Particle, the AI-powered news aggregator created by a pair of Twitter alums, has launched after a year in beta. The iOS app summarizes current events in quick hits the startup says do not violate the copyrights of publishers whose news it shares. Instead of simply scraping publishers’ work for proprietary use, the startup seeks to compensate publishers and drive traffic to news sites with prominent links to sources accompanying each AI news summary. Developed by Sara Beykpour and Marcel Molina, Particle has raised more than $11 million in early funding led by Lightspeed. Continue reading Particle Launches AI News App That Summarizes in Quick Hits

Ernie, the foundation model for Baidu’s generative AI, has been updated with iRAG technology to mitigate visual hallucinations and a no-code tool called Miaoda that creates apps using natural language. The company behind China’s largest search engine says Ernie now handles 1.5 billion daily user queries, up from 50 million circa its March 2023 launch (a 30x increase). Baidu also debuted Ernie-powered smart glasses from its Xiaodu Technology hardware unit. The Xiaodu AI Glasses features built-in voice activation and cameras for taking photos and video. The news was shared at this week’s Baidu World 2024 in Shanghai. Continue reading Baidu’s Ernie AI Gets Improved Text-to-Image and App Builder

Microsoft Copilot now helps subscription users create personal themes in Outlook using generative AI. In what Microsoft says is “the first instance of dynamic AI-generated theming in productivity applications,” Copilot can now display inboxes against dynamic backdrops based on geography, the weather, or anything else users can imagine. The new feature is available across all popular platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and the Web. Just like you might “spruce up your office with artwork or plants,” Copilot lets AI enhance your digital environment, according to Microsoft. Continue reading Copilot Now Enables Custom AI Themes in Microsoft Outlook

Panjaya is a AI startup that aims to disrupt the world of video dubbing with a way to generate “hyperrealistic” recreations of a person’s voice speaking a new language. The system also automatically modifies the imagery to match lip and other physical movements to match the new speech patterns. Called BodyTalk, the technique is the launch point for Panjaya as it emerges from the stealth in which it conducted its R&D the past three years, backed by $9.5 million from venture funds and angel backers. The startup describes BodyTalk as “AI dubbing that looks and feels as natural as the original.” Continue reading BodyTalk Dubs into 29 Languages with Facial Moves to Match

Google announced it is rolling out its Gemini AI-powered video presentation app that enables users to easily create video presentations. Vids is a productivity app featured in the company’s suite of Google Workspace products. The new app uses AI model Gemini to automatically insert royalty-free stock video footage, create storyboards and scripts, and generate music and voiceovers. It allows users to add documents, slides, visuals, audio and transitions to the presentation’s timeline. “Personalize your content with Vids recording studio to deliver employee training, share company-wide announcements, meeting updates, and more,” suggests Google. Continue reading Google Offers New AI-Powered Vids App to Workspace Users

Wonder Animation is the latest tool from Wonder Dynamics, the AI startup founded by actor Tye Sheridan and VFX artist Nikola Todorovic in 2017 that Autodesk purchased in May. Now in beta, Wonder Animation can automatically transpose live-action footage into stylized 3D animation. Creators can shoot using any camera, on any set or location, and easily convert to 3D CGI. Matching the camera position and movement to the characters and environment, Wonder Animation lets you film using any camera system and lenses, edit those shots using Maya, Blender or Unreal, and then reconstruct the result as 3D animation using AI. Continue reading Autodesk’s AI Tool Turns Live-Action Video into 3D Animation

Amazon Prime Video has begun offering X-Ray Recaps, summaries of favorite TV shows that catch you up without risk of spoilers. The generative AI-powered feature can create snapshots of any requested view — episodes, pieces of episodes or full seasons of TV shows. “Whether you’re a few minutes into a new episode, halfway through a season” or took a break to get popcorn and need a quick refresher, X-Ray Recaps will catch you up “personalized down to the exact minute of where you are watching,” according to Amazon, which assures “guardrails are applied” to ensure the generation of spoiler-free summaries. Continue reading Amazon Prime Video Offers AI-Powered Recaps of TV Shows

