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1 week ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
Japanese anime is popular around the world, and Japan knows it is a valuable export. While the market for anime continues to grow, the number of anime artists is on the decline and continues on this downward trend. (Source: Andri Tegar Mahardika, Pixabay)The main reasons for this decline are attributed to low pay and long work hours. More experienced anime animators are burnt out and frustrated.
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2 weeks ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
Wacom has unveiled a new generation of Wacom Cintiq pen displays—the Cintiq 16, Cintiq 24, and Cintiq 24 touch—combining Wacom’s Pro Pen 3 technology, a compact design, and sharper displays. The new pen displays will be available this summer. Nearly two and a half decades ago, Wacom introduced its Cintiq interactive creative pen display, optimizing the illustration experience by enabling users to draw directly on the device.
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1 month ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
The film Toy Story was much, much more than a film about a boy and his toys. It was a landmark in computer graphics animation and holds the distinction as the first fully computer-animated feature film. It also marked the dawn of 3D animated feature films. At Siggraph 2025, there will be a special event to celebrate this technical milestone.
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1 month ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
Hedra, an AI video generation platform, has received $32 million in Series A funding to expand their reach from the creator economy to the enterprise. Hedra offers a unified solution for creating AI-generated high-quality videos from dialog and image input. Few can argue the transformative power that AI has brought to many businesses and industries. For content creators, text-to-image and text-to-video generation has been revolutionary for novices and pros alike.
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1 month ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
AMD and Saudi Arabia’s newly formed AI state-backed venture Humain, struck a deal for a $10 billion collaboration to build an open, scalable AI infrastructure comprising a network of AMD-based AI computer centers from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the US. Nvidia and Qualcomm also forged AI-based agreements with Saudi Arabia, as did Amazon and others.
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1 month ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
It’s no secret that the film industry in America has been struggling with job losses and studio closures. For years, studios and production facilities have found more favorable conditions elsewhere and opened locations where labor is cheaper and tax credits more plentiful. This week, President Trump announced/is considering/will seek input concerning tariffs (the situation is fluid) on films made outside the US.
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1 month ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
The Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) has released SPECviewperf 15 for measuring graphics performance representing professional applications. The updated benchmark includes new graphics APIs for DirectX 12 and Vulkan, and diverse workloads for new industry use cases. Supported as well are the latest versions of the software applications represented in the benchmark.
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2 months ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
At Adobe Max London Creative Conference last week, there was significant buzz and focus around Adobe’s Firefly, including the introduction of an all-new Firefly application serving as a centralized hub for AI-powered creation and production; a new version of the Firefly Image Model, Model 4 and 4 Ultra; Firefly Boards (beta); Firefly Mobile; and new Firefly APIs. There were also updates to the company’s core flagship Creative Cloud applications, new tools in Express, new mobile apps, and the...
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2 months ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
At the regional Adobe Max London this week, Adobe got the crowd buzzing with a bevy of Firefly-centric announcements, including the new all-in-one Firefly app, new Firefly models including Firefly Image Model 4 and Image Model 4 Ultra, new Firefly features, a new Firefly mobile app, Firefly Boards, and more.
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2 months ago | 
jonpeddie.com | Karen Moltenbrey
Virtual production revolutionized filmmaking. Despite the large, expensive setups, the technology opened the door to new, less costly, streamlined methods of production. But, as we know, there is always something new, and better, around the corner. To that end, Lightcraft Technology, provider of one such virtual production system, has pivoted from those roots and founded an entirely new method that’s faster, mobile, and much, much cheaper, making it affordable for everyone.
