July 29, 2025

The Download: how to store energy underground, and what you may not know about Trump’s AI Action Plan

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. This startup wants to use the Earth as a massive battery Texas-based startup Quidnet Energy just completed a test showing it can store energy for up to six months by pumping water underground.…

Technology

Inside MIT’s nuclear reactor laboratory

August 10, 2023
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here. Tucked away behind a brick building on MIT’s campus sits a nuclear reactor. I’ve been hearing about this facility for over a decade, and it’s taken on a somewhat mythic quality in…

Who gets to decide who receives experimental medical treatments?

August 10, 2023
Max was only a toddler when his parents noticed there was “something different” about the way he moved. He was slower than other kids his age, and he struggled to jump. He couldn’t run.  Blood tests suggested he might have a genetic disease— one that affected a key muscle protein. Max’s dad, Tao Wang, a…

VLGE opens SDK for its no-code virtual world builder aimed at fashion, beauty and art industries

August 10, 2023
We’ve seen the rise of no-code and low-code platforms being applied to any number of applications and use-cases. What would happen if this thinking was applied to metaverse-style virtual worlds? What would be built? Certainly, with Apple’s recent announcement of the launch of the Apple Vision Pro headset, there is renewed interest in the ‘metaverse’, […]

Disney+ announces another price hike, says ad-supported tier is coming to more countries

August 10, 2023
Disney is raising prices for its online streaming services across the board amid a declining subscriber base. This is the company’s second price hike in the last 12 months after it increased subscription fees for different offerings including Disney+ and Hulu last October. Here is a handy list of Dinsey’s news price hikes: Disney+ (ad-free): […]

What led to EV darling Proterra’s bankruptcy

August 9, 2023
Proterra, a company that develops battery systems for buses and other heavy duty EVs, filed for bankruptcy earlier this week, making it the latest in a string of failures in the EV sector. While some parallels can be drawn between Proterra and other failing or defunct EV companies, this company faces specific headwinds that took […]

Messina joins Ride Home Fund’s new $15M AI vehicle, backed by Andreessen, Dixon, Crowley

August 9, 2023
Tech veteran Chris Messina and writer/podcaster Brian McCullough are launching a new $15 million fund aimed at AI startups. The backers include tech luminary investors and founders such as Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, and Dennis Crowley, who are all investing personally. McCullough has been running his Ride Home Fund for two years now, a fund […]

JB Straubel, Redwood Materials founder and Tesla board member, is headed to TC Disrupt 2023

August 9, 2023
In the world of electric vehicles, batteries and renewable energy systems, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone more experienced than JB Straubel. We’re excited to welcome Straubel, founder and CEO of Redwood Materials — and Tesla’s co-founder, former CTO and newest board member — to the Disrupt Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, which runs […]

California regulators to decide the future of Cruise and Waymo

August 9, 2023
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is scheduled Thursday to make a high-stakes vote that will determine the commercial future for autonomous vehicle technology companies Cruise and Waymo — not to mention any other AV company with aspirations to launch commercial robotaxi services in the state. Cruise and Waymo already offer limited commercial services in […]

DARPA launches two-year competition to build AI-powered cyber defenses

August 9, 2023
As a part of an ongoing White House initiative to make software more secure, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to launch a two-year contest, the AI Cyber Challenge, that’ll task competitors with identifying and fixing software vulnerabilities using AI. In collaboration with AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as Microsoft and […]