#black-forest-labs — Public Fediverse posts

Weekly output: WiFi hotspots, Android 17 + Gemini Intelligence, earning trust in AI, staying IRL in an AI world, AI image generation, photonics + data centers, Bill Gross on AI

SAN JOSE, Calif.–I’m back on the West Coast only three days after returning from Web Summit Vancouver, and my excuse for yet another transcon flight involves two different events: TechEx North America at the convention center here, where I’m moderating two panels Monday, and then Google I/O a little up the peninsula in Mountain View Tuesday and Wednesday. This is my second year at the first event but will be my 12th in-person I/O.

5/11/2026: The Best Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wirecutter

This update to this guide was originally going to review the Franklin A70 hotspot that AT&T introduced last year, but as I was about to file my edits I learned that AT&T was discontinuing that model. So I took out all of the copy assessing the A70 and restored the discussion of older models, which still left plenty of new text covering, among other things, how most high-end smartphone plans now include more data than you get with hotspot-only plans.

5/12/2026: In Android 17, ‘Gemini Intelligence’ Can Automate Tasks Across Apps, PCMag

Google dumped an enormous amount of news one week before I/O, to the point that I needed almost 1,200 words to cover it without even getting into Googlebook laptops, since PCMag’s Michael Kan wrote up that part of Google’s news. I trust that Google left something else to announce onstage at I/O Tuesday.

5/12/2026: Data done right: Earning consumer trust in an AI-first world. Web Summit

This was the second year in a row I had a Web Summit Vancouver panel featuring Pamela Snively, chief data and trust officer with Telus Communications. Knowing my fellow speaker’s conversational style made this panel easy; the topic was also a good one to explore.

5/12/2026: The Analog Renaissance, Why Human Connection and IRL Is the Most Radical Innovation, Frontier Collective

I showed up 5 minutes late to this offsite panel hosted by a local tech group because my floatplane joyride ended almost 30 minutes later than scheduled, a timing failure that in retrospect seems like something I was asking for. I then had a fun discussion with my fellow speakers–Raven White, TED’s director of audience development and community; Heather Odendaal, WNORTH CEO and founder; and Johnny Rodgers, a founding principal engineer at Slack–but I feel bad about inflicting “where is Rob?” uncertainty on the organizers and forcing emcee Theodora Jean to field my position for the first few minutes.

5/13/2026: What it actually takes to train frontier models, Web Summit

This was a late addition to my schedule, leaving no time for a prep call beforehand with Black Forest Labs co-founder Tim Dockhorn. That, in turn, meant I only discovered on stage that he can answer questions exceedingly briefly–which required me to improv a bunch of new questions. This sort of thing has happened on panels before; this time, I didn’t feel like I was flailing around onstage quite so much.

5/14/2026: Can Photonics Make the AI Data Center Boom More Palatable?, PCMag

Since my research for this started at NTT Research’s Upgrade conference in mid April, I was happy I finally got this written–including quotes from my interview of the photonics firm Taara’s CEO at Web Summit Vancouver that helped this post be about more than just the expenses-comped NTT event. I was not so happy to discover that I left two errors into the copy, one about the distances that Taara’s silicon-photonics chipset can send data through the air and another about this firm’s spot in the extended Google corporate universe.

5/15/2026: Bill Gross thinks AI companies are running out of ways to avoid paying creators, Fast Company

This is the first time in a long time–maybe ever, actually–where I wrote a story from an interview as an edited transcript instead of writing a more-structured piece with selected quotes plugged in where I saw fit. I enjoyed the challenge of finding the most enlightening exchanges about the longtime Silicon Valley founder and investor’s new venture ProRata and the state of AI in general out of 6,000-plus words of AI-generated transcript from my phone’s Google Recorder app (which I then checked by playing back the original recording).

Black Forest Labs aus Freiburg wurde in die Forbes AI 50 Liste 2026 aufgenommen. Das Start-up fokussiert sich auf Open-Source-Modelle für visuelle Generierung. Mit 450 Millionen US-Dollar Finanzierung ist es der einzige deutsche Vertreter neben finanziell dominierenden Akteuren wie OpenAI und Anthropic. #BlackForestLabs #ForbesAI50 #OpenSource #TechNews #News
https://www.all-ai.de/news/beitrage2026/forbes-top50-ai-liste-2026

Black Forest Labs hat den FLUX.2 Small Decoder veröffentlicht, der Entwicklern eine 1,4-fache Steigerung bei Speicherplatz- und Recheneffizienz bietet.

Das Modell halbiert die Parameterzahl auf 28 Millionen durch Reduktion der Kanalbreiten. Es steht unter Apache 2.0 Lizenz bei Hugging Face bereit und integriert sich nahtlos in bestehende Workflows der FLUX.2-Familie.

#BlackForestLabs #FLUX #OpenWeights #GenerativeAI #News
https://www.all-ai.de/news/news26/flux-small-decoder

Black Forest Labs stellt Self-Flow vor. Das Verfahren halbiert die Trainingszeit für generative KI.

Statt externer Modelle nutzt Self-Flow eine Exponential Moving Average Kopie des eigenen Modells als Lehrer. Der Fehlerwert wird zwischen aktueller Vorhersage und der internen EMA-Kopie berechnet. Das vereinfacht die Infrastruktur und senkt den FID-Wert. #BlackForestLabs #SelfFlow #GenerativeAI
https://www.all-ai.de/news/news26/blackforest-self-flow

@BlumeEvolution

Da kommt mir doch gleich heute noch ein weiteres Einhorn vorbeigetrabt - und wieder was gelernt:

„Als Einhörner bezeichnet man junge, noch nicht börsennotierte Unternehmen, die eine Bewertung von einer Milliarde US-Dollar erreicht haben.“ (c’t 5/2026, S. 124)

Mit dabei: #BlackForestLabs aus Freiburg, die das Bildgenerierungs-KI-Model #Flux ersonnen haben.

#Einhorn #KI

Flux.2 [max] integriert Echtzeit-Webdaten direkt in die Bildgenerierung. Damit sollen Halluzinationen bei historischen Details oder Wetterdaten minimiert werden. Im aktuellen Arena-Benchmark reicht es mit einem Elo von 1167 für Platz 3 hinter zwei Google Gemini Varianten. Die Abrechnung via Replicate läuft granular nach Megapixeln. Wird faktische Korrektheit wichtiger als der reine Elo-Score? #Flux2Max #BlackForestLabs #GenerativeAI
https://www.all-ai.de/news/top-news24/flux2-max

Adobe Wants to Make Editing AI Videos More Like Editing Real Videos https://petapixel.com/2025/12/16/adobe-wants-to-make-editing-ai-videos-more-like-editing-real-videos/ #artificialintelligence #blackforestlabs #adobefirefly #generativeai #topazlabs #Software #adobe #News #ai

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/12/01/black-forest-labs-hits-3-25b-valuation-pivots-to-visual-intelligence-with-series-b-xcxwbn/

#AI #GenAI #BlackForestLabs #VentureCapital #OpenSourceAI #VisualIntelligence #FLUX2 #MultimodalAI #AIReasoning

Black Forest Labs Hits $3.25B Valuation, Pivots to ‘Visual Intelligence’ with Series B

Black Forest Labs überholt Aleph Alpha:

- 300 Millionen Dollar Series-B von a16z.
- Bewertung steigt auf 3,25 Milliarden Dollar.
- Frontalangriff auf Google bei Video-AI.

Bleibt FLUX bei diesem Investorendruck open weights oder droht der Close? #BlackForestLabs #FLUX #GenerativeAI
https://www.all-ai.de/news/top-news24/flux-finanzierung-schwarzwald

Wie kann ein Unternehmen, dass in #Freiburg sein kleines Büro im 5. Stock hat (Ich konnte ja mal kurz ein Blick hereinwerfen, ja wirklich) eigentlich mehrere Milliarden wert sein?

#BlackForestLabs #AI #KI

https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/ki/unternehmen-black-forest-labs-jetzt-wertvollste-ki-firma-deutschlands/100171018.html?utm_campaign=feed-technologie&utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/11/25/black-forest-labs-launches-flux-2-reasoning-image-model-optimized-for-nvidia-rtx-gpus-xcxwbn/

Black Forest Labs Launches FLUX.2 ‘Reasoning’ Image Model Optimized for NVIDIA RTX GPUs

#AI #GenerativeAI #NVIDIA #BlackForestLabs #FLUX2 #AIImageGeneration #OpenSource #AIModels

Meta startet mit „Vibes“: KI-basierter Kurzvideo-Feed im Stil von TikTok
Meta hat einen neuen Kurzvideo-Feed namens Vibes vorgestellt. Die neue Funktion legt einen starken Fokus auf KI-generierte Inhalte und steht ab sofort im Meta AI-App und auf meta.ai zur Ver
https://www.apfeltalk.de/magazin/news/meta-startet-mit-vibes-ki-basierter-kurzvideo-feed-im-stil-von-tiktok/
#KI #News #Algorithmus #BlackForestLabs #InstagramReels #KI #Kurzvideo #Meta #Midjourney #SocialMedia #TikTok #Vibes

Photoshop Has Added Google’s Viral Nano Banana AI Model to Generative Fill https://petapixel.com/2025/09/26/photoshop-has-added-googles-viral-nano-banana-ai-model-to-generative-fill/ #Post-Processing #blackforestlabs #generativefill #googlegemini #Technology #nanobanana #tornadoes #GeminiAI #flux1 #News #flux

Meta kauft für 140 Mio. Dollar ein deutsches KI-Startup – nicht aus Heimatliebe, sondern aus Druck. Die eigene Bild-KI hinkt hinterher, der Wettbewerb zieht davon. Für die deutsche Tech-Szene ein starkes Signal, für Meta ein teurer Weckruf. Wer jetzt nicht investiert, verliert. #Meta #BlackForestLabs #KI 👇
https://www.all-ai.de/news/top-news24/meta-panik-flux

Meta Bets on ‘Buy Over Build,’ Inking $140M AI Image Deal with Black Forest Labs

#AI #AIImageGeneration #AIImages #Meta #BlackForestLabs #GenerativeAI #BigTech #TechDeals

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/09/10/meta-bets-on-buy-over-build-inking-140m-ai-image-deal-with-black-forest-labs-xcxwbn

Black Forest Labs Launches Specialized AI Image Model to Tackle Photorealism

#AI #BlackForestLabs #Flux1Krea #OpenSource #GenerativeAI #AIArt #AIImages

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/08/04/black-forest-labs-launches-specialized-ai-image-model-to-tackle-photorealism-xcxwbn

I’ve been having chats recently about how well #Europe is doing in the #AI field. I hear people saying how Europe is behind the times and there’s no chance of catching up. They even say we’re doomed. There’s no denying that Europe’s not exactly leading the way right now.

But don’t forget, there are some players who are pretty close too. Two of them teamed up: #MistralAI and #BlackForestLabs. You can use them ... https://blog.locational.network/2025/07/20/ive-been-having-chats-recently.html

FLUX.1 Kontext ist da – lokal, performant, offen. Ein Bildmodell mit 12 Mrd. Parametern, das auf deinem Rechner läuft. Endlich nicht mehr abhängig von Cloud-APIs. Doch wie offen ist „Non-Commercial“ wirklich? Was bedeutet das für dich als Entwickler oder Künstler? #BlackForestLabs #OpenSource #KI 👇
https://www.all-ai.de/news/top-news24/flux-kontext-dev

🎉🎨 BREAKING: Black Forest Labs releases FLUX.1 Kontext dev, proving that even AI models deserve a midlife crisis by shedding their proprietary chains! 🤯🔓 Now you too can experience "proprietary-level" mediocrity from the comfort of your own consumer hardware—just don't make any money with it. 💸❌
https://bfl.ai/announcements/flux-1-kontext-dev #BlackForestLabs #FLUX1 #AIrelease #OpenSource #ConsumerTech #MidlifeCrisis #HackerNews #ngated

New Black Forest Labs FLUX.1 Kontext AI Image Models Challenge Midjourney, OpenAI

#AI #GenAI #ImageEditing #AIart #BlackForestLabs #FLUXKontext #AItools #DigitalArt #AIModels

https://winbuzzer.com/2025/05/30/new-black-forest-labs-flux-1-kontext-ai-image-models-challenge-midjourney-openai-xcxwbn/

FLUX.1 Kontext: Neue Ära KI-basierter Bildbearbeitung made in Germany

• Kombiniert Text & Bild-Input
• Schnelle, präzise Bearbeitung
• Hohe Konsistenz bei Figuren
• Stilübertragungen in Sekunden
• Beta mit Open-Weights verfügbar

#ai #ki #artificialintelligence #blackforestlabs #flux1 #bildbearbeitung

Jetzt LIKEN, teilen, LESEN und FOLGEN! Schreib uns in den Kommentaren!

https://kinews24.de/flux-1-kontext-ki-bildbearbeitung-black-forest-labs/

Those FLUX models are really getting interesting.
So far, I have :
- a workflow to initiate initial images
- another uncontrollable one to create random but creative shit
- a last one to capture an idea from a picture and generate something close but with a much better size and level of details

This is awesome, and I feel that the prompts are more respected than Stable Diffusion / no offense.

