😀  Show and tell

👋  Good morning. Bad news for your childhood dreams: You were once again not picked to go to space. NASA just announced the four astronauts selected for its Artemis III mission: Randy Bresnik, Luca Parmitano, Frank Rubio, and Andre Douglas. The crew will test NASA’s spacecraft and commercial lunar landers in 2027 in hopes of getting humans back onto the surface of the moon in 2028 — the first time in 50+ years. 

NEWS FLASH 

🚙  The road less traveled: Startup Decart created an AI model that generates photorealistic driving environments in real-time, allowing autonomous driving companies to simulate hours of driving scenarios at scale. The startup hopes to expand into robotics and physical AI, and build out a community of developers using its API to build new products. The catch? Decart’s simulations currently behave like a weird dream, per TechCrunch, with hyperrealistic cities morphing into unfamiliar terrain. 

🚐  Extended vacation: Evotrex raised $30m to finish building its hybrid RV trailers, which it plans to begin selling in 2027. These RVs use a battery pack that can be charged using an onboard gas engine. Co-founder Alex Xiao said this approach, as opposed to other all-electric or hybrid models, allows owners to live off the grid for longer.

🎧  All about you: Eternal, a longevity startup founded by The Athletic’s Alex Mather, now offers an AI-generated podcast that provides users with personalized updates on their latest health data. Users can upload lab data and connect their wearables, then tune in to hear an analysis and tips for achieving whatever health goals they’ve set. The idea is that people would prefer to hear a quick rundown than pore over their lab reports.

MORE NEWS TO KNOW

• Power up: Waymo partnered with B2U Storage Solutions to repurpose its old EV batteries as renewable energy storage for power grids in Texas and California.
  

• Ripe for the pickin': FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) once indicated the top US tech companies, but upcoming IPOs led two X users — developer @krishdotdev and @lilscoot — to suggest an update: MANGOS (Meta, Anthropic, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, and SpaceX).
  

• Lather up: The FDA approved a new sunscreen ingredient for the first time in 25+ years. Bemotrizinol, which has long been used in other parts of the world, protects against ultraviolet A and B rays without leaving white streaks. 

    

•  That’s hot: Google named Paris Hilton as its Android “Icon in Residence” to promote the company’s app-building AI tools.
  

FROM OUR FRIENDS AT MINDSTREAM

OpenAI is building a superapp

The company is planning its biggest ChatGPT update yet that will give OpenAI’s coding tool Codex, AI agents, and partner services more space.

And it's gobbling up your app folder for good reason: It has its sights set on serving the 2m businesses that make up ~40% of its revenue.

👉 Read more on Mindstream.

THE BIG IDEA

This startup wants to know about your weirdest niche obsession

At a Chicago board game cafe, one can listen to presentations on forgotten Sanrio characters, brain-spotting to process trauma, and cemetery photography, interspersed with interactive quizzes on animal facts and etymology.

That’s Show & Tell for Grown-Ups, where anyone can share their niche interest or current obsession. Founder Mary Doctor likens it to the rabbit holes we fall into on social media, but with the possibility of genuine connection.

How it started

Doctor’s background is in musical theater, but her startup was inspired by her tech career. She worked at an engineering consultancy where she matched new hires for social events, and an incubator where she met founders and other interesting people.

She learned that fascinating people aren’t always natural public speakers, and that people benefit from social spaces conducive to conversation — not just loud happy hours or mixers.

So, she took a “leap of faith” and founded her company, Tell Me Why It’s Cool, in 2024. Show & Tell for Grown-Ups is its flagship event.

• It happens about 4x a month across Chicago at regular venues and one-offs with themed topics, like an upcoming show at the International Museum of Surgical Science focused on historical medicine.
  
• Past talks have covered gilded-age medical equipment, the “Bulgarian Samurai,” and dissociating with “The Sims.”
  
• Audiences vote on their favorite presenters, who speak again at a monthly showcase.

“I want to showcase that anybody can be a rockstar. They just need to find their right audience,” Doctor said, noting that the audience Q&A, when speakers often loosen up, is her favorite part.

During intermission and after, people discuss what they’ve learned, share their own passions, and make friends. Many newcomers become regulars.

“People want to get out of the house, but we need different ways to do it. What [Show & Tell] does… is it gives you conversation starters,” she said.

What’s next?

Tell Me Why It’s Cool monetizes through ticket sales, merch sales, and sponsorships from businesses and organizations that book private shows or that want to get in front of its eclectic audience, but Doctor is also looking for podcasts, video series, and brands interested in collaborating.

She also wants to add formats, like Try Something New, where attendees can learn anything from archery to how to play "Dungeons & Dragons," or an education arm focused on training.

But, really? She’d love to take the show on the road and find the “coolest nerds” in America and beyond — and we know that includes some of y’all.

Share this story

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

If you’re on TikTok… you’ve probably been “shoppertained.” TikTok Shop is a $15.8B opportunity — here’s how to get in on it. 

NEWSWORTHY NUMBER

Scoring scale on Apocalypse Early Warning System, a website intended to warn people of a possible apocalypse based on how many private jets are in the air at a given time, per Fortune. Vibe-coded by programmer Kyle McDonald, the idea is that, in the event of a global catastrophe, the world’s richest and most powerful people would be in the know before the rest of us and already making their escape.

It’s not perfect — a level five could be set off by something as innocent as holiday travel — but he might still be on to something: The site recorded its biggest spike on April 6, when Iran launched a massive counterattack on US and Israeli targets.

But what good is panic-inducing intel without a getaway plane? Ideally, we won’t have to find out.

AROUND THE WEB

📅  On this day: In 1949, Hank Williams Sr. performed at the Grand Ole Opry, one of the best-known performances in the venue’s history.

💃  Chill out: and go to an online rave.

🗞️  Newsletter: Get career inspo & intel with a dose of pop-culture from Girlboss Daily.

🧠  Game: Solve a bunch of puzzles really fast.

🐕  Aww: Look at him go. 

SHOWER THOUGHT

The metaphor of having computers do "mining" fits much better to how we attempt to extract value out of an LLM. SOURCE

Today's email was brought to you by Juliet Bennett Rylah and Singdhi Sokpo.

Editing by: Sara "Tell me more" Friedman.

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