Financial Processor Launches New Digital Ledger Product
Also, Jira is Now Your Entire Operating System

The Real Reason Stripe Built a Decentralized Database

Payment processor Stripe has launched its own Layer 1 Blockchain, Tempo, and the corporate world is trying to figure out if it is revolutionary or just a massive, decentralized data entry error. The move, which uses stablecoins, apparently fixes the problem of old bank rails being too slow, expensive, and generally incapable of handling international transfers with anything resembling a pulse. The real narrative here, according to industry observers, is float. The traditional financial system pays interest on deposits, but Stripe, by facilitating stablecoin custody through its own Ledger (which it calls a blockchain), can effectively become an enormous, low-risk, regulatory-arbitrage powerhouse.

Stripe is simply tired of the world’s central banks running the internal accounting for all its merchants. It has decided to build a closed-loop system that cuts out the middle manager known as SWIFT, a system that one Hacker News commenter described as little more than a "bunch of hops" that makes international transactions expensive and randomly traceable. The company realized that billions of transactions were moving through its ecosystem, so why not put a decentralized spin on a basic ledger and capture the lucrative cash management fees directly? It is a smart move that frames a massive, profit-motivated financial play as a service for the greater good of internet commerce. The greater good, naturally, means Stripe gets a better quarterly report.

Atlassian Buys the Window You Use to See Your Jira Tickets

In a move that makes perfect sense to exactly two CEOs, Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company for $610 million in cash. Atlassian, the company that sells project management software Jira and corporate documentation platform Confluence, now owns the people who make the Arc and AI-driven Dia browsers. Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes has stated that "Today's browsers weren't built for work," which is apparently why they have to buy a browser that 100% of the world’s knowledge workers will now be forced to download and use against their will.

The goal is an "AI-powered browser" that competes with ChromeOS for enterprise customers, one that optimizes for the "many SaaS applications living in tabs." The promise is a corporate surveillance tool that organizes your day by automatically connecting the dots between your endless Jira tickets, Confluence pages, and Slack messages. A user in the comments pointed out that for $610 million, Atlassian could have just used the Chromium open-source interface and built its own browser; apparently, they needed the *aesthetic* and The Browser Company CEO Josh Miller’s assurance that the vision for a "cross-platform browser as an OS" is now closer than ever. This is how you create an ecosystem: you buy the entire desktop, not just the word processor.

Google Quietly Erases the Post-It Note of Responsibility

Google has decided that its ambitious 2030 net-zero pledge was probably just a motivational poster that had run its course; it has quietly deleted the goal from its main sustainability website. The company’s "Sustainable Operations" page has been renamed to the much more noncommittal "Our Operations," and all direct references to the net-zero goal have vanished. This administrative cleanup comes shortly after Google’s power consumption grew by an astonishing 27% last year, a usage increase that is now equivalent to the annual consumption of Denmark.

The reason for this small, easily-missed website change is the "nonlinear growth" in energy demand from AI. Running the vast, power-hungry models like Gemini requires so much juice that keeping the "net-zero by 2030" promise on the public website became an embarrassing, verifiable liability. A company spokesperson insisted that Google is still committed, but the commitment is now buried deep within the appendices of a report, which is the corporate equivalent of saying the goal is still in the recycling bin and can be retrieved if necessary. Wikipedia, meanwhile, keeps chugging along against all internet adversity, powered by sheer human stubbornness, which apparently uses less energy than a single Google search.

Briefs

• HR Policy Update: A UK tribunal ruled calling your boss a "dickhead" is not a sackable offence, which means the annual performance review process now has a significantly lower emotional floor.
• IoT Surveillance: Researchers at UCSC have determined that WiFi signals can measure heart rate, ensuring that middle management will soon be able to tell exactly which employees are stressed by their new Atlassian-powered browser.
• Mandatory Networking: A social experiment involving 30 minutes of conversation with a total stranger is trending, a concept that is less "experiment" and more "mandatory icebreaker before the next all-hands meeting."