If you’ve listened to an audiobook or a narrated news article in the past year or so, there’s a chance it was created not by a human, but by AI software that mimics the sound of a human voice.

Some day soon or further off, synthetic narrators and actors might be commonplace and accepted without so much as a blink, but for now there is room for debate: What is lost and what is gained when a machine does the work of a human performer? Who should earn revenue when jobs like audiobook narration are outsourced to AI?

The co-founder of a San Diego software company called Yembo is wading into this quagmire with an unprecedented answer to an unprecedented scenario. Voice actors in San Diego and beyond are watching this approach to paying a human for AI-enhanced labor with interest and apprehension.

The scenario: Yembo’s co-founder wrote and self-published a book about AI, and an actor recorded the English audiobook last year and got paid for that recording time. Now her AI-cloned voice is being used to narrate 15 translations of that audiobook.

The narrator does not speak Swedish, Ukrainian and Turkish, but her voice does.

“US English is narrated by the flesh-and-blood Hailey, (the) rest is AI in her likeness,” Zach Rattner, the book’s author and publisher, and Yembo’s co-founder, wrote in an email.

Hailey refers to Hailey Hansard, the actor whose voice is being cloned. Through her contract, Hansard will be paid royalties for audiobooks in her voice, even though she did not narrate the book in any of those languages.

While AI narration of audiobooks and articles is increasingly prevalent, this may be the first instance of royalty payment for AI-cloned translations in the audiobook realm — a booming industry that is expected to reach $39 billion globally by 2033, according to market research company market.us.

“As far as I know, this audiobook project is the first one where the narrator gains royalties on a product that uses their AI likeness, but they didn’t create,” Rattner said. “It’s the first that I know of, and it was enough that when I tried to figure it out, I couldn’t find anything. We had to figure it out from scratch. There weren’t templates we could find.”

Sandra Conde, a San Diego actor whose likeness has been scanned into a generative AI gaming project, reviewed details from the contract and said it addresses the interests of publisher and voice actor in an uncharted, fast-shifting territory.

“It’s a new frontier kind of thing, where we don’t know what it’s going look like, even like two years from now, or a year from now,” Conde said.

Robert Sciglimpaglia, a Connecticut-based voice actor and entertainment attorney, said the contract is noteworthy because it is groundbreaking — touching upon audiobook narration, translation and AI.

“This is the wild, wild west,” he said. “The (actors’) union doesn’t have anything for (AI) translation that I know about.”

The contract matters because of what’s at stake: “This is a big issue in the audiobook world right now: whether you use human voices or use cloned voices. Because there are some audiobooks being done with AI, and narrators are trying to protect live narration — trying to protect their livelihood,” he said.

AI will without a doubt replace human narrators, he added.

“The question in my mind is how far is it going to go? Is it gonna take 50 percent of the business? 25 percent? 75 percent? 100 percent? That’s the question we should be asking,” Sciglimpaglia said.

Tim Friedlander, the president and co-founder of the National Association of Voice Actors, said this contract is significant, even if it’s just one example, because it allows for human narration to be replaced or supplemented by AI generated material.

“Any kind of instance where you have normalization of synthetic content, (the contract terms are) going to matter,” Friedlander said from Los Angeles.

Human actors, he added, have something over AI tools: their humanity — which lets them give nuanced readings based on lived experience, culture and context. Machines might try to mimic that, but they can’t interpret the words in a story or an essay in an authentic way, he said.

Kind of like the Robert Frost saying about poetry being lost in translation.

Rattner agrees. He did, after all, hire a human to record the English audiobook instead of using a cloned voice from the start. Just the translations are cloned.

“I mean, there are inflections. In the audiobook, she snickers and chuckles a couple of times. Like, you do lose something by being AI,” he said. But there are scenarios when AI makes sense, he said.

Will listeners care if a voice is human or synthetic?

That might depend on the book. Or the voice.

Help wanted: chromosomes optional

While actors have been paid for projects that record and recombine their voices for decades — Siri debuted in 2011, with a foreboding backstory around consent and compensation — the use of generative AI to clone voices is new and far more efficient, requiring just a small sample to create new material.

Ten years ago “you couldn’t do this — you would have had to have a voice actor and pay him for a month” to record a deep bank of sounds and words, said Sciglimpaglia, a member of SAG-AFTRA. “Now you can take a three minute sample and you can do anything you want with it. You can do an audiobook, a film, a TV show, you can put it in three different languages. It only takes a very small amount of data.”

The Atlantic magazine uses an AI narration plug-in, as does inewsource, a San Diego investigative news outlet. A cottage industry of AI text-to-speech narration services have proliferated: ElevenLabs, Podcastle, Speechify, Murf AI, Revoicer, Audiobook.ai and others.

Before this leap, acting and audiobook narration were harder to outsource. The price of labor may be cheap in Malaysia and Sri Lanka, but a California cadence is one thing they can’t manufacture. AI is a workaround: instead of farming out to people, use machines.

That’s why actors and other creative professionals see generative AI as an existential threat.

And that was why actors and writers clashed with studios in strikes last year, Sciglimpaglia said.

Should studios be allowed to scan actors’ faces and generate new material using those scans, or should they keep hiring humans even if synthetic actors — which don’t need bathroom breaks or paychecks — could replace them? And if studios do scan an actor’s features, can they pay just for that scan, or should they pay for the future or potential uses — uses that would have been fulfilled by the human actor?

The actors’ strike settlement allows for AI cloning, but set limits around future uses and added rules around compensation that better protect actors, Sciglimpaglia said.

There are about 100,000 working voice actors in the U.S., a conservative estimate, and around 80 percent of voiceover work is nonunion, Friedlander said.

