A weekly collection of links to interesting things curated by Colin Wright.
Cameras and Lenses
Pictures have always been a meaningful part of the human experience. From the first cave drawings, to sketches and paintings, to modern photography, we’ve mastered the art of recording what we see.
Cameras and the lenses inside them may seem a little mystifying. In this blog post I’d like to explain not only how they work, but also how adjusting a few tunable parameters can produce fairly different results.
The Struggle for Sudan
On April 15, 2023, an alliance between General Abdelfatih Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti”), the leader of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), collapsed, catapulting the country into an unprecedented war. The war initially began around the capital city of Khartoum, but it quickly spread to other parts of Sudan, including Darfur, Port Sudan and by December 2023 the previously peaceful Gezira state, the country’s agricultural heartland situated at the meeting point of the Blue and White Nile rivers.
The nature of the fighting—spanning both rural and urban settings—and its scale, has led to a severe humanitarian crisis. As many as 9 million Sudanese have fled, more than one million of them across the country’s borders. Human Rights Watch has reported ethnic cleansing in Khartoum and Darfur and the targeting of thousands of civilians and villages. The crisis has been compounded by food insecurity, affecting some 60 percent of the population, as fighting disrupts agricultural production across much of the country. The WFP recently warned that the country is facing “the world’s largest hunger crisis.”
Why Germany Struggles to Go Digital
When you move house in Germany, you need to register your new address with the authorities. That often means calling city hall, waiting weeks for an appointment, and showing up in person with paper forms.
Yes, in 2025! And if you forget your health insurance card at the doctors? Some apps can help — by sending a fax.
“Around three-quarters, 77%, of German companies still use fax machines,” Felix Lesner from Bitkom, Germany’s IT industry association, told DW. “And 25% use it often or very often.”
Why? “Most of the companies state that it’s essential for communication with the public authorities,” Lesner said. “So maybe this is where the problem lies.”
Can Apple’s AirPod Translation Get You Through Tokyo? We Tested It
Two monks pounded giant taiko drums as others chanted in unison under a cloud of fragrant smoke. Then the priest delivered closing remarks in Japanese. And in a miracle of technology, I understood quite a bit of it using Apple’s new Live Translation feature.
As everyone filed out, I repeated, in English, some of the priest’s comments to my guide, Keiko Hatada, who taught English for 30 years and has led custom tours of Tokyo for the past decade. I wanted to make sure I had understood things correctly.
I recounted the priest’s admonition to set aside unwholesome feelings of anger and greed, and work instead to show compassion and generosity, as well as his reminder that his temple was still accepting donations for those affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
“You told me you didn’t speak Japanese,” my guide said, pleasantly surprised.
Beyond a few basic greetings and food terms, I don’t.
Extremists Are Using AI Voice Cloning to Supercharge Propaganda. Experts Say It’s Helping Them Grow
While the artificial intelligence boom is upending sections of the music industry, voice generating bots are also becoming a boon to another unlikely corner of the internet: extremist movements that are using them to recreate the voices and speeches of major figures in their milieu, and experts say it is helping them grow.
“The adoption of AI-enabled translation by terrorists and extremists marks a significant evolution in digital propaganda strategies,” said Lucas Webber, a senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism and a research fellow at the Soufan Center. Webber specializes in monitoring the online tools of terrorist groups and extremists around the world.
“Earlier methods relied on human translators or rudimentary machine translation, often limited by language fidelity and stylistic nuance,” he said. “Now, with the rise of advanced generative AI tools, these groups are able to produce seamless, contextually accurate translations that preserve tone, emotion, and ideological intensity across multiple languages.”
Batteries Now Cheap Enough to Make Dispatchable Solar Economically Feasible
A new analysis from energy think tank Ember shows that the cost of storing electricity with utility-scale batteries has fallen to just $65/MWh as of October 2025 outside China and the US, making it economically feasible to deliver solar power when it is needed.
Battery costs have fallen dramatically over the past two years. The analysis shows that after a particularly steep drop in 2024, costs have continued to decline significantly this year.
Ember’s assessment of storage costs as of October 2025, is based on recent auctions in Italy, Saudi Arabia and India and on interviews with active developers across global markets.
Kostantsa Rangelova, Global Electricity Analyst at Ember, said: “After a 40% fall in 2024 in battery equipment costs, it’s clear we’re on track for another major fall in 2025. The economics for batteries are unrecognisable, and the industry is only just getting to grips with this new paradigm.”
