This week we took note of new developments in state-of-the-art video: TechCrunch reported that a group appears to have leaked access to Sora, OpenAI's video generator, in protest of what it's calling duplicity and "art washing" by Open AI. TC also noted that Indian-based video-editing platform Invideo is launching an AI-powered video-creation feature that lets you use prompts to generate video clips in various styles, including live-action, animated, or anime, and export the resulting video in formats suitable for YouTube, Shorts/Reels, and LinkedIn. Meanwhile, HuffPo said people are speeding through TikTok videos,

  Independent bookstores—the cultural glue that offers shelter from the storm of holiday shopping—are thriving in New York City. These post-Pandemic years have also shown an increase in adventurous, small shops that create niches we wouldn’t have imagined just five years ago (see Pillow Cat and Bungee Space). In fact, New York’s indie bookstores rival what can be found in Paris, Berlin, London and beyond: dedicated, art-centric free-standing bookstore...