Google’s new AI converting text to music

31 January 2023

Google’s new AI converting text to music

Reading Time: 2 minutes

With the rise of the popularity of AI, we can observe new tools being created and published almost every day. From chatbots to image generators or even bots that can create music based on your prompt. And this is the case with MusicLM which Google researchers recently introduced. It’s an AI that can generate up to 5 minutes long musical pieces based on your text or can even transform your humming or whistling into other instruments. Unfortunately, it is not possible to play with this tool yet, but the creators provided us with some examples of AI in action.

Google's MusicLM is Astoundingly Good at Making AI-Generated Music, But They're Not Releasing it Due to Copyright Concerns : r/Futurology

The producers of MusicLM claim that their model “outperforms previous systems both in audio quality and adherence to the text description” The examples are pretty crazy, on the official website we can find some snippets of songs that were generated by long descriptions, such as “The main soundtrack of an arcade game. It is fast-paced and upbeat, with a catchy electric guitar riff. The music is repetitive and easy to remember, but with unexpected sounds, like cymbal crashes or drum rolls.”. In this case, we can listen to 30 seconds of a song that is exactly the same as its prompt! There are also 3 examples of whole 5 minute songs, such as melodic techno or relaxing jazz which are pretty convincing. I definitely can say that relaxing jazz was helpful during the writing of this blog.

I think that one of the more interesting ways to use this tool is the “Story Mode”. Here we can see one or two minutes examples of songs that were generated based on the sequence of prompts. For example, a person asked the system for an “electronic song playing in the video game” for the first 15 seconds and then for a “meditation song played next to a river” for another 15 seconds. The song perfectly blended between these two, making the change almost unnoticeable and making the song “flow” between different prompts. Then, there is the feature of changing the melody to other instruments. Here we can listen to Bella Ciao being hummed and then, the same melody was recreated by other instruments, such as guitar or saxophone. We can’t omit the ability to create music based on the place and time it would play, such as prison escape or 80s club. The tool is capable of generating vocals as well, but the quality of them is.. questionable. MusicML is able to get the tone right, but the “vocal” is just gibberish so far.

“We strongly emphasize the need for more future work in tackling these risks associated with music generation — we have no plans to release models at this point,” Google said in the research. They are planning to work on lyrics generation and improvement of vocals and more complicated song structure as well, according to the research paper.

I would say it’s a very interesting project that will attract many people. I, myself can’t wait to use it and try it out. I will definitely follow the development of this AI tool and strongly encourage everyone to check this out.

Sources:

https://google-research.github.io/seanet/musiclm/examples/

https://www.theverge.com/2023/1/28/23574573/google-musiclm-text-to-music-ai

https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/googles-ai-model-convert-text-to-music/article66450618.ece

15 January 2023

2026 AFEELA Electric Vehicle

Reading Time: 3 minutes

You might not have heard the name AFEELA yet, but it’s finally time to change it. AFEELA is a new automotive brand, the child of a joint venture between two widely known companies, Sony and Honda. It’s a new prototype unveiled during the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) event, which took place in Las Vegas a few days ago. It is actually the first prototype, but it’s super close to delivery, with preorders starting as soon as the summer of 2025 and the first North American products to deliver in the spring of 2026. As Larry Harrison, the Sony Honda Mobility representant said, the name AFEELA is not just a random name. “If we drop the first “a” and the last “a”, it takes us to the heart of what this car represents, which is all about the feel. He says that it’s a two-way relationship between the person driving the car and the vehicle itself.”

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-5-1024x576.png

AFEELA exterior

We can observe AFEELA’s modernity right from the outside. Firstly, let me tell you about the media bar that the company introduced, which is located on the front and rear of the vehicle. It will be capable of providing the owner with very helpful information while still being outside the car. Starting with the battery percentage, weather conditions, or even live sports scores. Another interesting thing we can notice is that the car doesn’t have any door handles. The cameras located on the side pillars and side view cameras can identify the profile of the driver via facial recognition and when the driver reaches a certain proximity, the door automatically opens.

Media bar

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-6-1024x576.png

AFEELA is not missing out on autonomous driving as well, with safety being the most important aspect. As we transition from traditional driving to autonomous driving, it’s all about how safe it will be, AFEELA has 45 internal and external cameras and sensors, constantly monitoring 360 degrees of the car, delivering level 2+ or level 3, depending on the conditions, of autonomous driving safety. Level 2+ is already a better score than Tesla has since Teslas are qualified as level 2. Now, that we know that we can trust our car in terms of driving, let me talk about the entertainment that comes with the car. AFEELA introduces Human Machine Interface (HMI) which brings all of the entertainment that Sony has to offer right into the cabin. Starting with music, Sony’s 360 reality audio will be present in the vehicle, offering immersive and real audio with the sound all around you. In addition, a high-quality movie streaming service will be available with movies delivered from Sony Pictures, such as Spider-Man. Gaming is also an important part of the experience, with the PlayStation integration, we will be able to enjoy popular games inside the car by connecting to the game console at home or by using the cloud network.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image-7-1024x575.png

AFEELA interior

Personally, I would say it’s one of the best-looking electric vehicles so far and I can’t wait to see them on the roads. The development of this car looks very promising and I’m sure people are going to enjoy the car in the future. The addition of Sony services takes the vehicle to the next level making it one of a kind. I have every faith in the company as I think, it’s a very interesting prototype.

