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Camb.ai is on a mission to disrupt the dominance of English in global media. Founded in 2022, the AI-powered platform specializes in real-time translation that retains a speakers emotional resonanceprocessing content up to 20 times faster than traditional dubbing services. Major League Soccer now uses Camb.ais technology for live broadcasts. But the company has also found unexpected demand in markets like video advertising and the localization of interactive smart toys. To power its growth, Camb.ai has raised $15.5 million to date. The platform now supports translations in more than 150 languagesincluding Maleku, spoken by just 500 people. CEO Avneesh Prakash, who previously helped build Indias Aadhaar biometric ID system used by more than a billion people, cofounded the company with his son, Akshat Prakash. The younger Prakash, Camb.ais CTO, is a computer scientist and former AI/ML engineer on Apples Siri team. Avneesh Prakash envisions a future where English is no longer the default language for media productionand where global audiences can access any content, in any language, on demand. Fast Company spoke with Prakash about AIs potential to reshape global media, the complexities of preserving emotional nuance across languages, and why rare languages remain central to Camb.ais mission. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What misconceptions do people have about AI voice technology, and how do you address those concerns? People are concerned about inaccuracies when using AI, but they often overlook that even human translators have flaws. When evaluating AI, people try to find that moment of Oh, it went wrong there. Often these are subjective opinions, and such analyses do not use a comparative benchmark of how human translators would do on the same piece. The best approach is to enable human translators with AI like ours so they can be 50 times more productive and help cover a large body of work that today remains locked up in one to two languages, like English. What metrics do you use to measure success beyond traditional business growth indicators? One way we measure success is the number of languages we can translate into. Our mission is to redesign the internet for speakers of every language. Thats why weve also put a lot of effort into our capability to translate rare or endangered languages like Icelandic or Indigenous languages like Maleku. We already support more than 150 languages for speech-to-speech translation and our goal is to grow this number three to four times over the next two years. What advantages do you have in competing against large tech players and giant AI companies, and what are the biggest hurdles for you to overcome? Compared to the household names in AI, we can make models that are hyperfocused on being the best at translation and dubbing. We are also focused on the open-source community and can use its feedback to iterate and develop faster. The biggest challenge we face is one plaguing the entire AI industry: access to the computing power necessary to continue innovating. To remain competitive, we have prioritized building smaller models capable of being run on a users device, rather than the race to the biggest model in Big Tech. Your recent partnership with Legible focuses on books. What other content types present the most compelling opportunities? One unexpected opportunity were capitalizing on is translating advertisements (both picture and video). With traditional translation tools, its very difficult to translate ads in a way that makes sense culturally. A lot of advertising relies on metaphors, analogies, and cultural references. In the past, if you were to translate ads directly, a lot of the context would get lost in translation. Our models can overcome that hurdle. What do you envision happening to translators as AI dubbing technology advances? I envision a future where content creators and translators work alongside AI rather than work against it. AI will be able to provide a first draft translation, but there will always be scenarios (especially in literature and poetry) where a human touch is needed. What’s a common assumption about the future of global content that might be flawed? Most people assume content will continue to be English-first. While a majority of the global content is currently produced in the U.S., in English, with demographic and technology shifts, I see a future where a majority of the worlds media is originally produced in languages other than English. Which unexpected industries or sectors have shown the most interest in your technology? One interesting use case has been in the smart toy industry, where more and more toys are becoming interactive and AI-enabled. Localization in this context has the incredible potential of teaching children their own culture and language; this gets increasingly lost in the modern world. Looking ahead five years, what do you expect to be the most