Spain's newspaper El Pais found an entire fake album on YouTube titled Rumba Congo (1973). And they cite a study from France's International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers that estimated revenue from AI-generated music will rise to $4 billion in 2028, generating 20% of all streaming platforms' revenue: One of the major problems with this trend is the lack of transparency. María Teresa Llano, an associate professor at the University of Sussex who studies the intersection of creativity, art and AI, emphasizes this aspect: "There's no way for people to know if something is AI or not...." On Spotify Community — a forum for the service's users — a petition is circulating that calls for clear labeling of AI-generated music, as well as an option for users to block these types of songs from appearing on their feeds. In some of these forums, the rejection of AI-generated music is palpable.

Llano mentions the feelings of deception or betrayal that listeners may experience, but asserts that this is a personal matter. There will be those who feel this way, as well as those who admire what the technology is capable of... One of the keys to tackling the problem is to include a warning on AI-generated songs. YouTube states that content creators must "disclose to viewers when realistic content [...] is made with altered or synthetic media, including generative AI." Users will see this if they glance at the description. But this is only when using the app, because on a computer, they will have to scroll down to the very end of the description to get the warning....

The professor from the University of Sussex explains one of the intangibles that justifies the labeling of content: "In the arts, we can establish a connection with the artist; we can learn about their life and what influenced them to better understand their career. With artificial intelligence, that connection no longer exists."
YouTube says they may label AI-generated content if they become aware of it, and may also remove it altogether, according to the article. But Spotify "hasn't shared any policy for labeling AI-powered content..." In an interview with Gustav Söderström, Spotify's co-president and chief product & technology officer, he emphasized that AI "increases people's creativity" because more people can be creative, thanks to the fact that "you don't need to have fine motor skills on the piano." He also made a distinction between music generated entirely with AI and music in which the technology is only partially used. But the only limit he mentioned for moderating artificial music was copyright infringement... something that has been a red line for any streaming service for many years now. And such a violation is very difficult to legally prove when artificial intelligence is involved.

Amazon has launched its AI-powered Video Generator tool in the U.S., allowing sellers to quickly create photorealistic, motion-enhanced video ads often with a single click. "We'll likely see Amazon retailers utilizing AI-generated video ads in the wild now that the tool is generally available in the U.S. and costs nothing to use -- unless the ads are so convincing that we don't notice anything at all," says The Verge. From the report: New capabilities include motion improvements to show items in action, which Amazon says is best for showcasing products like toys, tools, and worn accessories. For example, Video Generator can now create clips that show someone wearing a watch on their wrist and checking the time, instead of simply displaying the watch on a table. The tool generates six different videos to choose from, and allows brands to add their logos to the finished results.

The Video Generator can now also make ads with multiple connected scenes that include humans, pets, text overlays, and background music. The editing timeline shown in Amazon's announcement video suggests the ads max out at 21 seconds.. The resulting ads edge closer to the traditional commercials we're used to seeing while watching TV or online content, compared to raw clips generated by video AI tools like OpenAI's Sora or Adobe Firefly.

A new video summarization feature can create condensed video ads from existing footage, such as demos, tutorials, and social media content. Amazon says Video Generator will automatically identify and extract key clips to generate new videos formatted for ad campaigns. A one-click image-to-video feature is also available that creates shorter GIF-style clips to show products in action.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Fresh data released by piracy tracking outfit MUSO shows that pirate sites remain popular. In a report released today, MUSO reveals that there were 216 billion pirate site visits globally in 2024, a slight decrease compared to the 229 billion visits recorded a year earlier. TV piracy remains by far the most popular category, representing over 44.6% of all website visits. This is followed by the publishing category with 30.7%, with film, software and music all at a respectable distance. Pirate site visitors originate from all over the world, but one country stands tall above all the rest: America. The United States remains the top driver of pirate site traffic accounting for more than 12% of all traffic globally, good for 26.7 billion visits in 2024. India has been steadily climbing the ranks for years and currently sits in second place with 17.6 billion annual visits, with Russia, Indonesia, and Vietnam completing the top five. As a country with one of the largest populations worldwide, it's not a complete surprise that the U.S. tops the list. If we counted visits per internet user, Canada and Ukraine would top the list.

