Tag: Adobe

AI Was Used To Make Barack Obama Deliver This Announcement

When Google launched the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL back in October 2017, the company talked a lot about Artificial Intelligence. Google said that the integration of AI and machine learning within a smartphone is the future and it might as well be right. Artificial Intelligence has grown leaps and bounds over the past few years and is now readily available in most smartphones in the form of a digital assistant like Siri or Alexa. Jordan Peele, the famous Oscar-winning comedian and filmmaker decided to do give us a glimpse of what advancements in AI can produce in the near future.

In a video of Barrack Obama talking about everything from Black Panther to Donal Trump, Jordan Peele delivers a telling PSA about the future of fake news. The “fake video” was made by Peele’s production company using two tools, Adobe After Effects and the AI face-swapping tool FakeApp. Considering the technology used in this video is still in nascent stage, the authenticity of it is really hard to judge.

Since the dawn of social media, we have been plagued with fake news. There have been multiple reports of bots spreading a certain fake news or agenda across the internet by making it go viral. While a photoshopped image or fake tweet can still be recognised by people with a keen eye or an open mind, a carefully doctored video using AI can be harder to spot. Adobe, the creator of Photoshop, is already working on an audio editing software called VoCo. It is like Photoshop, but for words, wherein users can generate new words using a speaker’s recorded voice. This can be a groundbreaking addition to the already prominent fake news industry.

The process of making fake videos, which was a complicated job in the past, can soon become a hobby of a teenager with a computer. All of that will be possible because of the advancements in AI. As is with any form of technology, AI, if used maliciously, can create a lot of trouble especially when doctored videos can go viral in the blink of an eye.

As Peele says in the end, we need to be more vigilante and trust news outlets when it comes to important topics. Fake news is easy to spread, but, it won’t be of any use if we are careful enough to not believe and share everything we read on the internet. While scientists work on tools to spot fake AI videos, let’s make sure that we question every provocative video on the internet and find a credible source before we hit the share button.

April 18, 2018
Adobe, Intel, Google, and Apple Reach Settlement in Employee Poaching Lawsuit

Silicon Valley’s biggest names got together to a reach a settlement in an employee poaching lawsuit. The case was filed against Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe in 2011 by tech sector workers. It stated that these tech giants limited job mobility for workers and thus limited salary growth too. Now these companies have come together for an agreement to settle the case.

Last year, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, rejected the settlement amount of $324.5 million, calling it too low. The settlement was rejected after one of the complainant objected to the amount. That complainant has agreed to the new undisclosed settlement amount which was offered by the tech giants. Judge Lucy Koh has said that to match the earlier settlement, the amount must be at least $380 million to address the loss of potential wages to the employees.

The case is mostly based on the emails between Apple Co-founder Steve Jobs and ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt along with heads of other rival companies. The emails detailed their plans to resist from poaching each others’ top engineers. This would lead to limited opportunity for the engineers to grow in the market.

The complainants (plaintiffs) will be filing a detailed explanation of the new deal “imminently”. The Judge will then have the option of accepting or rejecting the settlement. Guess the lesson from this case is to be good at your job, but not that good that your employer will try to keep you in forever.

January 14, 2015
Adobe Shows Off the Mind-Blowing Future of Photoshop

These days Adobe is expanding its Creative Cloud offering with the new cloud based Photoshop software, which is on its beta testing stage right now. But, the company is not limiting itself to cloud and desktop software. In a recent video post, Adobe demonstrated some of the future possibilities for its creative applications Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere, when used on various professional devices.

Through Adobe Creative Cloud, users are able to access the applications across smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops, making the creative process seamless and intuitive. While some of the techniques shown in the video are very far from being released to the public, it’s still a good showcase of the exciting possibilities that could result from this partnership.

October 9, 2014
Adobe to Expand its Cloud Offering with the New Aviary Acquisition

Adobe offers wide range of cloud-based features for designers and developers which continues to flourish everyday. Now, Aviary just announced that it has been acquired by Adobe. Aviary provides developers (and companies like Yahoo) with a set of photo-editing tools they can build into their own apps.

Adobe plans to integrate Aviary into the Creative Cloud and possibly provide a new “Creative SDK” intended to be more friendly with third-party apps. The two firms will work together on bringing Adobe’s editing tools and Creative Cloud services to more mobile apps.

Adobe said it’s developing a new software library—called Creative SDK—that will allow app developers to tap into the company’s offerings and aim to expand connections between mobile devices and its products. Adobe’s Creative SDK will also give third-party developers access to company application programming interfaces which were previously only available to the company’s internal engineering team.

According to the reports, Aviary has seen 10 billion photos processed through the service last year alone. In addition to a toolkit for developers, Aviary also offers a popular iOS and Android app for editing photos, also called Aviary. Aviary will continue operations as usual for now.

The company hinted at a collaboration with another Adobe unit, Behance, an online social media platform for creative professionals acquired by Adobe in 2012. The Aviary team will work closely with both Adobe-owned creative communities, Behance and Adobe’s creative cloud platform.

September 23, 2014