Hey, friends – welcome to Week in Review (WiR), toptecheasy.com’s regular review of the week in technology. If life gets in the way of following the most important stories on TC, don’t worry. You’ve come to the right place.
In this issue, we’ll cover the 19-year-old MIT dropout that “replaces gunpowder” for the defense industry, as well as Vanmoof, the e-bike darling, that stalled sales as execs headed for the exits. Elsewhere, robotaxi haters in San Francisco have disabled AVs with traffic cones, Twitter CEO Elon Musk launched an AI organization, and Instagram’s Threads app hit 100 million downloads. Wow.
Read on for more of the week’s top stories – and if you haven’t already, sign up here to get WiR delivered to your inbox every Saturday.
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Defense on hydrogen:
VanMoof slips off the track: Dutch e-bike startup VanMoof rushed into the mobility world with more than $200 million in investment backing. But his fortunes seem to have taken a turn for the worse. The company stopped taking orders at the end of June, and sources claim senior staff, including the CEO and a co-founder, have stepped down from executive positions as VanMoof attempts to secure a bridging round to avoid bankruptcy.
Pedestrians fight back: A decentralized group of San Francisco safe streets activists realized they could disable Cruise and Waymo robotaxis by putting a traffic cone on the hood of a vehicle — and they’re encouraging others to do the same. The protest comes ahead of a hearing in which Waymo and Cruise will likely expand their robotaxi services in San Francisco.
Threads reaches another milestone: Despite lacking features like message search, direct messages, and hashtags, Instagram’s text-based app and Twitter competitor Threads hit the 100 million sign-up mark this week. The Twitter rival launched on June 6 (or June 5 in America), according to a tracker.
Google Calendar gets availability sharing: This week, Google released new scheduling-related features for Gmail with a Google Calendar integration, including quick event creation and easy availability sharing. Gmail now has a calendar icon at the bottom of the conversation view, which has two options: “Create an event” and “Offer times when you’re free.”
Satellites become unreliable: Starlink satellites are making thousands of evasive maneuvers as low Earth orbit becomes more crowded – fueling concerns that a catastrophic impact is inevitable. SpaceX’s orbital communications satellites performed just over 25,000 maneuvers in the six-month period between Dec. 1, 2022, and May 21, 2023, double the number of evasion maneuvers Starlink satellites made in the previous reporting period.
Making interstellar space travel a reality: Space propulsion company Pulsar Fusion has begun construction of a major fusion chamber in England as it races to become the first company to launch a fusion-powered propulsion system into space. If nuclear fusion propulsion technology proves commercially viable, the travel time to Mars could be cut in half and the time to Titan, Saturn’s moon, reduced to two years instead of ten.
Anthropic releases Claude 2: This week, Anthropic, the AI startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI execs, announced the release of a new text-generating AI model called Claude 2. Anthropic claims that Claude 2 is superior to its predecessor, Claude 1.3, in several areas, and is especially capable in tasks such as searching documents, summarizing, writing and coding, and answering questions on certain topics.
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On Equity, the crew talked about a range of topics, including a new Chinese AI model that has them wondering who is really going to win the AI war; Founders Fund Brags New Partner; Connetic Ventures that use AI models to create a less biased landscape for entrepreneurs; and the layoffs in refrigeration technology and inflation.
And past by Chain reaction, interviewed Jacquelyn Maria Shen, a general partner on the investment team at Electric Capital, a startup focused on crypto, blockchain, fintech, and marketplaces. In March 2022, the company announced it had closed $1 billion for a pair of crypto funds — a $400 million vehicle for making equity investments in startups and a $600 million fund intended to invest directly in crypto tokens.
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TC+ subscribers get access to in-depth commentary, analysis and surveys – which you’ll know if you’re already a subscriber. If you’re not, consider signing up. Here are a few highlights from this week:
Light at the end of the tunnel:“There is good reason to believe that the massive correction in venture capital activity we have seen over the past six quarters has run its course,” writes Alex.
Amazon and the brands it kills: Haje reports on the fate of Digital Photography Review, better known as DPReview, which has been regarded as one of the top review and news sites. Amazon acquired it in 2007 and slowly replaced the workforce with contractors and freelancers until it was killed in March.
ESG, safe for now: Business leaders may make a lot of noise about ESG (environmental, social and governance) — sometimes positively, sometimes not. But Tim writes that when it comes to investors, concerns about sustainability seem to persist.
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