The Current State of the NHS

Crunch the United Kingdom’s NHS. The world’s largest public health service is working on creating its infrastructure. Doctors tell the Financial Times, “I am at a top London hospital, and yet at times I feel as though we are operating in the Stone Age,” one doctor tells the FT. For example, doctors email lists of patients to themselves to print out elsewhere. Some 13.5 million working hours are estimated to be lost annually due to inadequate IT systems.

Technology in the NHS

There isn’t a complete absence of modern tech. NHS works with a long list of suppliers. It also began a relationship with Google’s Deep Mind almost a decade ago. No doubt many others see opportunities to help. Dozens of companies are building AI-enabled scribes to help clinicians handle extensive admin work. AI is also being applied to drug discovery. For now, however, one doctor talking with the FT compares the odds of an NHS hospital being properly equipped to a coin toss. Much is at stake given the NHS holds medical records for nearly 67 million people. A breach could become a meltdown.

Sophia Tong’s Experience with WEO Cars

Sophia Tong set up a live stream this past summer showing self-driving WEO cars honking from the San Francisco parking lot near her apartment at all hours of the night. As a kind of apology for the nuisance, WEO threw an ice cream party in Tong’s building and gave Tong a software engineer some promo codes redeemable for free rides. The outfit may have underestimated her after giving a few friends some codes. Tong, realizing the codes weren’t capped in value, determined she’d use her last one to ride in a WEO for 24 hours, visiting tourist destinations like Golden Gate Park, Chinatown, and Twin Peaks. Alas, 83 minutes and 6.5 hours later, her WEO ended the ride with 20 miles left, cutting short her plans.

Reflections on a Long Ride

It was seemingly for the best, said Tong, as she tried to regain feeling in her legs after the long ride, which ended back in her neighborhood 6 hours and 30 minutes later. “I’m never doing that again.”

Meta’s New Activity Status Feature

Meta’s ex-rival Threads is rolling out a new activity status feature that will let you see when someone on the social network is online. Instagram head Adam Mosser announced the feature on Tuesday in a Threads post, noting that it’s meant to act as a way to help you find others to engage with in real time. Thankfully, you can turn the setting off, and only users who have the feature turned on will be able to see when you’re online.

Threads vs. X: Real-Time Engagement

Since its launch last year, Threads has lagged behind X, formerly Twitter, when it comes to surfacing real-time events and trends. It’s easier to find real-time reactions and responses to live events like awards shows and earthquakes on X than it is on Threads. With this new feature, Threads is attempting to boost real-time activity on its app. Activity status could also be seen as Threads’ answer to the platform’s lack of DMs (direct messages). On X, when you want to start a conversation with someone, you can just send them a message. Since you can’t do that on Threads, Meta is looking for ways to facilitate conversations on the social network.

User Reactions to the New Feature

Mosseri says that the company hopes that knowing when your people are online makes it easier to have conversations. Of course, not everyone will want others to know when they’re online, as activity status features are traditionally reserved for messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger and Discord, not platforms like Threads. A quick look at the responses to Mosseri’s announcement post indicates that many users don’t actually want this feature, with some asking for DMs instead.

Concerns About Privacy and Safety

Noting that an activity status feature doesn’t make sense if you can’t directly message the person, some also point out that the feature could put some users at risk. For instance, if you’re being harassed by a troll, they may harass you even more knowing that you’re currently active on the platform. The feature is rolling out starting today, so you might not see it just yet. Mosseri didn’t inform users on how to turn off the feature, but users will likely have to navigate through the app’s settings page to do so.

Mastodon Launches Plushy Merchandise

If you like open-source decentralized social networks that put the power in the hands of the people instead of billionaires, you can now support that cause by buying toys. On Tuesday, Mastodon, a decentralized alternative to X, began selling its own merchandise in the form of cute plushy mascots—the Proto elephants with long tusks that give the social network its name. The company announced last year that it would help fund its development efforts through merchandise sales after a poll found that over 6,700 Mastodon users said they would buy something if merch was made available.

Successful Merchandise Launch

Shortly thereafter, Mastodon quickly sold out of a small test round of products, including mugs, tees, and pins. The lineup, which had only included 250 units of each item, was soon sold out. That leads us to today’s launch of the Mastodon plushy, available in one size for $45 US. The light-colored, washable stuffy is 35 cm high and cushy enough to serve as a travel pillow, the company says.

Challenges for Mastodon

Unfortunately for Mastodon US fans, it’s initially available only in the EU, as shipments to the US have been delayed by recent storms. Within a few hours of launch, Mastodon had sold 176 plushies, earning the company nearly $8,000 in revenue, less its manufacturing and shipping costs. By the end of the day, the figure had topped 200. While that’s nowhere near paying even a single developer’s salary, it could help the company make a tiny dent in its server bills.

Conclusion: The Future of Decentralized Social Networks

At least, it’s hard to imagine how a small social network that primarily funds itself via Patreon, according to founder and CEO Eugen Rochko, will ever make enough money to topple tech giants like X and Meta’s Threads. Still, it’s fun to see the open social community rally behind the effort, posting their plushy support. #PlushToon.

After their sales are complete, that’s all for now. For more stories like this one, visit TechCrunch.com.