- OpenTools' Newsletter
- Posts
- 🤩Google Flow's Big Upgrade
🤩Google Flow's Big Upgrade
PLUS: China’s Robot Phone Revealed
In partnership with
Reading time: 5 minutes
🗞️In this edition
Sponsored: Belay – Your partner in delegation
Google flow's hyper-realistic video update
Workflow Wednesday #41 ‘AI & Human Creativity’
Honor's robot phone with moving camera
In other AI news –
Spotify’s AI DJ can now text back, complete with personalized music prompts
Meta partners with Arm to boost AI performance using Neoverse chips
Anthropic rolls out an upgraded version of its lightweight Haiku model for free users
4 must-try AI tools
Thanks to feedback from our amazing OpenTools readers, we’ve refined how we share stories. Now the focus is squarely on the insights you value most - with direct links, fresh perspectives, and hand-curated AI news designed to keep you informed and ahead of the curve.
If you’re enjoying the changes, let us know in the feedback survey at the end so we can keep shaping this newsletter into the best experience for our OpenTools family.
Your Partner in Delegation
You’ve done it all. Built your business, clawed your way into the green, pulled every lever you could pull. And you did it all by digging in.
But now? Your work days creep later and later. Big plans get pushed one more day. The urgent task always wins over the important one.
You’ve reached capacity. It’s not about working harder now. It’s about growing smarter.
BELAY’s Delegate to Elevate eBook shows how to break through the ceiling by letting go of the tasks holding you back. You’ll discover the mindset shift and strategies successful entrepreneurs use to free up time and focus on scaling.
It’s the tipping point: delegate to elevate — or stay stuck.
Image Source: Google Images
News – Google Flow's Hollywood Makeover 🎬
What's the update?
Google just made AI-generated videos a lot harder to spot. The company announced Wednesday that Flow users can now add and change shadows and lighting in their AI videos.
Translation: AI videos are about to look way more realistic than your uncle's wedding footage.
What's driving this upgrade?
The expanded editing features are tied to the Veo 3.1 update, also announced Wednesday. Google says the new version does a better job of creating videos based on the images you submit as prompts.
Same price as Veo 3, available through a "paid preview" via Gemini API for developers, and enabled in the Gemini app.
But wait, there's more audio magic:
Flow now lets you generate videos with audio using several new features:
"Ingredients to Video": Make a video with audio based on three reference images
"Frames to Video": Creates a video that bridges a starting image with an ending image, complete with accompanying audio
"Scene Extension": Take the final second of a clip and add up to a minute of additional generated video (yes, with audio too)
The feature that sounds like sci-fi:
According to Google, Flow users will soon be able to remove "anything" from a video.
The tool will restructure the background and scene to make "it look as though the object was never there."
Basically, it's Photoshop's content-aware fill, but for video. And on steroids.
The real question:
At what point do we stop being able to tell what's real and what's AI? Because Google just blurred that line significantly. 🙋♂️
Do you like the new OpenTools Newsletter Format? |
This Week in Workflow Wednesday #41: AI & Human Creativity
Workflow #1: From Creative Thoughts to Instagram Post with Canva AI (free).
Step 1: Head to Canva AI → Text-to-Image. Type the idea you’ve been sitting on.
Step 2: Generate 4–5 variations. Go back into the Canva AI and insert the prompt……… we explore this and 2 more workflows inside this week’s edition of Workflow Wednesday.
Image Source: Google Images
What's the big reveal?
Honor, the Chinese smartphone maker spun off from Huawei, just teased a concept AI phone with a fold-out gimbal-attached camera that literally unfolds from the back of the device.
The promotional video showed the gimbal-stabilized camera unfurl from the back camera module and pivot while tracking its subject's movement.
It even plays peekaboo with babies, apparently.
What else can this thing do?
Honor describes the "Robot Phone" as a "revolutionary AI device that fuses multi-modal intelligence, advanced robotics and next-generation imaging."
The teaser video also highlighted an "emotional companion" feature that "senses, adapts, and evolves autonomously like a robot."
So basically, your phone might have more personality than your coworker in accounting.
When can we see more?
Honor said more details will be released in Spain at next year's MWC Barcelona trade show, running from March 2 to 5.
The Robot Phone marks "an important milestone" for Honor's "Alpha" plan.
What's the Alpha plan?
Unveiled in March by CEO James Li Jian, it's a five-year, $10 billion investment strategy to transform Honor from a smartphone maker into "an ecosystem company" focused on AI devices.
The breakdown:
Start with an AI smartphone that changes how users interact with their handsets
Expand into PCs, tablets, and wearable devices
Most of the $10 billion goes to collaborations with global partners
But wait, there's more AI magic:
Honor also launched its new Magic8-series AI smartphone featuring an advanced AI agent called "Yoyo."
Activated via a physical AI button, Yoyo can autonomously perform more than 3,000 tasks through its connection with over 4,000 third-party apps, including Alibaba's Amap, Meituan's Dianping, and video platform Bilibili.
Honor's robot ambitions:
In May, Honor announced its foray into robotics, saying it would develop its own robots and had helped Unitree Robotics break the record for running speed by a humanoid robot.
The market context:
In the quarter ended September, Honor and Oppo tied for fifth place in mainland China smartphone shipments, with market shares of 14.4% and 14.5%, respectively, according to IDC.
Honor was originally established as a budget brand under Huawei in 2013, then sold to a consortium of agents and dealers in November 2020 amid US tech restrictions.
The real question:
Do we need a phone with a camera that unfolds itself? Probably not. Do we want one? Absolutely. 🙋♂️
You can now text Spotify’s AI DJ // In addition to the new texting feature, Spotify says that the AI DJ will also now offer personalized prompt suggestions to help inspire you if you’re not sure what you want to listen to next
Meta partners up with Arm to scale AI efforts // Under the partnership, Meta’s ranking and recommendation systems will move to Arm’s Neoverse platform, which was recently optimized for AI systems in the cloud, among other implementations
Anthropic launches new version of scaled-down ‘Haiku’ model // The new version of Haiku will be immediately available under all free Anthropic plans and the company believes it will be particularly appealing for free versions of AI products, where it can provide significant capabilities while minimizing server loads
Viroll - An AI-powered video editing tool that helps users create highlight clips from their videos
Chekable - An AI-powered platform that provides services for checking the patentability of inventions
Book Witch - A Software as a Service platform that allows users to generate e-books from a simple description
AI Perfect Assistant - A tool designed to enhance Microsoft Word by automating various writing tasks
How likely is it that you would recommend the OpenTools' newsletter to a friend or colleague? |
Interested in featuring your services with us? Email us at [email protected] |