This whole video and everything is clearly a joke right? Video is made like a parody of computer ads. But I don't see a single comment here about that and looks like everyone is taking this seriously.
Is BCNY a real channel? Have I missed something? Am I out of loop?
You're not missing anything, this is the official YouTube channel for their company. The Browser Company of New York (BCNY) generally take a more lighthearted and informal style of communication - just part of their brand identity. The video is made in the style of a shopping-channel commercial and news broadcast, but that doesn't really affect the features, which is what people are discussing.
"Arc Max uses OpenAI’s API Platform and Anthropic’s Claude for commercial applications. These features are off by default in the desktop app and not available in the mobile app at this time."
which include in some cases: the whole content of website, URL, etc...
I kicked off Firefox's local translation project last year with my engineering partner Andre (who led Mozilla's efforts with Bergamot and the folks in Europe) and those models are about 30MB per language pair (English is a pivot language so to get from, say French to Spanish, you need two models, the FR/EN and SP/EN) and that works out OK for folks on good connections who rarely encounter a new language and can benefit from the already downloaded models.
I'm not so sure how well it'd work for users if the model was 10X or 100X that size. What do you all think?
Yikes, I immediately thought of exactly the same thing, sending all that data to third parties? no thank you my browser should be my safe space not leaking things itself
Wow, I would've thought these were run on a local model. This sounds like it could get expensive for them quickly, and if I understand correctly these features are available for free? I guess it's only a matter of time until they start charging for them.
EDIT: Per a comment in another thread, these features are only free for 90 days it seems.
It says so much about the current environment when at the beginning he notes that their team has been let down by the AI hype, but that they resolved to be optimistic about it and push forward anyway.
Skepticism and optimism are importantly quite orthogonal states! So, in opposing them here, we get a little window into the SV/VC/tech-guy mind: to question or reject the idea that there is an overriding and necessary teleological direction of technology is no different from questioning or rejecting technology itself; there is only one direction, and if you disagree, well you are just luddite; there will always be new features to release and new tech to discover, and in that, there will always be profit. In this world, optimism is the opposite of skepticism, because any kind of grand skepticism simply can't be sustained lest the whole thing loses balance.
Like imagine if SVB happened and there wasn't the LLM hype boom right after that. Can we even imagine that? I don't think so... Just as the sun rises every morning, at every business quarter some new thing rises to positively change the world.
It was probably a live stream. It starts early so that people can join in, then the content begins at the scheduled time. What you're watching is the recording of the full stream.
I am just a software engineer that wants to organize my tabs (documentation, repositories, pull requests, on call incidents) in a way that my brain can comprehend. I don't see how that makes me "management class"
I do all my development with Arc. The profiles make it seamless to switch between staging and production accounts, and the dev tools are the same as Chrome because it's Chromium based.
Arc has been my default browser for a few months, and I love this as an idea. Implementation kinks will need to worked out, apparently.
5-second previews don't give me much beyond the page title and maybe a subheading.
Ask on page told me it encountered an error 3 out of the 4 times I tried it, and the one time it worked it told me the article was long, so it only read 32% (I can do that! that's why I'm asking you!). But it did answer the question I asked (then errored on the follow-up).
I've looked into Arc in the past and it feels like such a fundamental departure from how browsers are normally used. How do you use it and how does it feel better to use than your previous browser?
There are a lot of goodies like built-in notes, easels (a canvas to save stuff), and boosts (css monkeypatching), as well as UI sugar like the command bar (access all commands via cmd+T) but the killer feature for me is the ease of making profiles (sandboxed cache and cookies) and spaces (the left sidebar holding pinned and ephemeral tabs) work together.
On my work machine, for example, I have a "space" that's tied to my personal gmail account, so I can check that email if I need to, without worrying about being logged in or out of my work email (which is also a google account). Switching between spaces is just a swipe.
