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AI Google

Google's AI Converts Webpages Into Videos (venturebeat.com) 40

Researchers at Google say they've developing an AI system that can automatically convert webpages into short videos. From a report: It extracts assets like text and images and their design styles including fonts, colors, and graphical layouts from HTML sources and organizes the assets into a sequence of shots, maintaining a look and feel similar to the source page as it does so. Google envisions the system could be useful to businesses that host websites containing rich visual representations about their services or products. These assets, the company says, could be repurposed for videos, potentially enabling those without extensive resources to reach a broader audience. A typical video costs between $880 and $1,200 and can take days to weeks to produce. URL2Video, which was presented at the 2020 User Interface Software and Technology Symposium, automatically selects key content from a page and decides the temporal and visual presentation of each asset.
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Google's AI Converts Webpages Into Videos

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Thursday October 29, 2020 @08:58PM (#60664198)
    my site Why? I just don't see anything in it for the site owner.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by maglor_83 ( 856254 ) on Thursday October 29, 2020 @09:15PM (#60664244)

    That would be much more useful. Never again to be presented with 100 different YouTube videos which take 5 minutes to explain something that could be written down in 3 bullet points.

    • This! Just what I was going to say. Videos are time consuming and a horrible way of distributing textual content, they also can't readily be searched as easily, burying content from access. I almost never want a video, but usefully organized websites (with search) are rather valuable.

      • We seem to be the last generation that prefers informational text instead of a video, it seems. As much as I don't understand it, I hear many younger people wishing for a video presentation of some topic or another. To me, it just takes substantially longer to get the same data, but perhaps some people are better able to process that sort of information, having grown up with short video presentations to a larger degree than we have.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Sir, you haven't heard my girlfriend chat with her coop!

          It's like Portugese TV/radio speakers commenting a game of squirrel rugby.

      • by Falos ( 2905315 )

        I sit squarely in this crowd. Furthermore, the bot smells like a slideshow generator anyway.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Video summary via AI already exists, Google is trying to use it to make searching for content in videos better. It works too, sometimes when you search for stuff and it suggests a video it takes you directly to the timecode where they are talking about it.

        The problem right now is that videos are more lucrative than text. Ad revenue for videos is way higher than ad revenue for a text website.

    • by Wolfier ( 94144 )

      Upvote this. We need more articles and less videos.

    • by tsa ( 15680 )

      I am for this as well, but if Google does this to my videos I’ll sue it for copyright infringement. Also when they make a video out of my website. They really seem to think the whole web is theirs.

    • came to say the same thing. turning useful videos into useful articles would be an actual benefit to society.
    • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Not just that, but ever longer videos for monetization.

      Seriously, the art of BS has come to YouTube videos, just like how you managed to turn a 200 word essay into the requisite 1000 word essay, the 2 minute YouTube video has turned into the 20 minute video.

      Sure, there are a few people who do need 20 minutes, but even then you can tell they pad things out where they spend 10 minutes blabbing about something before actually showing it. Unboxing videos are particularly terrible for this where you end up heari

    • in b4 endless conversions of rickrolls to websites

  • I've seen real estate pages (on Zillow, but presumably on other sites as well) that offer a video. The video is nothing but the still shots the page has (and often not all of them) stitched together, sometimes with a zoom or fade-in. There's a bit of elevator music, and sometimes a narration that's the realtor or a reading of the text that describes the house. It's completely worthless and annoying.

    I should also mention that there are a few real estate videos that actually take you through the rooms, whi

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Actually, it can be.

        Think Myst, but with 360 degree videos for every location, and short videos for moving between locations.

        Hell, I have seen 360 degree stereoscopic videos with HDR and bells and whistles. Whicb is great, unless you actially want the viewer to look AT something, instead of thefuckingwrongwayyoustupidfuckingmoronsGAAH! ;)

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Sounds like Matterport - 360 degree photos with navigation points. Itâ(TM)s the kind of thing 360 navigation has been doing since the 2000s, but it looks really good and it seems to be a lot faster to create it these days.

          • I'm the one who posted "sort of like google's street view." Here's what I'm referring to:
            https://www.zillow.com/homedet... [zillow.com]
            Click on any of the rooms on the right, then pan around in the view on the left by holding your mouse button down and moving it. Click on the various arrows to move to a different room.

            BTW, this house is contingent, so I'm guessing this particular "3D Home View" won't be available for long. But if you do a Zillow search and click on the "More" tab and check the "Must have 3D Home" but

  • Any website you visit will auto play as a floating window in the middle of a deluge of advertisement ....

    Wondering if there are videos of google jumping the shark

  • Porn sites.

    Too bad it'll be discontinued in 6 months.

  • and has been around for many years now.
    $69.99 for an entire year.

  • They can name this AI product "Shittify", after what it does to perfectly readable text content.
    • I'm sorry, but that name is reserved for the TikTopTweetTranspiler.
      It goes both ways, for extra fun!

  • by Carrot007 ( 37198 ) on Friday October 30, 2020 @05:36AM (#60665204)

    Wake me when they are doing it the right way round.

    Videos are a horrible way to convey what is likely a couple of sentances of information.

    I hate that this nas become normal. Some pointless pissing contest. Me me me!

    When I do have to resort to youtube to find things out I will hake the 16 second video that is actually helpful over the 5 minute one. (is there a way to search by least viewed?).

    • No, but YT will literally suggest the video you literally just watched to you.
      The fuckin red line that says it KNOWS you've watched it IS RIGHT FUCKING THERE!

      Is there a site for future school shooters and terrorists and such? Cause of they go, at least they should take freaking suggestions and do the world a favor! ;)

      *nudge nudge* YT site logic deciders *wink wink*?

  • If they can figure out how to turn tutorial videos into web pages, that would be a real service. It'd be nice not to constantly have to pause and rewind when I'm learning a new thing.
  • Because call me when you can jump around with your eyes and glance at different paragraphs and read at your own damn pace, depending on how difficult it is for you personally, with stupid fuckin videos.

    It's like re-ordering information from massively parallel to serial *and* setting a fixed bit rate, no matter if the information currently is more complex (=stuttering) or simple (=waster time).
    It's only useful for art, where that is fine because it is part of the artistic expression.
    Otherwise it's just stupi

  • This sounds like it will be as good as YouTubeâ(TM)s auto-generated captions. Awesome.

  • This is not artificial intelligence, it is actually artificial stupidity. The more stupidity Google creates, the more money Google makes. Try it, you'll see.

Math is like love -- a simple idea but it can get complicated. -- R. Drabek

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