Generative AI, innovation, creativity & what the future might hold – CyberTalk

Stephen M. Walker II is CEO and Co-founder of Klu, an LLM App Platform. Prior to founding Klu, Stephen held product leadership roles Productboard, Amazon, and Capital One.

Are you excited about empowering organizations to leverage AI for innovative endeavors? So is Stephen M. Walker II, CEO and Co-Founder of the company Klu, whose cutting-edge LLM platform empowers users to customize generative AI systems in accordance with unique organizational needs, resulting in transformative opportunities and potential.

In this interview, Stephen not only discusses his innovative vertical SaaS platform, but also addresses artificial intelligence, generative AI, innovation, creativity and culture more broadly. Want to see where generative AI is headed? Get perspectives that can inform your viewpoint, and help you pave the way for a successful 2024. Stay current. Keep reading.

Please share a bit about the Klu story:

We started Klu after seeing how capable the early versions of OpenAI’s GPT-3 were when it came to common busy-work tasks related to HR and project management. We began building a vertical SaaS product, but needed tools to launch new AI-powered features, experiment with them, track changes, and optimize the functionality as new models became available. Today, Klu is actually our internal tools turned into an app platform for anyone building their own generative features.

What kinds of challenges can Klu help solve for users?

Building an AI-powered feature that connects to an API is pretty easy, but maintaining that over time and understanding what’s working for your users takes months of extra functionality to build out. We make it possible for our users to build their own version of ChatGPT, built on their internal documents or data, in minutes.

What is your vision for the company?

The founding insight that we have is that there’s a lot of busy work that happens in companies and software today. I believe that over the next few years, you will see each company form AI teams, responsible for the internal and external features that automate this busy work away.

I’ll give you a good example for managers: Today, if you’re a senior manager or director, you likely have two layers of employees. During performance management cycles, you have to read feedback for each employee and piece together their strengths and areas for improvement. What if, instead, you received a briefing for each employee with these already synthesized and direct quotes from their peers? Now think about all of the other tasks in business that take several hours and that most people dread. We are building the tools for every company to easily solve this and bring AI into their organization.

Please share a bit about the technology behind the product:

In many ways, Klu is not that different from most other modern digital products. We’re built on cloud providers, use open source frameworks like Nextjs for our app, and have a mix of Typescript and Python services. But with AI, what’s unique is the need to lower latency, manage vector data, and connect to different AI models for different tasks. We built on Supabase using Pgvector to build our own vector storage solution. We support all major LLM providers, but we partnered with Microsoft Azure to build a global network of embedding models (Ada) and generative models (GPT-4), and use Cloudflare edge workers to deliver the fastest experience.

What innovative features or approaches have you introduced to improve user experiences/address industry challenges?

One of the biggest challenges in building AI apps is managing changes to your LLM prompts over time. The smallest changes might break for some users or introduce new and problematic edge cases. We’ve created a system similar to Git in order to track version changes, and we use proprietary AI models to review the changes and alert our customers if they’re making breaking changes. This concept isn’t novel for traditional developers, but I believe we’re the first to bring these concepts to AI engineers.

How does Klu strive to keep LLMs secure?

Cyber security is paramount at Klu. From day one, we created our policies and system monitoring for SOC2 auditors. It’s crucial for us to be a trusted partner for our customers, but it’s also top of mind for many enterprise customers. We also have a data privacy agreement with Azure, which allows us to offer GDPR-compliant versions of the OpenAI models to our customers. And finally, we offer customers the ability to redact PII from prompts so that this data is never sent to third-party models.

Internally we have pentest hackathons to understand where things break and to proactively understand potential threats. We use classic tools like Metasploit and Nmap, but the most interesting results have been finding ways to mitigate unintentional denial of service attacks. We proactively test what happens when we hit endpoints with hundreds of parallel requests per second.

What are your perspectives on the future of LLMs (predictions for 2024)?

