| Greetings, Earthlings, it's Loren reporting from Houston. I spent some time with Alexa in space. But first… Today's must-reads: • China's Covid lockdown in iPhone City was lifted
• Sam Bankman-Fried will appear onstage Wednesday
• Apple's buybacks are keeping the stock chugging "Alexa, how far are we from Earth right now?" I spoke into a handheld microphone. About five seconds later, a familiar voice responded: "Currently, Orion is 264,628 miles away from Earth and 45,759 miles away from the moon." The Amazon.com Inc. smart speaker I was interacting with was, at that moment, zooming through deep space on NASA's Orion spacecraft. Lockheed Martin Corp., which built the crew capsule, arranged demonstrations of the technology onboard for reporters and guests in Houston. Orion, currently on an uncrewed mission in distant orbit around the moon, was designed to take future astronauts to deep space for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the moon's surface. The present mission, which began Nov. 16 and will last 25 days, is meant to demonstrate Orion's safety before people board the spacecraft. It's also a demonstration of how modern home electronics fare in outer space. A payload inside Orion called Callisto contains an Alexa speaker and an iPad loaded with Cisco Systems Inc.'s Webex video conferencing software. The goal is to test communication tools that astronauts could use someday on their flight to the moon. Since I couldn't physically be on the ship, Lockheed Martin had set up a second speaker on Callisto that could broadcast voice commands to the first. From my perch in a room near the famous Mission Control Room at Johnson Space Center, I pretended to live a typical day onboard Orion. "When you wake up, what's the first thing you do?" asked Brandon Briggs, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin and my guide through the demo. "I check my phone," I admitted, sheepishly. The astronaut's version of that is checking the spacecraft's status. I asked Alexa to provide an update on Orion, including the charge on its batteries, speed and position around the moon. This version of Alexa has access to hundreds of thousands of data points from Orion's systems, and engineers programmed roughly 1,000 unique, customized phrases meant to capture all of the information astronauts or Mission Control might ask. The main purpose is utility, but it also serves as a diversion for bored space travelers. Alexa can play some music, though the catalog is limited. I wanted to play "Highway to Hell," but Lockheed Martin said it couldn't secure the rights to AC/DC. I settled for a cover of "Fly Me to the Moon" instead. I commanded Alexa to change the lighting in the cockpit from magenta to cyan and yellow. "If you're not controlling the lights with your Alexa, you're really not even hitting the minimum bar for success," said Rob Chambers, director of strategy and business development for commercial civil space at Lockheed Martin. At Briggs's urging, I said, "Alexa, red alert," which made red lights flash and an alarm go off. Mission Control at NASA was unamused. Webex was pretty smooth but couldn't overcome the limitations of physics. There was a noticeable delay in the video chat due to a distance of 260,000 miles between me and the iPad in space. Alexa was similarly imperfect. Sometimes I'd ask a question and not get an answer. Lockheed Martin said it's still fine-tuning, but overall, I was impressed with the technology. Once Orion is back on earth, the company will decide whether to include the payload on the next mission. Before I left, I couldn't resist asking, "Alexa, open the pod bay doors, please." Without missing a beat, the speaker blared out: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." —Loren Grush Twitter said it stopped policing Covid misinformation under Elon Musk. The company disclosed that last week it stopped enforcing a policy it instituted early in the pandemic. Musk's job cuts decimated a team that was tackling child sexual abuse on the site, even though the billionaire said eliminating this content was "priority #1." Musk's antics are chipping away at some Tesla customers' loyalty to the car brand. More rockets went to space. China sent its first crewed mission to space during extremely cold conditions. Cybersecurity stocks dropped after Crowd Strike warned of "macroeconomic headwinds." South Dakota banned TikTok from state-owned devices. The governor, whose name has been floated as a potential Republican presidential candidate, said the app's Chinese ownership poses a security threat. The UK fintech startup Revolut is looking to Asia for growth. Revolut is one of the UK's fastest-growing startups. | 
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