This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. South Korea’s hottest new bachelors are chip workers Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in a matchmaking company a year ago. In a move typical of anxious South Korean parents, his mother signed him up, hoping to find a good wife for her son. Lately, says Baek, he and his coworkers are having better luck finding dates—perhaps because of the dazzling bonuses they just got. Flush with eye-popping profits from the AI chip boom, SK Hynix agreed to pay 10% of operating profits to employees, which translates to an extra $476,000 per employee this year. Samsung workers received a similar deal this May. With their newfound wealth, chip workers like Baek have become the most sought-after bachelors and bachelorettes in South Korea. 
Discover how AI chip profits are transforming South Korea’s dating market—and stoking anxieties. —Michelle Kim
A device that revives eyeballs from dead donors could make eye transplants possible It’s not easy to transplant a whole human eye. The surgery is difficult, and eyes start to degenerate as soon as they’ve left the body. When surgeons attempted it a few years ago, the newly transplanted eye couldn’t see. But researchers believe they might have a solution: a device that maintains and revives freshly removed eyeballs using a technique called perfusion. Treated eyes don’t degrade as quickly and appear to retain the ability to transmit electrical signals—and potentially see.  The device could one day make whole-eye transplants a viable possibility. Here’s how it works. —Jessica Hamzelou The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 The UN’s chief has warned that AI is outpacing global rulesHe’s called for globally harmonised guardrails. (Reuters $)+ The UN also said AI could worsen global inequality. (Guardian) 2 An Israeli battlefield system identified 850,000 targets in Gaza and LebanonElbit Systems says it detected targets in real time. (Guardian)+ Congress wants to permanently integrate US and Israeli defence tech. (Intercept) +  How AI turned the Iran conflict into theater. (MIT Technology Review) 

3 EU transparency rules have exposed Microsoft’s tax haven tacticsA new report shows how it shifts profits around to reduce tax bills. (NYT $)+ Other US companies will soon need to provide similar reports. (Engadget) 4 A spacecraft has launched an audacious mission to rescue a NASA telescopeLINK will try to tug the SWIFT observatory to a higher orbit. (New Scientist $)+ It will attempt to grab the telescope with three robotic arms. (BBC)+ The observatory studies gamma-ray bursts. (NBC News)+ We’re putting more stuff into space than ever. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Chinese tech giants are disabling humanlike AI due to new regulationsByteDance and Alibaba have shut down the features. (SCMP)+ Beijing is tightening its AI regulations. (Nikkei Asia) 6 Anthropic wants to develop its own drugsThe company says it will pursue treatments for “neglected” diseases. (Verge)+ It’s also got a new AI for science product. (MIT Technology Review) 7 India is testing an alternative to Silicon Valley’s AI playbookIt’s based on small, offline, multilingual, open-source AI. (Rest of World)+ India’s AI infrastructure is also attracting investors. (CNBC) 8 Big Tech has suddenly flipped on the AI jobs wipeout scenarioNegative public opinion has sparked a more optimistic public stance. (WSJ $)+ The AI jobs hysteria needs a reality check. (MIT Technology Review) 9 Midjourney has accused Hollywood studios of covertly using AIIt’s escalated its legal fight with Disney, Universal, and Warner. (Gizmodo) 10 A martian rock has lots of carbon on it, and it’s not clear whyScientists cannot yet tell whether biology played a role. (Ars Technica)
Quote of the day “It’s just his AI and my AI going back and forth.”  —An anonymous employee explains why she’s struggling to develop a good working relationship with her boss, Fortune reports.
