🌈Pride month🌈

It's pride month!

Not strictly a tech story but check out this from Pink news about the Brands still leaning into it despite all the DEI push back

👀What's going on?👀 

If you’ve ever sat through a pitch deck with more graphs than sense, thank Mary Meeker — the original slide-slinger and former “Queen of the Internet.” Back in the 2010s, her Internet Trends reports were gospel in Silicon Valley. VCs clutched them like scripture; tech bros built startups off bullet points. And now? She’s back. And she’s very overwhelmed by AI.😰

Her new 340-slide deck (Trends: Artificial Intelligence) just dropped, and she used the word “unprecedented” 51 times. Yes, 51. To describe the speed, scale, and chaos of the AI boom.📈

Here are some nuggets from her data deluge:

• ChatGPT hit 800M users in 17 months – faster than any consumer product ever.

• Inference costs dropped 99% in two years — great for you, less so for anyone trying to turn a profit.

• Nvidia’s chips are 105,000x more energy efficient than a decade ago. (Fun fact: that’s like upgrading from a Nokia 3310 to a warp drive.)

• AI infrastructure arms races at Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are “foundational bets,” not side projects.

• Open source and Chinese models are catching up — and coming in hot and cheap.

But it’s not all GPU glory. Despite the hype, few AI companies are showing real returns. Meeker says investors are “pouring money on the AI fire,” but the burn rate is, well, also unprecedented.💰

“Only time will tell which side of the money-making equation the current AI aspirants will land.” — Mary Meeker, still queen of the disclaimers😅

But amid the hype, a word of caution: no one’s really making money yet. AI startups are burning through cash faster than Brits on a bank holiday in Ibiza. Meeker reminds us: the tech may be revolutionary, but the business model still needs to show up to work.😂

As she told TechCrunch:

“The pace and scope of change related to the artificial intelligence technology evolution is indeed unprecedented, as supported by the data.”
— Mary Meeker, bringing bar charts to a flame war

You can read the report here

💡 So What?

AI isn’t just a tech trend — it’s an industrial revolution at fibre-optic speed. If Meeker’s right, the next decade will be built by whoever can balance insane innovation with sustainable business models.

👷🏿War tech👷🏿

Probably not the headline Meta's PR team wanted to wake up but in true clickbait fashion we're resharing for  you all, Mark Zuckerberg finally found a use for his metaverse...war🪖

"Meta’s latest pivot? From the metaverse to militarisation"

Yes, really. Meta (the artist formerly known as Facebook) has teamed up with Anduril Industries — a US defence-tech startup founded by Palmer Luckey, the guy who created the Oculus VR headset and once got booted from Facebook for backing a pro-Trump campaign group. Apparently, time (and a lot of defence cash) heals all wounds, because Meta and Luckey are now besties again — and building battlefield tech for the US Army🔫.

The pair are co-developing a mixed reality headset called EagleEye, which layers AI-powered data over a soldier’s real-world vision — a bit like turning every frontline trooper into Iron Man, minus the Marvel budget. Meta’s official line? They’re bringing “next-gen tech to protect our national interests.” Translation: after £80 billion in metaverse losses, maybe the Pentagon will finally buy this headset🇺🇸

In case you missed the backstory:

• Palmer Luckey sold Oculus to Facebook in 2014.

• Got ousted in 2017 after it emerged he backed right-wing politics.

• Started Anduril, now one of the US military’s go-to AI weapons suppliers.

• Has returned with a vengeance (and a quote about turning soldiers into “technomancers”… which, honestly, is giving strong Warhammer 40K energy).

Meta is doubling down on defence, pivoting its long-floundering XR (extended reality) efforts toward military use. Its consumer-focused “Reality Labs” division has burned through billions trying to make the metaverse a thing (spoiler: it wasn’t). Now, military applications — once taboo in Silicon Valley — are the new growth strategy📈

This deal also reflects a broader shift: Big Tech is getting cosy with defence. A few years ago, Google employees walked out over its involvement with the US military. Now, companies are not only building battlefield tools — they’re boasting about it in press releases👀

In the UK, this may all feel a bit far removed, but there are ripple effects:

• The tech we use daily is being built with war in mind.

• Ethics in AI and hardware development are rapidly shifting.

• The line between “consumer tech” and “combat tech” is increasingly blurred.

You can read more here

📉 So what?

Meta's partnership with Anduril isn’t just about shifting a few headsets — it's about legitimising the military-tech industrial complex as the next frontier for Silicon Valley. And it raises some big questions:

• Who gets to decide what “ethical” tech is when the buyers are governments?

• How transparent will these systems be when they leave the lab and enter real-world warfare?

• And crucially: what happens when the tools built for war start creeping into civil society?

🤳🏾Nvidia's earnings🤖

Nvidia, the chip king fuelling most of the world’s AI boom, just revealed it’s taking an $8 billion hit next quarter. Why? Because the US government’s export restrictions are blocking it from selling its sparkly new H20 AI chips to China🇨🇳

That’s not a typo. $8 billion — with a ‘B’. Already in Q1, the company had to swallow a $4.5 billion charge and leave another $2.5 billion on the shelf, chips unsold and unloved. Not even Jensen Huang’s signature leather jacket could soften that blow.😅

These chips — designed for training and running large AI models — are the silicon equivalent of a Louis Vuitton drop. And China, which accounts for half the world’s AI researchers, was very much queuing outside the shop. Until Washington slammed the door🚪

Under the Trump administration, the US has tightened restrictions on selling advanced AI chips to China, citing national security threats. That’s basically like saying, “You can’t have our cleverest toys in case you build better ones.” Understandable geopolitics — less great for Nvidia’s bottom line. CEO Jensen Huang didn’t hold back, saying the export ban has “ended our Hopper data centre business in China” and the firm “cannot reduce Hopper further to comply.”👀

And while the Biden-era AI Diffusion Rule has been scrapped, Trump’s licensing rules are very much active — meaning Nvidia’s access to the $50bn Chinese AI market is now effectively shut.🔒

You can see more here

💡 So What?

