Consumer tech and new products: Developer conference keynotes are changing

Every summer, tech giants unveil a new direction for their software products, apps, and upgrades bestowed upon tools for app developers. Apple CEO Tim Cook takes a photo in a viewing area for new products during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference at the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California, on June 5. Apple’s different take on reality While Microsoft and Google are battling in similar spaces, Apple’s AI tools are primed more as foundations for apps and services available on the iPhone, iPad and Mac. Two visual features for Android 14, called Cinematic Wallpaper and Generative AI Wallpaper, will use Google’s text-to-image diffusion model to generate an image Think of this as a melding of Midjourney or Stable Diffusion AI tools available on the web, but for a very specific functionality for Android devices. “We know from research that the human brain processes visual information about 60,000 times faster than text, making visual tools a critical way people search, create and gain understanding,” said Microsoft’s Mehdi.