Yet the Chocolate Factory is also buying more third-party compute capacity to handle demand for the G-Cloud
Google’s parent company Alphabet is managing its fleet of AI accelerators to prioritize research on artificial general intelligence, rather than renting them all to customers.
CEO Sundar Pichai revealed the company’s priorities during its second quarter earnings call, during which the company confirmed it has delivered on its plan to sell its tensor processing units (TPUs) to some customers. In response to news of those sales, Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan asked how Alphabet balances demand from customers who want to buy its TPUs and the web giant’s own need for processing power.
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“In terms of allocating our TPUs … our first priority is making sure we are allocating what we need to compete at the frontier in terms of AGI development,” Pichai replied, referring to Artificial General Intelligence –AIs that possesses human-like intelligence.
“That is the foundation for everything we do,” Pichai added.
Another analyst, Mark Shmulik of Bernstein, revisited the matter by asking how Google allocates processing capacity among its search business, cloud operation, and model training efforts.
“On allocation, I think the baseline with which we start is what it takes to continue AGI development at the frontier,” Pichai responded. The CEO said Alphabet is also “prioritizing our core product areas like Search, YouTube, et cetera, as well as Cloud.” And in the G-Cloud, Google is “prioritizing the compute to make sure we can serve our models in the context of Vertex and Gemini Enterprise, and our core solutions, be it data analytics and cybersecurity.”
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“Our core services for our core products across consumers and enterprises is where the compute is primarily going, and that’s how we think about it,” the CEO added.
Google’s core services are going gangbusters.
Google Cloud revenue leapt 82 percent year over year, to $24.75 billion for the quarter, and delivered an $8.8 billion profit which represented 214 percent growth. The Big G said that growth came from “strong demand for AI infrastructure and AI solutions.” There’s probably more to come as the G-Cloud now has $514 billion of cloudy backlog on the books, meaning customers have signed up for services they’re yet to consume.
When generative AI came along some pundits suggested it could threaten Google’s search ads biz. That was not a good take because Pichai said the company’s AI Mode for search is “driving an incremental increase in Search queries overall.”
AI search needs specialist hardware that is expensive to buy and run. Pichai said Google is on top of that. “Thanks to our engineering and hardware optimizations, this quarter we reduced the cost of AI Mode responses to its lowest level since launch, even as we’ve brought more advanced AI capabilities.”
Google continues to spend megabucks on AI infrastructure – CFO Anat Ashkenazi said the company now plans to spend between $195 billion and $205 billion this financial year, up from a previous estimate of $180 billion to 190 billion.
Ashkenazi said Google can’t get all the kit it needs due to what she described as “the supply-constrained environment.” Google therefore plans to “expand the use of third-party capacity in Q3 as a bridging strategy while we build out more internal capacity.”
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Pichai said buying bridging capacity will help Google to land monster cloud clients.
“There are very, very large customers of ours on Cloud who we are trying to support them through this extraordinary moment,” the CEO said. “The incremental opportunities they are bringing to us, while a short-term cost over a few months may be very high, in the lifetime of the deal, as we bring more capacity on, is highly ROI positive.”
“Those are factors we are taking into account. Are you willing to take upfront six-month deal to be able to serve that customer in what is a multi-year opportunity, where the margins and the returns are very, very attractive over that multi-year horizon?”
Alphabet’s quarterly revenue landed at $119.8 billion, up 24 percent year over year. Operating income hit $40.8 billion, up 34 percent.
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Yet even those torrents of money couldn’t stop Google’s free cash flow landing at -$5.9 billion – the first time the company hasn’t had spare cash to splash since 2004. Investors seem not to like that and sent the price of the company’s shares down by four percent in after hours trading. ®
Juzear might not be a familiar name to most American listeners, but the Chinese manufacturer is gaining attention in the increasingly crowded wired IEM market. That category is enjoying a rather healthy moment as more listeners rediscover that better sound, replaceable cables, and freedom from batteries still have value in a world drowning in disposable wireless earbuds.
For the new Juzear Nebula, the company has partnered with Japanese reviewer KOTO on a five-driver tribrid IEM featuring one dynamic driver, three balanced-armature drivers, and one micro-planar driver in each earpiece. Juzear says the Nebula has been tuned around forward, expressive vocals and an expansive three-dimensional soundstage, although those claims will ultimately require independent listening rather than blind faith in a specification sheet.
The collaboration also follows a growing trend of YouTube personalities and online reviewers lending their names and tuning preferences to audio products. Some of those partnerships clearly move units, but they also muddy the waters when the same people helping to develop products are part of an ecosystem built around reviewing them. A subscriber count is not proof of objectivity or a hearing test, but recognizable names apparently move the needle for enough readers and viewers to keep the collaborations coming.