This isn’t just a niche chip drama — it’s a flashing neon sign for the future of the global AI race.

• The US wants to contain China’s AI growth by choking off access to top-tier compute.

• Nvidia (and others) are caught in the crossfire — losing revenue while local Chinese players (hello, Huawei) quietly fill the gap.

• This could accelerate China’s domestic chip development — potentially making US companies less relevant there long term.

And in the short term? Expect AI infrastructure costs to rise in China, further fragmentation of the global AI stack, and a major rethink of go-to-market strategies for anyone building at scale.

💸Monetising height💸

Tinder now lets you filter by height – because love was getting too emotionally complex📏

Tinder is testing a new feature that finally answers the age-old question: “But how tall is he though?” Yes, really — paying users can now set a height preference on the app, though it stops short of hard-filtering potential matches. So your 5'8" king might still sneak through the algorithmic net… but only just.

According to TechCrunch, the new discovery setting is being rolled out globally — but only for Gold and Premium subscribers. Because nothing says romance like monetising insecurity.😅

Tinder’s comms team, clearly fresh from a McKinsey rebrand, described this test as “building with urgency, clarity and focus” — which is PR code for “we’re bleeding paying users and needed to do something flashy fast.” (Parent company Match just reported a 5% drop in paid subs. Coincidence? Surely not.)

Let’s be honest — the height thing isn’t new. Many profiles already shout “6ft or don’t bother” with the same subtlety as a Ryanair boarding announcement. Tinder’s only crime here is formalising the superficiality it helped create.😬

💡 So What?

It’s a reminder that when left unchecked, tech doesn’t just reflect our biases — it operationalises them. In a world of AI-curated matches and algorithmic desirability scores, maybe it’s time we started interrogating who exactly these apps are “optimising” for. Spoiler: it’s not short kings.

📈 The tools behind the tech📉

📦Product📦

• Principals of good database design

📏Design📏 

• The glitch gallery

👩🏿‍💻Code👩🏿‍💻

• The official repository of Mozilla's Firefox web browser

🏢The business behind the tech🏢

• Templates for tech

Canva

Design company Canva are launching Rise, specifically for start ups and scale ups. It's designed to help ambitious high-growth companies rise through smarter branding, engaging content and sharper communication. All sessions will be hosted in our London office, in Shoreditch. 

Here is the link as you are one of the first to know

Canva

Ladies Who Launch–the global non-profit focused on helping women and non-binary entrepreneurs thrive–is hosting an event on the evening of 12th June 2025 titled Funded and Fearless: AI-Powered Marketing and Fundraising for Small Business. The goal of Funded and Fearless is to help attendees better understand the funding landscape available to them in the UK, and also help demystify and reduce fear around using AI-enabled technology. 

In addition, attendees will:

• Hear from an inspiring business operators, including Mireia Llusia-Lindh, Founder of DeMellier of London, and Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI

• Learn from financial and business industry experts, including Mary McKenna of Awaken Angels, and Emma Jones, CBE of Enterprise Nation

• Experience live product training demos from OpenAI and Canva

• Connect with fellow founders and small business owners over delicious food and drinks after the core programming

The event is free to attend, as Ladies Who Launch believes that access to finances should never be a barrier to education. Find more details, and register directly at: https://bit.ly/FundedandFearless.

HSBC opportunities 

HSBC is partnering with Project Nemo to launch a training programme designed to embed accessibility into every stage of product development, from UX to QA and everything in between.

This isn’t a one-size-fits-all webinar. It’s role-based, hands-on, and led by digital accessibility experts who understand your day-to-day.

Whether you’re a web developer, content author, QA tester, or product manager, you’ll leave with practical skills to build better, more inclusive digital experiences, without the guesswork.

Find out more about each of the sessions and sign up here: https://grp.hsbc/6048NpEOE

Build agentic AI

Register for Google Cloud's Startup School: Agentic AI, where industry leaders and Google Cloud experts lead virtual classes designed to help startups adapt and scale AI agents across their organizations. 

Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect:

Unlock Your Potential – Discover why agents are transformative, their core capabilities, and why there’s never a better time to utilize them

Build Smarter with AI – Learn how to implement our pre-trained APIs and build your own ML models.

Get Expert Support - Receive guidance from our Google Cloud and AI experts to help you scale.

Connect & Collaborate - Network with industry leaders in our Partner Ecosystem and explore even more AI 

Register and join the sessions, starting June 10th!

🎓Depop roles🎓

Depop have loads of roles that could interest both tech and non tech

💼Finance Business Partner

❤️Senior DEI Manager

🛍️Marketing & Audience Researcher

📲Engineering Managers both in Platforms or Android

🤖Data science

💻Web Engineers

🙌🏾Loads of developer roles

MAKE SURE IN the disclosures you flag you came through Colorintech so the team know who you are!

Check out the below for London roles

https://depopcareers.com/careers?location=Depop+-+London

😃What we are consuming😃

💰Gamestop buys bitcoin

📱State of digital

💬Google's CEO on search