significant change in how we consume cross-language content? We will see all content available in all languages. If you go on Netflix or YouTube right now, youll see some content being translated or captioned into a limited number of languages. In less than five years, I expect we will be able to view that same content in tens or hundreds of languages on demand. How does AI-powered dubbing/live translation fundamentally change the economics of global content distribution compared to traditional methods? With AI translation, markets and audiences that were previously considered financially unviable now become accessible. AI translation rapidly increases the speed at which content can be spread around the world. Weve seen our technology dub content up to 20 times faster than traditional dubbing agencies, so content can be released worldwide simultaneously. Beyond cost savings, what unexpected benefits do you see for AI live translations? Certain cultures have populations greater than that of the U.S. For example, the number of Bengali speakers is larger than the populations of many countries combined. In many such cultures, sports/content/media has the opportunity to reach everybody and unlock a new generation of accessibility and viewership for businesses. Critics argue AI-dubbed content lacks the soul of human performance. How do you address this perception, technically and philosophically? With our models, preserving emotion and soul has been the number-one priority. By training our models on both text and raw audio, the model learns how different words, punctuation, and context relate to various emotions and expressions. For us, translation is a way to share human expression across cultural boundaries, and ensuring that we maintain the emotional meaning of speech is the essence of what we do. Camb.ais mission is to let “every story be told in every language.” How might this reshape cultural power dynamics? Could a Gambian filmmaker compete more effectively against someone benefiting from Hollywoods global influence? Exactly. Thats our vision. As technology like ours becomes more pervasive, I expect to see content that breaks the internet coming from all corners of the globe. Major League Soccer used Camb.ai to live-dub commentary into four languages simultaneously. Is sports broadcasting reaching a linguisic tipping point? Prior to MLS using our technology, there was very little appetite for using AI in a livestream context. This milestone has led to AI being considered a viable alternative for commentary and dubbing, and were now seeing more and more global sports organizations adopt the technology. Whats your mission in competing in this ultra-competitive AI arena? The internet was made for English speakers, and we decided to redesign it for the world. While language is a tool of diversity and hence evolution, it is also a tool of exclusion. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have the good fortune of going through an English-language education. I’m grateful for that, but I also see the unfairness of that. We created a company to disrupt that disparity. As noted in the film Ratatouille, Not everyone can be a great artist. But a great artist can come from anywhere. We are trying to create a world where a great artist born anywhere, creating anywhere, is able to take their content to any other part of the world.
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Le Creuset turned 100, and to celebrate, it released a new cookware collection in a hue inspired by its original color, Flame. Named Flamme Dorée, French for “golden flame,” the set includes round and oval dutch ovens, a braiser, and a saucepan in a rich orange gradient with a shimmering gold finish. Prices for the Flamme Dorée pieces range from $310 to $860, which is more expensive than its standard linesespecially premium prices for what the company is positioning as a special occasion product. [Photo: Le Creuset] The French cookware brand was first known for its orange enameled cast iron cocottes, and it now sells products in a range of more than 200 colors. Last year it partnered with Pokémon and released its first ever out door cookware line. The original molten orange Flame color is its “signature color,” Le Creuset says, and Flamme Dorée is the modern remake. It recommends pairing the color with a deep rich green called Artichaut and White. “More than just a color, Flamme Dorée is a feeling,” Le Creuset says, like warmth or light. [Photo: Le Creuset] Le Creuset teased the collection’s release with a social media post of vintage print ads for the original orange Flame-colored sets. Few brands have been around long enough to have colors they’ve been associated with for 100 years, so by reimagining the color for a modern take, Le Creuset is tapping into its heritage to make something new. “Fiery, vibrant and globally recognizable, this celebratory hue pays tribute to the past while illuminating the path to the future,” it says.
