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2024 ASCAP Lab “AI and the Business of Music” Challenge Teams Revealed

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Upcoming ASCAP VERSED Podcast Explores Benefits of Teams’ Music Industry Tools

NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The ASCAP Lab, ASCAP’s innovation initiative, announces the cohort for the 2024 AI and the Business of Music Challenge. The ASCAP Lab Challenge brings together the society’s senior strategy, operations and legal experts; key ASCAP writer, composer and publisher members; and some of the most promising music tech entrepreneurs and early-stage startups in an effort to shape how artificial intelligence(AI) tools can benefit music creators. This year’s ASCAP Lab Challenge explored commercial solutions enabled by AI that can transform music industry workflows, business processes and data exchanges.

To highlight the 2024 ASCAP Lab Challenge teams, VERSED: The ASCAP Podcast will debut “The ASCAP Lab Gets Down to Business with AI” on October 24. The episode will feature this year’s entrepreneurs explaining their innovations and how the industry can leverage these advances. ASCAP composer and producer Gregg Lehrman (trailers for Avatar, Inglourious Basterds) will share his experience as one of the mentors for the Challenge teams and as a startup founder himself.

Launched in 2020, the annual ASCAP Lab Challenge is an accelerator program, operated in partnership with the NYC Media Lab led by the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, that provides selected startups and university teams with mentorship and small grants to develop and expand upon their emerging technologies during the 12-week program. The ASCAP Lab works closely with each selected team to optimize its product development for the music creator community. It is one way in which the ASCAP Lab explores the intersection of technology, art and business to drive value for music creators and users.

ASCAP Chief Strategy and Digital Officer Nick Lehman said: “ASCAP’s creator-first, future-forward commitment makes it imperative for us to embrace technology while simultaneously protecting the rights of creators. The dialogue, understanding and relationships that the ASCAP Lab Challenge creates with the music startup community enable us to drive progress for the industry and deliver on this commitment.”

The 2024 ASCAP Lab Challenge teams are:

CRESQA: An AI social media content assistant designed for songwriters and musicians that automates the process of social media strategy development and helps generate fully personalized post ideas and schedules for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and more. https://cresqa.com/

Music Tomorrow: Analytics tools that monitor and boost artists’ algorithmic performance on streaming platforms, using AI for advanced audience insights and automation that improve an artist’s content discoverability, listener engagement and team efficiency. https://www.music-tomorrow.com/

RoEx: AI-driven tools for multitrack mixing, mastering, audio cleanup and quality control, designed to streamline and enhance the last steps of the creative process by delivering a professional and balanced mix with ease. http://www.roexaudio.com

SoundSafe.ai: Robust, state-of-the-art audio watermarking using AI to enhance security, reporting and the detection of real-time piracy and/or audio deepfakes. http://www.SoundSafe.ai

Wavelets AI: Tools for artists, labels, copyright holders, content distributors and DSPs that help reduce IP infringement by detecting AI vocals in music. https://wavelets.ai/

This year’s ASCAP Lab Challenge program expands upon the 2023 Challenge, which focused on startups utilizing AI for making and experiencing music. The story of the 2023 Challenge is captured in an ASCAP Lab-produced documentary short “Prelude in AI Major: Crafting a Creator-First Future for AI.” The film takes an in-depth look at the 2023 Challenge teams and how they leveraged AI to build innovative tools for making and experiencing music, informed by their own backgrounds as composers and musicians. ASCAP mentors, including songwriter and composer members, shared their experiences guiding the teams in developing their technologies and exploring the copyright implications of their work.

