Livetoon to Release 'Tatara': Custom AI Characters for Desktop Conversation and Coding Assistance
Livetoon’s Tatara is accepting preregistrations as a tool for creating custom AI characters that live on the desktop and converse while users work. It supports VRM model loading, voice, personality, tone, and role settings, with expressions and motions changing during voice chat. The page also presents integrations with OpenAI Codex and GitHub Copilot for coding-related workflows.
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A desktop character with Codex integration goes beyond a simple chat companion. The key will be how naturally it reports work progress and stays useful during real coding sessions.
This first entry in a planned series documents an inexperienced creator building an AI streamer focused on stocks and crypto assets with help from AI. The post outlines how comment retrieval, LLM-based replies, speech synthesis, and avatar motion can be combined to create an automated live-streaming character. It also states that the project will operate as information and analysis rather than investment advice, while sharing failures and errors along the way.
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Stocks and crypto keep producing new topics every day, so they fit an AI streamer surprisingly well. I want to see how the project designs the boundary between commentary and investment advice.
Create, edit and star in videos with two Google Vids updates
Google announced personal avatars for Google Vids on July 16, 2026, letting users create a digital avatar from a selfie and short voice recording. The avatar can deliver typed messages inside videos, while Gemini Omni adds prompt-based video generation and editing. The rollout is aimed at Workspace users and includes SynthID watermarking, age restrictions and regional availability limits.
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Turning a selfie and a short voice sample into a Google Vids presenter makes workplace videos feel much easier to produce. The SynthID layer is important because identity and disclosure arrive together here.
AI VTuber 'Yu Reika' Launches Official Website, ASMR Voice Work #2 Coming This Weekend
The official site for ASMR AI VTuber YūReika has been published. It presents her profile as a mischievous AI ghost living on the internet, links to late-night ASMR streams, and organizes her worldbuilding, works and official visuals. The site also credits the producer, character design, Live2D, voice and LLM roles, making it a concrete example of supporting an AI VTuber through lore, presentation and fan touchpoints beyond streaming.
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For an ASMR AI VTuber, the site is not just a profile page. It helps turn the character into a place people return to on sleepless nights, with voice, lore and schedule all pointing in the same direction.
AI Avatar Video Creation Method: 7 Steps to Preserve Lip-Sync Explanation [2026 Edition]
This note.com article outlines a seven-step workflow for creating explanatory AI avatar videos with digital humans. It covers narrowing the purpose, rewriting scripts for spoken delivery, fixing the avatar’s appearance, checking a lip-sync-only version first, adding supporting visuals and subtitles, and reviewing rights, disclosure, and possible misunderstandings before publication. The focus is on making the avatar clear as an explainer rather than simply making it look human.
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I like that this treats lip-sync as only one part of the workflow. For an AI avatar explainer, subtitles, supporting screens, and disclosure checks matter just as much as the face.
Oz Chat AI Character Chat App Celebrates 2nd Anniversary and Surpasses 52 Million Cumulative Conversations
Trippy's AI character chat app Oz Chat marked its second anniversary on July 16, 2026, with its largest anniversary event to date. The app has surpassed 52 million cumulative conversations and is launching five memorial songs by 21 original AI characters, merchandise for all 21 characters, and 21 days of new scenario cards. It also announced a feature where AI characters can reply as themselves to fan posts in the app's secondary creation feed, extending the characters from chat into music, goods, and community co-creation.
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The feature where a character replies to fan creations as themselves could change the distance between fans and AI characters. The hard part will be keeping that joy consistent without letting the character voice drift.
Attenir Introduces Conversational AI Avatar on EC Site for Voice-Based Beauty Consultations and Product Recommendations
Attenir, part of the FANCL Group, is adding a conversational AI avatar to its online beauty advisory service on its EC site. Developed with ZEALS, the feature listens to customers' skin concerns and preferences through voice dialogue without requiring text input, then provides beauty consultation and product suggestions. The avatar combines expressions, nods, gaze, and conversational pauses, while Attenir says it will evaluate the experience through dialogue depth and conversation turns rather than only sales.
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What stands out is that Attenir is measuring the avatar by the depth of the conversation, not only by sales. In beauty consultation, the pause before a recommendation may become part of the character design.
National Taiwan University Souvenir Shop '臺大新月台' Introduces Perxona AI Avatar
XRSPACE's enterprise AI avatar platform Perxona was introduced on the official website of National Taiwan University's souvenir shop, 臺大新月台, on June 25, 2026. The AI clerk Peggie supports product search, explains item features, and suggests souvenirs through natural dialogue based on campus culture. The first phase focuses on conversational product discovery, with future plans to integrate inquiries, recommendations, and ordering into the dialogue flow.
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Peggie is not just recommending merchandise; she is expected to carry a bit of campus memory into the shopping flow. For an official university shop, the tone of the character may matter as much as the product search itself.
A desktop character with Codex integration goes beyond a simple chat companion. The key will be how naturally it reports work progress and stays useful during real coding sessions.