Technologies

Adobe’s New Firefly AI App Lets You Try AI Image and Video Generation for Free

Both the iOS and Android versions of the app give you free credits to experiment with Adobe’s AI.

Adobe’s Firefly AI is now available as mobile apps for iPhones and Androids, the company announced on Tuesday. These apps are free to download and let you use Firefly to create AI images and videos on the go. Plus, the app comes with a few free generative credits for you to experiment with Adobe’s AI.

Adobe is also expanding its roster of third-party AI partners to include six new models from Ideogram, Pika, Luma and Runway. Google’s latest AI models are also joining the lineup, including the internet-famous Veo 3 AI video generation model with native audio capabilities and the Imagen 4 text-to-image model support. Finally, its moodboarding AI program, Firefly Boards, is generally available today after months in beta.

Here’s everything you need to know about Adobe’s newest batch of Firefly AI updates. For more, check out our favorite AI image generators and what to know about AI video models.

Firefly AI for iOS and Android users

Adobe’s Firefly mobile apps will let you access its AI image and video capabilities from your phone. A mobile app felt like the next natural step, since Adobe saw that mobile web usage of Firefly noticeably increased after Adobe’s Firefly video capability launched in early 2025.

Not every Firefly feature will be available at launch, but for now, we know that these features will be included: text-to-image, text- and image-to-video, generative fill, and generative expand. You can download the app now from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

The app is free to download, but you’ll need a Firefly-inclusive Adobe plan to really use the app. In the hopes that you’ll sign up for a full plan, Adobe gives you 12 free generation Firefly credits (10 for images, two for videos, which doesn’t shake out to many of each). So you can use those to see if Firefly is a good fit for you.

Firefly plans start at $10 per month for 2,000 credits (about 20 videos), increasing in price and generation credits from there. Depending on your Adobe plan, you may already have access to Firefly credits, so double-check that first.

Adobe’s six new AI models from Google, Runway and more

Adobe’s also adding new outside AI creative models to its offerings, including image and video models from Ideogram, Pika, Luma and Runway. You might recognize the name Runway from its deal with Lionsgate to create models for the entertainment giant. Ideogram, Pika and Luma are all other well-known AI creative services. Google’s Veo 3 AI video generator is also joining, bringing its first-of-its-kind synchronized AI audio capabilities, along with the latest generation of Google’s AI image model.

This is the second batch of third-party models that Adobe has added to its platform. Earlier this spring, Adobe partnered with OpenAI, Google and Black Forest (creator of Flux) to bring the companies’ AI models to Adobe. What’s unique about this is that all third-party models have to agree to Adobe’s AI policy, which prevents all the companies from training on customers’ content — even if the individual companies don’t have that policy on their own, it’s standardized across all models offered through Adobe. This is also true for the new models added today. For AI-wary professional creators who make up the majority of Adobe users, that’s a bit of good news.

You’ll need a paid Firefly plan to access outside models; otherwise, you’ll just have access to the Adobe models. Here are all the AI models available through Adobe:

Adobe Firefly Image 3
Adobe Firefly Image 4
Adobe Firefly Image Ultra
Flux 1.1 Pro
Flux 1 Kontext
Google’s Imagen 3
OpenAI’s image generation model
(new) Ideogram 3
(new) Google’s Imagen 4
(new) Runway’s Gen-4 Image

For video, you can use:

Adobe Firefly Video
Google Veo 2
(new) Google Veo 3
(new) Luma AI Ray 2
(new) Pika’s text-to-video generator

Adobe’s own Firefly AI models are trained on a combination of Adobe Stock and other licensed content. You can learn more in Adobe’s AI guidelines and approach to AI.

AI moodboarding gets a boost

Other Adobe updates include the general release of its moodboarding program, Firefly Boards, which has been in beta since April. Moodboarding is a practice that lets you cluster together different elements, like colors and shapes, to evoke specific moods and aesthetics. It’s a good initial step for planning content and campaigns.

You can use the infinite canvas to brainstorm and plan content. You can generate images and videos in Boards using Adobe and non-Adobe models; the setups are very similar to generating in the regular Firefly window. Boards are collaborative, so you can edit with multiple people. A new one-click arrange button can help you organize and visualize your files more easily, a much-requested feature that came out of the beta.

Firefly boards are synced up with your Adobe account. So you can select a photo in a Board, open it in Photoshop and edit it. Those changes will then be synced up with your Firefly Board in less than a minute, so you can always see the latest version of your file without needing to be limited to editing in Boards.

For more, check out Premiere Pro’s first generative AI feature and the best Photoshop AI tools.

Technologies

Cloudflare Says Winter Olympics Cybersecurity Is at Risk in Spat With Italian Regulators

But Cloudflare’s global head of policy tells CNET the company is open to an agreement with Italy.

The CEO of the networking company Cloudflare is lashing out at Italy in response to regulatory anti-piracy fines, threatening to withdraw from the country and potentially the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Italy announced on Jan. 8 that it had issued a fine of 14.2 million euros (approximately $16.5 million) against Cloudflare for failing to block access to pirated content. Soon after that, Cloudflare’s CEO Matthew Prince took to X to call out the fines, describing Cloudflare’s decision not to comply as a fight over censorship. Prince said that complying with Italy’s demands under its Piracy Shield policies would affect content globally.

Italy’s Piracy Shield is a program implemented by the country’s telecommunications regulator, AGCOM. In order to cut down on piracy in the country, such as hosting illegal streams of sporting events, the program allows IP holders to report content violations to a rapid-response automated system. However, some have complained that the 30-minute window given is not enough time for ISPs to properly vet complains, and is resulting in legitimate, non-pirated content being blocked as well.

