Linus Torvalds, the creator and maintainer of the Linux kernel, talks modern developments.
3Dprinting (175) A.I. (720) animation (338) blender (196) colour (229) commercials (49) composition (151) cool (359) design (631) Featured (68) hardware (306) IOS (109) jokes (134) lighting (282) modeling (124) music (185) photogrammetry (176) photography (750) production (1247) python (85) quotes (485) reference (309) software (1325) trailers (295) ves (535) VR (219)
Category: ves
-
Why Streaming Content Could Be Hollywood’s Final Act
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2024/10/24/why-streaming-could-be-hollywoods-final-act/
The future of Hollywood was reshaped in 1997 with the founding of Netflix, an innovative mail-order DVD rental business by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. Unlike traditional rentals, Netflix allowed subscribers to retain DVDs as long as they wanted but required returns before ordering more, allowing the company to collect uninterrupted subscription fees. By 2009, Netflix was shipping nearly a billion DVDs annually but had already set its sights on streaming. The transition to streaming, launched in 2007, faced initial challenges due to limited broadband availability but soon became popular, outpacing the DVD business and bringing Netflix millions of subscribers.
Netflix’s dominance drove traditional media giants to reevaluate their strategies. Disney, initially hesitant, eventually licensed its vast library to Netflix, contributing to the latter’s rise. However, by 2017, Disney pivoted to launch its own platform, Disney+, breaking its Netflix partnership and acquiring 21st Century Fox for content diversification. Disney’s decision sparked a broader industry shift as other studios also developed streaming services, aiming to retain full revenue from direct-to-consumer content instead of sharing it with theaters or traditional networks.
Disney+ quickly gained traction, especially during the pandemic, reaching millions of subscribers and temporarily boosting Disney’s stock. However, the reliance on streaming and subscriber growth strained Disney financially, with high operating costs and content expenses. Content exclusivity backfired, creating complexity for fans, particularly with interconnected Marvel shows, and contributing to user dissatisfaction. Additionally, Disney’s decision to release films like Black Widow simultaneously in theaters and on streaming led to backlash, lawsuits, and lost box office revenue, highlighting the downsides of simultaneous releases.
Facing ballooning expenses and subscriber attrition post-pandemic, Disney’s leadership returned to more traditional revenue models, emphasizing exclusive theater releases and licensing content to third parties. They also introduced cost-saving measures like job cuts and content reductions to stabilize financial losses. This shift echoes a partial return to pre-streaming industry norms as Disney and other studios explore “always-on” channels within their streaming platforms, aiming to balance direct consumer access with sustainable profit models.
-
Q2 2024 Global Production Report
https://prodpro.com/blog/q2-2024-global-production-report/
What’s important: Over the past 6 months, the total number of productions filming globally in 2024 is still 16% lower than in 2022, and 37% lower in the US.
Why it matters: The lower volumes are here to stay.
-
Sam Altman – The Intelligence Age
In the next couple of decades, we will be able to do things that would have seemed like magic to our grandparents.
This phenomenon is not new, but it will be newly accelerated. People have become dramatically more capable over time; we can already accomplish things now that our predecessors would have believed to be impossible.
We are more capable not because of genetic change, but because we benefit from the infrastructure of society being way smarter and more capable than any one of us; in an important sense, society itself is a form of advanced intelligence. Our grandparents – and the generations that came before them – built and achieved great things. They contributed to the scaffolding of human progress that we all benefit from. AI will give people tools to solve hard problems and help us add new struts to that scaffolding that we couldn’t have figured out on our own. The story of progress will continue, and our children will be able to do things we can’t.
-
Lionsgate signs deal with AI company Runway, hoping that AI can eliminate storyboard artists and VFX crews
The goal is to reduce costs by replacing traditional storyboard artists and VFX crews with AI-generated “cinematic video.” Lionsgate hopes to use this technology for both pre- and post-production processes. While the company promotes the cost-saving potential, the creative community has raised concerns, as Runway is currently facing a lawsuit over copyright infringement.
