Fun Swaps, Moussed Mice and The Politician 🙆‍♂️

Vacations are becoming popular. We already know that spending on travel has increased in the last one year, owing to remote work and the YOLO feeling prompted by the pandemic. 

But travel is also expensive. Flight prices are inching higher, while AirBnb’s quality is slumping. This just spoils the excitement of travel, doesn’t it?

Well not anymore.

Two entrepreneurial souls decided to easy the trouble of finding good hotel deals online by starting a company called Kindred. No, this is not another company offering hotel deals or groups.

This is a startup that lets you switch homes with people in other cities or towns where you’re travelling to. 

The members-only home-swapping platform was co-founded by Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amina in 2021. It’s currently available in North America with 2k+ homes in 50+ cities, and has just raised $15m to expand, per TechCrunch.

How it works: 

• It’s a give-and-get model. A home for a home barter system basically. Members — who may be homeowners or renters — can hosts guests. For every night they host, they earn a night in another member’s home.
• They just pay a service fee (up to $30/night) and a cleaning fee per stay, saving potentially hundreds in hotel costs.
• Frequent travellers can pay on a yearly basis for unlimited stays and no service fees.
• In addition to vetting members, Kindred adds a lot of personal touches, including complimentary hosting kits, professional photography, and cleaning.

But this is not a one-of-its-kind startup. There are others. 

• There’s also Thirdhome which is specifically for luxury stays at an average home value of $2.4m.
• TrustedHousesitters matches animal lovers who care for each other’s pets in exchange for a free stay.
• HomeExchange has been around since the ‘90s and boasts a massive network of 450k+ homes worldwide.

Sounds a lot like AirBnb? Here’s the difference.

AirBnb is a primarily money making model. People rent out their homes or extra bedrooms to earn cash. The problem with this system is that lately its become super saturated. As people starting AirBnbing their place for extra cash, the company lowered its vetting standards and as a result, quality complaints against the platform on IS and TikTok rose. 

With these house swapping platforms, on the other hand, hosts don’t earn money. They earn “benefits” in terms of free vacation stays or people looking after their plants or pets while they’re gone. 

How it works:

• Users only need to submit a photo of their mouse-using hand and the machine learning algorithms will analyze the finger length, width, and hand size to identify the optimal design for your perfect mouse.
• The mouse will then be 3D printed using materials that add to the texture and comfort of the mouse. 
• The overall weight of the mouse is estimated to be around 55 grams on average, although that will vary based on the size of each user’s hand.
• In terms of functionality, it will have a 26,000 DPI optical sensor with a tracking speed of 650 inches per second, and a rechargeable battery good for over two weeks of use. 

The only contention here is pricing. The limited “Super Early Bird” pricing has the Formify Mouse going for about $142, with full pricing expected to be closer to $179.

This is obviously doable for professional gamers who need comfortable mice, but for the regular chaps like us, is it really worth the deal?

Leader Lars is the head of The Synthetic Party, a new Danish political party that is hoping to run in the country’s November general election.  

Leader Lars is an AI chatbot. That’s right, this is a Danish political part run by an AI representative. The AI makes the policies, the campaign strategies and even election speeches and arguments. The humans in the party will merely implement these policies. 

The party was founded in May by the artist collective Computer Lars and the non-profit art and tech organization MindFuture Foundation. 

Leader Lars is programmed on the policies of Danish fringe parties since 1970. It has also made itself available to the public through Discord to encourage healthy civil discourse.

If the party came to power, its first order of business would be to propose a universal basic income of 100,000 Danish kroner per month, which is equivalent to $13,700. The Synthetic Party’s mission is also dedicated to raising more awareness about the role of AI in our lives and how governments can hold AI accountable to biases and other societal influences. 

So far, the party has only 11 signatures out of the 20,000 that would make it eligible to run in this November’s election.