Hello there! The clouds finally broke here in Barcelona for the first sunny day of the Product Hunt team’s offsite. In today’s digest, I’m covering a new generative AI video model that could give OpenAI a run for its money. But first…

The headlines: 

🐦 X (formerly Twitter) has hidden likes for all users by default. 

🤖 A robot developed by students in Tokyo drove a car.

🍎 iOS 18 will crack down on apps that ask for address book permissions.

Looking back at AI-generated videos from 2023 is like viewing cave drawings in a museum. It's been about a year since the Internet saw an AI-generated video of Will Smith eating spaghetti. If you haven’t seen it — be warned, it’s nightmare fuel.

Since then, AI video generation has advanced significantly. OpenAI set things in motion with the announcement of Sora earlier this year. Now, there's a new player on the block.

Luma AI, a California-based startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz and Nvidia, announced Dream Machine, a generative AI video model that creates high-quality, realistic shots from basic text prompts and images. It's currently in a free beta, but it’s been flooded with users, causing frequent crashes since it debuted on X (formerly Twitter) yesterday.

What does it generate? Almost anything. Like Sora, its output depends on the details of the prompt. It can create clips in various styles, from a hyper-realistic frog in city lights to a Studio Ghibli-inspired woman looking out a train window. And yes, someone recreated that spaghetti-eating clip.

How does it compare to Sora? Dream Machine can generate up to 120 frames of video in around 120 seconds, outperforming OpenAI’s Sora, which produces up to a minute of video but takes 10 minutes to an hour, depending on who you ask. When it comes to quality, it’s pretty strong, although through my own testing I noticed it can get a little funky when it comes to movement. Take this UFO-inspired video for example. The movement of the child towards the end has a certain stiffness to it. 

Who else is making waves? Dream Machine and Sora are not the only players in the generative AI video scene. Runway’s Gen 2, a multi-modal AI system for generating video, launched last year but now feels outdated. Kling, an AI model from China, also made a splash when it launched last week with new videos that could make OpenAI sweat.

FOR DEVELOPERS

Liveblocks is a platform that lets you add real-time, multiplayer collaboration features to your apps, such as commenting, text-editing, and notifications, much faster by using an SDK.

SQL Playground is an online platform for writing and running SQL queries for MySQL and Postgres. It has built-in scheme generators and syntax highlighting that make it good for learning.

FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING 

Socially is a social networking platform that’s built for niche communities. You can set up a community-based site with a custom domain, advertising options, and payment gateways. 

Elai is an AI-powered tool that generates custom videos with interactive quizzes and hotspots. The videos are presented by a human-like avatar and they can be dropped into learning materials to engage users and help them retain any knowledge gained.

FOR MUSIC LOVERS

TwoShot is an AI music platform that lets anyone create music. You can use your voice, text prompts, or even just hum into a mic, and an “ethically-trained” AI will generate a track for you. You can also create, share, and monetize your own music models.

Subdivide is a metronome app that helps musicians perfect their timing with custom track creation, timing subdivisions, and visual feedback for those times you’re off the ball. 

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