As part of its ongoing effort to educate ASCAP members on AI, ASCAP has hosted panels and symposia on the creative possibilities and legal challenges of the technology in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. The New York and Nashville sessions are available on demand on the ASCAP YouTube Channel:

How Creators Are Unlocking the Potential of Artificial Intelligence“”Navigating AI for Music Creators: Legal & Copyright Issues“”Melody, Lyrics & Algorithm: Music Creators in the Age of AI“”Navigating AI: Evolving Legal & Policy Frameworks

Additional past ASCAP Lab programming available on demand includes:

NFTs: What Every Music Creator Needs to Know” – Presented by the ASCAP Lab, this 2022 ASCAP Experience panel features experts CrossBorderWorks CEO Vickie Nauman, nft now CEO Matt Medved and writer/producer/artist Poo Bear explaining non-fungible tokens, how to buy NFTs and some of the best use cases for music NFTs – to create collectibles, build community, foster direct fan access and more.“Music in the Metaverse: 4 Startups Shaping our New (Extended) Reality” – The metaverse is an immersive platform for creativity, community and identity, rich in potential for music creators and their fans. This ASCAP Experience panel presented by the ASCAP Lab features the 2022 Challenge teams demonstrating new ways to create and experience music, express digital identity through music, and connect music creators and fans in the metaverse.

More information on the ASCAP Lab can be found at https://www.ascap.com/ascap-lab.

About ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a membership association of more than one million songwriters, composers and music publishers, and represents some of the world’s most talented music creators. In 2023, ASCAP reported record-high financial results of $1.737 billion in revenues and $1.592 billion available in royalty distribution monies to its members. Over the last eight years, ASCAP has delivered a 7% compound annual growth rate for total revenues, and an 8% compound annual growth rate for total royalty distributions to members. Founded and governed by songwriters, composers and publishers, it is the only performing rights organization in the U.S. that operates on a not-for-profit basis. ASCAP licenses a repertory of over 20 million musical works to hundreds of thousands of businesses that use music, including streaming services, cable television, radio and satellite radio and brick and mortar businesses such as retail stores, hotels, clubs, restaurants and bars. ASCAP collects the licensing fees; identifies, matches and processes trillions of performances every year; and returns nearly 90 cents of every dollar back to its members as royalties. The ASCAP blanket license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. ASCAP puts music creators first, advocating for their rights and the value of music on Capitol Hill, driving innovation that moves the industry forward, building community and providing the resources and support that creators need to succeed in their careers. Learn more and stay in touch at www.ascap.com, on X and Instagram @ASCAP and on Facebook.

About the NYC Media Lab
The NYC Media Lab connects media and technology companies with both NYU Tandon and industry affiliates to drive innovation, entrepreneurship and talent development. Our interdisciplinary community of innovators from industry and academia allows our network to gain valuable insights, explore the potential of emerging technology and address the challenges and opportunities created by the rapidly evolving digital media landscape. Learn more at engineering.nyu.edu/nyc-media-lab.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/2024-ascap-lab-ai-and-the-business-of-music-challenge-teams-revealed-302272421.html

SOURCE ASCAP – American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers

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New ProEssentials v11: Native WinUI Charting Library, 100M Points in 15ms, Following Microsoft’s Vision for True Native Swap-Chain Rendering

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30 years of evolution in native C++ rendering that bypasses the managed XAML layer entirely and renders straight on the GPU via Direct3D compute shaders, in native x64 and ARM64, ready for Microsoft’s Windows on Arm and Copilot+ PCs. A fresh pass of 100M new data points renders to screen in ~65ms. The same engine powers WinUI, WPF, WinForms, MFC, and C++ from one codebase, with .NET 10 — built for real-time scientific, engineering, and financial data.

DALLAS, July 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Gigasoft has released ProEssentials v11, bringing its 30-year native C++ charting engine to WinUI. Every other WinUI chart today renders through managed XAML — ProEssentials renders directly to a Direct3D composition swap chain, the native path Microsoft built WinUI around. The result: 100 million data points re-rendered in roughly 15ms, a fully fresh 100M-point frame on screen in about 65ms.

v11 also ships a native ARM64 engine, ProEssentials runs native on Microsoft’s Windows on Arm and Copilot+ PCs. .NET 10 arrives across the WinUI, WPF, and WinForms interfaces, with Direct3D compute shaders doing the heavy lifting on every architecture. A side-by-side native WinUI chart performance comparison against the major vendors is published on gigasoft.com.