I also spin up a space when I'm working on something, so those proliferating research tabs don't interfere with other steady work, which stay in their own spaces. Then I just delete the space when I'm done.
It takes a bit of getting used to. But after using it for a few weeks now, it feels a bit more intuitive for a power user or someone who loves their keyboard shortcuts.
Splitting tabs into half screen with option+click has been really nice, even though I use magnet and could do the same, it just takes a lot longer.
Pinning the 8 most used websites for my work / workflow is nice, and keeping them separate from personal stuff is nice too.
Clearing all my tabs with one click is nice.
Google Meet pop up window was a nice surprise.
I guess a lot of littles, and a solid enough foundation of just being a normal browser, adds up to a nice experience. + google got a little too excited with ad tracking in the latest chrome which pushed me to switch.
Readit News
Will be available for free for at least 90 days. Video did not mention what would happen after that time—they said they'll listen to feedback.
Features:
Ask on Page - Hold down Command + F on any page to ask a question and let Max answer it for you in seconds.
5-Second Previews - Press Shift and hover over any link to generate a summary of the webpage, without a single click.
Tidy Tab Titles - Have your tabs automatically renamed with tidier, shorter titles when you Pin them.
Tidy Downloads - Keep your many files more organized with smartly renamed downloads - and make them a little easier to find later.
ChatGPT in the Command Bar - Press cmd+alt+G, start typing, and get answers in fewer clicks.
(This summary generated by me, a real human person, NOT an LLM. Yet.)
Is BCNY a real channel? Have I missed something? Am I out of loop?
"Arc Max uses OpenAI’s API Platform and Anthropic’s Claude for commercial applications. These features are off by default in the desktop app and not available in the mobile app at this time."
which include in some cases: the whole content of website, URL, etc...
https://arc.net/privacy
NO THANKS!
CALLING OUT TO INTEGRATE THOSE FEATURES WITH LLAMA2.0 LOCALLY WITHIN FOSS CHROMINUM/ FireFOX
I'm not so sure how well it'd work for users if the model was 10X or 100X that size. What do you all think?
EDIT: Per a comment in another thread, these features are only free for 90 days it seems.
Skepticism and optimism are importantly quite orthogonal states! So, in opposing them here, we get a little window into the SV/VC/tech-guy mind: to question or reject the idea that there is an overriding and necessary teleological direction of technology is no different from questioning or rejecting technology itself; there is only one direction, and if you disagree, well you are just luddite; there will always be new features to release and new tech to discover, and in that, there will always be profit. In this world, optimism is the opposite of skepticism, because any kind of grand skepticism simply can't be sustained lest the whole thing loses balance.
Like imagine if SVB happened and there wasn't the LLM hype boom right after that. Can we even imagine that? I don't think so... Just as the sun rises every morning, at every business quarter some new thing rises to positively change the world.
What a weird format for a (release?) video.
5-second previews don't give me much beyond the page title and maybe a subheading.
Ask on page told me it encountered an error 3 out of the 4 times I tried it, and the one time it worked it told me the article was long, so it only read 32% (I can do that! that's why I'm asking you!). But it did answer the question I asked (then errored on the follow-up).
On my work machine, for example, I have a "space" that's tied to my personal gmail account, so I can check that email if I need to, without worrying about being logged in or out of my work email (which is also a google account). Switching between spaces is just a swipe.
I also spin up a space when I'm working on something, so those proliferating research tabs don't interfere with other steady work, which stay in their own spaces. Then I just delete the space when I'm done.
Splitting tabs into half screen with option+click has been really nice, even though I use magnet and could do the same, it just takes a lot longer.
Pinning the 8 most used websites for my work / workflow is nice, and keeping them separate from personal stuff is nice too.
Clearing all my tabs with one click is nice.
Google Meet pop up window was a nice surprise.
I guess a lot of littles, and a solid enough foundation of just being a normal browser, adds up to a nice experience. + google got a little too excited with ad tracking in the latest chrome which pushed me to switch.