Android has released Health Connect into public beta, a new app that assimilates data from across eligible health and fitness apps through a single platform. In an example provided by Google, Peloton members can use it to sync and get credit for their Peloton workouts in apps such as MyFitnessPal, WeightWatchers, and Lifesum in addition to sharing workout data with other fitness apps. It also adds a central place to easily manage individual permissions and privacy settings. There are 10 notable health, fitness, and wellness apps integrated with the services so far, including FitBit, Oura, and Flo alongside MyFitnessPal and Peloton. Health Connect was first announced in May, with access initially restricted to developers building the new integrations. Now, Health Connect supports over 40 data types across six categories and only requires a few lines of code, providing a standardised data schema for developers. Not only does this simplify app connectivity but also it provides users with more centralised privacy controls, allowing users to monitor which apps have access to specific data at any given time.

DESIGN PLATFORM CANVA LAUNCHES TEXT-TO-IMAGE AI FEATURE

Australia design app Canva is the latest creative platform to launch a text-to-image AI tool. The company began testing the feature in September and is now rolling it out to the app’s more than 100 million users. The feature is an implementation of open-source text-to-image model Stable Diffusion, with a few extra safety filters and a custom UI to help steer Canva’s users to get the results they want. Canva, which is available as a free app as well as a paid version with extra features, will give all its users the ability to generate 100 images a day with the tool. Load up Canva’s text-to-image feature, and you’ll be prompted to “describe the image you want to see,” with a few sample prompts shown as inspiration. You can then choose from various styles (“photo,” “drawing,” “3D,” “painting,” “pattern,” and “concept art”) and the tool will generate a grid of four images to choose from and add to your design canvas. There’s also an option to report images that contain violence, nudity, hate speech, and “biased and/or stereotypical” content.