Six weeks ago, on July 6, Peter Yoo prepared for a sleepless night.

He was in rural Victoria, Australia, but his mind was halfway across the world, awaiting the results of the first human implant of a brain-computer interface ever performed in the US.

As senior director of neuroscience and algorithms at Synchron, the Brooklyn-based tech startup behind the medical milestone, Yoo had seen four BCI devices successfully implanted in Australian patients with severe paralysis.

• The patients gained the ability to control digital devices via brain signals—i.e., texting loved ones, checking on their finances, and shopping online—and had no reported serious adverse effects after 12 months.

Now...The FDA has approved a clinical trial in the US, with the first implantation in New York, led by Mount Sinai Hospital.

From 11pm to 4am local time, Yoo’s two golden retrievers kept him company. He stayed on a Zoom call with other members of his team, receiving updates via text. Finally, he got the news he’d been waiting for: The implantation had been successful.

Big picture: With $50 million in funding—and a BCI device that requires minimally invasive brain surgery—Synchron has beaten every other BCI company, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, to the milestone of clinical trials in the US.

David Putrino, who oversaw Synchron’s clinical trial at Mount Sinai, called the technology “a quantum leap in what the field has failed to do for patients over the course of 20 to 30 years.”

Read the full story here, with photos from Synchron’s Brooklyn HQ.—HF

Though large, fully crewless ships are still uncharted territory, semi-autonomous vessels might be catching on.

Lured by the promise of lower labor costs and decision assistance, some commercial shipping companies are looking to explore autonomous navigation systems.

Zoom in: In one of the latest and most ambitious experiments with the technology, a natural-gas tanker named Prism Courage ventured from Texas to South Korea in May, completing about half of its 33-day test journey on June 2 without the help of a human crew.

Avikus, a subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries—one of the largest shipbuilders in the world—is the company behind the voyage.

• It equipped the boat with its autonomous navigation system, HiNAS 2.0, which still requires a human crew in crowded sea areas, docking, and near ports.
• Although the tech is still in its early stages, the system will be ready for commercial use by the end of 2022, and the company’s VP of business development, Carl Johansson, told us Avikus has made “a couple hundred” sales of its system already, although he declined to name a specific figure.

Looking ahead...Johansson told us that the technology for entirely crewless, international ships will be ready in 2030, at the very earliest.

Read the full story here.—JB

In the halcyon days of AOL Instant Messenger, long before GPT-3, or LaMDA, or BlenderBot, we had something much more simple: We had SmarterChild.

Last week, in the wake of Meta releasing its new conversation bot, we polled all of you about whether you’d ever interacted with SmarterChild back in the day.

• Only 27% of our ~1,000 respondents said yes, while 73% said they hadn’t.

So…In case you aren’t super familiar with SmarterChild, the primordial chatbot, here’s some context. It was released in 2001, and mostly caught on via AIM—one of the most popular instant-messaging services at the time—and became an early internet sensation.

• At its peak, it had 250,000 people messaging it per day, and 9 million people interacted with it in its first year online.
• For context, in 2001 there were ~140 million internet users in the US, per Statista.

The bot was, of course, a lot less sophisticated than the contemporary conversational models Big Tech companies are spinning up nowadays. This feature from NPR a few years ago gives you a sense of the caliber of its replies.

Zoom out: In 2003, the CEO of ActiveBuddy, the company that created SmarterChild, described the bot to the Times as “a demo that got out of hand” and said it was a distraction, not a business. Microsoft eventually bought ActiveBuddy and discontinued SmarterChild :’(.—DM

On Imposters, we sit down with titans of industry, sports, and entertainment to discuss the personal challenges they’ve overcome to get where they are today. It’s honest and raw—and a reminder that we’re all just doing the best we can. Check out some recent popular episodes:

• How Brooks Running CEO Jim Weber fought off cancer and $40 million of debt
• Why Alexis Ohanian left Reddit to build an impact-focused VC firm
• Four ways to build a media empire, with Lewis Howes

This editorial content is supported by Lincoln Financial Group.

Stat: President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law Tuesday, and in addition to its significant projected impact on carbon emissions, it could create up to 1.5 million jobs by 2030, per one estimate.

Quote: “You’re supposed to be a trusted member of your team, but there was never any trust that you were working for the team.”—Carol Kraemer, a finance exec, to the New York Times on being tracked by productivity software

Read: EV charging companies are running into some roadblocks in their attempt to build and install chargers at a breakneck pace.

• The UAE is looking to feed livestock through vertical farming and hydroponics as it aims to grow more food locally in its desert environment.
• The Lithium Triangle—made up of parts of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina—accounts for about 55% of the world’s known lithium.
• Automakers lost a legal battle to keep a slice of spectrum that they wanted to use for vehicle-to-everything and vehicle-to-vehicle tech. The reason? The tech doesn’t quite exist.
• Apple, fresh off of making iOS changes that have kneecapped many a mobile ad business, perhaps most notably Meta’s, is now reportedly beefing up its mobile ad business.
• Indian ride-hailing giant Ola plans to start making EVs in 2024.

Snap poll: Given the rise in jobs related to the energy transition, do you work in a related industry/have you considered switching?

Yes
No

You asked, and we listened. After receiving a lot of emails from readers saying that they were really excited about the event but couldn’t travel, we decided to pivot the event to a purely virtual experience.

The best part? We are now offering the summit for free, and we’ve added Mark Cuban to our speaker lineup! He’ll be discussing the state of pharmaceuticals and investments in health, energy, and food. You won’t want to miss this—RSVP today!