Sources:

https://www.shm-afeela.com/en/

https://www.caranddriver.com/afeela/ev-sedan

Tagged AFEELA, Honda, sony

31 December 2022

4 Comments

Bez kategorii

Amazon Electric Delivery Van

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Delivery van sounds boring, right? Definitely not in the case of new, highly innovative Amazon delivery vehicle. Company recently announced plans to invest more than €1 billion over the next five years to electrify and decarbonize its transportation network across Europe and according to Amazon’s Climate Pledge, they are planning to reach net-zero carbon emmisions by 2040 and their new vans are certainly important part of this process. First zero-emmisions vehicles rolled out this summer in many cities, including Chicago, Dallas and Seattle. Since then Amazon expanded its fleet and now there are more than 1,000 electric delivery vehicles making deliveries in over 100 cities across the U.S. The company’s ultimate goal is to have 100,000 electric vehicles by the end of 2030, hence eliminating millions of metric tons of carbon per year.

But what’s so special about these vans? As I already mentioned, they are part of Amazon’s plan to reduce carbon emmisions, being fully electric. They have modular design and come in 3 sizes, being able to hold up to 500, 700 and 900 cubic feet of cargo. These vehicles are being manufactured by Rivian, Tesla’s biggest competitor when it comes to electric vehicles. They are built exclusively for Amazon and were designed to suit the needs and make the delivery driver’s job easier. From self opening bulkhead doors when putting the van in parking mode to heated seat and steering wheel. There’s also a large touchscreen, where drivers can adjust all the settings, that also comes with pre-installed Amazon software. All over the vehicle, we can observe many colored accents in prime blue color, because that’s how Amazon named this color, that indicates it’s affiliation to the company.

Safety and driver comfort were prime considerations during the development of the vehicle, hence we can observe many features centered around driver. All EDV models come with an integrated first aid kid, 360-degree cameras, automatic emergency breaking and blind-spot monitoring. There’s also an SOS button right by the steering wheel that disconnects high-voltage systems that could cause fire and calls for authorities when pushed. We cannot ignore EDV’s huge red taillamp making the van more visible and safe for other drivers.

Plik:Rivian EDV-700 rear.jpg – Wikipedia, wolna encyklopedia — *Taillight*

I believe these new Amazon vans are a great upgrade to the company’s existing fleet. They are very beneficial for the environment and for the ease of delivery. I can’t wait to see these vehicles in Poland as they are very interesting-looking and modern.

Sources:

https://rivian.com/fleet

https://topelectricsuv.com/news/rivian/rivian-amazon-edv-700-electric-van/

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g42063896/rivian-amazon-edv-delivery-van-black-friday/

https://www.motortrend.com/news/checking-in-on-the-rivian-amazon-edv-electric-van/

https://rivian.com/newsroom/media/amazon-edv

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/transportation/rivian-amazon-van-expands-to-100-us-cities-by-end-of-2022#:~:text=With%20its%20commitment%20to%20have,tons%20of%20carbon%20per%20year.

https://www.aboutamazon.com/planet/climate-pledge

21 December 2022

Elon Musk relaunches Twitter’s paid blue tick

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Twitter Changes

Ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter at the end of October, he made a lot of changes and controversial decisions. He laid-off around half of the workers and unbanned controversial Twitter users such as rapper Kanye West, former US president Donald Trump and influencer Andrew Tate. In addition, Musk said that Twitter will be deleting accounts that have been inactive for a certain period of time. This caused indignation among those, who have been cherishing the accounts of their loved ones, who have passed away.

The firm was running at a loss for a lenghty period of time so it needed to become profitable. Elon Musk did what most of the companies nowadays do and introduced a paid subscription. He called it TwitterBlue and launched it at the beginning of November, at first it was just a way to “get a blue checkmark, just like celebrities, and politicians you already follow”. Previously blue checkmark was limited only to those, who were verified by twitter meaning that this was their official account. In contrary to what Elon expected, people started abusing it to impersonate brands and famous people. There were even many cases of people impersonating Elon Musk himself leading to spread of misinformation on the platform.

Now it’s back, TwitterBlue in it upgraded form is available for purchase on the web for $8/month or on iOS for $11/month. That’s right, iOS users have to pay extra for absolutely nothing and that’s because of Apple’s 30% in-app purchase tax.

