The Download: how the US is meeting China’s technological rise, and Trump’s tariff war intensifies

This is today's variation of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a regular dose of what's going connected successful the satellite of technology.

How the Pentagon is adapting to China’s technological rise

It’s been conscionable implicit 2 months since Kathleen Hicks stepped down arsenic US lawman caput of defense. As the highest-ranking pistillate successful Pentagon history, Hicks shaped US subject posture done an epoch defined by renewed contention betwixt almighty countries and a scramble to modernize defence technology.  

Over the past 3 decades, Hicks has watched the Pentagon transform—politically, strategically, and technologically. In this speech with MIT Technology Review, Hicks reflects connected however the Pentagon is adapting—or failing to adapt—to a caller epoch of geopolitical competition. She discusses China’s technological rise, the aboriginal of AI successful warfare, and her signature initiative, Replicator, a Pentagon inaugural to rapidly tract thousands of low-cost autonomous systems specified arsenic drones. Read the afloat story.

—Caiwen Chen

The must-reads

I’ve combed the net to find you today’s astir fun/important/scary/fascinating stories astir technology.

1 Donald Trump’s commercialized warfare could trigger a planetary recession
Investors are sounding the alarm arsenic markets conflict to respond to his tariffs. (Economist $)
+ Unsurprisingly, the President has doubled down connected his tariffs. (BBC)
+ It’s each portion of his program to “reset planetary trade.” (Politico)
+ Trump’s tariffs volition present a large stroke to clime tech. (MIT Technology Review)

2 The White House was conscionable hours from announcing a TikTok deal
Until the Chinese authorities insisted connected tariff negotiations first. (WP $)
+ The 2 countries present look apt to descend into tit-for-tat restrictions. (WSJ $)
+ The President has extended the merchantability deadline by different 75 days. (NBC News)

3 DeepSeek is moving connected self-improving AI models
It’s moving with Tsinghua University to trim its models’ grooming needs. (Bloomberg $)
+ China is narrowing the AI dominance spread betwixt it and the US. (Wired $)
+ How DeepSeek ripped up the AI playbook—and wherefore everyone’s going to travel its lead. (MIT Technology Review)

4 X is flourishing nether the Trump administration
Elon Musk appears to beryllium positioning the level arsenic a caller media outlet. (NYT $)
+ X is cracking down connected parody accounts. (BBC)

5 A shingles vaccine could assistance little the hazard of processing dementia
We mightiness person to overhaul the mode we dainty neurodegenerative diseases. (Vox)
+ It whitethorn assistance to dainty them similar viruses. (NYT $)
+ Dementia contented gets billions of views connected TikTok. Whose communicative does it tell? (MIT Technology Review)

6 San Francisco’s politician is trying to person tech leaders to travel back
He whitethorn beryllium consenting to connection taxation breaks arsenic an incentive. (TechCrunch)
+ Some of his supporters aren’t successful favour of his caller upzoning plan. (SF Standard)

7 TikTok’s algorithm promotes unrecorded streams of begging children
While taking fees and committee of up to 70%. (The Guardian)

8 China’s EV makers are locked successful aggravated competition
And consumers are spoilt for choice. (FT $)
+ Argentina has lifted tariffs connected EVs. (Rest of World)
+ China’s EV giants are betting large connected humanoid robots. (MIT Technology Review)

9 This mentation of video crippled Quake was created utilizing AI
Microsoft has opened a demo up to Copilot users. (The Verge)
+ How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play. (MIT Technology Review)

10 Tracking personage heights is an net obsession
Is anyone actually 5”11? (The Guardian)

Quote of the day

“We’d similar to enactment this section down us.”

—Sean Murphy, enforcement vice president of argumentation astatine commercialized radical the Information Technology Industry Council, tells the Washington Post however the tech manufacture is hopeless to spot the tariffs that impact it reversed arsenic rapidly arsenic possible.

The large story

The messy quest to regenerate drugs with electricity

In the aboriginal 2010s, energy seemed poised for a hostile takeover of your doctor’s office. Research into however the tense system—the road that carries electrical messages betwixt the encephalon and the body— controls the immune effect was gaining traction.

And that had opened the doorway to the anticipation of hacking into the body’s circuitry and thereby controlling a big of chronic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and diabetes, arsenic if the immune strategy were arsenic reprogrammable arsenic a computer.

To bash that you’d request a caller people of implant: an “electroceutical.” These devices would regenerate drugs. No much messy broadside effects. And nary much guessing whether a cause would enactment otherwise for you and idiosyncratic else. In the 10 years oregon truthful since, astir a cardinal dollars has accreted astir the effort. But electroceuticals person inactive not taken disconnected arsenic hoped.

Now, however, a increasing fig of researchers are starting to look beyond the tense system, and experimenting with clever ways to electrically manipulate cells elsewhere successful the body, specified arsenic the skin.

Their enactment suggests that this attack could lucifer the aboriginal committedness of electroceuticals, yielding fast-healing bioelectric bandages, caller approaches to treating autoimmune disorders, caller ways of repairing nervus damage, and adjacent amended treatments for cancer. Read the afloat story.

—Sally Adee

We tin inactive person bully things

A spot for comfort, amusive and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got immoderate ideas? Drop maine a line oregon skeet 'em astatine me.)

+ The net is hating connected the Beatles biopics earlier they’re adjacent out—but why?
+ Do you cognize the past clip all of humanity was connected Earth?
+ The caller Naked Gun film looks suitably unhinged.
+ Here’s immoderate elemental bits of advice to assistance marque each time that small spot happier.