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Kuration #162 Bluesky usage surges after Elon announced Twitter pricing

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Raiyan Yahya

Sep 23, 2023

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Bluesky saw record usage after Elon Musk announced plans to charge all X users Social networking platform Bluesky experienced a significant surge in usage following Elon Musk's announcement that he would start charging all users of X (formerly known as Twitter) a monthly fee. This decision by Musk was aimed at combating the overwhelming presence of bots on the platform. As a result, many users flocked to Bluesky, with the platform witnessing a record number of daily active users and new sign-ups. Analytics firm Similarweb reported that Bluesky's Android app had half a million daily active users on the day of Musk's announcement, and its web traffic also saw a substantial increase. Interestingly, while Bluesky benefits when X faces challenges, other potential Twitter competitors like Instagram Threads or Mastodon don't see the same effect.

Microsoft's mobile keyboard app SwiftKey gains new AI-powered features | TechCrunch Microsoft has unveiled a series of AI-driven enhancements to its SwiftKey mobile keyboard app for iOS and Android. This third-party keyboard app, known for adapting to users' writing styles for faster typing, will now feature AI camera lenses, AI stickers, an AI-powered editor, and the capability to produce AI images. The AI camera lenses, developed in partnership with Snapchat's parent company Snap, allow users to craft photos, videos, and GIFs with various effects. The app now offers over 250 tools and filters. Additionally, AI stickers can be crafted using Bing’s Image Creator based on personal photos or selfies. The app also introduces an AI-powered "Editor" feature to assist users in enhancing their grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Earlier this year, Microsoft integrated SwiftKey with Bing, enabling users to search with Bing, chat with Bing Chat, or use AI to modify their text's tone.

Samsung’s new ploy to get kids off iPhones is a MrBeast sponsorship Samsung is employing a unique strategy to attract the younger demographic away from iPhones: a collaboration with popular YouTuber and entrepreneur, Jimmie Donaldson, better known as MrBeast. This partnership involves MrBeast creating content using Samsung phones, starting with a video where he drives luxury cars. Samsung's aim is to demonstrate the capabilities of the Galaxy smartphones for both budding and professional content creators. The video features the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the S23 Ultra, with the latter being prominently displayed in various segments of the video. Despite the prevalent theory that teens prefer iPhones due to the "blue bubble" messaging feature, Samsung hopes that its collaboration with MrBeast and the allure of its $1,000 folding phone will challenge this notion.

Microsoft refreshes Surface Laptop Go and Laptop Studio During a New York City Windows event, Microsoft unveiled the refreshed Surface Laptop Go 3 and Surface Laptop Studio 2. The Surface Laptop Go 3, successor to the Laptop Go 2, boasts new internals powered by the 12th-gen Intel Core i5 CPU and Intel Iris Xe graphics, offering an 88% speed increase compared to the original Surface Laptop Go. Weighing just under 2.5 pounds, this 12.4-inch machine emphasizes portability and promises 15 hours of battery life. On the other hand, the Laptop Studio features a 14.4-inch display, 13th-gen Intel Core H-class processors, and optional Nvidia GeForce graphics. Both devices are available for preorder, with the Laptop Go 3 starting at $799 and the Laptop Studio 2 at $1,999. Shipments begin on October 3.

Top Products 📱💻

HeroMode: Work & Life Organizer HeroMode is a productivity application that brings joy to task management. It incorporates behavioral science to motivate users and make task completion less reliant on effort, willpower, and self-control. The app reframes projects, goals, and habits as "Adventures," with tasks and to-dos termed as "Quests." Users receive immediate rewards in the form of points upon completing each quest. The platform also offers features like visual progress tracking, setting purposeful goals, and a buddy system for collaboration or friendly competition. Additionally, HeroMode provides deep organizational functionalities, such as customizable adventures, organized to-do lists, note-taking for quests, and more. It's available on both mobile and web platforms, with an Android app coming soon.

