QuickVid is a new AI-driven text-to-video platform aiming for a mass market user base. The tool draws on various generative AI systems to automatically create short-form videos for YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and other platforms. Created by former Meta Platforms programmer Daniel Habib “in a matter of weeks,” QuickVid is quite rudimentary, though Habib says he plans to continue fine tuning and adding features. Unlike Google and Meta have done with their nascent text-to-video systems, QuickVid has bypassed the formalities of research papers and industry previews and jumped directly to a public-facing website. Continue reading QuickVid Uses AI to Create Short Videos from Text Prompts

At Nvidia’s CES 2023 keynote, executives revealed new products and innovations in laptops, gaming, the omniverse, robotics and auto technology. Nvidia senior vice president of gaming Jeff Fisher focused on the company’s AI developments, emphasizing that, “AI will define the future of computing,” and adding that “this has influenced much” of what the company is showing at CES. He highlighted the company’s “new era of laptop computing,” powered by its Ada Lovelace architecture, GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs and new 5th generation Max-Q technologies with DLSS 3 for quadrupled speed. Continue reading CES: Nvidia Intros AI Impact on Gaming, Omniverse, Laptops

During Samsung’s CES press conference, chief executive and head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division Jong-Hee (JH) Han emphasized twin themes for the company at this years’ confab. First is to deliver on the promise of smart devices. “It’s about connecting all the devices that make up your life from home to workplace to car,” he said. Second, he added, is “a more sustainable future.” The company’s vice president of corporate sustainability Inhee Chung announced that the DX Division will reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030, with a commitment to achieve that for the entire company by 2050. Continue reading CES: Samsung Promotes Device Connectivity, Sustainability

Intel announced its 13th-gen family of laptop CPUs, including new entry-level chips and its flagship Core i9-13980HX, the high-end of its mobile processor collection (based on Raptor Lake architecture), featuring 24 cores and an impressive boost speed of 5.6GHz. The HX-series includes similar features to Intel’s 12th-gen lineup, such as 32 EUs of onboard graphics capability and support for DDR5 and DDR4, but promises significantly faster speeds to multithreaded performance. When compared to the earlier Core i9-12900HK, Intel claims game performance increases of up to 12 percent and a massive 74–79 performance jump when rendering a scene in Blender. Continue reading CES: Intel Rolls Out 13th-Generation Lineup of Laptop CPUs

LED lighting firm Nanoleaf is debuting innovations at CES that include “learning smart light switches” under the banner Sense+ Controls. The devices span categories such as hardwired Smart Light Switch, Wireless Smart Light Switch and Nala Learning Bridge, all of which work with Matter, a global interoperability protocol designed to help smart homes run smoothly, running on the low-powered Thread mesh networking standard. The new Sense+ Controls products feature motion and ambient lighting sensors that automate routines. The Nala Learning Bridge facilitates color-differentiated, soft-glow night lights and connects via Thread to Wi-Fi or Ethernet. Continue reading CES: Nanoleaf Debuts New Matter-Compliant Smart Lighting

There are people here in Las Vegas and it’s beginning to look a lot like CES again. A little sticker that says “I was at CES 2022” reminds us that only a hearty few made last year’s trip. As anticipation builds for the Thursday, January 5 opening of the CES exhibits, CTA’s vice president of research Steve Koenig kicked off the pre-show media briefings with his take on “Tech Trends to Watch.” Artificial intelligence, Web 3.0, digital health and augmented reality predictively top his list with a distinctive side note: Watch how enterprise — business at scale — innovates on top of recent tech innovations. Continue reading CES: Steve Koenig Reveals This Year’s Tech Trends to Watch

LG exited the smartphone market in 2021, but its LG Innotek division continues to supply components, and is touting a major breakthrough with its Optical Telephoto Zoom Camera Module to be unveiled this week at CES 2023. As part of the rear-mounted smartphone camera systems, the new optical zoom allows still images and video to be magnified by four to nine times “without image quality degradation even when zooming from long distance,” the company says. The results are achieved by integrating the telescopic camera functions that are mostly applied to professional DSLR and mirrorless cameras. Continue reading CES: LG Innotek Intros Optical Zoom Camera Tech for Mobile

Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a 2018 class action lawsuit initiated by Facebook users who said their personal data was breached in an incident involving UK-based political consultancy Cambridge Analytica. The proposed amount would reportedly be the largest settlement in a U.S. data privacy class action. Although Meta is not admitting to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, the firm says it has over the past three years “revamped” its approach to privacy. Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposal a “historic settlement” that will provide meaningful relief in a “complex and novel” case. Continue reading Meta $725M Cambridge Analytica Settlement Moves Forward

Insider Intelligence forecasts that 2023 will mark the first time since 2014 that the combined digital advertising market share for Meta Platforms and Alphabet will fall below 50 percent, indicating erosion of their “duopoly.” Projection of a 2.5 percent drop due to increased competition from rivals including Amazon, Apple, TikTok and Microsoft will put the pair at a projected 48.4 percent this year, according to the research group. While the trajectory is likely to garner negative media and investor attention, it is a plus from the perspective of fending off global antitrust attacks. Continue reading Digital Ad Share for Meta, Alphabet to Drop Below 50 Percent

Over the holidays, the National Football League announced a multi-year deal with Google that will provide YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels with exclusive rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket package, which includes all out-of-market Sunday games broadcast via CBS and FOX. Beginning with the 2023 football season, NFL Sunday Ticket will be available for U.S. consumers “on two of YouTube’s growing subscription businesses as an add-on package on YouTube TV and standalone a-la-carte on YouTube Primetime Channels,” according to Google. The agreement is valued at about $2 billion annually over seven years. Continue reading NFL Sunday Ticket Is Coming to YouTube TV and Primetime

In the wake of overwhelming public response to recent offerings DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT, OpenAI this week introduced Point-E, a text-to-3D model generator that is garnering positive feedback. Faster and less resource intensive than comparable systems, it’s still in the early stages and prone to occasional disjointed results but has advanced the proposition. Using a single Nvidia V100 GPU, Point-E can create a 3D model in under two minutes, generating “point clouds” — data sets representing a 3D shape. Point clouds compute more easily than the wire-fame meshes traditionally used to model 3D objects. Continue reading OpenAI’s Point-E Offers a New Take on Text-to-3D Modeling

Cloud-based code hosting service GitHub wants to make open-source material more secure. The Microsoft service is expanding safety features with two new offerings in beta. Secret scanning alerts are now free for all public repositories while push-notifications for custom secret patterns are also being made available. Open-source code is now incorporated into a whopping 97 percent of applications, according to Synopsys, which says 90 percent of organizations rely on it to varying degrees. Yet the very access that contributes to its popularity also leaves it vulnerable to malicious actors, as emphasized by the SolarWinds, Log4j and other breaches. Continue reading GitHub Is Testing New Security Tools for Open-Source Code

Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Dutch mapping company TomTom have joined forces with The Linux Foundation to give Google a run for its money in the maps space with the launch of the Overture Maps Foundation to build interoperable open map data. “Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage,” Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin said. Overture’s mission is to create an extensible mapping framework that will enable companies to contribute their own data, constantly refreshing as the physical world changes. Continue reading Meta, Microsoft, AWS Want to Map the Future with Overture

The European Commission has formed a “preliminary view” that Meta Platforms has breached EU antitrust law by manipulating competition in the online classified advertising markets on Facebook and Instagram. The Commission took particular umbrage with the bundling of Meta’s Facebook with access to Facebook Marketplace, which allows users to buy and sell items. Meta could face a fine as high as $11.8 billion if the allegations of self-dealing prove true. The Commission also claims Meta is imposing unfair conditions on Marketplace competitors for its own benefit. Continue reading EU Pushes Its Antitrust Case Against Facebook Marketplace

In a lead-up to CES 2023, Lenovo has raised the curtain on new ThinkPad laptops, ThinkVision monitors, IdeaPad laptops, an IdeaCentre Mini desktop and the next-generation Smart Tab M9. The new devices focus on hybrid working environments and mobility, including lightweights, 2-in-1 models, and ultraportable laptops with the latest Intel Core processors. Those who work with a dual monitor setup may be intrigued by the new ThinkVision P49w-30 ultrawide, which measures 49-inch diagonally and sports a QHD IPS panel with a 2000:1 contrast ratio. Lenovo also unveiled accessories to help with hybrid workflow efficiencies. Continue reading Lenovo Product Demos at CES to Focus on Hybrid Workflow