Apple announced a deal with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT, OpenAI’s AI-powered chatbot experience, to a range of its devices.
Here’s a roundup of a few of the more noteworthy Apple AI announcements from WWDC 2024.
New SiriSiri got a makeover courtesy of Apple’s overarching generative AI push this year, called Apple Intelligence.
To take advantage of the new Siri, you’ll need an Apple device that supports Apple Intelligence — specifically the iPhone 15 Pro and devices with M1 or newer chips.
Apple Intelligence will have an understanding of who you’re chatting with, Apple says — so if you want to personalize the chat with a custom AI image, you can do so on the fly.
Today at its annual WorldWide Developer Conference in Cupertino, Apple announced updates to VisionOS, the operating system running on the Vision Pro.
The upgraded VisionOS — VisionOS 2 — brings with it productivity enhancements and “new immersive experiences.” One lets you “spatialize” photos from regular photos, leveraging AI tech.
Another is a new navigation option: VisionOS 2 lets you switch to the home screen by just tapping, or flip your hand over to bring up the control center with notifications, shortcuts and more.
When you’re looking for a startup idea that could slow climate change, you might become an expert at home energy assessments.
Instead, the startup has put together a small team of engineers to create its own AI model specialized in home energy assessments using machine learning.
The company uses open data, such as satellite images, as well as its own training data set with millions of photos and energy assessments.
In the company’s first tests, its home energy assessments have been accurate within 5% of old-fashioned assessments.
The startup has now raised €4.7 million ($5.1 million at today’s exchange rate) with Racine² leading the round and a non-dilutive investment from Bpifrance.
WWDC is for developers, and much of the focus will be on iOS 18.
As the big event nears, all sorts of leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its rumored AI-powered apps and features have in store.
AI recaps of missed texts will also be available.
Users will also be able to change the color of app icons, perhaps as Apple’s answer to Google’s Material You.
Maps with route creationMaps will support custom route creation in iOS 18, which lets users design their own routes for a trip.
WWDC is for developers, and much of the focus will be on iOS 18.
As the big event nears, all sorts of leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its rumored AI-powered apps and features have in store.
AI recaps of missed texts will also be available.
Users will also be able to change the color of app icons, perhaps as Apple’s answer to Google’s Material You.
Maps with route creationMaps will support custom route creation in iOS 18, which lets users design their own routes for a trip.
eBay’s newest AI feature allows sellers to replace image backgrounds with AI-generated backdrops.
eBay’s background enhancement tool could benefit sellers who lack the equipment or skills to take professional-looking or high-quality photos.
It may also improve on eBay’s previous offering, which used computer vision technology to give listing photos a simple, white background.
The new AI feature is powered by the open-source model Stable Diffusion.
The latest announcement comes a year after eBay introduced an AI feature that generates titles and descriptions for a product listing.
On Wednesday, the tech giant announced that a handful of enhanced editing features previously limited to Pixel devices and paid subscribers — including its AI-powered Magic Editor — will now make their way to all Google Photos users for free.
But with the growing number of AI-powered editing tools flooding the market, Google has decided to make its set of AI photo editing features available to more people for free.
Previously, these kinds of edits would require Magic Eraser and other professional editing tools, like Photoshop, to get the same effect.
With the expansion, Magic Editor will come to all Pixel devices, while iOS and Android users (whose phones meet the requirements) will get 10 Magic Editor saves per month.
The other tools will be available to all Google Photos users, no Google One subscription is required.
Meta announced on Tuesday it’s rolling out the ability for Messenger users to create shared albums in chats, send photos in high-definition, and share larger files up to 100MB in size.
With these new features, Messenger is targeting people who tend to create shared albums or share HD images via services like Google Drive.
Now, users can create albums of photos and videos in group chats, whether it’s to organize photos of a recent spring break or grandma’s 80th birthday celebration.
The launch of the new feature follows Meta’s rollout of support for HD photos on WhatsApp back in September 2023.
The new features are rolling out on mobile to all Messenger users.
It’s a flexible way to share photos with your favorite people and create visual records of whatever matters in your life.
Retro’s main feature is a way to share your most important photos of the past week with your favorite people.
Retro’s answer to this use-case is journals: A new flexible way to share photos as a group.
You can also have a journal with your partner to share important moments you’ve spent together without spamming all your friends on Retro.
Building a social consumer app involves many experimentations — and journals are one of those experimentations.
So, your partner could very well have an STI, but Calmara would tell you he’s in the clear.
That’s why actual STI tests use blood and urine samples to detect infection, as opposed to a visual exam.
It does not involve any medical conditions or discussions within its framework, and no medical doctors are involved with the current Calmara experience.
“The clear idea is to initiate a conversation regarding STI status and testing.”Calmara is part of HeHealth, which was founded in 2019.
Calmara and HeHealth use the same AI, which it says is 65-90% accurate.
