ars technica Thursday December 7, 2023
Stability AI has launched Stable Diffusion XL Turbo, an AI image-synthesis model that can rapidly generate imagery based on a written prompt. So rapidly, in fact, that the company is billing it as "real-time" image generation, notes Ars Technica. It can also quickly transform images from a source such as a webcam. Stability AI attributes this leap in efficiency to a technique it calls Adversarial Diffusion Distillation, which uses score distillation—where the model learns from existing image-synthesis models—and adversarial loss, which enhances the model's ability to differentiate between real and generated images.
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International Wedding Photographer of the Year Thursday December 7, 2023
Whistler, Canada-based photographer Tara Lilly is the top prize winner of the 2023 International Wedding Photographer of the Year competition for her serendipitous image of a bride with a bird on her head. Lilly was capturing the nuptials of a couple named Mikaela and Mitch in an alpine meadow when the bird, a Canada jay—aka whiskey jack—made an appearance. “Mikaela’s shock, surprise and laughter were not enough to dissuade this bird from his perch,” notes Lilly. Mikaela simply laughed, ”I’m Snow White!”
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43Rumors Thursday December 7, 2023
Here’s something new in the camera world: Panasonic Japan is leasing cameras like they were cars, declares PetaPixel. Initially spotted by 43Rumors, Panasonic’s new lease option comes with two options: a selfie/vlogger kit that combines a hand grip with a Lumix G100V or the Lumix S5 II with a 50mm f/1.8. The former costs 2,970 yen (about $20) per month for 36 months while the latter costs 9,900 yen (about $68) per month over the same period. In total, the contract for the G100V will cost lessees 106,956 yen (about $727) while the S5 II kit will cost 356,400 yen (about $2,421).
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By
David Schonauer Thursday December 7, 2023
We've seen billionaires and private equity take over media outlets. Now supermodels are too, noted The Guardian after news broke in November that model and entrepreneur Karlie Kloss acquired British
fashion and culture magazine i-D from Vice Media Group. The sale came months after Vice Media filed for bankruptcy and three years after Kloss and a group of other high-profile investors, including
her fellow … Read the full Story >>
