“This is one of the least visited places on planet Earth and I got to open the door,” Matty Jordan, a construction specialist at New Zealand’s Scott Base in Antarctica, wrote in the caption to the video he posted to Instagram and TikTok in October 2023. In the video, he guides viewers through the hut, … Read more
What if the next industrial revolution doesn’t happen on Earth? William Bruey, founder and CEO of Varda Space Industries, is on a mission to prove it can — and will — happen in orbit. He’s taking the Space Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, taking place October 27–29 at Moscone West in San Francisco, to share … Read more
The initial pilot will use the engine to supply hot steam and hydrogen. But the energy released in the reactor could be put to use in a variety of ways across a range of temperatures, according to Godart. The hot steam could spin a turbine to produce electricity, or the hydrogen could produce electricity in … Read more
The U.S. government has accused a former executive at defense contractor L3Harris of stealing trade secrets and selling them to a buyer in Russia, according to court documents seen by TechCrunch. On October 14, the Department of Justice accused Peter Williams of stealing eight trade secrets from two unnamed companies. The DOJ made the allegation … Read more
Thermal batteries could help clean up difficult-to-decarbonize sectors like manufacturing and heavy industrial processes like cement and steel production. With Rondo’s latest announcement, the industry has reached a major milestone in its effort to prove that thermal energy storage can work in the real world. Let’s dig into this announcement, what it means to have … Read more
With the AI infrastructure push reaching staggering proportions, there’s more pressure than ever to squeeze as much inference as possible out of the GPUs they have. And for researchers with expertise in a particular technique, it’s a great time to raise funding. That’s part of the driving force behind Tensormesh, launching out of stealth this … Read more
Found Energy, a startup in Boston, aims to harness the energy in scraps of aluminum metal to power industrial processes without fossil fuels. Since 2022, the company has worked to develop ways to rapidly release energy from aluminum on a small scale. Now it’s just switched on a much larger version of its aluminum-powered engine, … Read more
Google said today that it will invest in a natural gas power plant in Illinois that intends to capture the majority of its carbon emissions. The 400-megawatt power plant will be built outside of Decatur next to an ethanol plant run by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), which already captures CO2 from its operations. Google will … Read more
As their influence grows, so do the challenges data engineers face. A major one is dealing with greater complexity, as more advanced AI models elevate the importance of managing unstructured data and real-time pipelines. Another challenge is managing expanding workloads; data engineers are being asked to do more today than ever before, and that’s not … Read more
President Donald Trump has pardoned Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, as first reported by CNBC. Zhao previously pleaded guilty to enabling money laundering while running the cryptocurrency exchange, and served four months in prison last year. “President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden … Read more