Pranshu Verma

Scientists from universities in Sweden and Denmark transmitted nearly double an internet’s worth of data through a fiber optic cable in one second using a laser-powered chip — a world record. The chip achieved dizzying speeds by using a single laser and a specialized light-creating device to transmit data over fiber optic cables. The number of data researchers sent, roughly 1.84 petabytes, far exceeds the roughly 1 petabyte of data transmitted over the entire internet every second (A petabyte of data is roughly a million gigabytes).

Michael Pack, the Trump appointee who oversees the government’s global media operations, is moving to shut down a federally funded nonprofit that helps support internet access around the world, a decision that could limit people’s ability to get around constraints in places that tightly control internet access, like Iran and China.