JUZEAR x KOTO Nebula
The Juzear Nebula utilizes a 1 dynamic driver, 3 balanced-armature drivers, and 1 planar driver configuration, combined with a high-precision four-way physical crossover to deliver a transparent sound profile. The goal is to reduce congestion and produce a more spacious, high-fidelity listening experience.
Juzear’s four-way acoustic crossover system incorporates four independent sound tubes, with specific frequency ranges assigned to the dynamic, balanced-armature, and micro-planar drivers. According to the company, this helps the Nebula deliver a clear, transparent, and highly detailed presentation across the entire frequency range.
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The Nebula’s MACCD dynamic driver, which uses a Multi-Layer Amorphous Carbon Composite Diaphragm, is designed to produce fast, deep, and tightly controlled bass.
For the midrange, a custom three-driver balanced-armature configuration is intended to deliver natural, clear vocals, while a customized micro-planar driver handles the treble and provides extended high-frequency response and greater detail.
Related Reviews:
JUZEAR x KOTO Nebula
Making a Strong First Impression
Beyond its internal architecture, the Nebula also showcases Juzear’s attention to craftsmanship.
The Juzear Nebula draws its visual inspiration from the flowing light trails of deep-space nebulae. Its intricate Phantom Color Artistic faceplates are created using a combination of laser layering, micro-jet printing, and color-refraction processes.
The result is a visually striking finish that appears to glow and shift depending on the viewing angle. Lightweight, ergonomically shaped resin shells complete the design, with each earpiece weighing just 6.1 grams for a comfortable fit during longer listening sessions.
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Cable & Connectivity
Juzear includes a high-purity cable with the Nebula that appears more substantial than its price might suggest. It features 6N OCC silver-plated conductors with a 400-core configuration, protected by a durable, double-layer PVC jacket.
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The cable also incorporates an interchangeable termination system, allowing users to switch easily between the included 3.5 mm single-ended and 4.4 mm balanced plugs to match their source equipment.
1 x Dynamic Driver 3 x Balanced Armature Drivers 1 x Micro Planar Driver
Frequency Response
20Hz to 20kHz
Impedance
32 Ohms
Sensitivity
110 dB +/- 1dB SPL/mW
Noice Isolation
26 dB
THD
<0.8%
Connector
0.78mm 2-Pin
Plug
0.78mm / 4.4mm Interchangeable
Cable
6N OCC Silver-Plated Cable
Weight
6.1 grams per side
The Bottom Line
Wired IEMs continue to gain popularity among listeners who want reliable sound quality without batteries, Bluetooth codecs, or software complications. At $129.99, the Juzear Nebula stands out with its five-driver design, four-way crossover, lightweight resin shells, and interchangeable 3.5 mm and 4.4 mm plugs.
It is aimed at listeners who prioritize vocals, spacious presentation, and distinctive styling. What remains unknown is how well the five drivers integrate, how effective the passive isolation will be, and whether the fit works across a wide range of listeners. The specifications look competitive, but the tuning will determine whether the Nebula is genuinely special.
More and more, we want to know: Is it human, or is it AI? Is that image real? That song? That video? The publishing platform Substack is trying to add some clarity by partnering with the AI detector Pangram to help readers understand just how much AI is in all the content they consume on the publishing platform.
The tool is available to all Substack subscribers and works on posts, notes, comments and replies published on or after Tuesday that are longer than 100 words. Creators will also be able to scan their drafts with Pangram to see how much AI is detected and can also provide a statement to explain their writing process, Substack said.
Web and iOS users can try the Pangram features now, and Android users will get access later.
In a blog post announcing the new feature, Substack co-founder and CEO Chris Best said his platform aims to avoid “Claudefishing,” meaning when a reader consumes content without realizing it was generated by AI.
“When readers have to wonder if what they’re reading is real, it undermines trust in authorship and threatens the livelihood of writers — including those who use AI tools thoughtfully to produce work they believe in,” Best wrote.
I’ve only recently joined Substack, but I wanted to check out the new Pangram AI detection tool. The tool works on posts, notes, comments and replies, so I decided to use posts as my makeshift testing lab. First, I logged in to my Substack account and published a new post. I copied and pasted text from an article I had written — by myself, no AI — into the Substack post and published it.
After a few minutes, I clicked on the live post. On the three-dot menu at the upper right of the page, I saw a “Scan for AI text” option. I clicked on it, and a small window popped up accurately declaring that my article was “Fully Human-Written.” A line appears below this that indicates the percentage of the text that is AI, AI-assisted, or human.
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I next took the same post but added a long, fully AI-generated paragraph that I pasted from ChatGPT. When I performed the “Scan for AI text,” the tool reported that 10% of the article was written by AI, a roughly accurate estimate.
I next published a fully AI-generated post, and the scan correctly identified it as 100% AI-generated.
For another test, I added a couple of AI-generated sentences to a post that was otherwise purely human content, and the scan flagged it as 100% human-generated. Close, but not quite right. So, the Pangram tool worked pretty well for my crude experimentation.
How to use Pangram to detect AI content.Substack
Although I was fairly satisfied with how well Substack’s AI detection system worked on my own content, I was disappointed to learn that one of my favorite podcaster-bloggers apparently went full AI on his latest post. Other writers I checked out, however, used fully human-generated text.
What about false positives?
In his announcement, Best admitted that the AI detection tool is “not perfect,” but cited independent research that found Pangram’s software was 97.5% accurate in detecting fully generated AI text. The University of Maryland found that Pangram was 99.3% accurate in identifying “humanized AI-generated text,” which basically means a human has rewritten or paraphrased AI content.
Substack writers who do not use AI are understandably concerned about being incorrectly labeled as AI-assisted authors. As a result, the risk of false positives is a significant issue. Substack said creators can scan their content to see if it will be labeled as containing AI while it’s still in draft form. If Pangram incorrectly identifies AI text, the creator can report the error to Substack and have the false scan removed.
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To promote greater transparency, publishers can now include a “How I make this” statement if they want readers to know how much, if any, AI they have used in their content. Best said Pangram can’t detect if AI was used to gather information or as a source for written pieces.
“We’re not against people using AI to assist their work, and we think people should be free to choose which tools they use to express themselves,” Best said. “But people should know what they’re getting.”
Ever since being admittedly fascinated by the Cambridge coffee webcam from the 1990s, I’ve written about VPNs, the NFL, smartphones, living wages, over/unders and everything in between.
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The Russian nuclear-powered missile cruiser the Admiral Nakhimov is believed to be close to a return to operational status after it was spotted by satellite undergoing sea trials in Kola Bay on June 25, 2026. The Kirov-class ship, which will likely be assigned as the new flagship of Russia’s Northern Fleet, has undergone a lengthy $5 billion refit. Indeed, calling the refit lengthy is something of an understatement. The ship has been out of commission for 27 years, although the refit didn’t start seriously until 2014. For comparison, the world’s most advanced carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, took 12 years to build.
The Nakhimov first entered service in 1988 and was originally known as the Kalinin but was renamed in 1992. Weighing in at about 28,000 tons, the 823-foot ship is the only nuclear-powered surface warship in the world apart from aircraft carriers. However, by 1997 the ship had been taken out of service and spent two years laid up in Severomorsk, the main base for the Russian Northern Fleet. It was then towed to Severodvinsk and placed in dry dock. And, for a few years, not much happened.
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As noted, it wasn’t until 2014 that the project to modernize the massive ship began. Originally, this was meant to be a relatively modest refit, and work was initially cited to be completed by 2018. However, the program suffered continual delays, resulting in a near three-decade absence from operational duties.
With the latest development suggesting that progress has been made, let’s have a closer look at what we know about the ship and its twenty-year-long refit.
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What we know about the Admiral Nakhimov and its refit
The Admiral Nakhimov refit project may have started as the naval equivalent of a quick service, but this quickly became a massive project and one of the largest ever undertaken by the Russian Navy. While we don’t know the full details of the refit, there are some blanks that we can fill in.
Starting with the propulsion system — this ship is fast, with a top speed thought to be around 32 knots (36.8 mph). This is faster than most large warships, and just pips the top speed of a US Navy aircraft carrier. Providing all this power are two nuclear reactors that can produce an impressive 140,000 hp. While these weren’t replaced in the refit, they were refurbished and refueled. Both reactors were back online by February 2025. As a side note, the reactors used are pressurized water reactors — which are also the world’s most common nuclear reactor type.
In terms of armament, the Admiral Nakhimov also packs a serious punch. The original P-700 Granit anti-ship missile system was stripped from the ship as part of the refit and replaced with 10 eight-cell, universal launch modules, supporting a total of 80 UKSK vertical launch system cells. As the name would suggest, these are versatile modules that can deploy a wide range of Russian missiles. This includes anti-submarine, anti-ship, and land attack missiles as well as the 3M22 Zircon missile, the world’s fastest hypersonic missile.
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Additionally, the ship is believed to have been fitted with improved sensors, upgraded radar systems, and more advanced air defense missiles.
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Admiral Nakhimov a massive asset — but a tempting target
When the Admiral Nakhimov is welcomed back after its nearly three-decade-long hiatus, its mission will be of strategic significance. The ship is expected to lead Russia’s Northern Fleet, a formation that largely supports the country’s most valuable naval assets — its ballistic missile submarines. Essentially, the Northern Fleet acts as part of the “bastion” of defenses that Russia has established to protect its operations in the Barents Sea. A ship with Nakhimov’s speed, virtually unlimited range, and long-range air defense and attacking capabilities is designed to strengthen this defense.
However, just how effective the ship will be in the role is a matter of conjecture. A lot has changed since the original Kalinin battlecruiser took to the seas. The emergence of drone warfare has significantly changed the playing field. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Black Sea. In terms of sheer size, comparing Russian Navy resources in the Black Sea to Ukrainian resources is like comparing Goliath to David — yet we all know how that ended. The Ukrainian use of drones has reduced the Russian Navy to defensive duties and greatly restricted the use of its major surface warships.
This is the world that the Nakhimov will enter. While it’s considered the most heavily armed surface warship, it exists in an age where packing so many “eggs in one basket” is being increasingly challenged in naval doctrine. The changing face of naval warfare is one of the reasons that the US Navy is looking for long-range drone ships. Time will tell whether the Nakhimov remains relevant in such a rapidly evolving field.
You can now gift games without a Steam account and sort your wishlist into categories.
Ian Carlos Campbell for Engadget
Valve has pushed updates to Steam’s gifting and wishlist features to — surprise, surprise — make it even easier to buy games. Among the improvements, it’s now possible to use a guest account to purchase games, instead of just gift cards and Steam hardware. And if you’re interested in organizing your wishlist, the company has made it possible to sort saved games into categories.
Making guest accounts more useful goes a long way towards streamlining the game purchasing process on Steam, but Valve is also expanding how games can be gifted. As part of this update, you can now send games directly over email. Previously, you needed to know the recipient’s Steam account to send a game, but now you can message them a link to claim a game even if their email address isn’t associated with their account. The only limitations are that you need to be in the same country as the recipient, and if they don’t accept the game after 30 days, it’s automatically refunded. To send a game to someone in a different country, you’ll still need to be friends with them on Steam, but Valve says it will now automatically calculate the cost of a game in your friend’s region at checkout. All three of these changes should make it easier for the less gaming-inclined to buy PC games for their loved ones.
Steam’s new wishlist improvements make organizing it easier while also acknowledging the feature is for more than just saving games you want to buy later. Categories are best thought of as a folder or tag system for your games. You can name categories whatever you like and easily add games to a category from their store page or your existing wishlist. Selecting the category from the top of Steam’s wishlist page filters your wishlist to only the games in that category. Notifications you receive about wishlist items going on sale can be enabled or disabled for specific categories rather than your entire list. Those big changes are being paired with some smaller tweaks, too: You can now generate a shareable link to your wishlist or a specific category, see whether saved games have demos and play trailers for games on your wishlist when you hover over them.
StreamSkill has combined seven of their best Office 2021/365 courses to create this awesome Ultimate Microsoft Office 2021/365 Bundle. Whether you’re a student, an office professional, a business owner, a freelancer, or just someone who wants to get started with the most widely used Microsoft programs, this course bundle is for you. Join now and gain a thorough understanding of Microsoft Office 2021/365. It’s on sale for $40.
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There are a ton of fantastic games available on the Playdate (with more on the way), but devs keep finding increasingly creative ways to push the little yellow machine to the max. Today, we spotted a neat demo that showcases some tech the game platform wasn’t expected to be capable of.
Game developer Cristina Ramos posted a video on social media of a work in progress that takes the Playdate into 3D. The slice of gameplay begins with platforming upwards through an interior space and then emerging onto a rooftop for some Mirror’s Edge style jumping around under the open sky.
I was told you couldn’t do 3D on the Playdate, so I did it.
Then I was told there was no way I could create exterior levels like those in Mirror’s Edge, so I proved them wrong again.
It’s a great showcase of why we’re such big fans of the Playdate. Working within limitations is one of the best ways to really flex your imagination, and Playdate comes with plenty of them. With enough ingenuity, Ramos and other enterprising devs can make it do the seemingly impossible. We recently learned that the Playdate is even being used to help Big Ben ring on time, which is pretty rad.
The combination of hardware required to make use of this project is specific enough that we imagine only a relatively limited number of readers will actually be able to try it out. But if you do happen to own a YubiKey and either a laser engraver capable of marking it or a fancy UV printer, [madeinoz67] has put together an awesome tool for adding some visual flair to your two-factor authentication device.
Running it is as simple as opening a web page, because that’s exactly how it’s implemented. You can either host it yourself or just launch it right from the GitHub repository. After opening the HTML file, you’re presented with a fairly intuitive user interface that lets you draw on top of a 2D outline of the YubiKey itself so you can get a better idea of what the final product will look like.
