WASHINGTON: A crew from US-based television network Univision was released after being detained Monday during an interview with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the Spanish-language channel said.
Maduro “disliked the questions in the interview and stopped the recording, confiscated the equipment and detained the six journalists,” Univision said.
“The crew of six Univision Noticias journalists headed by Jorge Ramos was released after being held at the Miraflores Palace for nearly three hours on the orders of Nicolas Maduro,” the network added.
Ramos told Univision that the entire team had arrived back at their hotel.
The journalist said Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez had told the crew during the interview that it was not authorized.
“They confiscated all the equipment, we didn’t have anything,” Ramos said.
The US State Department earlier said it had been notified that Ramos and his team were being held against their will at Maduro’s Miraflores presidential palace.
“We insist on their immediate release; the world is watching,” it tweeted.
Univision journalists freed after detention by Venezuela’s Maduro
Univision journalists freed after detention by Venezuela’s Maduro
- The US Department of State called on Maduro to release the journalists
Google launches AI music model in English, Arabic
- Lyria 3 lets users generate 30-second audio tracks via Gemini
DUBAI: Google has launched Lyria 3, a generative AI music model currently in final testing, that can be used via the Gemini website and app to create customized audio tracks.
Users can provide text prompts such as “an upbeat, modern Arabic fusion track for Ramadan” or “a massive, anthemic rock song with an emotive male singer.”
They can add images to their prompts and ask the model to generate a track that reflects the ideas within the pictures. They can also add lyrics or ask the model to generate them.
Lyria 3 then produces a 30-second track along with cover art generated by Google’s artificial intelligence image generator and editor, Nano Banana.
Google said the aim was not to create a musical masterpiece or for copying existing artists but to let users express themselves in unique ways. However, if a prompt specifies a particular artist, the model can draw inspiration their style while still creating an original track.
Lyria was launched in 2023 and is the company’s most advanced music generation model. SynthID, Google’s tool to watermark and identify AI-generated content, is embedded in all tracks it creates.
Users can also upload a file to check whether it was generated using Google AI. Gemini will examine it for SynthID and provide a response based on its analysis.
Lyria 3 is available in Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese, with more languages expected in the future. It will be available on the mobile app in the coming days.