One More Thing The AI relationship revolution is already here AI is everywhere, and it’s starting to alter our relationships with our spouses, kids, colleagues, friends—and even ourselves.  Although the technology remains unpredictable and sometimes baffling, individuals from all across the world and from all walks of life are finding it useful, supportive, and comforting too.  People are using large language models to seek validation, mediate marital arguments, and help navigate interactions with their community. They’re using it for parenting support, self-care, and even to fall in love. Explore how AI is changing our relationships. —Rhiannon Williams
We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.) + Radiohead’s seminal album “OK Computer” has been reimagined as a Nintendo 64 soundtrack.+ Graphic design history meets stamp collecting in this beautifully curated archive of postage stamp design.+ As Lionel Messi lights up another World Cup, his former coach breaks down his style of play in this fascinating analysis.+ Armchair engineers will enjoy the brilliant product teardowns of everyday items like clicky pens and lighters on Mechanical Pencil.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Baek, a 35-year-old manager at the South Korean semiconductor titan SK Hynix, was enrolled in Sunoo, a matchmaking company based in Seoul, a year ago. In a move typical of anxious South Korean parents, his mother signed him up, hoping to find a good wife for her son. Lately, says Baek (who asked to be referred to by his last name to protect his privacy), he and his coworkers are having better luck finding dates than they used to, perhaps because of the dazzling bonuses they just got. Flush with eye-popping profits from the AI chip boom, SK Hynix struck a landmark deal last year with its labor union to pay out 10% of operating profits to employees, which translates to an extra $476,000 per employee this year. A similar agreement and sizable lump sum followed for Samsung workers this May. With their newfound wealth, chip workers like Baek have become the most sought-after bachelors and bachelorettes in South Korea. “I have a coworker who’s perpetually going on blind dates, and he’s been getting so many recently,” says Baek. “For the past few months, I’ve been getting many blind dates too, perhaps because of the bonuses I got.” Lately, young South Koreans joke online that the best outfit to wear on a blind date is an SK Hynix uniform. 
The AI chip boom is changing the social fabric of South Korea by minting a new elite of “silicon-collar” workers earning about 20 times as much as the average South Korean. Although it’s helping some chip workers to find relationships, it’s also fueling fears of a deepening wealth disparity—and a loud public debate about inequality. Love in the time of chips South Korea is the epicenter of the chip boom fueling the AI race. Samsung and SK Hynix supply the vast majority of the world’s high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which power Nvidia’s AI accelerators—the GPUs used to train AI models. As AI companies spend hundreds of billions of dollars on building data centers around the world, demand for HBMs is rising beyond what suppliers can keep up with, driving their prices to unprecedented levels. Samsung and SK Hynix are raking in record profits as a result. 
South Korea’s economy now orbits the two chip giants. In May, both companies topped $1 trillion in market value. And chip exports helped fuel a 1.7% surge in South Korea’s gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2026. South Korea’s main equity index, Kospi, has nearly tripled over the past year, becoming the best-performing market in the world. Swimming in cash, chip workers are going on shopping sprees in department stores near the “semicon belt” fabs—splurging on everything from lavish furniture and electronic appliances to jewelry and watches. They’re also snapping up homes near the commuter-shuttle routes that ferry workers to campus. And they’re shelling out for matchmakers. “Quite a lot of people ask me if I can introduce them to chip workers,” says Lee Sung-mi, a matchmaker at Sunoo, who has been playing Cupid for chip workers for years. “In fact, people who once rejected them are asking to be matched with them again, now that their salaries and bonuses have shot so far above what everyone else earns.” One woman who lives in Gangnam, a ritzy district in Seoul lined with luxury high-rises and designer boutiques, previously turned down a chip worker at SK Hynix because his fab was too far out in Icheon, a rural city about 50 miles southeast of Seoul that’s dotted with rice farms and manufacturing plants. But in May, she asked her matchmaker to set them up again. They’ve now been dating for a month.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              In South Korea, matchmaking companies evaluate their clients on a long list of criteria such as education, job, income, looks, and family background, including whether their aging parents have saved enough for retirement. In an economy where housing prices and child care costs are soaring, competition for jobs is fierce, and the social safety net is thin, a good job is the ultimate dating credential—all the more coveted at a time when many young South Koreans are forgoing marriage and children altogether, seeing family life as an unaffordable dream. Every client at Sunoo gets a spouse rating, determined by an algorithm that assigns scores for each criterion. Since their hefty bonuses were announced, the job ratings of Samsung employees have risen from 80 to 84, while those of SK Hynix employees climbed from 78 to 82. Scores above 90 are reserved for doctors and lawyers. Long prized as paragons of prestige and wealth, they’re now close to being overtaken by chip workers. A score of 99, the highest possible rating, is earmarked for heads of state.   Their new status is reshaping how chip workers themselves approach dating. “Chip workers from Samsung and SK Hynix are enrolling in our services because they feel more financially ready,” says Lee. “They’re also becoming pickier, as they feel like they’re now in a good position. The women want to meet men with higher incomes and better jobs, and the men want to meet younger and better-looking women with better jobs.”  An SK Hynix engineer in her 40s, who was once desperate to get married as soon as possible, started turning down men she would’ve dated before the chip boom. Lately, showered with more matches, she’s been sifting through her suitors more carefully. “She now has peace of mind and wants to take her time to meet someone better,” says Lee.