This (2024) will be the year for multi-modal frontier models. A frontier model is just a foundational model that is leading the state of the art for what is possible. OpenAI will roll out GPT-4 Vision API access later this year and we anticipate this exploding in usage next year, along with competitive offerings from other leading AI labs. If you want to preview what will be possible, ChatGPT Pro and Enterprise customers have access to this feature in the app today.

Early this year, I heard leaders worried about hallucinations, privacy, and cost. At Klu and across the LLM industry, we found solutions for this and we continue to see a trend of LLMs becoming cheaper and more capable each year. I always talk to our customers about not letting these stop your innovation today. Start small, and find the value you can bring to your customers. Find out if you have hallucination issues, and if you do, work on prompt engineering, retrieval, and fine-tuning with your data to reduce this. You can test these new innovations with engaged customers that are ok with beta features, but will greatly benefit from what you are offering them. Once you have found market fit, you have many options for improving privacy and reducing costs at scale – but I would not worry about that in the beginning, it’s premature optimization.

LLMs introduce a new capability into the product portfolio, but it’s also an additional system to manage, monitor, and secure. Unlike other software in your portfolio, LLMs are not deterministic, and this is a mindset shift for everyone. The most important thing for CSOs is to have a strategy for enabling their organization’s innovation. Just like any other software system, we are starting to see the equivalent of buffer exploits, and expect that these systems will need to be monitored and secured if connected to data that is more important than help documentation.

Your thoughts on LLMs, AI and creativity?

Personally, I’ve had so much fun with GenAI, including image, video, and audio models. I think the best way to think about this is that the models are better than the average person. For me, I’m below average at drawing or creating animations, but I’m above average when it comes to writing. This means I can have creative ideas for an image, the model will bring these to life in seconds, and I am very impressed. But for writing, I’m often frustrated with the boring ideas, although it helps me find blind spots in my overall narrative. The reason for this is that LLMs are just bundles of math finding the most probable answer to the prompt. Human creativity —from the arts, to business, to science— typically comes from the novel combinations of ideas, something that is very difficult for LLMs to do today. I believe the best way to think about this is that the employees who adopt AI will be more productive and creative— the LLM removes their potential weaknesses, and works like a sparring partner when brainstorming.

You and Sam Altman agree on the idea of rethinking the global economy. Say more?

Generative AI greatly changes worker productivity, including the full automation of many tasks that you would typically hire more people to handle as a business scales. The easiest way to think about this is to look at what tasks or jobs a company currently outsources to agencies or vendors, especially ones in developing nations where skill requirements and costs are lower. Over this coming decade you will see work that used to be outsourced to global labor markets move to AI and move under the supervision of employees at an organization’s HQ.

As the models improve, workers will become more productive, meaning that businesses will need fewer employees performing the same tasks. Solo entrepreneurs and small businesses have the most to gain from these technologies, as they will enable them to stay smaller and leaner for longer, while still growing revenue. For large, white-collar organizations, the idea of measuring management impact by the number of employees under a manager’s span of control will quickly become outdated.

While I remain optimistic about these changes and the new opportunities that generative AI will unlock, it does represent a large change to the global economy. Klu met with UK officials last week to discuss AI Safety and I believe the countries investing in education, immigration, and infrastructure policy today will be best suited to contend with these coming changes. This won’t happen overnight, but if we face these changes head on, we can help transition the economy smoothly.

Is there anything else that you would like to share with the CyberTalk.org audience?

Expect to see more security news regarding LLMs. These systems are like any other software and I anticipate both poorly built software and bad actors who want to exploit these systems. The two exploits that I track closely are very similar to buffer overflows. One enables an attacker to potentially bypass and hijack that prompt sent to an LLM, the other bypasses the model’s alignment tuning, which prevents it from answering questions like, “how can I build a bomb?” We’ve also seen projects like GPT4All leak API keys to give people free access to paid LLM APIs. These leaks typically come from the keys being stored in the front-end or local cache, which is a security risk completely unrelated to AI or LLMs.

The power of representation and connectivity in STEM education

On Oct. 13 and 14 at the Wong Auditorium at MIT, an event called Bridging Talents and Opportunities took place. It was part of an initiative led by MIT Latinx professors and students aimed at providing talented Latinx high school students from the greater Boston area and various Latin American countries a unique chance to explore the world of science and innovation within MIT’s campus.

