Created my first Sora video today (prompt: “A Tyrannosaurus Rex riding on the back of a cute kitten”). Took approximately 10 minutes to generate. Paused significantly at 99% generated. Obviously needs some work on the object relationship.
Sora pushed out two videos with the prompt. The one above had fewer bizarre artifacts than the other. Will play around a little more with this…
Carve out 20 minutes of your day and watch the excellent 99% AI-generated video essay ‘The Wizard of AI,’ Created by Alan Warburton and commissioned by Data as Culture at the Open Data Institute.
AI Tools Used:
Trust me, you will thank me for watching this.
One idea that has been bouncing about my head, but I have yet to fully investigate, is creating captions/subtitles on the cheap. Paying a third party to provide this transcription service can get expensive – you can expect to pay $1 a minute, although there are places where you can go for a cheaper deal.
However, there are automated services like Siri, OS X Dictation, or Dragon Dictate. YouTube will automatically create a transcript when you upload a video (although the accuracy might not be there), and this text file can be downloaded and edited.
My thoughts are to take a regular video recording, and then parse it into one of these services. I just have not got round to this yet, but may give it a go soon.
Dragon Dictate looks like it has part of this capability, but costs about $200 and works with one voice only (no good for interviews).
The two approaches that look like they will work best for me (for free) are:
Option 1 is the way to go with video. The process here is going to synch the transcription with the video. Option 2 will be realtime, but could be useful for situations where I do not have Internet connectivity, or just want a text file.
Shindig
I (and two of my work colleagues) got a chance to see Shindig in practice last Friday. Shindig is a video collaboration service that is currently in beta. The user interface is particularly impressive – at work we use tools like this on a regular basis, and typically students and faculty need significant assistance to collaborate. Shindig was something that “just worked.”
However, Shindig is still in beta. I get the impression that the company is still trying to find its way, and work out the best way to make money. Thus, the company is now reaching out to education. This could be a tough sell – education does not have money to spare. There a some important features that Shindig does not have just yet, such as:
Additionally, some of the ways that the company markets itself via the website and YouTube sends the wrong message. I get the impression that the company is in a somewhat precarious position.
I hope they make it. I really liked the user interface and basic functionality. Shindig felt like a product where I did not need to crack open the manual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JwZoQYnnKc&list=PLRhWiq5YAdTtyuCgLxq0-08jxrm1To-NM
http://youtu.be/ICsNKttfsOE
Open, and magically a video starts playing automatically.
I received a rather nifty package at work yesterday, one of the the more interesting examples of advertising I have seen for some time…
In the same way that some birthday cards play a message or tune as you open them, this mailer started to play an advertising video. A hidden magnet detects whether the cover is open or closed, and plays the video on a loop when open.
I was impressed.
The mysterious “Ad”
I don’t really have need of the service (stukent.com/special), but I started to experiment with the package. At the bottom of the mailer I could see a Mini-USB port. Connecting a cable allowed me to see that the device showed up as external storage (Ad), with a video directory. Providing I replaced the existing video file there with nothing larger than 97.4 MB, I could play my own videos on the device. Neat.
When I have more time to kill, I am going to cut away the cardboard exterior, and see how I can repurpose this. Possibly in a small frame. Could make for a clever animated wallhanging.
Thank you mysterious stranger for sending me this. I hope you get some business out of this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEbNZPIXaZ
BoingBoing has a very apt (and quick) response to the news….
Lunch did not taste that good, but I found this on the table of interest. Clever way to find out which songs/bands are resonating with those eating in a mall.
I posted a (relatively) short video on the use of Twitter. The video was created for my colleagues at work. It is not exactly my finest hour – I kicked this out as quickly as I could. I had edited the screencast two time previously, but the exported results were missing sound and audio. I would like to think the earlier efforts were works of genius that were unlucky not to see the light of day, but that would be a stretch. Anyway, I hope they are of use.