The Leaderboard
Our ultra-fast Daily: Three takes on new products. Yesterday’s top ten launches. That’s it.
NEW from Google 🎙️
Google Podcasts has arrived.
Last week the IAB shared some good news for the podcast industry: Revenues are up 86% from last year. BUT, podcasts are still tiny, representing less than 2% of radio ad spend in the U.S.
We’re hopeful Google’s investment into the ecosystem, introducing a pre-installed podcast player for Android folks, will expand the pie and ultimately help podcast creators find an audience.
The new Google Podcast app will be available worldwide in a few hours, with:
🙏 Personalized recommendations for new podcasts
🎙️ Progress and listen history synced through Google Assistant
🕓 Playback speed adjustments
Your next favorite podcast is waiting to be discovered:
🚀 Y Combinator's Official Podcast on starting up a startup
😮 Reply All covers the oddities on the internet
📝 Venture Stories take you inside the world of venture capital
📰 Techmeme's Ride Home Podcast aggregates the best news
📰 Techmeme's Ride Home Podcast aggregates the best news
If you're looking to upgrade your podcasting experience, Breaker, Chorus, and Overcast are fan-favorites. All have built-in social networks to surface your network's favorite podcasts.
Psst! We're working on a secret podcast project. Get early access.
World's first flying car 🚁👀
Last-mile transportation is heaaaaating up. 👀
Scooters and helicopters aren't the only competitors in the space:
🛩️ The Flyride actually lets you fly, powered by water.
👟 Low-tech Flaneurz convert your sneakers into clip-on rollerskates.
📈 The Onewheel is a self-balancing electric skateboard with only one wheel. Modern version of the hoverboards that went #viral last year.
What's your favorite innovative way to get to work? Let us know. 🚲
Decentralized scooter company Bird is raising at $2B valuation less than a year after they started. Dockless bicycle startup JUMP was acquired by Uber for $200M earlier this year. 12 different companies have applied for scooter permits... in San Francisco alone.
Not all last-mile solutions have wheels. 🚁
Flying cars have arrived, and Casey Neistat got a sneak peak. Meet the Kitty Hawk, a personal drone backed by Google co-founder Larry Paige.
"Oh my god, this thing is so f*cking fun." We can see why. Check out Casey's video review. The soundtrack is dope.
🛩️ The Flyride actually lets you fly, powered by water.
👟 Low-tech Flaneurz convert your sneakers into clip-on rollerskates.
🕳️ Elon Musk's Boring Company wants to build tunnels that criss-cross your city and cut your entire commute down to minutes. They just got a $1B contract from the city of Chicago.
📈 The Onewheel is a self-balancing electric skateboard with only one wheel. Modern version of the hoverboards that went #viral last year.
What's your favorite innovative way to get to work? Let us know. 🚲
Dark Mode for evvvverrryyything 🙏🌚
Night mode is the best when burning the midnight oil in front of the LCD. Unfortunately, most sites don’t offer this option to night owls.
Frustratingly, not every website has a Night Mode available.
Dark Reader is an extension that turns every website into Night Mode. It's magical, and available for Chrome and Firefox. There are also specific extensions for GitHub, Medium, Google, and Messenger.
This isn't the only extension built to make your web browsing better:
🐦 Refined Twitter is the Twitter we've always wanted. Embedded Instagram pictures, a chronological feed, and auto-loaded new tweets.
🐱 Refined GitHub linkifies issue/PR references in code, comments in titles, marks issues and PRs as unread, preserves Markdown, and much much more. Open-source Sindre Sorhus is behind both Refined GitHub and Twitter.
📑 Toby cleans up your browser tabs. No more tab hoarding!
😬 Grammarly for Chrome prevents typos in yur importnt emaails.
NEW from Snap 👻
Biiiiig Snap news: meet the new Snap Kit, a privacy-safe platform for developers to build apps on top of Snapchat.
Unlike Facebook, Snap Kit doesn’t share your friends with app developers (perhaps to avoid some of the issues and controversy surrounding Cambridge Analytica). They've already partnered with Tinder, Patreon, Postmates, and GIPHY.
Snap Kit comes in four distinct parts:
📝 Creative Kit lets you integrate your own stickers, Filters, links, and more directly in Snapchat.
🔒 Login Kit will log you into other apps using Snapchat... and bring your Bitmoji with you. This is a big shot at Facebook log-in widget, which sucks up data from other apps at the same time as logging you in.
👋 Bitmoji Kit brings your Bitmoji anywhere. Yesssss.
📸 Story Kit embeds Snapchat Stories directly in other apps. We're excited for the inevitable wave of "Stories for X" extensions that will launch in the coming weeks.
Facebook and Twitter’s early success was largely driven by its developer community. We’ll have to see if Snap can do the same, and avoid some of the mistakes made by other developer platforms. 🦄
Pogs are back in Augmented Reality 👀
"Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, 'nostalgia' literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone." – Don Draper
Nostalgia is a product designer's secret weapon into your heart. Even the names of your favorite products – Pokémon, Pac Man, Powerpuff Girls – can bring back memories of Saturday morning cartoons in front of your TV.
New nostalgia-inspiring products are launching every day:
Pogs in Augmented Reality. We all spent recess and afternoons competing to steal our best friend's Pogs. Even Milhouse. 🙄
Just launched today, Pogs are coming back in AR. The Indiegogo campaign is even giving away gold slammers to the first backers.
AtariVCS. Designed by Atari in California, Atari's newest (sleek!) console lets you play your favorite classic arcade games in 4K resolution. Nintendo also released the NES Classic Edition in late 2016.
If you can't wait until 2019 for your AtariVCS to ship, The Internet Arcade lets you play 900+ classic arcade games like Joust, Street Fighter, and Defender directly in your browser.
