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Today’s Daily Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at Blockstack.

Blockstack, the decentralized computing network and secure app ecosystem, announced a new partnership with Lambda School this week. If you’re not familiar with it, Lambda School takes a unique approach to education by offering coding and software training (in virtual classrooms), which cost nothing until a student is hired. 🎓

"At Lambda School, our goal is to remove as many barriers to high-paying careers as we can for our students. We design our curriculum based on the exact criteria hiring managers look for, ensuring graduates have mastered all of the practical skills they need to succeed.” - Austen Allred, co-founder and CEO of Lambda School.

The idea is that building decentralized app will be a practical skill to have in the future (that also pays today). Students enrolled in the program will learn how to code Blockstack apps. Students will also be able to earn money through Blockstack’s App Mining program, which as we wrote about last month, is increasing its monthly payout to $1 million. 💸

As part of the partnership, Blockstack is committed to ensure all student-built applications undergo quality control testing, including app reviews, user testing and a guided launch of their apps on Product Hunt.

Important legal disclaimer below. Sorry, we know it’s long! 😅

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has qualified the offering statement that we have filed with the SEC. The information in that offering statement is more complete than the information we are providing now, and could differ in important ways. You must read the documents filed with the SEC before investing. The offering is being made only by means of its offering statement. This document shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

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Forward-looking statements: This communication contains forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to us. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: “will,” “expect,” “would,” “intend,” “believe,” or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements in this document include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans for developing the platform and future utility for the Stacks Token, our Reg A+ offering and launch of our network, and collaborations and partnerships. These statements involve risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results or performance to be materially different. More information on the factors, risks and uncertainties that could cause or contribute to such differences is included in our filings with the SEC, including in the “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion & Analysis” sections of our offering statement on Form 1-A. We cannot assure you that the forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

Snap’s latest hardware is here and it is...chic. 💅

Yesterday, Snap took the hood off the third version of Spectacles with an update — and more fashion-forward — design.

What’s new: The new hardware features two cameras that can create 3D effects in videos and will run you $380 per pair. For context, last year’s Spectacles cost $150. Snap is also marketing the glasses as a “limited release,” perhaps from having to write down $40 million in unsold inventory from the first version of Spectacles or perhaps from wanting to be like Supreme. 😎

While Snap is known — and remains unique — as the social network for disappearing images, videos recorded on Spectacles will live in an “archive” of memories, which may or may not also be the plot of a Black Mirror episode. Sci-fi turned real product or not, there have been mixed reactions to the new Spectacles (with most gripes around the price tag):

“They do look great, targeting the luxury wearables market is similar to Apple. Interesting Snap keeps innovating in this space. Wouldn't be surprised if there's a breakout use case for an expensive HD face camera eventually.” - Maxim

“Honestly, looks beautiful. I am not sure that I could afford buying this thing but I would definitely love to try it out.” - Hanna

Viral video maker Karen X. Cheng, who made some of the shots for the Spectacles launch video, also jumped into the comments.

“Can confirm 100% it's working hardware. Super impressed by the form factor, as it's really quite flattering on a wide range of face shapes, and most of all stoked that they fit really well on Asian faces (which few glasses or sunglasses do).”

Would you buy a pair of these? Vote here.

Tumblr got a new owner yesterday. 👀

Verizon, which bought Tumblr two years ago when it acquired Yahoo, is selling the social network to Automattic, aka the company behind Wordpress. While the size of the deal hasn’t been disclosed, Automattic reportedly paid under $20M for the microblogging site (Yahoo bought Tumblr for $1.1B in 2013). As part of this deal, Automattic will also be taking on Tumblr’s 200 employees. It's worth noting that David Karp, Tumblr's founder, left the company in 2017.

In addition to Wordpress, Automattic already owns a suite of publishing tools like Jetpack and Simplenote, making Tumblr an appropriate addition to its umbrella.

Tumblr is an iconic product of the internet, originally known its young, active user base that shared pictures, videos and text before Instagram, Twitter and Reddit became mainstream. And over the years, we saw some big launches from Tumblr. There was Tumblr GIF Maker for making GIFs, and then there was Tumblr TV for finding trending GIFs. There was also Tumblr’s answer to Periscope, Facebook Live and Twitch: Live Video on Tumblr.

In late 2018, Tumblr took a hit when Verizon decided to ban adult content on the platform. This led to a mass boycott, as Tumblr acted as a safe space for many LGBTQ members to express themselves online.

There’s a challenger to the scooter fad on the rise: electric mopeds.

A new company called Revel ($4.5M raised) recently unleashed a fleet of ~1,000 Vespa-style vehicles in Brooklyn and Queens and is slated to expand to Washington, D.C. later this month.

