Recommended from Around the Web (Week Ending August 1, 2015)

A roundup of the most interesting stories from other sites, collected by the staff at MIT Technology Review.

MIT TR Editorsarchive page

July 30, 2015

Somehow Teen Girls Get the Coolest Wearable Out There
Form, function, and user control all come together in a new type of wearable device.
—Brian Bergstein, executive editor

The Man for Mars
Sue Halpern reviews Ashlee Vance’s new book on the man behind Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity.
—Will Knight, senior editor, AI

I Forced People to Talk to Me on the Phone for a Week
Temporarily restricting herself to only voice calls, shunning e-mails and texts, a journalist annoys her friends and shines a light on today’s digital etiquette.
—Tom Simonite, San Francisco bureau chief

Tracking Junk in Space
A startling interactive map of the litter humans have left in outer space, orbiting Earth in real time.
—Julia Sklar, intern

A Renegade Trawler, Hunted for 10,000 Miles by Vigilantes
This immersive and informative multimedia feature, about a harrowing chase on the high seas, seems destined for a Hollywood movie.
—Kyanna Sutton, senior Web producer

What to Do When Your App Is Racist
A thoughtful analysis of the defunct app SketchFactor and its unintended consequences.
—Kyanna Sutton

Streaming Shakes Up Music Industry
The FT’s Ravi Mattu includes some unexpected voices and interesting perspective in this overview.
—Nanette Byrnes, senior editor, Business Reports

Coding Camps Climb Professional Ranks
The latest craze: going from barista to tech professional in just 10 weeks.
—J. Juniper Friedman, associate Web producer

Keep Reading

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.