While pirate site visits dipped by more than 5% in 2024, one category saw substantial growth. Visits to publishing-related pirate sites increased 4.3% from 63.6 to 66.4 billion. The increase is largely driven by the popularity of manga, which accounts for more than 70% of all publishing piracy. Traditional book piracy, meanwhile, is stuck at 5%. The publishing piracy boom is relatively new. Over the past five years, the category grew by more than 100% while the overall number of global pirate site visits remained relatively flat. Looking at the global demand, we see that the U.S. also leads the charge here, followed by Indonesia and Russia. Notably, Japan, the home of manga, ranks fifth in the publishing category. This stands out because Japan is not listed in the global top 15 in terms of total pirate site visits.

In the other content categories, MUSO's data shows a dip in pirate site visits. The changes are relatively modest for TV (-6.8%) and software (-2.1%) but the same isn't true for the music and film categories. In 2024, there were 18% fewer visits for pirated movies compared to a year earlier. MUSO notes that this is due to a "lighter blockbuster calendar" which reduced piracy peaks. "The drop in demand is as much about what wasn't released as it is about access," the report explains. The music category saw a 19% decline in piracy visits year over year, with a more uplifting explanation for rightsholders. According to MUSO, the drop can be partly attributed to "secure app ecosystems" and the "wide adoption of licensed platforms like Spotify and Apple Music."

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 25 (WWDC) kicks off next week, June 9th, showcasing the company's latest software and new technologies. That includes the next version of iOS, which is rumored to have the most significant design overhaul since the introduction of iOS 7. Here's an overview of what to expect: Major Software Redesigns
Apple plans to shift its operating system naming to reflect the release year, moving from sequential numbers to year-based identifiers. Consequently, the upcoming releases will be labeled as iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, etc., streamlining the versioning across platforms.

iOS 26 is anticipated to feature a glossy, glass-like interface inspired by visionOS, incorporating translucent elements and rounded buttons. This design language is expected to extend across iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, promoting a cohesive user experience across devices. Core applications like Phone, Safari, and Camera are slated for significant redesigns, too. For instance, Safari may introduce a translucent, "glassy" address bar, aligning with the new visual aesthetics.

While AI is not expected to be the main focus due to Siri's current readiness, some AI-related updates are rumored. The Shortcuts app may gain "Apple Intelligence," enabling users to create shortcuts using natural language. It's also possible that Gemini will be offered as an option for AI functionalities on the iPhone, similar to ChatGPT.

Other App and Feature Updates
The lock screen might display charging estimates, indicating how long it will take for the phone to fully charge. There's a rumor about bringing live translation features to AirPods. The Messages app could receive automatic translations and call support; the Music app might introduce full-screen animated lock screen art; and Apple Notes may get markdown support. Users may also only need to log into a captive Wi-Fi portal once, and all their devices will automatically be logged in.

Significant updates are expected for Apple Home. There's speculation about the potential announcement of a "HomePad" with a screen, Apple's competitor to devices like the Nest Hub Mini. A new dedicated Apple gaming app is also anticipated to replace Game Center. If you're expecting new hardware, don't hold your breath. The event is expected to focus primarily on software developments. It may even see discontinued support for several older Intel-based Macs in macOS 26, including models like the 2018 MacBook Pro and the 2019 iMac, as Apple continues its transition towards exclusive support for Apple Silicon devices.

Sources:
Apple WWDC 2025 Rumors and Predictions! (Waveform)
WWDC 2025 Overview (MacRumors)
WWDC 2025: What to expect from this year's conference (TechCrunch)
What to expect from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference next week (Ars Technica)
Apple's WWDC 2025: How to Watch and What to Expect (Wired)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For millions of music fans, the most controversial app ban of the past year was not the brief TikTok outage but the ongoing delisting of Musi from Apple's App Store. Those users are holding out hope that Musi can defeat Apple in court and soon be reinstated. However, rather than coming to any sort of resolution, that court fight has intensified over the past month, with both sides now seeking sanctions, TorrentFreak reported. [...] For Musi, the App Store removal came as an existential threat, prompting a lawsuit after Musi's attempts to work out the dispute with Apple outside of court failed. The music-streaming app has alleged that the Apple ban did not come at YouTube's request but at the request of Apple's apparent music industry friends who allegedly asked Apple to find a way to get the app removed -- prompting Apple to push YouTube to re-open a supposedly resolved complaint.

