Good morning! Android smartphones in the UK are sending out so many SOS alerts that British police have asked Android users to turn off the Emergency SOS feature… Looks like QA missed that one 🫢

🌶 Highlight of the day 🌶

Amazon is building a local business delivery network. Amazon Hub Delivery takes it’s “last mile” network to the next level, incentivizing small businesses such as florists and coffee shops to help deliver Amazon packages 📦

Amazon drivers will drop off packages to local businesses, who will then deliver the packages to nearby recipients. Participating businesses will deliver an average of 30 packages per day.

It’s an interesting take on adding efficiency to the last mile, although I’m not confident the economics will work in terms of being attractive enough for businesses while avoiding higher prices for customers 💵

♨️ Hot off the press launches

Big tech

• YouTube tests adding playable games to its platform

• YouTube adds A/B testing for video thumbnails

• Netflix kills its cheapest ad-free tier in Canada 

• Cruise rolls out an Android app for its robotaxi service

• Meta ships a Quest+ subscription for free VR games

General and early-stage

• Telegram to add Stories to its messaging app

• Superhuman expands access to its AI email assistant 

• Lynk introduces a satellite texting product

• Beehiiv ships paywalls and referral-gated content

• SnapCalorie launches its vision-based app for calorie counting

🔍 Other good finds

• Healthy-ish friction. Amazon, Friction, and the FTC

• Biz Dev 101. Lucid to power Aston Martin’s future EV lineups

• Chat$$$. Databricks acquires an OpenAI competitor for $1.3b

🧈 Twitter nugget

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- Amol