I. Music & Tech

AI Video Production Service Raises $20 Million

Automated video generation platform Wibbitz announced a $20 million Series C investment from a number of well known news and media publications last week. The New York based company uses artificial intelligence to scan the text of news articles and generate videos. The founders believe, “Wibbitz’s technology is meant to supplement publishers’ existing video teams, allowing them to automatically create a large quantity of videos in a low-cost way while the humans “really focus on the high end.” Read more about Wibbitz and the companies that invested here.

$12 Million CAA Fund for New Technologies

Last week Los Angeles based Creative Artist Agency (CAA) announced a new venture to build technology and media companies. To bring their plans to fruition CAA raised a $12 million fund that will fuel development through a Vancouver-based startup studio, Creative Labs. With a staggering portfolio of resources and relationships CAA should be solid launchpad for the new technology that come to life. Read more about the details of their plan here.

Stream Ripping Slowing Down

Stream ripping is seen as one of the more significant threats facing the music industry and we may be witnessing the crackdown. Last week two of the most popular stream ripping services stopped accepting UK customers as per agreements reached with the music industry. As the music industry continues to tighten their grasp on streaming revenues these efforts are being made to make sure that nothing thwarts their attempts. Read more about the stream ripping services that give users the ability to turn youtube tracks into MP3s here.

Audible for Kindle

The restoration of balance between audio and visual continues to advance with one of Amazon’s latest announcements about the Kindle. As of last week the New Kindle Oasis will support audiobooks. In 2007 the original Kindle supported audio, however do to battery life and practicalityy Amazon quickly dropped the feature. Read more about the growing audio capabilities of the Kindle here.

II. Music Interests

Listening Tastes of Our Innovators & Leaders

Imagine what it would be like to communicate with the likes of Elon Musk, Steven Hawking, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, or Bill gates and actually feed off of their intellect and passion. Considered to be a universal language, music is often a captivating force with the power to muster this type of internal strength and insight deep reflection. For this reason we invite you to check out a list of the listening tastes of some of the most innovative and respected minds of our time.

Spoiler alert : While you might expect Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart there is surprising amount of “pop”.

Courtesy of LineForLine. Artists get started here.