Human and machine

Last summer, Rattner — who worked in software innovation at Qualcomm before co-founding Yembo — self-published a book called “Grow Up Fast: Lessons from an AI Startup.” It’s an entrepreneurship memoir about how he helped build Yembo, a company that uses a subset of AI called computer vision to make tools for the moving and insurance industries.

The book’s Spanish translation will be released this month, followed by Ukrainian and more than 10 other languages. All could come out within months — with time built in for tweaking and revising, Rattner said.

AI narration “definitely brings the barrier of entry down for people who wouldn’t have been able to get their message out,” he said.

He broke down the time and money costs of human and machine. The English audiobook took about four weeks to record. (Hansard could only record on weekends and her vocal cords needed breaks.) “Factoring in mastering, editing, QA listening, and retakes, I’d estimate the US English audiobook took about 65 man-hours of work across all parties to create,” he wrote.

Next, they used three hours of her book recording to train an AI tool called a speech synthesis model and used that model to create the other books in translation.

Not counting translation by humans (Rattner hired people to write translations, because “AI translation makes funky mistakes in unpredictable ways”), each AI audiobook narration takes five hours, with the bulk of that spent on quality assurance — weeding out mistakes like reading 2nd not as “second” but as “two-en-dee.”

The dollar difference is more staggering: A human narrator might charge a few hundred dollars per recording session or perhaps $2,500 for an audiobook, he estimated. The voice synthesis software costs $22 a month.

A fair contract

The narrator didn’t have to do extra work to create 15 translated books, but the publisher didn’t have to go out and hire 15 other narrators. When part of an audiobook’s production is outsourced to AI, what payment is fair to creator and publisher?

This contract, which Rattner shared with the Union-Tribune, attempts to minimize losses to one human worker while maximizing the benefits of AI, which for audiobook translations include expanded access to information. Every time a translation of “Grow Up Fast” sells, the narrator will earn money — even though she never recorded in those other languages. So will the publisher, who used AI to narrate translations at a fraction of the cost of using a human actor.

—Hansard was paid $500 per four-hour day of studio recording and gets 10 percent royalties on translated works that use her cloned voice. Payments are quarterly over a 10-year term.

—Her cloned voice can only be used for this book’s translations. Other uses require a new license.

—The narrator gets 30 days to review the product, including translations, and ask for edits before it goes live.

—The publisher can sell the book at any price and do giveaways.

One section covers labeling. “The use of AI must be disclosed in product markings,” Rattner said. This way, readers or listeners will know if the audiobook was “Narrated by Hailey Hansard” or “In the voice of Hailey Hansard.”

Other actors who reviewed the contract’s key points called it “encouraging” and said it appears generally fair to both parties, though some shared reservations.

All agreed the narrator should get royalties. The publisher is making a greater profit by using AI instead of human actors, and future narrators are losing out on potential income because of AI, Sciglimpaglia said.

“They just have one person to read in one language and they can use a machine to convert it for nothing,” he said.

Friedlander likes that the contract addresses consent, control, compensation and transparency. But he said even an equitable contract raises questions about precedent being set.

“This one voice actor gets to do all of these different languages,” he said. He mentioned the “damage it’s done to all of the other narrators who would have done this, in those different languages.”

Some day there might be “a handful of four or five narrators who become the voice of everything,” he said. Audiobooks in particular are “one of the places that a lot of people get their start” in voice acting. If the norm becomes synthetic voices, how will those new people get started, he asked.

Conde wondered why royalties stop after 10 years. “Does the contract drop off and her voice can be used anywhere?” she asked. “I would be worried about what happens after the 10-year clause.”

Wendy Hovland, a San Diego voice and on-camera actor, said the time limit can help the narrator renegotiate. She also said the publisher “appears to be working openly with her, to tell her how it’s going to be used and come up with a way to compensate that works for both parties.” Voice actors don’t always get that, she said.

“That is a big issue: voices being — I don’t know if ‘stolen’ is the right word, but used in a way that was not originally intended. Voice actors thought they were voicing one thing and found out that their voices are used for something else,” she said.

Hansard feels “very protected” by the contract because it forbids other uses for her cloned voice without her OK.

“Like other actors and creators, I do worry about being exploited by AI. But this particular agreement was win-win. Zach was very receptive to taking care of all of the concerns I had,” Hansard said.

AI audiobook as proof of concept

To understand why Rattner prioritized creating a fair contract with the narrator — what’s it in for Yembo — it helps to understand what Yembo sells. Yembo’s software scans the insides of homes and creates inventories and 3D models for moving, storage and insurance reconstruction estimates.

The biggest challenge to signing new customers has not been competitors but resistance to change, Rattner said. In an industry where using a typewriter is still feasible — as one moving company he encountered does — how will they trust new technology, whether or not it’s AI? If things have worked fine for decades, why risk it?

His solution: prove that AI can be used for more than profit.

“I find the business arrangement just as interesting as the book itself. I … think it’s an interesting story about how AI can be used for good, especially with all the anxiety around AI actors,” Rattner wrote .

“AI allows for economic value to be tied to the output created, not the effort exerted (e.g., time for dollars),” he added.

Rattner said he wouldn’t have pursued the foreign language narrations without AI, given that his job is running a tech startup and not a publishing house. He found the narrator from within Yembo’s ranks: Hansard is a product manager employed by Yembo and a former professional actor. She is SAG-eligible, but not a union member.

“The alternative (to AI) was nothing,” he said. By nothing, he explained, he meant no translations and no hiring narrators in various languages.

In an interview from Los Angeles, Hansard talked about the uncanniness of hearing her vocal clone. This is her first audiobook, both in English and in translation.

“It’s almost jarring to hear my voice speaking languages that I’ve never spoken before, but also amazing that this possibility exists,” she said.

She was comfortable with the project because she was assured it was not taking work from others.

“I think the best outcome would be that AI doesn’t replace human actors or human voices,” Hansard said. “It only supplements if it wouldn’t have been possible without it.”