You can pick from an array of vector icons, upload your own images, and add custom text. There’s a pull-down at the top that lets you pick which specific YubiKey you want to work with, and there are different views depending on whether you plan on blasting your handiwork onto the device with a laser, doing a full-color UV print, or cutting it out of vinyl with something like a Cricut.
Even if you don’t have a YubiKey that’s begging for some custom artwork, we think there’s a lot to learn from this project. Obviously there are some very valid reasons to be concerned about how much of our modern software can only be accessed through a browser. If you’re going to use web technologies to create a piece of software, the least you could do is make it offline and self-contained like [madeinoz67] has.
Amazon Music has never lacked catalog depth or audio quality; the harder problem has been giving listeners a reason to choose it over Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube Music once the trial period ends and the monthly charge starts feeling less hypothetical.
Alexa+ is Amazon’s latest attempt to close that gap. The company has expanded the feature inside the Amazon Music mobile app to all U.S. customers, including listeners on free and paid tiers, with support on both iOS and Android at no additional charge.
Users can type or speak conversational requests, identify songs from partial clues, ask questions about artists and recordings, create playlists, refine them through follow-up instructions and save the results directly to their libraries. Amazon is not merely improving search; it is trying to replace it with a music assistant that can understand what listeners mean when they remember everything about a song except the title, artist and half the lyrics.
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Alexa+ Is More Than an AI Playlist Generator
Creating a playlist from a text prompt is no longer particularly novel. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Deezer already offer some variation of that feature.
Amazon is trying to make Alexa+ broader.
Listeners can ask it to identify a song from remembered lyrics, an artist, a film or television appearance, or some other incomplete clue. Amazon’s examples include finding the track used during the opening credits of The Sopranos or identifying a song from a partial lyric.
Alexa+ can also answer follow-up questions about:
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Genres and regional music scenes
Artist influences and discographies
Song meanings
Samples and their origins
Album and release history
Chart performance
Band membership changes
Festival lineups
Relationships between artists and musical styles
A listener could begin by requesting contemporary electronic music, ask for more information about one of the recommended artists, remove slower tracks, increase the tempo, and then save the finished selection.
That moves the feature closer to a conversational music guide than a conventional recommendation engine. Whether it is a knowledgeable guide or the person at the record store who confidently invents an answer rather than admitting they do not know will depend on accuracy.
Amazon has not published an accuracy rate for Alexa+ music responses, so claims about samples, credits, chart history, release dates, and song meanings should still be treated as useful starting points rather than digital liner notes carved into stone.
Alexa+ Can Build and Edit Playlists
Alexa+ can create playlists from specific combinations of mood, era, genre, geography, tempo, language, and activity.
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Amazon suggests prompts such as:
Music for driving along the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset
French-language songs that sound appropriate for a Parisian café
Ambient electronic music combined with light classical piano and no lyrics
Contemporary jazz that will not overpower a dinner party
1990s pop featuring Madonna but excluding boy bands
The resulting playlists can be renamed, saved to an Amazon Music library, shared, and edited later by asking Alexa+ to add or remove specific tracks.
That last part is useful. Many generative playlist tools produce a list and then leave the listener to repair it manually when the algorithm decides that “quiet Sunday morning” requires Imagine Dragons.
Alexa+ allows the user to continue the conversation and adjust the result rather than starting again.
Available Across Every Amazon Music Tier
The most important competitive distinction is availability.
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Amazon says Alexa+ is available to all U.S.-based Amazon Music customers across every subscription tier, at no additional cost, through the iOS and Android apps.
That does not mean Alexa+ erases the differences between Amazon Music plans.
The underlying subscription still determines which songs can be played on demand, whether advertising is included, how skipping works, and which audio-quality formats are available. Amazon Music’s paid Unlimited and Standard plans provide access to HD, Ultra HD, Dolby Atmos, and Sony 360 Reality Audio where available; adding Alexa+ to a free account does not quietly turn it into a lossless subscription.
Amazon has also not announced when the Amazon Music integration will expand beyond the United States or reach desktop and web versions of the music service.