«In other words, Italy insists a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online,» Prince said.

Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any… pic.twitter.com/qZf9UKEAY5

— Matthew Prince 🌥 (@eastdakota) January 9, 2026

In his posts, Prince specifically mentioned the 30-minute timeframe that Italy requires for Cloudflare to disable access to suspected piracy traffic.

«We block pirate streams every time we find one,» he wrote. «We hate them.» But, he said, «we can’t put in place a system where a shadowy cabal can require us to remove GLOBALLY anything they don’t like on the internet within 30 minutes. That’s insane.»

Some of the proponents of Italy’s piracy rules are soccer teams that want to prevent the illegal streaming of their matches.

Prince went on to list steps his company might take, including pulling its cybersecurity service from the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, removing Cloudflare servers from Italian cities and holding off on any plans to invest in the country. Prince also suggested he would get US government leaders involved, tagging Vice President JD Vance in his post. Prince also reposted a message addressed to the Italian prime minister, along with an article about Italy’s actions.

The Winter Olympics, scheduled to take place between Feb. 6 and Feb. 22 at sites across Lombardy and Northeast Italy, are a sensitive subject when it comes to cybersecurity, considering the potential that many may use VPN technology to view broadcasts of the event.

Door is open to an agreement, Cloudflare says

In an interview with CNET, a Cloudflare representative said that while the fine from Italy represents more than the company’s total revenue from the country, Cloudflare is still open to an agreement to avoid saying arrivederci to the country.

«We’re still evaluating, and we’re still open to working something out,» said Alyssa Starzak, Cloudflare’s deputy chief legal officer and global head of policy. «That would be a better solution. The hope is we can have some discussions for a more reasonable result.»

Starzak said the company has posted information and conducted outreach to Italian stakeholders about the ways Cloudflare is working to combat unauthorized streaming. But Italy’s law, she said, leaves no room for negotiation or nuance.

«It’s been very much a ‘You must do what we say’ » situation, she said.

Technologies

Transport Your Dungeons & Dragons Hero Off the Page With This Tabletop Gadget

At CES 2026, I found a couple ways that players and dungeon masters can use tech to upgrade their gameplaying experience.

As I walked around CES 2026, my eyes drifted over a poster awash with fantasy heroes, dastardly monsters and rolling dice — and I failed my saving throw to look away. If you’re a fellow tabletop gaming nerd, you might want to follow this pair of gadgets due out later this year.

Tabletop gaming continues to appeal to players with its deliberately analog gameplay, using miniatures, maps, dice and other physical trinkets to keep the focus on real-world play. The niche has grown in popularity over the decades, and a supporting industry has risen around it, offering third-party materials and accessories to enhance the experience. Digital gadgets and software have been added to this mix in recent years, and a new company, Arcalink, has its own supporting products for the avid Dungeons & Dragons player.

The first of Arcalink’s upcoming tabletop augmentations is a gadget that’s small but mighty. About the size of a film canister, the Arcalink One is a rectangular display around 2 to 3 inches long that’s covered in fantasy decorations. These can be swapped out, with one looking like a doorway in stone ruins and another appearing like a blue wizard’s portal (a third, not present but described to me, would look like a Mimic, the classic D&D monster that appears as a treasure chest to trick adventurers).

The Arcalink One’s screen shows a player’s avatar, and since it was built with the fantasy roleplaying game D&D in mind, animations for popular spells that can be triggered by voice commands. Tabletop RPGs encourage the theater of the mind, with players envisioning their characters through vocal descriptions, but the Arcalink One seems like a neat way for them to accessorize with a digital version of their hero (uploaded in JPG or MP4 file formats) that’s neither essential to play nor large enough to be obtrusive — a totemic treat to take from one game to another, swapping out character portraits by using the paired app.

The basilisk in the room is the price tag: the Arcalink One is expected to cost between $100 and $150, Arcalink founder Lizheng Liu told me. While the company hasn’t hashed out the final numbers, that first number is the device itself, and the high end of the range will bundle more of those clip-on decorations along with it.

Over $100 for an optional device is prohibitive for most tabletop players, but I imagine this would appeal to adventurers with deeper pockets who want a neat little plug-and-play gadget to bring more flair to the game table. Also, let’s not pretend tabletop fans aren’t already spending a good amount of money on accessories, dice and miniatures (looking at you, wargamers).

The company plans to let a select group of supporters start backing the Arcalink One in March or April, with a full Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign launching around June.

The second product, Arca Studio, is entirely digital: AI-powered software to help dungeon masters, the thankless gameplay managers who tell the story and give voice to their world’s denizens for their characters to experience. No, it’s not using generative AI to spit out campaign ideas — this AI software records your game sessions and will make it easy to go back and search for characters and plot events while planning ahead of your next game day.

Yes, this is a sort of gaming version of the AI summaries that productivity apps offer when, say, you’ve finished a video chat, but there are a few unique features tailored to tabletop gaming. One makes a word cloud grouping together recurring names and concepts in your campaign recordings to visualize the themes and frequent elements — great for dungeon masters to see which plot lines and adventure types they might be overusing to switch them up.

Arca Studio will launch around May or June and will be a subscription service, though Arcalink hasn’t decided on an expected monthly cost yet. It’s worth pointing out that anything could change in pricing or product features before these two products reach the market — and just like a good tabletop campaign, there might be some last-minute twists that change everything.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Jan. 13

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 13.

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

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It features one of those annoying elements, where the puzzlemakers tie two clues together. In this case, you can’t really solve 4-Across and 7-Across separately, so you need to fill in the other answers to see these answers develop. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.