A lot of things go bump in the night, especially a bus traveling 60 mph down Interstate 5 from San Francisco to Santa Monica, California.

But if Cabin, the bus-hotel startup that’s driven 10,000 passengers on overnight trips between San Francisco and SoCal since launching in July 2017, can do something about what they call “road turbulence” they think they can get more people to sleep better while traveling.

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Co-founders Tom Currier and Gaetano Crupi have developed a new suspension system for the three converted sleep buses in the Cabin fleet. Calling it Cabin Cloud, they plan to have the beds equipped with the new tech that uses sensors, accelerometers, small motors, and predictive algorithms to know when the bus ride is about to get bumpy and what to do about it. 

“Guests that loved the service are the ones that slept super well,” Currier said to me this week as he sat on a demo bed set up in the back of a Ford Transit van to show the suspension system in action. He said when Cabin works well, passengers say it felt like they were teleported to the destination since they were asleep and unconscious during most of the six-plus hour drive.

To make sure more people fall asleep and stay asleep on the hotel-bus equipped with sleep-sized cabins with a mattress, pillow, and reading light, Crupi said they needed to control for the bumps that can jolt someone awake. Instead of improving the suspension system of the bus, which would be expensive and slow, they decided to add a secondary suspension system to the beds.

When going over a bump, Cabin Cloud moves the bed up and down to cancel out the vibration as much as possible. When the bus shakes up, you go down — and the shaking is minimized. 

Currier and Crupi said the Cloud system reduces acceleration between 70 to 90 percent on average — and it certainly felt like it. I got into the black van with a bed bolted to the floor — the Cloud system wasn’t on at this point — and laid down. Yes, it seemed sketchy, but it was all part of the test. 

On a torn-up stretch of Highway 101 in San Francisco, we drove first with the bed locked into place. I thought it was pretty comfortable, but as we drove up the entrance ramp I was jostled up and down and at one point a pothole made it feel more like a roller coaster ride than a quick jaunt on the highway.

Then we looped back to the same stretch of highway, but this time they turned on the Cloud suspension system. Instead of feeling every reverberation on that same patch of bumpy road, I really did almost float. At one point I put my hand on the van wall and could feel the vehicle jostle as we drove, but in my bed, with my hand off the wall, I could barely feel a thing. 

The difference between the two rides was everything. I’m not a finicky sleeper, but if I could choose to diminish the ups and downs of the road, I would every time. And the new suspension system isn’t even that complex or expensive. Using simple parts, the new beds coming to buses next year can transform the Cabin experience to even more of a hotel on wheels — and the price for a ride from LA to San Francisco ($79 to $130) won’t shoot up because of expensive equipment. To be fair, a flight from LA to San Francisco rivals that price, but you’ll likely be stuck in economy without a bed. 

As co-founder Crupi said, “we want to get to a point where you sleep better on Cabin than at your own house.” 

It may not be there yet, but it’s getting closer.

Instagram will soon be without its founders for the first time ever. 

With CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger leaving soon, the future of the photo-sharing app will be much more controlled by Facebook executives, which could have big implications for the service.

SEE ALSO: Instagram’s co-founders are stepping down

News of the departures sent shockwaves around Silicon Valley, primarily because it was so unexpected. Though it’s common for founders to depart a company after an acquisition, Instagram’s founding duo has long been an exception. 

The abrupt nature of the news itself, which broke late Monday night, immediately gave rise to rumors that the resignations had come as the result of some greater falling out with Facebook’s upper management. 

Systrom was scheduled to keynote next year’s South by Southwest, and had other speaking engagements lined up for the coming months. What’s more, Instagram only just opened a new San Francisco office, a decision that was driven, at least in part, by Systrom’s desire to cut down on his commute and be closer to his family, according to a Wall Street Journal profile published today (Systrom’s resignation came after the story had gone to press, according to the WSJ.)

Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, who often pens effusive send-offs for high-ranking execs, issued an unusually brief statement, which was not published on his Facebook page or, notably, his Instagram account.

And while it’s not clear if there was any one cause for the sudden resignations, multiple reports indicate that Systrom and Krieger had grown increasingly uncomfortable with Facebook executives’ involvement, and their efforts to bring the two services closer together. Both Recode and The Wall Street Journal pointed to Facebook’s recent change that removes any reference to Instagram when users share photos from Instagram to their Facebook profile.

