New Mac app desires to document all the pieces 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 all the pieces you do regionally in your Mac and allows you to “rewind” time to see it later. If you overlook one thing you have “seen, mentioned, or heard,” Rewind desires that will help you discover it simply.

Rewind AI claims its product shops all recording knowledge regionally in your machine and doesn’t require cloud integration. Among 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+Space. The search bar suggests typing “something you have seen, mentioned, or heard.” It additionally exhibits a timeline on the backside of the display screen that represents earlier actions in apps.

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

Founded by Dan Siroker and Brett Bejcek, Rewind AI consists of a small distant workforce positioned in numerous cities across the US. Portions of the corporate beforehand created Scribe, a precursor to Rewind that acquired some press consideration in 2021. In an introductory weblog submit, Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker writes, “What if we may use expertise to reinforce our reminiscence the identical means a listening to help can increase our listening to?”

How does it work?

Rewind AI gives few particulars concerning the app’s back-end expertise however describes “mind-boggling compression” that may reportedly compress recording knowledge as much as 3,750 instances “with out a main lack of high quality,” giving an instance of 10.5GB of knowledge squeezed down to only 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 certain.

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

(If Rewind converts all the pieces it sees and hears into plain textual content, which may clarify the huge compression ratio. The demo didn’t present any dwell video or audio recording playback, for instance, simply static screenshots with highlighted textual content. 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

While laying out the imaginative and prescient for Rewind AI within the weblog submit talked about above, Siroker writes, “Our imaginative and prescient is to offer people excellent reminiscence.” But commenters on Twitter and YouTube have already begun stating situations the place “excellent reminiscence” may 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 all the recordings regionally in your Mac. Only you’ve entry to them.” Their demo website additionally says that you’ll pause or delete recordings at any time, and you’ll routinely exclude sure apps out of your recorded historical past, together with non-public looking modes in browsers.

As far as acquiring permission to document a gathering with different contributors, Rewind gives its personal assist web page titled “Everything it is advisable find out about consent” that features recommendation similar to “Before you document somebody, it is best to at all times ask for his or her consent.” The web page recommends telling individuals the assembly might be recorded—maybe forward of time—and that customers comply with all native legal guidelines associated to recording conversations.

Privacy and moral issues apart, Andreessen Horowitz is taking the expertise severely 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.

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