Five Things Tech: Start Cowboys, Evil Tech, CO2 and Data Centers, Military Drones, Artificial Retina
This is everything you should read about Tech right now.
Howdy and welcome back to Five Things Tech!
The week in tech is basically: build stuff in cowboy country, burn the planet to feed GPUs, turn war into a drone SaaS line item, and then fix our eyes with liquid metal while billionaires LARP as end-times prophets. In other words, we’re speed-running a cyberpunk timeline where Texan hard-tech playgrounds churn out the hardware, gas-fired data fortresses belch more CO₂ than entire nations, defense departments subscribe to autonomy like it’s an enterprise license, and the same guys warning you about Armageddon are quietly trying to own the off-ramp.
Enjoy Five Things Tech!
‘Startup Cowboys’ Are Making This Texas Town the New Tech Hotspot
Aspiring software companies and AI firms are still flocking to San Francisco. But more robotics, energy and defense companies are setting up shop under the blistering Texan sun. Places like Proto-Town are the latest sign that Austin and its surroundings are becoming a base for these so-called “hard tech” companies.
In their downtime, the mix of Texans, company founders and engineers who live in Proto-Town like to ride around the flatlands on dirt bikes, head into Lockhart for barbecue or drive to downtown Austin to go two-step dancing.
Startups on the site are attracted to the state’s low regulation and the build-anything atmosphere of Proto-Town and the surrounding Caldwell County.
This sounds like fun and necessary - when tech companies turn too corporate, they lose the ability to innovate. It’s the classic innovator’ dilemma that is hitting the whole industry.
How the Tech World Turned Evil
Class warfare doesn’t get more unhinged than this. Say what you will about the American plutocracy, it seldom frames its economic self-interest as a religious imperative. But even in its more innocent days, Silicon Valley inclined toward grandiosity, heralding not just a new technology but a new advancement in human consciousness. Now a prince of the technocratic elite was framing tech’s future prosperity quite literally as a battle against agents of Satan, with Thunberg and Yudkowsky cast as Gog and Magog. Suggest Thiel’s dominion could stand a bit more government oversight and he just might toss you into a lake of fire.
I remember the time when the internet was still largely uncommercial. It sure changed a lot and greed didn’t really do the ecosystem any good.
New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations
As tech companies race to secure massive power deals to build out hundreds of data centers across the country, these projects represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential climate cost of the AI boom.
The infrastructure on this list of large natural gas projects reviewed by WIRED is being developed to largely bypass the grid and provide power solely for data centers, a trend known as behind-the-meter power. As data center developers face long waits for connections to traditional utilities, and amid mounting public resistance to the possibility of higher energy bills, making their own power is becoming an increasingly popular option. These projects have either been announced or are under construction, with companies already submitting air permit application materials with state agencies.
Lawmakers should require new data centers only to use solar and wind power, which makes so much more sense than relying on fossile fuels for these huge buildings with their immense power consumption.
Pentagon officials broadly detail $55 billion drone plan under DAWG
The DAWG essentially absorbed the Biden-era Replicator initiative designed to acquire thousands of low-cost “attritable” drones, particularly for use in the Pacific. In its latest iteration, the department is looking to supercharge development investments across an array of platforms and collaborative autonomy efforts.
But to do that, it will take a big investment in the form of a 24,070 percent increase over the $225.9 million DAWG received in fiscal 2026. Specifically, the Pentagon is seeking a $54.6 billion ask for research and development dollars in the FY27 budget request — $1 billion in the base budget and the remaining $53.6 billion coming from the more flexible future reconciliation pot.
These numbers are staggering. There are so many military and civilian use cases for drones that a whole new industry is currently spawning.
This artificial retina doesn’t just aim to restore sight—it opens a hidden channel of vision
The artificial retina developed by this research team has two primary components: a phototransistor array and a set of liquid metal micropillar electrodes. The phototransistor array is a grid of tiny, light-sensitive devices that can detect near-infrared light (i.e., light that is just beyond visible wavelengths) and convert it into electrical signals.
Liquid metal micropillar electrodes, on the other hand, are pillar-shaped structures made of a soft liquid metal that conducts electricity. These structures deliver the electrical signals produced by the phototransistors directly to cells in the retina that send visual information to the brain, known as retinal ganglion cells. In most cases of retinal degeneration, these cells are less affected than photoreceptor cells, thus they might still be able to transmit information to the brain.
Ray-Ban Meta smart-glasses are so 2025.
That’s all for now! Thanks for reading! If you missed last week’s Five Things Tech, you can find it here:
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— Nico