What happens next?

What all this means for Instagram, the service, remains to be seen, but it suggests there will be many more changes to come. Most obviously, Instagram will be under new leadership for the first time in its history.

Instagram will be under new leadership for the first time in its history

Facebook hasn’t commented publicly on who will replace Systrom as Instagram’s top executive, but most signs suggest it will be the newly installed VP of Product, Adam Mosseri. The exec was formerly in charge of Facebook’s News Feed, and has increasingly become a more public face for the social network. (Mosseri is active on Twitter, where he regularly engages with journalists, and has made an effort to cultivate closer relationships with publishers.) He’s also a trusted lieutenant for Zuckerberg. 

There have already been a number of signs that Facebook is eyeing more ways to tie-in with Instagram. The company has been experimenting with putting its notifications inside of Instagram, which has been unpopular with some users. And the app currently has a prominent “open Facebook” prompt.

Without Instagram’s founders to push back, it’s difficult to imagine there won’t be even more Facebook-ification coming to Instagram.

For Facebook, these measures likely feel like necessary steps. 

The company is facing more public scrutiny than ever, and mounting distrust from users who are wary of the social network in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The service lost users for the first time in its history last quarter, and its stock still hasn’t recovered from the subsequent crash. 

But the last two years have also coincided with the meteoric rise of Instagram, which has grown to more than 1 billion users. The app, which rarely released updates in its first years as part of Facebook, began pumping out new features to boost that growth and engagement. 

As things have gotten worse for Facebook, it’s become more and more clear the company is relying on Instagram’s success. The app has managed to remain relatively scandal-free, compared with Facebook, and, unlike Facebook, it remains incredibly popular with teens and younger users.

It’s not surprising that the company would opt to tighten its grip on the photo sharing app at this particular moment. It needs Instagram more than ever before. 

Bring on the altcoin spring.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase teased an opening of the shitcoin floodgates today with an announcement that it will allow issuers of obscure altcoins, tokens, and even digital collectables like CryptoKitties to officially apply to be listed on its exchange. 

At present, Coinbase only lists a few cryptocurrencies — bitcoin, bitcoin cash, ether, ethereum classic, and litecoin — that are for the most part generally considered to be not a scam. According to a company blog post, that is all about to change. 

SEE ALSO: It only took 37 seconds for two bitcoin ‘celebs’ to start fighting on a cruise ship

“Today we’re announcing a new process that will allow us to rapidly list most digital assets that are compliant with local law, by satisfying listing requests in a jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction manner,” reads the blog post. “The new process begins with a form for issuers to submit assets for listing at Coinbase, which we will evaluate against our digital asset framework.”

Have an altcoin that’s in desperate need of a pump? How about a digital collectible that needs an aura of credibility? Well then, this handy Coinbase application form is for you.

Of course, Coinbase may not accept your application. But hey, when has the almost certainty of failure stopped anyone in the cryptocurrency space?

Notably, the application form doesn’t appear to be limited to issuers (“Lead Developer or Founder”). “Major Investor (>$1M invested)” is also an option for your “position with this project” when filling out the form, as is “Executive or Employee.” 

“[There] are now thousands of digital assets of all types, including coins, tokens, forks, stablecoins, and collectibles,” notes Coinbase’s post. “One of our top customer requests is to add support for these new assets, and we have been determining how to do this in a secure and compliant way for those assets meeting our standards.”

As the most popular U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, what Coinbase decides to list or not list can have a huge impact on the market at large. In December of 2017, for example, Coinbase announced it would support bitcoin cash — and the price of the cryptocurrency skyrocketed almost immediately. The price of ethereum classic also went up following the Coinbase announcement that it would soon support the coin.

We can practically hear altcoin developers licking their lips. And why shouldn’t they be? At present, it’s free to submit an application to the company. 

That may change in the future, however. 

“Depending on the volume of submissions,” Coinbase explains, “we reserve the right to impose an application fee in the future to defray the legal and operational costs associated with evaluating and listing new assets.”

In other words, if you have a coin you’d love to see listed on Coinbase you should get while the getting’s good. If you wait too long, you may end up paying for the pleasure of Coinbase rejecting your application and telling you your project is a worthless and possibly criminal scam.

But hey, nothing’s stopping you from submitting your application today! So go ahead and grab that Google Form by the horns and ride it all the way to the moon.