BookWatch – Animated book summaries for visual learners
Hey HN! I’m Miran Antamian, founder and CEO of BookWatch, and I’m thrilled to introduce BookWatch.com. The first AI-powered Visual Library for learners who hate reading but love growing. After 1.5 years of building, 65,000+ mobile app users, and countless animated summaries, we’re launching our New Web App to make learning even more effortless. The Problem: Visual Learners Can’t Learn from Books in Text or Audio Formats Did you know that 65% of people identify as visual learners? Yet most book knowledge remains trapped in text format. Many of us want the wisdom of great books but struggle…
In plain words
BookWatch is an AI-powered platform that converts book summaries into animated videos for visual learners. It allows users to learn from books through short, animated content rather than reading or listening to text. The service targets people who prefer visual learning and want to absorb book knowledge efficiently. BookWatch offers a mobile app and web platform with thousands of animated summaries designed to help users retain key concepts quickly.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey HN! I’m Miran Antamian, founder and CEO of BookWatch, and I’m thrilled to introduce BookWatch.com. The first AI-powered Visual Library for learners who hate reading but love growing. After 1.5 years of building, 65,000+ mobile app users, and countless animated summaries, we’re launching our New Web App to make learning even more effortless. The Problem: Visual Learners Can’t Learn from Books in Text or Audio Formats Did you know that 65% of people identify as visual learners? Yet most book knowledge remains trapped in text format. Many of us want the wisdom of great books but struggle with: - Finding time to read entire books - Maintaining focus through hundreds of pages - Remembering key concepts without visual reinforcement - Traditional reading is slow, boring, and leaves millions of learners behind. Our Solution: Learn by Watching, Not Reading BookWatch uses proprietary AI technology to transform non-fiction bestsellers into animated video summaries that capture the core ideas in a visually engaging format. Some animated book summaries you might like: - Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/aGtpl1QLtyzN6JlqRze7 - Zero to one by Peter Thiel: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/rSvhERHHBoF8bpTlXnyi - The lean startup by Eric Reese: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/dTwT3JdLWvpAsOVGbePa - Blitz Scaling by Reed Hoffman and Chris Y: https://www.bookwatch.com/videos/ogoFpks8aRGn8OgmKP2F What Makes BookWatch Special? (1) AI-Powered Personal Book Expert Every video comes with an AI expert that knows everything about that specific book. Ask how to apply concepts to your unique situation: "How can I use these ideas to improve my startup?" or "How would this apply to my leadership role?". Our AI expert will give you specific advice based on the book on how to apply it in your life or business situation. (2) Smart Note-Taking System Our one-click note system captures what's being said at that exact moment in the video. No need to pause or get distracted - just click and continue watching! Review and organize your notes later. (3) AI Book Recommendation Engine Don't know where to start? Tell our AI what you want to learn ("I want to be a better public speaker" or "I want to be more productive" or “I want to learn b2b sales”), and it'll recommend the perfect books from our library. (4) Progress Tracking & Gamification Stay motivated with achievement badges, learning streaks, and a visual representation of your growing knowledge base. See how many days have you been learning and which books helped you more. Business Model We've adopted a freemium approach: Free tier: 60 minutes of learning per day Premium: $89/year or $13/month for unlimited access Where to Find Us Web app: BookWatch.com iOS & Android apps: Search "BookWatch" in app stores Check out our growing YouTube community Over 65,000 users have learned with BookWatch and we have grown on youtube organically to 100,000+ subscribers and 4.5M views! I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback! What books would you like to see in visual format first? What features would make this even more valuable for your learning journey? Thank you HN community!
More ai this month
the category →
I trained a 125M-parameter transformer to autocomplete piano performances in real time (~108 notes/sec on an iPhone 15). The idea is basically GitHub Copilot or Tabnine, except instead of prompting it with code, you prompt it by playing a few notes on a MIDI piano. The model then continues what you played, entirely on-device. The app is free if anyone wants to try it. Happy to answer questions about the model, training, Core ML, or the many things that didn't work.
AI · 17d ago · simedw.com
Astute▲585Automate your B2B brand going viral, with new media creators
AI · 18d ago · company-app.joinastute.com


Hey HN, Henry from Cactus here! We previously released Cactus Needle, a 14MB agentic LLM for tool call, device use, and structured extraction for phones, wearables, smart homes, small robots and microcontrollers. We got really great feedback here, and have now incorporated the suggestions to release Needle 2. The whole model is a single 14MB binary that runs a full session in 28MB of RAM; 45m parameters at 2bit compression. Needle hits 500 tokens/sec decode speed on a Raspberry Pi 5, sits between 400-1,500 tokens/sec on VR devices like Meta Quest 3S and Apple Vision Pro, and ranges…
AI · 26d ago · cactuscompute.com


Launched alongside, February 2025
the whole month →
Screen Studio 3.0▲1,833Beautiful screen recordings with instant shareable links
Growth · 2025 · screen.studio
- IG
I was at FB/Meta from late 2013 to early 2023, mostly working in the compiler/runtime spaces. I got hit in the spring 2023 layoff wave. I immediately started making games in my newfound free time (a lifelong interest, and I even worked in AA(A?) back ca. ~2000), and in October 2023 I stumbled upon the idea of a roguelike pachinko/plinko game inspired by Luck Be A Landlord. Things snowballed quickly, I started talking to publishers, then worked like crazy through all of 2024, almost the hardest I've ever worked in my career, and launched the game in December 2024. It's sold…
Work · 2025


- IB
i wanted to change the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling away an hour so i built an app to help me. now i have to literally touch grass before accessing my most distracting apps the app is built in swiftui, uses the screen time apis provided by apple and google vision to recognise grass or not i'd love to get your thoughts on the concept.
Life & fun · 2025 · touchgrass.now