AI Builds Minecraft Cities and New Tools Expose Web Tracking
Mozilla's weekly news roundup highlights AI-generated cityscapes in Minecraft and a new tool that reveals how websites track your every move. The update also covers drone-delivered COVID-19 tests and a broadband mystery solved by an old television.
The third annual Generative Design in Minecraft competition shows how artificial intelligence builds realistic cityscapes, producing results that rival the work of professional city planners. In other tech news, a new privacy tool called Blacklight from The Markup allows users to input any website URL to see exactly how much it tracks their keystrokes and cursor movements, with the Mozilla Foundation's own site passing the test flawlessly.
Walmart begins drone-delivery trials for at-home COVID-19 test kits in Las Vegas, with plans to expand the service to New York state soon. Meanwhile, Google Maps introduces a worldwide update that uses Johns Hopkins data to display a seven-day average of confirmed coronavirus cases for any given location, helping users see if infection trends move upward or downward.
Residents of the Welsh village of Aberhosan experience broadband outages every morning at 7 AM for 18 months before engineers discover that a single old television set causes the entire disruption when turned on for the morning news. On a lighter note, a viral time-lapse video of grass growing provides a surprisingly soothing moment of zen, and a visiting sloth at an aquarium inspires dolphins to mimic its slow movements.