As momentum grows around global climate goals, a number of arts organizations are taking a larger look at their environmental impacts and incorporating sustainability into their values and strategies. To simplify this process, a variety of industry-specific tools are available to estimate CO2e emissions in arts and culture. Julie’s Bicycle, Gallery Climate Coalition, and ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager emerged as widely used emissions calculators, because of their ease of use, established network to share and compare results, and in some cases, adoption by funders or regulatory bodies.
Getty Images has become the newest company to join the AI Image Generator bandwagon, creating their own that is trained using NVIDIA's Picasso. NVIDIA is a machine learning model that was created with the intention of using solely images that are property of Getty Images, which makes this Image Generator unique from the rest. This review compares the other competitors for generative AI with Getty’s new tool.
Platforms like Synthesia and D-ID allow users to create AI-driven videos. These new apps are reshaping video creation, giving users unprecedented tools to create content. This article highlights the unique features and comparisons between Synthesia and D-ID, providing insights into their functionality, user experience, output quality, and cost impact.
Traditionally, games’ non-player characters (NPCs) were essentially scripted entities characterized by predetermined actions and restricted interaction capabilities. Nevertheless, the evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has injected vitality into these characters, rendering them significantly more dynamic and convincing in their behavior.
Computer science professor at the University of Chicago, Ben Zhao, created Nightshade, a tool to help defend artists from copyright infringement from GenAI companies that are scanninging their existing artwork. Clever in name, the tool has been purposely named Nightshade for its poisonous origins, a plant that was historically used to poison kings and emperors. Zhao’s digital Nightshade offers a future for artists to reclaim the ownership of their work from the artificial intelligence programs who use them.
Discord is a popular free-to-use browser app and software that gives users the ability to write, make voice or video conversations, and share their screen. The app provides users and their teams with the necessary real-time communication if they want to stay in sync when competing in esports, watching a movie, or video conferencing. This review dives into the pros and cons, and explains some of the basic and premium features of Discord.
#SelfCare is an application designed with a gamification approach to self-care. It was named one of Apple’s best self-care apps of 2018, when self-care was also named one of Apple’s top trends. Unlike most apps, #SelfCare has no advertisements, does not ask for a subscription when signing up, and sends out few notifications, which can also be turned off easily. It is difficult to obtain the number of downloads from the App Store, but as of 2019, it had more than two million downloads. This review looks at the application in a post-pandemic context wherein being alone is the new norm, at least for the time being.
Procreate, launched in 2011, is a digital drawing software that can be used on an iPad. It offers hundreds of brushes, filters, supports files with many layers, and has a very simple design interface. This review will go into the details about Procreate to give you better insight on what sets it apart from other digital drawing software.
Japanese startup Amadeus Code, an “artificial intelligence-powered songwriting assistant,” is the latest app that is riding the wave of A.I. art-generation. The algorithm scans a diverse database of popular music from the past 500 centuries (in theory - the earliest song this reviewer discovered was Schubert’s “Ave Maria” from 1825) and allows the user to specify the note range and length, drama, familiarity, and era. The app then creates a unique instrumental harmony based on these specifications, drawing inspiration from songs that have similar characteristics.
