YouTube has added new features to its apps for mobile, Web and TV, including expanded controls for playback speeds, badges, a miniplayer redesign, and the ability to create collaborative playlists. The company is also debuting an authenticity tool. By affixing a “captured with a camera” label, creators can indicate their work is shot with an actual camera, with unaltered visual and audio. Among the general platform improvements that YouTube implements annually, users can now share playlists via link or QR code, and create custom thumbnails for those lists, either by uploading an image or generating one with AI. Continue reading YouTube Expands Features and Adds an Authentication Tool

Adobe has launched a public beta of its Generate Video app, part of the Firefly Video model, which users can try for free on a dedicated website. Login is required, and there is still a waitlist for unfettered access, but the Web app facilitates up to five seconds of video generation using text and image prompts. It can turn 2D pictures into 3D animation and is also capable of producing video with dynamic text.  The company has also added an AI feature called “Extend Video” to Premiere Pro to lengthen existing footage by two seconds. The news has the media lauding Adobe for beating OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo to market. Continue reading Adobe Promos AI in Premiere Pro, ‘Generate Video’ and More

Beginning October 15, YouTube Shorts will extend its maximum length to 3 minutes. The move competitively positions the Google unit against TikTok, which allows for videos of up to 10 minutes when recording, or an hour when uploading. Regular YouTube accommodates videos of up to 12 hours for verified accounts and 15 minutes for unverified accounts, whether live or uploaded. But in terms of marketing focus, the current attention is on short-form video. YouTube is also updating the Shorts player, adding templates, and introducing a Shorts trends page for mobile. Continue reading YouTube Updates Shorts Player, Extends Length to 3 Minutes

YouTube is going all in on generative AI with nine new generative features announced at the Made on YouTube creator event in New York. Google DeepMind’s AI video generation model, Veo, is coming to YouTube Shorts later this year, enabling “even more incredible video backgrounds, breathing life into concepts that were once impossible to visualize,” as well as six-second standalone AI segments that can be incorporated into short videos. “Imagine a BookTuber stepping into the pages of the classic novel ‘The Secret Garden,’” suggests YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich in describing the new AI-powered features. Continue reading YouTube Unveils New AI-Powered Features at Creator Event

Google DeepMind has unveiled new research on AI tech it calls V2A (“video-to-audio”) that can generate soundtracks for videos. The initiative complements the wave of AI video generators from companies ranging from biggies like OpenAI and Alibaba to startups such as Luma and Runway, all of which require a separate app to add sound. V2A technology “makes synchronized audiovisual generation possible” by combining video pixels with natural language text prompts “to generate rich soundscapes for the on-screen action,” DeepMind writes, explaining that it can “create shots with a dramatic score, realistic sound effects or dialogue.” Continue reading DeepMind’s V2A Generates Music, Sound Effects, Dialogue

Google is launching two new AI models: the video generator Veo and Imagen 3, billed as the company’s “highest quality text-to-image model yet.” The products were introduced at Google I/O this week, where new demo recordings created using the Music AI Sandbox were also showcased. The 1080p Veo videos can be generated in “a wide range of cinematic and visual styles” and run “over a minute” in length, Google says. Veo is available in private preview in VideoFX by joining a waitlist. At a future date, the company plans to bring some Veo capabilities to YouTube Shorts and other products. Continue reading Veo AI Image Generator and Imagen 3 Unveiled at Google I/O