The Real Problem With the Boeing 737 Max - WIRED (Full Access)   

To adapt an old Oscar Wilde quote: To lose one aircraft may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose two looks like carelessness.

So what to make of a third Boeing 737 Max suffering a major issue in recent years? Flying at 16,000 feet shortly after taking off in Oregon on January 5, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 was still climbing when part of the plane’s body detached, leaving passengers looking out at clear air. The incident raises serious concerns about the viability of this type of plane and the industry’s method of assuring aircraft safety.

The plane involved was Boeing’s model 9 737 Max—an aircraft a generation on from the model 8s involved in the 2018 and 2019 Boeing crashes that killed 346 people, and which led to nearly 400 Boeing 737 Max 8s being grounded in early 2019 for over 18 months.

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Toyota's Robots Are Learning to Do Housework—By Copying Humans - WIRED (Full Access)   

As someone who quite enjoys the Zen of tidying up, I was only too happy to grab a dustpan and brush and sweep up some beans spilled on a tabletop while visiting the Toyota Research Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts last year. The chore was more challenging than usual because I had to do it using a teleoperated pair of robotic arms with two-fingered pincers for hands.

As I sat before the table, using a pair of controllers like bike handles with extra buttons and levers, I could feel the sensation of grabbing solid items, and also sense their heft as I lifted them, but it still took some getting used to.

After several minutes tidying, I continued my tour of the lab and forgot about my brief stint as a teacher of robots. A few days later, Toyota sent me a video of the robot I'd operated sweeping up a similar mess on its own, using what it had learned from my demonstrations combined with a few more demos and several more hours of practice sweeping inside a simulated world.

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US School Shooter Emergency Plans Exposed in a Highly Sensitive Database Leak - WIRED (Full Access)   

Every year, hundreds of millions of files, personal records, and documents are accidentally exposed online. Owners of dating apps, colossal marketing databases, and even a spy agency have published information to the web by leaving it in unsecured databases. But the regularity with which these leaks happen doesn’t make them any less alarming—especially when the data is from thousands of schools.

Thousands of emergency planning documents from US schools—including their safety procedures for active shooter emergencies—were leaked in a trove of more than 4 million records that were inadvertently made public. Last month, security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered 800 gigabytes of files and logs linked to school software provider Raptor Technologies. The firm provides software that allows schools to track student attendance, monitor visitors, and manage emergency situations. Raptor says its software is used by more than 5,300 US school districts and 60,000 schools around the world.

The highly sensitive cache of documents included evacuation plans, with maps showing the routes students should take and where they should gather during emergencies; details of students who pose a threat on campus; medical records; court documents relating to restraining orders and family abuse; and the names and ID numbers of staff, students, and their parents or guardians. “This is the most diverse group of documents I've found," says Fowler, who detailed the findings for security firm vpnMentor.

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There’s a Huge Covid Surge Right Now and Nobody Is Talking About It - WIRED (Full Access)   

Seemingly everyone has come down with at least one bout of illness this winter: sniffles that theoretically pass as "just some bug" if you don't test for Covid.

But there's a solid chance, with or without a test, that those sniffles were Covid after all. We're in the midst of the largest global surge in daily Covid infections since Omicron, with nearly 2 million new infections per day estimated in the US alone. Odds are, you barely noticed.

But infection rates haven't peaked yet, and we can expect hospitalizations and deaths to rise over the next few weeks. "That's really troubling for a variant that's rapidly taking over," says Mark Cameron, an infectious disease researcher at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine—and especially worrying during the winter flu season.

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