The primary goal of the effort is to inspire and empower talented, low-income high school scholars, particularly those from first-generation and low-income backgrounds. These students are driven by the inspiring life stories of Latinx scientists who have overcome similar circumstances to make remarkable contributions to the field and who are now affiliated with some of the world’s top universities.

The two-day gathering commenced with a roster of esteemed speakers who were scientists, academics, philanthropists, and trailblazing entrepreneurs, most of Hispanic and Latin American origin. They shared stories of success and their affiliation with prestigious institutions globally, and underscored the achievements and the heights to which one can rise with determination and support.

As part of the event, students, parents, and teachers had the opportunity to visit some science labs at MIT such the Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS)’s Laboratory of Exotics Molecules and Atoms, Laboratory for Atomic and Quantum Physics, and the Robotic Lab. With the support of the Harvard Colombian Student Society the group was also able to take a tour to the Harvard University campus.

Diana Grass, an organizer of Bridging Talents and Opportunities, is a second-year PhD student in medical engineering and medical physics in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. She also serves as the co-founder and co-president of the Graduate First Generation Low-Income student group at MIT (GFLI@MIT).

“In countries like Colombia, it takes an astounding 11 generations, according to the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development], to escape poverty,” Grass emphasized. “Education is the most powerful tool to break this chain. As a first-generation student and a Latina, I have firsthand experience of the socioeconomic obstacles that hinder educational pursuits and degree attainment. Bold actions are needed if we are to address diversity, the gender gap, and equity within the realm of science. It’s immensely gratifying that we can drive these actions forward from top universities like MIT.”

Grass added, “Latino students — especially women — have historically been underrepresented in STEM careers, underscoring the urgency of instilling early motivation in the educational journey. Creating opportunities for first-generation low-income students is an essential step in this direction. This initiative recognizes that addressing educational disparities requires proactive measures.”

The event also hosted Jeison Aristizabal, recognized as the 2016 CNN Hero of the Year and the founder of the first Latin American University for people with disabilities. Overcoming his own cerebral palsy, Aristizabal is now a social communicator and lawyer, redefining the concept of disability and serving as an inspiration to countless students with disabilities. Grass states, “His journey highlights the extraordinary achievements that can be realized through perseverance and determination.”

Edwin Pedrozo-Peñafiel, another event organizer, is a research scientist in the Research Laboratory of Electronics and MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms. He stated that “Seeing such a dynamic group of accomplished individuals from similar cultural backgrounds made a compelling statement. It’s essential that the younger generations see successful figures they can identify with. Representation in any field, but particularly in STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics], is not just about checking a box. It’s a potent source of inspiration. When young students can look up and see someone who looks like them, speaks like them, and shares a similar cultural narrative achieving greatness, it tells them one vital thing: ‘I can do it, too.’”

He continued, “Beyond individual success stories, the event spotlighted the importance of collective effort. By connecting diverse stakeholders around the shared goal of education, we can amplify the message of the value and transformative power of STEAM careers. Students should recognize that these fields aren’t just viable career paths; they’re avenues to impact their families, communities, and even the world positively.”

Boleslaw Wyslouch, professor of physics and director of the Laboratory for Nuclear Science and the Bates Research and Engineering Center, provided introductory comments in a welcome at the beginning of the Friday session. He said, “I was delighted that MIT and the Laboratory for Nuclear Science were able to help welcome Latino students from the Boston area, from around the country, and from abroad to the workshop. The combination of inspirational speakers, practical information, and visits to world-class MIT laboratories organized by Professor Ronald Garcia Ruiz was an excellent way to showcase the opportunities in science and engineering. I am very grateful to many outside organizations for sponsoring the students and their families to attend the event.”