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When Anirudh Rao was 4 years old and living in Nashville, his friends house was destroyed by a tornado. A year lateryes, as a kindergartnerRao started sketching a potential solution for better tornado warnings. Now 12 years old and living in Colorado, Rao is pursuing a more advanced version of his concept: a network of drones that could theoretically sense infrasound, a wave phenomenon emitted before and during tornadoes with frequencies below the threshold of human hearing. On the outskirts of the city, therell be a base station and a network of autonomous drones that fly in all directions, says Rao. He envisions sensors detecting infrasound along with temperature, pressure, and altitude, and sending data back to the base station; if a tornado is detected, that information could go to local authorities to trigger an official tornado warning and push notifications on phones. [Photo: courtesy Anirudh Rao/Young Planet Leaders] Currently tornadoes are detected as they have been for decades: through radar and by storm chasers visually spotting them on the ground. But radar doesnt work perfectly. As storms have started to move east out of the traditional Tornado Alley in the center of the country (a trend that may be happening because of climate change), theyre also moving into hillier topography, where radar is even less reliable. As tornadoes are shifting eastward, theyre also reaching more populated areas, increasing the risk. [Photo: courtesy Anirudh Rao/Young Planet Leaders] Raos instinct to use infrasound is in line with the latest science. The idea isnt new, though until tornado patterns changed, radar had been considered good enough. As tornadoes move into hillier areas and it limits the effectiveness of radar [science is] refocusing on the potential use of infrasound, says Brian Elbing, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Oklahoma State University. Though it still isnt fully understood how tornadoes produce infrasound, you can pick up the signal before the tornado touches the ground, and it lasts the life of the tornado, Elbing says. And it carries information about the strength of the tornado. [Photo: courtesy Anirudh Rao/Young Planet Leaders] Rao’s theory is that rather than building large stationary sensors for infrasound, drones could cover more ground. “My bigger idea was to use the fact that infrasound produced by tornadoes travels hundreds of miles,” he says. “Instead of waiting for it to come closer and then detect it using Doppler [radar], drones can fly outwards in all directions to offer an opportunity to reach out to a potential tornado, thus reducing the detection time and increasing the warning time.” (He calls his concept Revere, named after Paul Revere’s warning during the Revolutionary War.) There are challenges, including the fact that the noise from wind interferes with the sensors that detect infrasound. Rao argues that it’s possible to physically shield the sensor and then filter the signal. Altitude is another challenge, since the pressure would change as the drone flies, but Rao thinks that’s also surmountable. Ebling believes that a stationary network of sensors measuring infrasound is more likely. It would be cheaper to use than radar, and more accurate, so people could feel more confident that a warning wasn’t a false alarm. As the science advances, he says it could be feasible to build commercial networks of sensors as soon as a decade from now. Rao, meanwhile, is continuing to pursue his idea, while also working on an array of other inventions, from a sensor that could measure moisture in wounds to help avoid infection to a biomimetic surface for roads that could help ice melt faster. “I’m really interested in science, and I believe science can solve a lot of problems,” says Rao, who is a National STEM champion and was recently honored by a platform called Young Planet Leaders.
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Earlier this year, elected officials from 18 towns and counties devastated by Hurricane Helene gathered outside the Madison County courthouse in Marshall, North Carolina. Standing in a street still stained with the mud left behind when the French River overran its banks, they called for swifter state and federal help in rebuilding their communities. Everyone stood in the chill of a late January day because the first floor of the courthouse, built in 1907, remains empty, everything inside having been washed away in the flood. The countys judicial affairs are conducted in temporary offices as local leaders wrangle state and federal funding to rebuild. Local officials hope to restore the historic downtown and its most critical public buildings without changing too much about it. They, like most of the people impacted by Hurricane Helenes rampage in September, dont doubt another flood is coming. But they are also hesitant to move out of its way. When you talk about what was flooded and moving it, it would be everything, and thats just not realistic, said Forrest Gillium, the town administrator. Were not going to give up on our town. They may not have to. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is no longer enforcing rules, first adopted during the Obama administration, that required many federally funded construction projects to adopt strict siting and building standards to reduce the risk of future flooding. The rules were withdrawn by Donald Trumps first administration and then re-implemented by executive order under former President Joe Biden. Now theyve been withdrawn by Trump for the second time. The change eases regulations dictating things like the elevation and floodproofing of water systems, fire stations, and other critical buildings and infrastructure built with federal dollars. Ultimately, the rules were intended to save taxpayers money in the long run. Many other federal, state, and local guidelines still apply to the programs that help homeowners and businesses rebuild. Still, FEMA said rolling back the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard will speed up recovery. Stopping implementation will reduce the total timeline to rebuild in disaster-impacted communities and eliminate additional costs previously required to adhere to these strict requirements, the agency said in a statement released March 25. Trump rescinded the standard through an executive order on January 20. It had required federal agencies to evaluate the impact of climate change on future flood risk and weather patterns to determine whether 500- and 100-year flood plains could shift and, if so, consider that before committing taxpayer money to rebuilding. The guideline required building critical facilities like fire stations and hospitals 3 feet above the floodplain elevation, and all other projects receiving federal funding at least 2 feet above it, said Chad Berginnis, who leads the Association of State Floodplain Managers. The idea was to locate these projects so they were beyond areas vulnerable to flooding or design them to withstand it if they could not be moved. Easing the standard comes even as communities across the U.S. experience unprecedented, and often repeated, flooding. Homeowners and businesses in Florida, along the Mississippi River, and throughout central Appalachia have endured the exhausting cycle of losing everything and rebuilding it, only to see it wash away again. The Federal Flood Risk Management Standard was meant to break that cycle and ensure everything rebuilt with taxpayer money isnt destroyed when the next inundation hits. Why on earth would the federal government want it to be rebuilt to a lower standard and waste our money so that when the flood hits, if it gets destroyed again, were spending yet more money to rebuild it? Berginnis said. Last fall, federal climate scientists found that climate change increases the likelihood of extreme and dangerous rainfall of the sort Helene brought to the Southeast. Such events will be as much as 15% to 25% more likely if the world warms by 2 degrees Celsius. With more extreme rainfall come challenges for infrastructure designed for a less extreme climate. Youre going to have storm sewers overwhelmed. Youre going to have basins that were designed to hold a certain kind of flood that dont do it anymore, Berginnis said. Youre going to have bridges that no longer can pass through that water like it used to. You have all of this infrastructure thats designed for an older event. The Natural Resources Defense Council said the Obama-era standard was developed because it is no longer safe or adequate to build for the flood risks of the past and with the rollback, the federal government is setting up public infrastructure to be damaged by flooding and wasting taxpayer dollars. Officials across western North Carolina have expressed frustration with the pace of rebuilding while acknowledging that they dont want to endure the same problems over and over again. Canton, North Carolina, continues recovering from its third major flood in 20 years. Everything that flooded in 2004 flooded in 21. Everything that flooded in 21 flooded in 2024, Mayor Zeb Smathers said. Strategies like new river gauges and emergency warning systems, coupled with land buyouts, have helped mitigate the threat. However, mitigation brings its own risk. The town has seen its tax base dwindle as people who lost their homes moved on after accepting buyouts or decided that rebuilding was too much effort. When it comes to public buildings, Smathers struggles with the idea of moving something like the school, which has seen its football field flooded in each storm. He feels it is more cost-effective to rebuild than to move, and saves energy and hassle, too. I dont think its a one-size-fits-all situation, he said. But in the mountains, were limited on land and where we can go. Much of downtown Canton lies in a flood plain next to the Pigeon River. Smathers wants more flexibility from FEMA and greater trust in local decisions rather than more rules about where and how to build. Though local governments fronted some of the cost of rebuilding according to national flood risk standards, much of that required work has been federally subsidized. Josh Harrold, the town manager of Black Mountain, said the Obama-era rules werent onerous. Helene decimated the towns water system, municipal buiding, and numerous buildings and homes. We know this is going to happen again, he said. No one knows what thats going to be like, but we are taking the approach of, we just dont want to build it back exactly like it was. We want to build it back differently. Harrold and other officials said they dont yet know how Trumps order rescinding the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard will impact reconstruction. And it comes as some municipalities adopt and refine stricter flood plain rebuilding rules of their own. In January, Asheville adopted city ordinance amendments to comply with the rebuilding requirements set forth by the National Flood Insurance Program. It is not clear what Trumps order might mean for that. City officials did not respond to a request for comment. Berginnis said communities may not see immediate results from this changebut the effects will be felt in the future if leaders bypass the added protection it required: Everything that gets rebuilt using federal funds will be less safe when the next flood comes. By Katie Myers, Grist This article was originally published by Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here. The coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina.
