AI-generated music is appealing to streaming services, not least because it could potentially eliminate royalty payments and boost profits. While providers such as Qobuz are distancing themselves from AI-generated music, Tidal and Spotify already have very lax AI policies. According to a report by the Financial Times, Spotify is now planning a full-scale AI push, set to launch as early as the first quarter of 2027.

The streaming market leader is apparently adding an optional AI package to its Spotify Premium subscription, reportedly costing $4 to $5 per month, which could make the service's Premium subscription up to 39 percent more expensive. Those willing to pay these additional costs are expected to receive two main new features. First, the ability to have artificial intelligence regenerate existing songs as remixes. And second, the option to generate any song as a cover version by any band, thereby changing the song's style.

Blackstone told investors Anthropic may not receive an investment-grade rating immediately after going public, a reversal from its previous guidance that would complicate the AI lab’s ability to finance its massive spending.

The private capital giant told investors in Anthropic’s latest $63bn chip financing deal that the start-up is expected to receive a “high” junk rating from major credit rating agencies after its initial public offering, according to people familiar with the matter.

Blackstone is acting as an anchor investor on the deal, known as “Project North Star”, and is working with banks that stumped up financing on selling the debt on to other investors.

Anthropic filed to go public on Monday, setting up what could be the largest listing of all time next month. The AI lab’s prospectus sketched out its “bold but sane” plans to spend more than $800bn on computing infrastructure between now and 2045.

An investment-grade credit rating is central to those ambitions, enabling Anthropic to borrow at lower rates to finance its AI infrastructure projects. The group has cash and equivalents of more than $112bn, and investors anticipate it could raise about $100bn more in the IPO.

Edit: Use Unwall to get around the paywall

Jean-Luc Picard hasn't left us. The man who brought him to life has. And what a remarkable gift he gave us.

Farewell, Sir Patrick Stewart. Your journey will live on for every generation to come.

🖖💛

This is my tribute to one of my heroes, whose work has inspired me for much of my life and will continue to do so for the rest of it.

Following the iPhone Duo launch on Friday, a number of owners are reporting that their inner screens have cracked and broken on their own.

The affected units all seem to break in the same way. The screen cracks down the center line of the hinge, and a horizontal block of pixels on the screen is then stuck glowing white.

The scale of the issue remains unclear. We’ve seen about ten unique instances so far, with many posting their (similar) experiences on the iPhone Duo subreddit.

The amount of time it takes for the cracking to happen varies, but obviously it doesn’t take too long since customers have only been able to start unboxing the device since Friday morning. A couple of people even said theirs cracked during the first setup process.

From what we’ve seen so far, most buyers experiencing this problem have been able to return to the Apple Store and get a straight device replacement.

People who bought from carriers may have had less luck, as the carriers do not have immediate stock to give out a replacement. One person said they were told that they must have dropped the phone to cause the damage, and that it was on them to pay for repair.

In terms of why this is happening, there is a working theory that a batch of iPhone Duos have a defective hinge component. The suggestion is a piece of the hinge is slightly misaligned, and pokes upwards onto the inner screen, causing the breakage.

Some on social media have suggested that users should not close the iPhone Duo by pressing in the center of the inner display, and perhaps that contributes to this issue occurring. It is unclear if this is actually relevant advice. Officially, Apple has not given any guidance on how users are expected to handle the phone when folding and unfolding it.

While the reports are concerning, it is worth remembering that Apple has probably shipped hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of units already and only a small percentage of people have had their phone break on them. Hopefully, most people will be able to enjoy using their new iPhone Duo without issue. We’ve reached out to Apple for comment, and will update if we hear back.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz appealed to Germany's businesses to ‌embrace artificial intelligence at an industry summit in Berlin on Monday that was meant to attract investment, including an expected deal with US chip maker Nvidia.

Speaking alongside Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at a red-carpet event marking ​the start of the summit, Merz stressed the importance of AI in efforts ​to revive Germany's economy and modernise its industry.

[...]

"We are in the midst ​of a fundamental economic and technological transformation fuelled by exponential progress in artificial intelligence," Merz said, telling business leaders: "Please open your doors for AI to make use of your data."

[...]

Germany and Nvidia are expected to announce a partnership ‌to promote ⁠AI in German industry at the summit, which continues on Tuesday. The German economy ministry has signed a memorandum of understanding with Nvidia, the government said, without giving further details.

