I knew on some level that desalination—pulling salt out of seawater to produce fresh water—was an increasingly important technology, especially in water-stressed regions including the Middle East. But just how much some countries rely on desalination, and how big a business it is, still surprised me.
Here are the extraordinary numbers behind the crucial water source.
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The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Meta has launched the first AI model from its Superintelligence Labs
Muse Spark is the company’s first model in a year. (Reuters $)
+ The closed model brings reasoning capabilities to the Meta AI app. (Engadget)
+ It’s built by Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, the unit led by Alexandr Wang. (TechCrunch)
2 Anthropic has lost a bid to pause the Pentagon’s blacklisting
An appeals court in Washington, DC denied the request. (CNBC)
+ A California judge had temporarily blocked the blacklisting in March. (NPR)
+ The mixed rulings leave Anthropic in a legal limbo. (Wired $)
+ And open doors for smaller AI rivals. (Reuters $)
3 New evidence suggests Adam Back invented Bitcoin
The British cryptographer may be the real Satoshi Nakamoto. (NYT $)
+ Back denies the claims. (BBC)
+ There’s a dark side to crypto’s permissionless dream. (MIT Technology Review)
4 Gen Z is cooling on AI
The share feeling angry about it has risen from 22% to 31% in a year. (Axios)
+ Anti-AI protests are also growing. (MIT Technology Review)