In a court filing, Apple claimed that this "conspiracy theory," as well as other "baseless" claims, were "false and misleading allegations" warranting sanctions. "Discovery thoroughly disproved Musi's baseless conspiracy theory that Apple schemed to eliminate the Musi app from the App Store to benefit 'friends' in the music industry," Apple argued. But Musi fired back over the weekend, calling (PDF) Apple's motion for sanctions "frivolous" and demanding sanctions be ordered instead against Apple for allegedly abusing the sanctions rule as a "tactic of intimidation and harassment." Musi noted that Apple's requested sanctions against Musi "are not appropriate if there is even 'some credible evidence,'" then included internal emails and references to testimony from Apple's own employees that seemingly met this low bar.

Most likely, this part of the dispute will not be settled until July 30, when a hearing is scheduled on the motions for sanctions. Apple is seemingly hoping that the court will agree that Musi's complaint misrepresents the facts and is so misleading that the complaint must be struck entirely, perhaps cutting out the heart of Musi's argument. However, Musi pointed out that Apple previously sought sanctions and withdrew that fight, allegedly recognizing that its bid for sanctions was "baseless." To convince the court that this second bid is "equally frivolous," Musi shared receipts, attaching internal communications from Apple employees that Apple allegedly worked hard to keep out of the courtroom.

Besides pressure on Apple to make iPhones in the U.S., CEO Tim Cook "is facing off against two U.S. judges, European and worldwide regulators, state and federal lawmakers, and even a creator of the iPhone," writes the Wall Street Journal, "to say nothing of the cast of rivals outrunning Apple in artificial intelligence." Each is a threat to Apple's hefty profit margins, long the company's trademark and the reason investors drove its valuation above $3 trillion before any other company. Shareholders are still Cook's most important constituency. The stock's 25% fall from its peak shows their concern about whether he — or anyone — can navigate the choppy 2025 waters.

What can be said for Apple is that the company is patient, and that has often paid off in the past.
They also note OpenAI's purchase of Jony Ive's company, with Sam Altman saying internally they hope to make 100 million AI "companion" devices: It is hard to gauge the potential for a brand-new computing device from a company that has never made one. Yet the fact that it is coming from the man who led design of the iPhone and other hit Apple products means it can't be dismissed. Apple sees the threat coming: "You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now, as crazy as that sounds," an Apple executive, Eddy Cue, testified in a court case this month...

The company might not need to be first in AI. It didn't make the first music player, smartphone or tablet. It waited, and then conquered each market with the best. A question is whether a strategy that has been successful in devices will work for AI.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.

Quebec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe has introduced Bill 109, which would require streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to feature and prioritize French-language content. CBC.ca reports: Bill 109 has been in the works for over a year. It marks the first time that Quebec would set a "visibility quota" for French-language content on major streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney and Spotify. [...] The legislation, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, would apply to every digital platform that offers a service for watching videos or listening to music and audiobooks online. Those include Canadian platforms such as Illico, Crave and Tou.tv. It would amend the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to enshrine "the right to discoverability of and access to original French-language cultural content."

If the bill is adopted, streaming platforms and television manufacturers would be forced to present interfaces for screening online videos in French by default. Those interfaces would need to provide access to platforms that offer original French-language cultural content based on the government's pending criteria. Financial penalties would be imposed on companies that don't follow the rules. If the business models of some companies prevent them from keeping to the letter of the proposed law, companies would be allowed to enter into an agreement with the Quebec government to set out "substitute measures" to fulfil Bill 109 obligations differently. "We don't want to exempt them. We're telling them, 'let's negotiate substitute measures,'" Lacombe told reporters.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Apple's next step for CarPlay is a version you'll only get to try if you're a fan of luxury cruisers or a popular spy film franchise. CarPlay Ultra, with its new suite of exclusive features like custom gauges, is coming first to Aston Martin vehicles with the largest, most blaring dash screens. The more advanced version of CarPlay won't necessarily fix the lingering issues the software has with some modern vehicles. Segmenting CarPlay into newer and older systems may make things worse for those with aging cars. Apple's CarPlay Ultra includes a new kind of dashboard alongside real-time information that can include car diagnostics -- like tire pressure -- or dashboard gauges. You should be able to control temperature and other car-based features as well. The new version of the software includes options for dashboards or console screens, and it will work with on-screen controls, Siri, and "physical buttons."

