Yesterday, an organization known as Rewind AI introduced a self-titled software program product for Macs with Apple Silicon that reportedly retains a extremely compressed, searchable record of everything you do domestically in your Mac and lets you “rewind” time to see it later. If you overlook one thing you’ve “seen, stated, or heard,” Rewind wants to assist you discover it simply.

Rewind AI claims its product shops all recording knowledge domestically in your machine and doesn’t require cloud integration. Amongst its guarantees, Rewind will reportedly let you rewind Zoom conferences and pull data from them in a searchable type.

In a video demo on Rewind.AI’s web site, the app opens when a person presses Command+Shift+House. The search bar suggests typing “something you’ve 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 experiences,” the video depicts a grid view of each time Rewind has encountered the phrase “tps experiences” 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 power to copy and paste from these previous cases if obligatory.

Based by Dan Siroker and Brett Bejcek, Rewind AI consists of a small distant crew situated in numerous cities across the US. Parts of the corporate beforehand created Scribe, a precursor to Rewind that acquired some press consideration in 2021. In an introductory weblog put up, Rewind AI co-founder Dan Siroker writes, “What if we may use expertise to increase our reminiscence the identical method a listening to assist 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 can reportedly compress recording knowledge up to 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 can retailer years of recordings”—a heady declare, to be certain.

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

(If Rewind converts everything 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. We now 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 making the product work in a “just about imperceptible” method, using “just about 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 give people excellent reminiscence.” However 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, regulation enforcement, or repressive governments; authorized points from recording delicate data; and consent points round recording different folks in conferences.

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

So far as acquiring permission to record a gathering with different contributors, Rewind gives its personal assist web page titled “Everything you want to learn about consent” that features recommendation corresponding to “Earlier than you record somebody, you ought to all the time ask for his or her consent.” The web page recommends telling folks the assembly shall be recorded—maybe forward of time—and that customers observe all native legal guidelines associated to recording conversations.

Privateness and moral issues apart, Andreessen Horowitz is taking the expertise significantly sufficient to lead 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 treatment for data overload.

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