Technologies

Generative AI Comes to Adobe Express for Social Videos, Flashy Fliers

Adobe’s Firefly suite of generative AI tools arrives in the company’s all-purpose image and video creation app.

Adobe has brought its Firefly tools for generative AI to its Adobe Express app for quickly generating posters, videos, fliers and other graphical material. The first two new AI tools that let you add images and text effects generated from a text prompt, Adobe said Thursday.

AdobeExpress is what the company calls an «all-in-one content creation app.» Adobe released thefeatures in a new beta version of the web version of Adobe Express andplans to match them with an updated mobile app in two to three months,said Govind Balakrishnan, senior vice president of Adobe’s CreativeCloud subscription service.

Generative AI has captured the public imagination with the ability to produce song lyrics, essay question answers and countless other tasks. AI is trained to spot patterns in enormous sets of training data, but it can spout plausible sounding but completely wrong information. So be warned if you’re looking for tax advice or medical help.

Adobe’s generative AI tools, like a beta version of Photoshop in testing now, are arguably a more natural fit since many people using it will be looking for flights of fancy like colorful flowers or letters that look like they’re overgrown with ivy.

The new version of Adobe Express also gets video editing abilities, potentially handy for the TikTok or Instagram Reels crowd, and the ability to import, edit, and export PDF files.

Adobe Express is free in basic form but costs $10 per month for people who want more templates, photos, videos and fonts. When the AI tools exit beta testing, they’ll come with a free level of generated images — the threshold hasn’t yet been determined — and some pricing tiers for more.

«We will obviously have to put some sort of a limit on the number of generations,» Balakrishnan said. «These are expensive.»

Expensive it may be, but it’s also potentially very interesting to the creative set that already spends a lot of time coming up with new imagery.

«We continue to view generative AI as a tailwind for Adobe,» RBC Capital Markets analyst Matthew Swanson said in a Wednesday report.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for March 15, #1008

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for March 15, No. 1,008

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is kind of tough, but the yellow category has some fun options in it. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Mine, all mine!

Green group hint: A part you might use to build something.

Blue group hint: Blended words.

Purple group hint: Not a cow, but close.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Greedily control.

Green group: Toothed wheels.

Blue group: Portmanteaux.

Purple group: Bull ____.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is greedily control. The four answers are bogart, corner, hog and monopolize.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is toothed wheels. The four answers are cog, gear, pinion and sprocket.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is portmanteaux. The four answers are blog, motel, smog and spork.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is bull ____. The four answers are dog, doze, frog and horn.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for March 15, #742

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for March 15, No. 742.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is fun and timely, relating to a certain big ceremony held this weekend. Some of the answers are difficult to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Best of all

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: The envelope, please.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

RATE, RATED, DATE, DOTE, DATED, DOTED, GATE, GATES, TROD, TRODS

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers: