Honderd personen die uit Zweden zouden komen en van wie de achternaam met dezelfde letter begint, tekenden vlak na elkaar een petitie die oproept tot remigratie, zo blijkt uit onderzoek van NRC. „Als dat geen nep-data zijn, eet ik mijn proefschrift op”, zegt de expert.
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Geen enkele Franse politicus kan om generaal Charles de Gaulle heen. Deze zomer werd dat vuur opnieuw opgestookt door een bioscoophit over de rol van de Fransman in de Tweede…
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Een betaalbaar huis? Nederlandse vastgoedbeleggers weten er wel een te vinden. In Spanje. Ze verkopen hun huurwoningen hier en steken het geld in appartementen aan de Costa.
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WASHINGTON (ANP) - Duitsland en de Verenigde Staten gaan nauwer samenwerken bij de productie, ontwikkeling en het onderhoud van defensiemateriaal. De Duitse minister van Defensie Boris Pistorius en zijn Amerikaanse ambtgenoot Pete Hegseth hebben daarover dinsdag een intentieverklaring ondertekend.
De ministers bespraken onder meer hoe ze de wapenproductie kunnen opvoeren, nu beide landen hun voorraden luchtafweerraketten en langeafstandswapens willen aanvullen. Ze willen daarvoor de samenwerking tussen defensiefabrikanten intensiveren. Zo moeten Europese bedrijven bepaalde Amerikaanse wapensystemen onder licentie kunnen produceren en andersom.
Het gaat onder meer om de productie van Amerikaanse Patriotraketten in Duitsland en de aankoop van Tomahawks in de VS.
"Als we onze krachten nog nauwer bundelen, kunnen we de systemen die wij en onze NAVO-partners dringend nodig hebben voor afschrikking en defensie, sneller en in grotere aantallen leveren," zei Pistorius. "Op deze manier versterken we de paraatheid van Duitsland, de VS en het gehele bondgenootschap."
DEN HAAG (ANP) - De ChristenUnie stemt niet in met het Belastingplan van het kabinet als daar niets aan verandert. Dat zegt partijleider Mirjam Bikker in een interview met het Nederlands Dagblad. Volgens haar wordt de rekening van de kabinetsplannen te veel neergelegd bij "harde werkers en gewone gezinnen".
Bikker wil onder meer dat het kabinet voorkomt dat chronisch zieken te maken krijgen met een stapeling van zorgkosten. Ook wil ze dat vermogen zwaarder en werk minder zwaar wordt belast. "In de keuzes die het kabinet nu maakt, is dat onevenwichtig", zegt ze.
De CU-leider is tegenover de krant ook kritisch over de verhoging van de arbeidskorting. Volgens haar vergroot die de achterstand van eenverdieners ten opzichte van tweeverdieners. Het kabinet trekt in het Belastingplan 1,5 miljard euro uit voor de koopkracht van lagere en middeninkomens en wil onder meer de arbeidskorting verhogen.
ozipital has added a photo to the pool:
Perhaps one last photo from our time at Uluru. A morning when the Casuarinas take on a mysterious air.... I took this with my phone and also with my camera but I think I like this better...
ozipital has added a photo to the pool:
It was day time at Renner Springs, but the young ones are apparently no too fussy...
Affluent city-state hopes plan will improve critical thinking and imagination ‘in a world of extraordinary abundance of stimulation’
Singapore is paying its citizens to pick up a book for at least 15 minutes a day in an effort to fight the rise of doomscrolling.
The affluent city-state hopes its gamification strategy, which launched this month, will improve concentration, critical thinking and the imagination of Singaporeans.
Continue reading...
The Los Angeles Times reports:
Chen Yilong has racked up plenty of film and TV credits in his two decades as an actor, but with work getting scarcer he signed a contract in August to license the image of his face to a Chinese production studio. Chen's role will be to sit in front of a video camera and make facial expressions at the prompt of a director. A neutral stare. An angry glare. A look of surprise. Using artificial intelligence, the studio will use images of Chen's face to generate an avatar, also known as a "digital human," to star in an AI-generated movie. "If you can't beat it, join it," said Chen, 38, who works in Beijing.
The Chinese film and video industry is being transformed by AI-driven storytelling, fueled by rapid advances in video generation software, and at ground zero are the so-called micro dramas that play out on millions of smartphones. Typically just a minute or two in length, the videos are devoured by Chinese audiences... And the cost of producing them has been cut drastically through the use of AI software developed by Chinese technology juggernauts including Kuaishou Technology and TikTok's global owner, ByteDance. The number of Chinese-made micro dramas surged in the first three months of this year to 128,000, according to the China Netcasting Services Assn. More than 95% of them were made with AI, the association said....
