Alter

Google is using Alter to compete against Tiktok with artificial intelligence avatars Tech giant Google has acquired Alter, an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar startup that was working on using AI to generate avatars for social media users and brands to express their virtual identity. Alter started as Facemoji, a platform that offered plug-and-play technology for helping game and App developers add avatar systems to their Apps. Among its investors are Play Ventures, Roosh Ventures, and Twitter, which invested $3…

IANS San Francisco, October 30 Tech giant Google has acquired Alter, an artificial intelligence (AI) avatar startup that was working on using AI to generate avatars for social media users and brands to express their virtual identity. According to TechCrunch, Google bought the startup for about $100 million in an effort to improve its content game and compete with TikTok. The acquisition was completed about two months ago, but neither company made a public announcement.…

BORDEAUX, France—The wildfire began on an usually dry summer day in a forest bordering the Liber Pater vineyard. Winemaker Loïc Pasquet saw the flames rise and spread toward his precious vines, which produce Bordeaux that sells for $30,000 a bottle.Hours before evacuating Mr. Pasquet and his staff destroyed the grass around the vineyard to prevent it from catching fire and dug trenches to block the blaze’s path. He also sprayed local trees with water drawn from the vineyard’s ponds. The vineyard was spared. The emergency…

Companies across China are making changes to everyday products and adjusting their business strategies to cope with rising costs and the country’s economic slowdown, which is weighing on consumer spending. Consumer-price inflation in the world’s second-largest economy has been relatively subdued this year, in contrast to the U.S., U.K. and other countries, where it recently hit multidecade highs. Weak demand in China has been a key reason, as well as many companies’ reluctance to charge more for their goods and services.…

Kajsa Hansson, newly promoted doctor in economics at Linköping University. Credit: Thor Balkhed Just as optical illusions can fool the eye to present a distorted image of reality, moral illusions can fool our decision-making ability, making us more selfish. This is the conclusion of a newly presented doctoral thesis from Linköping University. But the results also show that we are more likely to vote for the good of all when…

The research found that a single ethanol dose would create a favorable association with alcohol, leading to addiction.The study found that single-dose ethanol intoxication causes acute and long-lasting neuronal alterations in the brain.Researchers from the Universities of Cologne, Mannheim, and Heidelberg have shown that even a single alcohol dose permanently changes the morphology of neurons. In particular, alcohol affects the synapses’ structure as well as the dynamics of the mitochondria, the cell’s…

Let's consider an example with an imaginary planet. In this solar system, the planet completes one orbit around its sun in 8.6 solar days, instead of 365 days, as the Earth does. (I'm using a shorter year because it magnifies the difference between solar and stellar days, so you can see it more easily.)Here is an animation showing the difference between solar and stellar days for this planet. The arrow shows when a certain spot on the planet points at a distant star (which would be way outside the frame) or at its sun.…

Viewers of Minions: The Rise of Gru have noted some differences between the ending of the original version and the version played in Chinese cinemas. The fifth film in the Despicable Me franchise tells the tale of lovable villain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) and his life as a criminal in Seventies San Francisco, learning and conspiring with his mentor, Wild Knuckles (Alan Arkin). In the international version of the movie, Gru and Wild Knuckles escape punishment for their misdeeds after Knuckles fakes his own…

Censors in China have changed the ending of the animated film Minions: The Rise of Gru for its domestic release, according to viewers in the country, in yet another example of China altering a popular Hollywood film.According to posts and screenshots of the film, shared on Weibo, a platform similar to Twitter, there is an addendum by censors showing that Wild Knuckles, a main character in the heist film, was caught by police and served 20 years in jail.Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what…

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