Most notably, the company is rolling out a Spotify integration that will allow podcasters on Substack to sync and distribute all of their free and paid episodes to Spotify’s streaming service.
Plus, the integration will allow Substack podcasters’ existing subscribers to listen to paid episodes on Spotify.
Podcasters on Substack can set up a Spotify integration by going into their podcast settings, opening the Spotify dropdown, and then clicking the “Sync to Spotify” option to create a new feed with all current and future episodes.
Paid episodes are labeled with a padlock, and listeners need to link their Substack account to Spotify to listen to paid episodes directly on the streaming service.
Substack plans to make this data accessible via a creator’s Substack podcast stats page in the future.
If the decisions made by corporate boards of directors can indicate where a company wants to be focusing, Amazon’s board just made an interesting move.
The company announced on Thursday that Andrew Ng, known for building AI at large tech companies, is joining its board of directors.
And given the AI whiplash that every big tech company is currently dealing with, it feels timely that McGrath is stepping away from the board now.
To stay at the forefront of the tech industry, Amazon will be looking for better thought leadership on the next steps in its artificial intelligence strategy.
It’s worth remembering that Amazon has been a leading player in AI for a long time.
Announced earlier this year, Roku revealed today that its Pro Series TVs, the lineup of high-end televisions, are now available for purchase in the U.S.
Starting today, Roku Pro Series TVs are being sold at Best Buy stores and online at BestBuy.com, Amazon.com, and Walmart.com.
Compared to the Roku Select and Roku Plus Series TVs, which were the first-ever Roku-branded smart TVs that launched in 2023, the Roku Pro Series has a slimmer design that can be flush mounted to the wall.
Like the Roku Plus TVs, the Pro Series has HDR10+ and Dolby Vision for a cinematic viewing experience, as well as 4K QLED displays and local dimming.
In addition to the Pro Series launch, Roku announced new software updates coming to all Roku TVs that aim to enhance the viewing experience.
Gemini 1.5 Pro, Google’s most capable generative AI model, is now available in public preview on Vertex AI, Google’s enterprise-focused AI development platform.
Gemini 1.5 Pro launched in February, joining Google’s Gemini family of generative AI models.
Gemini 1.5 was incredibly able to find the specific perfect 50 dunk and details from just its long context video understanding!
Gemini 1.5 Pro doesn’t process a million tokens at the snap of a finger.
Google previously said that latency is an area of focus, though, and that it’s working to “optimize” Gemini 1.5 Pro as time goes on.
On Tuesday at the Google Cloud Next customer conference in Las Vegas, Google introduced a new AI-fueled video creation tool called Google Vids.
At Google Cloud Next, we’re unveiling Google Vids, a brand new, AI-powered video creation app for work,” Aparna Pappu, VP & GM at Google Workspace said, introducing the tool.
Examples of the kinds of videos people are creating with Google Vids include product pitches, training content or celebratory team videos.
Like most generative AI tooling, Google Vids starts with a prompt.
Along the way colleagues can comment or make changes, just as with any Google Workspace tool.
Uber Eats is launching a TikTok-like short-form video feed to boost discovery and help restaurants showcase their dishes.
With this launch, Uber Eats now joins numerous other popular apps that have launched their own short-form video feeds following TikTok’s rise in popularity, including Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, and Netflix to name a few.
The new Uber Eats short-form videos are visible in carousels placed across the app, including the homescreen.
Verma also shared that in order to further support merchants, the company has revamped its Uber Eats Manager software and added personalized growth recommendations.
Uber Eats announced today that it now has more than one million merchants around the world on its platform, across 11,000 cities in six continents.
Apple updated its App Store rules Friday to allow emulators for retro console games globally with an option for downloading titles.
Apple’s update will probably encourage some of those developers to bring their emulators to the App Store.
With Apple having to tweak App Store rules because of regulations, these kinds of games would provide another revenue stream for the company.
Plus, it updated App Store rules at that time to support in-app purchases for mini-games and AI chatbots.
“Apps may offer certain software that is not embedded in the binary, specifically HTML5 mini apps and mini-games, streaming games, chatbots, and plug-ins.
Meta has announced changes to its rules on AI-generated content and manipulated media following criticism from its Oversight Board.
So, for AI-generated or otherwise manipulated media on Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the playbook appears to be: more labels, fewer takedowns.
“Our ‘Made with AI’ labels on AI-generated video, audio and images will be based on our detection of industry-shared signals of AI images or people self-disclosing that they’re uploading AI-generated content,” said Bickert, noting the company already applies ‘Imagined with AI’ labels to photorealistic images created using its own Meta AI feature.
Meta’s blog post highlights a network of nearly 100 independent fact-checkers which it says it’s engaged with to help identify risks related to manipulated content.
These external entities will continue to review false and misleading AI-generated content, per Meta.
Hoping to stall a ban, TikTok says it generated $14.7B for US small businesses last yearAs U.S. lawmakers weigh a possible TikTok ban, the ByteDance-owned short-form video app released an economic impact report on Thursday.
In it, the company touts the platform generated $14.7 billion for small- to mid-size businesses (SMBs) last year, and a further $24.2 billion in total economic activity, supported through small business’s use of TikTok.
In addition, it says that over 7 million U.S. businesses rely on TikTok and that 224,000 jobs were supported by small business activity on the platform in 2023.
In March, a bill that could ban TikTok passed in the House of Representatives.
The Trump administration had previously sought to ban TikTok, calling it a national security risk, but Trump now opposes a ban, saying that Meta would benefit.
Gómez’s research is grounded in the computational music field, where she contributes to the understanding of the way humans describe music and the methods in which it’s modeled digitally.
What I liked at the time from machine learning was its modelling capabilities and the shift from knowledge-driven to data-driven algorithm design — e.g.
There’s also PHENICX, a large European Union (EU)-funded project I coordinated on the use of music; and AI to create enriched symphonic music experiences.
What advice would you give to women seeking to enter the AI field?
They should learn about the working principles and limitations of AI algorithms to be able to challenge them and use them in a responsible way.
