Today, the company unveiled its new generation of GPS device, Tack GPS Plus, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024.
The company claims Tack GPS Plus reduces search time in high-rise cities by offering vertical distance and geographical coordinates.
The Tack GPS Plus can be widely used by parents, caregivers, pet owners, and more.
Tack GPS Plus follows the company’s second product, a palm-sized autonomous flood-detection device called Tack EVO FloodFinder.
Tack GPS Plus is now available on the company’s official website and will then be sold on Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee around mid-January.
In a sea of AI-enabled gadgets at CES, the rabbit r1 (all lowercase, they insist) stands out not just for its high-vis paint job and unique form factor, but because of its dedication to the bit.
“The phone is an entertainment device, but if you’re trying to get something done it’s not the highest efficiency machine.
After all, that’s what our so-called “AI assistants” have supposedly been doing for the last five or six years.
Even so, even if the rabbit r1 is better or cuter, people prefer simplicity and convenience.
Why would they pay money to carry a second device when their first one does most of those tasks?
But the company will be the first to support Matter Casting, the video- and audio-beaming feature of the Matter smart home standard, on its smart displays and smart TVs, Amazon announced this morning at CES 2024.
Once Matter casting comes to Amazon’s Prime Video app for Android and iOS, users will be able to cast content to supported Amazon devices — starting with the Echo Show 15 — by tapping the new dedicated Matter Casting button.
Beyond the Echo Show 15, Amazon says that Matter Casting support will arrive on Fire TVs including smart TVs from Panasonic with Fire TV built in, and — on the app side — Plex, Pluto TV, Sling TV, Starz and ZDF later this year.
Tellingly, Google announced this week that its casting tech, Chromecast, will be built into all of LG’s new TVs — but gave no mention of Matter Casting.
The Matter Casting spec — which was developed with major input from Amazon — can accomplish more than casting, in theory.
Some of the most important channels for news traffic — Google Search, social platforms like Facebook — changed how they focus on and surface news links, and that’s had an overall hit on traffic and ad sales.
And consumer tastes have changed, too, and it appears that the app is also struggling to attract and retain users.
Given the decline in downloads, Apptopia said a figure of 10 million active users today would now be “a stretch.”Another firm, Sensor Tower, added more insight, noting that SmartNews had, on average, roughly 1.7 million worldwide daily active users between Q1 2023 and Q3 2023.
Sensor Tower’s estimates indicate the SmartNews app has roughly 5 million worldwide monthly active users from Q1–Q3 2023, down an average of 30% year-over-year, per quarter, it said.
Sensor Tower also suggested that lapsed product iterations and feature launches likely contributed to falling consumer interest and interaction with the SmartNews app.
Clear offers a specific vision for how to-do lists should work and, as an indie app, it doesn’t have to deliver increasing returns on investment or answer to investors.
“It feels a little punk compared with the average app on the App Store,” notes Ryu about Clear’s lack of subscriptions.
But for most of that time, the app was just being updated on TestFlight, not on the public App Store.
The original team had kind of “burned out” on Clear, Ryu explains, after being overloaded with projects like porting Clear to Mac or adding iCloud Sync.
You can also drag and drop items between lists, swipe to schedule reminders, screenshot to share lists, and swipe to archive lists.
Given it’s a free alternative, it’s somewhat surprising that Copilot’s launch hasn’t seemingly impacted ChatGPT’s installs or revenue as of yet — but that could be explained by the lack of promotion.
Unlike some apps, Copilot’s installs are also somewhat evenly split across iOS and Android, with 59% on Google Play vs. 41% on the App Store.
According to Appfigures, ChatGPT’s downloads have also been slowing in December — but this started before Copilot’s release.
During the time that Copilot was amassing its 2.1 million installs, ChatGPT gained another 4.2 million downloads.
The firm told TechCrunch there’s nothing to indicate that Copilot itself is having any impact on ChatGPT’s installs or its revenue, the latter of which continues to rise, in fact.
Instagram has a feature where you can add music directly to your posts — a popular option among users who want to add life to their content and show off their musical taste.
Then, you click on the music note icon at the top of the editing screen, which brings you to Instagram’s music library of over 12,000 songs.
Previously only available on Stories and Reels, Instagram expanded its music feature in 2022 to bring the capability to image posts.
However, Instagram has yet to support music on carousels with videos.
The app is also reportedly experimenting with music on profiles — a nod to the MySpace era.
The once popular third-party podcast app Castro has seemingly shut down, after earlier saying that it was “actively seeking a new home” for its product.
Concerns over Castro’s future, and the fate of the indie podcast app industry as a whole, have broadened in recent years as Spotify entered the market to compete with Apple Podcasts.
That move influenced the exits of other smaller podcast apps, which included the sale of Pocket Casts to a collective of radio broadcasters, including NPR and BBC Studios.
Satellite radio provider and Pandora owner SiriusXM also bought the podcast app Stitcher in 2020 for $325 million.
Another request for comment from Casto owner Tiny was not returned as of the time of writing, but we’ll update if more information is provided.
Basecamp founders’ email service Hey is fighting with Apple again — this time over the rejection of its new calendar app from the App Store.
Last week, Basecamp launched an integrated calendar service with Hey, along with a new standalone app for it.
On Saturday, Hey’s co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson posted on X that Apple has rejected Hey’s standalone calendar app.
In 2020, Apple first rejected Hey’s email app because users couldn’t sign up for the service on the app.
So Hey’s calendar app should be allowed on the App Store.
In lieu of stateside political momentum to build more — and better — public toilets, enterprising developers and entrepreneurs have attempted to tackle the problem in a number of ways.
Beyond maps that track the locations of public restrooms, startups like Throne are deploying high-tech, self-cleaning and self-contained portable toilets that can be reserved through a mobile app.
A new venture launching at CES 2024, Flush, wants to do just that — renting out restrooms to customers across cafes, restaurants, hotels and other high-traffic areas.
USC computer science graduate Elle Szabo founded Flush after frustrating experiences trying to find public restrooms while on a diuretic medication.
Some might argue it’s incumbent on governments, not businesses, to build and service more public restrooms — and this writer doesn’t disagree.
