challenge for the weekend: let yourself get bored. Go on, I dare you.
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