The engine underneath is the same native C++ core Gigasoft has refined since 1993 — deliberately kept native behind a thin .NET wrapper, never rewritten in managed code. One engine drives WinUI, WPF, WinForms, MFC, and C++, so a chart moves between frameworks by changing the control type, not the charting code. Don’t take the numbers on faith — clone the open-source 100M-point WinUI demo and benchmark it on your own hardware.

“ProEssentials is the undisputed heavyweight of Windows desktop charting. Version 11 brings its three-decade native C++ engine to WinUI 3, native ARM64, and .NET 10. We’re proud to ship the world’s first charting component to faithfully deliver on Microsoft’s goal for WinUI as the modern, native, performant interface — presenting directly through a composition swap chain instead of a managed XAML layer,” said Robert Dede, founder of Gigasoft.

ProEssentials is not only for shipping products. It is the tool engineers reach for on their own side projects — R&D experiments, rapid prototypes, proof-of-concept demos, test-and-measurement utilities, internal data analysis, and the one-off tools engineering firms are always building. Any company serious about engineering will find countless uses for it, and with v11’s AI charting code assistance many of those ideas become working applications in a few hours. Licensing is perpetual and royalty-free, generous for multi-developer teams — worth putting in front of your CTO, CIO, and Chief AI Officer. A no-hassle evaluation download is available at gigasoft.com.

Contact:
Robert Dede, BSEE, Founder
Gigasoft, Inc.
***@gigasoft.com

Photo(s):
https://www.prlog.org/13152577

Press release distributed by PRLog

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-proessentials-v11-native-winui-charting-library-100m-points-in-15ms-following-microsofts-vision-for-true-native-swap-chain-rendering-302834721.html

SOURCE Gigasoft, Inc.

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Global Times: Here Come China’s ‘next new three’: AI, robotics and innovative drugs spearhead a new round of industrial upgrading

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BEIJING, July 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — From four-legged inspection robots operating in European nuclear power plants to automatic coffee-making robotic arms serving travelers at airports and transit hubs around the globe and smart AI systems supporting local Chinese teaching in Thai schools, these varied overseas applications offer a vivid snapshot of how China’s “next new three” industries are expanding globally.

Labeled the “next new three,” AI, robotics and innovative drugs represent China’s new core strategic industries and fresh economic growth engines. Their rise marks a major upgrade in China’s industrial and export model. More importantly, this industrial shift is delivering open, inclusive and innovative solutions to support global industrial upgrading and shared development, experts said.

From ‘old three’ to ‘next new three’ 

For decades, China established its global manufacturing foothold by leveraging its labor-cost advantages, with apparel, furniture and home appliances becoming the iconic “old three” of Chinese exports.

In recent years, the export portfolio has undergone a remarkable green and tech transformation. Electric vehicles (EVs), lithium batteries and photovoltaic products, known as the “new three,” have become the backbone of China’s export growth.

Recent industry data demonstrates the strong growth potential of the “next new three” tech sectors: AI, robotics and innovative drugs.

Statistics from global AI platform OpenRouter show that domestic large models registered 36.11 trillion token calls in the week of July 13 to 19, a month-on-month increase of 30.93 percent, with growth sustained for eight straight weeks, according to the People’s Daily.

In the first half of the year, the country’s robotics exports reached 6.29 billion yuan ($929 million), covering 141 countries and regions with the exports of high-end surgical robots recording a striking 3.3-fold year-on-year increase. 

Meanwhile, China’s innovative pharmaceutical sector has gained strong global influence, with outbound technology licensing transactions hitting $110 billion in the first six months of the year. Chinese pharmaceutical companies accounted for eight of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical licensing deals.

