New Mac App Wants To Record Everything You Do - So You Can 'Rewind' It Later (arstechnica.com) 41
An anonymous reader shares a report: Yesterday, a company called Rewind AI announced a self-titled software product for Macs with Apple Silicon that reportedly keeps a highly compressed, searchable record of everything you do locally on your Mac and lets you "rewind" time to see it later. If you forget something you've "seen, said, or heard," Rewind wants to help you find it easily. Rewind AI claims its product stores all recording data locally on your machine and does not require cloud integration. Among its promises, Rewind will reportedly let you rewind Zoom meetings and pull information from them in a searchable form. In a video demo on Rewind.AI's site, the app opens when a user presses Command+Shift+Space. The search bar suggests typing "anything you've seen, said, or heard." It also shows a timeline at the bottom of the screen that represents previous actions in apps.
After searching for "tps reports," the video depicts a grid view of every time Rewind has encountered the phrase "tps reports" as audio or text in any app, including Zoom chats, text messages, emails, Slack conversations, and Word documents. It describes filtering the results by app -- and the ability to copy and paste from these past instances if necessary. Founded by Dan Siroker and Brett Bejcek, Rewind AI is composed of a small remote team located in various cities around the US. Portions of the company previously created Scribe, a precursor to Rewind that received some press attention in 2021. In an introductory blog post, Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker writes, "What if we could use technology to augment our memory the same way a hearing aid can augment our hearing?" Rewind AI provides few details about the app's back-end technology but describes "mind-boggling compression" that can reportedly compress recording data up to 3,750 times "without a major loss of quality," giving an example of 10.5GB of data squeezed down to just 2.8MB.
After searching for "tps reports," the video depicts a grid view of every time Rewind has encountered the phrase "tps reports" as audio or text in any app, including Zoom chats, text messages, emails, Slack conversations, and Word documents. It describes filtering the results by app -- and the ability to copy and paste from these past instances if necessary. Founded by Dan Siroker and Brett Bejcek, Rewind AI is composed of a small remote team located in various cities around the US. Portions of the company previously created Scribe, a precursor to Rewind that received some press attention in 2021. In an introductory blog post, Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker writes, "What if we could use technology to augment our memory the same way a hearing aid can augment our hearing?" Rewind AI provides few details about the app's back-end technology but describes "mind-boggling compression" that can reportedly compress recording data up to 3,750 times "without a major loss of quality," giving an example of 10.5GB of data squeezed down to just 2.8MB.
And this company thinks this is a good idea? (Score:2)
Wow - 20 years ago I'd say - pretty cool. In today's litigious environment I would touch any sort of "automatic recording software" with a 20 foot (6+m) fiberglass pole and a full arc-flash PPE.
I can just think of the TLA Spook agencies syphoning this off, along with discovery during divorce, or any one of a number of other reasons.
Boggles the mind on how stupid both companies that develop such tools are... and the people that buy them.
Re: (Score:1)
"mind-boggling compression" that can reportedly compress recording data up to 3,750 times "without a major loss of quality,"
We've heard this song before. And it always turns out to be bullshit.
... giving an example of 10.5GB of data squeezed down to just 2.8MB.
Great. The malware people will add this as one more thing to look for when they compromise your computer and it will now be 3,000 times faster and easier to exfiltrate all your data. Genius.
Re: (Score:2)
"mind-boggling compression" that can reportedly compress recording data up to 3,750 times "without a major loss of quality,"
We've heard this song before. And it always turns out to be bullshit.
... giving an example of 10.5GB of data squeezed down to just 2.8MB.
Great. The malware people will add this as one more thing to look for when they compromise your computer and it will now be 3,000 times faster and easier to exfiltrate all your data. Genius.
Nah, 10.5GB of repetitive useless XML crap easily compress into 2.8MB especially if you also use de-duplication, I assume that's what they meant. /s
Re: (Score:2)
We've heard this song before. And it always turns out to be bullshit.
