In person, in fashion

Hello there, and welcome to the newsletter! To start off, the Beyond Meat COO was arrested for trying to eat a man's nose. Yep you read that right. Possibly resulting from Beyond Meat's stock price falling 92% since 2019, Doug Ramsey allegedly bit a man's nose in a road-rage incident after an Arkansas college football game. I guess that proves you just can't beat real meat....

Wait... They shipped what!?

Instacart is launching Connected Stores, expanding it's retailer software offering by bringing the scanning tools of it's gig workers to ordinary consumers.

Details: Instacart's Connected Stores is a suite of tools that helps retailers create a more efficient shopping experience for their customers. Connected Stores combines Instacart's fulfillment, insights, and advertising tools, to create a vertical solution that integrates into a physical storefront.

Connected Stores includes:

• Caper Cart - An updated smart cart equipped with scales, sensors, touchscreens, and computer vision.

• Lists - Ability for shoppers to sync their Instacart shopping lists to a Caper Cart by using a QR code.

• Scan & Pay - Users are able to scan items while shopping, and pay for them on a phone (versus standing in line).

• Carrot Tags - Helps shoppers find items, while also displaying product info.

• Stock insights - Provides inventory and 'out of stock' insights for retailers.

Why it matters: Instacart's private market valuation is down more than 60% since it's March 2021 funding round. As the pandemic fades away, online delivery services demand has fallen. Instacart is making a bet on in-person shopping, aligning itself with retailers to compete against the likes of Amazon and Walmart.

Features & products hot off the press

• Open AI is allowing DALL-E2 users to edit peoples faces using AI, after initially disabling the capability (TechCrunch)

• Ford will use the phones of nearby pedestrians and cyclists to alert drivers and prevent crashes (TechCrunch)

• Google to run a test allowing political campaigns to bypass Gmail spam filters (Axios)

• Tile launches 'lost and found' QR code stickers (TechCrunch)

• Telegram adds emoji statuses for all users while paywalling 'infinite' reactions (Verge)

• Apple introduces a 'Clean Energy Charging' feature in iOS 16.1 to reduce your carbon footprint (9to5mac)

• Adobe launches new software to crack down on password sharing (tech.co)

• Magic Eden launches an NFT royalty enforcement tool for creators (Cointelegraph)

Getting 1% better at building product

• Personas - Using anti-personas to combat misuse of your product (Nielsen Norman Group)

• Career development - Jason Shah on building a meaningful career (Lenny's Podcast)

Other tech happenings

• Who said three's a crowd? DOJ joins Apple <> Epic antitrust trial (TechCrunch)

• Subtitles are in fashion. Younger audiences struggle to watch anything without using closed captions (WSJ)

• Wild west no more. Treasury and DOJ to clamp down on crypto criminals (Axios)

• Data equals energy. Sweden and Norway work on recycling data center heat (Axios)

• AI girlfriends. Millions of Replika users believe their AI companions are sentient (Every.to)

Courtesy of mindless Twitter scrolling

@clairevo

@shreyas

@NuclearTux

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

- Amol