TwitterBlue features

But what do you actually get from this subscription? Here’s the list:

Tweets from verified users will be prioritized, meaning that Twitter will list the tweets and replies from subscribers higher, to help fight scams and spam, as Twitter says
You will see less ads, half of them to be exact, as Elon promised. Many people say thought that this won’t happen due to the impact it would have on Twitter’s ad revenue
TwitterBlue subscribers will have access to posting longer videos and in 1080p quality making uploading videos to Twitter more YouTube-like.
In addition, you will get access to Tweet editing, reader mode and of course, the blue checkmark right beside your account name. But this time, it will only come after your account has been reviewed by twitter

Eligibility criteria for the blue checkmark

The blue checkmark didn’t serve the intended purpose previously, so the Twitter team figured out a way to verify accounts this time:

First of all, an account must have a display name and profile photo
Account has to be older than 90 days, have a confirmed phone number and be active in the past 30 days
Additionally the account must have no recent changes of profile picture, display name or username, otherwise the account has to be verified again
Account must have no signs of being misleading and can’t have any signs of manipulation or spam

The checkmark will now only appear when the account meets the requirements.

New checkmarks

Twitter is also adding different checkmarks for different accounts. Gold checkmark will now appear beside official brand accounts and gray ticks will be visible on the goverment and multilateral accounts pages. Twitter is also working on a system that would enable brands to assign an indicator to accounts of its employees as another mean of verification.

Elon Musk hopes that these measures will reduce or even completely get rid of impersonators and spreading of misinformation. All of this requires manual reviews by twitter employees. Taking into consideration the amount of workers that has been laid-off by Musk, it seems like a hard task to do and something that will require more working hours.

In my opinion introducing TwitterBlue is a great move by Mr Musk, it will surely generate more profit for the company and help it in these dark times. I am sure that many users will be tempted by this subcription and decide to at least try it out.

Sources:

https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/Twitter-Announces-Re-Launch-of-Paid-Verification-Plan/638481/

https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twitter-verified-accounts

https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1601692766257709056

https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/05/twitter-begins-rolling-out-7-99-twitter-blue-plan-with-verification-fewer-ads/

https://9to5mac.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2022/10/elon-musk-twitter.jpg?quality=82&strip=all

Tagged Elon Musk, twitter

23 November 2022

European Union rewrites the rules of the internet

Reading Time: 2 minutes

For many years now, smaller companies had a hard time competing with the massive tech giants owning the market, so the European lawmakers decided that it’s time for a change, and time to make it easier for small companies to grow.

On the November 1st, the new European Union law – called Digital Market Act (DMA) – came to life, forcing the leading firms such as Apple, Google and Meta to be more open and to let other companies connect with their products more easily. The DMA will bring major changes to what people can do with their devices when it comes to apps from different sources. The new director of the EU office in San Francisco, George de Graaf says “If you have an iPhone, you should be able to download apps not just from the App Store but from other app stores or from the internet”.

Persoon met vergrootglas kijkt naar de Digital Markets Act

The general goal of the DMA is to define when a large online platfrom qualifies as a “gatekeeper” and take appropiate action. Big companies whose position can grant them the power of making their own rules, and thus creating a bottleneck in digital economy are qualified as such “gatekeepers”. To overcome this situation, the DMA defines a set of rules that these companies have to follow, or face being fined up to 10% of the company’s worlwide turnover or even 20% when it comes to reapeted violations.

What will be the actual benefits of the DMA? First of all, it will prevent big companies from favoring their own products and allow smaller companies to grow. It will eliminate unfair prevention of installing apps from other sources, thus allowing users for more variety. In addition, users will have an option to choose their default browser or the voice assistant of their choice. Additionaly, the gatekeepers will have to share the data that they have collected with other business users and they won’t be able to track consumer activity for targeted advertising without users’ consent.

The DMA moved into implementation phase now and it will start to apply in six months. The companies are expected to comply with the requirements in mid-2024

Personally, I think that the rules of DMA are a little bit harsh, big companies like Apple or Google worked for many years to achieve their success and it’s understandable that they want to show off their accomplishments. European Union wants to expand the market but giving away the data collected by gatekeepers and reducing their position on the market isn’t the right choice. My other concern would be the safety of our devices. For example, Apple for many years has been very active in monitoring the apps that are being uploaded to App Store, in contrary to Google Play, where you can find some apps that don’t look particularly safe.

Digital Markets Act summed up in a YouTube video:

References:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_22_6423

https://www.wired.com/story/europe-dma-prepares-to-rewrite-the-rules-of-the-internet/

https://www.vpngids.nl/privacy/wetgeving/digital-market-act/

https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/11/02/eus-digital-markets-act-comes-into-force-what-is-it-and-what-does-it-mean-for-big-tech

Tagged european union

Kozminski Techblog

A blog on technology, run by Kozminski University students and supervised by NeRDS

Author Archives: 47593