Professor Garcia Ruiz, who is a researcher in LNS and one of the organizers, emphasized, “Disadvantaged youths, especially those from underserved communities, are disproportionately affected by the world’s major challenges, including climate change, inequality, water scarcity, and food security, to name a few. However, these firsthand experiences also provide them with a unique perspective and motivation. When equipped with the right resources and education, these individuals do not merely thrive — they lead.

“By creating bonds between these talented young individuals, their families, committed educational foundations, global leaders from various fields, and visionary entrepreneurs and institutions, the event aimed to secure opportunities to empower them to become the innovators and transformative leaders of tomorrow. However, a stark reality persists. Often, even in the face of available opportunities, many of these young individuals do not take them — either due to lack of awareness, the pressure of their communities, or fear of venturing into the unknown. We are hopeful that our initiative will help bridge this gap.

“The wave of support from LNS, the MIT community, and from outside has been deeply heartening. The gratitude expressed by participants, especially by the students and their families, serves as our strongest motivation to continue with this mission.”

Forging climate connections across the Institute

Climate change is the ultimate cross-cutting issue: Not limited to any one discipline, it ranges across science, technology, policy, culture, human behavior, and well beyond. The response to it likewise requires an all-of-MIT effort.

Now, to strengthen such an effort, a new grant program spearheaded by the Climate Nucleus, the faculty committee charged with the oversight and implementation of Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Action Plan for the Decade, aims to build up MIT’s climate leadership capacity while also supporting innovative scholarship on diverse climate-related topics and forging new connections across the Institute.

Called the Fast Forward Faculty Fund (F^4 for short), the program has named its first cohort of six faculty members after issuing its inaugural call for proposals in April 2023. The cohort will come together throughout the year for climate leadership development programming and networking. The program provides financial support for graduate students who will work with the faculty members on the projects — the students will also participate in leadership-building activities — as well as $50,000 in flexible, discretionary funding to be used to support related activities. 

“Climate change is a crisis that truly touches every single person on the planet,” says Noelle Selin, co-chair of the nucleus and interim director of the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society. “It’s therefore essential that we build capacity for every member of the MIT community to make sense of the problem and help address it. Through the Fast Forward Faculty Fund, our aim is to have a cohort of climate ambassadors who can embed climate everywhere at the Institute.”

F^4 supports both faculty who would like to begin doing climate-related work, as well as faculty members who are interested in deepening their work on climate. The program has the core goal of developing cohorts of F^4 faculty and graduate students who, in addition to conducting their own research, will become climate leaders at MIT, proactively looking for ways to forge new climate connections across schools, departments, and disciplines.

One of the projects, “Climate Crisis and Real Estate: Science-based Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies,” led by Professor Siqi Zheng of the MIT Center for Real Estate in collaboration with colleagues from the MIT Sloan School of Management, focuses on the roughly 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions that come from the buildings and real estate sector. Zheng notes that this sector has been slow to respond to climate change, but says that is starting to change, thanks in part to the rising awareness of climate risks and new local regulations aimed at reducing emissions from buildings.

Using a data-driven approach, the project seeks to understand the efficient and equitable market incentives, technology solutions, and public policies that are most effective at transforming the real estate industry. Johnattan Ontiveros, a graduate student in the Technology and Policy Program, is working with Zheng on the project.

“We were thrilled at the incredible response we received from the MIT faculty to our call for proposals, which speaks volumes about the depth and breadth of interest in climate at MIT,” says Anne White, nucleus co-chair and vice provost and associate vice president for research. “This program makes good on key commitments of the Fast Forward plan, supporting cutting-edge new work by faculty and graduate students while helping to deepen the bench of climate leaders at MIT.”

During the 2023-24 academic year, the F^4 faculty and graduate student cohorts will come together to discuss their projects, explore opportunities for collaboration, participate in climate leadership development, and think proactively about how to deepen interdisciplinary connections among MIT community members interested in climate change.