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How Amazon Music Alexa+ Compares
Music Service
AI Music Feature
Current Availability
What It Does
Main Limitation
Amazon Music
Alexa+
All U.S. Amazon Music tiers on iOS and Android
Conversational search, song identification, music questions, playlist creation, follow-up editing, playback and library actions
U.S. mobile rollout only; plan restrictions still apply
Spotify
Talk to Spotify
Gradual beta for eligible Premium users aged 18 and older in the U.S., Ireland, and Sweden
Typed or spoken conversation, playback control, music context, listening-history questions, podcast and audiobook discovery
Premium only and limited beta availability
Apple Music
Playlist Playground
Beta for U.S. Apple Music subscribers aged 13 and older, in English
Creates and refines playlists from moods, genres, activities, and eras
Primarily a playlist tool rather than a broad music assistant
YouTube Music
Ask Music
YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium subscribers in select countries
Generates personalized radio stations and playlists; now includes podcast recommendations
Paid subscribers only and limited regional availability
Deezer
Playlist with AI and Flow Tuner
Playlist with AI began as a beta for 5% of paying subscribers; Flow Tuner is more broadly available
Text-generated playlists and direct control over genres used by the recommendation system
The conversational playlist beta has not been confirmed as a universal rollout
TIDAL
My Mix
Available to subscribers after sufficient listening history
Produces up to six algorithmic mixes based on recent listening and saved music
No comparable prompt-based conversational music assistant is publicly documented
Qobuz
Discover and personalized mixes
Available through Qobuz apps
Combines DailyQ, WeeklyQ, personalized radio, recommendations, and extensive human editorial curation
No conversational playlist assistant; Qobuz deliberately emphasizes human curation
Spotify Offers the Closest Direct Rival
Spotify’s new Talk to Spotify feature is the closest comparison to Alexa+.
Eligible Premium users can type or speak to Spotify from the Home and Now Playing screens, request unfamiliar artists, adjust the mood or tempo, add music to the queue, save tracks, follow artists, and ask questions about songs, albums, genres, podcasts, and audiobooks. Spotify can also answer questions about the user’s listening history, including when they first heard a song or which genres they have explored recently.
It is a deeper listener-history tool than Amazon has described so far, particularly because Spotify can examine years of personal playback behavior.
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The limitation is availability. Talk to Spotify is rolling out gradually in English to selected Premium users aged 18 and older in the United States, Ireland, and Sweden. Amazon is offering its music assistant to every U.S. customer, including people who are not paying for Amazon Music.
Spotify also warns that the beta remains a work in progress and that responses will not always be correct. That is unusually honest language from a technology company introducing AI and should probably be printed on the front of every device containing a microphone.
Apple Music Keeps Its AI Focus Narrower
Apple Music’s Playlist Playground creates playlists from text requests involving moods, genres, activities, and musical eras. Users can refine the results, rearrange songs, accept suggested additions, rename the playlist, and save it to their libraries.
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It is available in beta to Apple Music subscribers aged 13 and older in the United States and currently works only in English.
Playlist Playground competes directly with Alexa+ for playlist generation, but Apple does not currently describe it as a broader conversational music expert. It is designed to build playlists rather than explain musical relationships, identify tracks through extended dialogue, or answer detailed questions about what is playing.
Apple’s approach is cleaner and more focused. Amazon’s is more ambitious.
Ambition is useful, provided Alexa+ does not explain that John Coltrane joined Black Sabbath in 1973.
YouTube Music Uses AI for Radio and Podcast Discovery
YouTube Music’s Ask Music allows paid YouTube Music Premium and YouTube Premium subscribers in selected countries to describe what they want to hear and generate a personalized radio station or playlist.
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Google has expanded the feature to include podcast recommendations based on mood, genre, or programs the listener already enjoys.
YouTube Music has an enormous advantage when a request involves live performances, remixes, covers, rare recordings, and material that may not exist in a conventional streaming catalog.
Alexa+ appears to provide a more extensive conversational layer and more direct playlist editing, while Ask Music remains primarily focused on generating something to play.
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Deezer Gives Listeners More Control Over the Algorithm
Deezer began testing Playlist with AI globally in 2024, allowing selected paying subscribers to create playlists through text prompts involving activities, decades, genres, and moods. The initial test was limited to 5% of Deezer’s paying audience.
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More recently, Deezer introduced Flow Tuner, which allows users to activate, deactivate, or add genres and subgenres that influence the service’s recommendation algorithm. Deezer also excludes identified AI-generated recordings from Flow recommendations.
Flow Tuner may be less theatrical than asking a chatbot to build “music for driving through New Jersey while wondering why the Garden State Parkway is not moving,” but direct control over the recommendation engine is arguably more useful over time.
TIDAL and Qobuz Are Taking Different Paths
TIDAL continues to rely on My Mix, which creates as many as six personalized mixes from recent listening behavior and saved music. Those mixes change gradually as the service learns more about the listener.
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TIDAL does not currently document a consumer-facing conversational playlist assistant comparable to Alexa+, Spotify’s new chat feature, or Apple’s Playlist Playground.
Qobuz has moved even further in the opposite direction. Its redesigned Discover section combines personalized mixes, radio stations, listening history, and recommendations with extensive human editorial content, including reviews, interviews, Essential Discography selections, and curated playlists.