Over the last month, users have been sharing reports about an issue with Alexa. It appears the AI will get stuck repeating the word “la” over and over again. According to these reports, Alexa will continue saying this word for several minutes before it stops. You can check out an example of the error in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFLtLb7vQHU

This isn’t the first time Alexa has been caught going haywire. Only a couple of months ago, users were taken aback when Alexa emitted guttural sounds, like those of a snarling animal. At least this most recent problem is a little less unnerving than that.

It’s unclear what’s causing Alexa to meltdown like this, but some users are blaming a recent update. Android Authority has reached out to Amazon for comment on the issue. This article will be updated when new information becomes available.

Iconic PlayStation hacker and homebrew developer Andy ‘TheFlow0’ Nguyen has abandoned the ongoing PS5 Linux project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces.

Nguyen, who famously created the first kernel exploit for the PlayStation Vita, has spent over a decade creating exploits and homebrew for PlayStation systems. As one of the leaders behind the ongoing PS5 Linux project, which brought modern PC gaming to the console, the developer was also bringing the full Linux OS experience to Sony’s PS5 with miraculous results.

In an update on social media, the modder announced that they would be “stepping away from the PS5 scene” as well as ending their work on PS5 Linux. “After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it’s all down the sink,” they said.

Nguyen, like many other homebrew developers recently, explained that they are ending the project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces. Recently, brilliant PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 announced a ban on vibe coding participants due to the fact that vibe-coders in open-source spaces are submitting code that they do not actually understand.

In Nguyen’s words, “the scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don’t even understand”. Additionally, it seems that vibe-coders, or “slop kiddies” as the modder dubbed them, used AI to detect a bug that they were using to crack consoles, and reported it to Sony for a bounty.

“Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony,” the modder said on social media. “I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.”

With this in mind, it seems that the progress on PS5 Linux for consoles on newer OS versions may have been ruined by the reporting of this bug. This means that the last version of PS5 Linux to be helmed by the modder is the currently available Version 2.5 which supports PS5 Phat and Slim console running 3.00-7.61 firmwares.

Iconic PlayStation hacker and homebrew developer Andy ‘TheFlow0’ Nguyen has abandoned the ongoing PS5 Linux project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces.

Nguyen, who famously created the first kernel exploit for the PlayStation Vita, has spent over a decade creating exploits and homebrew for PlayStation systems. As one of the leaders behind the ongoing PS5 Linux project, which brought modern PC gaming to the console, the developer was also bringing the full Linux OS experience to Sony’s PS5 with miraculous results.

In an update on social media, the modder announced that they would be “stepping away from the PS5 scene” as well as ending their work on PS5 Linux. “After pouring my heart and months of my life into it, including plans to finish PS5 Pro support and release in 2027, it’s all down the sink,” they said.

Nguyen, like many other homebrew developers recently, explained that they are ending the project due to the rise of AI vibe-coders in open-source spaces. Recently, brilliant PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 announced a ban on vibe coding participants due to the fact that vibe-coders in open-source spaces are submitting code that they do not actually understand.

In Nguyen’s words, “the scene used to be a group of highly talented researchers, but now it is just a bunch of noobs using LLMs and writing hacks they don’t even understand”. Additionally, it seems that vibe-coders, or “slop kiddies” as the modder dubbed them, used AI to detect a bug that they were using to crack consoles, and reported it to Sony for a bounty.

“Slop kiddies found the only hypervisor bug left, which I had also found a while ago, and decided to report to Sony,” the modder said on social media. “I asked them to at least wait for GTA 6 to come out so that people would have the opportunity to legally purchase the game and also enjoy linux. They agreed to wait, but not a day passed and they decided to waste it instead.”

With this in mind, it seems that the progress on PS5 Linux for consoles on newer OS versions may have been ruined by the reporting of this bug. This means that the last version of PS5 Linux to be helmed by the modder is the currently available Version 2.5 which supports PS5 Phat and Slim console running 3.00-7.61 firmwares.

The Oasis driver is very well known on Windows, it makes WMR headsets like the HP Reverb G2 work again, after Mixed Reality has been removed from recent versions of Windows. Arguably, it works even better than it ever did before "officially".

Now Oasis is available on Linux as well, even though some features are not quite working with this initial release (like pairing with the internal Bluetooth receivers of the headsets).

It's based on Ignition, a project that makes Windows-only SteamVR drivers work on Linux: https://github.com/BnuuySolutions/Ignition

I just noticed this randomly, because I wasn't able to vote on a post.

My guess: Someone didn't like that I am also subscribed to anti-AI communities.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1xN3No

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4ENy1