A local, zero-cost project that cleans, structures, and summarizes your reading automatically The post I Built an AI Pipeline for Kindle Highlights appeared first on Towards Data Science.

"Preliminary findings indicate that the issue likely results from a combination of factors."

Wonder Studios is a UK firm that uses AI to extend IP and create original works. Wonder Studios AI has turned a corner in Hollywood as studios adopt it for production, marketing, and visual effects. Elsewhere, startups are raising money to tackle every stage in the production cycle. Check out nine pitch decks AI startup founders shared with Business Insider. AI is starting to transform Hollywood, whether filmmakers and audiences are ready or not. AI has turned a corner in Hollywood as major studios increasingly adopt it to gain efficiencies in production, marketing, and visual effects. Elsewhere, AI startups have been raising millions of dollars from venture capital firms on the promise of changing the legacy Hollywood film and TV business. The tools they are building are being used across the production cycle. Some, like Moonvalley, are enhancing special effects. Others are promising to help with marketing, content distribution, and content discovery. It's a challenging time for Hollywood. Budgets generally aren't what they used to be, and studios know they need to do what they can to make projects faster and cheaper. Enter AI. Netflix and Amazon have talked about how they're using AI to pull off elaborate special effects and improve the viewing experience. Lionsgate is partnering with startup Runway to train an AI model on its library. Others in Hollywood are using AI but not talking about it. At the same time, many are worried about tech giants using AI to appropriate their IP. Studios have taken issue with OpenAI's Sora generating videos that encroach on their copyrighted characters. Disney and Universal sued Midjourney, accusing it of using tech to rip off Star Wars, Minions, and more. Studios must also be sensitive to talent's fears of being supplanted by AI as well as audiences' attitudes. A YouGov survey in early October found viewers were mixed on the use of AI. People were most accepting of AI being used to translate subtitles into other languages (64% for), but least accepting of the idea of AI characters replacing human actors (65% against). How are AI founders pitching investors and Hollywood insiders on their vision of the future? Business Insider has interviewed the founders of startups behind tools to disrupt traditional TV and filmmaking. They shared the pitch decks they used to raise capital. Read 9 pitch decks AI startups used to raise millions to disrupt Hollywood: Series B Moments Lab, a French company whose tools index studios' video libraries and create new videos from raw footage: $24 million Neosapience, a synthetic voice and video platform: $21.5 million Series A Papercup, a startup that promised to scale dubbing: $20 million Seed Wonder Studios, a UK firm that uses AI to extend IP and create original works: $12 million StorReel, a startup that's making short dramas with interactive AI characters: $9 million Metaphysic, which uses AI to make realistic deepfakes: $7.5 million Filmustage, which uses AI to analyze scripts and do other pre-production tasks: $1.5 million Pre-seed Strada, a platform that promises to streamline the production process: $1.9 million Other Fable Studio, which landed Amazon backing to let creators make their own animated shows: undisclosed Read the original article on Business Insider