Qobuz uses technology to personalize discovery but continues to make human curation part of its identity. In a market racing to replace the record-store employee with a language model, Qobuz is betting that some listeners still want advice from people who have actually heard the album.
What Makes Amazon Music Alexa+ Different?
Alexa+ combines four capabilities that competitors usually separate:
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Natural-language music search
Contextual questions about artists and recordings
Dynamic playlist generation and editing
Direct playback and library control
The feature is also available across all U.S. subscription tiers rather than being reserved for paying customers or a small test group.
Amazon reports that Alexa+ users explore music three times as often as users of the original Alexa, while customers who request recommendations listen to almost 70% more music. Those are Amazon’s internal engagement figures, and the company has not disclosed the sample size, time period, or methodology behind them.
The numbers still explain why every major streaming company is investing heavily in conversational discovery. More questions lead to more recommendations, which lead to more listening, more data, and a lower chance that a subscriber remembers they are paying for four music services.
Who Is It For?
Alexa+ will be most useful for listeners who know what they want emotionally or stylistically but cannot express it through artist names and conventional search terms.
It should also appeal to people who frequently use Amazon Music through Echo products and already think of Alexa as the front door to their music library. The mobile integration allows those users to continue the same kind of interaction without standing within shouting distance of a smart speaker.
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It is less compelling for listeners who prefer choosing complete albums, already maintain carefully organized libraries, or view algorithmic playlists as the musical equivalent of allowing a supermarket to plan dinner.
Audiophiles should also understand that Alexa+ is a discovery and control feature, not an audio upgrade. It does not improve the mastering, increase the bit depth, repair a poor recording, or stop the Amazon Music app from occasionally making basic navigation feel like filing a tax return.
The Bottom Line
Amazon Music Alexa+ is one of the more complete AI music assistants currently available because it goes beyond generating playlists. It can search conversationally, identify partially remembered songs, explain artists and recordings, refine selections through follow-up requests, and make direct changes to playback and the user’s library.
Making it available to every U.S. Amazon Music customer gives Amazon a wider launch audience than Spotify, Apple, YouTube Music, or Deezer currently offer for their closest comparable tools.
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That does not automatically make Alexa+ the best music-discovery system. Spotify knows more about the listening history of many users, YouTube Music has access to a wider universe of rare and unofficial material, Apple’s implementation is more focused, and Qobuz still understands that human editorial judgment has value.
The larger shift is impossible to miss. Music streaming services no longer want listeners to browse catalogs or build playlists by hand. They want us to describe a mood, surrender the queue, and keep listening while the assistant learns enough about our habits to become increasingly difficult to leave.
Convenient? Absolutely.
A little unsettling? Alexa already knows what is in the shopping cart. It may as well know which album we play while regretting the purchase.
from the this-time-we-could-wait-for-discovery dept
We’ve written in the past that people online often get way too excited about theoretical pending “discovery” in frivolous lawsuits filed by bad actors. Because while there are certainly a few cases where (1) a frivolous case even reaches discovery and (2) some elements of that discovery are revealed to the public, in the vast majority of cases, that doesn’t happen. The legal strategy for most defendants is to get a case thrown out before it reaches discovery because discovery is incredibly expensive. And, even then, most often what is handed over in discovery never goes public.
But… hey, sometimes, “can’t wait for discovery” turns out to be an accurate sentiment.
Last year we noted that Donald Trump had filed an obviously frivolous lawsuit against the BBC, asking for $10 billion. At issue was an edit in the documentary he didn’t like which might be considered mildly misleading (though Donald Trump repeatedly falsely claimed that the BBC used AI to fabricate quotes, the reality was they edited two separate parts of the same speech to sound like they were said together, when they were really many minutes apart). That’s not defamation, though.
Either way, the case has not been going well for Trump. Because he argued that this documentary (which was only shown once in the UK and not in the US) harmed Trump’s business interests in Florida (where he sued), the BBC asked for Trump’s financial records as part of their discovery requests. Given that Donald Trump made more money last year (around $2 billion) than ever before, even as he remains the President of the United States, it seems like a reasonable request.
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Trump and his (not very bright) lawyers tried to wriggle out of this by dropping some of the initial claims that were about how much harm the documentary did to his business, saying instead that it just harmed his reputation. The BBC said it still needed his financial records anyway. And now, Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett has agreed, noting in court that the financial records would be relevant to the claims of reputational harm as well.
“All of President Trump’s brand, properties and businesses are impugned or said to have been impugned. Reputational, economic damages, all of that is now at issue in this case,” Lett said at the conclusion of a three-hour hearing.
