Tech Landscape #393
Claude and Gemini gain memory, new features in AI creative tools, and… look, it was a quiet week, OK?
Hello!
An actual slow week, this week, with a handful of small feature releases and updates. I looked back at the archive and saw that I skipped this week last year because it was so quiet, but made the decision to send today anyway because it’ll make my life easier next week, when I expect Google to announce a lot. What a sensible lad I am.
As this edition is shorter than usual you might be looking for something else to read; if so, you could check out this opinion piece I wrote for The Drum, ostensibly about when it’s OK to use AI in ads, but largely a plea from me to everyone to just make better stuff with AI.
The use of AI for advertising shouldn’t be a selling point per se. It should be more or less invisible to the consumer, part of a process that creatively enables storytelling. For marketers, this means understanding AI not just as a faster, cheaper way to produce existing content, but as a tool to enhance a brand narrative by unlocking new creative opportunities: doing something new, or different, or better.
I started the piece about three months ago and finishing it was like pulling teeth. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to write, and I’m not even sure why; maybe it’s because I felt like I had to fortify it against criticisms from multiple directions.
Anyway, let’s get on with it. Hope you’re well!
Synthetic Audio/Video
Higgsfield launched Draw-to-Video with Product Placement allowing users to create videos from sketches with action notations, and include objects from reference images. higgsfield.ai
Higgsfield added Assist, a chat interface for everything from discovering features to prompt enhancement, powered by GPT-5. higgsfield.ai
These seem like pretty useful features but IDK because, like most of Higgsfield’s new features, they’re only available to higher subscription tiers — which is at least part of the reason I cancelled my Basic subscription.
Freepik added Restyle to transfer the style of a preset, colour palette, or uploaded reference to any image. x.com/freepik
It preserves the structure of the original really well, as you can see in this ⬇️ example.
LTX studio added Multi-Reference to include objects, characters, and visual elements from multiple images into a single new frame. instagram.com
Dream Machine made Modify With Instructions generally available to all paid subscribers. instagram.com
I covered Modify With Instructions back in #391.Pika announced a new audio performance / lip-syncing model coming soon to its Social app. instagram.com
I think I already have access to this in the Pika Social app; at least, I have access to a good image-to-lip-syncing feature, but it takes longer than the promised six seconds to generate. You can see a few examples here ⬇️.
Eleven Labs launched Video to Music (Alpha), which generates a custom soundtrack based on a video’s context. x.com/elevenlabsio
A few other tools have this already and every one I’ve tried just generates music that broadly kind-of-matches the subject of the video, often not very well. Most of the time you’d be better off prompting the exact style you want.Perplexity added video generation for Pro and Max users. threads.com/@perplexity.ai
It’s clearly ⬇️ Google’s Veo 3. Pro subscribers can generate five videos per month, which is basically nothing.
Assistants
Gemini can now personalise conversations by recalling past chats, and added Temporary Chat conversations that will be kept for only 72 hours. blog.google
Not available in the UK or most of Europe yet.Claude can also reference past chats. instagram.com
Unlike Gemini (and ChatGPT) this doesn’t happen automatically; you have to specifically ask it to reference them. Also of note this week is that Claude will permanently end some conversations when it detects persistent harmful and/or abusive requests. Anthropic is trying to move fast and not break things.HTC launched VIVE Eagle smart glasses with an AI voice assistant, smart photography, and translation. vive.com
Only in Taiwan, but useful to note how many companies are working on this type of device.
Everything Else
Discord fully released its Social SDK to all developers, allowing them to integrate voice and text chat directly into their games. discord.com
Edits latest update added keyframe timing curves, edge-snapping, and more. threads.com/@creators
Adobe is shutting down Aero, its AR creation and publishing tool. helpx.adobe.com
Bonus Links
The Man Who Invented Motion Pictures is one of the best books I’ve read recently. It’s the story of the invention of cinema and very insightful into the processes of innovation. You can listen to the audiobook, read by the brilliant Paterson Joseph, on BBC Sounds (free if you’re in the UK) for the next few weeks.
Genius Still Unrecognised is an episode of Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales podcast, ostensibly about the poet William McGonagall, but also about the ability to be creative.