CarPlay Ultra was supposed to launch in 2024, but Apple missed its release date by close to half a year. The new feature suite was first revealed at WWDC in 2022, where Apple promised a "unified and consistent" suite of informational dashboards offering more control over radio and AC "without ever leaving the CarPlay experience." Last year, Apple showed off "the next generation" of its car-focused app that included custom gauges and other layouts made for a variety of automakers. It lacked much of the full-width, busy design of the initial iteration from two years prior. [...]

To entice more manufacturers, CarPlay Ultra is supposed to adapt to multiple screen sizes thanks to a modular layout system with more options for companies to adhere to their own brand identity. Apple promised carmakers they could resize and reorient gauges on a dashboard like you do widgets on your iPhone. Users can change up various gauges on the dash and bring up apps like Apple Music or Maps in between your temperature gauge and speedometer. Aston Martin showed off these features on an Aston Martin DBX, a luxury SUV that costs more than $250,000. Apple said these features should be coming to the U.S. and Canada first, with more Aston Martins getting these features through software updates from local dealerships. Apple said its still trying to bring these features to brands like Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis. Maybe we'll see Ultra on a vehicle regular folk can afford. "The customizable dashboards are a way for Apple to let each carmaker have their say in how their vehicles look, but they won't help all those who are stuck with regular CarPlay on their aging beaters," concludes Gizmodo's Kyle Barr. "The new version will inevitably create a distinction between those with new software and others with legacy software..."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company's Claude AI chatbot in its ongoing legal battle with music publishers, according to a filing made in a Northern California court on Thursday. Claude hallucinated the citation with "an inaccurate title and inaccurate authors," Anthropic says in the filing, first reported by Bloomberg. Anthropic's lawyers explain that their "manual citation check" did not catch it, nor several other errors that were caused by Claude's hallucinations. Anthropic apologized for the error and called it "an honest citation mistake and not a fabrication of authority." Earlier this week, lawyers representing Universal Music Group and other music publishers accused Anthropic's expert witness -- one of the company's employees, Olivia Chen -- of using Claude to cite fake articles in her testimony. Federal judge, Susan van Keulen, then ordered Anthropic to respond to these allegations. Last week, a California judge slammed a pair of law firms for the undisclosed use of AI after he received a supplemental brief with "numerous false, inaccurate, and misleading legal citations and quotations." The judge imposed $31,000 in sanctions against the law firms and said "no reasonably competent attorney should out-source research and writing" to AI.

At its Config 2025 event on Wednesday, Figma unveiled four new AI-powered tools -- Sites, Make, Buzz, and Draw, positioning itself as a full-stack design platform to rival Adobe, WordPress, and Canva. These tools enable users to build websites, generate code, create marketing content, and design vector graphics without leaving the Figma ecosystem. The Verge reports: Figma's first solution is Figma Sites, a website builder that integrates with Figma Design and allows creators to turn their projects into live, functional sites. Figma Sites provides presets for layouts, blocks, templates, and interactions that aim to make building websites less complex and time-consuming. Additional components like custom animations can also be added either using existing code or by prompting Site's AI tool to generate new interaction codes via text descriptions, such as "animate the text to fall into place like a feather." Figma Sites is rolling out in beta for users with full seat access to Figma products. Figma says that AI code generation will be available "in the coming weeks," and that a CMS that allows designers to manage site content will be launched "later this year."

