Welcome to Smile’s Innovation Watch #34! We are thrilled to be back this year with the time and budget to bring our newsletter back to its full capacity.

In this issue, we bring you the latest and greatest in the world of Innovation, Tooling, and Trends. We’ve handpicked the most interesting and relevant news for you, to keep you ahead of the curve.

Keep an eye out for our next issue where we’ll be exploring the cutting-edge topics of Sustainability, Society Impact, Fun (or WTF) Stuff, Privacy-related news, and Open-Source Software.

So sit back, relax, and get ready to be informed and inspired by the innovative advancements shaping our world!

⏳ Reading time: 6 minutes

💡 Innovation

McDonald’s automated restaurant trialled with no human contact

McDonald’s is testing its first fully-automated restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas. Customers are able to go to the store and pick up a meal without interacting with anyone. The food is still cooked by humans, but they remain in the kitchen. Food is delivered via a conveyor belt. The restaurant only caters to takeaway and drive-thru orders. A TikTok video featuring the restaurant is available in the article.

Google’s Project Starline is the real deal

Starline is Google’s next-generation 3D video chat booth. It projects 3D video to other chat booths in real time to create the illusion that users are sitting with somebody else across a table. Users report the experience as being remarkably realistic. Project Starline will soon be deployed to select enterprise partners as part of an early access program. This article details a first-hand experience of what it is like to use Project Starline.

Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite, put to the test

Apple’s new Emergency SOS via satellite feature is now rolling out in the US and Canada. It will launch in France, Germany, Ireland, and the UK in December. The feature allows users to text the closest emergency services without Wi-Fi or a cellular signal. If there aren’t any emergency services that accept texts, Apple will call them on the users’ behalf. The service is free for the first two years.

🛠️ Tools

Warp: The terminal for the 21st century

Warp is a RUST-based terminal, reimagined from the group up to work like a modern haps. Visual history, blocks (templates), built-in text editor and command lookup while being super fastest and secure (all cloud-based features are opt-in). It works with bash, zsh and fish. It’s Free for individual, and teams or enterprise features will be subject to charge out of beta.

Avvvatars - Open Source React UI Avatar Library

Get placeholder avatars unique to your user. Is easy to use, has 40 Unique colors, is also lightweight and accesible including 60 unique shapes and also customizable available for Figma and React.

AWS launches Amazon Honeycode, a no-code mobile and web app builder

AWS announced the beta launch of Amazon Honeycode, a new, fully managed low-code/no-code development tool that aims to make it easy for anybody in a company to build their own applications. All of this, of course, is backed by a database in AWS and a web-based, drag-and-drop interface builder.

📊Trending

Uber chases ‘superapp’ by adding planes, trains and rental cars

Uber is driving ahead with its plan to become a travel “superapp”. The San Francisco-headquartered firm announced Wednesday that it is adding trains, buses, planes and car rentals to its U.K. app this year. The move is part of a pilot that could be expanded to other countries at a later date if it goes well. While Uber won’t provide these travel services itself, it will allow users to book them through its app following software integrations with platforms that sell tickets.

Five creative ways people are using ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot from OpenAI that is capable of providing detailed responses to text prompts. This article looks at five ways people are using ChatGPT. ChatGPT is being used to plot movies, brainstorm side hustles, tell jokes, create weight loss plans, and generate prompts for other AI models

Google.com tests a busier homepage with a row of info cards

Check out this totally wild Google homepage experiment spotted by 9to5Google: the search page suddenly has a row of cards at the bottom. If this design is widely adopted, it would easily be the biggest google.com design change ever.

That’s all folks

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