When electric-motorcycle company LiveWire celebrated its stock-market debut last year, employees across the world were able to take part in the ceremonial bell-ringing through a virtual replica of the iconic New York Stock Exchange trading floor.

LGBTQ dating app Grindr decked out the same digital space with a rainbow flag and flying ribbons when it went public last November.

The NYSE is working with video game developer Unity to make virtual elements like these a more common component of the splashy events it hosts for companies going public. Sarah Murphy, head of marketing at the NYSE, billed the metaverse-like tool as a way for remote workforces to participate in events that were previously limited in attendance by room capacity.

“What I think happened, actually, is that after the pandemic, this became an expectation,” she said. “So it doesn’t really matter that people are back in the office now; they still expected to be able to see the experience in this way.”

Keep reading here.—PK

Engines power our world, but the tech behind them has barely improved since Nicolaus Otto developed the first one. That’s about to change.

Meet LiquidPiston. They’re reinventing the combustion engine for the modern world, and their patented thermodynamic cycle is the first major disruption to the combustion engine in nearly 150 years (you had a good run, Nicolaus).

Today, LiquidPiston’s supercharged, liquid-cooled XTS-210 rotary engine is unlocking new possibilities, from hybrid-electric cars with 80% smaller batteries to drones that can fly 2x farther. It can even run on carbon-free hydrogen, creating a pathway to 100% green energy.

The US government awarded LiquidPiston over $30m in contracts to develop this technology. Now you have the opportunity to join them as a shareholder alongside 10k+ other people as they disrupt the $400b engine market.

Learn more about investing in LiquidPiston here.

The White House isn’t letting Congress have all the AI-regulating fun—last week it announced a slew of initiatives, including a discussion with workers and other stakeholders about how employers use automation to monitor them and seeking public comment on how to use AI for the greater good.

Meanwhile, the House wants to cool China’s lead on drone-making, and the Environmental Protection Agency is deciding whether California can move forward with an ambitious plan to cut vehicle emissions.

Here’s our dispatch from last week’s intersection of tech and politics.

Keep reading here.—MA

Coworking is a weekly segment where we spotlight 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 work with our talented product and engineering team to build, maintain, and improve our product. Catch innovates e-commerce payments and rewards by eliminating credit-card processing fees and transforming these savings into store credit for shoppers. We’re committed to a mutually beneficial model that supports both merchants and shoppers, which generates a dynamic landscape where there’s always room for growth and refinement. I help the team identify and execute on the most high-impact work we can do to enhance the product for all our customers.

What’s the most compelling tech project you’ve worked on, and why?

I loved building the first release of our product. We moved quickly to get something out in front of customers so we could then begin collecting feedback and iterating on it. I learned more in that period of time than any other in my career, not only about the payments and e-commerce industries, but about how to build something from zero to one and teach yourself new things when there’s much less structure around to guide you.

What technologies are you most optimistic about? Least? And why?

It’s hard not to be excited about AI assistants given all the recent advancements. They’re making us much more efficient and automating out some of the tedious and less exciting parts of work so that we can all dedicate more time to what’s energizing and needle-moving.

Keep reading here.

Stat: 6%. That’s the percentage of green texters who said they switched from an Android phone to an iPhone because they were pining for iMessage and FaceTime, according to a 9to5Mac report citing data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. The top reason was “an issue with the Android experience,” with more than half of respondents saying they switched to Apple’s smartphone because of problems with their Android devices.

Quote: “What we’re interested in is investing in companies that are using technology to make climate solutions scale faster. When I say climate solutions, I mean things that are replacing fossil fuels, and industrial processes that emit CO2 emissions, and agricultural processes that emit CO2 emissions, things that replace that with zero emissions.”—Ben Wolkon, managing partner at MUUS Climate Partners, to Tech Brew

Read: Why an octopus-like creature has come to symbolize the state of AI (the New York Times)

Safe in the cloud: As cloud application development builds speed, software supply chains get even more complex. Join DevOps Institute and AWS for a webinar about building continuous application security throughout your dev cycle. Register here.*

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

• US adults aren’t sure if they trust the AI industry
• Sony’s strategy is all about the games
• How Sam’s Club taps AI to help run its stores