Stability AI is launching Stable Audio, a music generation AI tool that uses latent diffusion to deliver what the company says is high-quality 44.1 kHz music for commercial use. Stable Audio uses a web-based interface to generate music from text prompts and duration. Because its latent diffusion model architecture has been conditioned on text metadata as well as audio file duration and start time, it defeats a problem common to diffusion for generative audio — producing cohesive musical segments as opposed to arbitrary sections of a song that start or end in the middle of a phrase. Continue reading Stability AI Develops ‘Stable Audio’ Generative Text-to-Music

ETC@USC is hosting its 9th vETC virtual conference at this year’s IBC in Amsterdam, September 15-18. The event — which highlights significant presentations of emerging technologies and their impact on the M&E industry — will explore how generative AI, machine learning, and other compelling new tools help simplify building 3D worlds and tackle today’s computer vision challenges. The sessions will be recorded and posted on ETC’s YouTube channel. For those attending IBC who may be interested in attending the sessions (located in Hall 7 at Booth C28), visit the program guide, which includes a full schedule and speaker bios. Continue reading vETC Coming to IBC 2023: The Path of Sustainable Innovation

The first U.S. Senate AI Insight Forum was a lively event, with xAI’s Elon Musk calling for a federal department of artificial intelligence while Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg emphasized a need for transparency and Google’s Sundar Pichai stressed AI’s potential to improve the human condition with regard to things like health and energy. The three-hour meeting was organized by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) who said the crash course would address both how AI “enriches our world and opens the door to new prosperity” and how society can “minimize the very real risks.” Continue reading Tech Titans Convene in Washington for First AI Insight Forum

Gable.ai is emerging out of stealth mode this week with $7 million in seed funding and a plan to bridge the gap between data gathering and the artificial intelligence applications that rely on that data to function. The startup’s approach is based on the premise that “data modeling is often an afterthought” at the AI stage, where software developers are stuck working with whatever the data crew has handed them. Gable.ai aims to create a more structured workflow between the two, where end-uses are taken into account at the front end resulting in clean data optimized for AI use. Continue reading Gable.ai Aims to Reinvent How Data Engineers and AI Interact

Google is establishing a $20 million fund to promote responsible AI through its charitable arm, Google.org. The investment will provide grants to academics and think tanks as part of the company’s new Digital Futures Project, announced on the eve of today’s private meeting between Congress and AI-focused tech giants. “AI has the potential to make our lives easier and address some of society’s most complex challenges — like preventing disease, making cities work better and predicting natural disasters. But it also raises questions about fairness, bias, misinformation, security and the future of work,” Google said. Continue reading Google Digital Futures Project Pumps $20M into Responsible AI

U.S. consumers are consolidating their devices, eliminating outdated ones to make room for new ones that better serve their needs, according to the fourth annual Deloitte Connected Consumer survey. The study found that while 48 percent of consumers purchased a minimum of one new connected device this year, the average number of devices per household fell to 21 in 2023 from 25 in 2021, “when many loaded up on technology during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Although many consumers may be attempting to streamline their digital lives, they remain very interested in virtual experiences and tech innovation. Continue reading Deloitte: Consumer Views of Connected Devices Are Changing

Microsoft says it will assume legal responsibility for commercial customers who get sued for copyright infringement as a result of the company’s AI Copilot product services. A new initiative called the Copilot Copyright Commitment is designed to provide peace of mind to Microsoft business users as more copyright holders challenge the handling of protected works by the companies building AI models. “If a third party sues a commercial customer for copyright infringement for using Microsoft’s Copilots or the output they generate, we will defend the customer” and pay any resulting fees, including settlements, Microsoft says. Continue reading Microsoft Copilot AI Customers Shielded from Legal Exposure

Walmart is putting generative AI in the hands of roughly 50,000 non-store U.S. employees who will have access to My Assistant, an LLM trained on information. From speeding the drafting process to serving as a creative partner and summarizing documents, “My Assistant has the potential to change how our associates work and solve problems,” Walmart said, emphasizing the launch goes beyond productivity gains. “We believe the key to unlocking transformation lies in the creativity and innovation of our associates. Ideally, this technology will free them from monotonous, repetitive tasks, allowing more time and focus for improving the customer/member experience.”  Continue reading Walmart Is ‘Empowering’ 50,000 U.S. Associates with GenAI