She continued, “I think that’s where everyone is going to have to reach into their humanity to make sure that AI doesn’t replace humanity. That it only enhances — if something wasn’t going to be possible, then it fills the gap.”

©2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The nation’s first all-electric tug boat has docked at the Port of San Diego and expects to begin emissions-free operations in about a month.

Operated by Crowley Maritime Corporation, the 82-foot eWolf will escort ships entering and leaving the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal using electric power instead of diesel fuel, helping slash greenhouse gas emissions at the port and its neighbors in Barrio Logan and National City.

“This is a big deal,” said port chairman Frank Urtasun at a news conference Monday. “This is new technology.”

Capable of speeds of up to 12 knots, the eWolf is powered by a 6.2 megawatt-hour main propulsion battery and two electric drives. The tug has thrust — also known as bollard pull in the parlance of the shipping industry — of 76.8 short tons, which is more powerful than the diesel-powered counterparts at the port.

Constructed in Alabama, the eWolf is equipped with two small generators for emergency use that allow the boat to travel longer distances at a reduced speed.

“Like an electric car, you step on the gas and it jumps,” said Paul Manzi, vice president of Crowley Shipping, based in Jacksonville, Fla. “All of the attributes that you have with an electric motor operation in a car or in an electric truck, you see here in the (eWolf) at massive scale. And it’s extremely quiet so when it pulls away from the dock you literally won’t hear any noise.”

The tug boat’s electricity will come from a charging station that is part of a microgrid facility equipped with two energy storage containers. Battery modules in each container have storage capacity of nearly 1.5 megawatt-hours.

Interconnected with the help of San Diego Gas & Electric, the charging station at the port is designed to allow the vessel to recharge quickly and reduce peak loads on the electric grid.

Operators plan to charge the eWolf overnight so it can perform its chores during daytime hours.

“This technology has individually been around for a while, but it hasn’t necessarily been integrated and optimized to all work together — and that’s kind of our role,” said Bruce Strupp, vice president at ABB Marine & Ports, the company that designed the boat’s propulsion system. “Some of the technology is our technology, some of it’s third-party technology, but we integrate it all together.”

The electric tug boat is expected to begin commercial operations at the port in mid- to late-April, depending on the completion of the charging station.

But, Manzi said, the company expects the eWolf’s maintenance and operating costs will be “dramatically lower” than what’s spent on a diesel-powered tug boat because the electric model has fewer moving parts.

The federal government also contributed a $17.8 million grant to the project.

In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order that directed state agencies to transition off-road vehicles — including tug boats — and equipment to 100 percent zero emissions by 2035.

By replacing one of the port’s diesel-powered tugs, the eWolf is expected to eliminate the consumption of about 35,000 gallons of diesel fuel per year. In its first 10 years of use, the electric tug boat is expected to reduce about 3,100 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the port and its surrounding areas such as Barrio Logan and National City.

“We’re trying to be good neighbors and trying to be able to help to reduce emissions here to help the electrification movement,” Urtasun said, adding that the port has spent about $130 million on various electrification projects.

Last year, the Port of San Diego became the first in North America to install a pair of all-electric cranes to load and off-load heavy cargo. Each 262 feet high, the cranes replaced an older crane that ran on diesel fuel. Together, the cranes expect to help the port reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 47 metric tons per year.

©2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Stay tuned. The San Diego Zoo’s Panda Cam might be coming back for a new season.

Giant pandas — the hugely popular beloved symbols of China which haven’t been here since 2019 — could be headed back to San Diego. That bit of news came in a speech by Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday night after he met with President Joe Biden in San Francisco, and the leaders pledged to reduce tensions.

Xi signaled that pandas — which he called “envoys of friendship between the Chinese and American peoples” — could be sent to a zoo in California. He did not share any details on when such a transfer might occur.

“We are ready to continue our cooperation with the United States on panda conservation, and do our best to meet the wishes of the Californians so as to deepen the friendly ties between our two peoples,” Xi said during a dinner speech with business leaders. He said he learned the San Diego Zoo and people in California “very much look forward to welcoming pandas back.”

The announcement by China’s leader was a welcomed surprise to zoo officials.

“We are excited to hear of President Xi’s commitment in continuing the giant panda conservation efforts between our two countries, and his attention to the wish of Californians and the San Diego Zoo to see the return of giant pandas,” Paul Baribault, president and CEO of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, said in a statement.

“Conservation starts with people, and our team is committed to working with our partners to welcome the next generation of giant pandas to our zoo, continuing our joint efforts in wildlife conservation, and inspiring millions worldwide to protect the planet we all share.”

The development came just days after the Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s three giant pandas — Mei Xiang, Tian Tian and their cub Xiao Qi Ji — left Washington for China. With their departure, only four pandas are left in the U.S., all at the Atlanta Zoo. That loan is set to expire in late 2024, which would send those pandas back to China, too, the zoo has said.

San Diego Zoo officials had little to share about the development. There’s no agreement, no timeline — it’s much too early for any of that. “We will continue to engage with our Chinese partners,” a spokesperson said.

If giant pandas return, zoo officials may have to shuffle some animals around to accommodate them. Their habitat is now home to several red pandas.

San Diego has a long history with pandas — and if history is a guide, a return of the roly poly black-and-white animals would prove to be very popular.

This would be the third time China has loaned giant pandas to the San Diego Zoo — first in 1987 for a six-month period when Basi and Yuan Yuan were sent. A record 3.8 million people visited the zoo that year.

Then in 1996, two more pandas, Bai Yun and Shi Shi, came as part of a breeding loan under a panda research program. Bai Yun and Shi Shi produced a cub, Hua Mei, who became a worldwide celebrity as millions tuned into the zoo’s “panda cam” to watch her grow. She was the first American-born panda to survive into adulthood and was relocated to the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in China in 2004. Shi Shi was replaced by Gao Gao in 2003, and he fathered five more cubs in San Diego.

