A new instant-messaging app that allows users only to send a single word to their friends is quickly becoming a hot commodity, raising US$1 million in two months, US media reported on Wednesday.
The Yo app lets users say “Yo,” by sending a text notification accompanied by a recorded voice shouting the greeting to users’ friends. However, cofounder Or Arbel insisted the deceptively simple app has a lot of potential.
“People think it is just an app that says ‘Yo.’ But it’s really not,” Arbel told reporters. “We like to call it context-based messaging. You understand by the context what is being said.”
Arbel said he raised the funding for Yo from a group of investors led by Moshe Hogeg, CEO of image-sharing app Mobli.
Convinced that his app has big prospects in line, Arbel left his job as chief technology officer of stock-trading platform Stox, which he helped launch last year, and moved from Tel Aviv, Israel, to San Francisco to focus on Yo.
Arbel said the app could allow newspapers and blogs to notify subscribers that a new article has been published or posted.
Yo is also taking advantage of FIFA World Cup frenzy. Any user sending a Yo to “WORLDCUP” will receive a Yo notification when a goal is scored.
Reviews on Apple’s App Store were positive, but some delved into sarcasm.
“Yo is a way of life. Since downloading Yo, all my relationships have improved and I’ve regrown most of my hair,” said a reviewer calling himself Nicholas Butler.
News Web site Think Progress says the app, which took just eight hours to build, now has 50,000 users who have sent about 4 million Yos.
The company has four part-time employees.
The app is available for free on the iOS and Android operating systems.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six