Google announced on Wednesday that it’s releasing Lyria 3 Pro, a music generation model, a month after Lyria 3’s release. The new model will let users create tracks up to three minutes long, as compared to the 30-second-long tracks offered with the Lyria 3 model. The company said that, apart …

Block Party founder Tracy Chou announced on Wednesday that the company has been acquired by DeleteMe, an online personal data removal service. A software engineer and advocate for diversity in tech, Chou founded Block Party in 2018 as a tool to help people stay safe from targeted harassment on Twitter, …

The explosion of new data center projects in the U. has led to a growing backlash against the infrastructure that powers AI. Two influential politicians are now proposing a ban on any new data centers with peak power loads in excess of 20 megawatts. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and …

There’s big news today for app developers. No, it’s not lowered App Store commissions. Instead, Apple on Wednesday announced a significant update to its App Store Connect service, which is where developers publish, manage, and track their apps’ performance across the company’s platforms. The changes bring more than 100 new …

Meta is laying off several hundred employees across multiple teams, including sales, recruiting, and the Reality Labs division, as reported by The Information and Bloomberg. The cuts will impact employees in the U. and other international markets. Some of those employees will be offered other jobs or the opportunity to …

One day after Meta lost a similar child safety lawsuit in New Mexico, a Los Angeles jury on Wednesday handed the social media giant — along with Google — another defeat. In a case arguing that social media platforms played a major role in harming a young woman’s mental health, …

The number of med-spas, weight-loss clinics, and concierge practices where patients pay a membership fee for direct, often same-day access to physicians, has exploded in recent years. But while patients pay for these services out-of-pocket, providers still often rely on software built for traditional, insurance-based care. VITL, an 18-month-old startup, …

At a press conference at the White House on Wednesday, First Lady Melania Trump showed up with a humanoid robot developed by robotics firm Figure AI. The duo waltzed down a red carpet together before the bot gave a brief speech, chirping: “I am grateful to be part of this …

If Google’s AI researchers had a sense of humor, they would have called TurboQuant, the new, ultra-efficient AI memory compression algorithm announced Tuesday, “Pied Piper” — or, at least that’s what the internet thinks. The joke is a reference to the fictional startup Pied Piper that was the focus of …

Last August, a fire ripped through 10 acres of grass on either side of California’s I-280 near Redwood City. Traffic backed up as firefighters extinguished the blaze, and California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers directed drivers to turn around and travel the wrong way to exit the freeway. Some of those …