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Walt Disney Animation Abandons Longform Streaming Content
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/tiana-disney-series-shelved-1236153297
A spokesperson confirmed there will be some layoffs in its Vancouver studio as a result of this shift in business strategy. In addition to the Tiana series, the studio is also scrapping an unannounced feature-length project that was set to go straight to Disney+.
Insiders say that Walt Disney Animation remains committed to releasing one theatrical film per year in addition to other shorts and special projects
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Andreas Horn – The 9 algorithms
The illustration below highlights the algorithms most frequently utilized in our everyday activities: They play a key role in everything we do from online shopping recommendations, navigation apps, social media, email spam filters and even smart home devices.
🔹 𝗦𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺
– Organize data for efficiency.
➜ Example: Sorting email threads or search results.
🔹 𝗗𝗶𝗷𝗸𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮’𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺
– Finds the shortest path in networks.
➜ Example: Google Maps driving routes.
🔹 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀
– AI models that understand context and meaning.
➜ Example: ChatGPT, Claude and other LLMs.
🔹 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘀𝗶𝘀
– Ranks pages and builds connections.
➜ Example: TikTok PageRank, LinkedIn recommendations.
🔹 𝗥𝗦𝗔 𝗔𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺
– Encrypts and secures data communication.
➜ Example: WhatsApp encryption or online banking.
🔹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
– Secures cryptographic systems.
➜ Example: Protecting sensitive data in blockchain.
🔹 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 (𝗖𝗡𝗡𝘀)
– Recognizes patterns in images and videos.
➜ Example: Facial recognition, object detection in self-driving cars.
🔹 𝗛𝘂𝗳𝗳𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴
– Compresses data efficiently.
➜ Example: JPEG and MP3 file compression.
🔹 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝘀𝗵 𝗔𝗹𝗴𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗺 (𝗦𝗛𝗔)
– Ensures data integrity.
➜ Example: Password encryption, digital signatures.
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OpenAI 4.5 model arrives to mixed reviews
The verdict is in: OpenAI’s newest and most capable traditional AI model, GPT-4.5, is big, expensive, and slow, providing marginally better performance than GPT-4o at 30x the cost for input and 15x the cost for output. The new model seems to prove that longstanding rumors of diminishing returns in training unsupervised-learning LLMs were correct and that the so-called “scaling laws” cited by many for years have possibly met their natural end.
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Walter Murch – “In the Blink of an Eye” – A perspective on cut editing
https://www.amazon.ca/Blink-Eye-Revised-2nd/dp/1879505622
Celebrated film editor Walter Murch’s vivid, multifaceted, thought-provoking essay on film editing. Starting with the most basic editing question — Why do cuts work? — Murch takes the reader on a wonderful ride through the aesthetics and practical concerns of cutting film. Along the way, he offers unique insights on such subjects as continuity and discontinuity in editing, dreaming, and reality; criteria for a good cut; the blink of the eye as an emotional cue; digital editing; and much more. In this second edition, Murch revises his popular first edition’s lengthy meditation on digital editing in light of technological changes. Francis Ford Coppola says about this book: “Nothing is as fascinating as spending hours listening to Walter’s theories of life, cinema and the countless tidbits of wisdom that he leaves behind like Hansel and Gretel’s trail of breadcrumbs…….”
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CUDA Programming for Python Developers
https://www.pyspur.dev/blog/introduction_cuda_programming
Check your Cuda version, it will be the release version here:
>>> nvcc --version nvcc: NVIDIA (R) Cuda compiler driver Copyright (c) 2005-2024 NVIDIA Corporation Built on Wed_Apr_17_19:36:51_Pacific_Daylight_Time_2024 Cuda compilation tools, release 12.5, V12.5.40 Build cuda_12.5.r12.5/compiler.34177558_0or from here:
>>> nvidia-smi Mon Jun 16 12:35:20 2025 +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | NVIDIA-SMI 555.85 Driver Version: 555.85 CUDA Version: 12.5 | |-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
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PixVerse – Prompt, lypsync and extended video generation
https://app.pixverse.ai/onboard
PixVerse now has 3 main features:
text to video➡️ How To Generate Videos With Text Promptsimage to video➡️ How To Animate Your Images And Bring Them To Lifeupscale➡️ How to Upscale Your Video
Enhanced Capabilities
– Improved Prompt Understanding: Achieve more accurate prompt interpretation and stunning video dynamics.
– Supports Various Video Ratios: Choose from 16:9, 9:16, 3:4, 4:3, and 1:1 ratios.
– Upgraded Styles: Style functionality returns with options like Anime, Realistic, Clay, and 3D. It supports both text-to-video and image-to-video stylization.New Features
– Lipsync: The new Lipsync feature enables users to add text or upload audio, and PixVerse will automatically sync the characters’ lip movements in the generated video based on the text or audio.
– Effect: Offers 8 creative effects, including Zombie Transformation, Wizard Hat, Monster Invasion, and other Halloween-themed effects, enabling one-click creativity.
– Extend: Extend the generated video by an additional 5-8 seconds, with control over the content of the extended segment.
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Alibaba Group Tongyi Lab WanxAI Wan2.1 – open source model
👍 SOTA Performance: Wan2.1 consistently outperforms existing open-source models and state-of-the-art commercial solutions across multiple benchmarks.
