Article 13—a controversial piece of copyright legislation that is now called Article 17 but is more colloquially known as "the meme ban"—is no more, in the UK at least. Last week, the country's minister for universities and science, Chris Skidmore, confirmed that the UK will not implement the EU Copyright Directive after leaving the EU. Wired UK This story originally appeared on WIRED UK. The directive limits how copyrighted content is shared on online platforms.

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With the coronavirus growing more deadly in China, artificial intelligence researchers are applying machine-learning techniques to social media, web, and other data for subtle signs that the disease may be spreading elsewhere. The new virus emerged in Wuhan, China, in December, triggering a global health emergency. It remains uncertain how deadly or contagious the virus is, and how widely it might have already spread. Infections and deaths continue to rise.

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For decades, .org domain names have been the home for nonprofit organizations on the internet. Groups including the Red Cross, the Sierra Club, and the Heritage Foundation use them, as do many smaller, less well-known organizations. Now, the nonprofit organization in charge of .org domains could be sold to a for-profit company in a $1.1 billion deal that’s attracted protesters and the attention of California’s attorney general. The organization managing .

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The last three and a half years haven’t been so great for social media platforms. They’ve been accused of fomenting genocide, breaking Western democracies, and abetting mass shooters. The CEOs have sweated in front of Congress, meditated deep in the forests, and deleted the very apps that made them billionaires. Amid this drama, Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, has been like a man whistling as he bikes safely beside the century’s craziest car crash.

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John Elberling likes to play the long game. In 1986, when he was 40, he pushed for a ballot measure to cap office development in San Francisco, to protect the city’s character from rogue developers. The voters approved it, but it didn’t matter much, because it turned out the city didn’t need so many big offices. That is, until now. Three decades later, San Francisco is finally feeling the cap’s intended pinch—thanks to a recent influx of tech.

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Happy Khao Thai has an address on San Francisco’s Mission Street, but don’t go there looking for a storefront. A sign on the sidewalk reading “Food pick up here” points, improbably, through the maw of a demolished theater, of which all that’s left is the marquee. Behind it, in what would have been the lobby, is a parking lot, and way in the rear—backstage, perhaps—are a pair of portable toilets and a trailer.

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In October, Google celebrated a breakthrough that CEO Sundar Pichai likened to the Wright brothers’ first flight. Company researchers in Santa Barbara, California, 300 miles from the Googleplex, had achieved quantum supremacy—the moment that a quantum computer performs a calculation impossible for any conventional computer.

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Last week, a global gaggle of billionaires, academics, thought leaders, and other power brokers gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum’s signature annual event. Climate change! The global economy! Health! The agenda was packed with discussion of the most pressing issues of our time. True to form, much of the musing ventured away from root causes.

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The town of Rotterdam, New York, has only 45 police officers, but technology extends their reach. Each day a department computer logs the license plates of around 10,000 vehicles moving through and around town, using software plugged into a network of cameras at major intersections and commercial areas. “Let’s say for instance you had a bank robbed,” says Jeffrey Collins, a lieutenant who supervises the department’s uniform division.

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Last month, researchers at OpenAI in San Francisco revealed an algorithm capable of learning, through trial and error, how to manipulate the pieces of a Rubik's Cube using a robotic hand. It was a remarkable research feat, but it required more than 1,000 desktop computers plus a dozen machines running specialized graphics chips crunching intensive calculations for several months. The effort may have consumed about 2.

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