Figma who?

Hello there! South Korea has asked Interpol to issue a red-notice against Do Kwon, founder of the collapsed crypto operator Terraform Labs. South Korean prosecutors say he's "obviously on the run" while Do Kwon says he's not, tweeting "Tbh haven't gone running in a while, need to cut some calories"...

Wait... They shipped what!?

Canva announces Visual Worksuite, moving beyond it's humble graphic design origins to establish an end-to-end offering for design and collaboration.

Backstory: While the whole tech world doles out hot takes on the Adobe <> Figma deal, Canva presses on with it's march to be Adobe's main competitor in the design world for the foreseeable future.

Details: Canva's new visual communication platform includes several entirely new products, as well as upgrades to existing offerings such as Canva Video and Print.

New products include:

• Canva Docs - Document with charts, graphs, and deep visual embedding capabilities

• Canva Websites - No-code web builder with data insights and analaytics

• Canva Whiteboards - Google Slides-esque offering with added brainstorming features

Individual features aside, the most impressive thing about Canva Worksuite is the deep interoperability of each of its products with the rest. As an example, in Websites, users can take any document, presentation, or PDF, and turn it into a responsive website!

Why it matters: Canva's move gives it a major edge over Adobe Creative Cloud, and establishes it as a visual first alternative to Google Workspace & Microsoft Office. Canva is profitable, and feels well positioned to give Adobe <> Figma a run for their money.

Features & products hot off the press

• Facebook dives deeper into Reels by launching a developer API (TechCrunch)

• Instacart launches connected stores to make in-person shopping smarter (Verge)

• D-ID lets you create AI generated videos from a single image (TechCrunch)

• Zoom launches calendar and email apps to compete with Google and Microsoft (Tech.co)

• BeReal explores paid features to avoid going down the ad path (Mashable)

• Apple will launch new ad placements on the App Store (CNBC)

• Canva launches Visual Worksuite, a suite of new products including Docs and a website builder (Rappier)

• Android 13 requires apps to ask for permission before sending any notifications (Wired)

Getting 1% better at building product

• Prioritization - How to justify non-sexy product investments (Casey Accidental)

• Friction- How to think about the right amount of friction in an experience (UX Mag)

Other tech happenings

• Uh oh. Rockstar Games suffers a major leak of GTA-6 footage (EnGadget)

• Elon feels the heat. Tesla ramps up production as rivals close in (TechCrunch)

• Hmm... tasty? USDA approves a genetically modified purple tomato (CNN)

• Let's be present. Google scales back on new bets (Verge)

• Innocence through AI. Clearview AI's software used by some public defenders to prove their clients innocence (NYT)

Courtesy of mindless Twitter scrolling

@mwseibel

@ChrisJBakke

@KelseyFarish

And that’s a wrap for today. Stay tuned for more!

- Amol