Of course I'm using this for my next release "Temples".

#flux #blackforestlabs #aiart #mrteddybear

#Telekom nutzt für Marketing künftig generierte Bilder von #BlackForestLabs | heise online https://www.heise.de/news/Marketing-Telekom-will-generierte-Bilder-von-Black-Forest-Labs-nutzen-10279287.html #DeutscheTelekom #ArtificialIntelligence

Advanced Image Editing Suite Enhances FLUX.1 Capabilities 🎨

🎯 #BlackForestLabs launches #FLUX1 Tools suite with four key features: #Fill for state-of-the-art in/outpainting, #Depth for structural guidance, #Canny for edge-based control, and #Redux for image variations

🔬 All tools available in two versions: #opensource [dev] models on #HuggingFace and professional variants via #API

🏆 Benchmarks show FLUX.1 Tools outperforming competitors like #Ideogram and #Midjourney in respective categories

🤝 Models accessible through partners including #falai, #Replicate, #TogetherAI, #Freepik, and #kreai

💻 Complete documentation, weights, and inference code available on #GitHub

https://blackforestlabs.ai/flux-1-tools/

Flux AI Introduces Raw Mode That ‘Captures the Genuine Feel of Candid Photography’ https://petapixel.com/2024/11/07/flux-ai-introduces-raw-mode-that-captures-the-genuine-feel-of-candid-photography/ #aiimagegenerator #blackforestlabs #stablediffusion #Technology #flux1 #News #flux #raw

It's been a pretty insane week in the world of #AI. #Microsoft, #OpenAI, and #Google all had a ton of announcements and roll-outs.

Here's what I've collected so far:
- #Newsome vetoes SB-1047
- #Luma 10x's generation speed
- #Pika releases 1.5
- #Meta shows off their "Digital Twin Catalog"
- #Meta rolls out the new memory feature in the #RayBans
- #Microsoft brings back "Recall"
- #Microsoft shows off "Click to Do"
- #Microsoft #Windows uses #AI to search computer
- #Microsoft adding image upscaling & generative fill to #Windows
- #Microsoft explains #Copilots agentic future
- #Microsoft to pay news sources for summarizing their news
- #Microsoft intros "Think Deeper" and Vision
- #OpenAI secures huge new funding round
- #OpenAI rolls out model distillation
- #OpenAI rolls out prompt caching in the #API
- #OpenAI allows fine-tuning with vision
- #OpenAI makes real-time voice available in #API
- #OpenAI begins rolling out "Canvas"
- #OpenAI confirms agents are coming next year
- #Anthropic hires an #OpenAI co-founder
- #Google releases #Gemini 1.5 Flash-8B
- #Google updates search with more #AI
- #Google adding ads within new #AI overviews
- #Google #Lens accepts videos and voice now
- #BlackForestLabs releases #Flux 1.1 (aka Blueberry)
- #BlackForestLabs makes #API available
More..

Source: https://x.com/mreflow/status/1841942882628075534?s=19

⚠️ Die jüngste Partnerschaft zwischen Black Forest Labs und Elon Musks xAI für den Bildgenerator Flux.1 hat eine Kontroverse ausgelöst: Schockierend gewalttätige und bizarre Bilder, die mit Flux.1 erstellt wurden, darunter Darstellungen von Personen des öffentlichen Lebens in verstörenden Szenarien.

#AI #GenerativeAI #TechNews #EthicsInAI #BlackForestLabs #xAI #ElonMusk #Flux1
https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/ki/xai-kooperation-flux1-deutscher-ki-bildgenerator-dreht-mit-grok-frei/100059178.html

#Flux1 by #blackforestlabs interesting: a fast #AI image generator with no apparent issues with hands and fingers. Text generation also seems much more consistent than other models.

#Midjourney #DallE