Of course, Trump’s lawyers can (and almost certainly will) ask the Article III Judge (Roy Altman, who is a Trump appointee) to overrule the magistrate, but it might not work. After all, earlier in the case, Trump’s lawyers had sought to remove Lett from the case, claiming that she was biased against him, because before she became a Magistrate Judge, she had represented a client in a case against Trump. Judge Altman rejected that claim back in May, siding with his colleague, Magistrate Judge Lett:
The Plaintiff asks us to withdraw our referral of discovery matters from Magistrate Judge Lett and reassign them to a different Magistrate Judge. … He advances two arguments in support of this request: First, he cites our unrelated referral of discovery matters in Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust et al. v. Capital One…. Second, he argues that “Magistrate Judge Lett had appeared as counsel of record on behalf of a party directly adverse to President Trump in active federal litigation: Trump v. Clinton… The Plaintiff’s first argument is unavailing. “Effective April 19, 2026,” Magistrate Judge Hernandez replaced Magistrate Judge Lett as our “paired” Magistrate Judge for Miami-based cases…. We reassigned discovery in Capital One the next day based on case workload and the parties’ compressed discovery period…. Nothing about that decision mandates a withdrawal of the referral in the different circumstances of this case. The Plaintiff next argues that Magistrate Judge Lett previously “represent[ed] [a] defendant directly adverse to President Trump.” … Despite his claim to the contrary, the Plaintiff effectively seeks Magistrate Judge Lett’s recusal. … But 28 U.S.C. § 455 is clear that: “Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” Accordingly, we’ll leave any decision regarding Magistrate Judge Lett’s recusal to her sound judgment. Signed by Judge Roy K. Altman on 5/19/2026.
So, at this point, Judge Altman seems willing to trust Magistrate Judge Lett’s judgment on the recusal question — and that deference may well carry over to the financial-records dispute too.
Of course, even if discovery does move forward, Trump could still file for a protective order to keep most of the records secret, outside of whatever has to be used in court. Alternatively, he could try to dismiss the case to get out of having to provide discovery.
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Either way, this was a stupid, vexatious, obvious SLAPP suit designed to punish the BBC and waste its time and money. So it’s quite nice to see that backfiring on the censorial bully that is the President of the United States.
Drivers who’ve been blinded by the lights, it’s not just your imagination. There are cars on the road with headlights that are so bright they’re illegal.
Two years after Tesla informed the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that low-beam headlights on some Tesla EVs exceed brightness limits, the company’s move to make those headlights street-legal has failed. The NHTSA denied Tesla’s petition to avoid a recall, meaning the company will need to issue a fix for nearly 20,000 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles from 2017 to 2023 for a problem the company called “inconsequential.”
A representative for Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tesla argued in its petition that because the bright lighting in question falls outside of the field of vision of oncoming drivers, “noncompliance is inconsequential as it relates to motor vehicle safety.”
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In its response, NHTSA associate administrator for enforcement Eileen Sullivan wrote, “NHTSA disagrees with Tesla’s conclusion that there is no increased risk of glare for surrounding traffic or the driver of the subject vehicle in any driving conditions.”
The agency argued, citing public comment, that the headlights can still produce glare that could affect other drivers.
The group referenced a similar decision it made in 2022 involving GM Terrain vehicles.
For Tesla owners, the NHTSA ruling means the company must provide a free fix for the affected cars.
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Additional steps are possible
The NHTSA isn’t commenting on pending legislation, including its denial of Tesla’s petition, but in an email to CNET, a spokesperson said that the organization is assessing studies about LED-headlamp glare and may take additional steps based on what it finds.
“Some issues may arise from the inappropriate use of high beams, illegal aftermarket lamps, improperly maintained lamps or misaligned lamps,” the spokesperson wrote.
Extra-bright headlights are illegal, and devices that don’t comply can be outlawed from sale on platforms like Amazon, while drivers using overbright headlights can face escalating fines, the suspension of their driver’s license or civil liability.
“Although headlight technology has changed over the years, NHTSA’s lighting standard has remained constant in limiting the amount of glaring light directed toward traffic both coming and going,” the spokesperson said.
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SUVs, which sit taller on the road than sedans, have become the most popular vehicles in the US. That, combined with LEDs taking over as the prime technology for headlights, has led more people to notice that high-intensity low beams seem brighter and harder to avoid.
Some modern cars have benefited from adaptive lighting technologies that can adjust brightness, direction or lighting pattern as driving conditions change, but many cars on the road aren’t equipped with these systems.
Headlights in the congressional spotlight
Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives joined the discussion about bright headlights with the introduction of a bill from Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington state.
The LIGHT Safety Act would set maximum allowable brightness limits for low-beam headlamps on vehicles in the US. So far, the proposal has only been sent to committee, meaning it’s been assigned to a House panel for initial review, with no further action taken on it since March.
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The bill seeks to revise existing federal standards by establishing a maximum allowable brightness for low beams.
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