On October 21, 2020, Ashlee Vance, Senior Writer at Bloomberg Businessweek interviewed Stanford Professor Kayvon Fatahalian and highlighted advancements in artificial intelligence through Magic Grant projects Public Analysis of TV News and Sports Illustrated. In the piece, Vance and Fatahalian highlight the tremendous opportunities that AI has provided for media makers. Both also offer thoughtfulness
Introducing Reporting Grants from Maternal Figures
Led by Ashley Okwuosa and Chuma Asuzu, Maternal Figures is a solutions journalism project aiming to encourage journalists to investigate solutions to an endemic problem. The project focuses on Nigeria’s maternal health, which has one of the world’s worst outcomes. For context, Nigeria’s estimated 40,000 maternal deaths account for a staggering 14% of the world’s annual
Institute Director Agrawala talks Deep Fakes with the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI
To spot a deep fake, researchers looked for inconsistencies between “visemes,” or mouth formations, and “phonemes,” the phonetic sounds. Using AI to Detect Seemingly Perfect Deep-Fake Videos was published on the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Blog on 10/13/2020, which featured Brown Institute Director Maneesh Agrawala. In the article, Agrawala spoke to the struggles
Announcing ‘Changing Course’: Lectures on Data Representations and Equitable Approaches to Computing
Each year, the Brown Institute sponsors talks that explore the intersection between media and technology. This year we have three virtual presentations lined up, each challenging us to think about data and computation in new ways. Johanna Drucker starts the series by looking at alternatives to representing time — looking beyond graphic standards such as
Meet ‘Sylvia’: A Project Challenging Ageism in Digital Space
Ziv Schneider is a creative technologist at The Brown Institute for Media Innovation based at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Schneider is breaking barriers in the sphere of Virtual Influencers. Virtual Influencers are computer-generated characters that exist on social media and appear as real humans – yet completely ignore the reality of aging. Like the
Join us to celebrate the launch of ‘Maternal Figures’ on September 3
The Brown Institute is excited to announce the launch of Maternal Figures on September 3 at 10AM ET. We invite you to join project leads Ashley Okwuosa and Chuma Asuzu as they introduce Maternal Figures, a database of maternal health interventions implemented in Nigeria over the last 30 years. Register for the launch at maternalfigures.com/launch.
Announcing the Launch of the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer
The Brown Institute for Media Innovation is pleased to announce the launch of the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer, an interactive tool that gives the public the ability to not just search transcripts, but also compute the screen time of public figures in nearly 24-7 broadcasts from CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. Each day, cable
Magic Grant project ‘Synthesizing Novel Video from GANs’ featured in Engadget
On August 14, 2020, the tech outlet Engadget featured recent research produced by the Magic Grant ‘Synthesizing Novel Video from GANs’ developed by grantee Haotian Zhang, alongside Cristobal Sciutto under faculty direction from Maneesh Agrawala and Kayvon Fatahalian.’ The article titled “These AI-generated tennis matches are both eerie and impressive,” describes the system developed under
Tracking Transportation in New York City During the Pandemic
Subway usage in New York City has decreased dramatically during the current COVID-19 pandemic, prompting architects, urban planners, and transportation specialists to wonder what life will look like after the city has reopened. Could New York ever become a more bicycle and pedestrian friendly city? To better understand if New Yorkers are actually replacing subway