A mixed blessing While chip workers enjoy the fruits of their labor, the bonus bonanza is stoking anxieties among other South Koreans. “When wealth disparity is no longer a mere difference of income but, rather, a difference in identity … it can fuel social conflict,” says Se-eun Jung, an economist at Inha University.  Earlier this month, the Bank of Korea warned that the chip boom will create a “K-shaped” economy, where a handful of workers race ahead while everyone else falls behind. The windfall, the bank said, is flowing to high income earners and then barely trickling out to the broader economy. Such polarization could erode people’s motivation to work by narrowing the path to upward mobility, it cautioned.  Workers in other industries are venting online about feeling demoralized by the ballooning wealth gap. “The one-billion-won ($650,000) bonuses have crushed my motivation to work. I have no energy when I teach,” an employee of the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education wrote on Blind, an app where employees can discuss their workplaces anonymously. Others are giving up the job hunt, lamenting that years of working at a small company could never match a year’s bonus at Samsung.  In a Facebook post in May, presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom proposed paying an “AI dividend” to citizens by taxing AI profits. The idea sparked a heated public debate over whether the government should redistribute gains from the chip boom. Some argue that the industry is indebted to the society that has educated its engineers, subsidized its infrastructure, and provided tax credits. Others counter that the profits are already being shared with the public as stocks. Then there’s the question of how long this new social class will last. The semiconductor industry is notoriously cyclical; AI spending may cool, or rival chipmakers could catch up. There’s also the risk that chip workers will be replaced by automation. Samsung announced in March that it plans to fully automate its fabs by 2030, drawing backlash from chip workers.  Although he doesn’t know how long the boom will last, chip workers like Baek are riding high. “These days, we say we want to work hard and bury our bones here [at SK Hynix],” he says. “And I hope I can find [a wife] similar to me.”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It’s not easy to transplant a whole human eye. The surgery is difficult. And the eyes themselves start to degenerate as soon as they’ve left the body. When surgeons attempted it a few years ago, the newly-transplanted eye wasn’t able to see. But researchers believe they might have a solution: a device that maintains and revives freshly removed eyeballs using a technique called perfusion. Perfusion works by providing surgically-removed organs with some of the oxygen and nutrients they typically get when they’re inside a body. Treated eyes don’t degrade as quickly, and appear to retain the ability to transmit electrical signals, and potentially see. The device could one day make eye transplantations a viable possibility. “It’s really cool,” says Shannon Tessier at Massachusetts General Hospital, who was not involved in the research but studies perfusion of other organs. “It could be a new frontier for retina preservation.” Pia Cosma at the Centre for Genomic Regulation at the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology in Spain and her colleagues have spent years developing their device. The Eye-in-a-Care-Box (ECaBox), as they call it, delivers an oxygen-rich supply of fluid through the artery that normally supplies the eye with blood.