🚀 Supports Consumer-grade GPUs: The T2V-1.3B model requires only 8.19 GB VRAM, making it compatible with almost all consumer-grade GPUs. It can generate a 5-second 480P video on an RTX 4090 in about 4 minutes (without optimization techniques like quantization). Its performance is even comparable to some closed-source models.
🎉 Multiple tasks: Wan2.1 excels in Text-to-Video, Image-to-Video, Video Editing, Text-to-Image, and Video-to-Audio, advancing the field of video generation.
🔮 Visual Text Generation: Wan2.1 is the first video model capable of generating both Chinese and English text, featuring robust text generation that enhances its practical applications.
💪 Powerful Video VAE: Wan-VAE delivers exceptional efficiency and performance, encoding and decoding 1080P videos of any length while preserving temporal information, making it an ideal foundation for video and image generation.
https://huggingface.co/Comfy-Org/Wan_2.1_ComfyUI_repackaged/tree/main/split_files
https://huggingface.co/Comfy-Org/Wan_2.1_ComfyUI_repackaged/tree/main/example%20workflows_Wan2.1
https://huggingface.co/Wan-AI/Wan2.1-T2V-14B
https://huggingface.co/Kijai/WanVideo_comfy/tree/main
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VES Cinematic Color – Motion-Picture Color Management
This paper presents an introduction to the color pipelines behind modern feature-film visual-effects and animation.
Authored by Jeremy Selan, and reviewed by the members of the VES Technology Committee including Rob Bredow, Dan Candela, Nick Cannon, Paul Debevec, Ray Feeney, Andy Hendrickson, Gautham Krishnamurti, Sam Richards, Jordan Soles, and Sebastian Sylwan.
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The VFX Reference Platform
The VFX Reference Platform is a set of tool and library versions to be used as a common target platform for building software for the VFX industry. Its purpose is to minimise incompatibilities between different software packages, ease the support burden for integrated pipelines and encourage further adoption of Linux by both studios and software vendors. The Reference Platform is updated annually by a group of software vendors in collaboration with the Visual Effects Society Technology Committee.
Each annual reference platform is designated by the calendar year in which major product releases should be targeting that particular reference.
FEATURED POSTS
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Types of AI Explained in a few Minutes – AI Glossary
1️⃣ 𝗔𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 (𝗔𝗜) – The broadest category, covering automation, reasoning, and decision-making. Early AI was rule-based, but today, it’s mainly data-driven.
2️⃣ 𝗠𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗠𝗟) – AI that learns patterns from data without explicit programming. Includes decision trees, clustering, and regression models.
3️⃣ 𝗡𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝘀 (𝗡𝗡) – A subset of ML, inspired by the human brain, designed for pattern recognition and feature extraction.
4️⃣ 𝗗𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 (𝗗𝗟) – Multi-layered neural networks that drives a lot of modern AI advancements, for example enabling image recognition, speech processing, and more.
5️⃣ 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 – A revolutionary deep learning architecture introduced by Google in 2017 that allows models to understand and generate language efficiently.
6️⃣ 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗔𝗜 (𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜) – AI that doesn’t just analyze data—it creates. From text and images to music and code, this layer powers today’s most advanced AI models.
7️⃣ 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗣𝗿𝗲-𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 (𝗚𝗣𝗧) – A specific subset of Generative AI that uses transformers for text generation.
8️⃣ 𝗟𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 (𝗟𝗟𝗠) – Massive AI models trained on extensive datasets to understand and generate human-like language.
9️⃣ 𝗚𝗣𝗧-4 – One of the most advanced LLMs, built on transformer architecture, trained on vast datasets to generate human-like responses.
🔟 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗚𝗣𝗧 – A specific application of GPT-4, optimized for conversational AI and interactive use.
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The Public Domain Is Working Again — No Thanks To Disney
www.cartoonbrew.com/law/the-public-domain-is-working-again-no-thanks-to-disney-169658.html
The law protects new works from unauthorized copying while allowing artists free rein on older works.
The Copyright Act of 1909 used to govern copyrights. Under that law, a creator had a copyright on his creation for 28 years from “publication,” which could then be renewed for another 28 years. Thus, after 56 years, a work would enter the public domain.
However, the Congress passed the Copyright Act of 1976, extending copyright protection for works made for hire to 75 years from publication.
Then again, in 1998, Congress passed the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (derided as the “Mickey Mouse Protection Act” by some observers due to the Walt Disney Company’s intensive lobbying efforts), which added another twenty years to the term of copyright.
it is because Snow White was in the public domain that it was chosen to be Disney’s first animated feature.
Ironically, much of Disney’s legislative lobbying over the last several decades has been focused on preventing this same opportunity to other artists and filmmakers.The battle in the coming years will be to prevent further extensions to copyright law that benefit corporations at the expense of creators and society as a whole.
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GretagMacbeth Color Checker Numeric Values and Middle Gray
The human eye perceives half scene brightness not as the linear 50% of the present energy (linear nature values) but as 18% of the overall brightness. We are biased to perceive more information in the dark and contrast areas. A Macbeth chart helps with calibrating back into a photographic capture into this “human perspective” of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_gray
In photography, painting, and other visual arts, middle gray or middle grey is a tone that is perceptually about halfway between black and white on a lightness scale in photography and printing, it is typically defined as 18% reflectance in visible light
Light meters, cameras, and pictures are often calibrated using an 18% gray card[4][5][6] or a color reference card such as a ColorChecker. On the assumption that 18% is similar to the average reflectance of a scene, a grey card can be used to estimate the required exposure of the film.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColorChecker
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