Samsung Electronics will receive up to $6.4 billion in funding for semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S. as part of the CHIPS and Science Act. Samsung Semiconductor CEO Kye Hyun Kyung and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo celebrated the news this week at the company’s Taylor, Texas plant. The funds are earmarked for Samsung’s expansion in Central Texas to create additional manufacturing capabilities of essential chips for the AI, automotive, IoT, aerospace and other sectors. With the funds, Samsung is “strengthening the local semiconductor ecosystem and positioning the U.S. as a global semiconductor manufacturing destination,” Kyung said. Continue reading Samsung Will Receive Up to $6.4 Billion in CHIPS Act Funding

Sony Electronics is previewing a new flagship 4K 60p pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera model, the BRC-AM7, which has an integrated lens that uses artificial intelligence for PTZ Auto Framing technology to control advanced tracking and focus. The camera provides “accurate and natural automatic tracking of moving subjects,” making it ideal for live events and sports productions at broadcast quality. Set for release in 2025, Sony says the BRC-AM7 is the world’s “smallest and lightest” integrated lens PTZ camera, weighing in at just over 8 pounds. The camera is among the numerous Sony products featured at NAB 2024 in Las Vegas. Continue reading Sony 4K 60p PTZ Broadcast Camera Boasts AI Auto Framing

Blackmagic Design has unveiled the new DaVinci Resolve 19, with multi-source editing, neural engine AI tools, Resolve FX and Fairlight AI audio panning among the highlight features. With more than 100 feature upgrades in all, Resolve 19 boasts IntelliTrack AI, Ultra NR noise reduction, ColorSlice six vector grading palettes and Film Look Creator FX. The company also announced the DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel, a more affordable color panel for DaVinci Resolve software that Blackmagic says was designed in collaboration with the world’s leading colorists. These tools are featured at the Blackmagic booth at NAB 2024. Continue reading DaVinci Resolve 19 Has AI Motion Tracking and Color Grading

In response to a new law that would require online platforms to pay publishers for news summaries, Google announced it is undertaking a “short-term test” to block links to California-based news sources for some users in the state. The California Journalism Preservation Act, which was introduced in March 2023 and passed by the State Assembly last year, has yet to advance to a hearing by the State Senate Judiciary Committee. The still pending legislation would require digital services, including Google and Meta Platforms, to pay a “journalism usage fee” to certain outlets when their content is used alongside digital ads. Continue reading Payment Law Prompts Google to Block California News Links

The Motion Picture Association is stepping up its anti-piracy efforts to counter the increasingly sophisticated operations of global intellectual property thieves. The gauntlet was laid down by MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin in an address at CinemaCon 2024, where he said the offenders “aren’t teenagers playing an elaborate prank,” but are “real-life mobsters, organized crime syndicates,” responsible for the loss of more than $1 billion at the domestic box office. Rivkin — formerly U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for economic and business affairs — said he will “work with Congress to enact judicial site-blocking legislation here in the United States.” Continue reading MPA Plans to Enlist Congress in Its Fight Against Movie Piracy

Cinema solutions firm Barco is rolling out HDR by Barco to select AMC Theatres, B&B Theatres and Regal Cinemas in U.S. markets including Los Angeles, New York and Dallas this fall. The company touted the display technology for titles mastered in HDR at CinemaCon, where attendees were treated to a specially graded trailer from Paramount’s “Top Gun: Maverick” and taped remarks from the film’s producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Joseph Kosinski. Barco described the installation of its new HDR laser projectors as a “commercial pilot program” designed to heighten the moviegoing experience for the 2024 holiday season. Continue reading HDR by Barco Rolls Out in Theaters as a Fall Commercial Pilot

Apple Vision Pro users disappointed by the Netflix webOS experience on the spatial computing wearable can now take advantage of the independently developed Supercut app, designed to enhance the streaming platform on Apple’s new headset, as well as to make Amazon Prime Video work better through a dedicated iPad app port. Created by Christian Privitelli, Supercut delivers the correct aspect ratio for each app, as well as eliminating black bars, and more. It also enables 4K streaming with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. Privitelli is working on a version for streaming platform Plex. Continue reading Supercut Improves Streaming of Netflix, Amazon on Vision Pro

