Spotify is rolling out a new AI-powered conversational feature that lets Premium users talk directly to the app about what they want to hear. Users can type or speak a request and refine the results through follow-up questions instead of manually searching for a song, podcast, or audiobook.

The feature is available from Spotify’s Home and Now Playing screens and works much like a personal audio assistant. It can choose what plays, answer questions about the current track or album, recommend something new, and look through your listening history to provide more personalized responses.

What can you ask Spotify to do?

You can ask Spotify to play artists you have not heard before. Follow-up requests can add a particular artist, narrow the selection to recent releases, or make the music more upbeat. The assistant can also save a song, add it to your queue, or follow an artist. It can provide more information about whatever is currently playing. Users can ask when an album was released, what genre a song belongs to, or what inspired a particular record.

The feature also works across podcasts and audiobooks. You can ask Spotify to find more books by an author or pull up other podcast episodes featuring the same guest. It can also look back through your listening history. Spotify says you will be able to ask when you first played a particular song or which genres you have been listening to most recently.

This is not Spotify’s first AI-powered feature

Spotify has been experimenting with AI for a while now, and each feature has brought the technology into a different part of the service. AI DJ is one such feature that creates a personalized stream of music and uses an AI-generated voice to introduce songs and explain recommendations. AI Playlist lets users build playlists from written prompts based on a mood, activity, or genre.

Studio by Spotify Labs can generate personal podcasts and daily briefings shaped around a user’s listening history. Spotify has also announced a separate generative AI tool that will let Premium subscribers create licensed covers and remixes from songs by participating artists and songwriters.

The new conversational feature is now rolling out in beta to Premium users aged 18 and older in the US, Ireland, and Sweden. It is available in English through Spotify’s iOS and Android apps. Spotify says responses may not always be perfect while testing continues.

The federal government dropped the ball on the transition to electric cars when it killed the EV tax rebate last year. However, Governor Gavin Newsom has come up with an alternate solution for those in California in the form of up to $3,500 in instant rebates for first-time EV buyers.

Dubbed the MyFirstEV program, Newsom’s bill — which will go into effect sometime later this summer — is part of a larger $600 million investment by California to improve the state’s clean transportation economy. As for the rebates specifically, half of the program’s $270 million fund comes directly from California’s 2026-2027 state budget, while the other half is sourced from participating automakers.

That said, for Californians hoping to take advantage of the new incentive, there are some important restrictions. First, eligible vehicles are all zero emission, which means full battery electric cars, no hybrids. Second, in order to get the full $3,500 rebate on a new vehicle, the car’s MSRP must be under $50,000. For those planning to buy a used EV, a $1,750 rebate only applies to cars that cost less than $25,000. Finally, as the name of the program implies, the rebate is only available to first-time EV buyers.

Even with these restrictions, there’s still plenty of room in people’s budgets for a range of popular makes and models including the Nissan Leaf, Tesla Model 3 and Model Y, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Ford Mustang Mach-E and more. California-based Rivian’s latest EVs are a bit too expensive, but pricing for the R2 starts at $45,000 when the base model goes on sale sometime next year. Furthermore, the rebate is available as an instant discount through dealerships, which means you can effectively knock off up to $3,500 at the time of purchase. There’s no need to jump through additional hoops later on.

Going forward, the rest of California’s $600 million investment into zero emission transportation includes $150 million for the state’s Community Air Protection Program, $135.5 million for the Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project and $130 million earmarked to replace vehicles with polluting heavy-duty engines. And for those in more rural areas, the state has also pledged to install more charging stations to help make refueling EVs easier.

