SUQIAN, China – March 30, 2024 – Illustration OpenAI released Voice Engine, a speech model, Suqian, … [+]
It is very risky to release chatgpt’s voice cloning AI app. OpenAI’s Voice Engine is an AI model that generates speech by imitating a speaker’s voice from a 15-second audio sample. It can be used in applications such as educational aids, translation, and support for the non-verbal. What could go wrong? Well… at Schwab, my voice is my password. So far. Accordingly, OpenAI is taking a cautious approach to deployment due to potential abuse. But they’re still allowing very few businesses to test the new tool. If it’s too dangerous to release, why are they testing it? What really worries me: if OpenAI can do it, so can others. And they won’t issue a press release.
Diffuse by Higgsfield creates short Sora-like videos from text prompts and images.
Higgsfield AI launched Diffuse. The company is led by Alex Mashrabov, former head of AI at Snap. The Diffuse mobile app creates videos from text prompts and can create clips starring the person using selfies. It’s free for now, but the plan is to charge social media content creators and marketers a fee to create short-form videos. While Sora is being tested by professionals, it is computationally expensive, so it will definitely be of value to institutions, not individuals. Higgfield’s generative models were developed by a team of 16 people in less than nine months. Mashrabov sold his previous startup, AI Factory, for $166 million. Funding for Hugfield comes from an $8 million seed round led by Menlo Ventures.
BERLIN, GERMANY – NOVEMBER 06: Jens Hilgers (BITKRAFT Esports) speaking on stage during ‘Esport’ … [+]
Bitcroft Ventures Raises $275 Million for Third Interactive Fund This is the venture capital firm’s third fund. Bitkraft Venture Fund 3 will invest in studios, platforms and technology in the gaming and interactive media categories in the seed and Series A stages. Their portfolio includes Frost Giant, Anzu, Carry1st, InWorld, Voicemod, Immutable, and Karate Combat. Bitcroft operates six venture funds with 130 portfolio companies.
Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s vice president of hardware, hinted during an AFP interview … [+]
Meta’s Reality Labs celebrates the 10th anniversary of its acquisition of Oculus VR. Meta has since spent over ten billion dollars on its XR efforts. At this point, it’s safe to say it cost them more than $100 billion. CNet’s XR editor traveled back in time with CTO Andrew Bosworth, who oversees the effort. Bose says displays in regular glasses are still a challenge, but adding AI to wearables like smart glasses will open up a new way of thinking about how the XR will evolve.
Apple natives for Vision Pro. Technically, Personas 2 has been available since the headset launched in February, but they got a major upgrade this week that has everyone talking. Your personality is created by scanning your face into your headset, but previously it was contained within a frame. Whereas Persona only has a head, shoulders, and hands, because of the way face tracking captures expressions creates a sense of presence. When a character in a conversation moves around, the headset translates the perspective as if they were there.
This column, once called “This Week in XR,” is also a podcast. Hosted by writer Charlie Funk, and Ted Shilowitz, former studio executive and co-founder of Red Camera, and Ronnie Ebovitz, founder of Magic Leap. Our guest this week is Maureen Fan, CEO of Baobab Studios. We can be found on Spotify, iTunes and YouTube.
What are we studying?
How AI Could Actually End the World (Shelley Palmer Blog)
Seven Best Surah Videos (Tom’s Guide)