I paused when I read that line too, but I wonder if they're referring not to video capture, but to activity on your PC. If it functions somewhat like RDP versus VNC - VNC transmits large images so it's a lot of data, while RDP transmits information about the windows instead, so it's speedy and a lot less data. In a way that's sort of "compression" with no loss of quality.
An actual recording of your Zoom call obviously wouldn't be eligible for the same level of data compression if they need to be able to r
Re:And this company thinks this is a good idea? (Score:5, Informative)
Wow - 20 years ago I'd say - pretty cool. In today's litigious environment I would touch any sort of "automatic recording software" with a 20 foot (6+m) fiberglass pole and a full arc-flash PPE.
I can just think of the TLA Spook agencies syphoning this off, along with discovery during divorce, or any one of a number of other reasons.
Boggles the mind on how stupid both companies that develop such tools are... and the people that buy them.
Those aren't mere "people" buying this solution. Or strictly governments. Those are your major employers who are chomping at the bit to collect and sell off that data.
And there's probably not a damn thing you're going to do about it after their literal army of top-tier litigators lobby for such employer protections to be passed to make such activity not only legal, but mandated as a condition of employment.
Bad? Wait til you hear who's likely to be the one paying for the solution via payroll fees, while corporate profits off it with "royalties" handed to the C-execs it was sold to.
TL; DR - I'd say every company involved knows exactly who the target audience is here, and they're not standing up a charity.
Re: (Score:1)
Use your personal equipment for personal stuff. Use your work equipment for work stuff. Don't put work on your personal equipment, or personal stuff on work equipment. Carry 2 cellphones if necessary.
Compartmentalize everything as best as you can. You don't owe your life to work, unless you choose it. Like the big fat paycheck? You might not like the real cost.
Re:And this company thinks this is a good idea? (Score:4, Insightful)
Use your personal equipment for personal stuff. Use your work equipment for work stuff. Don't put work on your personal equipment, or personal stuff on work equipment. Carry 2 cellphones if necessary.
Hi Archangel,
As part of our routine HR audits using the new Rewind AI tool we have noted you were stationary on a single application between the following times:
* 10:05 AM to 10:27 AM
* 11:17 AM to 11:45 AM
* 12:02 PM to 1:15 PM
* 2:23 PM to 3:06 PM
* 3:45 PM to 4:22 PM
Please take note that, other than during your scheduled lunch break between 12:00 PM to 12:30 PM, you are expected to be actively engaged in work related activities. We would like to remind you of the clause stated in your employment acceptance agreement, of which you agreed to, stating the use of personal devices is only permitted during your scheduled lunch period unless you are able to provide adequate evidence of a developing personal emergency.
If you were away from your desk assisting other team members during these times please submit, and review, the corroborating documentation and witness statements with your manager. Until this has been completed we will have no choice but to assume you were using this unsanctioned time for personal reasons and will be adjusting your next pay accordingly to reflect the reduced hours of work. It is important to stress that repeated instances of this behaviour will result in disciplinary action which could result in termination of employment.
It has been our pleasure to work with you on this performance issue today, should you have any questions please reach out.
Your HR Professional
Re: (Score:2)
Hi HR Professional,
As you'll see from my employment agreement, I'm an exempt employee (ie, salaried). This means I do not work according to any regular hourly schedule -- the times of my work and the duties I perform may vary from day to day. During the times you listed, I was definitely not working. What I was doing instead, however, is quite irrelevant. If you'd like to amend the terms of my employment, so that I might in the future be subjected to this type of tyrannical hovering, please do so in writing
Re: (Score:2)
it runs on Macs, business won't be buying in until they get a windoze "solution" and shortly thereafter, MS will announce CryptoSleaze, Your Friendly AI Recording Chef. Except then business will have to figure that sending all their information back to mothership is worth it...okay, so they'll sign on in a heartbeat.
I, for one, think this is a good idea (Score:2)
Contrary to many privacy-concerned posters, *I* at least think this could be a good idea, in the appropriate situations.
