The first hydrogen-powered vehicle—GM’s Electrovan prototype—debuted in 1966.

Fast-forward nearly 60 years, and fuel-cell electric vehicles, or FCEVs, still aren’t mainstream. But if some big bets within the auto industry pay off, we’ll see hydrogen-powered trucks cruising down highways alongside their battery-powered cousins as fossil fuel–guzzling ICE vehicles someday go the way of the dodo.

GM and Honda recently moved in that direction, beginning commercial production of hydrogen fuel-cell systems at a plant outside of Detroit. The 50-50 joint venture started in 2017, supported by an $85 million investment by the automakers.

“It took decades before some of the technological enablers came along to allow us to make this a practical technology,” Charlie Freese, executive director of GM’s hydrogen fuel-cell business, told Tech Brew.

So how do fuel-cell vehicles work?

“They are electric vehicles. They use the same electric motors, the same power inverters, power electronics, that you’ll find on any battery-electric vehicle,” Sam Abuelsamid, a principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights, told us. “The only difference is that instead of storing the electricity in a battery, they’re storing it in the form of hydrogen and generating the electricity as needed.”

Keep reading here.—JG

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Morning Brew Daily hosts Neal Freyman and Toby Howell have you covered on everything you need to know before your cup of coffee, from the latest headlines on the economy to explanations of viral TikTok trends.

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New episodes are released every weekday at 7am ET. Check ’em out on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

The two biggest players in Big Tech’s AI arms race failed to impress Wall Street when they reported what seemed like good news in quarterly earnings calls this week.

Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet both delivered earnings and revenue that beat analyst expectations, but Microsoft’s share price dipped slightly, while Google’s dropped 7% as of Wednesday afternoon.

There were several potential culprits for the lukewarm reception: Growth in Google’s core ad business didn’t quite match analyst hopes, according to CNBC. Investors may have been put off by bigger price tags on the horizon for both companies’ AI ambitions. Microsoft has also set a high bar with previous AI-centric earnings that drove the company’s value near the $3 trillion mark.

The companies’ dueling earnings reports come as Wall Street has begun to scrutinize whether huge investments in the infrastructure needed to power AI projects will ultimately pay off.

Keep reading here.—PK

When 31-year-old Shanell Anderson dialed 911 from her sinking SUV, it took dispatchers 20 minutes to locate her in a retention pond that straddled two Georgia county lines. By then, it was too late.

New Federal Communications Commission rules aim to eliminate this sort of emergency-response confusion that wastes precious minutes and ultimately costs lives.

Under the rules, adopted Jan. 25, mobile carriers are tasked with using a caller’s exact location as the reference point for dispatching the closest emergency services, not the nearest cell tower that picks up the call.

By implementing so-called location-based routing, a call can more quickly reach the correct public safety answering point. The issue affects up to 23 million misrouted wireless calls each year, according to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.

Keep reading here.—KG

Usually, we write about the business of tech. Here, we highlight the *tech* of tech.

Save the mice: The Atlantic’s Ian Bogost notes that the demise of the mouse has changed our relationship with computers—and not for the better. Following the debut of the iPhone in 2007 and the introduction of finger-scrolling, Bogost writes that “a mouse was too delicate to thrive amid such vastness.” We admit that we’re still big fans over here: This very newsletter is produced using a Logitech mouse.

Losing my edge: Software updates are necessary and important for security, of course. But Tom Warren of The Verge observed that something squirrely happened after his last Windows update: All his Chrome tabs opened in Microsoft Edge. He notes that Edge is “actually good” while lamenting the “trick” to get Chrome users to jump ship.