Sun Wei founded Feixiang Universe, the Shenzhen-based studio that cast Chen. The fear of accidentally "stealing someone's face" was a big reason she said she decided to license real people's likenesses for an AI production set during China's Tang Dynasty more than 1,000 years ago. Thanks to AI's training data bias, AI-generated performers tend to have similar features and share a homogenous look, Sun said. Many have flawless skin and extremely symmetrical faces, requiring her and other Chinese AI filmmakers to cast a wide net to "buy" new faces and digitize actor's expressions.
Lu Beike, who directed the big-budget Chinese series "Three-Body," felt theAI-generated scenes he'd tried came out sub-standard. "Lu added that if 90% of a film was generated by AI, a real human performance could appear jarring. A real actor's expressions carried more nuance and emotion. The skin textures did not match. Sometimes the only solution was to process the live-action material until the person looked a little less real — until they fit back into the 'AI world,' Lu said."
But at Sun Wei's studio, they're thrilled they can produce a 90-minute AI film for $500,000 where professional productions used to cost millions of dollars. According to the article, Sun's team works with ChatGPT, Kimi or DeepSeek to flesh out entire screenplays from a short paragraph. The screenwriter takes over, but "to produce the finished product, Sun's team uses Chinese video-generation models to input the type of scenes, backgrounds and performers they want, with the AI generating 15 seconds of footage each time."
Still, the article points out that "Similar tools are being tested in the U.S., and the AI trends upending China's entertainment industry may be a harbinger for what's to come in Hollywood, said Michael Berry, a professor specializing in contemporary Chinese culture at UCLA. Already, Chinese companies that sell AI-powered video-generation software are seeking inroads in Hollywood..."
Chen Yilong has racked up plenty of film and TV credits in his two decades as an actor, but with work getting scarcer he signed a contract in August to license the image of his face to a Chinese production studio. Chen's role will be to sit in front of a video camera and make facial expressions at the prompt of a director. A neutral stare. An angry glare. A look of surprise. Using artificial intelligence, the studio will use images of Chen's face to generate an avatar, also known as a "digital human," to star in an AI-generated movie. "If you can't beat it, join it," said Chen, 38, who works in Beijing.
The Chinese film and video industry is being transformed by AI-driven storytelling, fueled by rapid advances in video generation software, and at ground zero are the so-called micro dramas that play out on millions of smartphones. Typically just a minute or two in length, the videos are devoured by Chinese audiences... And the cost of producing them has been cut drastically through the use of AI software developed by Chinese technology juggernauts including Kuaishou Technology and TikTok's global owner, ByteDance. The number of Chinese-made micro dramas surged in the first three months of this year to 128,000, according to the China Netcasting Services Assn. More than 95% of them were made with AI, the association said....
Sun Wei founded Feixiang Universe, the Shenzhen-based studio that cast Chen. The fear of accidentally "stealing someone's face" was a big reason she said she decided to license real people's likenesses for an AI production set during China's Tang Dynasty more than 1,000 years ago. Thanks to AI's training data bias, AI-generated performers tend to have similar features and share a homogenous look, Sun said. Many have flawless skin and extremely symmetrical faces, requiring her and other Chinese AI filmmakers to cast a wide net to "buy" new faces and digitize actor's expressions.
Lu Beike, who directed the big-budget Chinese series "Three-Body," felt theAI-generated scenes he'd tried came out sub-standard. "Lu added that if 90% of a film was generated by AI, a real human performance could appear jarring. A real actor's expressions carried more nuance and emotion. The skin textures did not match. Sometimes the only solution was to process the live-action material until the person looked a little less real — until they fit back into the 'AI world,' Lu said."
But at Sun Wei's studio, they're thrilled they can produce a 90-minute AI film for $500,000 where professional productions used to cost millions of dollars. According to the article, Sun's team works with ChatGPT, Kimi or DeepSeek to flesh out entire screenplays from a short paragraph. The screenwriter takes over, but "to produce the finished product, Sun's team uses Chinese video-generation models to input the type of scenes, backgrounds and performers they want, with the AI generating 15 seconds of footage each time."
Still, the article points out that "Similar tools are being tested in the U.S., and the AI trends upending China's entertainment industry may be a harbinger for what's to come in Hollywood, said Michael Berry, a professor specializing in contemporary Chinese culture at UCLA. Already, Chinese companies that sell AI-powered video-generation software are seeking inroads in Hollywood..."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.