Not to put the cart before the horse—or the plugs before the EVs—but once the US charging network is fully built out, someone is going to have to keep the stations up and running.

Zoom in: Unlike gas-station owners, who have a clear interest in ensuring customers are able to fuel up, the property owners for EV charging sites are often not the ones who own or draw significant revenue from the physical charging infrastructure.

“I still think you do have this finger-pointing and like, ‘Well, that’s not our job,’” Kameale C. Terry, CEO and co-founder of ChargerHelp!, said of the relationships between utilities, site hosts, and network providers.

• “Who is the true owner? Is it the site host? Is it the network provider? And if the network provider is truly a software company, if there’s [hardware] issues going on—it’s not in their business model,” she added.

Big picture: The question of who is responsible for keeping chargers operational ends up impacting drivers when stations are out of service—and it’s a widespread issue.

• A study of public EV charging stations in the Bay Area earlier this year found that about one in four was unable to provide a charge.

At ChargerHelp!, Terry is working to build a workforce of technicians to service charging stations. Keep reading about the company here.—GD

Meta may soon play a larger role in your workplace than you ever expected. In an unlikely alliance, the social media giant has partnered with Microsoft to integrate tools including Teams, Windows, and Office to a premier version of the headset formerly known as Oculus: Quest Pro.

“With Windows 365 coming to Quest, you’ll have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized apps, content, and settings to your VR device,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at an October 11 event.

• In other words: Employees will be able to work on multiple projects and interact with distributed colleagues unlike ever before.

Friend, not foe. Microsoft and Meta were competitors until last year, but the former’s AR HoloLens headset has been all but phased out.

This is the first time the companies have partnered in over a decade, according to The Verge, seemingly in the interest of driving workplace adoption of VR and AR. While Microsoft has been omnipresent in the working world for decades, Facebook is a relative newcomer, having entered the space in 2016.

Read the full story from HR Brew.—AK

Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight Emerging Tech Brew readers who work with emerging technologies. Click here if you’d like a chance to be featured

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in tech?

I help create solutions for customer problems using specific technologies such as artificial intelligence. This means that I assess the customer situation, evaluate tools and suppliers who may have already developed solutions for this problem, work with NTT Data resources to develop new capabilities to extend tools, and prepare our sales teams to sell the new solution.

What’s your favorite emerging tech project you’ve worked on?

By far, my favorite emerging technology is the digital human. The digital human is an avatar that appears on a screen in a customer setting and acts as a concierge. This new technology can determine your attitude from your facial expressions and respond accordingly. There are limitless possibilities for using this technology in service-oriented industries.

What emerging tech are you most optimistic about? Least? And why?

I am both optimistic and pessimistic about what our future will bring with artificial intelligence and quantum computing. The possibilities to solve some of our most perplexing problems—climate change, inequality, food production, water shortages—are within our reach. But we are not yet prepared as humans to understand the impact of what we could create.

What do you think about when you’re not thinking about tech?

My garden, my dog, and my family—not in that order. These are the interactions that make it possible for me to think creatively about technology and give me space for doing so.

Stat: Green hydrogen has seen $73 billion in commitments since the war in Ukraine began, a surge that puts the industry “decades ahead of pre-war projections,” per a Carbon Tracker report cited by Protocol. Here’s our explainer on the hydrogen industry.

Quote: “We trust people, and we trust the community…as opposed to having a centralized, unelected entity controlling the most powerful technology in the world.”—Emad Mostaque, founder and CEO of Stability AI

Read: A step-by-step guide to creating a spooky smart home.

Don’t mi$$ it: The biggest players in fintech, payments, banking, and financial services are gathering at Money20/20 USA this Oct. 23–26. Get the full agenda, keynote announcements, and your pass right here.*

^{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

This week’s quiz could be the hardest yet. Or the easiest. Or just right.

There’s only one way to find out: Click here to play.

What’s up, healthcare industry pros? Great news! Today we are launching the latest addition to the Brewniverse: Healthcare Brew. Join a community of fellow healthcare workers and stay up to date on everything from EMRs and telehealth to online pharmacies, healthtech, and more.

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This editorial content is supported by ConnectRN.

Catch up on the top Emerging Tech Brew stories from the past few editions:

• Why Chipotle created a $50 million venture fund this year
• Fitbit expands enterprise ambitions with Google Cloud-powered software platform
• How the EU’s proposed IoT cybersecurity law could affect device makers