The six inaugural F^4 awardees are:

Professor Tristan Brown, History Section: Humanistic Approaches to the Climate Crisis  

With this project, Brown aims to create a new community of practice around narrative-centric approaches to environmental and climate issues. Part of a broader humanities initiative at MIT, it brings together a global working group of interdisciplinary scholars, including Serguei Saavedra (Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering) and Or Porath (Tel Aviv University; Religion), collectively focused on examining the historical and present links between sacred places and biodiversity for the purposes of helping governments and nongovernmental organizations formulate better sustainability goals. Boyd Ruamcharoen, a PhD student in the History, Anthropology, and Science, Technology, and Society (HASTS) program, will work with Brown on this project.

Professor Kerri Cahoy, departments of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (AeroAstro): Onboard Autonomous AI-driven Satellite Sensor Fusion for Coastal Region Monitoring

The motivation for this project is the need for much better data collection from satellites, where technology can be “20 years behind,” says Cahoy. As part of this project, Cahoy will pursue research in the area of autonomous artificial intelligence-enabled rapid sensor fusion (which combines data from different sensors, such as radar and cameras) onboard satellites to improve understanding of the impacts of climate change, specifically sea-level rise and hurricanes and flooding in coastal regions. Graduate students Madeline Anderson, a PhD student in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS), and Mary Dahl, a PhD student in AeroAstro, will work with Cahoy on this project.

Professor Priya Donti, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science: Robust Reinforcement Learning for High-Renewables Power Grids 

With renewables like wind and solar making up a growing share of electricity generation on power grids, Donti’s project focuses on improving control methods for these distributed sources of electricity. The research will aim to create a realistic representation of the characteristics of power grid operations, and eventually inform scalable operational improvements in power systems. It will “give power systems operators faith that, OK, this conceptually is good, but it also actually works on this grid,” says Donti. PhD candidate Ana Rivera from EECS is the F^4 graduate student on the project.

Professor Jason Jackson, Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP): Political Economy of the Climate Crisis: Institutions, Power and Global Governance

This project takes a political economy approach to the climate crisis, offering a distinct lens to examine, first, the political governance challenge of mobilizing climate action and designing new institutional mechanisms to address the global and intergenerational distributional aspects of climate change; second, the economic challenge of devising new institutional approaches to equitably finance climate action; and third, the cultural challenge — and opportunity — of empowering an adaptive socio-cultural ecology through traditional knowledge and local-level social networks to achieve environmental resilience. Graduate students Chen Chu and Mrinalini Penumaka, both PhD students in DUSP, are working with Jackson on the project.

Professor Haruko Wainwright, departments of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE) and Civil and Environmental Engineering: Low-cost Environmental Monitoring Network Technologies in Rural Communities for Addressing Climate Justice 

This project will establish a community-based climate and environmental monitoring network in addition to a data visualization and analysis infrastructure in rural marginalized communities to better understand and address climate justice issues. The project team plans to work with rural communities in Alaska to install low-cost air and water quality, weather, and soil sensors. Graduate students Kay Whiteaker, an MS candidate in NSE, and Amandeep Singh, and MS candidate in System Design and Management at Sloan, are working with Wainwright on the project, as is David McGee, professor in earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences.

Professor Siqi Zheng, MIT Center for Real Estate and DUSP: Climate Crisis and Real Estate: Science-based Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies 

See the text above for the details on this project.

MIT startup has big plans to pull carbon from the air

In order to avoid the worst effects of climate change, the United Nations has said we’ll need to not only reduce emissions but also remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. One method for achieving carbon removal is direct air capture and storage. Such technologies are still in their infancy, but many efforts are underway to scale them up quickly in hopes of heading off the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

The startup Noya, founded by Josh Santos ’14, is working to accelerate direct-air carbon removal with a low-power, modular system that can be mass manufactured and deployed around the world. The company plans to power its system with renewable energy and build its facilities near injection wells to store carbon underground.

Using third-party auditors to verify the amount of carbon dioxide captured and stored, Noya is selling carbon credits to help organizations reach net-zero emissions targets.

“Think of our systems for direct air capture like solar panels for carbon negativity,” says Santos, who formerly played a role in Tesla’s much-publicized manufacturing scale-up for its Model 3 electric sedan. “We can stack these boxes in a LEGO-like fashion to achieve scale in the field.”