Figma Make is Figma's take on AI coding tools like Google's Gemini Code Assist and Microsoft's GitHub Copilot. The prompt-to-code Figma Make tool is powered by Anthropic's Claude 3.7 model and can build working prototypes and apps based on descriptions or existing designs, such as creating a functional music player that displays a disc that spins when new tracks are played. Specific elements of working design, like text formatting and font style, can be manually edited or adjusted using additional AI prompts. Make is rolling out in beta for full seat Figma users. Figma says it's "exploring integrations with third parties and design systems" for Figma Make and may apply the tool to other apps within its design platform.

Figma Buzz is a marketing-focused design app that's rolling out in beta to all users, and makes it easier for teams to publish brand content, similar to Canva's product design platform. The tool allows Figma designers to create brand-approved templates, styles, and assets that can be used by marketers to quickly assemble emails, social media posts, advertising, and more. Figma Buzz includes generative AI tools for making and editing images using text prompts, and can source information from spreadsheets to bulk create thousands of image assets at once.

Lastly, the Figma Draw vector design app is like a simplified version of Adobe Illustrator that creatives can use to make custom visuals without leaving the Figma platform. It includes a variety of brushes, texture effects, and vector editing tools to create or adjust scalable images and logos for product design projects. Figma Draw is generally available now for full seat users as a toggle in Figma Design, with some features accessible in Sites, Slides, and Buzz. It's not quite as expansive as Adobe's wider Creative Cloud ecosystem, but Figma Draw places the two companies in direct competition for the first time since Adobe killed its own XD product design platform. It also brings some new options to the creative software industry after Adobe failed to acquire Figma for $20 billion due to pressure from competition regulators.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Multiple studies and investigations have found that about half of American households watch TV and movies with subtitles on, but only a relatively small portion of those include someone with a hearing disability. That's because of the trouble many people have understanding dialogue in modern viewing situations, and Netflix has now introduced a subtitles option to help.

The closed captioning we've all been using for years includes not only the words the people on-screen are saying, but additional information needed by the hard of hearing, including character names, music cues ("dramatic music intensifies") and sound effects ("loud explosion"). For those who just wanted to make sure they didn't miss a word here and there, the frequent descriptions of sound effects and music could be distracting. This new format omits those extras, just including the spoken words and nothing else -- even in the same language as the spoken dialogue. The feature will be available in new Netflix original programming, starting with the new season of You in multiple languages. Netflix says it's looking at bringing the option to older titles in the library (including those not produced by Netflix) in the future.

Traditional closed captions are still available, of course. Those are labeled "English CC" whereas this new option is simply labeled "English" (or whatever your preferred language is).

Meta has expanded both the feature set and availability of its Ray-Ban smart glasses. Notable updates include live translation with offline support through downloadable language packs, the ability to send messages and make calls via Instagram, and conversations with Meta AI based on real-time visual context. The Verge reports: Live translation was first teased at Meta Connect 2024 last October, and saw a limited rollout through Meta's Early Access Program in select countries last December. Starting today it's getting a wider rollout to all the markets where the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses are available. You can hold a conversation with someone who speaks English, French, Italian, or Spanish, and hear a real-time translation through the smart glasses in your preferred language. If you download a language pack in advance, you can use the live translations feature without Wi-Fi or access to a cellular network, making it more convenient to use while traveling abroad.

Meta also highlighted a few other features that are still enroute or getting an expanded release. Live AI, which allows the Meta AI smart assistant to continuously see what you do for more natural conversations is now "coming soon to general availability in the US and Canada." The ability to "send and receive direct messages, photos, audio calls, and video calls from Instagram on your glasses," similar to functionality already available through WhatsApp, Messenger, and iOS and Android's native messaging apps, is coming soon as well. Access to music apps like Spotify, Amazon Music, Shazam, and Apple Music is starting to expand beyond the US and Canada, Meta says. However, asking Meta AI to play music, or for more information about what you're listening to, will still only be available to those with their "default language is set to English."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Popular Mechanics: American composer Alvin Lucier was well-known for his experimental works that tested the boundaries of music and art. A longtime professor at Wesleyan University (before retiring in 2011), Alvin passed away in 2021 at the age of 90. However, that wasn't the end of his lifelong musical odyssey. Earlier this month, at the Art Gallery of Western Australia, a new art installation titled Revivification used Lucier's "brain matter" -- hooked up to an electrode mesh connected to twenty large brass plates -- to create electrical signals that triggered a mallet to strike the varying plates, creating a kind of post-mortem musical piece. Conceptualized in collaboration with Lucier himself before his death, the artists solicited the help of researchers from Harvard Medical School, who grew a mini-brain from Lucier's white blood cells. The team created stem cells from these white blood cells, and due to their pluripotency, the cells developed into cerebral organoids somewhat similar to developing human brains. "At a time when generative AI is calling into question human agency, this project explores the challenges of locating creativity and artistic originality," the team behind Revivification told The Art Newspaper. "Revivification is an attempt to shine light on the sometimes dark possibilities of extending a person's presence beyond the seemed finality of death."