Nvidia’s growing AI arsenal now includes video search and summarization tool AI Blueprint, which helps developers build visual AI agents that analyze video and image content. The agents can answer user questions, generate summaries and even enable alerts for specific scenarios. The new feature is part of Metropolis, Nvidia’s developer toolkit for building computer vision applications using generative AI. Globally, enterprises and public organizations increasingly rely on visual information. Cameras, IoT sensors and autonomous vehicles are ingesting visual data at high rates, and visual agents can help monitor and make sense of that workflow. Continue reading Nvidia’s AI Blueprint Develops Agents to Analyze Visual Data

New York-based AI firm Runway has added 3D video camera controls to Gen-3 Alpha Turbo, giving users the ability to manipulate granular aspects of the scene they are generating using effects whether originating from text prompts, uploaded images or self-created video. Users can zoom in and out on a subject or scene, moving around an AI-generated character or form in 3D as if on a real set or actual location. The new feature, available now, lets creators “choose both the direction and intensity of how you move through your scenes for even more intention in every shot,” Runway explains. Continue reading Runway Adds 3D Video Cam Controls to Gen-3 Alpha Turbo

As companies move forward with leveraging their proprietary data in generative AI applications, enterprises are contending with existing security solutions that may be inadequate for that task. Israeli startup Noma Security is addressing that concern. Just out of stealth mode, Noma has raised $32 million in a Series A round led by Ballistic Ventures with support from Glilot Capital Partners, Cyber Club London and a collection of angel investors. While enterprise firms that host their models at large cloud outfits have access to built-in MLOps security tools, those who are self-hosting, using smaller cloud operations, or want added protection might be interested in Noma. Continue reading Startup Noma Aims to Secure the Entire Data and AI Lifecycle

D-ID has launched two new types of AI-powered avatars: Premium+ and Express. The company’s video-to-video avatar tools aim to provide personal look-alikes that can sub for their creators in uses ranging from instructional videos to business presentations, offloading on-camera duties in areas including sales, marketing and customer support. “Premium+ Avatars can generate hyper-realistic digital humans that are indistinguishable from real people and will serve as the foundation for fully interactive digital agents revolutionizing how brands communicate,” while Express Avatars can rapidly generate serviceable avatars “from just one minute of source footage.” Continue reading D-ID’s New Business-Use Avatars Can Converse in Real Time

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come up what it thinks is a better way to teach robots general purpose skills. Derived from LLM techniques, the method provides robot intelligence access to an enormous amount of data at once, rather than exposing it to individual programs for specific tasks. Faster and more cost efficient, the approach has been referred to as a “brute force” approach to problem-solving, and machine learners have taken to it in lieu of individualized, task-specific “imitation learning.” Early tests show it outperforming traditional training by more than 20 percent under simulation and real-world conditions. Continue reading MIT Intros LLM-Inspired Teacher for General Purpose Robots

Amazon reported major revenue and profit increases during its third quarter, beating Wall Street’s forecasts, based largely on the company’s e-commerce sales and increasing demand for its cloud services. Capital expenditure, which reached a record amount following Amazon’s recent investments in artificial intelligence, will maintain its momentum as the company plans $75 billion capex on developing generative AI services over 2024-2025. “The faster we grow demand, the faster we have to invest capital in data centers, network gear and hardware,” explained CEO Andy Jassy. “We invest in all that upfront in advance of when we can monetize it.” Continue reading Amazon Pushes AI, Records Growth in Q3 Revenue and Profit

Revenue reached an all-time high for Apple’s most recent quarter as iPhone sales experienced an uptick due in part to consumer excitement for the arrival of Apple Intelligence, the company’s heavily advertised set of AI tools. Total sales reached $94.9 billion for the quarter, up 6 percent year-over-year and exceeding the $94.5 billion that financial analysts had predicted. The company’s iPhone business reported sales of $46.2 billion, following disappointing consecutive quarters in the first half of the year. The AI boom resulted in strong quarters for other Big Tech leaders including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Continue reading Jump in iPhone Business Results in Record Quarter for Apple

The AI search wars are officially on, with Google giving Gemini access to its online answer engine just hours before OpenAI launched ChatGPT Search. Google is primarily targeting developers with its new feature, “Grounding with Google Search,” though the Alphabet company used the occasion to also tout its new search return template, AI Overviews. Launched last week, ChatGPT Search offers responses in real time using a conversational format. Initially, it is available only to ChatGPT Plus and Teams subscribers as well as those on the SearchGPT waitlist as part of ChatGPT’s existing interface. Continue reading AI Search Wars Heat Up as OpenAI and Google Add Features