The moped difference: Revel’s mopeds can go up to 30 miles per hour, which is 15 m.p.h faster than electric scooters. The mopeds are also constrained to city roads, and can’t be driven on sidewalks, in bike lanes, over bridges or in tunnels. And in places like New York — where scooters are banned — mopeds are allowed under state law. 🚫

How it works: For your first ride, you’ll receive a brief tutorial on Revel’s app that covers things like how to start and accelerate. You’re also required to wear a helmet, which Revel provides in the vehicle’s trunk (though some users are leaving their leftovers in there). Every ride costs $1, and 25 cents per travel minute. 🏍

Revel is reminiscent of Scoot, a San Francisco-based moped startup that was early to electric ridesharing. Some thoughts from their Product Hunt launch four years ago:

“I'd dare say this qualifies as alternative transport and at $2 bucks a ride, I can't wait to see this expand to new markets.” - Josh

“I tried to incorporate scoot into my daily commute, but getting one in the morning to get to work and back was a coin-toss.” - Hari

“Getting around SF on a scoot is seriously the most fun you'll have commuting, visiting friends, or just plain taking a joyride. The fact that it's cheap is just an added bonus.” - Carly

Bird acquired Scoot for reportedly less than $25M two months ago.

Quick poll! Would you use Revel if it came to your city? Vote here.

Google Maps is finally rolling out its AR navigation, Google Live View, a feature it promised at its annual developer conference last year.

The augmented reality feature is launching in beta on ARKit-compatable iOS devices and and ARcore-compatable Androids.

How it works: When you’re using Google Maps for directions, you simply navigate to “Walking” when presented with transit options and then tap “Live View.” You’ll see arrows and big street markers laid out on the real world in front of you, so you can orient yourself quickly instead of spinning around in every direction like a person using...an outdated version of Google Maps. 😉

One person in the comments expressed concern that this might cause massive battery and data drain (especially when traveling abroad). As another community member put it, probably best to make sure you have battery when using this, and “don’t walk into a pole.”

One early review: “Works surprisingly well! I've tried it on my trip to Washington. We'd usually stop/sit somewhere and figure out our next destination. This feature helps a lot just figuring out where to start going. After that, you don't really need to have it enabled, the old good way still works the best.” - Filip

Do you plan on using Google Live View? We want to know.

In this upgrade, Google Maps is also rolling out “Your Places,” a swipeable view of reservations for your upcoming trips (aimed at making flight and hotel check-ins easier). “Your Match” is another new feature on Google Maps — it will quickly show you restaurants tailored to your taste.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10 and 10+ arrived yesterday. The two new devices are in the high end of the U.S. smartphone market, but the industry at large is finding it harder and harder to make phones that are better than what most people already have. For context — if you’re an iPhone user — the Note 10 has a similar feel to the iPhone XS (but it’s bigger). It’s also comparable in price — the Note 10 is $949, only slightly cheaper than Apple’s $999 iPhone XS. 📱

What’s different: If you like to jot down notes, the Note 10 comes with a sleek-looking stylus. The phone’s new features also include improved video editing, AR doodling and “Air Actions,” or gestures made using the stylus to control apps. Similar to new iPhone models, there’s no headphone jack (a first for this line).

It’s worth noting that analysts are forecasting a decline in smartphone sales in 2019, with worldwide smartphone sales reportedly declining by 2.5% from last year. 👀

As a result, releases from smartphone manufacturers have been neck and neck, and foldable phones are on the horizon.

Would you get the Galaxy Note 10 over the iPhone? Vote here.

Or you could kick it old school and get one of these.

You’re probably familiar with Gin Lane’s work, even if you’ve never heard of them.

The New York-based agency is behind the branding for Hims, Everlane, Warby Parker, Recess, Harry’s, SmileDirectClub and Quip, to name a few. The firm has been widely credited for using catchy copy, modern fonts, and muted pastels to help consumer-facing startups turn into legitimate “challenger brands” in age-old categories (i.e. glasses, razors, toothbrushes, etc.).

“The branding and landing page for this is very well done. CBD and THC-based products often feel slimy or marketed toward the 'stoner' crowd. This feels like an art project, inspiring curiosity," - Ryan, on Recess

“Zero friction to talk with doctors. Great branding.” - Annelies, on Hims

But yesterday, Gin Lane announced a pivot of sorts: it’s phasing out all of its clients. 👋

Instead, the company is rebranding itself to Pattern, which will become a direct-to-consumer holding company for up to five different lifestyle brands.

The details: Pattern — which, according to the company, represents the habits people form each day — is on a mission to “bring back enjoyment.” In practice, that means Pattern plans to launch a series of products that help people be more present in their daily lives and counter the growing culture that’s addicted to work, productivity and technology.

With its anti-burnout thesis at the helm, Pattern also adapted the moniker “Direct with Consumer” (or DWC) to describe its approach to building these brands.

“Pattern's DWC model is built to create intimacy at scale through deeper, more personal consumer relationships through a multi-brand approach serving customers across various aspects of their life over time,” Pattern co-founder Emmet Shine told us.