Mother-Nature.org | Contemplations for Reconnecting with the Earth Mother-Nature.org is a platform dedicated to offering contemplations from spiritual teachers, scientists, poets, and elders to help individuals connect deeply with the Earth. The website emphasizes the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, who believes that "Mother Earth is not just your environment" and that real communication with the Earth is the highest form of prayer. The site features various contemplations, such as "Beloved Mother of All Things," "Your Wonder, Beauty and Creativity," and "Walking Tenderly on Mother Earth." Each contemplation is a heartfelt letter to Mother Earth, expressing gratitude, admiration, and a deep sense of interconnectedness. The platform encourages visitors to avoid spiritual bypassing and to cultivate a genuine, healthy, and sustainable relationship with the natural world.

ChatGPT Copilot for your software | Superflows Superflows offers a chat interface that allows users to control products through an AI Copilot. This platform can be deployed within a day, enabling users to get answers and perform actions via chat. Superflows emphasizes AI user assistance, ensuring that users always have access to a product expert to maximize the software's benefits. The platform is designed for product teams, providing a control dashboard for easy setup and configuration. Superflows also offers a CRM Product Copilot, which aids users in navigating the complexities of CRMs by simply typing in a chat box to retrieve information and complete tasks. The platform is open-source, and developers can follow its progress on GitHub.

Antimetal | Save up to 75% on AWS Antimetal is an automated cloud savings platform designed to help businesses reduce their AWS expenses by up to 75%. The platform offers a commitment-free solution, allowing users to benefit from long-term AWS pricing without being locked in. Antimetal's AI engine continuously monitors and optimizes cloud usage patterns to identify new savings opportunities. The platform also provides features like "Autopilot," which uses AI to buy and sell instances on behalf of users, optimizing AWS spend. Additionally, Antimetal offers underutilization insurance, ensuring that businesses are protected against any underutilized resources. The platform is trusted by over 1,000 companies worldwide and offers a pricing model based on the savings generated for the user.

Convert Notion databases into powerful apps • NotionApps NotionApps allows users to transform their Notion databases into functional apps without the need for coding. The platform offers a drag-and-drop builder, enabling the creation of mobile apps that can be instantly shared via a web link. These apps can be either public or private, and they're optimized for all devices. NotionApps emphasizes real-time syncing with Notion databases, user-specific data sharing, and the ability to add forms for data updates. The platform also supports custom domains, ensuring a personalized experience. Privacy is a priority, with NotionApps only accessing databases that users choose to share.

Jottery - Learn from the best. Up your game. Jottery is a platform where industry leaders share their tools, techniques, and professional journeys. The content on Jottery is curated to provide inspiration and insights to users. It offers a range of categories, including writing, software development, culture, and pets. The platform also allows individuals to monetize their knowledge by becoming creators. They can earn from every member who purchases their content, grow their audience within the Jottery network, and let Jottery handle administrative tasks. There are no monthly charges, with Jottery taking a 10% cut from every sale.

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Trending 📚 Recommendations

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity

Wouldn’t you like to live longer? And better? In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health.

For all its successes, mainstream medicine has failed to make much progress against the diseases of aging that kill most people: heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and type 2 diabetes. Too often, it intervenes with treatments too late to help, prolonging lifespan at the expense of healthspan, or quality of life. Dr. Attia believes we must replace this outdated framework with a personalized, proactive strategy for longevity, one where we take action now, rather than waiting.

This is not “biohacking,” it’s science: a well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, in order to create the best plan for you as an individual. In Outlive, readers will discover:

• Why the cholesterol test at your annual physical doesn’t tell you enough about your actual risk of dying from a heart attack.
• That you may already suffer from an extremely common yet underdiagnosed liver condition that could be a precursor to the chronic diseases of aging.
• Why exercise is the most potent pro-longevity “drug”—and how to begin training for the “Centenarian Decathlon.”
• Why you should forget about diets, and focus instead on nutritional biochemistry, using technology and data to personalize your eating pattern.
• Why striving for physical health and longevity, but ignoring emotional health, could be the ultimate curse of all.

Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.

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