IP in the news

If you’re impressed by the recent spate of text-to-image generators, get ready for the next step in AI artistry: text-to-video. While the huge compute costs and scarcity of text-to-video datasets have stunted the technique’s growth, recent research has brought the promise closer to reality. A computer artist called Glenn Marshall has given a glimpse at the potential.

The Belfast-based composer recently won the Jury Award at the Cannes Short Film Festival for his AI film The Crow.

Taavi Suisalu opens his solo exhibition Attention Figures on 26 August at 18.00. The exhibition is centred around the ideas of machine imagination, attention economy and the changing self-image of man in the contemporary information era.

About 300 people from 60 countries are touring the world on board the largest-ever floating book fair to spread the joy of reading and bring hope and help to the needy. This is the mission of Logos Hope, a 132-meter-long ship that was placed into service in February 2009. It entered the Valletta harbor in Malta on July 12, where it is docked until the end of the month for bookworms of different ages to enjoy a world of books.

The crew members, from captains and chefs to those responsible for stacking the thousands of books on board, are all volunteers. 

After a two-year break, last week saw the Birgitta Festival, one of Tallinn’s signature music festivals, organised by the Tallinn Philharmonic. This year's spectacular music event, which took place in the ruins of Pirita Convent from 6 to 14 August, focused on the creation of the Finnish-Estonian musical bridge and attracted 4,244 music lovers to the unique concert venue.

Every year, on 19 August, the World Photography Day is marked – a globally recognized celebration of the photograph and its history. What actually is World Photography Day, though, and why is does it take place on this particular date?

This is the date that recognizes the invention of the Daguerrotype, a process that was devised by the French artist and photographer, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1837. His idea was then effectively sold to the French Academy of Sciences, which subsequently gifted the process to the world on 19 August 1839.

Earlier this year, Mariah Carey’s legal team filed a trademark request for the phrase Queen of Christmas that was both expansive and not limited to products typically associated with the holiday.

Here are some of the dozens of goods and services covered in the filing:

Coldplay have added energy-producing stationary bikes to concert floors to boost environmental initiatives.

Get yor workout in and enjoy a live concert, in person, at the same time? If you’re a fan of Coldplay, that’s now a possibility, thanks to the band’s greener touring initiative that in part utilizes bike-produced energy. Featured in the band’s ongoing Music of the Spheres world tour, concertgoers can use kinetic dance floors and stationary bikes set up around the stage to quite literally power the show.

The Rembrandt Heritage Foundation wants to open a virtual Rembrandt museum. To raise money for it, the foundation will sell 8,000 digital pieces of the Night Watch for 200 to 300 euros each in cryptocurrency. They are not just selling digital images of fragments of the masterpiece, but Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs - unique properties that cannot be copied. Ownership is also recorded in a database.

11 public transport stops in Sofia have a new look. They are part of the Art4Diplomacy initiative of the talented Petya Ilieva, who turned them into an exhibition space with images of interesting, impressive and little-known to Bulgarians buildings from around the world. The project will be implemented in two phases, and pictures of beautiful landmarks selected from 11 diplomatic missions in Bulgaria will appear in the heart of Sofia in September.