Speaking in San Francisco during the Game Developers Conference this week, Netflix Games President Alain Tascan discussed how its gaming content can keep the platform’s 700 million-plus customers entertained between seasons. “We are not yet the Netflix of games, but that is where we are headed,” the executive said, calling gaming “the biggest shift in entertainment in the last 30 years.” In light of global youth’s involvement with games, “we see we need to be there,” Tascan said. Netflix added its first mobile games in 2021 and has since expanded by purchasing video game studios and building one from scratch. Continue reading Netflix Execs Discuss a Continued Push into Gaming Business

San Mateo, California-based game developer Roblox has released a 3D object generator called Cube 3D, the first of several models the company plans to make available. Cube currently generates 3D models and environments from text, and in the future the company plans to add image inputs. Roblox says it is open-sourcing the tool, making it available to users on and off the platform. Cube will serve as the core generative AI system for Roblox’s 3D and 4D plans, the latter referring to interactive responsiveness. The launch coincides with the Game Developers Conference, running through Friday in San Francisco. Continue reading Roblox Reveals Its Generative AI System Cube for 3D and 4D

Substack has enabled video publishing directly from within the Substack app. The move is designed to increase user engagement while helping its authors monetize, including with smartphones. Each video post can be formatted to reach subscribers instantly through email, app notifications, or both. “With millions of weekly active users and 1 million posts discovered daily, the Substack app has become the leading driver of subscriber and revenue growth for publishers building sustainable, independent businesses,” the company claims. The Substack network has also become a discovery ecosystem, helping creators find potential subscribers. Continue reading Substack Now Lets Creators Monetize with Video Publishing

In a move toward increased transparency, San Francisco-based AI startup Anthropic has published the system prompts for three of its most recent large language models: Claude 3 Opus, Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Claude 3 Haiku. The information is now available on the web and in the Claude iOS and Android apps. The prompts are instruction sets that reveal what the models can and cannot do. Anthropic says it will regularly update the information, emphasizing that evolving system prompts do not affect the API. Examples of Claude’s prompts include “Claude cannot open URLs, links, or videos” and, when dealing with images, “avoid identifying or naming any humans.” Continue reading Anthropic Publishes Claude Prompts, Sharing How AI ‘Thinks’

San Francisco-based OpenAI revealed it is currently testing SearchGPT, a prototype of new AI search features that provides “fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources.” The testing arrives as similar technology is made available by leading search services Google and Microsoft Bing. The SearchGPT prototype, featuring a user interface similar to that of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot and virtual assistant, launched last week to a group of 10,000 test users and publishers who will be tapped for feedback. The plan is to iterate an improved version and then integrate SearchGPT directly into ChatGPT, although no timeline was provided. Continue reading OpenAI Begins Testing Prototype of New AI Search Features

Microsoft Xbox President Sarah Bond announced the company plans to launch a web-based mobile game store in July, creating a new rival for Google Play and Apple’s App Store. Speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Summit, Bond said the web venue was selected so a single store could serve all users in all countries, “independent of the policies of closed ecosystem stores.” Initially the focus will be on Microsoft games, opening later to other publishers. “This web-based store is the first step in our journey to building a trusted app store with its roots in gaming,” Microsoft said in a post-even statement. Continue reading Microsoft Will Introduce Web-Based Xbox Mobile Game Store

Google introduced Threat Intelligence at the RSA Conference in San Francisco this week. Claiming actionable information at “visibility only Google can deliver, based on billions of signals across devices and emails,” Threat Intelligence draws on the capabilities of the company’s Gemini LLMs, Mandiant cybersecurity arm, and cloud-based VirusTotal tool. An AI-powered Gemini agent “provides conversational search” across the repository of Threat Intelligence, “enabling customers to gain insights and protect themselves from threats faster than ever before,” Google says in a move to empower even small teams without IT departments with threat protection. Continue reading Google Taps AI for Its ‘Threat Intelligence’ Cybersecurity Plan