-
How to Lead Your Team when the House Is on Fire
https://peterszasz.com/how-to-lead-your-team-when-the-house-is-on-fire/
The three focus areas of an Engineering Manager
- Ensuring delivery that’s aligned with company goals;
- Building and sustaining a high-performing engineering team;
- Supporting the success and personal growth of the individuals on the team.
-
Ross Pettit on The Agile Manager – How tech firms went for prioritizing cash flow instead of talent
For years, tech firms were fighting a war for talent. Now they are waging war on talent.
This shift has led to a weakening of the social contract between employees and employers, with culture and employee values being sidelined in favor of financial discipline and free cash flow.
The operating environment has changed from a high tolerance for failure (where cheap capital and willing spenders accepted slipped dates and feature lag) to a very low – if not zero – tolerance for failure (fiscal discipline is in vogue again).
While preventing and containing mistakes staves off shocks to the income statement, it doesn’t fundamentally reduce costs. Years of payroll bloat – aggressive hiring, aggressive comp packages to attract and retain people – make labor the biggest cost in tech.
…Of course, companies can reduce their labor force through natural attrition. Other labor policy changes – return to office mandates, contraction of fringe benefits, reduction of job promotions, suspension of bonuses and comp freezes – encourage more people to exit voluntarily. It’s cheaper to let somebody self-select out than it is to lay them off.
…Employees recruited in more recent years from outside the ranks of tech were given the expectation that we’ll teach you what you need to know, we want you to join because we value what you bring to the table. That is no longer applicable. Runway for individual growth is very short in zero-tolerance-for-failure operating conditions. Job preservation, at least in the short term for this cohort, comes from completing corporate training and acquiring professional certifications. Training through community or experience is not in the cards.
…The ability to perform competently in multiple roles, the extra-curriculars, the self-directed enrichment, the ex-company leadership – all these things make no matter. The calculus is what you got paid versus how you performed on objective criteria relative to your cohort. Nothing more.
…Here is where the change in the social contract is perhaps the most blatant. In the “destination employer” years, the employee invested in the community and its values, and the employer rewarded the loyalty of its employees through things like runway for growth (stretch roles and sponsored work innovation) and tolerance for error (valuing demonstrable learning over perfection in execution). No longer.
…http://www.rosspettit.com/2024/08/for-years-tech-was-fighting-war-for.html
-
Starboard Urges Autodesk to Hold CEO Accountable After Probe
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/starboard-urges-autodesk-hold-ceo-154230189.html
Accounting problems at Autodesk first came to light in April, when the company delayed its annual financial disclosures and said it was opening a review of processes related to free cash flow and operating margins. In May, the company announced it was replacing Debbie Clifford as chief financial officer.
Bloomberg reported last week that documents showed the software company ignored internal warnings about the use of a controversial sales strategy that was central to the accounting probe’s findings.
-
Zach Arnold – 2020: Dear Hollywood: We Don’t Want to “Go Back to Normal.” Normal Wasn’t Working
https://optimizeyourself.me/dear-hollywood-normal-wasnt-working/
Hollywood’s pre-pandemic “normal” wasn’t sustainable or healthy, particularly for workers who faced long hours, poor work-life balance, and limited diversity. This article calls for the industry to use this post-pandemic period as a chance to reform and prioritize the well-being, creativity, and inclusivity of its workforce, rather than simply returning to old, harmful practices.
-
Artists Score Major Win in Copyright Case Against AI Art Generators
The court declined to dismiss copyright infringement claims against the AI companies. The order could implicate other firms that used Stable Diffusion, the AI model at issue in the case. The case will move forward to discovery, where the artists could uncover information related to the way in which the AI firms harvested copyrighted materials that were then used to train large language models.
