The Roundup

Calling all couples: Facebook has a new app for you. 👋

Facebook (quietly) released a new app called Tuned — it’s a multimedia messaging app designed to help couples talk to each other. The move comes seven months after Facebook Dating (remember that?) launched, but instead of a matching app, Tuned is more of social network for *experimental* exchanges. 👀

From the app, people can share their mood, exchange music (via Spotify), share voice memos and create a digital scrapbook, among other things. Facebook is calling its messaging features a “private space” for couples to connect.

The app reportedly doesn’t require a Facebook account, but users’ data can still be used for ad targeting by the company. Tuned also comes out of Facebook’s ‘New Product Experimentation’ team, a group building consumer-facing apps to test out new ideas. Previously, this team built Aux, Bump, Hobbi and Whale, which we’ve written about before.

The app comes at an interesting moment, and is probably best served for couples who don’t live together right now.

Would you use this? Tell us here. 💕

“Over the course of the last quarter we've seen an incredible shift in the world due to COVID-19, people are looking for new avenues to stay active while at-home.” - Dilan Shah co-founder and Chief Product Officer at YUR

YUR is a VR fitness tracking tool that just rolled out a “virtual watch.” How it works: YUR lets you track fitness metrics (heart rate, daily calories, squat count, etc.) with any wearable heart rate monitor while you play VR games that keep you in shape. Note: It only works with Oculus Quest right now. 

The virtual watch interface is definitely novel and might be a fun way to enhance your at-home workouts. To date, YUR reports that over 5.1 million workouts have been logged on their system by over 60,000 users.

Some early reviews from the PH community:

“The YUR app is amazing to stay motivated. Amazing to see it in this format! Guess I won’t need an Apple Watch soon.” - Naomi

“Now I can keep track of my fitness metrics without wearing any physical watch. The future is here.” - Robin

“This product will change the way VR is used!” - Sahin

Some other cool VR products we’ve seen launch in the last 30 days (if you’re looking for some futuristic activities):

👀 VR-OS is an operating system that replaces monitors with a head-mounted VR display.

👏 CoBlix VR lets you create your own virtual world, and then view it in VR.

🎮 oQQur is a community for VR streamers, bringing technologies and artists who want to want to create immersive experiences together.

🛋 Couch Live is a virtual living room for watching TV with friends.

🙌 SPACES lets you have a Zoom chat in VR.

In the sudden age of all Zoom everything, Around wants to make video meetings “less.”

From a UI perspective, Around looks different than traditional video conferencing software, prioritizing AI-based camera framing that finds your face as you move, cropping out the background behind you. There’s also optional filters to set a “vibe” for the call, meaning nobody has to feel “vampire-awkward” when tuning in at night due to different time zones. Around also has an auto-mute feature that uses AI to eliminate common background noises like sirens, dog barks, washing machines, smoothie blenders and laptop fans to prioritize the human voice (sort of like Krisp). On top of that, Around’s signal processing technology lets multiple laptop microphones and speakers stay enabled in the same room without echo or feedback.

“Around respects your time and privacy, and that's why we've built all the technology behind it — to make it even less distracting than any other video calling products on the market. Around is primarily a hard tech company — great audio and video is a real science, and off-the-shelf services and libraries are far from great. So we went heads down for two years and wrote all the audio and video greatness ourselves,” Around CEO Dominik Zane wrote on Product Hunt.

Similar to video conferencing apps like Zoom, users can simply share a link (or fire it up from Slack) to start an Around call. 👋

Here’s what early adopters think:

“This is an amazing antidote to being stuck inside a rectangle and unable to collaborate. Zoom is good but Around is essential for actually doing work like you are sitting next to someone.” - Garry

“Cool UI and AI features. How do I convince people to use this over from Zoom?” - Al

“One of the worst things about video conferencing is the failure to create a persistent or ambient connection. Sometimes you just need to have someone feel like they're with you for a while without really saying anything or disturbing you. This looks like it might really help with that.” - Dean

Would you use this? Let us know. 🗣

Well, this was well-timed. Slack released its biggest redesign last week, making improvements that specifically target those new to Slack given the recent change to mass remote work.

For Slack veterans, you’ll find new navigation, a new compose button, custom sidebar sections, a new shortcut button for apps and new themes are coming soon. Overall, the stripped-down redesign aims to be more customized and simplified, addressing the less intuitive ways the messaging app works for Slack neophytes. 💬

“These changes address a basic challenge that has grown naturally with Slack: with size comes complexity. As different product teams added new capabilities piecemeal, Slack started to feel not intuitive for people trying it out for the first time,” the Slack team wrote in a blog post.

We’ll see if the new Slack design appeals to a wider range of business users, given that more and more industries have made the recent shift to a distributed workforce.

