New Mac app desires to document the whole lot you do—so you’ll be able to “rewind” it later

Yesterday, an organization referred to as Rewind AI introduced a self-titled software program product for Macs with Apple Silicon that reportedly retains a extremely compressed, searchable document of the whole lot you do domestically in your Mac and allows you to “rewind” time to see it later. In the event you overlook one thing you have “seen, stated, or heard,” Rewind desires that can assist you discover it simply.

Rewind AI claims its product shops all recording information domestically in your machine and doesn’t require cloud integration. Amongst its guarantees, Rewind will reportedly allow you to rewind Zoom conferences and pull info from them in a searchable kind.

In a video demo on Rewind.AI’s website, the app opens when a consumer presses Command+Shift+Area. The search bar suggests typing “something you have seen, stated, or heard.” It additionally reveals a timeline on the backside of the display that represents earlier actions in apps.

After looking for “tps reviews,” the video depicts a grid view of each time Rewind has encountered the phrase “tps reviews” as audio or textual content in any app, together with Zoom chats, textual content messages, emails, Slack conversations, and Phrase paperwork. It describes filtering the outcomes by app—and the flexibility to repeat and paste from these previous cases if obligatory.

Based by Dan Siroker and Brett Bejcek, Rewind AI consists of a small distant staff positioned in varied cities across the US. Parts of the corporate beforehand created Scribe, a precursor to Rewind that obtained some press consideration in 2021. In an introductory weblog put up, Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker writes, “What if we might use know-how to reinforce our reminiscence the identical means a listening to assist can increase our listening to?”

How does it work?

Rewind AI offers few particulars concerning the app’s back-end know-how however describes “mind-boggling compression” that may reportedly compress recording information as much as 3,750 instances “with out a main lack of high quality,” giving an instance of 10.5GB of information squeezed down to simply 2.8MB. Rewind says that even on a small exhausting drive, “you’ll be able to retailer years of recordings”—a heady declare, to make sure.

The Rewind website additionally describes utilizing OCR to seize textual content content material and automatic speech recognition to mechanically transcribe something you have stated or heard, together with in conferences, in order that “you by no means have to fret about shedding this content material once more.”

(If Rewind converts the whole lot it sees and hears into plain textual content, that may clarify the large compression ratio. The demo didn’t present any stay video or audio recording playback, for instance, simply static screenshots with highlighted textual content. Now we have requested Rewind AI to make clear this level and can replace the article if we obtain a response.)

Rewind AI additionally says that Apple Silicon Macs with M1 and M2 chips are key to creating the product work in a “nearly imperceptible” means, using “nearly each a part of the System on a Chip.”

Potential privateness points

Whereas laying out the imaginative and prescient for Rewind AI within the weblog put up talked about above, Siroker writes, “Our imaginative and prescient is to provide people excellent reminiscence.” However commenters on Twitter and YouTube have already begun mentioning eventualities the place “excellent reminiscence” might backfire.

For instance, Rewind would possibly expose its customers to potential abuse from overbearing companions, bosses, legislation enforcement, or repressive governments; authorized points from recording delicate info; and consent points round recording different individuals in conferences.

Rewind addresses a few of these issues on its website, saying, “We retailer the entire recordings domestically in your Mac. Solely you have got entry to them.” Their demo website additionally says that you can pause or delete recordings at any time, and you’ll mechanically exclude sure apps out of your recorded historical past, together with non-public searching modes in browsers.

So far as acquiring permission to document a gathering with different individuals, Rewind offers its personal assist web page titled “The whole lot it is advisable find out about consent” that features recommendation comparable to “Earlier than you document somebody, it’s best to at all times ask for his or her consent.” The web page recommends telling individuals the assembly shall be recorded—maybe forward of time—and that customers comply with all native legal guidelines associated to recording conversations.

Privateness and moral issues apart, Andreessen Horowitz is taking the know-how critically sufficient to steer a $10 million spherical of funding at a valuation of $75 million. The enterprise capital agency wrote about its causes for investing in Rewind, posing the product as a remedy for info overload.

At present, the Rewind product isn’t publicly out there, however anybody can request “Early Entry” on the Rewind web site. We reached out to Rewind and requested for an opportunity to attempt the software program.