Fed Chair Jerome Powell IMF The DOJ will drop the criminal probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The Fed's Inspector General will take over the investigation, the Attorney General said. The move paves the way for Kevin Warsh to be confirmed as Powell's successor. The Department of Justice will drop its probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced Friday. She said the Inspector General for the Fed has been asked to "scrutinize the building costs overruns — in the billions of dollars — that have been borne by taxpayers," and will take over the investigation from the DOJ. This means the possibility of criminal charges against Powell has been dropped for now. The department launched a probe in January into Powell over the Fed's alleged mishandling of construction funds at the central bank's Washington DC buildings. "Note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so," Pirro said on X. She added that she expects "a comprehensive report in short order" from the Inspector General and is "confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas." The Fed — and Powell specifically — has faced ongoing scrutiny from the Trump administration. When the probe was announced in January, Powell posted a video online, saying that, "No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure." The Fed declined to comment to Business Insider on Friday. The chair's term is set to end on May 15, though he indicated that he may remain on the Federal Open Market Committee as a governor. Warsh is one step closer to confirmation Trump nominated former Wall Street executive Kevin Warsh as Powell's successor in February, and a hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs was held on April 21. The largest obstacle to Warsh's confirmation has been Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, who has repeatedly said he would block any potential Powell replacement until the Justice Department ended its probe. Tillis, along with other lawmakers across the aisle, has expressed concern that the probe was political overreach — and a threat to future Fed independence. Following Warsh's confirmation hearing, Tillis renewed his push for an off-ramp that would allow him to drop his objection and for Warsh to proceed to likely confirmation. Tillis told reporters that one idea would be for one or more congressional committees to take up the investigation into the updates to the Fed's headquarters in Washington."I not only think it's a good off-ramp, but I also think it's good governance," Tillis told reporters after the confirmation hearing, per Politico. Pirro's statement isn't what Tillis outlined, but Federal Reserve Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz is widely respected by members of both parties on Capitol Hill. Tillis' office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. The committee and Senate have yet to vote on Warsh's nomination, though he is likely to be greenlit. Warsh would be the wealthiest Fed chair in history, with financial disclosures showing that he is worth over $100 million. Powell will hold the chair seat for one more rate decision — or until the next chair is confirmed. The FOMC is set to meet this coming week and is expected to hold rates steady. This is a developing story, check back for updates. Read the original article on Business Insider

Researchers have found a new case where government authorities used a fake Android app to plant spyware on a target’s phone. The company that allegedly developed the spyware was not previously known to sell this type of software.

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See what you missed in Daily Tech Insider from April 20–24. The post AI Upgrades, Security Breaches, and Corporate Shakeups Define the Week in Tech appeared first on TechRepublic.

Tim Cook plans to step down from his CEO role in September, handing the reins to hardware chief John Ternus.   Ternus may be inheriting one of the most durable businesses in tech, but he’s also stepping into a very different ecosystemthan the one Cook spent decades shaping. The App Store’s 30% cut is under pressure, the behind-the-scenes power Apple once […]

Surprise! StrictlyVC San Francisco, which will kick off this year’s events lineup for TechCrunch on April 30 at the Sentro Filipino Cultural Center, is getting a new addition to its increasingly stacked lineup of speakers. Uber CTO Praveen Neppalli Naga will join the rest of the lineup to discuss operating at scale in the age of AI.

Porsche's stake in Bugatti and Rimac Group have been sold to private equity.

Venture capitalists can't subsidize cheap AI forever, and the hunger for more compute is affecting the labor market, the gadget market, and electricity prices.

Mimi Billing / Sifted: Helsinki-based Verda, formerly Datacrunch, which aims to become Europe's first AI cloud hyperscaler, raised €100M in debt and equity  —  The Finnish cloud provider, formerly known as Datacrunch, says its success comes from being vertically integrated  —  Helsinki-headquartered Verda …

Plus: How Anthropic uses Claude in product engineering, a new email app from ex-Pinterest teams, Adobe continues the trend towards outcome-base pricing

Nothing's new on-device dictation tool supports over 100 languages.

Under Cook, Apple became hugely successful, if not always surprising.

DeepSeek says both models are more efficient and performant than DeepSeek V3.2 due to architectural improvements, and have almost "closed the gap" with current leading models, both open and closed, on reasoning benchmarks.

Learn how to get the most out of Claude Code The post How to Improve Claude Code Performance with Automated Testing appeared first on Towards Data Science.

In the past six months, companies have seen a significant influx of AI-powered phishing, as cyberattackers progress from small campaigns to 1-to-1 personalized attacks.

House vote to defang the Endangered Species Act was unexpectedly cancelled

Matt Day / Bloomberg: Meta and Amazon reach a multibillion-dollar, multiyear deal for Meta to rent hundreds of thousands of Amazon's Graviton chips for its AI inference needs  —  Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. have struck a multibillion-dollar deal for the social-media giant to rent hundreds of thousands …