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Spotify and Universal are building an AI tool for covers and remixes

Engadget

This will be a paid add-on for Premium subscribers. Spotify just announced a partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG) to create a tool that lets fans make covers and remixes . It'll be a paid add-on for Premium subscribers, with some of that money going to the original artists whose work is being repurposed. Spotify says that artists have to opt in to the program. It's being marketed as a new way for artists and creators to make money, as the platform states the tool will open up additional revenue streams and new ways to drive discovery. Spotify co-CEO Alex Norström says the platform will evolve the music ecosystem into a richer, more beneficial experience for fans and a more rewarding outcome for artists and songwriters.


Google Search Goes Agentic--and Doesn't Need You Anymore

WIRED

Instead of clicking on a bunch of random website links, I was reading an AI summary positioned at the top of my search results and sometimes clicking through to double-check the accuracy of the output. The next evolution of Search that Google is building asks for even less active participation from users. You're really the most involved at the start of the journey, and that's it. You tell the agents what you want to know, and they do the clicking and even calling on your behalf. Rather than you going off on some online adventure, it's the agent that's hoovering up anything it can find and bouncing between different sites.


Your SaaS Is an Insurance Product: A Modeling Framework

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Capped-usage SaaS products -- LLM subscriptions such as Claude Code and ChatGPT, cloud platforms such as Vercel and Cloudflare Workers, corporate benefit platforms, identity-verification services with liability transfer -- share a structural signature with insurance products: a fixed premium decoupled from realized consumption, stochastic per-user demand with heavy-tailed severity, a non-fungible cap that resets on a fixed schedule, and a portfolio-level exposure that requires reserve adequacy under tail risk. We argue that this is not an analogy. It is the same operational problem actuarial science has been tooled for decades to address, restated with new dependent variables (tokens, bandwidth bytes, function-invocations, gym check-ins) in place of medical claims. This paper proposes a modeling framework for capped-usage SaaS pricing built from frequency-severity decomposition, premium calculation principles, and Monte Carlo reserve adequacy. We map the framework to publicly observable subscription tiers in two domains (LLM services and cloud platforms), ground it in canonical health-insurance economics (Arrow 1963; Pauly 1968; Manning et al. 1987; Brot-Goldberg et al. 2017), and demonstrate divergence from traditional unit economics through a worked example. The contribution is operational rather than theoretical: not a new theorem, but vocabulary and tools currently absent from cs.LG/stat.ML practice.


OpenAI Enables Marketing Cookies by Default for Free ChatGPT Users

WIRED

ChatGPT's new privacy policy states how the company uses cookies for tracking, to turn free users into paying subscribers. OpenAI is ready to target free users of its services with advertisements around the web, based on what it knows about them. On Thursday, OpenAI sent an email to users laying out major changes to the AI company's privacy policy in the US. "We'll now use cookies to promote OpenAI products and services on other websites," reads the email sent on April 30. "This does not impact your conversations in ChatGPT. Your conversations with ChatGPT are private and are not shared with marketing partners."


May's PlayStation Plus lineup includes Nine Sols, EA FC 26, Wuchang

Engadget

May's PlayStation Plus lineup includes Nine Sols, EA FC 26, Wuchang May's PlayStation Plus lineup includes Nine Sols, EA FC 26, Wuchang This coming month of May, PlayStation Plus is getting three pretty great games from three distinct genres: is a 2D action-platformer, is a soccer simulator and is a soulslike RPG. All of these titles will be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers on May 5. You may remember RedCandleGames from the 2019 Chinese censorship campaign targeting the studio's title . It's a dark-fantasy story set during the Ming Dynasty, developed by Chinese studio Leenzee and published by 505 Games. The May PlayStation Plus drop includes the PlayStation Plus Icons Pack.


Roundtables: Unveiling The 10 Things That Matter in AI Right Now

MIT Technology Review

Watch subscriber-only discussion unveiling a new list capturing 10 key technologies in AI that you need to know about in 2026. Subscribers saw a special edition of Roundtables simulcast live from EmTech AI, MIT Technology Review's signature conference for AI leadership. Subscribers got an exclusive first look at a new list capturing 10 key technologies, emerging trends, bold ideas, and powerful movements in AI that you need to know about in 2026. Grace Huckins, AI reporter, hosted this session as Amy Nordrum and Niall Firth, executive editors, unveiled the list onstage. Want to understand the current state of AI? Check out these charts. Exclusive: Niantic's AI spinout is training a new world model using 30 billion images of urban landmarks crowdsourced from players.


LAUSD to vote on restricting student screen time, after years of encouraging classroom use

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Students with computers participate in a summer program at Canoga Park High School in 2022. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . Los Angeles Unified is poised to reverse years of promoting classroom technology with restrictions on student screen time.


Woman says chatbot pushed her son to suicide and these 'guardrails' are crucial

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Woman says chatbot pushed her son to suicide and these'guardrails' are crucial ChatGPT is among companion chatbots that minors use that one legislator said Monday could be "extremely dangerous." This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . As the mother of a teen boy who killed himself after using a chatbot, Maria Raine said she was dealing with constant grief.


California could be attacked by drones because of Iran war, memo warns. Officials downplay threat

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. California could be attacked by drones because of Iran war, memo warns. A rocket trail is seen in the sky over Israel. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here .


LAPD officer under investigation for allegedly taking cash from unlocked Tesla

Los Angeles Times

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. A pedestrian walks past Los Angeles Police Department headquarters along 1st Street downtown. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . An LAPD official said an investigation is underway after video footage showed an officer from Transit Services Division enter a Tesla while responding to a call for service.