Vanessa Hudgens Expecting 2nd Baby with Cole Tucker
'Round two!'
In the joint post, Vanessa is seen cradling her baby bump, while both she and Cole beam at the camera. The caption simply read: ' Round two!!!! '
View this post on Instagram
A post shared by 🔮Vanessa Hudgens🔮 (@vanessahudgens)
Their first baby arrived in July 2024, and the couple tied the knot in a private ceremony in Mexico back in December 2023.
A growing family
The big reveal comes right after Hudgens posted a birthday shoutout for Tucker, who just turned 29. The pair were all smiles and matching shades in the fun photo she shared.
And in case you forgot—Vanessa's been busy on the global stage too. She was named Global Tourism Ambassador to the Philippines in 2023.
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UAE Moments
7 hours ago
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Vanessa Hudgens Expecting 2nd Baby with Cole Tucker
is pregnant again! The Filipino-American actress and her husband, pro baseball player Cole Tucker, are officially expecting their second child —and they announced it with a sweet photo drop on Instagram. 'Round two!' In the joint post, Vanessa is seen cradling her baby bump, while both she and Cole beam at the camera. The caption simply read: ' Round two!!!! ' View this post on Instagram A post shared by 🔮Vanessa Hudgens🔮 (@vanessahudgens) Their first baby arrived in July 2024, and the couple tied the knot in a private ceremony in Mexico back in December 2023. A growing family The big reveal comes right after Hudgens posted a birthday shoutout for Tucker, who just turned 29. The pair were all smiles and matching shades in the fun photo she shared. And in case you forgot—Vanessa's been busy on the global stage too. She was named Global Tourism Ambassador to the Philippines in 2023.
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Mexican voice actors demand regulation on AI voice cloning
Mexican actors protested the growing threat artificial intelligence poses to their industry, calling on Sunday for better regulations to prevent voice cloning without consent. The rise of AI was a key issue in Hollywood's 2023 actors and writers' strikes, as creatives feared studios would use the technology to replace paid content. Last year, actor Scarlett Johansson accused tech firm OpenAI of imitating her voice for one of their chatbots. The company responded by modifying the tone. From the Monument to the Revolution in downtown Mexico City, dozens of audiovisual professionals held signs, including ones that read: "I don't want to be replaced by AI." "We are requesting that the voice be considered a biometric so that it is protected," Lili Barba, president of the Mexican Association of Commercial Announcements, told AFP. The 52-year-old actress, known for voicing Disney's Daisy Duck, referred to a video by the National Electoral Institute (INE) on TikTok. Released following the judicial elections on June 1, the video used the voice of the late actor Jose Lavat -- famous for the Spanish dubbing of stars like Robert De Niro and Al Pacino -- to thank citizens for voting. According to local media, Lavat's voice was used without his family's consent. "It's a major violation, and we can't allow it," said Barba. Actress Harumi Nishizawa, 35, said dubbing a character is "like embroidery." "As an artist, you can create certain tones, pay attention to nuances … observe the real actors' expressions and try to emulate what's happening on screen," she said. If no legislation is passed, she said voice dubbing done by humans "will disappear," at the expense of millions of artists' jobs. In March, Amazon's streaming platform Prime Video announced tests of an AI-assisted dubbing system, a technology also promoted by YouTube. Last month, South Korea's entertainment powerhouse CJ ENM -- behind the Oscar-winning film Parasite -- showcased an AI tool that combines visuals, audio and voice in one system while automatically generating consistent 3D characters. But human voice actors still have the edge, said Mario Heras, dubbing director for video games in Mexico. AI cannot make dialogue "sound funny, broken, off -- or alive," he said. The human factor, he added, "protects us in this rebellion against the machines."
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AI-generated band Velvet Sundown hit 1 million Spotify listeners, but is the music any good?