Other U.S. zoos also have had pandas. The National Zoo received its first pandas from the Chinese in 1972 — Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing — after President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China. Ling Ling had five cubs but none survived. In 2000, the National Zoo received two more pandas, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, under a 10-year cooperative research and breeding agreement which was subsequently renewed three times. Mei Xiang gave birth to seven cubs, four that survived.

National Zoo officials plan to continue their research and conservation work in China and hope to have giant pandas at the zoo in the future, a spokesperson said.

Giant pandas were on the endangered species list for more than 25 years, but in 2017, the International Union for Conservation of Nature downgraded their status from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on its global list of species at risk of extinction after the number of pandas in the wild increased after years of decline. There are an estimated 1,800 in the wild, according to the National Zoo.

Dan Ashe, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said this week’s development was good news on many fronts— not only for zoo visitors who enjoy seeing pandas, but for relations between the two countries. China’s practice of giving or loaning pandas to other countries has come to be known as “panda diplomacy.”

“Pandas in U.S. zoos reflect a positive, healthy relationship between our two countries,” he said. “And the work that has been done on conservation has been amazing — five decades of cooperation and unlike many species, pandas are doing better as a result of it. It is good all the way around.”

So San Diego is again on Panda Watch? Somebody call Ron Burgundy.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Karen Kucher is a staff writer and editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune. She has covered everything from county government and higher education to animal issues and wildfires. These days she focuses on breaking news and public safety issues. Karen is a native San Diegan and graduate of the University of Southern California.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a speech recently that the central bank would stamp out rapid inflation “until the job is done” despite a dropping inflation rate.

While inflation has been lowering, he said officials want to see more progress to convince them that they are truly bringing price increases under control.

“We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective,” he said.

Critics have argued raising interest rates tamper economic growth and the Fed’s strategy so far isn’t working.

Q: Is the Federal Reserve correct in considering additional rate hikes?

Jamie Moraga, Franklin Revere

YES: Additional rate hikes could be warranted if they reduce higher prices for goods and services and get inflation back to the 2 percent goal. The Fed should be careful how much they raise rates to avoid over-tightening and worsening our economic situation. They should also ensure high-interest rates aren’t prolonged, which can affect mortgages, credit cards, and loans (including personal, student, auto, and business), resulting in long-term economic impacts.

David Ely, San Diego State University

YES: While inflation has declined over the past year, common measures of headline and core inflation are still above the Fed’s target of 2 percent. Labor markets are still relatively strong and the likelihood of a recession has diminished, factors that could maintain upward pressure on prices. It is best that the Fed not take another rate hike off the table. This stance signals the Fed’s strong commitment to bringing inflation back to its target.

Ray Major, SANDAG

YES: Increasing rates is one of the few tools the Federal Reserve can use to control inflation. Maintaining a target of 2 percent or lower is crucial for people to build and maintain wealth. The Federal Reserve should take action and do what it can to reach that goal. Additionally, curtailing some of the $5 trillion annual spending would help the nation reach the target even faster and without requiring additional increases in interest rates.

Caroline Freund, University of California-San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy

YES: A key principle of good monetary policy is to have a tightening bias when the economy is running hot. Although there are some signs of cooling, the economy remains pretty hot, with unemployment at 3.5 percent and a consumer spending spree that continues to surprise on the upside. The Fed wants to avoid moving too far, too fast, pushing the U.S. into recession. But taking hikes off the table now would be unnecessarily restrictive. Watching the incoming data, acting if warranted, and retraining credibility is the right approach.

Kelly Cunningham, San Diego Institute for Economic Research

YES: The Fed should continue raising interest rates because inflation is still here, the U.S. credit rating was recently downgraded (only the second time in history), and status as the global reserve currency remains seriously threatened. Henry Hazlitt once said, “Inflation, always and everywhere, is primarily caused by an increase in the supply of money and credit.” The resulting inflationary boom results in readily apparent in bad investments. Necessary corrections and adjustments must occur for healthy economic activity to fully return.

Phil Blair, Manpower

YES: Unfortunately. Price stability is needed to sustain strong labor market conditions forward. The Fed is trying to walk a line between doing too much and too little. Doing too little could allow high inflation to become entrenched and ultimately require a strong monetary policy to fight persistent inflation at a painful cost to employment.

Gary London, London Moeder Advisors

NO: I think it is time to pause interest rate increases. Hiring is down, economic growth is down and inflation, while not down to the targeted (and perhaps unnecessary) 2 percent, is dramatically down. The economy has cooled to more desired levels, muting for the moment concerns about inflation. We are not in recession. Gas and grocery prices seem to be the most inflated, however, and that remains the focus of consumer dissatisfaction.

Alan Gin, University of San Diego

NO: One of the biggest contributors to inflation is the category “Rent of Shelter,” which is up 7.8 percent year-over-year. Given its weight in the Consumer Price Index, that category is responsible for 2.7 percent of the current level of inflation. Remove that and the inflation rate is within the Fed’s target. Some economists argue that higher interest rates contribute to rental inflation by forcing potential buyers to rent instead of buying housing. Landlords may also raise rents to cover higher financing costs.

Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates

NO: The Fed should hold rates at current levels as inflation has retreated from a 40-year high last summer. Raising rates further will put us in danger of a recession as past increases will continue to weaken the economy. It will become more expensive and harder for companies and individuals to borrow. The most prudent thing to do is wait and see what impact all the record increases to date have had.

James Hamilton, University of California-San Diego

YES: But I hope they don’t have to follow through. Changes in monetary policy take some time to affect the economy. Inflation has been coming down as a result of the steps the Fed started taking last year. If inflation continues to fall, no further rate hikes will be needed. But if we do not continue to make additional progress with inflation, later this year the Fed will need to consider another hike.

