D&T Issue 66

Hi there!
Hope you’re having a splendid week thus far.

If your current feed isn’t providing you with the shock that you need, then we’ve got you covered. Turns out, it is a supposed ‘code-red for humanity‘ according to a landmark UN report, which was intended to deliver a gold standard summation of modern climate science to world leaders. “This report is a reality check,” said IPCC Working Group I Co-Chair Valérie Masson-Delmotte.

We’ve got some good (definitely more hopeful) reads for you so let’s jump right in.

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The Olympic Games, at least the ones held in the past, used to symbolise extravagance and wastefulness. That was until the 1992 Olympics held in Barcelona, where sustainability was a critical factor. Since then, there has been an increasing relevance to making sure this event was more in line with this ideology of sustainability.

Decades prior to the modern-day computer as we know it, Bob Moog used design principles to bring a once niche instrument to the mainstream, influencing generations of musicians and instrument interfaces.

Watching the Games this year has been a logistical nightmare. The difficultly in figuring out which events are happening when, and how to watch them, undermines the 7,000 hours of otherwise carefully planned competition.

Elon Musk is developing a vehicle that could be a game-changer for space travel. Starship, as it’s known, will be a fully reusable transport system capable of carrying up to 100 people to the Red Planet.

SpaceX is partnering with a Canadian tech startup to launch a digital billboard into orbit.

Twenty-five years and ten billion dollars in the making, the James Webb Space Telescope will enable scientists to see deeper into the past than ever before.

Facebook states that it last month removed hundreds of accounts across its Facebook and Instagram platforms that were tied to anti-vaccination disinformation campaigns operated from Russia.

While Ketto and Milaap have helped thousands, minorities find themselves ineligible, or targets of abuse.

OpenAI today released OpenAI Codex, its AI system that translates natural language into code, through an API in private beta. Able to understand more than a dozen programming languages, Codex can interpret commands in plain English and execute them, making it possible to build a natural language interface for existing apps.

Graphic designer Applied Design Works has collaborated with the nonprofit organisation Braille Institute to develop a “hyperlegible typeface” for the visually impaired community.

UpGrad, a Bangalore-based startup that specializes in higher education and upskilling courses, hit a valuation of $1.2 billion with a $185 million funding round Monday as global investors plow record capital into firms in the world’s second-largest internet market.

How a bad hardware company turned itself into a great movie studio.