Under normal circumstances, Velvet Sundown would be a good news story. The band released three full-length albums only weeks apart, amassing more than a million monthly Spotify listeners, all while their tracks landed on popular mood-based playlists. At a time when few new rock bands are breaking through, their arrival stands out. There's only one complication – the band aren't real. At least, not in the traditional sense. There are no verified photos of all four members, no live shows, no interviews and no clear production credits. The backstory grew murkier on July 2 when an 'adjunct' member named Andrew Frelon told Rolling Stone that Velvet Sundown had used the generative AI platform Suno to create their songs, describing the project as an 'art hoax'. Three days later, the band's official Instagram and X accounts responded, initially denying Frelon's claims and stating that their identity was being 'hijacked', before confirming that the group is indeed AI-generated, but that they are 'not quite human, not quite machine'. But the point of this review isn't to play detective and spot the musical equivalent of the em dash. It's to ask, even if this music were made by machines, is it actually any good? Floating on Echoes and Dust and Silence and Paper Sun Rebellion feel less like distinct records and more like different sides of the same coin. At its algorithmic heart, Velvet Sundown is more a stylistic experiment than a creative expression. They evoke the warm, washed-out tones of 1970s Laurel Canyon folk – a hazy Americana sound informed by soft guitars, genteel percussion and warm ambience. The references are convincing. But as a listening experience, it wears thin fast. Take Dust on the Wind, currently the band's most-streamed track. It's laid-back, mellow and competently arranged. The bassline rolls along gently, the percussion shuffles lightly behind the guitars and the whole thing lands exactly where it should. While the song has a definite vibe, it's not enough if that's all there is. Drift Beyond the Flame and The Wind Still Knows Our Name follow similar patterns, and after a while, that sameyness starts to set in. And after 20 songs of this, the question stops being about whether they are real and more about why they don't make me feel anything? Part of the answer lies in the vocals. The singer (credited as Gabe Farrow) – or rather the simulated voice – is programmed to sound like a restrained crooner, somewhere between a diet Chris Cornell and Jeff Buckley, but without the risk. Every note falls exactly where it should, like Tetris blocks. Just when a vocal line is begging to be lifted or break slightly, it stops flat as if the air's been cut. You don't hear breath intake, strain or any of the human cracks that gives a performance its vulnerability. The voice never truly soars, and maybe, for now, it can't. The music across the trio of albums, all 39 songs in total, carries the same uniform restraint. The titles suggest emotional weight – End the Pain, Smoke and Silence and Drift Beyond the Flame – but the lyrics rarely move beyond generalities. While criticising an album for vague writing can feel like low-hanging fruit, it's harder to ignore when the genres referenced are built on a tradition of evocative lyrics that are often direct, searing or emotionally grounded. End the Pain promises catharsis but never builds towards anything. Smoke and Silence is filled with empty slogans (raise your voice, break the chain / sing for peace, end the pain), and Dust on the Wind, with its soft tone and strong melody, drifts through pastoral scenes without direction. Even in folk or Americana, genres often known for their ambience and intimacy, there's usually a sense of movement, of intriguing emotional drift. Think of Neil Young's 1970 album After the Gold Rush, a genre cornerstone whose songs sway between togetherness and dissonance. It features tracks such as Southern Man that bristle with urgency, and Don't Let It Bring You Down, which drifts between melancholy and resolve. Or take Joni Mitchell's 1971 album Blue, where A Case of You feels fragile and raw, like it could unravel at any moment. These songs and albums sound intimate, but never inherently inert. With Velvet Sundown, everything sounds nice, but nothing surprises. And for music made by a system designed to predict, maybe that's the only range it can currently produce. This is what makes the band's creator or creators' – they haven't been revealed – choice of genre strange. You'd think AI's full-throttled invasion into popular music would begin on more familiar terrain such as electronic dance music or hip-hop – music built on software, loops and programmed rhythm. But instead, Velvet Sundown is making guitar-based music, and those limits are clear. Rock, folk, Americana – are genres that rely on, or even revel in, human traits – timing that's slightly off, choruses that perhaps run too long and vocals that crack. They're messy in nature. For all the cliches about four chords and a chorus, guitar music works because it's imperfect. AI can sketch the outline, but it can't inject the feeling or attitude that pushes a song somewhere unexpected. Which brings us to the broader problem, not with Velvet Sundown, but with the ecosystem they're presently thriving in. Their success is less about the quality of AI replication and more about how streaming has reshaped what listeners value in music. Playlists used to be about exploration and discovery, and now they are seemingly about consistency. Mood-based curation, such as the unofficial Spotify playlist Good Mornings – Happily Positive Music to the Start the Day featuring Velvet Sundown, has flattened the sonic landscape to the point where a fake song can sit comfortably between works by real, era-defining artists such as The Beatles and Billie Eilish. The result is a listening culture increasingly valuing indistinction. Music becomes background and texture, not narrative or expression. The reported calls by artists and industry to flag or ban AI bands such as Velvet Sundown are understandable. But that's not the only answer. We don't need fewer AI bands, we just need more human ones. Artists who can create music that is, perhaps, as focused as Velvet Sundown's, but with the kind of idiosyncratic touches and emotional expression that only humans can conjure. It's those qualities, more than anything, that have a chance of breaking the algorithm.
