Virtual avatars take over music!

Welcome, Tech enthusiasts.

KISS is guaranteeing that the show will go on forever… As digital avatars.

The legendary rock band just pivoted to virtual versions of themselves that can keep touring without aging a day — opening up a whole new world for music. Let’s explore…

In today’s tech rundown:

• KISS goes fully virtual with lifelike avatars

• Bluebird feathers inspire longer-lasting batteries

• 8 new products

• Google releases major spam-filter upgrade

• Spotify lays off 17% of workforce

• TikTok expands global partnership with Ticketmaster

Read time: 3 minutes

TODAY’S HEADLINES

MUSIC TECH

🤘 KISS goes fully virtual with lifelike avatars

The Rundown: At their final live show, rock legends KISS passed the torch to digital avatar versions of themselves created by Lucasfilm's Industrial Light & Magic — which will continue ‘touring’ in a new digital era for the band.

The details:

• The band's avatars made a surprise debut at the end of KISS's final show on their "End of Road" tour, performing before a stunned crowd.

• These avatars kick off a new chapter where KISS pivots to virtual shows, aiming to continue performing for years to come.

• The hyperrealistic avatars were created through a partnership between KISS, entertainment firm Pophouse, and VFX studio ILM.

• The tech was originally developed for Abba and used for the band’s ‘Voyage’ show — which uses data captured from performances.

The relevance: KISS is future-proofing itself so the music never dies — in an innovative way built for the digital age. The avatars are a great example of a major artist taking advantage of new tech — and surely won’t be the last act to go down the digital route.

Check out the band’s digital avatar announcement here.

TOGETHER WITH SUPERHUMAN AI

📧 The fastest email experience ever made

The Rundown: Superhuman’s new AI email features save teams from Harvard, Netflix, Spotify, Notion, and more over 10 million hours every single year.

The details:

• Auto summarizes conversations

• AI-email drafts written in your style

• Type at the speed of thought with auto-correct and suggestions

• Custom 1-click action items features

Click to join today and unlock 1 month free!

SUSTAINABILITY TECH

🐦 Bluebird feathers inspire longer-lasting batteries

The Rundown: Researchers at ETH Zurich just developed a synthetic material that replicates the unique network found in bluebird feathers, saying the material could boost tech such as battery life and water filtration.

The details:

• Bluebird feathers contain nanoscale channels that give them their signature blue color without pigments.

• The new material is made by swelling, then cooling a silicone rubber in oil, creating the small channels ideal for transporting lithium ions.

• The material has the potential to improve batteries by enabling better ion flow, increasing capacity, and battery health over time.

Our thoughts: Nature continues to school humans when it comes to elegant, efficient designs. If we finally solve the problem of terrible battery life — we may have some blue, feathered friends to thank.

NEW PRODUCTS

📊 Danelfin- AI-powered stock-picking tool with up to a 94% win rate (link)*

🔖 FastCut- Create engaging captions for your short-form video with AI (link)

🤖 Botsheets- Autonomous lead-generating chatbots (link)

🎧 LLMs for Podcasters- Simplifying content workflows for podcasters (link)

✍️ Scribe- Transforms your written content into engaging videos (link)

🎓 Learniverse- AI-powered personal learning revolution (link)

📝 PDF AI- Chat with any document (link)

🎓 Monic AI- Learn anything faster with AI (link)

🔩 Bolt AI- ChatGPT app for Mac (link)

Browse the most popular tools ever featured with our tool database.

* = This is sponsored content

SNIPPETS

Google released RETVec, a major spam-filtering upgrade for Gmail that improves understanding of manipulated text to better catch illegible messages.

Spotify is cutting around 1,500 jobs, about 17% of its workforce, in its third round of layoffs in 2022 amid rising costs.

Meta will reportedly disconnect Messenger and Instagram chat integration in mid-December without explaining why, potentially aiming to avoid consequences under the EU's Digital Markets Act.

Swedish fintech firm Klarna just froze hiring beyond engineering roles, with its CEO citing AI productivity gains from tools like ChatGPT requiring fewer staff over time.

TikTok has expanded its Ticketmaster partnership beyond the U.S., now letting verified artists in over 20 countries embed ticket links so users can purchase directly within videos and music clips.

A UK court just ruled Getty Images' copyright lawsuit against Stability AI over claims it used Getty's images to train Stable Diffusion can proceed to trial rather than being dismissed.

Fitness tracking app Strava launched in-app messaging, letting users send private individual and group chats to coordinate meetups or share advice.

SPONSOR US

⚡️ Get your product in front of over 75k+ tech enthusiasts

Our newsletter is read by thousands of tech professionals, investors, engineers, managers, and business owners around the world. Get in touch today.

THAT’S A WRAP

If you have anything interesting to share, please reach out to us by sending us a DM on Twitter: @rowancheung & @therundowntech

❤️ Rundown review of the day