💾 The Download #012: AI web search, OpenAI's Whisper, Qwen AI and more.

The Download #012

February 14th, 2025

Dear Reader,

This week: AI web search, OpenAI’s Whisper, Qwen AI and more.

I’ve written with relative frequency that AI search is starting to dominate traditional search. I’m a huge fan of Perplexity Search, but this week OpenAI has dropped the sign-in required to access ChatGPT’s Search, making it a viable contender for all.

If you’re only used to traditional web search and haven’t tried AI powered search yet, I suggest you give it a try now.

Once you start getting used to how quickly AI search retrieves information without you having to juggle keywords, it’s hard to make the switch back.

Let’s get to it.

AI Tool of the Week: Arc Browser

Arc is a modern web browser developed by The Browser Company that aims to be more than just a traditional browser.

Favourite highlights of mine include:

Selecting a search engine of your choice - while this isn’t an uncommon feature in modern browsers, Arc can natively be set to use Perplexity.
Vertical split-pane browsing. Have two sites open at once, sharing the same window, side-by-side.
Based on Chromium, so if you’re already Chrome user, you can bring over all your settings and extensions.
Organizes tabs into “spaces” with separate themes and browser profiles
Includes built-in ad blocking through UBlock Origin
Syncing between devices, even for Arc on your phone
Features automatic picture-in-picture for video content, so if you have YouTube open and navigate away to another tab, the mini-player pops right up.

Split-pane browsing is a game-changer, particularly if you work in a browser all day.

Search engine options include Perplexity AI search.

Arc has become my default browser for more than a year now, and I’ve never thought about switching back to Safari or Chrome. It’s free, and definitely worth a look.

Check out Arc Browser

AI Tool of the Week 2: MacWhisper

That’s right, two top picks this week! I’ve been using MacWhisper for two years now as part of my daily workflow. It’s an indie app, that allows you to transcribe audio and video, all safely offline, and also use AI queries to interrogate the transcript. I’ve used it for:

Generating FAQs from webinar recordings
Creating show notes for podcasts
Generating SRT subtitles files for YouTube videos
Creating action plans from meeting recordings

(Not to be overlooked, I also use it to transcribe the bonkers stories that my kids leave on my phone’s voice memos app when I’m not looking.)

The developer, Jordi Bruin, has kept to his word about keeping the app updated and fully featured. There’s a lot on offer for the free version, and even more on the Pro version for a one-time payment (no subscriptions!)

Windows users, I haven’t forgotten you. I found an alternative app called ‘Whisper UI’ which looks like it does the same thing, but I haven’t fully tested it yet.

Check out MacWhisper

Inbox: Qwen.ai

What is it? QwenAI is Alibaba Cloud’s advanced artificial intelligence model family, with its latest version being Qwen 2.5, designed to compete with major AI models like ChatGPT and Google Gemini. It’s also Apple’s pick to drive their Apple Intelligence functionality in the Chinese market.

What can it do? In recent benchmarks, Qwen 2.5-Max has achieved top scores when compared against DeepSeek, OpenAI, and Meta Platforms’ models, positioning it as a significant player in the AI landscape, particularly for organizations seeking open-source alternatives to proprietary AI solutions. You can search the web with it just like ChatGPT and Perplexity, and even try out some basic text-to-video generation.

For users seeking free, open-source alternatives to ChatGPT, this may be the one to watch.

Writing

Guides:

OpenAI’s Whisper for Speech-to-Text

OpenAI’s Whisper is a cutting-edge speech-to-text AI that accurately transcribes audio in 100+ languages. Learn what it is, how it works, and how to use it in this in-depth beginner’s guide. Unlock the power of automatic transcription for your own projects.

Read more

Pages: QwenAI: Capabilities and Significance

Apple has chosen Alibaba’s Qwen AI model to power AI features for iPhones in China, marking a significant move in the competitive smartphone market and highlighting the growing importance of AI integration in mobile devices. So what is it?

Read more

That’s all for this week. For daily AI and tech news, check out The Syntellicast from Monday - Friday. Now available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.

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