The Download: a promising retina implant, and how climate change affects flowers
Plus: AWS is working to get its customers’ services back online following a major outage
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.
This retina implant lets people with vision loss do a crossword puzzle
The news: Science Corporation—a competitor to Neuralink founded by the former president of Elon Musk’s brain-interface venture—has leapfrogged its rival after acquiring a vision implant in advanced testing for a fire-sale price. The implant produces a form of “artificial vision” that lets some patients read text and do crosswords, according to a report published in The New England Journal of Medicine today.
How it works: The implant is a microelectronic chip placed under the retina. Using signals from a camera mounted on a pair of glasses, the chip emits bursts of electricity in order to bypass photoreceptor cells damaged by macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly. Read the full story.
—Antonio Regalado
How will flowers respond to climate change?
Flowers play a key role in most landscapes, from urban to rural areas. Yet flowers have much more to tell in their bright blooms: The very shape they take is formed by local and global climate conditions.Â
The form of a flower is a visual display of its climate, if you know what to look for. In a dry year, its petals’ pigmentation may change. In a warm year, the flower might grow bigger. The flower’s ultraviolet-absorbing pigment increases with higher ozone levels.
Now, a new artistic project sets out to answer the question: As the climate changes in the future, how might flowers change? Read the full story.
—Annelie Berner
This story is from our forthcoming print issue, which is all about the body. If you haven’t already, subscribe now to receive future issues once they land.
2025 climate tech companies to watch: Redwood Materials and its new AI microgrids
Over the past few years, Redwood Materials has become one of the top US battery recyclers, joining forces with the likes of Volkswagen, BMW, and Toyota to process old electric-vehicle batteries and recover materials that can be used to make new ones.
Now it’s moving into reuse as well. Redwood Energy, a new branch of the company, incorporates used EV batteries into microgrids to power energy-hungry AI data centers. Read the full story.
—Peter Hall
Redwood Materials is one of our 10 climate tech companies to watch—our annual list of some of the most promising climate tech firms on the planet. Check out the rest of the list here.
The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 AWS is recovering from a major outageÂ
It’s racing to get hundreds of apps and services back online. (The Verge)
+ Snapchat, Roblox and banking services are among those affected. (The Guardian)
2 OpenAI made—then retracted—a claim it had made a major math breakthrough
After math experts and rival AI firms ridiculed its poorly-worded declaration. (TechCrunch)
+ What’s next for AI and math. (MIT Technology Review)
3 The grave costs of Trump’s war on climate science
It’s affecting the accuracy of forecasting systems globally, not just in the US. (FT $)
+ Trump himself led an effort to derail plans to tax shipping pollution. (Politico $)
+ How to make clean energy progress under Trump in the states. (MIT Technology Review)
4 China claims the US is behind a cyberattack on its national time center
It says it has years’ worth of irrefutable evidence of data stealing. (Reuters)
+ US experts allegedly exploited vulnerabilities in mobile phones belonging to National Time Service Center workers. (Bloomberg $)
5 Is AI-generated art real art?
It’s a question gallery and museum curators across the world are debating. (NYT $)
+ Artisan craftmakers are happy to resist the pull of AI. (FT $)
+ This tool claims to trace how much of an AI image has been drawn from existing material. (The Guardian)
+ From slop to Sotheby’s? AI art enters a new phase. (MIT Technology Review)
6 Chipmaker Nexperia has accused its ousted CEO of spreading falsehoods
Zhang Xuezheng reportedly claimed it was operating independently in China. (Bloomberg $)
7 This whistleblower raised concerns about the safety of US data under DOGE
And says the hostile reception to his complaint led to him leaving his dream job. (WP $)
+ DOGE’s tech takeover threatens the safety and stability of our critical data. (MIT Technology Review)
8 Aid agencies have been criticized for using AI “poverty porn”
But the NGOs say its use protects the identities of real people in social media campaigns. (The Guardian)
9 EVs lose their value much faster than gas-powered cars
Which isn’t exactly an incentive for prospective first-time buyers. (Rest of World)
10 What happens to our brains when we dream đź§
We’re learning more about the many liminal states they can slip through. (Quanta Magazine)
Quote of the day
“Hoisted by their own GPTards.”
—Meta’s chief AI scientist Yann LeCun pokes fun at OpenAI after the company walked back its claim it had made a major math breakthrough in a post on X.
One more thing
One option for electric vehicle fires? Let them burn.Although there isn’t solid data on the frequency of EV battery fires, it’s no secret that these fires are happening.
Despite that, manufacturers offer no standardized steps on how to fight them or avoid them in the first place. What’s more, with EVs, it’s never entirely clear whether the fire is truly out.
Patrick Durham, the owner of one of a growing number of private companies helping first responders learn how to deal with lithium-ion battery safety, has a solution. He believes that the best way to manage EV fires right now is to let them burn. But such an approach not only goes against firefighters’ instincts—it’d require a significant cultural shift. Read the full story.