"The central question we want people to ask is: could there be a filament of memory that persists through this biological transformation? Can Lucier's creative essence persist beyond his death?" the team said.

About 18% of songs uploaded to Deezer are fully generated by AI, the French streaming platform said on Wednesday, underscoring the technology's growing use amid copyright risks and concerns about fair payouts to artists. From a report: Deezer said more than 20,000 AI-generated tracks are uploaded on its platform each day, which is nearly twice the number reported four months ago. "AI-generated content continues to flood streaming platforms like Deezer and we see no sign of it slowing down," said Aurelien Herault, the company's innovation chief.

BrianFagioli writes: In a move that is sure to make longtime PC users do a double take, the Library of Congress has added two very unexpected sounds to its National Recording Registry. No, it's not another classic rock album or jazz staple. Believe it or not, it's actually the "Reboot Chime" from Windows 95 (that played when the operating system started) and the soundtrack from Minecraft!

Brain rot — the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on a phone — afflicts "plenty of people," writes the New York Times' lead consumer technology writer. [Alternate URL here.] He's suffering from it too — "These days, it's tough to even finish a book."

But is the answer just avoiding distractions with a stripped-down $600 phone "that barely does anything"? For a week he tested the Light Phone III... The newest version, which began shipping in March and is set for a broader release in July, can place calls, send texts, take photos, show map directions, play music and podcasts and not do much else. There is no web browser. There is also no app store, meaning there's no Uber to hail a ride, no Slack and no social media. There isn't even email... There were moments I enjoyed it. While waiting for a train, resting at the gym or eating alone, I was not tempted to stare at the phone screen, and I felt more mindful of my surroundings. Phone calls sounded nice and clear. The maps app did a fine job navigating me around town.

It reminded me of simpler times when we used phones primarily to converse before putting them away to focus on other tasks. But over the week, the downsides of a dumber phone chipped away at my enjoyment, and overall I felt more stressed and less capable. I suddenly found myself unable to get into a train station, look up the name of a new restaurant or control my garage door. Some of that has less to do with the Light Phone itself, which is a so-so product, and more to do with how society as a whole has become dependent on advanced smartphone features.
For example, his old smartphone supported virtual phone-based passes for mass transit and speedy access to his gym. (And his friends made phone of the Light Phone's photos.) But at least never felt tempted to check his email when out to dinner.

"While I admire the goal of the Light Phone, my experience demonstrates there's nothing we can realistically do or buy to bring us back to simpler times. So many aspects of our lives, including getting around town, working, paying for things and controlling home appliances, revolve around our highly capable smartphones.

"This Light Phone experiment reminded me of glamping: paying a lot to have an artificially crummier experience."

"Gen Z is rediscovering Tumblr — a chaotic, cozy corner of the internet untouched by algorithmic gloss and influencer overload..." writes Fast Company, "embracing the platform as a refuge from an internet saturated with influencers and algorithm fatigue." Thanks to Gen Z, the site has found new life. As of 2025, Gen Z makes up 50% of Tumblr's active monthly users and accounts for 60% of new sign-ups, according to data shared with Business Insider's Amanda Hoover, who recently reported on the platform's resurgence. User numbers spiked in January during the near-ban of TikTok and jumped again last year when Brazil temporarily banned X. In response, Tumblr users launched dedicated communities to archive and share their favorite TikToks...

