At the beginning of its SC20 supercomputing conference, Nvidia unveiled its 80GB version of the A100 GPU (graphics processing unit) based on its Ampere graphics architecture and aimed at AI and graphics for supercomputing. The chip is intended to enable faster real-time data analysis for business and government applications. This new version doubles the memory of the predecessor, debuted six months ago. Nvidia executive Paresh Kharya noted that 90 percent of the world’s data was created in the last two years. Continue reading Nvidia Debuts New Version of A100 GPU for Supercomputers

Apple unveiled a new M1 microchip, designed in-house, which chief executive Tim Cook said is “by far the most powerful chip that we have ever created.” Aimed at offering faster performance and longer battery life, the company said that the M1 integrated into the new super-thin MacBook Air (priced starting at $999) will run 3.5 times faster than the past generation. Without a fan, the device will run silently. The M1 will also be installed in a 13-inch MacBook Pro, starting at $1,299, and the Mac mini, starting at $699. Continue reading The New Mac Lineup Touts Apple’s Own Powerful M1 Chips

To fully examine the inner workings and potential impact of deep learning language model GPT-3 on media, ETC’s project on AI & Neuroscience in Media is hosting a virtual event on November 10 from 11:00 am to 12:15 pm. RSVP here to join moderator Yves Bergquist of ETC@USC and presenter Dr. Mark Riedl of Georgia Tech as they present, “Machines That Can Write: A Deep Look at GPT-3 and its Implications for the Industry.” The launch last June of OpenAI’s GPT-3, a language model that uses deep learning to generate human-like text, has raised many questions in the creative community and the world at large.  Continue reading Virtual Event: GPT-3 and Its Implications for the M&E Industry

Telecommunication companies and others are spending billions of dollars to make 5G ubiquitous, for smartphones and the Internet of Things. Speed is one benefit of 5G but also important is that its high bandwidth enables more capacity, which allows manufacturing plants and facilities to capture more data and communications. That is a game changer for a manufacturing plant with hundreds of thousands of signals from robots, HVAC and lighting systems and machinery that communicate to an asset management system. Continue reading How Businesses Should Prep for the Coming Ubiquitous 5G

Google announced it has developed URL2Video, an AI-enabled system that automatically converts webpages into short videos by extracting text and images. The system also harvests design styles such as colors, fonts, graphics and layouts from HTML sources and organizes all the elements into a sequence of shots that looks and feels similar to the original webpage. Google is targeting businesses with websites for their products and services, enabling them to easily create marketing videos out of existing resources. Continue reading New AI-Based Google System Converts Webpages to Video

We need your input! SMPTE and the Entertainment Technology Center have joined forces to investigate potential areas of standardization around Artificial Intelligence in media. We are currently surveying the industry in order to gain a better understanding of where there are the greatest needs for new standards. You can help by filling out our online survey. Feel free to answer as many or as few questions as you would like, and we invite you to forward the survey to anyone either inside or outside your organization who might be able to provide input. Continue reading Join the ETC-SMPTE Survey: Artificial Intelligence in Media

Under the Patents Act, a UK court ruled that creator Stephen Thaler’s “Creativity Machine” called DABUS could not be an inventor. Thaler appealed, and the UK’s High Court dismissed it, saying an inventor must be a person and not a machine. Thaler, however, insists that DABUS is “fundamentally different from other AI systems,” noting that, via “simple learning rules” it combines “swarms of many artificial neural nets, each containing interrelated patterns spanning some conceptual space … with no predetermined objective.” Continue reading UK High Court Dismisses Appeal to Classify AI as an Inventor

Moore’s Law — Intel co-founder Gordon Moore’s prediction that the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years — has been the foundation of the semiconductor industry. But, as the industry nears the limits of circuitry and physics of electronics, it’s being replaced by another one: that silicon chips powering AI more than double in power every two years, due to hardware and software. As Moore’s Law was the foundation for improvements in computers, this new law will power the Internet of Things. With its $40 billion acquisition of Arm Holdings, Nvidia could be positioned for a new type of evolution.  Continue reading With Arm Purchase, Nvidia May Dominate AI Edge Computing

The Hollywood Professional Association (HPA) Awards Committee revealed winners of its 2020 HPA Awards for Engineering Excellence, to be given out in a virtual ceremony on November 19. This year will mark the 15th anniversary of the HPA Awards, founded to “recognize creative artistry and innovation in the professional media content industry.” This year’s awards will honor EIZO’s Prominence CG3146 31.1-inch HDR reference monitor; Eluvio Content Fabric for managing and distributing large form content; the Moxion Immediates platform; and Carl Zeiss SBE: eXtended Data (XD) lens metadata technology. Continue reading HPA Announces 2020 Engineering Excellence Awards Winners

In the not-so-distant future there will likely be services that allow the user to choose plots, characters and locations that are then fed into an AI-powered transformer with the result of a fully customized movie. The idea of using generative artificial intelligence to create content goes back to 2015’s computer vision program DeepDream, thanks to Google engineer Alexander Mordvintsev. Bringing that fantasy closer to reality is the AI system GPT-3 that creates convincingly coherent and interactive writing, often fooling the experts. Continue reading AI-Powered Movies in Progress, Writing Makes Major Strides

FireEye data scientist Philip Tully showed off a convincing deepfake of Tom Hanks he built with less than $100 and open-source code. Until recently, most deepfakes have been low quality and pretty easy to spot. FireEye demonstrated that now, even those with little AI expertise can use published AI code and a bit of fine-tuning to create much more convincing results. But many experts believe deepfake text is a bigger threat, as the GPT-3 autoregressive language model can produce text that is difficult to distinguish from that written by humans. Continue reading Quality of Deepfakes and Textfakes Increase Potential Impact

Facebook-owned Instagram created an “equity and inclusion team” to look at how Black, Hispanic and other U.S. minority users are impacted by the company’s algorithms and machine-learning systems. An Instagram spokesperson revealed that Facebook is planning a similar team. Only last year, Facebook wouldn’t allow employees to study the issue of bias introduced by algorithms, so the move is a reversal. Meanwhile, the advertiser boycott against Facebook, in part for how it deals with racial issues, is still in effect. Continue reading Facebook Greenlights Equity Teams to Study Algorithmic Bias

OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT), a general-purpose language algorithm for using machine learning to answer questions, translate text and predictively write it, is currently in its third version. GPT-3, first described in a research paper published in May, is now in a private beta with a select group of developers. The goal is to eventually launch it as a commercial cloud-based subscription service. Its predecessor, GPT-2, released last year, was able to create convincing text in several styles. Continue reading Beta Testers Give Thumbs Up to New OpenAI Text Generator

Later this month Walmart plans to unveil Walmart+, a subscription service intended to compete with Amazon Prime. Walmart+ will cost $98 per year and, according to sources, will offer same-day delivery of groceries and “general merchandise” as well as early access to product deals and discounts at Walmart gas stations. The company originally planned to unveil Walmart+ in late March or April but pushed the date to July due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s still not clear if Walmart will introduce the service regionally or nationally. Continue reading Walmart Subscription Service Aims to Take on Amazon Prime

Although deepfakes have mainly been associated with fake news, hoaxes and pornography, they’re now also being used for more conventional tasks, including corporate training. WPP, with startup Synthesia, has created localized training videos by using AI to change presenters’ faces and speech. WPP chief technology officer Stephan Pretorius noted that the localized videos are more compelling and “the technology is getting very good very quickly.” In COVID-19 times, deepfakes can also lower costs and speed up production. Continue reading Deepfakes Go Mainstream for Corporate Training, Other Uses