Spotify partnering with multinational music companies to develop'responsible' AI products The market-leading music streamer is collaborating with the Sony, Universal and Warner music groups - whose combined rosters feature artists including Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift - to create new AI features. The tension between the music industry and some tech firms has already led to three major labels suing AI companies whose tools create music from user prompts. If the music industry doesn't lead in this moment, AI-powered innovation will happen elsewhere, without rights, consent, or compensation." Both Udio and Suno have said their technology is designed to generate new musical output and does not reproduce specific artists' work. The head of Universal Music Group, Sir Lucian Grainge, wrote in a memo to staff this week that Universal would seek an artist's consent before licensing use of their voice or existing songs to an AI company.

Perplexity has tapped into the power of generative artificial intelligence--with all its problematic tendencies--in an effort to challenge Google as the dominant way people find information online. The AI search tool rose in prominence in 2024 and was lauded as a promising alternative to Googling. It has been accused by Forbes of plagiarizing its news articles, closely paraphrasing other websites, and hallucinating incorrect information. Despite the furor, Perplexity today says that its service gets 650 million queries per month and is said to be chasing investment that would value the company at 18 billion. The company is pushing AI assistants for mobile devices and working on its own web browser.

Over the weekend, protesters gathered at Tesla showrooms in hundreds of cities across the world to demonstrate against Elon Musk laying waste to the US government in alliance with Donald Trump. One sign in Manhattan read: "Burn a Tesla, save democracy." Protesters are using the commercial democracy of consumer products to influence US political democracy. In New York City, several hundred anti-Tesla protesters gathered outside the EV company's Manhattan showroom on Saturday. Sophie Shepherd, 23, an organizer with Planet Over Profit, explained that the rally was not about protesting electric cars.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.--Johnathan Bragg has always looked at his job selling home-repair insurance the same way an artist looks at a canvas. "I got this road map in my head of what it looks like when you're delivering world-class customer service--what triggers people, what makes people trust you," Mr. Bragg said. "It's like when da Vinci was painting."

When the development team at Infinity Ward rolled out the massive playing area of Verdansk for "Call of Duty: Warzone," they viewed it as a starting point. After what game director at Infinity Ward Jack O'Hara describes as a short break, they turned their attention to building their next map -- Al Mazrah, the sprawling environment that is Call of Duty's biggest battle royale map to date, and serves as the battleground for "Warzone 2.0," which releases Nov. 16. "We started on this map straight after Verdansk," O'Hara said. "We kind of rolled from that one to a little bit of a breather and then we started laying the foundations for the next map, which is Al Mazrah. It's a chance to refine what we did last time and a chance to build on all the lessons."

Rajiv Malhotra was trained initially as a Physicist, and then as a Computer Scientist specializing in AI in the 1970s. After a successful corporate career in the US, he became an entrepreneur and founded and ran several IT companies in 20 countries. Since the early 1990s, as the founder of his non-profit Infinity Foundation (Princeton, USA), he has been researching civilizations and their engagement with technology from a historical, social sciences and mind sciences perspective. He has authored several best-selling books. Infinity Foundation has also published a 14-volume series on the History of Indian Science & Technology.

In the world of game theory, we refer to games such as Catan, Risk, and Civilization 6 as large-scale strategy games. The defining trait of these games is their massive number of components and how they interact. Games often give players the option to compete against the computer. These computer players are called artificial intelligence (AIs). The purpose of these AIs is to give players an equal challenge.

India is lagging behind China in Artificial Intelligence (AI) by at least a decade and also, unique data assets are routinely given away to foreign countries because of the ignorance of her leaders. Given the lack of effective strategic planning on AI and big data, plus its dependence on American digital platforms and Chinese hardware, India might slip further toward digital colonisation. Why does India lag at least a decade behind China in AI and related technologies, despite India having been recently proclaimed as the world leader in software? How vulnerable is India to becoming a digital colony of the West and China? How do Indian industries, military and other sectors stack up in addressing the AI-based technological revolution? India’s security involves combating internal insurgencies as well as protecting long borders with hostile neighbours. This requires considerable manpower that consumes bulk of the military budget. Insufficient funds remain for indigenous R&D and technology related modernisation. India is dependent on imported weapons to defend herself. India might find herself facing Pakistani boots on the ground, weaponised by China’s AI-based technology. How seriously vulnerable is India’s national security considering it is lagging in AI?

Artificial Intelligence is a topic which evokes mixed reactions among people. Some consider AI to be a technological revolution which will solve all our problems and transform our planet into a veritable paradise. Others equate AI with robots courtesy of Hollywood movies; not good robots but rather exceedingly intelligent but evil and villainous robots with nefarious plans to wipe out the entire human civilization. As a computer engineer, I have always had an insider view of the technologies and been witness to many technical changes over the decades. From BASIC, to C to C to Java – each iteration produced better and more sophisticated coding mechanisms.

The following is a summary of my predictions of the ICT trends for 2020. They have been selected because of their impact on the networking industry, and they forecast what is expected to happen or start happening, within the next 12 months. This information incorporates input and insights from several sources, available in a supporting document. "A machine with basic reading capabilities will be able to read everything the human race has ever written by lunchtime, and then it will be looking around for something else to do." – Stuart Russell, Human Compatible Welcome to the cognitive era. Compute costs will continue to head towards zero.