Tag Archives: Meta

Facebook Adds New Video Tab for Reels and Launches Generative AI Video

The tech large Meta is leaning additional into video, asserting a man-made intelligence-powered video era and modifying device, and a tweak to Fb that may make its Reels video content material extra “distinguished” for customers of the social community.

The Fb tweaks had been introduced at an occasion in Austin, Texas Friday, whereas particulars on the the AI-generated video device had been revealed on the Meta AI weblog.

The AI device, Meta Film Gen, can create movies of as much as 16 seconds based mostly solely on a textual content immediate. Maybe much more considerably, it additionally permits for video modifying and “personalised” video era, the place it will possibly take a selected picture and combine it right into a video.

The personalised movies may see somebody add a photograph of themselves, with the device then capable of insert the particular person into movies. The video modifying device, in the meantime, would permit a person to take a video they shot and add objects or tweaks to it. A demo confirmed a penguin strolling on ice in Antarctica, with the AI dressing it in a victorian-era outfit after receiving a immediate.

The device, which follows related instruments from OpenAI (Sora) and RunwayML, amongst others, is certain to catch the attention of Hollywood, as studios consider methods to chop prices, and a few staff marvel if the tech will finally displace them.

Within the weblog put up, Meta sought to dissuade these considerations, writing “whereas there are various thrilling use circumstances for these basis fashions, it’s vital to notice that generative AI isn’t a alternative for the work of artists and animators.

“We’re sharing this analysis as a result of we consider within the energy of this expertise to assist individuals specific themselves in new methods and to offer alternatives to individuals who may not in any other case have them,” it continued. “Our hope is that maybe sooner or later sooner or later, everybody can have the chance to carry their inventive visions to life and create high-definition movies and audio utilizing Film Gen.”

In the meantime, in Austin at a Fb IRL occasion, the corporate introduced a lot of up to date to Messenger, Market, Teams, and different Fb options. That features AI-generated summaries of group feedback, new native and discover tabs that pull collectively content material from Reels, market, teams and occasions, and different options.

Of most curiosity to Hollywood, nonetheless, would be the new full-screen video tab “that offers Reels a extra distinguished dwelling on Fb.”

The brand new tab is supposed to make it simpler for Fb suers to search out and watch movies through Reels (Fb’s large TikTok competitor), together with shortform, longform and dwell movies, all powered by what Fb calls “our turbo-charged suggestions expertise.”

“Younger adults on Fb spend nearly 60% of their time on the app watching movies, and greater than half of younger adults watch Reels each day – so we need to make sure that we’re making a video expertise that helps them get useful suggestions, recommendation and proposals,” Fb stated in a weblog put up asserting the adjustments.

Meta Adds Celebrity Voices to its AI Chatbot

Some acquainted voices can be coming to Meta‘s AI chatbots on Fb, Instagram and WhatsApp.

At a Meta Join occasion on Wednesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced the voice updates to the corporate’s suite of AI merchandise alongside different choices like AI dubbing and instruments to make use of AI to edit images.

Zuckerberg mentioned that the voice performance will start rolling out this week.

“We wish to make this enjoyable, all proper? So along with the completely different system voices that we inbuilt that I believe are are fairly good, we’ve additionally labored with a number of the most iconic voices on the market to convey them to Meta AI,” Zuckerberg mentioned onstage earlier than starting a dwell demo that includes the voice of Awkwafina.

“Are dwell demos dangerous?” Zuckerberg requested.

“Stay demos will be dangerous, sure,” the AI system responded in Awkwafina’s voice. “They are often unpredictable, liable to technical points and probably embarrassing, nevertheless, they can be participating.”

Zuckerberg mentioned he would proceed anyway, with Awkwafina’s voice replying, “go for it. Simply be ready for something to occur. Fingers crossed.”

The Meta AI celebrity-voiced chatbots come just some months after OpenAI discovered itself in sizzling water because it introduced its personal voice product. When OpenAI introduced its “voice mode,” one of many voices sounded suspiciously like Scarlett Johansson, who portrayed an emotive AI within the movie Her.

The actress subsequently mentioned that she had been approached by OpenAI chief Sam Altman about contributing her voice to the product.

