Google turns search into creator hubs

PLUS: Block's magical tap-to-pay wand

Good morning, tech enthusiasts. Google is handing creators and publishers a claimable Search profile that turns the top result for their name into a self-curated hub of their work and links.

The move answers Google’s AI Overviews, which have been eating into the traffic creators used to get from search. The catch is you need 100K followers to qualify — and Google’s sign-off on your changes.

In today’s tech rundown:

  • Google built a Linktree for creators

  • Block’s $25 wand pays by wave

  • 23andMe returns with genome moonshot

  • Researchers solve space laundry problem

  • Quick hits on other tech news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

GOOGLE

Image source: Google

The Rundown: Google is rolling out claimable Search profiles for high-follower creators and publishers in the U.S., turning the top result for their name into a self-curated hub of their content and links.

The details:

  • Eligibility requires a public account with at least 100K followers on Instagram, YouTube, or X — or 300K on TikTok-only — and an owner who’s 18 or older.

  • Each profile aggregates videos, articles, and posts into one feed, paired with a bio, avatar, website, cross-platform links, and the option to pin individual posts.

  • A Follow button wires the profile into Google Discover, nudging the creator’s content toward followers’ personalized feeds.

  • Google pitches it as a creator-run heir to the knowledge panel, though any edit to a name, bio, or link sits in “Pending” until Google signs off.

Why it matters: The rollout lands as AI Overviews siphon clicks off the open web, with Seer Interactive logging a 61% drop in organic click-through when an Overview surfaced on a query between June 2024 and September 2025. A Google-hosted Linktree keeps that discovery — and the audience — parked inside Google’s own walls.

BLOCK

Image source: Block / X

The Rundown: Jack Dorsey’s Block just launched a sparkly, wand-shaped Cash App device with an embedded chip that lets customers make contactless in‑store payments, much like tapping a card or phone.

The details:

  • The $25 NFC “Wand” — a pearlescent, star-shaped keychain charm — pays by tapping it against a checkout terminal.

  • It’s the first of “Cash App Tags,” a hardware line that Block says it will stretch into clothing, jewelry, and other form factors.

  • Users get instant spend alerts and can lock, unlock, or deactivate a lost tag from the app.

  • Cash App says on X that the “first drop of The Wand = SOLD OUT,” with more NFC tags “coming soon.”

Why it matters: Apple Pay and Google Wallet won the contactless market, but Block is betting the opposite — that Gen Z wants a flashy object to wave around — and only dropping a small number to build appeal. Whether a $25 charm becomes a must-have or a novelty depends on whether the follow-up Tags do anything a phone tap can’t.

23ANDME

Image source: TechCrunch / Wikimedia Commons

The Rundown: 23andMe is back from bankruptcy as a nonprofit, with founder Anne Wojcicki having repurchased the company and its 13M-person DNA database, and a stated ambition to reach 100M users to fuel AI-driven health research.

The details:

  • Wojcicki bought back the company’s assets, including its massive DNA database, for about $305M in a court-approved auction.

  • The institute holds DNA from 13M people and wants to push that to 100M, the scale Wojcicki argues an “AI world” demands for meaningful medical discovery.

  • Some 2M customers deleted their data amid the bankruptcy fallout, forcing new limits on how the company can use sensitive genetic information.

  • A partnership with HealthEx will let members fold their electronic medical records in alongside DNA, labs, and lifestyle data — for now, only in beta.

Why it matters: The relaunch of 23andMe, paired with its HealthEx deal to plug genetic data directly into medical records, could create one of the richest datasets for AI-driven drug discovery and personalized care. But bringing that much data into a single ecosystem also raises the stakes on privacy, consent, and governance.

SPACE TECH

Image source: Gabe Xu et al.

The Rundown: Researchers have shown that a jet of cold plasma can disinfect fabric on spaceships without water-intensive washing — a possible fix for one of the grubbier problems of long-duration space missions.

The details:

  • The handheld device fires a room-temperature plasma plume that floods fibers with reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, rupturing bacterial cells on contact.

  • On cotton seeded with skin microbes, treatment dropped colony counts from roughly 250K to about 60K per mL, outperforming the ISS’s current process.

  • The University of Alabama in Huntsville team imagines a plasma washer plus combined jet-and-vacuum tools for clothes, suits, and cabin surfaces.

  • It kills microbes but won’t lift stains, plus it still needs wider microbial testing and fabric-durability work before any mission counts on it.

Why it matters: Water and cargo mass are scarce on the way to the Moon and Mars, and astronauts currently just wear the same few pieces of clothing on repeat. A plasma “wash” could stretch garment life and cut resupply, making a permanent off-world presence a little more livable.

QUICK HITS

Data center developer Switch is in talks to raise billions of dollars in new funding at a valuation of at least $50B, The Information reports. 

Google has reportedly been laying off staff across its Cloud division, including key cybersecurity teams such as the Threat Intelligence Group and parts of Mandiant.

Netflix is rolling out generative AI and voice-based tools to help viewers cut through content overload with more tailored recommendations.

Waymo will send its retired robotaxi batteries to B2U to reuse them as grid storage for renewable-heavy power in California and Texas.

AI research startup Lila Sciences is reportedly in talks to raise about $2B in a Series B round that would value the company at $8.5B pre-money.

Apple will start requiring App Store users in Texas to verify their age to comply with the state’s new app store law.

Amazon is facing a proposed class-action lawsuit in Seattle alleging that Ring’s facial-recognition feature unlawfully captures images of people passing by doorbell cameras.

Revolut began a limited beta rollout of its India app, onboarding thousands of users from a 450K-strong waitlist for UPI-enabled wallets and cards.

COMMUNITY

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Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — The Rundown’s editorial team

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