Satechi, which makes some fantastic charging and PC peripherals, has just launched a whole bunch of accessories targeted at the MacBook Neo. But instead of making them boring and drab, the company has actually color-matched them to the exact shade that you get on Apple’s budget-centric laptop. The offerings on the table include a multi-port adapter, a USB-C snap hub, and a wireless mouse, and all of them are now available to buy starting at $29.99 from Satechi’s website and Amazon. Color options that are up for grabs include Citrus, Blush, Indigo, and Silver

Satechi OntheGo 5-in-1 Multiport Adapter ($44.99)

The round multi-port adapter by Satechi is arguably the most eye-catching device in the lineup. It’s a puck-shaped adapter that can also attach magnetically to the lid of your MacBook Neo. The Satechi OntheGo 5-in-1 Multiport Adapter comes with a color-matched nylon braided cable and features a USB-C as well as a USB-A port, both of which allow 5 Gbps data transfer.

The USB-C port also opens the door for 60-watt pass-through charging, and there is also an HDMI port that can handle monitors at up to 4K resolution and a 60 Hz refresh rate. It also features an SD card reader, which means you can also use it as an external storage and recording device, while attached magnetically to the back of your iPhone.

Satechi USB-C Snap Hub ($44.99)

If you don’t want a device that dangles through a wire from your laptop, the Satechi USB-C Snap Hub is the ideal solution. It can link up with the USB-C ports on your MacBook Neo and sits flush with the chassis, as if it were a natural extension of the body. It just misses out on the active cooling perk that the brand is offering with its SSD enclosure.

It flaunts an anodized aluminum build that feels right at home with Apple’s laptop, and offers a decent selection of six ports. You get an HDMI port that can handle 4K 60Hz output to an external monitor, a USB-A port, a USB-C inlet, an SD card reader, as well as a micro SD card slot, and a 45-watt pass-through charging port.

And finally, we have the Satechi Slim EX Wireless Mouse, which costs $29.99 and supports wireless connectivity over Bluetooth and the 2.4 GHz link. Rocking an aluminum build, Satechi says that its latest mouse offers “quiet click switches and a precision-machined scroll wheel.” It also features a user-replaceable battery and works just fine across macOS, Windows, Android, and iPadOS platforms.

Artificial intelligence giant Anthropic today upped the ante in its quest to win the increasingly competitive market for AI in education by debuting Claude for Teachers, a free large language model designed for U.S. K-12 educators.

Claude for Teachers includes a library of teaching skills and a “direct connection to evidence-based curricula, mapped to academic standards in all 50 states,” the company said in a statement.

The move by Anthropic is the latest in a series of initiatives by tech giants including OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Teachers, Microsoft Elevate for Educators, and Google AI Educator Series to earn market share in an increasingly competitive AI and edtech space.

“We built Claude for Teachers to close the distance between what the evidence recommends and what a teacher’s week allows,” the Anthropic statement continued.

Although some educators are skeptical of AI usage in the classroom, particularly in early childhood education, Anthropic cited Stanford research suggesting that AI tools, when designed and used correctly, can aid teachers and improve student learning.

Privacy and Security Measures

Claude for Teachers has access to academic standards in all 50 states, so it can create lessons that are “scaffolded and aligned to teaching standards.” The tool’s library of skills, co-developed with Learning Commons, was piloted with teachers in Prospect Schools in Brooklyn, New York, and other sites. Anthropic said it plans to evaluate Claude for Teachers in the Detroit Public Schools Community District, “working closely with teachers to study the impact on educator well-being and practice.”

Claude for Teachers includes Claude Code and Cowork, allowing teachers to vibe-code and use the technology to securely analyze class data. “We never train our models on your conversations. Training is off for verified teacher accounts,” Anthropic said.

Anthropic is collaborating with the American Federation of Teachers to ensure student information is protected. “We’ve been working with Anthropic on a Gold Standard that sets out industry best practices for safety and privacy in K-12 education,” said Randi Weingarten, president of American Federation of Teachers, in the Anthropic statement.

Revolut, Stripe, UniCredit, Deutsche Bank and SumUp are just some of the companies selected for the pilot, which is set to commence in the second half of 2027.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has chosen 36 payment service providers (PSP) to participate in a 12-month digital euro pilot, according to an announcement released today (14 July).