Presumably Meta is utilizing its movie star voices not solely with permission, but additionally compensation. A supply aware of final yr’s Meta chatbots (which featured the likenesses of celebrities, if not their voices) mentioned that the corporate was providing offers price tens of millions of {dollars} to safe the usage of their likenesses and voices.

The corporate additionally introduced different updates and merchandise on the occasion, together with a prototype glasses product referred to as “Orion,” a less expensive model of its Quest VR headseat, and different AI options, like AI-generated picture modifying and automatic language dubbing for movies.

Meta Q2 2024 Earnings See AI Spending Surge

Meta handily beat Wall Road estimates in Q2 2024, however it warned buyers that it continues to lose billions on its “Actuality Labs” division, and added that the corporate expects to spend much more subsequent 12 months because it builds out its synthetic intelligence division.

“We at present count on important capital expenditures progress in 2025 as we make investments to help our synthetic intelligence analysis and product growth efforts,” the corporate wrote in its earnings report. It additionally warned of “an lively regulatory panorama, together with the rising authorized and regulatory headwinds within the EU and the U.S. that would considerably influence our enterprise and our monetary outcomes.”

“We had a robust quarter, and Meta AI is on observe to be probably the most used AI assistant on this planet by the top of the 12 months,” stated Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO. “We’ve launched the primary frontier-level open supply AI mannequin, we proceed to see good traction with our Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, and we’re driving good progress throughout our apps.”

The corporate reported income $39.1 billion and internet revenue of $13.5 billion in Q2, each up double digits from a 12 months in the past.

Extra to return.

Trump Facebook, Instagram Restrictions Lifted Ahead of GOP Convention

Meta has eliminated any remaining restrictions round Donald Trump‘s Fb and Instagram accounts forward of the Republican conference subsequent week.

In an replace to his January 2023 weblog put up through which Fb ended the previous president’s two-year suspension within the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Meta’s world affairs president Nick Clegg acknowledged Friday that with the Republican and Democratic nationwide conventions developing — the RNC kicks off on Monday whereas the DNC begins on Aug. 19 — each events’ presidential candidates might be formally nominated.

“In assessing our duty to permit political expression, we consider that the American folks ought to have the ability to hear from the nominees for president on the identical foundation,” Clegg wrote. “In consequence, former President Trump, because the nominee of the Republican Social gathering, will now not be topic to the heightened suspension penalties.”

Clegg went on to evaluate the penalties themselves.

“In reaching this conclusion, we additionally thought-about that these penalties have been a response to excessive and extraordinary circumstances, and haven’t needed to be deployed,” he acknowledged. “All U.S. presidential candidates stay topic to the identical neighborhood requirements as all Fb and Instagram customers, together with these insurance policies designed to stop hate speech and incitement to violence.”

The transfer comes after Trump’s Fb and Instagram entry was restored in 2023, with Clegg calling the ban, “a unprecedented determination taken in extraordinary circumstances.”

“The conventional state of affairs is that the general public ought to have the ability to hear from a former President of america, and a declared candidate for that workplace once more, on our platforms,” Clegg wrote on the time. “Now that the time interval of the suspension has elapsed, the query just isn’t whether or not we select to reinstate Mr. Trump’s accounts, however whether or not there stay such extraordinary circumstances that extending the suspension past the unique two-year interval is justified.“

On the time, Clegg mentioned that the corporate was placing “guardrails” in place, together with heightened penalties, similar to computerized suspensions, if Trump encourages violence once more. For content material not overtly violent however that delegitimizes elections, Fb could cease the attain of these posts or revoke some promoting instruments for Trump’s account.

Trump was banned from Fb “indefinitely” on Jan. 7, 2021, with the corporate’s oversight board deciding in Could of that 12 months that it was justified in suspending his account “given the seriousness of the violations and the continued danger of violence.” However the board added, “it was not applicable for Fb to impose an ‘indefinite’ suspension.” So Fb settled on a two-year ban with Clegg saying the corporate would re-evaluate in 2023.

Trump, who now has his personal social platform that he appears to favor, Reality Social, additionally had his account on Twitter (now often called X) restored by that social media community’s proprietor Elon Musk, based mostly on the outcomes of a web based ballot Musk carried out.