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The Minecraft movie is crass, dumb, and barely coherent. It also just made almost $163 million at the domestic box office over its opening weekend. Video game adaptations have been on a hot streak in recent years. In 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie crossed the billion-dollar mark, nearly unseating Barbie as the years top-grossing film. Amazons Fallout shattered records with 2.5 billion viewing minutes in its debut week. And now, A Minecraft Movie stands as the highest-grossing film since Deadpool & Wolverine. Hollywoods obsession with intellectual propertyfrom comic book heroes to kids toysis nothing new. But for decades, video games were the outliers: critically panned, commercial duds. Thats no longer the case. Today, theyre becoming studios most reliable path to profit. The long history of video game movie flops While a few video game films trickled out in the late 1990s, the first major wave of studio-backed adaptations hit in the early 2000s. Many of these were helmed by German director Uwe Boll, who became notorious for a steady stream of critical and commercial failures. BloodRayne barely scraped together $3 million at the box office; Alone in the Dark grossed just over $12 million on a $20 million budget. In the Name of the King, starring Jason Statham, bizarrely carried a $60 million price tag but pulled in only $12 million. (Boll himself admitted that Alone in the Darkwith Christian Slater and Tara Reidwas not good.”) By the early 2010s, studios leaned into flashy visual effects to boost video game adaptations. These films made modest profits but often alienated audiences. Max Payne, starring Mark Wahlberg, scored just 16% on Rotten Tomatoes and earned Wahlberg a Golden Raspberry Award (better known as a Razzie). Disneys Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, fronted by Jake Gyllenhaal, was pitched as the next Pirates of the Caribbean-style franchise. That dream died quickly after the CGI-heavy film was trounced at the box office by Sex and the City 2 and Shrek Forever After. Around the same time, game developers began chasing global markets, especially in Asiaand most notably, China. That expansion opened new international audiences for video game films. The strategy peaked in 2016, when Universal released Warcraft. Though critics panned it and American audiences mostly shrugged, the film soared in China, earning more than $100 million there despite failing to reach $50 million in the U.S. Even as box office numbers climbed, video game movies still carried the stigma of cheap storytelling and poor production. The late 2010s and early 2020s saw a mix of live-action flops like Mortal Kombat and animated crowd-pleasers like Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu. They all turned a profitbut theyre often better remembered for their internet backlash than cinematic impact. When gaming adaptations started soaring Then, almost unexpectedly, these cash-grab adaptations started getting . . . better. Or at least good enough to justify their existence beyond box office potential. The Super Mario Bros. Movie didnt just rake in $1.3 billionit also delivered a viral hit with Jack Blacks Peaches. Critics may have panned Five Nights at Freddys, but audiences embraced it, giving it an 86% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and contributing to nearly $300 million in global revenue. Video games have also made major inroads into prestige television. HBO gave The Last of Us the coveted Sunday night slot, and the show went on to earn five Primetime Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series. Amazons Fallout became the platforms biggest premiere evereven surpassing YouTube juggernaut MrBeasts game show in viewershipand it, too, snagged a nomination for Outstanding Drama Series. Now comes A Minecraft Movie. Is it good? Not really. But its a box office magnetjust ask the legions of middle schoolers screaming Chicken jockey! and causing public disruptions in theaters. Its the clearest sign yet of the genres evolution. Video game adaptations are no longer synonymous with bad CGI and low returns. Theyve officially entered the IP big leagues.
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E-Commerce
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