Month: October 2022

Enlarge / Project Blink can edit video using text search and word processing techniques. (credit: Adobe)

Yesterday, Adobe announced Project Blink, an AI-powered web app that can recognize objects, people, sounds, and words spoken in videos to help edit them faster. It uses text editing to make the process of editing a video similar to using a word processor, Adobe claims.

Adobe debuted Project Blink during a "sneaks" session at its Adobe MAX conference, according to CNET. The firm also released a demonstration video that depicts editing video by editing a text transcription of words spoken during the video. "Just upload your video, and our AI engine will figure out what happened," it says.

Adobe claims that Project Blink can search a video for specific people, objects, or feelings—or locate sections where people are laughing or singing. Additionally, Adobe says you'll be able to delete silent sections or remove filler words like "ums" in text, with changes automatically reflected in the video.

Enlarge (credit: Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images News)

Sometimes attracting drivers as young as 14 with emoji-filled posts that promise thousands of dollars “for just a few hours of driving,” smugglers often rely on social media to recruit Americans to help migrants illegally cross the US-Mexico border, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Popular platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, TikTok, and Twitter all told the WSJ that they prohibit these posts. However, the Journal talked to local and federal law-enforcement officials, as well as defense attorneys for Americans recruited on social media, who confirmed that despite those bans, the trend is “increasingly common.”

When contacted by Ars, a Twitter spokesperson pointed out that the Journal's report didn't include specific examples of this activity happening on the platform. The spokesperson linked to Twitter's Transparency Center, where the company tracks reports on this content.

Enlarge / Kill monsters, pick up XP gems, upgrade character.

If you’re a fan of roguelites and haven’t heard of Vampire Survivors, let me be the first to welcome you to your new obsession.

The “gothic horror casual game with roguelike elements,” as its developer calls it, has been taking the indie world by storm over the past year, racking up over 120,000 “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam and capturing effusive praise from critics. And until today, it was still in Early Access.

The game has even spawned a new sub-subgenre, with games of its ilk incorporating ideas from bullet-hell shoot-em-ups, roguelites, and timed horde-survival games. These games are almost all in Early Access, and every last one is curiously cheap—$5 seems to be the price cap. But while many pretenders to the throne have arisen, Vampire Survivors still reigns supreme. It was the second real game of its kind, after the 2021 Android-exclusive Magic Survival.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Almost 3 in 4 people think that connected cars and electric vehicle chargers should be rated for their ability to resist cybersecurity threats. That's the finding from a survey conducted last week by Blackberry to see whether people consider Internet-connected devices (also known as the Internet of Things) to be secure from hacking threats.

The survey was commissioned in response to a new White House initiative announced on Wednesday. The Biden administration plans to launch a labeling program for IoT devices in 2023, similar to the EnergyStar ratings that tell consumers how much electricity a TV or appliance will use.

The White House wants the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Federal Trade Commission to come up with a basic set of security standards so that Americans can tell at a glance whether that new speaker or washing machine is in danger of joining a botnet or getting hit with ransomware.