Austin Neudecker, Weave Growth

NO: The impact of their past rate increases has not yet been fully realized. I think signaling that the Fed is willing to do more rate increases is prudent in terms of controlling sentiment. However, I hope that they only execute on the threat if the economy shows sustained or increasing inflation. I would rather have a few percent of additional inflation for a couple of months than create a recession, job losses.

Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health

YES: There are parallels between today’s environment and the late 1970s when we had to decide whether to keep fighting inflation with higher rates or to relent. Back then, the Fed dropped short-term rates based in part on promising initial data. Within a year, inflation went up, approaching nearly 15 percent annually; the Fed had to raise rates even higher. Powell’s focus on ensuring there isn’t a “second wind” in inflation is unfortunately backed by historical precedence.

Norm Miller, University of San Diego

NO: The Federal Reserve is too anchored to an arbitrary 2 percent target as if it were some magical fulcrum of a balancing act. Inflation is coming down and Powell admitted that real estate has a lagged impact on the CPI that will certainly bring the measurement down, closer to the target, in the months ahead. While the economy is doing well this year, based on statistics to date, job openings are rapidly declining and we should be fearful of over-tightening.

©2023 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

In June, Jonah Villamil hopped on a surfboard with two legs for the first time in three years. He was testing the water with a new, 3-D-printed prosthetic leg.

Jonah calls it his “DNA leg” because of its twisty structure.

“There’s a bunch of lines on it that (the water will) just go through,” said the 12-year-old from Chula Vista. “Also, it wasn’t like weighing me down so much.”

It’s not the first time he’s tried a prosthetic leg. But it was the first time he’s played in the ocean with a leg made by Limber Prosthetics and Orthotics, a startup out of UC San Diego that’s gaining financial backing.

The company’s below-the-knee prosthetics are made using an iPhone app that scans the patient’s limbs. Then, that data is sent to a 3-D printer where Limber can produce a precise, customized prosthetic leg faster than traditional methods.

“I think one of the reasons why I fell in love with this specific project is there’s a really tangible, direct impact — that’s sometimes difficult to get with other industries,” said Joshua Pelz, co-founder and CEO of Limber. “You might work in another industry and you might impact a lot of lives. But it may not be as tangible as giving someone a device that allows them to get back on their feet and get back to their life.”

The idea for the Limber UniLeg was born in the spring of 2019 in a classroom at UCSD. The assignment was to use technology in the lab, such as digital design programs and 3-D printing, to solve a world problem.

Approximately 40 million people in developing countries live as amputees and only 5 percent have access to prosthetic care, according to the World Health Organization. Part of the issue is that traditional prosthetic limbs are crafted by hand, so the cost and time required for care is inaccessible to a lot of people.

Pelz was working toward his doctorate in engineering, when he met his Limber co-founders Luca De Vivo Nicoloso and Herb Barrack. De Vivo Nicoloso was also a doctoral student in engineering while Barrack, a certified prosthetist and orthotist with nearly two decades of experience, was helping students as a subject matter expert.

They built the first Limber UniLeg prototype alongside their professor, using a combination of materials that are stronger than everyday plastic, but allow the leg to maintain varying levels of stiffness and flexibility.

The swirled, single-body design of the Limber leg doesn’t just look cool, but it was modeled after the lightweight durability of a chollas cactus. De Vivo Nicoloso studied the plant’s structure as part of his doctoral engineering thesis and applied its ability to withstand high desert winds to the Limber UniLeg.

Unlike a conventional prosthetic limb, which is made with multiple components and tons of little metal screws, the Limber UniLeg is one piece.

Barrack, who serves as Limber’s chief medical officer, has been making regular trips to Ensenada, Mexico, for more than 20 years to help amputees who can’t afford prosthetic care. A couple of years ago, the Limber founders brought their prototype on one of these trips and managed to deliver prosthetic limbs to the community.

For Pelz and De Vivo Nicoloso, the trips to Ensenada solidified their need to turn this class project into a sustainable business that makes prosthetics more accessible.

“It was staring us in our eye when we fitted our first patients outside the classroom that we realized that ‘wow, if we really can do this at scale, we will be able to help millions of people,’” said De Vivo Nicoloso, who serves as Limber’s chief financial officer.

Limber officially launched in 2020.

Like so many innovations throughout history — from the Etch A Sketch to the Dyson vacuum — the company started in someone’s garage. The first couple of Limber 3-D printers were built in Pelz’s garage.

“It’s just been kind of grinding, pedal to the floor, going as hard as we can, working on weekends to bring this thing into reality because it needs to be improved,” Pelz said. “It’s a global crisis and we’ve been able to see it firsthand. And we’re very excited about being able to make a difference.”

The grinding has paid off.

Remarkably, Limber is garnering funding in a high-interest-rate environment where venture capital isn’t flowing into startups like it was earlier in the pandemic.

In May, Limber took home the top prize from the San Diego Angel Conference, an annual gathering of hundreds of early stage companies and investors from across the country. That first-place title also came with a $263,000 investment that has continued to grow.

Most recently, UC San Diego invested $250,000 in Limber. To date, Limber has raised approximately $1.2 million.

The money will help Limber invest in building more 3-D printers to increase its capacity and move into a bigger lab space off-campus. It will also finance clinical trials for the device, submitting an application to the FDA and its ultimate goal of launching a commercial product next year.

Limber currently has three printers and plans to build five more by the end of this year. Pelz said the goal for 2024 is to sell 200 legs in the United States. They are still figuring out a plan for international expansion.

To date, Pelz said Limber has fitted 36 patients who have a range of activity levels and spanning ages 3 to 75 years old.

The need to build up more capacity became even clearer last summer after Limber received a ton of media attention for bringing five prosthetic limbs to Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the war against Russia. While the founders continue their trips to Mexico and envision helping people in developing countries with their products, the company’s main focus right now is on building a sustainable business model in the United States.

