Axios

Like an automated carwash for plates, a new commercial-grade robot dish-scrubber takes in dirty dishes in tall stacks and spits clean ones out the other side — potentially cutting dishwashing staffs by more than half.

But, but, but: In a concession to the limitations of today's robots, the machines can only handle specially made plates and bowls with magnetic inserts, and their cost lands them out of reach of all but the biggest restaurants and cafeterias.

Love Facebook or hate it, you can't say the besieged company is shying away from new products or big thinking.

What's happening: In the past 18 months — amid Cambridge Analytica and all the other scandals — the company has launched bold new moves to help find you a date, to put cameras inside your home and, now, to encourage you to adopt a whole new cryptocurrency.

With the iPhone's global dominance waning, there's a growing chorus of skeptics betting that Apple is headed the way of Blackberry and Nokia.

Why it matters: While Apple still generates ridiculous cash flow, the nearly $900 billion megacompany's growth is built on its ability to reinvent and dominate entire product categories, which it hasn't done lately. Doubters don't see evidence that Apple still has the innovative juice it needs to dominate not just tech but the global consumer marketplace.

After nearly a year of speculation, Facebook has finally unveiled its plans to create a cryptocurrency, which will be called Libra and debut in 2020.

Why it matters: With more than two billion users, Facebook is arguably better positioned to roll out a global digital currency than any other company, government, or organization. That's also a source of concern over how much influence Facebook will hold over the new currency, given the company's history of amassing power and its record of privacy controversies.

A decade after Bitcoin was born in a declaration of liberty from central banks and anyone else's control, Facebook is about to announce a new currency that sheds much of the crypto-world's counter-culture origins in hopes of actually being used.

Driving the news: For a year, Facebook has secretly developed a crypto-currency it calls Libra. As early as tomorrow, it will reportedly unveil its concept in a white paper. But if Libra is to gain the mainstream ubiquity for which Facebook is known, it will be because it jettisons some of the central principles that have united crypto purists.

Apple CEO Tim Cook used a Stanford commencement speech yesterday to go after other tech companies, saying "this industry is becoming better known for a less noble innovation — the belief you can claim credit without accepting responsibility," per CNBC.

Why it matters: As the national conversation on tech gear-shifts from admiration to regulation, Apple hopes to carve out a safe harbor by positioning itself as a privacy champion.