The financial organisations, which include Revolut, UniCredit, Deutsche Bank, SumUp and Stripe Technology Europe, were selected from a pool of 50 PSP applicants, ranging from traditional banks to transaction platforms. The companies come from 16 euro member countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Ireland and Austria.

Interestingly, three of the selected companies – Deutsche, DZ Bank and BPCE – were among a group of 14 European lenders that previously voiced reservations about the digital euro, citing concerns such as cost and potentially undermining existing private-sector payments initiatives in the continent.

The digital euro is a proposed central bank digital currency (CBDC) – basically a digital version of an official currency – that was first suggested in 2023. To date, only three countries worldwide have officially launched a CBDC: Jamaica, the Bahamas and Nigeria.

The digital euro pilot is due to commence in the second half of 2027, and will be “crucial” for testing the digital euro’s technical functionality and operational processes, as well as for refining user experience, according to the ECB.

The pilot will take place at the ECB and 19 national central banks across the euro area, specifically in Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Croatia, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.

The programme will use a beta version of the digital euro, which will be “functionally and technically close” to the digital euro as foreseen in the draft legislation – though it will not have legal tender status.

The pilot will involve staff at the ECB and the participating national central banks – as well as e-commerce merchants and vendors operating on their premises, such as cafeterias and restaurants – who will be able to make beta digital euro payments from person to person (both online and offline) and from person to business.

According to the ECB, some of the 36 selected financial organisations will act as ‘distributing PSPs’, which will provide Eurosystem staff with access to beta digital euro services such as account set-up and payments, while others will act as ‘acquiring PSPs’, which will serve selected merchants and enable them to receive beta digital euro payments.

Some PSPs will have a dual role providing both distributing and acquiring services.

“The strong market interest in the pilot shows the private sector’s readiness to engage actively and quickly advance with the digital euro project to strengthen the European payments landscape,” said ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone, who chairs the Digital Euro High-Level Task Force.

“We look forward to deeper engagement as we work with and learn alongside European payment service providers in developing a secure, efficient and inclusive digital euro.”

The digital euro pilot announcement comes after the European Parliament recently officially backed the digital euro. Meanwhile, talks began yesterday (13 July) between the European Parliament, European governments and the European Commission on establishing rules for the digital currency.

The negotiations intend to produce a final law by the end of the year, which would pave the way for formal approval of the digital euro at the start of 2027 – with an official launch intended for 2029.

One of the main arguments put forward by the ECB in support of the digital euro is its potential to reduce European reliance on non-European payment providers. The ECB has also stated that cash would not be replaced by the CBDC – a common concern associated with the project.

Meanwhile, other common doubts about the initiative include concerns about infrastructure reliability and fears of negative impacts on traditional banks.

Last year, BearingPoint’s Martin Deere spoke to SiliconRepublic.com about how Ireland can prepare for the digital euro.

Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.

from the do-not-pass-go,-do-not-collect-$200 dept

A dozen states have filed an antitrust lawsuit to block Paramount/CBS’ $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers. The states argue the deal will undermine market competition, cause untold layoffs, result in higher prices and lower quality for consumers, and significantly harm a Hollywood entertainment industry that still hasn’t fully recovered from Covid, the streaming revolution, or previous shitty mergers.

The state lawsuit, led by California AG Rob Bonta and filed in the U.S. District for the Northern District of California, alleges that the merger violates Section 7 of the Clayton Act, which holds that mergers that lessen competition or endeavor to ultimately create monopoly are illegal.

Larry Ellison’s efforts to gift his nepobaby son with two Hollywood studios in a year might be fun for David and other aspiring if unqualified moguls, but it’s likely to result in more problems than ever given the deal’s significant debt load and the steady hints of incompetence among Ellisons’ chosen leadership.

From the California AG’s announcement:

“Consolidation here not only leads to higher prices — it also leads to fewer opportunities for important stories to come to life, and fewer ways for audiences to encounter stories, ideas, and perspectives beyond their own experiences. In this country, no one is above the law. With this lawsuit, California and our sister states are fighting for free and fair markets, not rigged markets. America has no kings in government or our economy.”