“This is not only for people in need,” De Vivo Nicoloso said. He added that the device is not a “cheap alternative” to traditional prosthetics, but just another way to improve the quality of life for patients and how clinicians make prosthetics.

Limber is not a direct, patient-facing business. Instead, the company offers its digital design and manufacturing support to clinics that fabricate prosthetics. Limber is still developing its network of certified clinics and has yet to determine a price for the UniLeg and whether it will be covered by insurance in part or completely.

It’s not a perfect, one-size-fits-all solution for anyone with a prosthetic limb, said Jesus Mendoza, a local certified prosthetist and orthotist, who referred Jonah to Limber. Mendoza is a longtime friend of Barrack, one of the Limber founders, and he noted the benefits of the design for certain use cases.

For someone like Jonah — who needed his left leg amputated in 2020 after a sudden infection put him in the hospital — it’s given him another option to maintain his active lifestyle.

Jonah’s love of sports, like wrestling, basketball and jiu-jitsu, is what motivated him to embrace being active with a prosthetic limb. He’d been asking Mendoza for a “water leg” because he loves to surf and go on hikes with his family.

“Jonah, I just knew that he is a champion so whatever we did, he was going to make it better,” said Mendoza, whose family business ABI P&O has been helping people who need prosthetic limbs for nearly 30 years.

Mendoza works with a lot of pediatric patients like Jonah and pointed out a benefit of the Limber system. Clinicians need to make frequent adjustments to prosthetics, especially for kids who are constantly growing and changing. Mendoza said he likes that he can take precise measurements with the Limber technology and track any changes digitally, which also helps him justify those frequent changes with medical providers and insurance.

He explained that traditionally prosthetists make plaster cast impressions of patients, take manual measurements and modify everything by hand. Now, those processes are progressively digitizing across the industry. Mendoza added that the integration of digital software isn’t unique to Limber, but the startup is streamlining the workflow.

Mendoza said he is also hopeful about Limber’s potential to offer a more accessible option for patients — no matter what level of insurance coverage — who need prosthetic limbs. For instance, he said the adoption of individual 3-D printed components in prosthetics has been shown to cost less than some traditionally manufactured parts that can cost thousands of dollars.

Below-the-knee prosthetics can cost from $5,000 to $15,000, but prices really vary depending on insurance coverage and based on different device brands, Mendoza explained.

Since Limber is still in its early stages, there’s more testing to be done on the durability to see what applications it could work for, Mendoza said. In the end, it also comes down to patient preference for how different prosthetics feel when they talk with their clinician.

“I don’t think this is the right leg for everybody,” he said. “But I think it’s going to be part of the clinician and the doctors’ decision-making of who’s going to be a good candidate for this, but it’s definitely gonna add more to our toolbox and patients’ options.”

When Jonah first tried on the UniLeg at the Limber lab, he raced up four flights of stairs, skipping every other step, alongside his brothers. He had just been fitted with the new, 3-D printed prosthetic leg less than an hour before.

“It looked natural on me,” he said, adding how much lighter it felt than his traditional prosthetic leg.

For Jonah, getting fitted for a prosthetic leg from Limber helped him get back in the ocean.

His mom, Rhodalyn Villamil, was overwhelmed seeing him carrying his surfboard to the water on his own. He was born during the summer, so he’s always been a “water boy,” she said.

“It was good for me,” Jonah said. “Like just knowing that I’ll be able to use that a lot more than just walking around since it is just plastic. I won’t have to clean it that hard because also there’s just a bunch of ridges, which is very easy to clean and I’ll be able to surf and swim with it and not have to take off my leg.”

Mexican authorities claim that although this is a long-standing problem, they have recently found support from concerned citizens serving as additional eyes on what is considered to be one of the busiest borders in the world.

Last week, a citizen’s report allowed authorities to rescue a puppy that was for sale in the vehicle lanes.

Iván Bringas, an inspector who was just starting his shift, took care of the puppy for a few hours while Tijuana Animal Control authorities were notified. That time was enough for him to want to keep the puppy.

“The puppy was a little nervous and overheated,” Bringas recalled. “It seems outrageous to me how they keep them there at the border, they have them in bags and that’s how they carry them around when they are selling them.”

It isn’t the first time Bringas has rescued dogs from the port of entry, but it is the first time he felt a special connection. He asked his supervisors if he could adopt it, and he did.

The perhaps 2-month-old puppy was named Volpi after the popular Brazilian goalkeeper of the Mexican soccer team Toluca, of which Bringas is a loyal fan.

In Tijuana it is prohibited “to buy and sell animals on public streets,” according to the animal protection regulations.

But it still happens almost every day, authorities said. “There is no doubt that there are people who have good intentions when buying the dogs,” said Bringas. “The thing is they are promoting this type of sale. I would advise to file a report instead.”

Bringas thinks that sellers choose the border-crossing lanes due to their high concentration of people. Given that crossing to the United States can take hours, it is easier to approach people and try to make a sale.

According to authorities and animal rights organizations, the dogs are regularly sold for $50 to $400 each. And when salespeople are caught in the act, they usually abandon the animals and flee to avoid being sanctioned.

Earlier this month following another citizen complaint, authorities rescued eight puppies that were intended to be sold. Two were taken to the Animal Control office, but since that office closes earlier on Saturdays, the area’s lead inspector took the rest home to take care of them over the weekend.

Claudia Guadalupe de la Torre, head of inspection and verification at the San Ysidro checkpoint, said she had a “crush” on a pug-mix puppy she ended up adopting. “It started giving me kisses as thanks that we had taken it out of that situation,” she said.

“When my daughters saw her they burst out crying, complaining about how it was possible that they were kept in such conditions,” she added. The puppy was named Pancha.