Robots are taking over Instagram 🤖
Lil Miquela is taking over. The completely CGI Instagram influencer has over 1.2M followers and featured by Vogue, GQ, and HYPEBEAST.
📸 FaceApp uses neural networks to make you look younger, older, a different gender, or even smile, all with one tap.
Her creators are pulling in real money: she's modeled for Lululemon competitor Outdoor Voices and Highsnobiety. The company behind her looks just raised $6M from Sequoia Capital to design the next generation of CGI influencers.
She looks eerily real. 😳
Lucky for us humans, a new wave of Augmented Reality and AI tools are here to help us compete with Lil Miquela:
💅 Wanna Nails (launching today!) lets you try on nail polishes in AR. Buy the perfect shade directly in-app or just snap a picture for Insta. Nifty.
📸 FaceApp uses neural networks to make you look younger, older, a different gender, or even smile, all with one tap.
🤳 Meitu makes your selfies gorgeous. Downloaded by over 1 billion, powered by facial recognition and AR tech.
Or... you can always just use Apple's new Memoji to turn yourself into completely virtual avatar. iPhone X required. 🤓
Zuckerberg VS Bezos 🦄
Zuckerberg is taking on Bezos. A battle of the unicorns. 🦄
Meet Facebook Gaming, a streaming platform for gamers to broadcast their best Fortnite dubs and League of Legends strategies.
Launched last Friday, it's a direct competitor of streaming giant Twitch, which Amazon acquired in 2014 for just under $1B. Twitch fans are fanatics: over 15 million log in every day to watch.
Not everybody is convinced Facebook is going to win:
"Gamers watch Twitch not only because the streamers they care about are there, but because they enjoy Twitch, period. Twitch as a platform managed to create a sense of community and belonging that I don't think other platforms can match, not even Facebook." – Thibaut Davoult
Will Facebook beat Twitch? Is Facebook actually competing for the loyal Twitch audience? Tell us what you think in the comments.
RIP FaceTime? 😳
Panda lets you talk with superpowers.
The voice controlled camera app triggers AR effects in real-time using your words, best used with friends. It's like having a special effects team to help you tell stories in real time.
The app has been in development for the past year by 18 year-old founder Daniel Singer and a team of five. For OG Product Hunt community members, you may recognize Daniel's name from this popular side project. The app might seem like a toy but the team has clearly put a lot of thought into their vision (pun intended):
"The ultimate goal for Panda is to make the movie inside of your head real. I think we've invested a lot as a society of building tools to document what happens to us and the world around us but have mostly ignored the beautiful worlds that exist in our mind."
"The ultimate goal for Panda is to make the movie inside of your head real. I think we've invested a lot as a society of building tools to document what happens to us and the world around us but have mostly ignored the beautiful worlds that exist in our mind."
Augmented and virtual reality will shape the next generation of digital communication. With Apple’s recent Memojis announcement and a host of 3D avatar apps in development, we expect to see (again, pun intended) more of our communication visually augmented in the future.
Easter egg: You can record silly clips inside of Panda. Try saying “Fortnite”, “Dinosaur”, or “HQ Trivia” and see what happens. It will feel like you're inside of Facebook or Snapchat's R&D department.
A new $35M fund unlike all the rest 💰
You’ve probably heard of Arlan. If not, you should. Her story is inspiring and it keeps getting better. She just announced a new $36M fund, dedicated to funding black female founders.
This isn't her first fund: she raised $5M in 2015 to address the growing disparity of venture funding for black women. Less than 0.2% of early stage venture funding goes to black women, who make up 8% of the US. The numbers speak for themselves.
"I heard one day said, 'I came for the cake, not the crumbs.' That has motivated me in a big way. I didn’t come here to get your scraps. I came here to go toe-to-toe with you and to take it all." – Arlan
Backstage is backed by Lowercase Capital founder Chris Sacca, Box CEO Aaron Levie, and a16z's Marc Andreessen. We're here for it. 👏
She’s funded 100 (!!!) early stage startups, including:
😮 On Second Thought allows you to unsend text messages. Show this to your friend who always starts texting exes at the bar.
✈️ Airfordable offers flights for a fraction of the cost upfront. No more waiting to head on your dream trip.
🤖 Jewelbots builds friendship bracelets that teach girls to code. "The coolest wearable" according to Wired Magazine.
👩❤️💋👩 O.school is a shame-free place to learn about sex and pleasure. Live streamed lessons every day.
☕ Workfrom surfaces the best coffee shops and cafés for working. Pleaaaase do not tell your friends about our secret favorite working spots.
Check out the rest of the collection here.
If you want to dig into Arlan's story, the Backstage team just launched their official podcast: The Bootstrapped VC. Give it a listen. 👂
Tim Cook wants to steal your wallet 😳
Apple has spent all week trying to make you buy more $1000 iDevices.
Between Memojis, an improved Do Not Disturb mode, and apps that load 2x as fast... they're not making it easy. 😒
Your bank is conspiring with Apple. When you run out of money, they can slap you with penalties, fees, and interest charges. Ugh.
Fortunately, a wave of startups is here to help you protect your wallet. We've compiled the 50 Best Apps that Make Finance Fun Again:
🐷 Truebill lets you cancel any paid subscription in one-click. Yes, even that gym membership that you have been totally meaning to use.
👁️ Earny fights to get you money back when prices drop. Jeff Bezos has publicly confirmed that this app is his worst enemy.
😘 Honeydue lets couples manage their money together. Friends don't let friends spend $20 on avocado toast.
💳 Tally will manage your overdue credit card bills in the most efficient way. Just scan and go. Raised $17M from Shasta and Cowboy VC.
Give the entire list a peek. It's just waiting to save your bank account from Tim Cook's temptations. 😼