The eye itself sits on a “bed,” and excess fluids are drained away. And while the device itself is sealed to maintain a specific temperature and pressure, a clear window on its side allows researchers to study and image the eye while it’s inside. Cosma and her colleagues started experimenting with pig eyes, which are anatomically similar to human eyes but easier to get hold of (the team got theirs from a local slaughterhouse).
Pig eyes that are kept at room temperature outside of the device start to degenerate pretty quickly. The team found that cells in the eye shrank, and the eyes started to lose their structure. Cooling the organs didn’t help preserve them, either—the eyes degenerated within 24 hours even when they were kept at 4°C (39°F). But eyes kept in the EcABox fared much better. 24 hours later, tests suggested the prefused eyes were “significantly more viable” than eyes that hadn’t been maintained in the device. The perfused eyes also seemed to be able to respond to light, suggesting they might technically be able to see if they were transplanted. Untreated pig eyes lost this ability as soon as they were removed from the animal. But it came back after about 15 minutes of perfusion, according to the scientists behind the work. A few of the treated eyes kept going for 10 hours or more. Cosma and her colleagues described the work in a preprint article that has not yet been peer reviewed, and did not want to comment on the work. After success with the pig eyes, the team members then tested their device on human eyes. They first collected 12 eyes from six people who had died. In each case, one of each pair of eyes was put in the device, while the other was not. Again, the perfused eyes did better—and their retinas were preserved. Cosma and her colleagues hope that their device could offer scientists a new way to study eye treatments—one that doesn’t involve experimenting on living animals. They also hope that, with some improvements, the ECaBox might provide a way to maintain and revive donated human eyes for whole-eye transplantation. Whole-eye transplants have been attempted in the past, mostly in research animals, with limited success. In May 2023, a team at NYU Langone transplanted an eye along with part of a face to a man who had survived a high-voltage electrical accident that resulted in the loss of much of the left side of his face, including his left eye, two years earlier. Although the man recovered well, he wasn’t able to see out of the transplanted eye. We won’t know whether eyes treated in the ECaBox could do any better until they have been transplanted, says Tessier.  In the meantime, Cosma and her colleagues plan to use a newer version of their device to collect more human eyes for research. “We are planning to develop a portable, surgery-room ECaBox to minimize [degradation] in heart-beating donor eyes, when they become available,” they write.

Today, Google DeepMind and A24 are announcing a first-of-its-kind partnership focused on research. The collaboration pairs a world-leading research lab with the industry’s most filmmaker-forward studio to help artists develop new workflows and techniques. This ensures the tools of the future are shaped by the creators who use them.This partnership creates a deep research and development collaboration between A24 and Google DeepMind spanning multiple projects over time. By anchoring Google DeepMind’s innovations directly within the creative process, A24 and its filmmakers can help shape new technology in service of their vision and expand their storytelling possibilities. This hands-on collaboration provides Google DeepMind with invaluable feedback and guidance from leading artists. In addition, Google has made an investment in A24.Looking ahead, the partnership represents the beginning of a collaborative journey, one rooted in research and shared curiosity. While the initial focus is on bridging the gap between cutting-edge technology and next generation entertainment, the specific goals, technical outputs and creative milestones of this initiative will evolve over time. As A24 and Google DeepMind’s researchers work side-by-side to test, iterate and build, this partnership aims to expand what is possible in the future of entertainment.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. The UK’s generational tobacco ban might not work. I’m supporting it anyway. —Jessica Hamzelou As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking. That was not the prevailing sentiment when I was young. Smoking was a central part of our culture. Which is why the UK’s recent passing of a generational sales ban on tobacco products feels like such a big deal.
This is what’s described as an “endgame” approach. While many tobacco control strategies—such as taxation or gory imagery—aim to reduce consumption, policies like the UK’s are designed to eliminate it entirely. It’s a new approach, and no one knows whether it will work. But it’s an enticing prospect—and it’s starting to look a lot less radical. Find out why generational tobacco bans are gaining support.