-
AI image generators could be their own demise due to inbreeding
A paper by computer scientists Matyas Bohacek and Hany Farid with the catchy title ‘Nepotistically Trained Generative-AI Models Collapse‘ shows that training AI image generators on AI images quite quickly leads to a deterioration in the quality of output. Farid likened the phenomenon to inbreeding. “If a species inbreeds with their own offspring and doesn’t diversify their gene pool, it can lead to a collapse of the species,” he said.
https://www.creativebloq.com/ai/ai-art/research-shows-ai-image-generators-could-be-their-own-demise
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.12202
-
The Edge – World’s first major AI law enters into force in Europe
The EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act, which went into effect on August 1, 2024.
This act implements a risk-based approach to AI regulation, categorizing AI systems based on the level of risk they pose. High-risk systems, such as those used in healthcare, transport, and law enforcement, face stringent requirements, including risk management, transparency, and human oversight.
Key provisions of the AI Act include:
- Transparency and Safety Requirements: AI systems must be designed to be safe, transparent, and easily understandable to users. This includes labeling requirements for AI-generated content, such as deepfakes (Engadget).
- Risk Management and Compliance: Companies must establish comprehensive governance frameworks to assess and manage the risks associated with their AI systems. This includes compliance programs that cover data privacy, ethical use, and geographical considerations (Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP) (Passle).
- Copyright and Data Mining: Companies must adhere to copyright laws when training AI models, obtaining proper authorization from rights holders for text and data mining unless it is for research purposes (Engadget).
- Prohibitions and Restrictions: AI systems that manipulate behavior, exploit vulnerabilities, or perform social scoring are prohibited. The act also sets out specific rules for high-risk AI applications and imposes fines for non-compliance (Passle).
For US tech firms, compliance with the EU AI Act is critical due to the EU’s significant market size
-
Canva acquires Leonardo.ai
https://techcrunch.com/2024/07/29/canva-acquires-leonardo-ai-to-boost-its-generative-ai-efforts
The financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams said it’s a mix of cash and stock. All of Leonardo.ai’s 120 employees will be joining Canva, including the executive team.
“Leonardo will continue to run independently of Canva with a focus on rapid innovation, research and development, now backed by Canva’s resources,” Adams told TechCrunch. “We’ll keep offering all of Leonardo’s existing tools and solutions. This acquisition aims to help Leonardo develop its platform and deepen their user growth with our investment, including by expanding their API business and investing in foundational model R&D.”
-
Autodesk acquires Wonder Dynamics
This strategic move supports Autodesk’s goal to democratize creative tools and foster innovation in the media and entertainment industry. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
-
Ridley Scott Wants to ‘Embrace’ AI for Post-Production
Despite embracing technology, the “Blade Runner” and “Alien” director has long incorporated the fear of AI in his stories onscreen and knows better than most about its ramifications. Scott previously told Rolling Stone in November 2023 that when it came to his concerns about artificial intelligence broadly, he said that AI was “dangerous” and akin to a “technical hydrogen bomb.”
-
David Cahn – AI’s $600B Question, is it a sustainable bubble?
https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/ais-600b-question
The expanding economic impact of AI, highlights a significant gap between AI infrastructure investments and actual revenue generation. Despite easing GPU shortages and increased investments by cloud providers, AI-related revenue, particularly dominated by OpenAI, remains insufficient to justify the massive capital expenditures. The analysis reveals that this gap has grown from $125 billion to $500 billion, posing challenges for the AI industry while emphasizing the need for realistic expectations and sustainable value creation.
OpenAI training and inference costs could reach $7bn for 2024, AI startup set to lose $5bn – report
AI: Are we in another dot-com bubble?