Wang Peng, a research fellow at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday that the rise of the “next new three” represents China’s industrial shift from exporting manufacturing capacity to exporting high-end innovation.

Competition now centers on original research, core underlying technologies and related services rather than production volume and costs, Wang said.

He noted that these industries help Chinese businesses move up the value chain from assembly processing to research and development, technical services and standard-setting, strengthening China’s position in global industrial chains. 

Mirroring this trend, from January to May this year, China’s total services trade volume rose 6 percent year-on-year, while the services trade deficit narrowed by around 20 percent. Exports of knowledge-intensive services surged 12.2 percent, highlighting the continuous improvement of China’s services export competitiveness and the optimized structure of foreign trade, according to the People’s Daily.

While the “new three” underpin China’s foreign trade fundamentals, the “next new three” seize the commanding heights of future industries. Jointly, they shore up China’s long-term economic competitiveness and inject sustained impetus into high-quality growth, Wang said.

Inclusive technological progress

China’s high-quality exports of products and services have contributed to more inclusive technological progress to the global market, reflecting Chinese enterprises’ core strengths in independent technological research, business model innovation and the ability to integrate global resources, as well as China’s commitment to driving global development and benefiting humanity through technological openness.

Chinese startup DEEP Robotics told the Global Times that its quadruped robot intelligent inspection solution has been officially deployed at Switzerland’s Leibstadt Nuclear Power Plant, the largest and highest-output nuclear facility in the European country, providing a Chinese solution for the digital and intelligent upgrading of nuclear power operations and maintenance across Europe.

The quadruped robot can replace human workers to access high-risk areas, perform precise operations and conduct high-frequency regular autonomous inspections 24/7, fundamentally cutting safety risks for on-site maintenance staff. It can also move flexibly through narrow corridors and gaps between dense equipment, covering all key inspection points and significantly reducing monitoring blind spots that traditional inspection devices cannot reach, the firm said.

Chinese robotic firm DoBot told the Global Times that in the commercial services sector, coffee robots equipped with its Nova series collaborative robotic arms have been operating stably in more than 20 types of venues including airports, high-speed railway stations and shopping malls globally, with a track record of producing hundreds of thousands of cups without reported malfunctions.

Overseas landmark applications include unattended Coca-Cola beverage stations along the Mediterranean coast, mobile coffee kiosks in the United Arab Emirates that serve a drink within 45 seconds, and self-operated food trucks deployed in shopping malls in Singapore, the company said.

Chinese AI company iFLYTEK said that its AI-powered intelligent teaching system has helped expand Chinese language learning worldwide and supported the digital development of Chinese education in overseas markets. 

Since a Thai middle school adopted iFLYTEK’s AI-powered intelligent Chinese teaching system in 2025, the technology has acted as a supplementary teaching solution amid growing local demand for Chinese learning and a shortage of qualified language instructors. It has greatly expanded students’ practice opportunities: On average, learners now speak Chinese 12 times per session, compared with only twice in regular classes, Xie Fei, director of iFLYTEK’s Global Chinese Learning Platform, said on Sunday.

From industrial robots to boost production efficiency for local factories to AI algorithms that improve local smart ecosystems, China’s “next new three” allow countries at all development levels to access benefits from advanced technologies and narrow the global digital divide, Wang said.

