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LimeWire buys Midjourney competitor BlueWillow after relaunching as a Creator Studio

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A strange cowboy is arriving in the Wild West of generative AI. Last year, LimeWire, once notorious for music piracy and shut down by the music industry, moved into content creation under new owners. It acquired BlueWillow, a popular generative AI image creation platform that competes with Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, today to expand that.

Despite being founded earlier this year, BlueWillow took off due to rising interest in generative AI, Discord becoming a popular platform for creatives to use these tools, and its free main version. With 2.5 million members and 500 million+ images created, BlueWillow claims to be Discord’s second-largest AI image-generating community (Midjourney is first).

The plan is to keep BlueWillow on Discord and integrate its functionality into LimeWire’s website’s paid and advertising-based free creator service tiers. LiveWire will use it to launch more media services.

Financial terms are unknown, but BlueWillow talent will not be acquired. Ritankar Das, the company’s founder and CEO, said in an interview that the BlueWillow team is advising LimeWire on the platform during a transitional period, but they plan to leave en masse to work on a stealth AI venture.

The deal shows LimeWire’s commitment to growing its user base and revenue. The startup raised $17.5 million through token sales from Arrington Capital (run by Mike Arrington, the founder and former editor of this site), Kraken, Crypto.com Capital, CMCC Global, Hivemind, Deadmau5, and others to build an NFT marketplace for music creators in its relaunch. Early this year, sources estimated its value at $60 million.

LiveWire founders Paul and Julian Zehetmayr have diversified into building a platform to create and distribute content, with NFTs now “more of a sideline” rather than LimeWire’s core business.

LimeWire’s core business needed more tools. We hired engineers to build subscription and other features for creatives, but we used third-party integrations for AI-based image generation. LimeWire acquired BlueWillow to offer its own image generation tools and expand to video and audio generation.

Besides expanding that tech stack, BlueWillow will add users: Julian Zehetmayr told an interviewer that LiveWire has “thousands” of smaller creators in its long tail and 100 “bigger creators” on its platform.

And like Midjourney, BlueWillow was bootstrapped and funded by the founder. Das is a wunderkind who graduated from Berkeley at 18 with a double degree in bioengineering and chemical biology in three years, then studied at Oxford and Cambridge and founded a health tech startup that CirrusDx acquired in 2022.

Das started BlueWillow to learn how generative AI tools worked and could be built, not to make money.

He said, “What we saw was that a lot of people were developing generative AI models for images,” and he wanted to join the tech “Cambrian explosion”. However, Das and his team found that there were dozens of Large Language Models (LLMs) in the market, and using them together would speed up the process of building the basic service and let engineers focus on improving user interfaces and other front-end features to make using BlueWillow easier.

“Making it really easy for users” became the main goal, and BlueWillow built its own “weights” and customizations to improve image making depending on what it was used to illustrate and for whom. «Architects and advertisers require different looks and feels, so we built for each.»

Long-term, Das and his team didn’t want to scale and build the next phase of BlueWillow because compute power is expensive. There were no immediate plans to raise money, so when LimeWire called, it seemed easy to sell.

As Editor here at GeekReply, I'm a big fan of all things Geeky. Most of my contributions to the site are technology related, but I'm also a big fan of video games. My genres of choice include RPGs, MMOs, Grand Strategy, and Simulation. If I'm not chasing after the latest gear on my MMO of choice, I'm here at GeekReply reporting on the latest in Geek culture.

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Gran Turismo 7 Update 1.46 introduces an exciting addition to the roster of exclusive cars available in the PS5 and PS4 racing game

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Gran Turismo 7 has just received an exciting update to version 1.46 on both PS5 and PS4. This latest update introduces a unique addition to the game: the Škoda Vision Gran Turismo, a car that you won’t come across in any other game. Škoda makes its debut in the franchise with a visionary study of a single-seater, all-electric racing concept car, designed exclusively for the Polyphony Digital racer.

Once you’ve downloaded update 1.46, you’ll have the opportunity to test drive not one but two additional cars: the AFEELA Prototype 2024 and the iconic Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 Sport Coupe ’70. Get ready for an exhilarating ride! Watch as they take to the track in the video above.

Additionally, the update introduces a new menu for players to tackle in the GT Café. At Collector Level 38, players have the opportunity to delve into the fascinating world of Ferrari 12-cylinder engines, gaining knowledge and expanding their collection. In World Circuits, players can look forward to exciting new events such as the Japanese Clubman Cup 550, the American FR Challenge 550, and the Vision Gran Turismo Trophy. For all the avid fans of Photo Mode, there’s an exciting opportunity to explore the captivating city of San Diego in a brand new Scape.

What are your thoughts on the latest update for Gran Turismo 7? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section.

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ReFantazio Takes a Different Approach to Romance, Setting Itself Apart from the Persona Games

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Atlus’ highly anticipated RPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio, appears to incorporate familiar systems reminiscent of the developer’s acclaimed Persona series. The game features turn-based battles that heavily rely on exploiting enemy weaknesses. Additionally, players have the ability to summon warrior spirits during combat. However, the most significant aspect of this game, which will be discussed in this article, is the bonding system. Through this system, players can spend time with important characters and gain deeper insights into their personalities and stories.

In contrast to the Persona games, the bonding system ends at that point. Unfortunately, players will be unable to pursue romantic relationships with their beloved waifus, which may come as a disappointment to those who have developed strong feelings for Hulkenberg, the party’s charismatic red-haired elven knight.

According to Siliconera, the absence of romance came up during a recent question and answer session. Atlus emphasized the continued opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with your allies while also introducing additional narratives through substories. In addition, familiarizing yourself with the supporting characters will grant you access to new archetypes, which serve as the game’s character classes.

In the Persona games, romance is not obligatory; rather, it serves as a means to customize your playthrough. However, it is quite unexpected that Metaphor has chosen not to pursue such a venture, considering the significant amount of discussion it typically generates!

Were you anticipating any romantic elements in Metaphor? If you’re not satisfied with your pre-order, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Shift Up unveils the intriguing details behind the physical packaging of Stellar Blade for the PS5

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It appears that many

are eagerly anticipating the launch of the highly anticipated PS5 exclusive, Stellar Blade. Shift Up, the developer, has shared a lengthy video showcasing the “secrets” found in the physical box of the game for PS5. From what we can gather, these secrets include a reversible cover/dust jacket and a download code for cosmetic items.

We must clarify that while we do appreciate the variant cover, it may be more appealing than the game’s standard art. However, it is not something we would typically classify as a “secret.”. However, what’s interesting is that Shift Up has confirmed through the comments section that this will be the case in all regions. Additionally, the visually striking action RPG will remain uncensored worldwide.

It’s refreshing to witness a developer going the extra mile for physical collectors, and it’s evident that the developer is determined to leave a favorable mark in the console realm. Stellar Blade is set to make its highly anticipated debut this Friday, April 26th, exclusively on the PS5.

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