- The Rundown Tech
- Posts
- ⚡️ Luxury clothes built by bacteria tech
⚡️ Luxury clothes built by bacteria tech
PLUS: Fighting climate change with concrete
Rowan Cheung
October 27, 2023
Sign Up | Advertise | Tools | View Online
Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.
Luxury brand NPOL is adopting microbes like bacteria and algae to create high-end fashion and beauty products.
Is the fungi fashion revolution right around the corner? Let’s dig in…
In today’s tech rundown:
🍄 Luxury fashion made with bacteria
🚜 Startup using concrete dust to combat climate change
🛠️ 10 New products
📰 7 quick stories
Read time: 3 minutes
TODAY’S HEADLINES
BIOTECH & FASHION
Image source: Fast Company
The Rundown: Fashion startup Normal Phenomena of Life is selling high-end clothing and beauty products made using bacteria, fungi, and algae instead of traditional materials.
The details:
The company’s $5,000 jacket is colored by bacteria rather than synthetic dyes, utilizing a carbon-friendly process.
Offerings also include face oil from fungi and prints enhanced with algal ink.
The brand wants to pioneer more sustainable production through biotech, with its limited runs catering to luxury shoppers interested in eco-consciousness.
The relevance: While it sounds odd at first, fashion biotech brands like NPOL could chart a reduced-waste path for the wider industry — while helping consumers become more conscious and eco-friendly in the process.
TOGETHER WITH POINTER
⚡️ Unlock CTO insights with Pointer
The Rundown: Pointer gives you exclusive access to what CTOs read, offering high-quality, diverse content that's always relevant to developers.
Exclusive CTO Insights: Get the knowledge CTOs rely on to stay ahead.
Diverse High-Quality Content: From technical specifics to broader tech culture, we've got you covered.
Always Relevant: Whether it's language-specific or a CS paper, if it's worth reading, it's on Pointer.
SUSTAINABILITY
Image source: Silicate
The Rundown: Carbon removal startup Silicate is fighting climate change by spreading concrete dust on U.S. farmland — aiming to accelerate the natural weathering processes that absorb CO2.
The details:
Finely crushed concrete reacts with rainwater to dissolve CO2 into bicarbonate, which gets washed into the oceans.
Silicate plans to spread 500 tonnes of concrete dust on 120 football fields' worth of land near Chicago.
The pilot test aims to permanently remove 100 tonnes of carbon, while also improving soil health.
If successful, Silicate could expand across the U.S. Midwest, hoping to capture 50-100 million tonnes of CO2 annually.
Why it matters: Turning construction waste into a climate solution is a smart innovation — and if successful, this technique could make it both cheap and easy for farms to reduce their carbon footprint.
NEW PRODUCTS
📧 Priority Inbox for Builders- AI-powered inbox and workflows for product teams (link)
👁️ FocuSee- Turn screen recordings into product videos easily (link)
🤝 Deel- Hire and onboard from the world’s global workforce (link)
⚡ Bolt Foundry- Turn long videos into short clips instantly (link)
🖼 OpenArt- AI Image Generator (link)
🕵️♂️ Knibble- AI-powered knowledge base (link)
📷 HeadshotPro- Professional Headshots with AI (link)
🎙️ Wondercraft AI- Turn existing content such as blog posts, into full podcasts (link)
🧪 Quizgecko- AI online test and quiz maker (link)
🦄 Screen Story- Create video demos, tutorials, education videos, gifs, and promo videos (link)
Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.
SNIPPETS
Uber is offering fully driverless rides through a partnership with Waymo in Phoenix, letting riders request autonomous vehicles for the first time.
Fox Sports will use a fleet of three drones during its World Series TV broadcasts for the first time, capturing unique angles like pitchers entering from the bullpen.
Google Fiber plans to roll out an extremely fast 20Gbps home internet service by end of 2023 to select groups.
Sony says supply chain issues that caused shortages of its PlayStation 5 console for three years have now been fully resolved worldwide.
Amazon Web Services announced the launch of an independent "EU Sovereign Cloud" for European public sector and regulated businesses, amid rising EU calls for "digital sovereignty" and data privacy.
iFixit has partnered with Microsoft to sell official repair parts for Surface devices, offering components like batteries and keyboards alongside disassembly guides.
X (formerly Twitter) launched audio and video calling features for premium users, initially available on iOS devices.
SPONSOR US
⚡️ Get your product in front of over 50k+ tech enthusiasts
Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.
THAT’S A WRAP
If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundowntech
How was today's newsletter?Feedback helps us improve! |
❤️ Rundown review of the day
Reply