Technology

EU threatens to shut down popular app that pays users to watch videos

Arts, Culture & Media

The European Commission is calling the new TikTok Lite app “toxic as cigarettes.” It’s a spin-off from the makers of the original TikTok, that pays people to watch videos. The EC says it was launched without regard for risks of addiction, or safeguards against children using it. Now they’re threatening to suspend it.

Illustration by Megan J. Goff

Inside the i-Soon papers and China’s secret world of hackers-for-hire

Hacking
A view of the process on a montior as lab staff use a microscope stand and articulated hand controls to extract cells from 1-7 day old embryos that are then checked for viability at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab in Hous

Why an international court struck down Costa Rica’s IVF ban

Reproductive rights
Black blue and gray illustration of people coming out of phones

Spyware found on phones in Jordan

Hacking
Illustration by Megan J. Goff

Threat-hunter says Iran is stepping up the sophistication of its cyberattacks

Cybersecurity
Blue, gray and white illustration of flys in cage

China’s dominant role in producing hacking bugs

Global Security

The art of hacking has become stealthier and smarter over the years. Chinese hackers can hide the code they use to infiltrate systems worldwide. These include vulnerabilities that attackers can use to sneak into a computer network. Exploits allow them to start stealing data once they are inside. “Click Here’s” Dina Temple-Raston reports on how they can do this.

Group of people at night sitting on motorized wheelchairs

Wheelchair tours show Colombia’s Medellín from a different perspective

In Colombia, one company is introducing visitors to the city of Medellín by taking them around on wheelchairs that are pulled by electric handbikes and can reach speeds of about 25 mph. The tours are led by people with disabilities and are part of a broader effort to make the city more accessible to all, led by a very persistent businessman. Manuel Rueda reports.

Åsa Koski started the Säg hej! campaign in Sweden to get people to interact more with each other to combat widespread loneliness.

The ‘Say Hi’ campaign in Sweden is helping to combat loneliness

Lifestyle

Åsa Koski, a social strategist with the Luleå municipality in northern Sweden, started the Säg hej! (“Say hi!”) campaign to try and get people to interact more with each other to combat widespread loneliness.

Illustration of a destroyed library.

Saving Ukraine’s cultural heritage with a click

Ukraine

Since the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has been bombing uniquely Ukrainian cultural sites. Preservationists are using “photogrammetry” — the act of deriving precise measurements from taking overlapping photos and rendering them in three dimensions. Dina Temple-Raston, the host of “Click Here,” was recently in Ukraine and met those working to preserve the country’s heritage — on their phones.

illustration of a drone

Exclusive: Inside Ukraine’s secret drone factories

Ukraine

The “Click Here” podcast traveled to Ukraine to look at its grassroots defense industry and take you into its secret drone factories where entrepreneurs are able to put innovative weapons into the hands of soldiers at the front in a matter of weeks, not months.