PracticalyAI

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3-minute read

3
AI UPDATES

2
DEMOS

1
MASTERCLASS

๐Ÿ‘‹ Good morning.

An AI coding app got caught secretly sending a developer's work back to its maker: Z.ai's ZCode packed 313MB of his project files into an encrypted bundle and tried 564 times to upload it, with no off switch, per Tom's Hardware. The company apologized after being caught. Nobody asked the user first.

IN 3 MINUTES, GET 1% BETTER THAN EVERYONE YOU KNOW:

  • Two keys and ChatGPT sees your screen

  • Grok 4.7: better at code, same price

  • Qwen makes transparent images, free and open

  • Pen and paper, finally in your AI's memory

  • An hour on writing with AI, worth it

3 AI updates

ChatGPT called Appshots "one of the most underrated features" in its desktop app, per its own post last week. Press both Command keys and whatever is on your screen, the app, the page, the error, comes into the chat as context. You share instead of describing. It's the difference between "the button on the left, no, the other one" and just showing it. No plan tier named, so if you run the desktop app, it's already there.

Do this: Next time a settings page confuses you, press both Command keys and ask "what do I change here?"

Two keys later, the screenshot is the brief.

How do you show ChatGPT what's on your screen today?

Appshots drops your screen into the ChatGPT desktop app when you press both Command keys.

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xAI released Grok 4.7 on Monday, its strongest model for coding and knowledge work. It runs longer on hard tasks and checks its own answers more. It costs the same as 4.6, $2 per million tokens in and $6 out, and scores 46.3% on CursorBench 4.0 against 4.6's 40.4%. xAI claims it is twice as fast at half the price of GPT-5.6 Sol and Fable 5.1. A fast variant doubles speed for double the price. Live now in Cursor, Grok Build and the API.

Do this: If you code in Cursor, rerun last week's hardest ticket on Grok 4.7 and compare the bill, not just the answer.

Same sticker. Longer leash on the hard tickets.

Alibaba open-sourced Qwen-Image-2.1 on Monday, a 7-billion-parameter model that makes images, edits them, and outputs transparent backgrounds natively. That last part means product cutouts and logo layers come out ready to drop on any background, with no remove-bg step. It takes up to 10 reference images, and you can point at what to change by circling it, painting over it, or supplying a mask. Small enough to run on your own hardware.

Do this: If you pay for a background-remover, run your next product shot through Qwen-Image-2.1 first.

Transparent by default. Background optional.

2 Things you didn't know you can do with AI

1. ๐Ÿ“ Pen and paper, into your AI's memory ยท Kushank's build

I love writing by hand, and my AI second brain never knew what I'd written. So I fixed the gap: the handwriting now lands in the notes my AI actually reads. The clip shows the whole loop. The catch: it's my own build, not a product you can download yet. Reply if you want the setup.

2. ๐ŸŽฎ A game on the living-room wall ยท Codex

Hank had Codex build a game projected onto his wall, then played it by waving his hand, using a camera and computer vision to track it. No game engine, no studio. The catch: you need a projector, and the how-to lives in his replies, not a tutorial.

1 Read

Greg Isenberg posted a free 70-minute masterclass on writing with AI. He bills himself as someone who has made $30 million-plus writing online, so the angle is writing that sells, not writing that sounds nice. It's one video on X and on Youtube, no signup.

The catch: 70 minutes is a real hour. Watch it at 1.5x with a note open, and keep the tactic you'll use tomorrow (โ€œAsk questionsโ€ on youtube is pretty useful too).

Sixty minutes. One sharper paragraph tomorrow.

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That's your 1% for today. Reply with the one screen you'd Appshot first.

Kushank, AI teammates, and the human team
PracticalyAI

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