Currently invite-only, Airchat is already ranked #27 in social networking on Apple’s App Store.
The difference is that the posts and replies are audio recordings, which the app then transcribes.
When you open Airchat, messages automatically start playing, and you quickly cycle through them by swiping up and down.
After joining Airchat this morning, most of the posts I saw were about the app itself, with Ravikant and Norgard answering questions and soliciting feedback.
“Humans are all meant to get along with other humans, it just requires the natural voice,” Ravikant said.
It’s easy to assume the e-commerce ship has sailed when you consider we have giant platforms like Shopify, Woocommerce, and Wix dominating the sector.
E-commerce platform, ikas, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round as it seeks to expand its operations into new markets in Europe.
The company currently operates in Turkey and Germany, and says its platform simplifies store management for companies that want to have a digital presence.
Also investing in ikas is Re-Pie Asset Management, which has grocery delivery startup Getir in its portfolio as well.
The round saw participation from ikas’ existing investor Revo Capital, best known as the first institutional investor in Getir, Param, Midas and Roamless.
The CHIPS Act can be seen as a direct result of a number of pressing geopolitical issues.
The above, coupled with long-standing efforts to revitalize U.S. industry, spurred on economic efforts to reshore manufacturing.
While the CHIPS Act was still winding its way through Capitol Hill, Intel announced plans to open a $10 billion manufacturing facility just outside of Columbus, Ohio.
It says it expects those efforts will create 20,000 construction and 10,000 manufacturing jobs — music to the ears of an administration keenly focused on monthly jobs reports.
Notably, Intel recently pushed back the manufacturing start date of its New Albany, Ohio, plant two years to 2027, citing changes to the business environment.
Ford was the first to start offering the so-called North American Charging Standard (NACS) adapters last month for free.
Most automakers have announced that future EVs will incorporate Tesla’s charging tech into future vehicles.
Rivian’s next-generation vehicles, which it just revealed earlier this month, will also include the Tesla charging port.
Making Tesla’s Supercharger network accessible to owners means they now have 15,000 new fast chargers where they can plug in.
Rivian has also been building out its own network of fast-charging stations, which it calls the Rivian Adventure Network.
The company’s vision for moderation is a stackable ecosystem of services, which is why it will start allowing users to install filters from independent moderation services on top of what Bluesky already requires.
For example, someone could create a moderation service that blocks images of spiders on the network.
Bluesky says installing filters from independent moderation services will be as easy as following another account.
People running moderation services will be able to set custom labels and determine what they do.
Moderation services aren’t tied to individual accounts, so multiple people can manage them together.
TikTok is expanding its Effect Creator Rewards monetization program to more regions and lowering its payout threshold, the company announced today.
The program, which launched in May 2023, rewards creators for the effects they make through TikTok’s AR development platform, Effect House.
TikTok is also updating the program’s payout model, as creators will now only receive rewards for effects used in public videos.
Effect Creator Rewards is now available in a total of 53 regions.
Previously, creators needed an effect to have been used in 200,000 qualified videos within 90 days for the effect to start collecting rewards.
Draijer said the company started off as an installer of solar panels in Spain, but after the pandemic, it decided it should offer a solar energy management system.
“Solar is not a product,” Draijer said, explaining why most Spaniards can’t or just don’t want to pay upfront for solar panels.
That’s why SolarMente offers subscription-based energy management services, which include installing solar panels without upfront costs.
“We’re using this round to really power our super app for home energy,” Gardrinier said.
But first, SolarMente wants to further expand across Spain, where its subscription solar offer just became available nationwide, Draijer told TechCrunch.
Waymo will start letting its autonomous vehicles traverse Austin without a safety operator behind the wheel as of tomorrow, a crucial step before the company opens the program up to the public.
The company announced Tuesday that it will begin shuttling employees around 43 square miles of the Texas capital, including the Barton Hills, Riverside, East Austin and Hyde Park neighborhoods, as well as downtown Austin.
Waymo didn’t offer a timeline for when it plans to start offering autonomous rides to the citizens of Austin.
Waymo continues to steadily expand its autonomous ride-hailing program, which it calls Waymo One, even as other companies in the space have struggled.
Just last month, one of the company’s autonomous vehicles collided with a cyclist in San Francisco — an incident that the California Department of Motor Vehicles is investigating.
Waze is adding a few new features that will help users navigate tricky roundabouts, get alerts when a speed limit is about to change and get warnings about speed bumps and sharp curves.
The new feature is rolling out globally to Android users this month and iOS users later this year.
Users will start to see alerts when a speed limit is about change along their route, giving them more time to adjust their speed.
This update is rolling out globally to all Android and iOS users this month.
These alerts are rolling out now globally to all Android and iOS users this month.
Google is introducing improvements to search suggestions in Chrome, the company announced today.
As part of the changes, users will start to get more helpful search suggestions in Chrome based on what others are searching for, see more images for suggested searches and find search suggestions even with a poor connection.
Search suggestions are the drop-down list of suggested completions that appear before you finish typing out your query in Google.
With these new updates, Google is expanding the availability of search suggestions and using them to boost inspiration.
For example, if you start typing out “bohemian table,” Google will display an image of a bohemian table, bohemian tablecloth, bohemian table runner and bohemian table lamp.