The three-year old company is currently building its first commercial pilot facility, and says its first full-scale commercial facility will have the capacity to pull millions of tons of carbon from the air each year. Noya has already secured millions of dollars in presales to help build its first facilities from organizations including Shopify, Watershed, and a university endowment.

Santos says the ambitious approach, which is driven by the urgent need to scale carbon removal solutions, was influenced by his time at MIT.

“I need to thank all of my MIT professors,” Santos says. “I don’t think any of this would be possible without the way in which MIT opened up my horizons by showing me what’s possible when you work really hard.”

Finding a purpose

Growing up in the southeastern U.S., Santos says he first recognized climate change as an issue by experiencing the increasing intensity of hurricanes in his neighborhood. One year a hurricane forced his family to evacuate their town. When they returned, their church was gone.

“The storm left a really big mark on me and how I thought about the world,” Santos says. “I realized how much climate change can impact people.”

When Santos came to MIT as an undergraduate, he took coursework related to climate change and energy systems, eventually majoring in chemical engineering. He also learned about startups through courses he took at the MIT Sloan School of Management and by taking part in MIT’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP), which exposed him to researchers in the early stages of commercializing research from MIT labs.

More than the coursework, though, Santos says MIT instilled in him a desire to make a positive impact on the world, in part through a four-day development workshop called LeaderShape that he took one January during the Institute’s Independent Activities Period (IAP).

“LeaderShape teaches students how to lead with integrity, and the core lesson is that any privilege you have you should try to leverage to improve the lives of other people,” Santos says. “That really stuck with me. Going to MIT is a huge privilege, and it makes me feel like I have a responsibility to put that privilege to work to the betterment of society. It shaped a lot of how I view my career.”

After graduation, Santos worked at Tesla, then at Harley Davidson, where he worked on electric powertrains. Eventually he decided electric vehicle technology couldn’t solve climate change on its own, so in the spring of 2020 he founded Noya with friend Daniel Cavaro.

The initial idea for Noya was to attach carbon capture devices to cooling towers to keep equipment costs low. The founders pivoted in response to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 because their machines weren’t big enough to qualify for the new tax credits in the law, which required each system to capture at least 1,000 tons of CO2 per year.

Noya’s new systems will combine thousands of its modular units to create massive facilities that can capture millions of tons of CO2 right next to existing injection wells.

Each of Noya’s units is about the size of a solar panel at about 6 feet wide, 4.5 feet tall, and 1 foot thick. A fan blows air through tiny channels in each unit that contain Noya’s carbon capture material. The company’s material solution consists of an activated carbon monolith and a proprietary chemical feedstock that binds to the carbon in the air. When the material becomes saturated with carbon, electricity is applied to the material and a light vacuum collects a pure stream of carbon.

The goal is for each of Noya’s modules to remove about 60 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere per year.

“Other direct air capture companies need a big hot piece of equipment — like an oven, steam generator, or kiln — that takes electricity and converts it to get heat to the material,” Santos says. “Any lost heat into the surrounding environment is excess cost. We skip the need for the excess equipment and their inefficiencies by adding the electricity directly to the material itself.”

Scaling with urgency

From its office in Oakland, California, Noya is putting an experimental module through tests to optimize its design. Noya will launch its first testing facility, which should remove about 350 tons of CO2 per year, in 2024. It has already secured renewable energy and injection storage partners for that facility. Over the next few years Noya plans to capture and remove thousands of tons of CO2, and the company’s first commercial-scale facility will aim to remove about 3 million tons of carbon annually.

“That design is what we’ll replicate across the world to grow our planetary impact,” Santos says. “We’re trying to scale up as fast as possible.”

Noya has already sold all of the carbon credits it expects to generate in its first five years, and the founders believe the growing demand from companies and governments to purchase high-quality carbon credits will outstrip supply for at least the next 10 years in the nascent carbon removal industry, which also includes approaches like enhanced rock weathering, biomass carbon storage, and ocean alkalinity enhancement.

