Happy Monday! A new week means new products, and we’re starting today off strong with a big update from the AI-image generation platform, Midjourney. But first…

The headlines: 

🇫🇷 Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, has been arrested in France. 

👓 Meta plans to debut its new budget-friendly VR headset next month. 

🧵 Instagram’s X competitor, Threads, is now testing ephemeral posts. 

Want to experiment with Midjourney but don’t want to sign up for Discord? You’re in luck—Midjourney now lets you create up to 25 images for free (on a temporary free trial), all without needing to sign up for Discord. The announcement came from CEO David Holz (yes, on Discord), but now you can use the tool directly through a dedicated web app.

Previously, using Midjourney meant navigating its Discord server and learning a specific prompt format, which worked well for dedicated users but felt like a hassle for many. Now, you can just head to Midjourney’s site, sign up, and start creating. 

The website was originally only available to those who had already made 10,000 images via Discord—quite the milestone—but it’s now open to everyone. You still need to register, but you can use your Google account if that’s easier for you.

Once you’re signed in, you can browse images in the ‘Explore’ section for ideas, and when you’re ready to create, simply enter your prompt in the ‘Create’ tab. The AI will generate four images based on what you’ve entered, and if you want to tweak them, you can use the “Strong” or “Subtle” options to adjust the output.

After your 25 free images, you’ll need to subscribe if you want to keep creating, and plans start at $10 per month for the basic tier. 

Helicone AI is an open-source LLM observability tool for developers. It garnered a ton of attention last week in part due to its unique marketing tactics to the point it secured second place in the weekly rankings. Let's dive into its stack: 

ClickHouse is an open-source database designed for speed and scale. The Helicone team loves it for how much data it can handle and analyze. 

“With Clickhouse, we were able to easily handle and analyze massive amounts of data, and it’s open-source! Their scalability is truly a game-changer for us.”

Mintlify lets teams easily create beautiful and engaging documentation. The team uses it for its ease of use when updating documents. 

“Mintlify allows any of our team members to make doc changes quickly. Having a consistent doc experience has been life-changing because it helps us focus on the developer experience.”

Posthog is an all-in-one platform for product analytics. Helicone uses it to discover which features to prioritize.

“PostHog’s analytics have been incredibly powerful in helping us discover what resonates most with our users. Can’t imagine a day without PostHog.”

If you want to check out what products other teams are shouting out, check out the shoutouts leaderboard here. 

FUN TOOLS 

Sacred OS is a Windows 9x-inspired operating system written in Vanilla JS where every HTML file is executable.

Demure Check uses AI to analyze your LinkedIn profile and judge how demure you are. It’s based on the popular ‘very demure’ meme taking over the internet right now.;

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS 

Global Sync Meetings is a handy browser extension that lets you easily schedule meetings across different time zones.

IndieScore transforms long meeting recordings into concise, shareable highlight clips. Upload your videos, and the AI will extract key moments.

DEVELOPER TOOLS 

CodeBrisk is a platform for developers that lets them store all their important and lengthy code snippets in one place for easy finding and sharing.

Kypso is a platform for software teams to manage and automate their processes with AI. You can use the Code Reviewer agent to automatically review code, summarize pull requests, and more.