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These tiny sensors can hitch a ride on mothback Oct 09, 2020

Show notes

Everyone is familiar with carrier pigeons, but what about carrier moths? This research project uses the nocturnal insects as a delivery service for tiny electronic packages that weigh less than a hundredth of an ounce. The system was created by graduate students at the University of Washington and its prolific tiny gadget creator Shyam Gollakota. […]

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Apple is extending some AppleTV+ subs through February 2021 for free Oct 09, 2020

Show notes

Apple told me today that it will be extending AppleTV+ subscriptions that are set to end November 1, 2020 through January 31, 2021 through their billing date in February of 2021. The basic situation is that Apple gave away a free year of AppleTV+ to new device purchasers last year and those are all set […]

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Kroger, one of America’s largest grocery chains, experiments with ghost kitchens and delivery in the Midwest Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

The Kroger Co., one of the biggest grocery chains in the Midwest is dipping its toe into on-demand delivery and the ghost kitchen craze through a partnership with an Indianapolis-based startup, ClusterTruck. Supermarkets would seem to be logical places to site the kinds of ghost kitchens that have caught investor’s eye over the past few […]

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Former Apple engineer and autocorrect creator builds his first app, a word game called Up Spell Oct 08, 2020

Show notes

Former Apple software engineer and designer Ken Kocienda, whose work included the original iPhone and the development of touchscreen autocorrect, has created his first iOS app, Up Spell. The fast-paced, fun word game challenges users to spell all the words you can in two minutes and uses a lexicon of words Kocienda built to allow […]

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Bespoken Spirits raises $2.6M in seed funding to combine machine learning and accelerated whiskey aging Oct 07, 2020

Show notes

Bespoken Spirits, a Silicon Valley spirits company that has developed a new data-driven process to accelerate the aging of whiskey and create specific flavors, today announced that it has raised a $2.6 million seed funding round. Investors include Clos de la Tech owner T.J. Rodgers and baseball’s Derek Jeter. The company was co-founded by former […]

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Twitter tests a new way to find accounts to follow Oct 07, 2020

Show notes

Twitter is testing a new way to follow accounts. The company announced today it’s rolling out a new feature, “Suggested Follows,” that will pop up a list of other accounts you may want to follow on the profile page of someone you had just followed. The feature will be tested on Android devices, for the […]

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Spotify’s new Soundtrap capture app offers collaborative voice notes for songwriters Oct 06, 2020

Show notes

Acquired in 2017, Soundtrap more or less serves a similar role as Anchor under the larger Spotify banner — albeit largely focused on music creation, instead of podcasting. The company’s software of the same name is a cloud-based service designed to let musicians remotely collaborate on a song, track by track. It is, honestly, a […]

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Google teams up with Samsonite to launch a Jacquard smart fabric-enabled backpack Oct 06, 2020

Show notes

It has been over four years since Project Jacquard, Google’s smart fabric technology, made its debut at the I/O developer conference. Launched out of what was then Google’s ATAP unit, Jacquard is currently best known for being available on Levi’s jeans jackets, but Saint Laurent also launched its $1,000 Cit-e Backpack with built-in Jacquard technology. […]

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Lime and Scoot veterans have built Ridepanda, a one-stop micromobility marketplace Oct 05, 2020

Show notes

Chinmay Malaviya and Charlie Depman found themselves at the center of the shared micromobility industry just as it took off, working for companies like Bird, Lime and Scoot. They experienced a rollercoaster ride of venture funding and skyrocketing demand, product pitfalls and regulatory hurdles. It was in the midst of this activity that the pair […]

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Plaid improves its account linking flow Oct 05, 2020

Show notes

Plaid, the company building a universal banking API that lets you connect an app or service with a bank account, has updated Plaid Link. Plaid Link is the interface that you see when you add your bank account to any app or service that uses Plaid, such as Cash App or TransferWise. Given that 3,000 […]

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