• AiNews.com
  • Posts
  • Top AiNews.com Headlines for Friday April 19th

Top AiNews.com Headlines for Friday April 19th

Microsoft's AI app VASA-1 makes photographs talk and sing with believable facial expressions

In partnership with

Hello! Thank you for trusting AiNews.com to keep you updated on the world of AI. You can also join our LinkedIn Community to participate in AI discussions. Enjoy today’s newsletter! 🙂 

Our LinkedIn Community is growing - Will you join us? We invite you to join our LinkedIn group to participate in AI discussions and share developments with the rest of the group. Join today!

We want to hear from you! 🙂 

Would you enjoy multimedia elements in the newsletter (such as videos, infographics, podcasts)?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

Today’s Headlines:

  • Microsoft's AI app VASA-1 makes photographs talk and sing with believable facial expressions - A team of AI researchers at Microsoft Research Asia has developed an AI application that converts a still image of a person and an audio track into an animation that accurately portrays the individual speaking or singing the audio track with appropriate facial expressions. VASA-1, an AI system that turns static images, whether captured by a camera, drawn, or painted, into what they describe as "exquisitely synchronized" animations. Read more here.

  • Elon Musk’s ‘not bad’ review thrusts Meta’s Llama 3 AI into spotlight - Elon Musk is not easily impressed. So when Musk commented on Meta’s latest artificial intelligence model, people paid attention. By open-sourcing the model, Meta is positioning itself at the forefront of a nascent movement in the AI world toward greater transparency and collaboration.

  • Meta's newest AI-powered chatbots show off impressive features and bizarre behavior - Meta AI unveiled its AI agents on social media yesterday, revealing limitations in AI technology through unusual interactions, such as discussing imaginary scenarios on Facebook groups. Users can access the chatbot on platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook by typing "@meta ai" or tapping a blue circle icon. The Meta AI also creates images on command using the prompt "imagine."

  • Meta challenges transformer architecture with Megalodon LLM - The new model, called Megalodon, allows language models to extend their context window to millions of tokens without requiring huge amounts of memory. Experiments show that Megalodon outperforms Transformer models of equal size in processing large texts. Megalodon is the latest of a series of new models that are being proposed as the successor to the Transformer.

  • Google restructures finance team as part of AI shift - The restructuring will affect finance teams domestically and abroad, including relocations and layoffs. The company will also create “hubs” for more centralized operations including in Bangalore, Mexico City, Dublin, Chicago and Atlanta.

  • Olympic organizers unveil strategy for using artificial intelligence in sports - Officials said AI could be used to help identify promising athletes, personalize training methods and make the games fairer by improving judging. It will also protect athletes from online harassment and to help broadcasters improve the viewing experience for people watching from home. AI-powered cameras will be used to flag potential security risks such as abandoned packages or crowd surges.

  • US Air Force confirms first successful AI dogfight - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) revealed that an AI-controlled jet successfully faced a human pilot during an in-air dogfight test carried out last year. Human pilots were on board the X-62A with controls to disable the AI system, but DARPA says the pilots didn’t need to use the safety switch “at any point.” Both aircraft demonstrated “high-aspect nose-to-nose engagements” and got as close as 2,000 feet at 1,200 miles per hour. DARPA doesn’t say which aircraft won the dogfight, however.

  • Nvidia Led The First AI Stocks Wave. These Data Players Are Targeting The Next One - Surging demand for high-powered chips made Nvidia the king of AI stocks. But as the generative AI craze rages on, Wall Street's focus is expanding to companies like MongoDB, Confluent and Elastic that are poised to ride a gigantic spending wave in data software.

  • Los Angeles is using AI in a pilot program to try to predict homelessness and allocate aid - Homelessness Prevention pilot program uses predictive AI to identify individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless, offering aid to help them stabilize and remain housed. Launched in 2021, the technology has helped serve nearly 800 individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless, with 86% of participants retaining permanent housing when they leave the program.

  • Cisco Reimagines Security for Data Centers and Clouds in Era of AI - Cisco Hypershield allows customers to put security wherever they need to - in the cloud, in the data center, on a factory floor, or a hospital imaging room. With AI-native security, customers can autonomously segment their networks, benefit from distributed and almost instantaneous exploit protection without a patch, and experience self-qualifying software upgrades with zero downtime.

  • Industry Using AI to Enhance Space-Based Communications, Sensing - AI software is enabling users to change a spacecraft’s capabilities while in orbit, making the satellites less reliant on hardware. Since satellites are static and hardware-reliant, once they are launched into orbit, changes can generally not be made. That could change with AI-enabled spacecraft.

  • Accounting Firms Will Not Be Leading the AI Revolution - Accounting firms are hesitant to adopt next-gen technology. In fact, a bunch of them are hesitant to move to the cloud. In 2024. 60% of firms say they're slow to adopt technology, but those that do, report a 39% increased revenue per employee.

