Picsart, a photo-editing startup backed by SoftBank, announced on Thursday that it’s partnering with Getty Images to develop a custom model to bring AI imagery to its 150 million users.
The company says the model will bring responsible AI imagery to creators, marketers and small businesses that use its platform.
Image Credits: Picsart x Getty Images AI ImagePicsart’s AI lab, PAIR, is building the model.
The company is also integrating Getty Images video content into Picsart’s platform and making it available to Plus members.
Picsart isn’t the first startup that Getty Images has partnered with for responsible AI imagery, as it also partnered with AI image generator, Bria, and Runway, a startup building generative AI for content creators.
Jordan Meyer and Mathew Dryhurst founded Spawning AI to create tools that help artists exert more control over how their works are used online.
Meyer claims that, despite the fact that it’s substantially smaller than some other generative AI training data sets out there, Source.Plus’ data set is already “high-quality” enough to train a state-of-the-art image-generating model.
Generative AI models “learn” to produce their outputs (e.g., photorealistic art) by training on a vast quantity of relevant data — images, in that case.
Image Credits: Spawning“Source.Plus isn’t just a repository for training data; it’s an enrichment platform with tools to support the training pipeline,” he continued.
And, Meyer says, Spawning might build its own generative AI models using data from the Source.Plus datasets.
An “Apple Intelligence” (AI)-powered feature coming in iOS 18 will allow iPhone users to create AI images of people they’re messaging with — a feature that works something like an AI-upgraded Bitmoji.
Image Credits: AppleFor example, Apple showed off making an AI Bitmoji of a friend celebrating their birthday with an image that included cake, balloons and flowers.
The Genmoji can be used as a sticker for reacting to messages with a Tapback or inline with your messages, Apple said.
Apple Intelligence will also suggest concepts related to your messages conversation, but all this takes place on the device, according to Apple.
Also at WWDC 2024, Apple announced updates to Siri and introduced macOS Sequoia.
eBay’s newest AI feature allows sellers to replace image backgrounds with AI-generated backdrops.
eBay’s background enhancement tool could benefit sellers who lack the equipment or skills to take professional-looking or high-quality photos.
It may also improve on eBay’s previous offering, which used computer vision technology to give listing photos a simple, white background.
The new AI feature is powered by the open-source model Stable Diffusion.
The latest announcement comes a year after eBay introduced an AI feature that generates titles and descriptions for a product listing.
Why vector databases are having a moment as the AI hype cycle peaks GenAI spurs demand for vector search startups, but database giants are also taking noteVector databases are all the rage, judging by the number of startups entering the space and the investors ponying up for a piece of the pie.
“Working with visual search and robotics at Amazon was when I really looked at vector search — I was thinking about new ways to do product discovery, and that very quickly converged on vector search,” Clark told TechCrunch.
“I think the same is likely to happen with vector databases,” Zaitsev told TechCrunch.
“Our pitch is, ‘we do advanced vector search in the best way possible.’ It is all about specialization.
At some point, users will face limitations if vector search is a critical component of your solution.”
Social media company Snap said Tuesday that it plans to add watermarks to AI-generated images on its platform.
Other tech giants such as Microsoft, Meta, and Google have also taken steps to label or identify images created with AI-powered tools.
Currently, Snap allows users to create or edit AI-generated images with Snap AI for paid users and a selfie-focused feature called Dreams.
The company also added context cards with AI-generated images from tools like Dream selfies to better inform the user.
In February, Snap partnered with HackerOne to stress its AI image-generation tools by adapting a bug bounty program.
The Oversight Board, Meta’s semi-independent policy council, it turning its attention to how the company’s social platforms are handling explicit, AI-generated images.
Tuesday, it announced investigations into two separate cases over how Instagram in India and Facebook in the U.S. handled AI-generated images of public figures after Meta’s systems fell short on detecting and responding to the explicit content.
In other words, after two reports, the explicit AI-generated image remained on Instagram.
The second case relates to Facebook, where a user posted an explicit, AI-generated image that resembled a U.S. public figure in a Group focusing on AI creations.
Meta’s response and the next stepsIn response to the Oversight Board’s cases, Meta said it took down both pieces of content.
Meta has announced it’s testing new features on Instagram intended to help safeguard young people from unwanted nudity or sextortion scams.
This includes a feature called Nudity Protection in DMs, which automatically blurs images detected as containing nudity.
Nudity screensNudity Protection in DMs aims to protect teen Instagram users from cyberflashing by putting nude images behind a safety screen.
But Meta is taking a further step of not showing the “Message” button on a teen’s profile to potential sextortion accounts, i.e.
For example, in July 2021 Meta switched to defaulting young people’s Instagram accounts to private just ahead of the UK compliance deadline.
Amazon announced Thursday the launch of its new app for Amazon One, its contactless palm recognition service that allows customers to hover their palm over a device in order to purchase from select places, including over 500 Whole Foods Market stores, Amazon stores, and more than 150 third-party locations.
Instead of signing up for Amazon One at a physical retail location, users can now download the Amazon One app (available for iOS or Android devices) and take a photo of their palm right at home.
The company explains that all palm images taken via the new app are encrypted and sent to a secure Amazon One domain in the AWS cloud.
Amazon says that Amazon One has been used over 8 million times.
The app launch follows Amazon’s expansion of the technology for enterprise identity purposes, which gives companies the ability to authenticate employees when entering.
A new app from a startup called Cherry is aiming to transform the online shopping experience with its AI assistant that allows users to discover products across the internet using just a screenshot or image.
Cherry helps you find products that you’ve come across while scrolling through social media or have seen in real-life.
“My motivation for creating Cherry stemmed from a personal frustration with the time-consuming process of finding and comparing products online,” Kim told TechCrunch.
Plus, users can also share their search results with their friends or on social media.
“While Google Lens offers general image-based search capabilities, Cherry is specifically tailored for the shopping experience,” Kim said.
