This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more news about how AI is changing our daily lives, follow Emma Roth. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Long before ChatGPT became a thing, educators and editors frequently used anti-plagiarism tools to see if writers were being honest about their work. These tools work by comparing a written work against a database filled with content from across the web, scholarly articles, and more to check for matching sentences and phrases. Some, like Turnitin, offer a percentage th …

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This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on smartphones and Android, follow Dominic Preston. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Believe it or not, it didn't all start with Samsung. Royole, a now-bankrupt manufacturer of flexible displays, was the first to release a commercial folding phone, the "charmingly awful" FlexPai. Samsung's first Galaxy Fold followed a year later, plagued by a variety of faults that saw review units break within days. That launch went so badly that it prompted Chinese riva …

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This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on e-bikes, power stations, and how to work anywhere, follow Thomas Ricker. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.

How it started

Lithium-ion batteries are everywhere as we enter the second quarter of the 21st century, and that's a problem. From exploding e-bikes in stairwells to lithium-ion power banks combusting midflight, the volatile nature of traditional liquid electrolytes has become an undeniable public safety hazard.

In 2025, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) i …

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