To keep up with the momentum, Tumblr introduced Reddit-style Communities in December, letting users connect over shared interests like photography and video games. In January, it debuted Tumblr TV — a TikTok-like feature that serves as both a GIF search engine and a short-form video platform. But perhaps Tumblr's greatest strength is that it isn't TikTok or Facebook. Currently the 10th most popular social platform in the U.S., according to analytics firm Similarweb, Tumblr is dwarfed by giants like Instagram and X. For its users, though, that's part of the appeal.
First launched in 2007, Tumblr peaked at over 100 million users in 2014, according to the article. Trends like Occupy Wall Street had been born on Tumblr, notes Business Insider, calling the blogging platform "Gen Z's safe space... as the rest of the social internet has become increasingly commodified, polarized, and dominated by lifestyle influencers." Tumblr was also "one of the most hyped startups in the world before fading into obsolescence — bought by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013... then acquired by Verizon, and later offloaded for fractions of pennies on the dollar in a distressed sale.

"That same Tumblr, a relic of many millennials' formative years, has been having a moment among Gen Z..." "Gen Z has this romanticism of the early-2000s internet," says Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian who worked at Tumblr for seven years, leaving her role as head of content in 2021... Part of the reason young people are hanging out on old social platforms is that there's nowhere new to go. The tech industry is evolving at a slower pace than it was in the 2000s, and there's less room for disruption. Big Tech has a stranglehold on how we socialize. That leaves Gen Z to pick up the scraps left by the early online millennials and attempt to craft them into something relevant. They love Pinterest (founded in 2010) and Snapchat (2011), and they're trying out digital point-and-shoot cameras and flip phones for an early-2000s aesthetic — and learning the valuable lesson that sometimes we look better when blurrier.

More Gen Zers and millennials are signing up for Yahoo. Napster, surprising many people with its continued existence, just sold for $207 million. The trend is fueled by nostalgia for Y2K aesthetics and a longing for a time when people could make mistakes on the internet and move past them. The pandemic also brought more Gen Z users to Tumblr...

And Tumblr still works much like an older internet, where people have more control over what they see and rely less on algorithms. "You curate your own stuff; it takes a little bit of work to put everything in place, but when it's working, you see the content you want to see," Fjodor Everaerts, a 26-year-old in Belgium who has made some 250,000 posts since he joined Tumblr when he was 14... Under Automattic, Tumblr is finally in the home that serves it, [says Ari Levine, the head of brand partnerships at Tumblr]. "We've had ups and downs along the way, but we're in the most interesting position and place that we've been in 18 years," he says... And following media companies (including Business Insider) and social platforms like Reddit, Automattic in 2024 was making a deal with OpenAI and Midjourney to allow the systems to train on Tumblr posts.

"The social internet is fractured," the article argues. ("Millennials are running Reddit. Gen Xers and Baby Boomers have a home on Facebook. Bluesky, one of the new X alternatives, has a tangible elder-millennial/Gen X vibe. Gen Zers have created social apps like BeReal and the Myspace-inspired Noplace, but they've so far generated more hype than influence....")

But in a world where megaplatforms "flatten our online experiences and reward content that fits a mold," the article suggests, "smaller communities can enrich them."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: What does it take to get OpenAI and Anthropic -- two competitors in the AI assistant market -- to get along? Despite a fundamental difference in direction that led Anthropic's founders to quit OpenAI in 2020 and later create the Claude AI assistant, a shared technical hurdle has now brought them together: How to easily connect their AI models to external data sources. The solution comes from Anthropic, which developed and released an open specification called Model Context Protocol (MCP) in November 2024. MCP establishes a royalty-free protocol that allows AI models to connect with outside data sources and services without requiring unique integrations for each service.

"Think of MCP as a USB-C port for AI applications," wrote Anthropic in MCP's documentation. The analogy is imperfect, but it represents the idea that, similar to how USB-C unified various cables and ports (with admittedly a debatable level of success), MCP aims to standardize how AI models connect to the infoscape around them. So far, MCP has also garnered interest from multiple tech companies in a rare show of cross-platform collaboration. For example, Microsoft has integrated MCP into its Azure OpenAI service, and as we mentioned above, Anthropic competitor OpenAI is on board. Last week, OpenAI acknowledged MCP in its Agents API documentation, with vocal support from the boss upstairs. "People love MCP and we are excited to add support across our products," wrote OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on X last Wednesday.