De la Torre, with support from other public officials, looked for homes for the other five puppies. By Monday they all had homes.

De la Torre said that the regulations were updated a few years ago and it is now possible to fine those who sell animals illegally, and if necessary, file charges in cases of animal abuse.

Since the beginning of the current municipal administration in 2021, 20 fines have been issued to dog sellers at the Mexican side of the port of entry.

The community can report the illegal sale of pets through the WhatsApp number +52 (664) 616-3339, or on the Facebook page of Tijuana City Hall. Authorities also recommend doing it directly with a Mexican inspector at the checkpoint if one is around.

Once the animals are taken into custody, they are sent to the Animal Control office, where they receive treatment and are then put up for adoption.

Juan Esteban Domínguez, head of Tijuana Animal Control, said that many of the dogs arriving from the border are sick, either with parvovirus or distemper, or are affected by spending too much time in the sun. For them, a foster home is sought while they are put up for adoption. They also work with civil organizations.

He noted that in the present administration there are more animals arriving to animal shelters, but there has also been increased outreach so that people can adopt pets. “Many (dogs) arrive, but more are also being adopted,” he said.

In Tijuana, more than 1,000 animals have been rescued in the last two years, either for illegal sale or mistreatment, said Michel García, inspection and verification coordinator.

The group Abogados Animalistas México, founded in 2009, also sent a message to the community.

“As long as we are generating demand there is going to continue to be business for animal exploiters,” said founder Carmen Villarreal Alberich. “We see a very cute puppy in front of us, but we forget that behind it there are clandestine breeders in terrible conditions.”

Villarreal said they have received reports of some dogs that were sold sick and once they arrived to their new home on the other side of the border they infected other animals.

They have also found that some dogs were sold along with vaccination certificates that they consider to be of suspicious origin.

A spokesperson with Customs and Border Protection reminded border-crossers of requirements to bring dogs into the U.S.: “For dogs, they should have had their rabies shots three months before entering, and the puppies must be 3 months old to receive the shots, making them 6 months of age.”

However, the spokesperson added that because Mexico does not have a high risk of canine rabies, the age requirement is not enforced.

On the same Saturday that authorities sheltered eight puppies, Villareal’s organization received reports of at least 20 more that were seen for sale at the border, she said.

Villarreal said she hopes for more coordination with police so that the sellers are arrested and punished.

And for those looking to adopt dogs: “There are excellent organizations in Tijuana that are continuously rescuing, rehabilitating and giving up for adoption beautiful animals that are longing to arrive with a responsible family,” she added.

Most big movie studios dropped out as strikes have ground Hollywood to a halt. Yet interest in San Diego Comic-Con persists. It’s hard to imagine now, but the nation’s most popular comic book convention — San Diego Comic-Con International — did not have its first sellout until 2007.

The pop culture phenomenon seems almost quaint nowadays when viewing a YouTube video of Marvel Studios in 2006 trying to sell itself to the crowd. Studio chief Kevin Feige was in a small room with a simple cardboard Iron Man poster as a prop. After that year, Marvel and many other major studios changed tactics and blasted onto the stage with polished, bombastic presentations that seemed to get bigger with every return visit.

The growth of Comic-Con into a Hollywood juggernaut happened rapidly, even Steven Spielberg had to show up in 2011, and it seemed like no new TV show or movie — no matter how little it had to do with comic book culture — dared miss the convention. To many, it felt like no expense was spared for two decades as the biggest actors graced panels and had over-the-top promotions.But some of that glitz is gone this year.

This 54th annual San Diego Comic-Con will feel a bit more like the old days of comic conventions, though it was likely not what organizers had envisioned. A joint strike by actors and screenwriters in Hollywood means almost all major studios are skipping this year. Some had decided not to attend even before the actors union’s decision on Thursday. The result: There will be virtually no one to go on stage in front of the 6,500-person crowd in Hall H. There were a few studios, like Prime Video, that were still committed to big panels — but even they had canceled everything by Friday morning.

It almost feels like the mid-1990s again, with comic book creators taking up bigger rooms than they had last year, TV shows with cult followings getting ready to shine and a lot of promotions for things the general public might not have any idea about.

As of now, there will likely be no change in what the average San Diegan sees each year if they venture downtown: Advertisements wrapped around buildings, tons of free installations and more than 135,000 attendees. Hotels that have spoken with The San Diego Union-Tribune haven’t reported any cancellations and the convention is still sold out, with four-day adult passes going for $1,450 and up on resale site StubHub.

Longtime attendees and fans say nothing could stop them from going, and insist there is more to Comic-Con than just Hollywood studios. Ashley Eckstein, the voice actress of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars animated projects since 2008, said she doesn’t think you can write Comic-Con off, even if Marvel, HBO, DC, Sony and others aren’t there. If anyone would know, it’s her. Eckstein has been a fixture at conventions since 2007, not just for Star Wars but for the female-focused pop culture clothing company — Her Universe — that she started.

“What people don’t see, unless you are there, is everyone is so happy and excited,” she said. “They are happy to be connecting in person and there’s an electricity and energy you can’t put into words, unless you are there and feel it.”

Eckstein will preside over a Her Universe fashion show Thursday night at the Harbor Ballroom of the Manchester Grand Hyatt for this year’s Comic-Con.

Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer said Tuesday he didn’t think the studios skipping this year was a big deal and that was more of the result of outside events, like the strike.

“It’s not uncommon for Marvel, and other studios, to miss Comic-Con from time to time,” he said. “But we always look forward to their future return.”

In 2018, Marvel and HBO skipped Comic-Con and there was some speculation the convention might be on its last legs. But last year Marvel Studios had its biggest Hall H presentation in years and HBO built an entire castle in downtown San Diego to promote its new “Game of Thrones” show.

