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It’s Thursday, Future Party. If you’ve ever been told you need to get off your phone and touch some grass, here’s an app to keep you accountable. Aptly called “Touch Grass,” the app literally makes you go outside and upload a photo of yourself touching some sweet IRL greenery before your phone gives you permission to get back to your regularly scheduled doomscrolling. Don’t be surprised if your most-online friend keeps a little patch of sod on their nightstand to try to game the system.
DAILY TOP TRENDS
YouTube – The Surfer
X
(Twitter)– Scream 7Google – Michelle Trachtenberg
Reddit – James Marsden
Letterboxd – Conclave
Spotify – “Guericke’s Unicorn”
Alexa Gets An AI Upgrade
Courtesy of Amazon
After years and billions of dollars in development, Amazon unveiled its new AI-powered version of Alexa, Alexa Plus, which will start to roll out to users next month on Echo and Fire TV devices.
Why It Hits: The company may be late to the game (relative to the lightning-fast rollout of its rivals) when it comes to its AI offerings, but the sheer number of Amazon devices out in the wild could quickly make it a mainstream leader.
Behind the Code: Amazon head of devices Panos Panay showed off Alexa Plus during a live event yesterday:
The revamped voice assistant can answer questions in a conversational way, remember preferences and personal details, carry out agentic tasks like making reservations or purchasing tickets, control your smart-home devices, and create itineraries.
You can also share documents with Alexa, like recipes or contracts, that it can memorize, analyze, or summarize. The chatbot can also generate images, stories, and songs.
Many of these tasks can be performed, thanks to deals with brands like Uber Eats, Zoom, and Ticketmaster, as well as partnerships with publishers such as The Associated Press, Politico, and The Washington Post.
Alexa is now also “model agnostic” — meaning it can use the Amazon Nova model to complete a request or draw on third-party systems like Anthropic’s Claude.
The Future: Alexa Plus — free with Prime or $19.99/month as a standalone service — is also getting a new app to go along with it. Users on the app and Echo devices will see a “fluctuating blue bar at the bottom of the interface” and display “little animations and icons,” per The Verge. Panay said these are “Alexicons” that show off the chatbot’s personality.
Not sure about you, but we’re getting major Her vibes.
Together with Bitcoin Depot
Bringing Bitcoin To Everyday Life
Bitcoin’s rise is undeniable — but how is it becoming so accessible?
Bitcoin Depot is paving the way with the world’s largest network of Bitcoin ATMs, simplifying cash-to-crypto conversion.
They’ve been around since the early days of Bitcoin, and now, as digital money goes mainstream, they’re growing rapidly. Already trading on Nasdaq (Ticker: BTM), Bitcoin Depot is set to release its year-end report, cementing its place in the future of crypto.
Niantic Teleports Users With A New App
Courtesy of Niantic
Niantic, the developer of popular AR games Pokémon Go and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite, has launched a new app called “Into the Scaniverse” that allows users to scan, upload, share, and explore 3D scans of places and objects all around the world.
The Global Picture: Niantic has made it a mission to use technology, such as 3D scanning, AR, and the metaverse, to increase people’s engagement with the real world… as opposed to getting lost in digital ones.
Behind the Photos: Into the Scaniverse could help people explore the world in entirely new ways.
The app features a shared map of detailed 3D images of public spaces and objects, created by users through Niantic’s separate Scaniverse app — offering a true sense of an object’s scale or an area’s surroundings.
Using the Meta Quest 3, users can walk around the objects in VR. In the Quest app, users can even explore the Scaniverse map in a digital hot air balloon and then click on pins that display the 3D images scanned there.
The images can also be viewed on a smartphone or the web and be shared on social media.
They’re also publicly available for developers to use to build games and experiences through Niantic Studio.
Last Snapshot: Niantic told Fast Company that the map already features over 50,000 scans (which only take a few minutes on your smartphone to capture), including places like Stonehenge, Japanese temples, and an Elvis shrine. Next time you plan a vacation, you might consult Into the Scaniverse to build your itinerary.
Together with Brad’s Deal
Score The Best Hoka Shoe Deals of 2025 — Here’s Where to Look
Finding Hoka shoes on sale can be tricky, but we’ve done the work for you!
We’ve rounded up the top eight stores with the best deals, so you can shop smarter and save big.
DEEP DIVES
Explore: WSJ has a fascinating list of the world’s 24 superbillionaires and how their wealth is only continuing to grow.
Read: Forbes profiles Bondit Media Capital — the film financing and production company that potentially makes more movies a year than any major studio.
Watch: WSJ chats with Resy CEO Pablo Rivero about how the company’s acquisition by Amex has supercharged its growth.
67.1% of you voted Yes in yesterday’s poll: Are you a Star Wars fan?
“Too good of a storyline with some good sci-fi to not be a fan!”
“It’s a community, an outlet, and continually evolving. Hate to see so many haters surrounding this universe. Just wish Disney would have kept the books canon instead of restarting, but I’ll always stay open-minded.”
“I was a massive Star Wars fan and excited about the potential for Disney to reinvigorate the franchise with its massive resources. Unfortunately, much like the Marvel franchise, Disney has oversaturated the market with increasingly poor-quality content. Greed over quality — this is where we live now.”
Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.
QUICK HITS
→ Entertainment / Media
🏀 Max is pulling the plug on charging more for sports content but is also taking sports (and CNN) off the ad tier.
🎙️ YouTube announced that it now has over 1 billion monthly viewers of podcast content on its platform.
📺 Despite all the YouTube viewership on smart TVs, YouTube has no plans to produce its own original content again.
→ Technology
💰 Crypto exchange Bybit is offering $140 million in bounties for anyone who can trace and freeze the $1.4 billion stolen from it.
📉 Education platform Chegg is suing Google after its search traffic collapsed when the tech giant switched to AI-powered search results.
🚗 Your car may become a new advertising portal.
→ Fashion / E-commerce
👕 Arc’teryx posted over $2 billion in sales last year as the gorpcore movement continues to grow.
🤵♂️ Michael Strahan has crafted a DTC suit-tailoring brand.
👞 The EU is easing up on its sustainability rules for brands.
Let us know how we are doing...
PARTNERSHIPS | COMMUNITY | PODCAST | FRIENDS
Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.