And speaking of Google, the company sent out invites this week for its Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View, California: May 20 and 21. This event is usually where we’ll hear more details about the upcoming version of Android—Android 16—along with updates to the Gemini voice assistant and all of Google’s other software products, from Wear OS to Android Auto.
Monitor Your Meals With Lifesum’s AI Tracking
If you’re diabetic or trying to get your cholesterol levels down, tracking your meals is probably the most difficult part. What’s in there, exactly? How much protein, fiber, or calories are you really ingesting? Companies like Oura have begun experimenting with using AI to analyze your meals. But the more ways you can log your food intake, the easier it is to stick to it.
This week, the nutrition app Lifesum (iOS, Android) introduced multimodal AI-powered meal tracking via photos, text, or barcodes. Take a picture of your meal, upload to the app, and advanced image recognition will quickly break it down and log it for you. Should you choose to describe it via voice or text, language processing models will do the same. You can also scan barcodes for instant nutritional information. We’ve come a long way from counting the points in a handful of popcorn, that’s for sure. —Adrienne So
Adobe’s Firefly Generative AI Video App Is Here
Video: Julian Chokkattu
Adobe claims its Firefly app—which launched in beta this past week—employs the “first commercially safe AI video generation model” to market. It was only available within Adobe Premiere Pro before, allowing you to use text prompts or images to generate videos, but now Firefly is accessible as a web app.
What the company means by “safe” is that its Firefly Video Model injects a watermark to signify parts of the video that have been generated by AI for transparency. Adobe also says Firefly was trained on licensed videos, meaning the generated video content is safe to use without worrying about intellectual property theft. Now you can just worry about your job being replaced in a few years once it can generate full-length videos!
Alongside the new web app, Adobe also has new subscription options (of course). The Firefly Standard plan is $10 per month with 2,000 credits, enough for 20 five-second AI videos in 1080p. Firefly Pro upgrades that to 7,000 credits, which equals up to 70 five-second 1080p videos for $30 per month. There will be a Firefly Premium plan in the future that offers even more credits for “high-volume creators,” but no details have been shared yet.
Apple TV Comes to Android
Android users pining for Ted Lasso on the go had good news this week, as the Apple TV app is finally available for Android phones and tablets. Not to be confused with the streaming box of the same name, the Apple TV app serves up the brand’s Apple TV Plus subscription streaming service, a formidable player in the crowded streaming marketplace, thanks to Lasso and other popular originals like The Morning Show and the addictive sci-fi thriller, Severance, now in its long-awaited second season.
Other enticing Apple TV content includes critically acclaimed original movies like Coda and Martin Scorsese’s marathon period film, Killers of the Flower Moon, and live sports like Friday Night Baseball, Sunday Night Soccer, and access to MLS Season Pass (for an additional fee).
Apple TV Plus has been available across all major smart TVs and streaming devices for years, but in that oh-so-Apple way, the app has been conspicuously unavailable for Android users since its launch in 2019. The biggest advantage for Androidian Apple TV Plus subscribers may be the ability to download Apple TV series and movies for offline viewing, a feature most other major streamers provide. —Ryan Waniata
PSA: Amazon Is Ending Kids+ Support for iOS and Android
Amazon announced last year that Amazon Kids+ would no longer be available for new customers on iOS or Android devices, and would eventually be going away for everyone on those platforms. That day is rapidly approaching. On March 10, Amazon will no longer support the Kids+ app for iOS and Android. It’s unclear exactly what this means, but the message is clear in spirit if not letter: Amazon Kids+ requires an Amazon device like a Kindle, Fire Tablet, Echo Speaker, or Fire TV. —Scott Gilbertson
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