Elon Musk just shared a video of a monkey controlling Pong with his brain

For the first time, Elon Musk has shared video footage of his brain-chip technology Neuralink. The implantable chip allows the brain to communicate with computers. In a video released late Thursday, a macaque monkey implanted with Neuralink’s technology appears to play a Pong-style tennis video game without using a controller of any kind. In the video, a narrator explains that the macaque, named Pager, has two Neuralink chips implanted in his brain. These chips pull and record information from more than 2,000 electrodes that have been placed in Pager’s motor cortex in order to register his desired hand and arm movements. First, Pager plays a computer game using a joystick. Read More …

Netflix’s big bet on global content could change how we see the world

As a kid growing up in Italy, I remember watching the American TV series Happy Days , which chronicled the 1950s-era Midwestern adventures of the Fonz, Richie Cunningham, and other local teenagers. Happy Days was a product of Hollywood, which is arguably still the epicenter of the global entertainment industry. So recent news that the streaming service Netflix is opening an Italian office and will begin massively funding original local content with the intent of distributing it globally on its platform —following a strategy already launched in other European countries—struck me. The show, combined with other American entertainment widely available in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, shaped my perception of the United States long before I ever set foot in the country. Today, I call the U.S. home, and I have developed my own understanding of its complexities Read More …

We’re not getting a national vaccine passport. Here’s why it never stood a chance

Political arguments about vaccine passports have been raging for months : whether we need them, if they could be built equitably , and if they are ultimately an infringement on Americans’ rights to keep their health information private. But while other countries experiment with rolling out digital vaccination credentials, the U.S. national effort was doomed before it ever began. Security experts had hoped that the government would develop a national system for credentialing vaccine recipients. A national vaccine passport would create a single standard that could be used everywhere and would be potentially difficult to fake. But on Tuesday, the White House announced the federal government would not be “supporting” a vaccine credential system. Part of what that means is that there will be no centralized database where all vaccination records live—a crucial feature of vaccine verification systems in other countries like Israel and Estonia. “Unless there was a major change in how health data is viewed from a public and government perspective, it wouldn’t even be possible to create the database,” says JP Pollak, cofounder and chief architect of the Commons Project, which has developed a globally available mobile app for storing COVID-19 testing results. “States have the mandate for maintaining vaccination registries and states are required to report things like how many people have been vaccinated for COVID-19, but they actually are not permitted to transmit the personal information of people back to the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].” . @PressSec Jen Psaki on possibility of the federal government supporting vaccine passports: “The government is not now, nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential.” Full video here: https://t.co/TLFF718hVo pic.twitter.com/jJP0Ph95jH — CSPAN (@cspan) April 6, 2021 Since states are charged with maintaining vaccine registries, some, like New York, are creating their own credentialing systems Read More …

Applying for Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech: the secrets of success

Fast Company’s Next Big Things in Tech is our newest recognition program. It’s the first one focused entirely on technological advances, and also our most forward-looking such program. As such, the criteria that will make for a winning entry are unique. Here’s a look at the factors our judges will be considering—and some tips on optimizing your entry for the best chances of becoming an honoree. Say what it is and why it’s a breakthrough Submitting your technology for consideration begins with telling us what it does—and, just as important, why it’s exceptional. We’re looking for products, services, research products, and other efforts that showcase significant innovations. Providing context—such as explaining how what you’re doing fits into larger trends, or how an ingredient technology will enable further innovation by others—is essential. So is avoiding buzzwords and hype. One note: You can submit technologies that have existed for any amount of time. But it’s recent progress we care about, so focus your explanations and examples on the last 12 months. Tell us a story At Fast Company , we love behind-the-scenes tales of innovation, That’s why we ask you to provide a story relating to your technology, such as a challenge you overcame, a surprise you encountered, or a discovery you made. With a 250-word maximum, you must tell it concisely. But doing so gives you the opportunity to convey what’s special about your submission in a most tangible way. Share some signs you’re succeeding You’re welcome to enter technologies that haven’t reached the market yet—in fact, we hope you do. But evidence that your technology is more than a good idea will still help your case. That could come in the form of promising research data, testimonials from third parties, fundraising announcements, or any other objective signs that you’ve created something that matters Read More …

How U.S. schools proved Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was safe

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the use of Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines last December—a year after the coronavirus was first identified in Wuhan, China—it was a dramatic piece of good news after one of the most disruptive years the country has ever experienced. Now consider the thrill people felt in April 1955 when Dr. Jonas Salk’s new polio vaccine was officially declared to be “safe, effective, and potent.” That came more than 60 years after the first known polio outbreak in the U.S., which took place in rural Rutland County, Vermont in 1894. It killed 18—mostly children below the age of 12–and left 123 permanently paralyzed. From there, polio became an enduring, mysterious scourge. In 1916, it hit New York City, killing 2,343 out of a total of 6,000 nationwide that year. In the 1940s and early 1950s, the number of incidents in the U.S. grew eightfold, reaching 37 per 100,000 population by 1952. The fact that children were most susceptible to the disease made it only more terrifying. The Salk vaccine was approved only after going through the largest clinical trial in history. Rather than being a government project, this test was overseen and paid for by a nonprofit organization founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938: The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, better known as the March of Dimes. (Roosevelt himself had contracted polio at the unusually advanced age of 39.) More than 1.3 million children participated; some got either the vaccine, which required three shots over a five-week period, or a placebo, while others underwent observation for polio. The only logical way to reach so many children was through schools. The result was an unprecedented national effort built atop public-education infrastructure Read More …