If you are a top fan of an artist, Spotify will give you a chance to book a ticket to their next show. This is the audio platform’s new bid to keep its users engaged and stream more to become eligible to be a top fan. Spotify didn’t give an exact criterion to be a…
One of the common features for companies to build in the age of AI is to connect services like email, calendar, documents, and notes to create a daily brief in text or audio format. Spotify is also giving in to this temptation and releasing a new stand-alone desktop app called Studio by Spotify Labs for…
Finnish phone maker HMD today launched its first smartphone, called the Vibe 2 5G, which comes preloaded with Indian AI company Sarvam’s chatbot Indus. Both companies had first announced the partnership during the India AI summit held in New Delhi in February. The Indus app is powered by Sarvam’s locally trained 105-billion-parameter model — a…
For users, Spotify has been a place to consume podcasts made by other creators. The company wants to change that by introducing a personal podcast feature, which uses AI to generate podcasts for users based on an idea or a custom prompt. Earlier this month, the company released a GitHub-based command-line tool for Claude Code…
Google is about to look really different, and if you’re not a fan of the AI Overviews feature, then you’re not going to like what’s coming. At the Google I/O 2026 keynote this week, the company announced that it is overhauling Search to embrace a conversational, AI-driven approach, even inviting users to enlist AI agents…
An international coalition of law enforcement agencies announced Thursday that they took down a popular virtual private network service used by cybercriminals and arrested its administrator. The FBI said in an alert that First VPN was so popular that “at least” 25 ransomware gangs used the service to hide their malicious activity. Cybercriminals also relied…
Elon Musk has incredible sway over the companies he leads. And while he already calls himself “TechnoKing” at Tesla, he is a real ruler over SpaceX, wielding an unprecedented level of control over one of the most valuable companies in the world. Musk’s monarchical grip on SpaceX was finally laid bare in the company’s IPO…
SpaceX has scrubbed the first launch of its third-generation Starship rocket system from its headquarters in Starbase, Texas. The company is expected to make another attempt on Friday. It’s a crucial launch for the company — and not just because it’s the first real test of the upgraded Starship V3 hardware; it also comes at…
Waymo has now paused service in four cities because its robotaxis are struggling to deal with heavy rain and flooded roads, a problem that already prompted the company to issue a recall last week. One of Waymo’s robotaxis was spotted driving through a flooded street in Atlanta, Georgia, on Wednesday before it ultimately got stuck…
Long before Zohran Mamdani became New York City’s 112th mayor, he understood that if you want to reach young voters, you have to meet them online. Now, in classic Mamdani fashion, the mayor has taken that strategy even further. On Thursday, Polygon exclusively revealed that Mamdani is launching a recurring Twitch livestream series titled “Talk…