Meta’s next generation AI silicon is a 5nm chip designed to power the models that provide recommendations to those who use its social network platforms. The new MTIA inference accelerator is part of a “broader full-stack development program for custom, domain-specific silicon that addresses our unique workloads and systems,” Meta says. The next-gen MTIA more than doubles the compute and memory bandwidth of its predecessor, the 7nm MTIA v1 chip introduced in May 2023, resulting in 3x the performance, according to Meta, which says the new silicon is already live in 16 data centers. Continue reading Meta Deploys Gen 2 MTIA AI Accelerator Chip in Data Centers

During Google Cloud Next 2024 in Las Vegas, Google announced an updated version of its text-to-image generator Imagen 2 on Vertex AI that has the ability to generate video clips of up to four seconds. Google calls this feature “text-to-live images,” and it essentially delivers animated GIFs at 24 fps and 360×640 pixel resolution, though Google says there will be “continuous enhancements.” Imagen 2 can also generate text, emblems and logos in different languages, and has the ability to overlay those elements on existing images like business cards, apparel and products. Continue reading Google Imagen 2 Now Generates 4-Second Clips on Vertex AI

Beginning May 15, Google Photos users can start accessing a suite of free AI-powered Magic Editor tools like Magic Eraser and Portrait Light. The features will also be accessible on more devices, including Pixel tablets. Last year, Google launched Magic Editor on Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro phones. In addition to making the features available on all Pixel devices, all Google Photos users on Android and iOS will get baseline access to 10 Magic Editor saves per month. Additionally, those with a Pixel device or Premium Google One plan of at least 2TB will have unlimited use. Continue reading Google Adding Free AI Photo Editing Tools to Google Photos

Google is moving its most powerful artificial intelligence model, Gemini 1.5 Pro, into public preview for developers and Google Cloud customers. Gemini 1.5 Pro includes what Google claims is a breakthrough in long context understanding, with the ability to run 1 million tokens of information “opening up new possibilities for enterprises to create, discover and build using AI.” Gemini’s multimodal capabilities allow it to process audio, video, text, code and more, which when combined with long context, “enables enterprises to do things that just weren’t possible with AI before,” according to Google. Continue reading Google Offers Public Preview of Gemini Pro for Cloud Clients

Google Vids is a new AI-powered video creation app for Google Workspace. The aim is to integrate a simple AI video editor with the real-time collaboration capabilities of cloud-based text editors Docs, Sheets and Slides, “allowing people everywhere to tap into immersive storytelling at work.” Vids will be released to Workspace Labs in June. Vids will be able to generate an easy-to-edit storyboard and piece together a first draft, with suggestions from stock footage and stills, as well as background music. “It can also help you land your message with the right voiceover,” according to Google. Continue reading AI-Powered Video Generator Available for Google Workspace

In 2023, viewers watched more than 30 billion hours of shopping-related videos on YouTube, according to the platform, which reports “a 25 percent increase in watch time” for videos that help people shop. The uptick coincided with the introduction of tagging features for creators, and now YouTube is expanding its retail involvement even further by allowing creators to set up storefronts and sell products in-app, as yet another way to monetize the service. The move comes as TikTok seeks to grow TikTok Shop as high as $17.5 billion in the U.S., a tenfold increase. Continue reading YouTube Adds Shopping Features for Products, Virtual Stores

Google is attacking slow-loading web pages with the new JPEG image encoder/decoder Jpegli, which offers a 35 percent compression ratio improvement using high quality compression settings, the Alphabet company says. The Jpegli JPEG coding library offers backward compatibility via “a fully interoperable encoder and decoder complying with the original JPEG standard and its most conventional 8-bit formalism, and API/ABI compatibility with libjpeg-turbo and MozJPEG,” Google says. The resulting images compressed using Jpegli are “more precise and psychovisually effective” as a result of computations that make images “look clearer” with “fewer observable artifacts.” Continue reading Google Introduces Faster, More Efficient JPEG Coding Library

Roku has applied for a patent on technology that is said to be able to display ads over any device plugged into your television. According to reports, the patent application describes a system that interacts with devices connected to TVs via HDMI, which could include everything from cable boxes, DVD or Blu-ray players, game consoles, PCs or other video-streaming devices. The patent, filed by Roku in August 2023, was published three months later, but still hasn’t been granted. The idea is to have even more ways to display ads when consumers aren’t actively streaming content. Roku already does so on its screensaver and home screen. Continue reading Roku Unveils Tech to Show Ads on All TV Connected Devices