This story is from The Checkup, our weekly biotech newsletter. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. You do your own time —You do your own time is a short story by Elizabeth Bear, an award-winning speculative fiction author. There we were, a regular murderers’ row of librarians. Turning around in the nave of our library to greet the sound of footsteps, pistols leveled in case whoever was coming in didn’t respect sanctuary. I pulled down a solid-state drive full of biographies and case studies of people who had spent time—and sometimes their whole lives—in labor camps or chattelhood. It was illegal to possess, and the feds used smart agents to track down and obliterate any copies. Which was why we were sending one to the stars. What’s left behind when a name is erased from the system? No legacy, no memory—that is the point of media and narrative control. So that was our plan: to preserve it, for later generations, or just as a silent record of our existence. Read the rest of this short story in full.  —Elizabeth Bear This story is from the latest edition of our magazine, which is all about engineering. Subscribe now to get a copy, plus all our other issues and a range of subscriber-only content.

The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 An EU lawmaker investigating spyware was hacked by that spywareCitizen Lab found Pegasus spyware on Stelios Kouloglou’s phone. (Wired $)+ It said the EU “looks the other way” on spyware abuses. (Guardian)+ Meet the director of Citizen Lab. (MIT Technology Review) 2 Anthropic is closing loopholes that allow Chinese access to ClaudeIt’s targeting VPNs, relay services, and overseas accounts. (FT $)+ Users in China keep finding new workarounds. (Wired $) 3 A Tesla driver has been charged with manslaughter after a fatal crashCourt records show he was using automated driver-assistance. (WSJ $)+ Tesla sales have surged 25% after a rebound in Europe. (NYT $) 4 Trump bought lots of tech stock the day he unveiled his AI Action PlanHe acquired up to $5 million in stock from Amazon and others. (Engadget)+ His AI Action Plan was a distraction. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Companies are throttling employees’ AI use because it’s too expensiveThey’re pleading with workers to use less powerful models. (404 Media)+ Tesla has capped their AI spending at $200 per week. (The Information $)6 The Energy Dept wants data centers on backup power in heat wavesIt wants them to free up power for AC. (NYT $)+ People near data centers are dreading heat wave pollution. (Politico $)+ No one wants a data center in their backyard. (MIT Technology Review) 7 A Meta glasses feature just went from free to a subscription service”Conversation Focus” will now cost $19.99 per month. (BBC)+ The move heralds a new era of consumer tech subscriptions. (Wired $)8 Random wobbles in time could solve gravity’s greatest mysteryA new idea could reconcile gravity and quantum mechanics. (New Scientist $) 9 Peter Thiel claims the pope is “working for the Chinese Communists”By pushing for stricter AI rules that may benefit Chinese interests. (CNN)+ Pope Leo XIV said AI must be “disarmed” in his first major teaching. (BBC)+ His encyclical offered a template for steering AI. (MIT Technology Review)  10 Supersonic flight over land could finally be legal againRegulators want to lift a ban—so long as the planes are quiet. (Ars Technica) Quote of the day “We don’t have robots that are nearly as good at understanding the physical world as a rat.” —Yann LeCun, the founder of AMI Labs and Meta’s former chief AI scientist, tells the BBC that AI isn’t as smart as many think. One More Thing MARCO GIANNAVOLA How two brothers became go-to experts on America’s “mystery drone” invasion  On a Friday evening in December, every tier of US law enforcement was dispatched to a military research installation outside Boston after a squadron of 15 to 20 drones was spotted violating restricted airspace. The culprits could not be found.
It was the latest in a series of purported drone sightings along the US East Coast. Lacking coordination or clarity from the White House, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community, law enforcement officers turned to an unlikely source: twin brothers from Long Island who hunt UFOs. The Tedescos have built a mobile field lab to investigate unexplained aerial phenomena. Now members of the FBI want their support.
