Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Google will now make passkeys the default for personal accounts

Summary: After introducing passkeys as an option for logging into their services last May, Google is now making them the default login option for its users, marking a significant pivot away from using passwords for authentication.

Context: Passkeys allow users to log into web services by using their device’s build-in authentication methods, like PIN codes and face- and fingerprint-scanners, and then creating keys that allow the online account to confirm that a user is who they say they are (or bare-minimum, that they were able to log into the device being used to access that account); passkeys are generally considered to be better and more secure than passwords, as they’re less prone to phishing and hacking, and because they don’t require the memorization of a bajillion passwords for a bajillion different accounts; other tech companies are also attempting to pivot toward passkeys, but this is the first big move from a tech giant in that direction.

—Ars Technica

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Finland investigates suspected sabotage of Baltic-connector gas pipeline

Summary: Finland’s government has announced that damage to an underwater natural gas pipeline between them and Estonia, and one of their underwater telecom cables, was probably caused by “external activity,” and that they are in the process of investigating what happened.

Context: The subtext here is that this damage, which forced the shutdown of the pipeline in question, may have been caused by Russia, which previously threatened such infrastructure—the idea being that they may have struck this pipe and this cable as retribution for Finland joining NATO back in April; they currently think an explosion caused the damage, and though it still hasn’t been confirmed that this wasn’t just some kind of accident, it’s generally assumed that attacks on underwater infrastructure like data cables and pipelines may surge, as both hot and cold conflicts around the world increase in intensity, and all sides attempt to avoid doing anything too overt, but still act to hobble their perceived opposition in deniable ways whenever they’re able.

—BBC News

World’s largest offshore windfarm project starts powering UK grid

Summary: The first of 277 wind turbines in what will become the world’s largest offshore windfarm has gone online, providing clean, renewable electricity for British homes and businesses.

Context: This windfarm, which is located about 70 nautical miles off the coast of Yorkshire in the North Sea, and will generate about 3.6 gigawatts of electricity, which is enough to power about 6 million homes, when it’s finished in 2026; these newer-model turbines are enormous, each blade measuring more than 350-feet long (which is about 107 meters), and each rotation providing enough energy to power an average British home for two days; the UK government wants to fully decarbonize their electrical grid by 2035, though the opposition Labour party says they’re keen to achieve the same by 2030.

—The Guardian

Activity is dropping across the US consumer-goods sector, and that’s led to a stark drop in shipping container costs in the Pacific as manufacturers struggle to fill them with sellable goods.

—The Wall Street Journal

2040

Year by which NASA is planning to have build structures on the Moon, possibly using 3D printing techniques that will allow them to use regolith (Moon dust) as a core ingredient.

The agency recently announced a new $60 million investment in a space-based construction system that will, in theory, allow it to build buildings, rocket landing pads, and just about anything else they might need to make, all using concrete concocted from local materials.

—The New York Times

Trust Click

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