March 3, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
We've had conversations for sometime to see if we should have a "Duke voice" to use for official voice over production using tools like Elevenlabs. There are still many discussions to have if this is in fact something we should...
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February 27, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
In academic video production, my primary tool has always been creating video—2D and linear. However, my ongoing testing with organic chemistry visualizations pushed me to try a different approach. After receiving some excellent feedback, I tried SVG (and ultimately WebGL)...
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February 25, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
We have some VIPs coming to visit Duke's Innovation Co-Lab and while at a meeting this morning, I noticed there wasn't some really compelling content on the digital signs. I found out the visit was tomorrow, so I asked the...
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By: Stephen Toback
I tested the same prompt from the summer which used 3.0 to test 3.1. It's definitely different. In my subjective option, it was not as good as 3.0. The video in general was super sharp, almost "soap opera" quality as...
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February 24, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
My first look at Anthropic’s research preview desktop tool, including a test that helped me understand exactly where the value lies — and where it doesn’t. Starting With a Small, Well-Defined Test When I decided to test Claude Cowork —...
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February 23, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
What began as a simple experiment turned into a full benchmarking session. I found a sepia tone photograph of my father-in-law from the 1950s. I wanted to see what it might look like in color, so I started uploading it...
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By: Stephen Toback
The transition from Gemini 3.0 to Gemini 3.1 Pro isn't just a incremental update; for those of us involved in media technology and digital storytelling, it represents a fundamental shift in how AI perceives and constructs visual logic. We are...
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February 22, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
In the world of media tech, a spectacular failure is often more educational than a polished success. I recently took Replit—a cloud-based coding platform—for a spin after hearing buzz about its new animation "Agent" capabilities. I wanted to see if...
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February 20, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
AI audio tools keep improving, but every now and then something feels like a real leap forward. The Vocal Isolation feature from ElevenLabs is one of those moments. I ran a series of practical tests — not lab conditions —...
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February 17, 2026
By: Stephen Toback
https://warpwire.duke.edu/w/TToJAA/ OK - this is C- quality, but this is the best I've ever seen. Our dream of video automation is to input some text and see a video when you're done. While we're making great progress for certain parts...
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