Discover how the brothers are helping law enforcement investigate UFOs.—Matthew Phelan We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun, and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line.) + This record-breaking drone show is a mind-bending display of aerial light.+ A Paris bakery is taking a bite out of food waste by repurposing croissants.+ Relive your childhood with a classic episode from the Mister Rogers archive.+ See graffiti through new eyes with this project that prettifies tags and makes them legible.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY As the parent of two little girls, I often think about how their childhood is different from mine. The seven-year-old is learning about AI at school. The five-year-old is given internet-based homework every week. And they are both absolutely repulsed by the idea of smoking. That was not the prevailing sentiment when I was young. My parents smoked. The customers at our family’s restaurant smoked. Cartoon characters smoked. My friends and I would buy little cigarette-box-shaped packets of sugary white sticks and pretend to smoke in the playground. Smoking was a central part of our culture. Which is why the UK’s recent passing of a generational sales ban on tobacco products feels like such a big deal. As part of the Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, retailers are prohibited from selling tobacco products to anyone born after January 1, 2009, in perpetuity. It doesn’t matter when those people turn 18—or 38 or 68, for that matter. It will always be illegal to sell to anyone born after that date. This is what’s described as an “endgame” approach. While many tobacco control strategies—such as taxation or gory imagery—aim to reduce consumption, policies like the UK’s are designed to eliminate it entirely. It’s a new approach, and no one knows whether it will work.
The Maldives was the first country to implement a generational smoking ban, in November last year. It’s too soon to say how that has panned out. Nor do we know if these laws will even last. In 2022, New Zealand passed a similar generational sales ban as part of a broader anti-smoking law. But it was never enacted—the law was repealed by a new government in February 2024.
In the UK, both major parties support the ban. But Nigel Farage, whose right-wing party has seen a recent surge in support, has promised that “the generational smoking ban will not last long if Reform gets the chance to start rebuilding our mismanaged country.” Chris Bostic, an attorney and former policy director for the advocacy group Action on Smoking and Health, says he and his colleagues began promoting the idea of a generational ban in the United States 11 years ago. Back then, they struggled to win support, even from major health charities. “People said we were crazy … [and] that this was impossible,” he says. Opponents argued that bans would infringe on personal freedoms. “The public health argument is: Well, what about freedom from addiction?” says Britta Matthes, a tobacco control researcher at the University of Bath in the UK. Most people who smoke began when they were teenagers, want to quit, and wish they’d never started. Tobacco is arguably the most harmful consumer product of all time. It will kill half its users who don’t quit, according to the World Health Organization. It also kills people who don’t smoke. Of the 7 million who die from tobacco every year, 1.6 million are nonsmokers who were exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the WHO. Generational sales bans are a long-term strategy that will only protect future smokers. Most experts agree that people who already smoke should be a main consideration for any policy, and that a multipronged approach is probably the best way to go. Janet Hoek at the University of Otago, who has explored tobacco control policies in New Zealand, believes that enforcing very low limits on nicotine levels and banning filters—an environmental scourge that does not make smoking safer, as many people believe—might be a “powerful combination,” for example. But preventing teenagers from starting to smoke in the first place is an enticing prospect, even among the majority of people who smoke. And it’s starting to look a lot less radical. The US has quietly been making progress on a smaller scale. Since 2021, Brookline, a town in the Boston area, has banned the sale of tobacco products to anyone born after January 1, 2000. The idea has spread. Today there are 23 towns in Massachusetts with similar bans, says Bostic. Nine towns across Minnesota, New York, and California have implemented other endgame policies. The UK law has normalized the idea more than ever, he adds. His colleagues are already fielding calls from health agencies around the world. “People [are] saying, Wow I can’t believe the UK just did this—can we do this here?” he says. Norms change. Like many other millennials, I vividly remember my first night out after a ban on indoor smoking took effect. My clothes didn’t stink! My hair still felt clean! And my throat wasn’t scratchy the next morning! Now that’s just normal. I hope a tobacco-free world can be the new normal for my kids.