News

Opera Enables Emoji-Only Web Addresses Provided By Yat

While longer addresses consisting of four or five emojis sell for as little as $4, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure a memorable single-emoji URL.

Published

2 years ago

February 16, 2022

David Morelo

opera enables emoji-only web addresses provided by yat

Yat

If you have the latest version of the Opera web browser installed on your computer, go ahead and launch it.

Now, copy & paste 🌈🚀👽 into the address bar and press Enter. You should see a landing page belonging to Kesha, the American singer-songwriter.

You can also enter 👽🎵 to be redirected to the official website of Young Money Entertainment, the American record label founded by rapper Lil Wayne.

These emoji-only web addresses are the result of Opera’s partnership with Yat, a startup that sells URLs with emojis using its Y.at domain. Thanks to the partnership, Opera users now don’t have to enter “y.at” when visiting Yat’s emoji-only web addresses.

“The partnership marks a major paradigm shift in the way the internet works” said Jorgen Arnesen, the executive vice president of mobile at Opera. “It’s new, it’s easier, and more fun”.

It can also be pretty damn expensive. While longer addresses consisting of four or five emojis sell for as little as $4, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to secure a memorable single-emoji URL.

Why would anyone do that when it’s fairly easy to purchase a custom domain name that supports emojis and use it instead of the “y.at” domain? Because Yat’s CEO Naveen Jain has big plans for the startup.

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In the future, Jain would like Yat to become a self-sovereign company using blockchain technology to provide a decentralized alternative to the current domain name system (DNS).

“This is laying the foundation. There are certain elements of the vision that are certainly more of a social contract than actual implementation at this point in time” says Jain. “But this is the vision that we’ve set forth, and we’re working continuously towards that goal”.

In 2021, Yat sold almost $20 million worth of emoji identities, and the partnership with Opera could make 2022 sales figures even more impressive.

News

Joby To Establish All-Electric Air Taxi Ecosystem Across The UAE

The comprehensive agreement with Abu Dhabi’s government includes a training program, infrastructure development, and a manufacturing presence.

Published

5 days ago

May 1, 2024

Nour Nasir

joby to establish all-electric air taxi ecosystem across the uae

Joby Aviation

All-electric aircraft company Joby Aviation has secured three separate agreements with departments of Abu Dhabi’s government that lay the groundwork to develop and scale air taxi services in the Emirate and beyond.

The deal was signed at the recent DRIFTx thought-leadership and exhibition platform and gave Joby exclusive rights to not only operate air taxi services in Dubai but also unlock inter-emirate services between Abu Dhabi.

joby air taxi partnership abu dhabi

Joe Ben Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, said: “Today’s agreement demonstrates the incredible momentum behind the adoption of clean flight across the UAE. We’re looking forward to delivering a fantastic experience for our future customers in Abu Dhabi and we’re excited to be unlocking the potential for zero-emissions flight between Abu Dhabi and Dubai. We’re grateful for the support and collaboration of our governmental partners and the entire ecosystem in Abu Dhabi and we remain deeply impressed by their commitment to building out a world-class aviation ecosystem in the Emirate”.

Joby’s all-electric aircraft went on display for the first time in Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina at the DRIFTx event. The air taxi is designed to carry a pilot and four passengers and can reach speeds of 200 miles per hour (321 km/h). The zero-emission craft is said to have an extremely low acoustic footprint and can travel a maximum of 100 miles (161 km) on a single charge.

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Once operational, Joby’s air taxi fleet would enable fast, clean travel across the UAE, with journeys between Abu Dhabi to Dubai taking just 30 minutes compared with two hours by car during peak times.

Joby continues to work closely with the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) to help the Emirates become a world leader in the introduction of air taxis. Additional testing and analysis will be required before inter-emirate travel becomes a reality, but the cutting-edge technology already appears to have great potential.