Oh Snap! That ephemeral photo sharing company is going to IPO in March! That’s right, Snapchat (or Snap, or those really cool) shared more of their details this week. To be honest, not all the numbers look great. For example, after Facebook copied their Stories product, Snapchat’s growth stalled almost immediately. For a company that’s still losing money, that’s not great. That story and more below.
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Ephemeral Show Notes
Curved TVs are lame. We’ve been saying it for a while. The Verge put out a review from one of their significant others who perfectly explains why it’s so bad. It’s a super entertaining, and quick read.
A review of my new Samsung curved TV: I hate it so much
A college dropout starts a company that makes coffee. The twist? It’s using a programmed robot arm to make it for you. From what we hear, it tastes pretty good.
And the Robots Come For Baristas
Snap filed for an IPO last week. As such, we’ve gotten the best look at their performance to date. Here’s the best summary so far: “Once the undisputed king of cool amongst Western teenagers with the potential to disrupt the world’s biggest social network [Facebook], it’s now in danger of becoming just one of several popular apps for ephemeral storytelling.” Yeah, it turns out that Facebook just need to start copying Snapchat and they’re easily stealing Snap’s growth. We’ll see how investors respond in March.
Snap, Maker Of Snapchat, Files For $3 Billion IPO
Instagram Stories Is Stealing Snapchat Users
Snapchat Growth Slowed 82% After Instagram Stories
Inside the Mind of a Snapchat Streaker
Snapchat Spectacles Will Expand But Remain An Experiment
Snapchat Is More Popular On iOS So It Gets More Development Focus
Snapchat AR Lens Can Make Any Flat Surface An Ad Space
Snap IPO Pros And Cons
Dropbox has a new product called Paper (which anyone can try, contrary to what we said in the podcast). The goal with the product is to not just keep files in sync, but keep people in sync.
Inside Dropbox’s Identity Overhaul
Walmart is still trying to put the pressure on Amazon. This time it’s with free 2 day shipping when your order is at least $35.
Walmart Will Start Free 2 Day Shipping With No Membership Requirement
The new measure for how far automated vehicles are progressing is “disengagements per mile”. In other words, how often does the car take itself off of autopilot. It’s obviously not a perfect measure and depends a lot on the type of driving the car is doing, but it’s helpful. It turns out that Waymo is getting really good! Only 0.2 per 1,000 miles!
Disengagements Per Mile
Waymo’s self-driving tech got a lot better in 2016
Nintendo has announced that playing online will cost $30 a year. Very reasonable.
Online Services For Switch Will Cost $30 A Year
This is a cool video showing someone working in VR, and a second person watching what they’re building using AR. Just watch it. It’s super cool.
Developer Combines HoloLens And Vive For Mixed Reality Shared Space
Image: slideshare.net