Sony has introduced two new cameras in its 7C series of compact full-frame interchangeable lens cameras for photographers and videographers. The new Alpha 7C R model has a 61-megapixel high-resolution sensor. The second-generation Alpha 7C II is equipped with a full-frame sensor for 33 effective MP. Both are compact and lightweight (approximately 18 ounces), combining quality and portability for stills and clips. “As the demand for sending and sharing captured content on social media networks has increased, more creators are looking for a combination of compact size and high imaging performance in mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras,” Sony says. Continue reading Sony Showcases New Alpha 7C Series Cameras at IFA 2023

Samsung and LG have entered into a smart home pact that enables each firm’s large home appliances to be controlled by the other’s app. This collaboration sprang from the Home Connectivity Alliance, of which Samsung was a founding member in late 2021. As a result, LG’s ThinQ app will indicate when the door has been left open on a Samsung Family Hub smart fridge. Likewise, Samsung’s SmartThings app can instruct your LG dishwasher to turn on at a specific setting. Samsung was also talking-up 6G and artificial intelligence at this week’s IFA 2023 electronics trade show in Berlin. Continue reading Samsung and LG to Launch Interoperable Smart Home Apps

Seattle-area startup Irreverent Labs has shifted its focus from blockchain-based video games and NFTs to artificial intelligence. Specifically, it wants to build foundation models for text-to-video generation and related content creation tools. Text-to-video is being explored by several companies but is still in development. Samsung Next was intrigued enough with the proposition to invest an undisclosed sum in Irreverent. While there are several apps that output cartoonish results, ambitious efforts are limited. Animations that aim for photorealism, such as Meta’s Make-a-Video and Runway’s Gen-2, can output only four or five seconds of video at a time. Continue reading Samsung Next Invests in Irreverent Labs’ Text-to-Video Tech

Google DeepMind and Google Cloud have teamed to launch what they claim is an indelible AI watermark tool, which if it works would mark an industry first. Called SynthID, the technique for identifying AI-generated images is being launched in beta. The technology embeds its digital watermark “directly into the pixels of an image, making it imperceptible to the human eye, but detectable for identification,” according to DeepMind. SynthID is being released to a limited number of Google’s Vertex AI customers using Imagen, a Google AI language model that generates photorealistic images. Continue reading Google Introduces an AI Watermark That Cannot Be Removed

Google has unveiled a spate of security enhancements to products in its Google Workspace collection including Gmail and Drive. Artificial intelligence is helping to steer some of the changes, automating specific tasks. The upgrades take a new approach, combining the idea of zero trust with the concept of data loss prevention (DLP). Under zero trust, all users, devices and components are considered untrustworthy at all times — even those within an organization’s network. These Workspace tools are in development or at various stages of testing, but Google says they will begin going live in general release later this year and into Q1 2024. Continue reading Google Is Using AI to Bring Zero Trust Security to Workspace

Amazon is using artificial intelligence to change the way viewers experience “Thursday Night Football” on Amazon Prime Video this season. Now in the second year of its 10-year NFL deal, Amazon joins Disney’s ESPN in using AI to change how people experience televised sports by parsing a variety of analytics and using machine learning to interpret 2D video into 3D for a variety of viewpoints on any play. Amazon is auto-generating highlights feeds for each game, so late arrivals can catch up. September 14 marks the debut of the new AI Prime features and the games in 1080p HDR. Continue reading Amazon Integrating AI to Modernize NFL Viewing Experience

This fall, gamers will be able to enjoy more realistic play thanks to the latest Nvidia AI neural rendering techniques in DLSS 3.5 with Ray Reconstruction. Unlike the boost Nvidia provided with DLSS 3’s Frame Generation add-on, DLSS 3.5 boosts ray tracing across the RTX GPU lineup. Nvidia’s new DLSS 3.5 release isn’t only for gamers. Ray Reconstruction is also coming to third-party 3D creator tools like Chaos Vantage and D5 Render as well as the Nvidia Omniverse line of products, providing more accurate previews, among other advantages. Continue reading Gaming Gets Boost with Nvidia DLSS 3.5 AI Neural Rendering