Of course, all of the use cases below depended on the software being reliable and secure, in the sense that we can be confident it was not sending everything back to mothership (which could be tricky but not entirely impossible, e.g. by some kind of sandboxing or by being open source).
First off, the more obvious use cases would be in the legal field. Certain roles may benefit from having
Coming soon (Score:2)
To a workplace near you? Well that, and spyware.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyone who installs this 100% deserves what they'll get.
Re: (Score:2)
True, but anybody installing this also makes it more acceptable to be around, so they are harming everybody else as well.
No Thanks (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
If you replay getting dumped a hundred times, then you'll become immune to heartbreaks. Then again, reality did that for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that works a bit like the same principle that killing yourself works. It is figuratively instead of literally, but still.
.bash_history (Score:2)
Re:.bash_history (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it can. In fact, .bash_history is the very first place where hackers look for your credentials. Why? Because very often passwords, keys or paths to files where such credentials are stored are included as a part of the command. There are also times where you accidentally enter passwords of all sorts as commands, after a failed copy-paste for example, and they all get logged in .bash_history.
Re: (Score:2)
It can. You just need to mistype them onto the command line by accident or use them as parameters. One reason I have it disabled everywhere.
Re: (Score:1)
Shiny translucent metal ass
how much CPU time does this use! (Score:2)
how much CPU time does this use!
Re: (Score:2)
When I do QA for my own stuff, I do record myself using OBS and the NVENC of my graphics card, so I go through everything again in slow motion and pause to get a closer look at details that I might have missed otherwise when too many things to keep track of change at the same time, and where logging things into a file alone wouldn't be too helpful either (so you do both).
I'd say that this can be a quite useful feature if there's also some algorithm th
Finally (Score:2)
middle out compression (Score:3)
Why limit this compression innovation to only spying? I'm sure everyone would love to use it for lots of other things.
I'll have to be honest, this really sounds like middle out compression, complete with hand gestures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
JACK Timemachine (Score:2)
I read this and immediately thought of JACK Timemachine [plugin.org.uk] (which I always thought was a cool solution and wondered why no one else did it), then immediately realized that this is far more nefarious.
Orwell couldn't have imagined this...
Oh, boy (Score:2)
The forensics teams are gonna love this one!
How stupid can companies get? (Score:2)
Cause yesterday don't mean shit
What's over is over and nothing between
Yesterday don't mean shit
Because tomorrow's the day you have to face
There's no rewinding time
Yesterday don't mean shit
Yesterday don't mean shit
Wasn't there a Black Mirror episode on this... (Score:2)
I feel like there was a Black Mirror episode that covered nearly exactly this. Or there's several other series like Amazon's "The Feed" that quickly shows why this sounds nice.. but in practice is probably a Very. Bad. Idea. without limitations.
Re: Wasn't there a Black Mirror episode on this... (Score:2)
The simpsons did it. (Score:2)
Nice Panopticum you have there ... (Score:2)
Why do some people always think crap like this is a good idea?
Have this on PS4 and PS5 (Score:2)
And I suppose also in the XBox.
You can, at any time, save the video of the last hour of your game play in the PS5. I know it is intended for uploading your gameplay videos, or saving some memorable moments to share with friends. But what I found it to be really useful was when I missed some dialog or event when playing rpg, I can pause the game, save the last 5 minutes, and then replay what just happened.
In games like Elden Ring, you also can review the videos to study enemy movements. In dungeon/maze cr
1st thought - Hell no (Score:2)
DIY (Score:3)
A few times a day I feed the text to ElasticSearch (when the load on the system is low) and I have a PHP script to search for things. So when I need something I read or saw, I can search and have both the text and the image. Tesseract results are mixed, sometimes flawless that I don't need to look at the images, sometimes is a garbled mess. I've tried AI-powered OCR, they work better, but turns my computer into an area heater.
It uses less than 700MB per year, so I believe it's worthy. And uses only tools on my system, so even if that startup says "it never leaves your computer" you cannot say for sure that someday in the future that changes and nobody notices. It's portable too: the pictures are png, the text are plain