Foursquare’s founder launches a new app that talks to you about your neighborhood

The BeeBot app is lone disposable for iOS users successful the US.

After teasing its improvement last year, Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley has present launched BeeBot: an AI-powered societal app for iPhones that talks to you astir what’s happening nearby. In his blog announcement, Crowley says BeeBot behaves similar a “personalized vigor DJ” that provides location-based audio updates done your headphones, telling you astir what friends are up to, section news, and events occurring successful the vicinity arsenic you locomotion around. 

“Audio updates are meant to beryllium abbreviated and saccharine (a fewer sentences present and there), tailored to your interests and your societal graph, and designed to some animate and pass you,” Crowley says successful the announcement. “The vibe we’re going for is much ‘Waze meets Gossip Girl,’ and little ‘Wikipedia successful your ears.’”

While the app is called “BeeBot for AirPods,” Crowley says it supports immoderate wired oregon wireless headphones oregon Bluetooth-based audio devices, including speakers, car stereos, and wearables similar Meta Ray-Ban astute glasses. It’s ever on, activates automatically erstwhile you enactment your headphones in, and turns disconnected erstwhile you instrumentality them out. BeeBot volition little the measurement and talk implicit immoderate euphony you’re listening to and automatically intermission and unpause podcasts erstwhile it wants to speak, but it won’t interrupt you during telephone calls oregon video chats.

This won’t beryllium a predominant occurrence, however. Crowley says users whitethorn get updates from BeeBot a fewer times each day, “but not 10x/day” to forestall it from being excessively disruptive. Updates are pulled from assorted sources, including unrecorded locations and presumption updates from different BeeBot users, and uses “keywords” you springiness it astir your interests to suggest section places and events for you to cheque out.

The app is “still precise overmuch successful beta,” according to Crowley, and the quality it provides is intended to beryllium “more gossip’y than news’y.” In its existent state, BeeBot provides the champion acquisition successful walkable US cities, arsenic opposed to erstwhile users are driving, cycling, oregon utilizing the subway. It’s lone disposable for iOS users successful the US for now, and Crowley says that a CarPlay mentation is successful development.