The Download: mysterious exosomes, and AI’s e-waste issue

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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 Strava is leaking the location of foreign leaders
Their bodyguards’ runs are revealing more than they ought to. (Le Monde)
+ It’s shockingly easy to buy sensitive data about US military personnel. (MIT Technology Review)

2 A man who used AI to make child sexual abuse images has been jailed
His 18-year sentence is the first of its kind in the UK. (FT $)

3 Here’s what Trump plans to do if he wins a second term
The 900-page Project 2025 document provides plenty of hints. (The Verge)
+ It would be hard for him to roll back the Green New Deal—but not impossible. (Axios)
+ Russia, China and Iran are interfering in the election. (NYT $)
+ But cybercriminals may pose an even greater threat. (Wired $)

4 Apple Intelligence is here 
But it seems it’s still kinda dumb. (WP $)
+ Meta is reportedly building its own AI search engine. (The Information $)
+ The trouble is, AI chatbots make stuff up. And it’s not a fully fixable problem. (MIT Technology Review)

5 Medium is drowning in AI slop
Almost half of the posts on there now are probably AI-generated. (Wired $)

6 What steampunk can teach tech today
We’re too keen on removing friction—people still like fiddling with dials and gears. (New Yorker $)
+ Prosthetics designers are coming up with new ways to augment our bodies. (MIT Technology Review) 

7 This is what wargaming looks like now
Militaries around the world use software called Command PE built by a tiny British game publisher. (WSJ $)

8 Tiktok’s founder has become China’s richest man 
Zhang Yiming’s wealth has almost doubled in the last year, to $49 billion. (BBC)
+ How China takes extreme measures to keep teens off TikTok. (MIT Technology Review)

9 How complex life started to flourish 🦠
You can thank eukaryotes, a type of cell that emerged about 3 billion years ago. (Quanta $)

10 Oregon Trail is being turned into an action-comedy movie
With musical numbers. Yes, seriously. (Hollywood Reporter)