A new artificial intelligence app is taking on the world of emails, the new Facebook Portal brings up concerns over privacy and Snapchat is creating its own ‘Snap-sized’ TV shows.
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First trending on Product Hunt: There’s a new artificial intelligence platform looking to revolutionize the way we use our emails. June.ai calls itself a communication hub that wants to challenge the foundational elements of email. It works by organization emails into different categories, for example it will recognize the difference between a conversation and a email from a brand, then separate those into two different inboxes. For conversational emails June will arrange it into something resembling a chat or IM interface. The New York-based AI platform also acts as a ‘gatekeeper’ allowing users to quickly unsubscribe from emails and approve or block emails from new companies or people. So far June.ai has raised $1.5 million in funding and co-founder and CEO Allie Sutton told TechCrunch is now concerned about spreading the word about his new product and getting people to change the way they use email. The hub works with most of the big email providers including Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.
Next from Reddit: Earlier this week Facebook revealed it’s newest device, Portal. It’s a video device that is built mainly for video chatting, but it offers a few other features including music sharing from Spotify or Pandora, a family storytime feature that adds crazy filters and it will also display your Facebook photos or newsfeed. The idea is for the device to sit in your home similar to a smart-home device. Portal also has Amazon Alexa built in, which means it’s always listening and waiting for you to initiate calls. And this has brought up some concerns over privacy issues, especially in light of the year Facebook has had with security breaches and the sharing of people’s personal information. While the device does come with some built in security features many are still questioning whether Facebook actually cares about people’s privacy or is just looking to gather more personal data for its own financial gain.
Finally trending on Google: Snapchat may be making an effort to regain its popularity in the social media app market. Following in the footsteps of Instagram,Facebook and YouTube, Snapchat is creating its own TV shows. Snap Originals will be airing scripted-TV shows on its app. What’s unique about these shows though is they are designed for a mobile audience. In Snap-style they are short, five minutes or less and will disappear after a couple weeks. So far the list of shows seems to be catering towards a teen market with college-set mystery show by Riverdale writer and an adaptation of a young-adult novel coming shortly. But time will tell if these Snap Originals will become box-office hits.