By building a sound global industrial network and rolling out customized technology solutions tailored to local conditions, these technological exports help recipient countries nurture their own industrial capacities and climb up the value chain to move higher up the industrial value chain. In the long run, such efforts will drive the global industrial system toward greater diversification and more balanced development, Wang noted.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-times-here-come-chinas-next-new-three-ai-robotics-and-innovative-drugs-spearhead-a-new-round-of-industrial-upgrading-302834749.html

SOURCE Global Times

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KuCoin Marks Ninth Anniversary at Tomorrowland Belgium, Honoring Nine Years of Industry Progress Beyond the Signal

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PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands, July 26, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — On the day of its ninth anniversary, KuCoin welcomed global partners, institutional clients, ecosystem builders and media representatives to the “On Cloud 9 Skybox Experience,” an exclusive celebration at the Tomorrowland Belgium Skybox. Overlooking Tomorrowland’s iconic Mainstage, guests gathered throughout an unforgettable evening as world-renowned artists including Nicky Romero, Alok, Steve Angello and Hardwell delivered performances that brought together people from around the world. Against this backdrop of music, culture and global connection, KuCoin celebrated not only its own nine-year journey, but also the remarkable progress the digital asset industry has achieved together.

The experience formed part of KuCoin’s broader ninth-anniversary campaign, “Beyond the Signal,” reflecting the company’s belief that the industry’s future will be shaped not by short-term market movements alone, but by the trust, innovation and infrastructure that enable lasting progress. Bringing this vision to life in an elevated festival setting, the evening offered guests an opportunity to reflect on nine years of shared growth, collaboration and resilience, while looking ahead together to the next chapter of digital assets.

Against the backdrop of Tomorrowland’s iconic Mainstage, the exclusive Skybox experience with signature champagne rituals brought KuCoin and its guests together to reflect on and celebrate the milestones that have shaped its nine-year journey. From expanding access to digital assets and navigating multiple market cycles to strengthening security and compliance, supporting institutional participation, and advancing innovation across payments, AI and Web3, these milestones also reflected the broader evolution of the digital asset industry toward greater maturity.

The moment celebrated not only how far KuCoin has come, but also the progress the industry has made together. Over the past nine years, markets have risen and fallen, and technologies have continued to evolve. Yet lasting progress has always been driven by the builders, developers, partners and communities working together to create enduring value. That is the idea behind Beyond the Signal.

“Ninth anniversaries are often measured in years. We prefer to measure ours in trust,” said BC Wong, CEO of KuCoin. “The greatest achievement of the past nine years has not been our growth alone, but the confidence our users, partners and community have continued to place in us. Trust is the infrastructure that enables innovation, adoption and long-term progress. As we enter our next decade, we remain committed to building secure, compliant and trusted digital asset infrastructure together with our partners worldwide.”

The celebration also highlighted KuCoin’s expanding partnership with Tomorrowland as the festival’s Exclusive Crypto Exchange and Payments Partner for Tomorrowland Winter and Tomorrowland Belgium 2026–2028. Bringing together one of the world’s most influential cultural events with trusted digital infrastructure, the partnership reflects a shared vision of connecting people across borders and creating meaningful real-world experiences through technology, payments and community. For KuCoin, Tomorrowland is more than a global music festival—it represents the openness, diversity and global community that have always been at the heart of crypto.

Nine years ago, KuCoin set out to make digital assets accessible to more people around the world. Today, its mission has evolved beyond access to helping build the trusted infrastructure that will support the future of digital finance. Beyond music, beyond the celebration and beyond the signal, KuCoin’s ninth anniversary was not only a milestone for the company, but a celebration of how far the industry has come together—and a commitment to building what comes next.

About KuCoin

Founded in 2017, KuCoin is a leading global crypto platform built on trust and security, serving over 45 million users across 200+ countries and regions. Known for its reliability and user-first approach, the platform combines advanced technology, deep liquidity, and strong security safeguards to deliver a seamless trading experience. KuCoin provides access to 1,500+ digital assets through a broad product suite and remains committed to building transparent, compliant, and user-centric digital asset infrastructure for the future of finance, backed by SOC 2 Type II, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, and ISO/IEC 27701:2019 Certifications. In recent years, we have built a strong global compliance foundation, marked by key milestones including AUSTRAC registration in Australia, a MiCA license in Europe, and regulatory progress in other markets.

Learn more at www.kucoin.com.

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SOURCE KuCoin

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