“We’re going to need something like 30 companies the size of Shell to achieve the scale we need,” Santos says. “I think there will be large companies in each of those verticals. We’re in the early innings here.”

Santos believes the carbon removal market can scale without government mandates, but he also sees increasing government and public support for carbon removal technologies around the world.

“Carbon removal is a waste management problem,” Santos says. “You can’t just throw trash in the middle of the street. The way we currently deal with trash is polluters pay to clean up their waste. Carbon removal should be like that. CO2 is a waste product, and we should have regulations in place that are requiring polluters, like businesses, to clean up their waste emissions. It’s a public good to provide cleaner air.”

NDI November 2023 – NDI Keynote Welcome with Tonia Maffeo – Videoguys

On This Weeks Videoguys Live, Gary is joined by Tonia Maffeo from NDI to kick off our month long NDI November Event. Tonia will delve into the transformative power of NDI technology, sharing success stories, the latest developments, and the future prospects of NDI. Whether you’re a seasoned industry professional or simply curious about NDI’s impact, this keynote will inspire you to explore the limitless possibilities NDI offers in content creation and live production.

Watch the full keynote here:

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Join us for an exciting kick-off to NDI November with our ‘NDI Keynote Address’ from Tonia Maffeo of NDI. We’re setting the stage for a month filled with innovation and insights. Tonia will delve into the transformative power of NDI technology, sharing success stories, the latest developments, and the future prospects of NDI. Whether you’re a seasoned industry professional or simply curious about NDI’s impact, this keynote will inspire you to explore the limitless possibilities NDI offers in content creation and live production. 

Register for NDI November HERE

Unlock the ultimate event experience by registering just once for an all-access pass, granting you exclusive access to all sessions. Not only will registration provide you with an opportunity to win incredible prizes, but you’ll also receive two complimentary gifts as a token of our appreciation. These special gifts include “The Unofficial Guide to NDI” book authored by Paul Richards and a one-year complimentary subscription to Videomaker digital magazine. Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to gain knowledge, win big, and enjoy valuable bonuses when you register!

Register for NDI November HERE

Register for your chance to win a great prize from one of our great Giveaways!

Register for NDI November HERE

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games For November Serve Up Mafia, Dragon Ball, And Aliens

The PlayStation Plus motley games for November have been revealed. Subscribers can add Mafia II: Definitive Edition, Dragon Ball: The Breakers, and Aliens Fireteam Elite to their libraries beginning on November 7 until December 4. 

Mafia II: Definitive Edition

This remaster of the 2010 crime game spruces up the adventure with improved HD visuals. It also includes all of its post-launch DLC. You can us take a tour of the game in this episode of New Gameplay Today.

Dragon Ball: The Breakers

This 7-v-1 multiplayer game pits a team of random normies, plus Bulma and Oolong, against a player controlling iconic Dragon Ball villains like Frieza, Cell, and Buu. The non-villains must work together to survive and escape stages in a time machine. The villain player’s job is simple: hunt and destroy everyone else. 

Aliens: Fireteam Elite

Up to four-players team up to battle hordes of xenomorphs in this cooperative class-based shooter. In our review, former editor Jason Guisao gave it a 6.5/10, writing, 

Aliens: Fireteam Elite occasionally fires on all cylinders, especially during battles. Xenomorph and synthetic limbs tear at you as you buffet them with high-energy bullets. The carnage produces pools of acid blood that deal extra damage if you don’t watch your step. Even Austin Wintory’s dissonant score and the array of nostalgic sound effects – particularly the whirring pulse rifle and thudding footsteps of approaching drones – help immerse you in the Alien universe. Unfortunately, there’s not enough interesting or entertaining content to parse through, and the grind gets tedious. Developer Cold Iron Studios promised a year of post-launch content, but unless substantial changes are made to the loop, you’re better off steering clear of this messy infestation.

As a reminder, you have until November 6 to add October’s monthly games to your library. As another heads up for new subscribers or those getting ready to renew, the prices for each PlayStation Plus tier has increased starting in September. You can read a breakdown of the price changes here.

How AI Is Democratizing the Writing Process

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