Speaking of new releases, Apple just unveiled its new iPad Pro. The iPad resembles a laptop more than a tablet; it comes with a new “magic keyboard” Check it out here. 💻

The Makers behind DoNotPay, a “robot lawyer” that helps you dispute parking tickets and the like, launched a new product last week. It’s a  subscription sharing Chrome extension, where people can share their online subscriptions to services like Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + and Hulu without giving away their password. 💬

How it works: Once you install the Chrome extension, you can generate a share link from whatever subscription service you’re logged in to. You can then copy the link to share or enter the email address of the person you want to share your account with, and that’s it. There isn’t a limit on how many people you can share the link with, but you may get booted off your account if you and too many of your friends are streaming simultaneously. It’s important to note that both the sender and the recipient need to have the Chrome extension installed to benefit from this arrangement, and that the actual account owner can revoke sharing whenever they want. And while the Chrome extension is free, DoNotPay plans to use it to publicize it’s robot lawyer services.

How it actually works: DoNotPay shares logged-in sessions by encrypting cookies for the website that is shared.

The idea is to help people save money by sharing and, ahem, trading subscriptions with each other. For example, if you have an Amazon Prime account but no Netflix account, you can swap access with your friend who has Netflix but not Amazon. 👀

Speaking of streaming, MSCHF (the “Banksy of the Internet” that talked to us a while back) just launched Allthestreams.fm, where they’re “pirating” content from Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBONow, Prime Video and Showtime (because they have subscriptions). They’re essentially broadcasting a continuous stream of one random show from each “channel,” which plays live on their website. At the time of writing, The Office was streaming. Kind of brilliant. 📺

Happy (belated) International Women’s Day! 🎉

ICYMI: IWD was yesterday, and to celebrate we’re highlighting women makers and their infinite wisdom. Every day, we see women launch their creations on Product Hunt, where they’ve shared things like how to finance an at-home reproductive testing startup, how to make your startup safe for transgender people, how to make crypto useful for young people, how to build an unconventional product for women and how parenthood can change how you think about your job.

We’ve gathered some of our favorite nuggets of advice from empowering makers and startup leaders below. Enjoy! 💪

Cynthia Huang, CEO at Altcoin Fantasy, shares how becoming a crypto founder helped her get over her imposter syndrome.

“As a new founder, you now not only have to do that thing that you have no experience in, but you have to excel at it in order to make your company a success. The downside? It can feel like you’re constantly failing. The upside? Getting over your fear of failure really fast because it slaps you in the face over and over until you either adapt or stop being a founder.” 

Sophia Amoruso, CEO at Girlboss, discusses her experience learning the new meaning of “product,” and how she set out to build a product that’s accessible to everyone.

“For women who were able to buy my book — that was a luxury. I’ve had women tell me that they couldn’t afford my book, so they checked it out from the library, then were able to get a job, and then bought the book because they could then afford it. That’s the girl I want to make sure has the opportunity to be part of this platform because she’s the person who needs it most.” 

Check Warner, Partner at Ada Ventures, talks about how privilege has led to venture capital’s lack of accessibility, and what steps we can take to address societal inequalities.

“Unless we talk about this reality and take steps to address it, I don’t believe anything will change. Some of the key drivers behind venture capital’s lack of accessibility involves the money needed to have a seat at the table or start a VC fund in the first place. These roles are preserved for the very few.“ 

Steph Smith, Maker of FeMake, Eunoia, Make Yourself Great Again and nomad (hubb), shares her experience learning how to code, and how that taught her that she was often her biggest blocker.

“For years, I told myself that others who had found success in tech were cut from a different cloth, and given different opportunities than I was given. While some of these notions may hold truth in specific scenarios, I had built a habit of making these assumptions without properly vetting their accuracy. Most of the stories I told myself were myths.“

Jenny Gyllander, founder of Thing Testing, talks about how she grew her side project to a full-time gig.

“At the beginning, I struggled to identify if I was building this more for VCs or for consumers. But what I think is a common trait among VCs and consumers who follow me is curiosity. People tell me that they’ve bought things I’ve reviewed and founders tell me that VCs contact them after being reviewed. It’s great to be a part of that.”

Allison Esposito Medina, founder of Hire Tech Ladies, shares how she bootstrapped a business rooted in community.

“Although we've been profitable from day one, being bootstrapped means having to problem solve creatively, plan carefully, and make all the right bets at the right time (pressure!). On the flip side, being bootstrapped means we've had to be laser-focused and prioritize on an almost daily basis. Those are good things for any community and any business, so it's both a blessing and a challenge.” 

Last weekend, Binned Art launched with a novel approach to selling art. The curated marketplace lets artists sell their work anonymously (mostly to recoup the cost of art supplies) and helps patrons buy affordable, original art.

“As a fellow painter, I kept on cluttering my studio with unsold works. While I worked on refining my style and finding my artistic voice, I wished I could sell some paintings under a pseudonym to make room for more.” — Maker Adrian del Mar wrote on Product Hunt.

How it works: Instead of using galleries to sell art, any artist can submit their art (mostly paintings and drawings) to the marketplace. The prices of the painting are based exclusively on the size of the painting, and artists can calculate the accurate price to sell their work using a built-in calculator.

Ultimately, the idea is to help early-career artists refine their style while making money, and simultaneously help more people be able to afford original art.

More alternatives for purchasing *unique* art:

📹 Infinite Objects lets you “print video”

🖼 Art Bloom sources canvas prints from independent artists

👀 RARE Art helps you find limited edition digital art

💸 Artmood lets you buy or rent original art

🙌 Otis lets you invest in original art for as little as $25