MCP has also rapidly begun to gain community support in recent months. For example, just browsing this list of over 300 open source servers shared on GitHub reveals growing interest in standardizing AI-to-tool connections. The collection spans diverse domains, including database connectors like PostgreSQL, MySQL, and vector databases; development tools that integrate with Git repositories and code editors; file system access for various storage platforms; knowledge retrieval systems for documents and websites; and specialized tools for finance, health care, and creative applications. Other notable examples include servers that connect AI models to home automation systems, real-time weather data, e-commerce platforms, and music streaming services. Some implementations allow AI assistants to interact with gaming engines, 3D modeling software, and IoT devices.

What happens when you ask Copilot to "write a program that can be run on an iPhone 16 to select 15 random photos from the phone, tint them to random colors, and display the photos on the phone"?

That's what TouchDevelop did for the long-discontinued Windows Phone in a 2013 Microsoft Research 'SmartSynth' natural language code generation demo. ("Write scripts by tapping on the screen.")

Long-time Slashdot reader theodp reports on what happens when, 14 years later, you pose the same question to Copilot: "You'll get lots of code and caveats from Copilot, but nothing that you can execute as is. (Compare that to the functioning 10 lines of code TouchDevelop program). It's a good reminder that just because GenAI can generate code, it doesn't necessarily mean it will generate the least amount of code, the most understandable or appropriate code for the requestor, or code that runs unchanged and produces the desired results.
theodp also reminds us that TouchDevelop "was (like BASIC) abandoned by Microsoft..." Interestingly, a Microsoft Research video from CS Education Week 2011 shows enthusiastic Washington high school students participating in an hour-long TouchDevelop coding lesson and demonstrating the apps they created that tapped into music, photos, the Internet, and yes, even their phone's functionality. This shows how lacking iPhone and Android still are today as far as easy programmability-for-the-masses goes. (When asked, Copilot replied that Apple's Shortcuts app wasn't up to the task).

Samsung teased its "AI Vision Inside" refrigerators at January's CES tradeshow. (Its internal sensors can now detect 37 different fresh ingredients and 50 processed foods, generating lists for your cellphone or a screen on your refrigerator's door.)

But the refrigerators are part of a larger "AI Home" lineup of screen-enabled appliances with advanced AI features, and Engadget got to see them all together this weekend at Samsung's Bespoke AI conference in Seoul, Korea: The centerpiece of the Bespoke line remains Samsung's 4-door French-Door refrigerator, which is now available with two different-sized screens. There's a model with a smaller 9-inch screen that starts at $3,999 or one with a massive 32-inch panel called the Family Hub+ for $4,699. The former is ostensibly designed for people who want something a bit more discreet but still want access to Samsung's smart features, which includes widgets for your calendar, music, weather, various cooking apps and more. Meanwhile, the larger model is for families who aren't afraid of having a small TV in their face every time they open their fridge. You can even play videos from TikTok on it, if that's what you're into....

For cooking, Samsung's matte glass induction cooktops are mostly the same, but its Bespoke 30-inch single ($3,759) and double ($4,649) wall ovens have...you guessed it, more AI. In addition to a 7-inch display, there are also cameras and sensors inside the oven that can recognize up to 80 different recipes to provide optimal cooking times. But if you prefer to go off-script and create something original, Samsung says the oven will give you the option to save the recipe and temperature settings after cooking the same dish five times. And for a more fun application of its tech, the oven's cameras can record videos and create time-lapses of your baked goods for sharing on social media.

When it's time to clean up, Samsung's $1,399 Bespoke Auto Open Door Dishwasher has a few tricks of its own. In this case, the washer uses AI (yet again) and sensors to more accurately detect food residue and optimize cleaning cycles...
There's also an "AI Jet Ultra Cordless Stick" vacuum cleaner, which "uses AI to better detect what surface its on to more effectively hoover up dirt and debris."

Interestingly, in January Samsung's refrigerators also got a mention in iFixit's "Worst of CES" video.