  • Google finds AI agents pose fresh ethical challenges - If AI agents are widely used, they are going to encounter one another, raising questions about how they can cooperate and coordinate — as well as what happens when they conflict.

  • AI startup Xtremis coming to Northwest Arkansas - Tech startup Xtremis uses artificial intelligence (AI) to map electromagnetic energy in a given geographical area, then helps make the info usable for wireless telecommunications and the military, CEO Jay Harrison says.

  • Webflow acquires Intellimize to add AI-powered webpage personalization - Webflow announced that it acquired Intellimize, a startup leveraging AI to personalize websites for unique visitors. Intellimize taps AI to generate pages, automatically making adjustments in response to how users behave (and where they’re coming from). Companies create a website template, then Intellimize’s AI runs experiments, fiddling with various knobs and dials as it were before delivering the top-performing results to visitors.

  • Langdock raises $3M with General Catalyst to help companies avoid vendor lock-in with LLMs - “Companies don’t want to have a vendor lock-in on just one of those LLM providers,” Lennard Schmidt, co-founder and CEO of Langdock, told TechCrunch. “So we’ve kind of abstracted that away in an interface that allows a company to choose which of the underlying models from different vendors can be used by employees.”

  • How to Stop ChatGPT’s Voice Feature From Interrupting You - “In our ideal world, the model would actually be a little bit better at detecting when you're done. So, if you're not done with your sentence, then it wouldn't cut you off,” Jang says. “This is something that we're trying to figure out, and we know that it's a pain point for our users.” You can try these tips for a better AI audio experience.

  • OpenAI's GPT-4 can diagnose eye problems and suggest treatments like your doctor - Researchers recently tested how GPT-4 would perform in 87 patient scenarios. While the model failed to match expert-level ophthalmologists and made some mistakes in accurate diagnoses, the researchers found that the tool performed better than junior doctors and matched many specialists in addressing eye problems.

  • First major attempts to regulate AI face headwinds from all sides - Lawmakers working on these bills, in states including Colorado, Connecticut and Texas, came together Thursday to argue the case for their proposals as civil rights-oriented groups and the industry play tug-of-war with core components of the legislation, including AI discrimination.

  • Blockade Labs improves quality for AI-generated 3D art for 360-degree apps - Blockade Labs is releasing an update for its Skybox AI as the premier 360-degree AI seamless environment art creation platform. And now the quality is much better than before, with the ability to create and download in 8K visual quality.

AI Tools:

  • Empaithy: Meet empaithy - your intelligent AI companion, helping you reflect, understand, and enhance your mental wellbeing.

  • ShiftX: The Human-Centric BPM Tool - Get control of your processes to optimize operations, ensure compliance and increase customer satisfaction.

  • Metaforms: AI Forms for Feedback, Surveys and Research. Survey Monkey’s successor.

  • PerfectBot: PerfectBot gives trustworthy AI answers based on your content, so you can resolve most of the customers questions instantly.

  • AI Business Solutions: AI Business Solutions is a specialized service offered by Aliro Marketing, dedicated to creating AI-driven projects (chatbots for websites, AI video creation, etc.) for businesses.

  • 24-hour Beehiiv AI Funnel Agency: Welcome to the 24-hour Beehiiv AI Funnel Agency, where we specialize in AI-powered lead generation and crafting compelling funnel website copy and collaterals in 24 hours or your money back.

Get in touch with us to feature your AI Tool in our newsletter!

85% of all AI Projects Fail, but AE Studio Delivers

If you have a big idea and think AI should be part of it, meet AE.

We’re a development, data science and design studio working with founders and execs on custom software solutions. We turn AI/ML ideas into realities–from chatbots to NLP and more.

Tell us about your visionary concept or work challenge and we’ll make it real. The secret to our success is treating your project as if it were our own startup.

Support Our Sponsors:

  • AI Studios: AI Studios lets you create and edit videos with AI in one convenient platform. It is a hassle-free AI tool where anyone can create pro-quality AI-generated videos in minutes. Create Pro-Looking AI Videos from Text.

  • Office Interactive: Expert remote tech talent - Secure top U.S.-Contracted tech professionals at 70% lower rates. Our candidates are rigorously vetted, including third-party verified certifications and extensive skill set verification.

  • HeyGen - Create your own custom AI avatar videos in minutes

  • Taskade - AI-powered project management, workflows and mindmaps

  • LandBot - Create incredibly capable chatbots (Free Trial)

  • Empler AI - Create custom AI-powered workflows (5000 Words FREE)

Become A Sponsor of Our Newsletter!

Enhance your brand's visibility and drive new opportunities! By becoming a sponsor of our newsletter, you'll gain unparalleled brand exposure and a unique chance to increase traffic and sales through direct engagement with our dedicated and targeted audience.

We can feature an article or AI tool, or simply offer a discount to our subscribers for your product or service. Get in touch with us today - Let's collaborate to create a meaningful impact for your business!