California’s AG notes the deal combines two of the nation’s five major film distributors, leaving four major film distributors controlling over 85 percent of all wide-release theatrical films in the United States. The deal also combines two of the five major owners of basic cable channels (three of which are technically Disney), leaving just two companies in control of 59 percent of all basic cable in the United States.

Other states that signed off on the lawsuit include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington. You’ll notice a broad lack of Republican AGs, despite a lot of pretense last election season that the GOP really cared a lot about antitrust now. Apparently a top Trump donor clumsily trying to dominate American media (with Saudi, Qatari and Chinese help) doesn’t qualify.

We’ve discussed at great length how these sorts of major media deals almost uniformly result in mass layoffs and price hikes in order to pay off the massive new debt load. Every deal involving Warner Brothers in particular, which now goes back a quarter century to AOL, have always resulted in mass layoffs, higher prices, lower-quality, corner cutting, and a lot of shuttered creative projects.

Such deals generally only benefit the extraction class, who, every time they’re out of fresh ideas, look to mindless consolidation to shuffle the deck, obtain tax breaks, and nab a brief stock boost. Execs then inevitably cannibalize brand quality, cash out (see: AT&T), then float off to the next effort with “savvy dealmaker” emblazoned across their resumes, outsized executive compensation in hand.

The state lawsuit doesn’t really touch on the foreign influence peddling concerns created by the deal’s Saudi and Chinese funding. That would normally be a job for the FCC, were we to have one that functioned in the public interest. The state also lacks any authority to challenge Larry Ellison’s efforts to dominate what’s left of U.S. corporate media, supplanting already shaky journalism with lazy right wing agitprop.

Paramount issued a statement insisting that antitrust law somehow doesn’t apply to it, while arguing any delay in the deal would harm consumers:

“The lawsuit filed by the state attorneys general, in the most generous light, reflects a fundamentally flawed application of the antitrust laws and is wrong on both the facts and the law. Delaying this transaction will only harm entertainment workers who have already suffered over recent years as technology has disrupted their livelihood and cost California tens of thousands of entertainment jobs.”

As hints of a looming state lawsuit loomed, Paramount executives seemed to get more and more desperate, jumping between falsely claiming opposition to the deal was “antisemitic,” to empty threats leaked to news outlets this week that the company could leave California if state regulators interfered.

A delay caused by the new state lawsuit isn’t likely to hurt consumers or workers. It is, however, potentially harmful for a very debt-heavy acquisition backed by Ellison, who is extremely over-leveraged on the AI hype bubble. Should the AI bubble pop during regulatory review, Ellison could be looking at a far less forgiving financial reality that makes his aggressive media ambitions less tenable.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, consolidation, consumers, larry ellison, layoffs, media, rob bonta

Companies: paramount, warner bros., warner bros. discovery

from the more-officers,-more-masks,-more-intimidation dept

This is pointless escalation, but pointless escalation is this administration’s brand.

We already know ICE officers have gone out of their way to aim their phones at protesters and others who try to derail their masked kidnapping squads. And we know — thanks to public records and leaked documents — ICE has access to facial recognition tech that makes it much easier for officers to identify protesters and harass/intimidate them for engaging in their First Amendment rights.

So, it’s hardly a surprise that ICE has upped the intimidation ante. What’s surprising about this is that ICE has mobilized its own propaganda/intimidation force that (just barely) attempts to disguise itself as something else. This has been noticed elsewhere — at least in terms of ICE officers wielding professional-grade video cameras to document arrests, etc. — but this is apparently the first time ICE has decided to pretend its masked camera people are members of the “media.”

This is happening in Danbury, Connecticut, where ICE has recently intensified its evil for exactly the reasons you’d expect: Kamala Harris carried the state in the last election, the state has sued the administration multiple times, and state legislators have been pushing Yale to fight back against Trump’s politically-motivated extortion attempts.