The power of AI will transform every facet of our society, from the micro changes in our day-to-day lives to the macro changes in global geopolitics. It will challenge our values and assumptions and make us reconsider what it means to be human. It is inevitable that some capital will be wasted getting there. We may even experience a bubble or two. But this is part of the growing pains of advancing humankind. Society, like our individual lives, seldom take the shortest route. As to the argument that we are in a bubble right now, we think it deserves some reconsidering.
https://kelvinmu.substack.com/p/ai-are-we-in-another-dot-com-bubble
-
SAG-AFTRA Calls Strike Against Major Video Game Studios
SAG-AFTRA has called a strike against major video game companies, set to begin on July 26, 2024. This decision follows a vote by union members, with 98.32% in favor of authorizing the strike. The union has been negotiating with companies like Activision, Disney, EA, Insomniac Games, and others since October 2022 to renew the Interactive Media Agreement.
The core issues leading to the strike include demands for wage increases to combat inflation, protections against the use of artificial intelligence, and basic safety precautions. SAG-AFTRA seeks an 11% retroactive increase in rates for video game performers, followed by 4% annual increases, similar to their demands in the film and TV industries
-
Canada is no longer one of the richest nations on Earth
“… the problem with Canada’s economy is not cyclical, but secular; not one of utilization, but capacity. It is not so much that growth is temporarily below potential as that potential growth has slowed to a crawl.
More to the point, the economy is now growing slower than the population, which is why per capita GDP is now falling. And it’s per capita GDP that really counts, as far as living standards are concerned.
They are no longer one of the richest countries on Earth. Among the richer countries, they are on course to being one of the poorer.
The economist Trevor Tombe has shown that Canada’s richest province, Alberta, would rank 14th among U.S. states. The poorest five provinces now rank among the six poorest jurisdictions in North America. Ontario ranks just ahead of Alabama. British Columbia is poorer than Kentucky.”
-
Luca Rossi – How to Help Underperformers
https://hybridhacker.email/p/how-to-help-underperformers
- Understand Performance is Systemic: Recognize that culture, systems, management, and individual traits impact performance.
- Address Underperformance Early: Use consistent feedback and the accountability dial (mention, invitation, conversation, boundary, limit).
- Provide Balanced Feedback: Reinforce, acknowledge, and correct behaviors.
- Use an Underperformance Checklist: Evaluate issues related to culture, systems, management, and individual traits.
-
GoldmanSachs.com – GEN AI: TOO MUCH SPEND, TOO LITTLE BENEFIT?
Tech giants and beyond are set to spend over $1tn on AI capex in coming years, with so far little to show for it. So, will this large spend ever pay off? MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and GS’ Jim Covello are skeptical, with Acemoglu seeing only limited US economic upside from AI over the next decade and Covello arguing that the technology isn’t designed to solve the complex problems that would justify the costs, which may not decline as many expect. But GS’ Joseph Briggs, Kash Rangan, and Eric Sheridan remain more optimistic about AI’s economic potential and its ability to ultimately generate returns beyond the current “picks and shovels” phase, even if AI’s “killer application” has yet to emerge. And even if it does, we explore whether the current chips shortage (with GS’ Toshiya Hari) and looming power shortage (with Cloverleaf Infrastructure’s Brian Janous) will constrain AI growth. But despite these concerns and constraints, we still see room for the AI theme to run, either because AI starts to deliver on its promise, or because bubbles take a long time to burst.
Local copy below
COLLECTIONS
| Featured AI
| Design And Composition
| Explore posts
POPULAR SEARCHES
unreal | pipeline | virtual production | free | learn | photoshop | 360 | macro | google | nvidia | resolution | open source | hdri | real-time | photography basics | nuke
FEATURED POSTS
-
Photography basics: Shutter angle and shutter speed and motion blur
-
UV maps
-
Gamma correction
-
Film Production walk-through – pipeline – I want to make a … movie
-
Photography basics: How Exposure Stops (Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO) Affect Your Photos – cheat sheet cards
-
Principles of Animation with Alan Becker, Dermot OConnor and Shaun Keenan
-
PixelSham – Introduction to Python 2022
-
STOP FCC – SAVE THE FREE NET
Social Links
DISCLAIMER – Links and images on this website may be protected by the respective owners’ copyright. All data submitted by users through this site shall be treated as freely available to share.