Highlights

• AI: Meta’s upcoming AI-search: Intensified Competition

• Design: Apple’s design upgrades in TestFlight: An enhanced experience

• Science & Tech: Planned destruction of International Space Station: High stakes of massive amounts of debris

• Founding: 3 ways to get more YESes and cut down all NOs

• Product: On building a hierarchy of products 

• Creativity: Drawing inspiration from athletic training to fuel creative efficiency

• Today’s AI image: 2031: If ISS destruction is not planned

• Quote for the day: A Wayne Dyer quote

AI

Meta’s upcoming AI-search: Intensified Competition

With Google’s AI overview and OpenAI’s soon-to-come SearchGPT, it was obvious that Meta would join the party, too.

• Meta reports of working on developing an AI Search Engine of its own which would produce conversational responses to search just like Google’s AI overview.

Meta’s goal

With this new development, Meta is planning to reduce Meta AI’s dependence on Google’s search and Microsoft’s Bing for generating informational responses.

Besides, some sources suggest that the upcoming search engine could save them an emergency reform if both the companies retreat from the deal.

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Also in AI

• Google’s new "Help me write" feature for Gmail on the web: Draft and refine emails

• Business Leaders reported of integrating more GenAI into Marketing and HR  

• New AI features integrated into Siri: Writing tools, photo management, and smarter notifications

• ChatGPT now has a 250M user base: Increased adoption of AI in day-to-day tasks

• Meta Chooses Not to Accept the New Open Source Definition: Loads of potential conflicts

• Turn study material into engaging discussions: NotebookLM’s brand new Audio Overview feature

Design

Apple’s design upgrades in TestFlight: An enhanced experience for Developers 

Alongside its intelligence-powered iOS 18 updates, Apple has also made significant additions to its app-testing platform, TestFlight that is used by developers to run tests of their softwares.

What’s new?

• More control over a) beta user base b) how testers get to interact with an app's new features

• A game-changing redesign of invites that are sent to testers

• Comprehensive metrics about beta’s progress: how many viewed the invite, how many approved to join and why others didn’t.

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Also in Design

• Figma rebrands: custom font, vibrant colors and suggestive design

• Design Flaw in the Magic Mouse: Charging port (still) on the bottom

• What WordPress Teaches Us About Open-Source Design: Talks about the pros and cons of using open-source tools in design

• Design and Art: Fusion of skillful work and feelings

• Khoshnus: A tool for making personalized handwritten text animations in SVG format.

• Understanding Rejection Emails: Insights from a UX Designer

Science & Tech

Planned destruction of International Space Station: High stakes of massive amounts of debris

It’s 2031 and countless gigantic metallic meteors are raining down from heavens all over North America. Turns out they blew up the whole International Space Station in Space.

What has been planned?

“ If you’re hanging out near the Pacific Ocean’s Point Nemo, the spot on the planet farthest from land, at the right time in 2031, you’ll get a good show, and the ocean will get a new permanent resident: the International Space Station (ISS).” —Scientific American

• Plans have been made to controllably destroy the ISS, the largest man-made infrastructure existing in space in 2031.

• In simple words, it will be done by deliberately burning up the station in the space. However, since its massive size, it won’t be destroyed completely.

• This space operation will result in mass debris. The station would blast into pieces “the size of a microwave to the size of a car” that would all eventually come down on Earth’s surface.

• To prevent mass destruction on Earth, NASA has recruited SpaceX to push the debris towards the empty Pacific ocean.

Read More

Also in Science & Tech

• Tickets for Space Tourism in China Sold Out: Deep Blue Aerospace sold two space tourism tickets for $140,000 each in China's first public sale

• 70% of meteorites originate from three major asteroid belt collisions in the last 40 million years

• UK man sentenced for making fake child abuse images using AI in a significant court decision

• Cat Ba langurs have evolved to drink salt water, enhancing their survival

• Climate change is making wildfires spread faster, which puts nature and people in more danger 

• People's moral values change with the seasons: Like more conservative in spring and fall because of anxiety

Founding

3 ways to get more YESes and cut down all NOs

[First Name], should we always be so stoic about rejections? Probably no. 

Yes, rejection is inevitable, and we have to get used to it. However, it does not mean ALL rejections are unavoidable. There are ways you can minimise, if not eliminate completely, the amount of rejections you face in business and life. 

1. Work on creating an un-turndown-able offer

“Why would I accept an offer from a stranger?”

Your prospect is going to keep questioning this to himself until he gets reasons strong enough to finally accept your offer. 

Your job? Give them, precisely prove them those reasons right away. 

2. A sharp cone funnel < A cylinder-like funnel

Sharp cone funnels: generic pitching to a mass of prospects to get rejected from 4 out of every 5 of them. And then ingesting plenty of effort into convincing the bare minimum, who hardly passed down to BoFu. 

Cylinder-like funnel: highly personalised pitching to a select few high-conversion-probability prospects and receiving relatively fewer rejections. Then putting in relatively less effort to close deals with already warm leads. 

3. Reframe & Refine your pitch before presenting

Simply put, reduce Is, MEs, and MYs and increase YOUs and YOURs. 

Make it more about them and less about you because it is in the nature of humans to assert the decision tilted towards their own benefit. 

Read more

Also in Founding

• Strategies to manage stakeholders: High-stake decisions and stakeholder dynamics

• The Cost of Over-Apologizing: Understanding the Impact and Finding Balance

• Favourable Networking: Attract support, opportunities, trust and engagement

• How Design Thinking, Lean UX, and Agile collaborate to enhance product development

Product

On creating a product hierarchy

When an organisation gets bigger and more complex with multiple product categories, a product hierarchy is a must for better coordination of product teams within themselves as well as with marketing teams. 

A Basic Product Hierarchy

Foundation: Product Need

Each and every operation carried out in an organisation, trivial or significant, is based on solving a customer problem or a market problem. Define first what need of your customers are you fulfilling through your business. 

Second: Product Family

There is always a multitude of alternative solutions to a single problem that are available in the market. Figure out which one you provide through your product.

Third: Product Class

Class is just like product family, but within the organisation. There can be multiple products providing the same solution but in different forms. 

Fourth: Product Line

Then there’s product lines within each class. Same solution, same form, different versions. 

Fifth: Product Type

Further classifying products based on little modifications and tweaks in either the product itself or the way of providing it. 

Unit-level: Product Item/ Unit

Here at the last level, we consider each Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU) of the product.

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Creativity

Drawing inspiration from athletic training to fuel creative efficiency

Keeping your creative muscles strong and intact calls for regular “training”. In this article of Unknown Arts, they have derived inspiration from the training process of an Olympic athlete to form a creativity recharge mechanism for artists. 

This flow involves: 

Daily building sessions: 

A few specified hours of deep creative work daily. These sessions are of intense focus, least distraction, and utmost productivity. 

What matters is the consistency of your commitment to these sessions. Doesn’t matter if it’s just one hour each day. But it ought to be your most valuable hour throughout the day.

Day-wise phases: 

You can divide your week into training phases of varied intensities. 

Minimalistically, there must be some high intensity days, some low intensity days, and some chill days. 

Season-wise phases:

You can do a similar distribution across the year. There’s some seasons when you indulge in consistent skill mastery, some in which you proactively apply your recent training (launches, competitions, publishing, etc.) and some for a calm retreat. 

Read more

Today’s AI Image

2031: If ISS destruction is not planned

Quote of the Day

A Wayne Dyer Quote

“Go for it now. The future is promised to no one.”

Wayne Dyer

What we’re working on

🧞Your wish is my command