Here are the broader details on this insult to American ideals, as reported by the Connecticut Mirror:

ICE has had camera crews accompany them on enforcement operations in other states, promoting its deportation efforts on social media. Some of the videos are similar in style to footage from the reality TV show “COPS,” and some include embedded far-right media outlets and influencers. But according to The Washington Post, ICE has used misleading footage, “muddying the reality of events in viral clips.”

The Danbury cameraman was recorded by members of Greater Danbury Area Unites for Immigrants, standing near a crowd by a state courthouse. A person is crying off camera, mentioning to ICE agents the person they apprehended had a heart condition. The agents soon get into their cars and leave, the cameraman pointing the camera at the crowd as the agents drive away.

That might seem about as innocuous as this version of ICE gets, but the devils are in the details. Here’s more from Dan Haar, reporting for the Connecticut Insider.

The woman from Ridgefield, part of a group observing and documenting ICE operations, rushed to Danbury on a June day, like so many times before in the 18 months of the second Trump administration.

This time, on June 4, she saw a different scene. ICE had more vehicles along Moss Avenue near the courthouse and a more open, less furtive presence. “Brazen,” she called it.  

Advertisement

“There is a gentleman running furiously up the road towards my vehicle and there was about four or five agents chasing him,” the woman, a U.S. citizen who requested anonymity for fear of retribution by the government. “He had a look of fear, or like terror on his face.”

And she saw something else. Arriving in vehicles with the ICE agents, then working alongside the agents on the streets, a couple of men with professional video equipment wore black vests marked “MEDIA” in large, white, capital letters. 

This isn’t just something saw and told others about. This was captured on video (albeit without sound).

This is a dude dressed like lots of ICE officers — kevlar vest, face mask, and something that could be charitably called “tactical pants.” Except this vest says “MEDIA,” rather than ICE or ERO or DHS or nothing at all.

This might give people the impression that actual press members are embedded with ICE. But only for a moment. First, as is pointed out in Haar’s column, journalists never identify themselves as “media,” because that term is entirely incorrect:

Technically, anyone wielding the tools of communication is using media, as both Yousman and Crawford pointed out. Media is technology such as video or pen and paper, not a job. 

That, to Crawford, is a hint that these are ICE employees or contractors, not independent news professionals. 

“In war zones, journalists don’t wear jackets that say media. They wear jackets that say press,” she said, arguing that the distinction matters. Using the wrong word shows that these vest signs are not there to do the normal job of protecting members of the working press in dangerous situations. 

Advertisement

Further distancing themselves from real members of any press entity are the actions of the people labeled “media” who trailed behind ICE officers. First, they were masked. Press members might wear masks occasionally, but only if they expect to encounter things like tear gas or pepper spray.

Second — and perhaps most importantly — embedded press members don’t pull this kind of shit:

A video shows him wheeling around to record observers at very close range, who were themselves making videos. In another video shot, he is shown quickly pulling up his mask as he rounds a corner and sees an observer’s camera.

All of this happened in the context of ICE’s general horrificness. What was captured here were the actions of ICE officers staking out a courthouse to make easy arrests of people just trying to adhere to the conditions of their parole, immigration-related or otherwise.

Dan Haar says what needs to be said: this isn’t America. This is something we’ve always considered ourselves to be above, right up until Trump decided to drag us all down with him.

Clearly, government agents, employees or contractors masquerading as members of the working press create confusion and erode the legitimacy of the independent media, while lending credence to government misinformation and propaganda. These are all hallmarks of President Donald Trump as we all know, but it’s still disturbing to see it paraded on the streets so flagrantly.

It’s just not what free countries do, certainly not ones with a constitution that assures freedom of the press. 

Trump is degrading an entire nation. Unfortunately, he has a sizable fan base willing to jack off into the nearest flag while cheering on his authoritarian efforts. This is just ICE being extra fucking shitty because it knows everyone in the administration is similarly supportive of their hostile behavior.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, connecticut, dhs, free speech, ice, journalism, mass deportation, media, trump administration