This is todays edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of whats going on in the world of technology.The arrhythmia of our current ageArrhythmia means the heart beats, but not in proper timea critical rhythm of life suddenly going rogue and unpredictable. Its frightening to experience, but what if its also a good metaphor for our current times? That a pulse once seemingly so steady is now less sure. Perhaps this wobbliness might be extrapolated into a broader sense of life in the 2020s.Maybe you feel it, toothat the world seems to have skipped more than a beat or two as demagogues rant and democracy shudders, hurricanes rage, and glaciers dissolve. We cant stop watching tiny screens where influencers pitch products we dont need alongside news about senseless wars that destroy, murder, and maim tens-of-thousands.All the resulting anxiety has been hard on our heartsliterally and metaphorically. Read the full story.David Ewing DuncanAn easier-to-use technique for storing data in DNA is inspired by our cellsThe news: It turns out that you dont need to be a scientist to encode data in DNA. Researchers have been working on DNA-based data storage for decades, but a new template-based method inspired by our cells chemical processes is easy enough for even nonscientists to practice.Some background: So far, the process of storing data in DNA has been expensive, time consuming, and error prone. It also required skilled expertise to carry out.The details: The new method is more efficient and easy enough that anyone can do it. They enlisted 60 studentsstudying all sorts of topics, not just scienceto test it out, and the trial was a success. It could pave the way for an unusual but ultra-stable way to store information. Read the full story.Jenna AhartRead next: Were making more data than ever. What canand shouldwe save for future generations? And will they be able to understand it? Read our feature all about the race to save our online lives from a digital dark age.The must-readsIve combed the internet to find you todays most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.1 Facebook is auto-generating militia group pagesRather than shutting extremist content down, its actually lending a helping hand. (Wired$)+X is shoving political content into peoples feeds, whether they want it or not. (WSJ$)+Some users say theyre being paid thousands of dollars by X to promote misinformation.(BBC)2 OpenAI is working on its first in-house chip with Broadcom and TSMCIts abandoned ambitious plans to manufacture its own chips. Instead, its focusing on the design stage of the process. (Reuters$)+Chip designer Arm could become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom. (FT$)3 Elon Musk has build a compound for his children and their mothersIt is an unconventional set-up to say the least. (NYT$)+Musk fans are losing a lot of money to crypto scams.(Gizmodo)4 A quarter of new code at Google is now AI-generatedThat fascinating fact emerged from CEO Sundar Pichai himself on the companys latest earnings call. (The Verge)+Github Copilot will switch from only using OpenAIs models to a multi-model approach. (Ars Technica)+How AI assistants are already changing the way code gets made.(MIT Technology Review)5 This app can operate your smartphone for youIf you live in China anywaybut companies everywhere are working on the same capabilities. (South China Morning Post)+LinkedIn has launched an AI agent that purports to do a whole range of recruitment tasks.(TechCrunch)6 Universal is building an AI music generatorBut its a long way off from demoing it just yet. (The Verge)+Rival AI music startups face a big barrier: licensing copyrighted music is very expensive. (MIT Technology Review)7 Kids are getting around school smartphone bans with smartwatchesBut it seems its anxious parents that are really driving adoption. (Wired$)8 Reddit just turned a profit for the first timeIt has almost 100 million daily users now. (FT$)9 AI is coming to the world of dance You still need human bodiesbut AI is helping with choreography and set designs. (The Guardian)10 A PhD student found a lost city in Mexico by accidentLuke Auld-Thomas stumbled across a vast ancient Maya city while studying online Lidar survey data. (BBC)Quote of the dayCompared to what AI boosters were predicting after ChatGPT was released, this is a glacial pace of adoption.Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University, digs into a study which found that only 0.5-3.5% of work hours involve generative AI in a post on X.The big storyHow Worldcoin recruited its first half a million test usersWORLDCOINApril 2022In December 2021, residents of the village of Gunungguruh, Indonesia, were curious when technology company Worldcoin turned up at a local school. It was pitched as a new, collectively owned global currency that will be distributed fairly to as many people as possible, in exchange for an iris scan and other personal data.Gunungguruh was not alone in receiving a visit from Worldcoin. MIT Technology Review has interviewed over 35 individuals in six countries who either worked for or on behalf of Worldcoin, had been scanned, or were unsuccessfully recruited to participate.Our investigation reveals wide gaps between Worldcoins public messaging, which focused on protecting privacy, and what users experienced. We found that the companys representatives used deceptive marketing practices, and failed to obtain meaningful informed consent. Read the full investigation.Eileen Guo and Adi RenaldiWe can still have nice thingsA place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet em at me.)+ Can you guess these movies from their French name?+ Why leopard print is an eternally solid style choice. ($)+ Sitting all day screws our bodies up, but these stretches can help.+ You can pretty much pinpoint the exact hour you hit peak happiness on vacation. ($)