Disney built an AI that can easily make actors look younger or older

Disney researchers have developed an artificial intelligence system that seemingly makes it far easier to make an actor appear younger or older in a scene. While artists will still be able to make manual adjustments to make sure the effect looks as realistic as possible, the AI tool could take care of most of the heavy lifting. It's said to take the AI just five seconds to apply the aging effects to a single frame.Re-aging an actor is typically an expensive and laborious process that requires artists to go through a scene frame-by-frame to manually change the character's appearance. Attempts have been made in the past to automate the process with neural networks and machine learning. Disney's researchers note that, while they might work well for still images, other systems "typically suffer from facial identity loss, poor resolution and unstable results across subsequent video frames." They claim their solution offers "the first practical, fully-automatic and production-ready method for re-aging faces in video images."The team wrote in a paper that it would be impossible to train the FRAN (face re-aging network) neural network on a dataset of real people. That would require pairs of images showing a subject with the same facial expression, pose, lighting and background at two different and known ages. Instead, the researchers created a database of several thousand randomly generated faces. They re-aged those synthetic faces using existing machine learning aging tools,... Continue reading at 'Engadget'

[ Engadget | 2022-12-01 15:45:09 UTC ]
News tagged with: #reports suggest #$200 million #al pacino #star wars #indiana jones #comic con

Other news stories related to: "Disney built an AI that can easily make actors look younger or older"


PRH Makes Donation for Typhoon Relief

A substantial donation to the Red Cross was made, with concern for the nearly 1,400 PRH employees in the Author Solutions division who work in Cebu, an area very near where the greatest devastation has taken place. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-11-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #red cross #substantial donation


Follett makes 570 redundant

Campus bookselling chain Follett in the US has made 570 people redundant as part of a move to shift... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2013-11-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Gertrude Stein: The Making of a Children’s Book

Gertrude Stein's children's book, The World is Round, is 75 this year and is being rereleased by Harper Design in a reproduction of the book’s first edition from 1939. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-11-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Why Procrastination Doesn't Need A Cure––And Might Even Make You More Productive

Is wasting time as productivity killing as we've always thought, or does it provide a creativity–enhancing escape from the chaos of the world? Stop dawdling and let's explore!Recently, I read a great book and promised to mail it to a friend overseas when I was done, about nine months ago. Today,... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2013-11-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #post office #months ago #great book


Polaroid Kids Tablet 2 comes loaded with apps from Cartoon Network, Disney and Marvel

A kid-friendly tablet often isn't enough by itself to keep little tykes happy -- you have to get the content they want, too. Polaroid is counting on this formula to lure parents to its newly available Kids Tablet 2. The 7-inch slate comes preloaded with the full versions of 70-plus apps and... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2013-11-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #cartoon network


Baker & Taylor Makes a Push to Reach Indies

Baker & Taylor, best known for serving the library market, is working to up its business with independent booksellers in a series of initiatives overseen by David Cully, who was hired by the company six years ago as executive v-p of merchandising and president of retail sales. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-11-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #retail sales #executive v- #independent booksellers #library market #baker taylor


More Book Than Nook: Can Barnes & Noble Makes Its E–Reader Feel Like The Real (Paper) Thing?

To compete against the Kindle, Barnes & Noble is going back to its roots, leveraging decades of bookseller expertise to make its Nook e–reader feel more like a paper book. Released Wednesday, the new Nook Simple Touch GlowLight features a brighter, sharper display; lighter body; improved... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2013-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #customer service #made strides #ve purchased #matchbook service


Amazon MatchBook makes a big push for print book buyers to go digital

Amazon MatchBook, which lets customers who've previously bought the print edition of a book from Amazon score a digital copy on the cheap, is now open for business. Months in the making, the new service is a bold plan by Amazon to convert the world's stacks and stacks of books into digital... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2013-10-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #makes sense #dating back #kindle format #big push


James Franco's 'Actors Anonymous' says a lot about James Franco

A barrage of self-indulgent snippets get in the way of a series of hazy short stories that can be, at times, engaging.When will James Franco slow down? The prince of perpetual motion continues his blur of activity, starring in movies, writing screenplays, attending classes, unveiling solo art... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Frankfurt Book Fair 2013: WME, HC Lead the Deal-Making in Active Show

If there a theme emerged from the deal-making at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, it was the dominance of HarperCollins as a buyer of big books, and of William Morris Endeavor as the seller of those books. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #big books


Disney's Paper Generators Create Electricity Without Batteries

We've all talked about an Internet of things, but there are huge bottlenecks––like the fact that our battery technology is stagnant, and mining all that lithium is horrible for our environment. So long as battery technology continues to be so disappointing, the design of our future will suffer.... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2013-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #key step


Does Reading Literary Fiction Makes You a Better Person?

A new study finds that reading literary fiction “leads people to perform better on tests that measure empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence." Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-10-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #emotional intelligence #social perception #study finds


National Book Awards hopes to make a splash on 'Morning Joe'

The National Book Awards in recent years has been working to raise its profile and increase books' cultural impact. Now it's taking another step toward extending its reach. The National Book Foundation, which administers the prizes, will announce Monday that the 2013 awards ceremony and benefit... Continue reading at Crains New York

[ Crains New York | 2013-10-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #nielsen bookscan #hardcover sales #louise erdrich #sales boost #public eye #john lithgow #held nov #marriott marquis


Frankfurt Book Fair 2013: CONTEC Makes Its Debut

In March of this year, following a wonderful day of programming at TOC Bologna, I sat at dinner with a few of our speakers from the day—my friend and CONTEC Frankfurt speaker Paul Rhodes included—and the conversations at that table were simply absorbing. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #toc bologna


Paper now making Books in most obvious business move ever

Paper making a Book? That would follow logic. But the Paper we're referring to here is actually an iPad sketchbook app and the book? Why, that'd be a product of Moleskine. An update released today to Paper's popular app adds a new 'Make a Book' service which allows users to self-publish their... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2013-10-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #end result #physical books #making books


TD Bank Makes Children’s Literacy a Priority: Focus on Canada 2013

Each year in October, TD Bank Group adds glamour to the Canadian children’s literature scene, sponsoring the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Awards gala in Toronto and a parallel event in Montreal for literature in French, including the premiere prizes of C$30,000 for the most distinguished... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-09-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #canadian children


Why Even the Worst Bloggers Are Making Us Smarter

We write the equivalent of 520 million books every day on social media and email. The fact that so many of us are writing ? sharing our ideas, good and bad ? has changed the way we think. Just as we now live in public, so do we think in public.     Continue reading at Wired

[ Wired | 2013-09-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Going Small to Make it Big

Talk to a passionate independent publisher and they'll soon have you convinced that strong independent presses are the ideal homes for many authors and their books. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2013-09-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this |


Shane Salerno's Nine–Year Odyssey to Make "Salinger"

When Shane Salerno set out to make a film about Catcher in the Rye author J.D. Salinger, his plan was to spend $300,000 and six months shooting. "I thought it would be easy," he said, "We would just go out, shoot, and be done." But today, $2 million dollars, nine years, and hundreds of hours of... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2013-09-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #private life #stopped publishing


Ruth Ozeki and Jhumpa Lahiri make Man Booker shortlist

Newcomers, familiar faces and books that haven't yet debuted in America have all made the 2013 Man Booker Prize shortlist. Ruth Ozeki and Jhumpa Lahiri are both finalists for the $58,000 prize.Newcomers, familiar faces and books that haven't yet debuted in America have all made the 2013 Man... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-09-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | All news stories tagged with: #jhumpa lahiri #familiar faces #ruth ozeki