Hey, mates — welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s common roundup of the week in tech. If life’s gotten in the way in which of following the key tales on TC, don’t sweat it. You’ve come to the correct place.
In this version, we cowl the 19-year-old MIT dropout “replacing gunpowder” for the protection trade, in addition to VanMoof, the e-bike darling, which paused gross sales as execs head for the exits. Elsewhere, robotaxi haters in San Francisco have been disabling AVs with site visitors cones, Twitter CEO Elon Musk launched an AI group and Instagram’s Threads app reached 100 million downloads. Whew.
Read on for extra of the highest tales from the week — and if you happen to haven’t already, join right here to get WiR in your inbox each Saturday.
Most learn
Hydrogen-powered defenses: Aria writes about Mach Industries, a protection startup that has captured the eye of VCs and the DoD. The firm’s 19-year-old founder, Ethan Thornton, is spearheading the R&D of hydrogen-powered platforms for the army, together with unmanned aerial automobiles, munitions and hydrogen-generation methods.
VanMoof skids off monitor: Dutch e-bike startup VanMoof sped into the mobility world with greater than $200 million in enterprise backing. But its fortune seems to have taken a flip for the more serious. The firm stopped taking orders in late June, and sources declare that senior workers, together with the CEO and a co-founder, left govt roles as VanMoof makes an attempt to safe a bridge spherical to stave off chapter.
Pedestrians struggle again: A decentralized group of protected streets activists in San Francisco realized they will disable Cruise and Waymo robotaxis by inserting a site visitors cone on a automobile’s hood — and so they’re encouraging others to do it, too. The protest comes within the lead-up to a listening to that may doubtless see Waymo and Cruise broaden their robotaxi companies in San Francisco.
Threads hits one other milestone: Despite missing options resembling put up search, direct messages and hashtags, Instagram’s text-based app and Twitter competitor Threads achieved the mark of 100 million sign-ups this week. The Twitter rival was launched on June 6 (or June 5 within the Americas), in accordance with a tracker.
Google Calendar will get availability sharing: This week, Google launched new scheduling-related options for Gmail with a Google Calendar integration, together with fast occasion creation and straightforward availability sharing. Gmail will now have a calendar icon on the backside of the dialog view, which could have two choices — “Create an event” and “Offer times you’re free.”
Satellites get dodgy: Starlink satellites are making 1000’s of avoidance maneuvers as low Earth orbit turns into extra crowded — feeding worries {that a} catastrophic affect is inevitable. SpaceX’s orbital communication satellites carried out maneuvers simply over 25,000 occasions within the six-month interval between December 1, 2022, and May 21, 2023, double the variety of avoidance maneuvers that Starlink satellites made within the earlier reporting interval.
Making interstellar house journey a actuality: Space propulsion firm Pulsar Fusion has began building on a big nuclear fusion chamber in England because it races to grow to be the primary agency to fireside a nuclear fusion–powered propulsion system in house. Nuclear fusion propulsion tech, ought to it show commercially viable, may scale back the journey time to Mars by half and the time to Titan, Saturn’s moon, to 2 years as an alternative of 10.
Anthropic releases Claude 2: This week, Anthropic, the AI startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI execs, introduced the discharge of a brand new text-generating AI mannequin known as Claude 2. Anthropic claims that Claude 2 is superior to its predecessor, Claude 1.3, in a number of areas and is very succesful in duties like looking throughout paperwork, summarizing, writing and coding and answering questions on explicit matters.
Audio
If you’re wanting for a podcast to cross the time, look no additional than TechCrunch’s rising roster.
On Equity, the crew talked a couple of vary of matters, together with a brand new Chinese AI mannequin that had them questioning who’s actually going to win the AI warfare; Founders Fund scooping up a brand new companion; Connetic Ventures utilizing AI fashions to create a less-biased panorama for entrepreneurs; and the cooling tech layoffs and inflation.
And over at Chain Reaction, Jacquelyn interviewed Maria Shen, a basic companion on the funding workforce at Electric Capital, an early-stage enterprise agency centered on crypto, blockchain, fintech and marketplaces. In March 2022, the agency introduced that it closed $1 billion for a pair of crypto funds — a $400 million automobile for making fairness investments in startups and a $600 million fund supposed to speculate straight in crypto tokens.
TechCrunch+
TC+ subscribers get entry to in-depth commentary, evaluation and surveys — which you recognize if you happen to’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, take into account signing up. Here are just a few highlights from this week:
Light on the finish of the tunnel:“There’s good reason to believe that the massive correction in venture capital activity that we’ve seen over the past six quarters has run its course,” Alex writes.
Amazon and the manufacturers it kills: Haje stories on the destiny of Digital Photography Review, finest referred to as DPReview, which was thought to be top-of-the-line evaluate and information websites. Amazon acquired it in 2007, slowly changing the workers with contractors and freelancers till killing it in March.
ESG, protected for now: Corporate executives is perhaps making loads of noise about ESG (environmental, social and governance) — a few of it constructive, some not. But Tim writes that with regards to traders, sustainability considerations seem like right here to remain.
Get your TechCrunch repair IRL. Join us at Disrupt 2023 in San Francisco this September to immerse your self in all issues startup. From headline interviews to intimate roundtables to a jam-packed startup expo flooring, there’s one thing for everybody at Disrupt. Save as much as $600 while you purchase your cross now by way of August 11, and save 15% on prime of that with promo code WIR. Learn extra.
