Tech

Plastic recycling has fallen short. Only about 9% of all plastic is recycled globally, which sounds pretty bad until you compare it with textiles. Only 0.5% of those are recycled. One of the biggest challenges is that textiles are seldom one material. Buttons and zippers complicate matters, but spandex is even worse. Novel synthetic blends have made for clothing that’s …

Even before a building accepts its first occupant, it has racked up a steep carbon debt. Worldwide, the materials and construction required to erect buildings contributes 11% of global carbon emissions, according to the World Green Building Council. Some places have begun experimenting with multistory timber buildings, and while they’ve recently reached new heights, timber buildings won’t be replacing skyscrapers …

Pytho AI is coming out of stealth with an ambitious pitch to the Department of Defense: turn mission planning that takes warfighters days into a process measured in minutes. The startup was founded by Michael Mearn, a former Marine human-intelligence officer whose teams located insurgents, IEDs, weapons, and other intel. The idea for the company came from watching planners spend …

Kevin Damoa came face-to-face with the challenges and dangers of moving freight from road to rail as a 17-year-old U.S. Army enlistee tasked with loading tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles onto the railroad. It was — as the mechanical engineer and founder of Glīd Technologies puts it — the beginning of his love story with logistics. It’s a love story …

Robots can be programmed to do a variety of tasks, like packing boxes and even performing surgery. But each individual movement or task requires its own specific training process, which makes it hard for robots to adapt in real-world scenarios. Mbodi wants to make training robots easier and quicker with the help of AI agents. The company will be showcasing …

Waymo’s co-CEO, Tekedra Mawakana, had a clear message during her interview on the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 stage Monday: “It is imperative that we scale.” Mawakana was speaking in the context of how Waymo balances fundraising (and burning through that money) with eventually achieving profitability. But she was also clear in the interview that she believes Waymo can increase road safety …

Waymo is currently the robotaxi leader in the United States, and that status has put the company’s vehicles in the crosshairs of vandals multiple times over the last year — most recently this past weekend in Los Angeles. On the sidelines of TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said vandalism against Waymo’s robotaxis is “not okay.” “Obviously, vandalism is a …

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana believes other companies working on autonomous vehicles need to do more to prove their technology is safe, she said during an interview at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Mawakana had just been asked who she considered to be on the list of companies trying to make roads safer during Monday’s interview. “I don’t know who’s on that list, …

Amazon could be implementing the largest job reduction at the company since 2023.  As reported by Reuters on Monday, people familiar with the matter said that up to 30,000 corporate positions may be eliminated starting Tuesday. The job cuts are expected to affect various sectors, including human resources, devices and services, and operations, and others. Amazon hasn’t eliminated this many …

OpenAI released new data on Monday illustrating how many of ChatGPT’s users are struggling with mental health issues and talking to the AI chatbot about it. The company says that 0.15% of ChatGPT’s active users in a given week have “conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent.” Given that ChatGPT has more than 800 million weekly …