Since Epic Games debuted the Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) and Creator Economy 2.0 tools in March 2023, the company says creators have published more than 80,000 UENF islands, and Epic has rewarded creators with more than $320 million in engagement payouts. Now Epic is adding more core features to UEFN: MetaHuman Creator and MetaHuman Animator, which enable the creation and animation of non-playable MetaHuman characters. Epic’s UEFN 2024 roadmap, presented at this week’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, includes more camera options for the player-made game platform, including a first-person perspective. Continue reading MetaHuman and Animator Now Available to Fortnite Creators

Facebook chief Tom Alison says parent company Meta Platforms is building a giant AI model that will eventually “power our entire video ecosystem.” Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference this week, Alison said the model will drive the company’s video recommendation engine across all platforms that host long-form video as well as the short-form Reels, which are limited to 90 seconds. Alison said the company began experimenting with the new, super-sized AI model last year and found that it helped improve Facebook’s Reels watch time by anywhere from 8-10 percent. Continue reading Meta Building Giant AI Model to Power Entire Video Ecosystem

London-based AI video startup Haiper has emerged from stealth mode with $13.8 million in seed funding and a platform that generates up to two seconds of HD video from text prompts or images. Founded by alumni from Google DeepMind, TikTok and various academic research labs, Haiper is built around a bespoke foundation model that aims to serve the needs of the creative community while the company pursues a path to artificial general intelligence (AGI). Haiper is offering a free trial of what is currently a web-based user interface similar to offerings from Runway and Pika. Continue reading AI Video Startup Haiper Announces Funding and Plans for AGI

As parents and educators grapple with figuring out how AI will fit into education, OpenAI is preemptively acting to help answer that question, teaming with learning and child safety group Common Sense Media on informational material and recommended guidelines. The two will also work together to curate “family-friendly GPTs” for the GPT Store that are “based on Common Sense ratings and standards,” the organization said. The partnership aims “to help realize the full potential of AI for teens and families and minimize the risks,” according to Common Sense. Continue reading OpenAI Partners with Common Sense Media on AI Guidelines

Now anyone can make their own GPT chatbot, for fun or productivity — no coding skills necessary — and soon will be able to list it on a marketplace called the GPT Store. This was among the news announcements to come out of OpenAI’s first developer conference — OpenAI DevDay in San Francisco — where a new, lower-priced model called GPT-4 Turbo with 128K context, was unveiled, along with a new Assistants API, GPT-4 Turbo with Vision and the DALL-E 3 API. Now in preview, GPT-4 Turbo “is more capable and has knowledge of world events up to April 2023,” according to OpenAI. Continue reading OpenAI Intros GPT-4 Turbo, Creator Chatbots at Dev Confab

Social question and answer platform Quora has inserted itself on the leading edge of companies helping creators monetize AI chatbots. Quora’s AI chatbot platform Poe will pay those who create prompt bots on Poe as well as developers of server bots that integrate with the Poe API. “Since this is the beginning of a new market, there are lots of opportunities to provide a valuable service for the world and make money at the same time,” said Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo, envisioning a thriving bot economy across categories from tutoring and therapy to storytelling and roleplay. Continue reading Quora Plans to Foster Chatbot Creator Economy with Poe AI

AI tech startup Capsule is debuting a video editor it says can help enterprise teams achieve results “10x faster.” “Today, if you work at a large company — in marketing or comms, or maybe even sales or HR — creating even the simplest video can be daunting,” Capsule suggests. After querying more than 300 such enterprise teams about their pain points, Capsule focused on three areas of improvement: simplifying motion graphics, adhering to strict brand guidelines, and making the editing process more collaborative among teams across desktop and mobile, where apps are typically “siloed.” Continue reading AI Startup Capsule Creates Video Editor for Enterprise Teams

Elon Musk has begun rebranding Twitter as X with a simple black letter X-ing out the iconic blue bird logo. The reaction has been mixed so far. Some say it conjures cool, as in “X marks the spot,” while others suggest it evokes a corporate industrial “Big Brother” that could negatively impact the successful brand. Whether it will help Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino monetize the social service remains to be seen, but it definitely marks a clean break from a colorful past. On Monday, at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, feathered features like the company logo that once lorded over the cafeteria were removed, and stylized X logos were projected. Continue reading Twitter Rebrands as ‘X’ in Next Step Toward ‘Everything App’