Recently, the online sales industry has undergone a revolutionary change! A startup named Rep.ai has just announced the completion of a $7.5 million funding round, aiming to launch a brand new AI digital clone technology. This technology will help businesses create virtual sales representatives capable of conducting real-time video and audio conversations, truly providing 24/7 services and transforming our traditional shopping experience. Rep.ai was formerly known as ServiceBell, and they have rebranded to focus on developing these lifelike AI clones.

At the opening ceremony of the 2024 Yunqi Conference, Giant Network made its debut and showcased its latest achievements in the "Game + AI" field. The company launched two self-developed large model applications—GiantGPT and BaiLing-TTS—while also demonstrating new technologies such as AI Digital Humans and the AI painting platform Giant Mimicry.

Recently, Google announced a new feature in its search results aimed at helping users better understand how content is created and modified. This initiative follows Google's joining of the Content Provenance and Authenticity Alliance (C2PA), which includes major brands like Amazon, Adobe, and Microsoft, all dedicated to combating online misinformation. Google stated that this new feature will be gradually rolled out over the coming months, using current content credential standards (i.e., image metadata) to label AI-generated or edited images in search results.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed two new laws, vowing to safeguard the digital images of actors and other performers. These bills aim to protect actors from the unauthorized use of their digital likenesses or voices both during their lifetimes and posthumously. This move comes against the backdrop of growing concerns about the impact of artificial intelligence on the labor of artists. In a video posted on social media, Newsom stated: 'We talk about California as the state of dreams and doers. Many dreamers come here, but sometimes their voices are not fully represented.'

Recently, Yinfen AI, a music platform under Kunlun Wanwei, has launched a new feature - custom 'Lead Singer', allowing users to select the appropriate singer voice based on the style of their musical works.

With the continuous advancement of artificial intelligence technology, the difficulty of forging images and videos has decreased significantly, making the deepfake phenomenon increasingly severe. Identifying these false contents has become an urgent issue to address. Recently, a research team from Binghamton University conducted an in-depth discussion on this topic, using frequency domain analysis techniques to reveal the characteristics of AI-generated images, thus helping people identify false information. Image source note: The image is AI-generated, with permission from image licensing provider Midjourney. This research was conducted by the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

David Holz, founder and CEO of Midjourney, recently shared the latest progress of the company's current projects during 'Office Hours' on Discord and addressed community user questions. This communication revealed that Midjourney is working on multiple technological innovations to compete in the increasingly intense field of AI image generation. Although the new version has been delayed, it promises richer features. Despite rapid progress in a short time, the frequency of new model releases has noticeably slowed down recently.

James Earl Jones, the legendary actor known for his iconic voice and a remarkable career spanning over sixty years, is well-remembered for his roles as Mufasa in 'The Lion King' and Darth Vader in the 'Star Wars' series. Jones, a Tony Award winner for 'The Great White Hope' and 'Fences', had his voice replicated through AI technology to recreate classic characters, raising discussions within the industry regarding the use of AI and the rights of voice actors. This decision has led to a strike initiated by SAG-AFTRA performers, concerned about the potential for AI to replace their jobs.

Apple's upcoming iOS 18 features various AI functionalities, including SMS rewriting, email summarization, and object recognition in photos. Notably, the 'Image Playground' creates cartoon-style illustrations from text prompts, with Bailey, the dog of Apple SVP Craig Federighi, as the first AI-generated image subject. Other practical AI tools are also included, but they are currently limited to the beta version.....

Amazon's Audible has announced an innovative plan to use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to train the voices of professional narrators in order to produce high-quality audiobooks. Starting this week, selected audiobook narrators from the U.S. will participate in the AI training process, ensuring that the AI-generated voices can compete with those of professionals. Narrators will have the opportunity to review the AI-generated voices to ensure they align with the style and tone of the work, and to fine-tune the AI's pronunciation and pacing. Audible has committed to compensating participating narrators based on book titles and royalty sharing.

Amazon has launched the AI Cloning Narrator project aimed at accelerating audiobook production. The project invites narrators to submit recordings to train AI for 'voice cloning'. Narrators can choose to participate in the project voluntarily, including live performances or AI-generated recordings. Audiobooks using AI cloning will be labeled on the product detail page, and narrators will be compensated through a royalty-sharing model, requiring narrator consent for AI cloning use. After beta testing in the U.S., this feature will expand to rights holders, aiming to provide narrators with more creative opportunities and enhance the audiobook market.

Getty Images has announced a significant initiative by providing AI developers with a training dataset that includes 3750 high-quality photos across 15 categories, aimed at supporting the development of AI applications. These photos are now available on the Hugging Face platform, and users can access them for free after agreeing to the terms of service and providing their contact information. This move is intended to attract businesses and developers while promoting their paid licensing services. Getty Images claims to have over 572 million photos, with more than 200 million available for commercial use.

Recently, the domestic AAA game 'Black Myth: Wukong' has been gaining momentum globally, attracting not only a large number of players but also the attention of well-known figures from various sectors. Among them, famous entrepreneur Elon Musk posted on social media, giving high praise to this game and calling it an 'impressive' Chinese AAA title.

Microsoft collaborates with the anti-revenge pornography organization StopNCII to provide victims with tools to erase deepfake pornographic images from search engines. By creating a digital fingerprint (hash value) of the images on the device, it helps to completely remove related synthetic nude images from platforms like Bing. This initiative aims to address the issue of deepfake pornography caused by the misuse of generative AI technology, tackling the challenges that cannot be effectively managed solely through user reports. However, Google has not yet partnered with StopNCII, and there is a lack of specific federal laws addressing such behavior in the United States.

RapidLayoutRecover is an innovative document image processing tool designed to efficiently convert scanned documents or PDF pages into editable Word or TXT text formats. Its core advantage lies in the intelligent automatic recognition capability, which can accurately identify elements such as text, tables, and formulas, automatically complete layout analysis, and extract content, significantly saving users time and effort. The tool quickly classifies document orientation, conducts detailed layout analysis, and recognizes text, tables, and formulas, achieving conversion from document images to structured TXT.

Soul App has made significant breakthroughs in the AI+Social field by upgrading its self-developed end-to-end full-duplex voice call model, achieving a natural and smooth voice communication experience with virtual characters that nearly matches the realism of talking to a real person. This model features ultra-low interaction latency, rapid automatic interruption, hyper-realistic voice expression, and emotional perception understanding capabilities, making it nearly impossible for users to distinguish whether their conversation partner is a real person or AI. This innovation not only significantly enhances the social experience for users on Soul but also showcases Soul's advancements in AI technology.

Salesforce has acquired the AI voice assistant startup Tenyx to enhance the interactivity of its customer service system and meet user needs through a natural and smooth conversational experience. Tenyx's technology has been applied in various fields such as e-commerce, healthcare, and hospitality, and will become an essential part of Salesforce's customer service system. The transaction is expected to be completed by October 31, 2024, with the Tenyx team joining Salesforce to continue product development. The acquisition aims to leverage AI fully.

Volkswagen announced that its voice assistant 'Plus Speech', developed in collaboration with Cerence, will officially launch in the United States this week, integrated into the 2025 Jetta, Jetta GTI, and ID.4 (82kWh battery) models. This feature can execute in-car commands, answer questions unrelated to driving, and provide more natural and fluent responses using various data sources, including ChatGPT, via the internet. The 'IDA' feature allows drivers and passengers to express their needs by saying 'Hi IDA'.