While it’s still a little vague what “Direct with Consumer” actually means, it seems like Pattern plans to launch brands that will combine certain elements of product and community from the beginning.

The first product out of Pattern is a cooking brand called Equal Parts, which wants to help people find comfort and intuition in the kitchen through cookware (physical products) and guidance (in-person events and content). According to Shine, future brands will focus on other activities that foster daily enjoyment, such as organizing and maintaining a home or learning new hobbies.

What’s next: With $14M in venture funding in the bank, Pattern plans to role out more brands in 2020. Stay tuned! 👀

“I'm gonna take my startup down to Sand Hill Rd, I'm gonna raise till I can't no mo,” begins LJ Erwin's “Sand Hill Road,” a remixed version of Lil Nas X's chart-topping hit “Old Town Road.” He released the song on Twitter and YouTube this morning.

According to LJ, who works at Google Cloud for Startups and was previously a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the tech-themed ode to Old Town Road started as a fun weekend project while he was brainstorming a Hamilton-style hip-hop parody rap about Silicon Valley. Inspired by a teen bumping Old Town Road on a Bird scooter (true story), LJ put pen to paper.

Lyrics like “iWatch matted black, got the Allbird's black to match” and “I’mma 2x founder, Soylent in my bladder“ came flooding out.

While the project started in jest, LJ decided to produce the song — raps, chorus, singing and all — for a worthy cause.

“Lil Nas X and what he represents inspires me. He recently opened up about his sexuality, which sparked diversity discussions in both hip-hop and country music industries alike. I hope that any buzz generated from "Sand Hill Road (The Remix)" can be used to highlight organizations that are impacting diversity and inclusion in tech, such as Code2040, Girls Who Code, Kapor Center, dev/color, Black & Brown Founders, Lesbians Who Tech, Techqueria and AnitaB.org. The new artist path closely parallels that of an early stage founder, who is also on a mission to transform their vision into reality, despite the odds. Although this project started as a writing challenge, I hope the song becomes a rally anthem for founders.“

Read the full story and listen to Sand Hill Road (The Remix) here. Official lyrics included. 🤠

Plot twist: electric scooters are worse for the environment than you think.

Last week, a new study from North Carolina State University found that while shared e-scooters are more environmentally friendly than owning a personal car, they emit more greenhouse gas emissions per passenger mile than buses with high ridership, personally owned electric bikes or traditional bikes.

The problem: E-scooters seem green, meaning scooters companies market their environmentally friendly qualities to woo users and regulators. Bird has an entire page on their site dedicated to it. So does Lime. Of course, scooters are electric, and therefore carbon-free. The larger environmental impact lies in the emissions produced by the manufacturing, transportation (they’re usually shipped from China), upkeep, and maintenance of these scooters. And according to the study, ~half of e-scooter riders says that would have biked, walked or not taken a trip at all if it wasn’t for scooters.

The reports’ authors recommended that e-scooter companies ensure their scooters last as long as they can, estimating a scooter’s average lifetime around six to 24 months. Unfortunately, scooters reportedly last closer to four and a half months.

If you’re an avid scooter rider, here are some products that might help offset your carbon footprint:

🙌 Wren lets you calculate emissions and fund offset projects

🌏 Cloverly is an API for carbon offsets

👀 Carbon Trim shows you your carbon footprint for daily actions

👏 Offcents helps you travel with zero carbon emissions

And here are 18 more products working to to save the planet.

Problem: The apps on your phone are too addictive. Solution: Generate a fake app to replace said addictive apps.

At least that’s the idea behind Detoxify, a tool that helps you detox off your most addictive apps (think Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.). 👋

“Our app enables you to generate fake apps which looks exactly like your addictive apps. Once you replace your apps with the fake ones, every time you open them, you'll be faced with an screen that congrats you on getting detoxified. After a while, you'll get detoxified by un-learning the habit of opening addictive apps randomly all the time,” Detoxify Maker Farbod Saraf wrote on Product Hunt.

Farbod explains that forming habits — like not checking addictive mobile apps — requires a cue. In this case, the “fake” app acts as a signal to remind you of your goals to not revisit certain apps based on habits.

“By installing the fake app, you'll be surprised how many times you unconsciously you open them, although you are aware that they are fake apps. It feels like our brain is on auto-pilot, once we're hooked/addicted to unconsciously open addictive apps.”

Some realizations from the community:

“Can't believe how many times I open social media in just one day” - Ivan

“I have deleted apps off of my phone for periods of time to remind myself how much i use them and see what it is like to go without them. But this seems like another interesting solution” - Colin

Would you use this to become less addicted to your phone? Let us know.

While you’re detoxing, some other tools to consider:

• Write for writers and bloggers
• Newsfeed Burner for distractions on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube
• Moment for data nerds (like us)
• Feedless for fighting your endless scrolling
• NoPhone for addicted Android owners