A new company called Daylight Computer launched its first tablet, DC-1. Six years in the making, DC-1 can be compared to a “Kindle on steroids,” or an iPad meets Kindle.
Not another ePaper tool. Most of today's other low-strain tablets, like Kindle, use E Ink technology, but Daylight calls its new tech “Live Paper.” In some ways, it's similar to E Ink — its monochromatic display is low-strain and gives users a tactile feel while writing, but those features usually result in tradeoffs in performance. DC-1’s Live Paper, on the other hand, allows for a lot more speed, making it possible to functionally use apps like Notion, Spotify, or ChatGPT.
Despite its speed and function, DC-1 is designed to be less distracting than other tablets and better for your health. Outdoors, the tablet can use the sun as its backlight, and indoors it uses a pure amber glow instead of blue light to better protect your circadian rhythm.
Not another hardware fail.You might feel burned by the recent failures of rabbit r1 or Humane Pin, but even weary tech founders are putting a different lens on Daylight.
“I take back what I said before. Clearly not just an LCD,” tweeted Ghost founder John O’Nolan after watching S3’s video interviews with Daylight founder Anjan Katta. In the video, Katta explains the motivations behind his work, pointing back to Steve Jobs and the early days at Apple. “Daylight is just trying to come back to the early hippie days of computing for helping you think…” Katta says.
On that note, despite my earlier comparisons to Kindle, Katta’s vision is bigger than a tablet. The founder says that DC-1 is just the entrance and that Daylight plans to apply the screen tech and OS they built for DC-1 to distraction-free phones, laptops, and more. “The ambition is ‘What does Apple for public benefit look like?’”
Not another VC darling. While we don’t know much about Katta, we know he’s got big ambitions and has been working hard to make Daylight a reality. “We’ve been funded almost entirely by aligned angel investors, institutional VC capital rejected us outright, Bootstrapped from life savings first 3 years before that,” the company posted on X.
The DC-1 can be pre-ordered for $729 for delivery in November.
The ex-Head of Growth at Notion launched a tool for growth people: Roadway. It lets marketers self-serve data and pull insights with an AI assistant. Read the story.
Cartesia Sonic is an AI voice model – a state space model (SSM) that the founders invented while working as PhDs at the Stanford AI Lab. Sonic generates high-quality, lifelike speech fast (135ms model latency). Read the story.
Kino is a video app from the makers of Halide, the popular and Apple Design Award-winning photography app. Kino gives pros and amateurs more control, using the iPhone 15 Pro’s ability to shoot ProRes in Log format. Read the story.
🥇Oh, A Potato is a meal planner set apart by its AI-powered features. You can scan recipes from a book or save videos from Instagram — the app translates the instructions for you. The fun branding is prob thanks to the makers’ backgrounds in Product at Savage X Fenty, Adidas, Babbel, and Amazon.
Hex launched end-to-end no-code workflows. The data and analytics platform from ex-Palantir makers is already growing in popularity (we use it at PH) across people with varying technical backgrounds. This elevates its flexibility and collaborative potential.
Reforge launched a Chrome extension. It's an AI tool that integrates with tools like Notion and Google Docs to evaluate your work and give you advice based on experts like Andrew Chen or the ex-CPO of Tinder.
Stolkholm-based Mentimeter launched an AI builder to add polls and surveys to your interactive presentations.
Below the fold but still in our hearts.
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For Makers
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🍎 Apple’s Design Award nominees for 2024 are out.
🚀 SpaceX set a date for its next Starship rocket launch.
🤖 OpenAI formed a new Safety and Security Committee.
🎵 Sorry, US-based Spotify users, but the price is increasing again.
🚙 Spotify is offering Car Thing refunds after it faced threats of lawsuits.
🍕Google told us to put glue on pizza, and then had to explain themselves.
🕹️ Nvidia is releasing gaming laptops, which include Microsoft’s AI Copilot.
📧 Microsoft has launched a beta version of its Copilot assistant in Telegram.
👀 A former OpenAI board member explained why Sam Altman was fired last year.
🔌 Microsoft, Google, Meta, and more have formed a new group to build AI chips.