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This AI-powered app will help you get stuff done — and on time, too

time ai productivity app screen shot 2017 01 09 at 8 18 03 pm
Image used with permission by copyright holder
If we’re honest, most of the apps on our phone are probably more of a distraction than anything else. Twitter, Messenger, Instagram, Pokémon Go — they’re not exactly paragons of productivity. But there’s one app that wants to take up space on your home screen and free up space in your schedule by actually getting you to get things done. Meet Time, a new app that gamifies productivity, turning recreation into achievement.

Sure, there are plenty of to-do lists, time trackers, and other productivity apps out there, but this one is a bit unique. Powered by artificial intelligence, Time lets you enter a task and the amount of time it ought to take to complete it. When you’re ready to begin, simply tap on the task, and the timer begins, counting down against a green backdrop. As your time begins to run out, the background changes to yellow, and then to red. Should you need more time to complete the task, no problem — just pull down a bit on the item. But if you finish it, pull it all the way down, and mark it as complete.

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Should you take too much time, however, the app will go into Overtime Mode, and you’ll see just how much extra time you’re wasting, er, taking. And don’t worry — Time won’t go silently into this new status. When you run out of time, you’ll hear an alarm go off, creating the sense of urgency you may need to get the job done.

The AI kicks in with more frequent use. The more addicted you become to finishing your tasks on time, the smarter the app becomes. In fact, the app can start to offer tips to help you be more productive based on your prior work habits.

As Techcrunch noted, the app features a number of algorithms that employ linguistic recognition to associate tasks with one another. That means that if you tell yourself to “buy groceries” or “go to the grocery store,” the app ought to understand it as the same thing. And if you constantly under or overestimate the amount of time this task will take, the app might suggest a different time frame.

Sure, this may not be the most exciting app for everyone out there, but if one of your New Year’s resolutions was to be more efficient, this $1 app just may be the tool you need.

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Lulu Chang
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Fascinated by the effects of technology on human interaction, Lulu believes that if her parents can use your new app…
You can now video chat with a ChatGPT AI — here’s what it looks like
Call Annie ChatGPT app on an iPhone.

Showing up to a videoconference as your digital avatar can be quite fun. Apple lets you do just that with Memojis during FaceTime. If you want something more ambitious on a different platform, Avatarify will turn into Albert Einstien or Mona Lisa for Zoom calls. But what if you could bring an AI conversation to life? Say, by talking to ChatGPT as if OpenAI’s AI was a CGI person talking to you on a video call?
Well, that’s now possible. Call Annie is an app that turns ChatGPT into Annie, a talking female avatar that doesn’t look like a glitchy visual mess. Developed by Animato.Ai, the app is currently exclusive to iOS 16, but you can also use it on macOS 13 machines with an M-series processor inside.

A ChatGPT-powered video call in action
https://twitter.com/frantzfries/status/1651316031762071553?s=20
Another limitation is that you need at least the iPhone 12 or a later model to start a video call with Annie because the real-time conversion of linguistic prompts into visual cues draws power from Apple’s Neural Engine.
The app’s makers claim that talking to Annie “face-to-face in real time time feels more natural and faster than typing and reading text.” So far, the sample videos we have seen on social media, like the one above, show a fairly convincing video call interface.
Right now, Annie appears to be pretty good at holding a fluent conversation, even though the voice sounds robotic, and the phrase pausing could also use some work. The answers, however, are typical of the answers you would get while texting back-and-forth with ChatGPT. And given enough time and improved voice training, Call Annie interactions can become a lot more natural-sounding.
It all brings back memories of the sci-fi flick Her, in which Joaquin Phoenix’s character falls in love with one such AI. One user asked on Reddit whether Annie can have a “memory” system that will turn it into a smarter “friend,” to which the app developers replied with “soon.”
https://twitter.com/jakedahn/status/1651285054591750144
This is only the beginning for Annie
Users who have tried the app note that it occasionally flubs the pronunciation of words, but once corrected, it also learns right away. One user described this experience as “scary stuff.”Another issue it has is with pronouncing words in languages other than English, something that the developers are trying to fix.
Thanks to its ChatGPT smarts, the app’s developers say it can help you with everything from learning and web searches to serving as a tour guide or even a virtual companion. We don’t know if it’s as smart as other virtual partner apps like Replika, but considering the fact that Annie is based on ChatGPT (and its vast data training model), you can have a significantly deeper and fact-driven conversation with Annie.
Animato’s App Store description notes that the AI keeps all conversations “confidential” but hasn’t specified what kind of security measures have been put in place and whether it uses the user conversations for training and refining Annie’s systems.

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