The optimistic tone of Comic-Con can’t hide the concern of tourism industry watchers over what a down year means for the biggest promotional event in San Diego. The city spends roughly $25 million a year to promote America’s Finest City. In recent non-COVID years, Comic-Con has attracted around 2,500 media members from 30 nations who are all in the city, writing about it and giving San Diego free exposure that doesn’t require the city to put up a dime.

Miro Copic, a marketing expert and professor at San Diego State University, said the city might be losing out on highly coveted earned, or free, media this year if there isn’t big news coming out of the convention. The earned media concept in the marketing world is when an entity, like the tourism authority, doesn’t pay for coverage and a newspaper journalist, Instagram influencer or YouTube channel comes to San Diego on their own and does a piece on how much fun they are having here.

“Earned is where the huge value is,” Copic said. “If you get a ton of radio, print, social media coverage, that value is immeasurable.”

While there are different opinions on how much money Comic-Con gets in earned media, he said his favorite study that illustrates the topic concerns college basketball. Butler University, an Indiana college that at one time most of the nation had never heard of, made it to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 2010 and 2011 and got nearly $1 billion in earned media, a university study said. It resulted in a 40 percent rise in admission applications, a bigger endowment, plenty of T-shirt sales and, basically, put the small university in the national spotlight and on the college basketball map.

The thinking with Comic-Con earned media is less about convincing someone to take a trip to San Diego. It’s more about a business seeing Comic-Con coverage and thinking it might be a good place to relocate or a big organization deciding that is where they should hold their next conference.

“The earned value for San Diego with Comic-Con is really important to keeping San Diego at the forefront and cutting edge of what cities are doing,” Copic said. “That we are not only a destination for tourism, but these big events.”

At this point, it’s unclear if media coverage will be diminished, but does The Hollywood Reporter really need to send a huge team of reporters if the biggest news is Marvel Comics announcing its new titles?

Hollywood industry experts told the Union-Tribune that studios hedged their bets this year, unwilling to commit resources to a Hall H presentation that could cost thousands of dollars if there were no stars on stage. There are headwinds working against the convention with studios and franchises doing their own events, such as Star Wars Celebration and Disney’s D23 Expo, but experts all said the decision largely rested on the strikes.

The Business of Comic-Con

Comic-Con International might be a nonprofit, but there are millions of dollars wrapped up in its operation for surrounding businesses, as well as the organization itself. Any change in its operation is closely watched by more than just the entertainment press.

The nonprofit, which also runs Anaheim’s Wonder Con, brought in $26.7 million in program service revenue in 2109, said its tax filings. It gained just $4.7 million in 2021 and $980,000 in 2020 as the convention went online only for two years. It earned money through a smaller in-person event in 2021 and mainly sponsorship deals in 2020. Tax filings for last year’s convention were not yet available.

The organization received more than $2.5 million in Payment Protection Plan, or PPP, federal loans during the pandemic. Both loans were forgiven. The San Diego Convention Center Corp., which counts Comic-Con as its main event but has numerous others, got a $2 million PPP loan forgiven.

Glanzer said studios, or any panel presenters for that matter, don’t pay for programming time or space. So, it’s not like Comic-Con is directly losing money by Marvel Studios or Netflix taking over Hall H.

The economic impact of the convention on the region is arguably a bigger deal for the city than the actual organization that runs it. San Diego State University estimates the impact of the convention is more than $165 million in overall spending with more than $90 million in direct attendee spending. That takes into account hotel stays, restaurants and numerous businesses that surround it. For instance, it’s pretty rare to see the Broken Yolk Cafe on Sixth Avenue busy, but it regularly has a line out the door during the convention.

There are also nonlocal organizations that rake in the cash. New York-based KAP Media Group is the main company that does all the building wraps downtown and will have its biggest year yet with 23, up from 18 last year. This week, wraps could be seen covering the Hard Rock Cafe (Paramount+’s “Yellowjackets), Omni Hotel (Fox Animation), Hilton Gaslamp (AMC’s “Interview With the Vampire”) and nearly a dozen other buildings with advertisements for Prime Video and Netflix shows.

Founder Lori Brabant said wraps can cost more than $100,000, but did not want disclose specifics. She said changes in studio attendance didn’t seem to affect her business and was confident this was a one-off year. Brabant started in 2012 with one wrap, but she said Hollywood’s interest has generally grown each year.

KAP partner Kelly Reynolds said they were jokingly calling this year “Comic-Con Lite,” even if it didn’t really affect their business. She said last year, the first year in-person after two years, felt a little slower than she would have hoped. Yet Reynolds said she is confident that next year, after strikes are potentially worked out, Comic-Con will come roaring back.

“We think in 2024 it will be finally when all the stars, literally, will align here and we’ll see Comic-Con come back in full force to the way it was pre-pandemic,” she said.

Comic-Con is contracted to stay in San Diego through 2024, but any trouble with the event typically scares up some concerns it is going to Anaheim or Los Angeles for a bigger venue.

“I certainly hope” we stay, Glanzer said. “If we can again negotiate reasonable hotel rates and other crucial services, then we would love to be here for another 50 years.”

Eckstein, who said she will go to 22 conventions this year as part of fan signings and Her Universe commitments, said she would be heartbroken if Comic-Con ever left San Diego.

She has a special connection to the city, with her husband being former San Diego Padres second baseman David Eckstein. The couple lived in Coronado while he played for the team in 2009 and 2010 and she got to see the biggest years of the convention’s growth. In particular, she said she loves how the event spills over into the rest of the community at hotels, the Gaslamp Quarter and Balboa Park.

“Comic-Con and San Diego are one (and) the same,” Eckstein said. “The two are synonymous. It just wouldn’t feel right to have Comic-Con not be in San Diego. I hope San Diego will always be its home.”

Phillip Molnar covers residential real estate, as well as other business issues for The San Diego Union-Tribune.