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Spotify peeved after 10,000 users sold data to build AI tools

For millions of Spotify users, the "Wrapped" feature—which crunches the numbers on their annual listening habits—is a highlight of every year's end, ever since it debuted in 2015. NPR once broke down exactly why our brains find the feature so "irresistible," while Cosmopolitan last year declared that sharing Wrapped screenshots of top artists and songs had by now become "the ultimate status symbol" for tens of millions of music fans. It's no surprise then that, after a decade, some Spotify user

Two popular NotebookLM formats have quietly disappeared — Here’s what to use instead

NotebookLM, the note-taking and research app powered by Gemini, received a big update this week. That update brought a bevy of new learning tools, such as flashcards, quizzes, more Audio Overview formats, and so on. While there’s a lot for NotebookLM users to be excited about, it’s not all good news. Users are starting to notice that the update has quietly removed two commonly used features. This week’s update introduced a variety of changes to NotebookLM, but arguably the biggest change was to

Flush door handles are the car industry’s latest safety problem

Earlier this week, Ars spent some time driving the new Nissan Leaf. We have to wait until Friday to tell you how that car drives, but among the changes from the previous generation are door handles that retract flush with the bodywork, for the front doors at least. Car designers love them for not ruining the lines of the door with the necessities of real life, but is the benefit from drag reduction worth the safety risk? That question is in even sharper relief this morning. Bloomberg's Dana Hul

Oracle stock booms 40%, on pace for best day since 1992

Oracle stock roared 40% higher Wednesday, after reporting gobsmacking cloud demand numbers, setting the company on track for a historic gain. The cloud giant is on pace for its best day since 1992, and is now quickly approaching the $1 trillion market cap benchmark. Oracle is now at $950 billion. The company said it has $455 billion in remaining performance obligations, up 359% from a year earlier. "This is a very historic kind of print right here from Oracle with this backlog," Ben Reitzes,

This app just raised $14M to take on the loneliness epidemic

One Friday evening, Alyx van der Vorm couldn’t stop thinking, “I should do something with someone.” But she found herself alone once again on a Friday night, thinking about just heading to the gym. That was when she realized that trying to make plans with people these days is incredibly hard. “Figuring out who’s around, texting, waiting, researching options… It felt absurd that staying home and watching a movie was one tap, but seeing a friend was ten steps,” van der Vorm said. At 25 years ol

Microsoft fixes app install issues caused by August Windows updates

Microsoft has fixed a known issue caused by the August 2025 security updates, which triggers unexpected User Account Control (UAC) prompts and app installation problems for non-admin users on all Windows versions. This issue is caused by a security patch that mitigates a Windows Installer privilege escalation vulnerability (CVE-2025-50173), which can enable authenticated attackers to gain SYSTEM privileges. To address the CVE-2025-50173 security flaw, Microsoft has implemented new User Account

Need Linux help? My favorite forums, groups, and mailing lists when I need support

Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways If you need help with Linux, try these outlets. You might not get an answer immediately, but one will come. These are all free to join and enjoy (just watch out for trolls). Linux is about community, and it has been for a very long time. Without community, I'm not sure if Linux would be where it is today. When I first started using Linux in the late 90s, I turned to old-school solution

Show HN: Downloading a folder from a repo using rust

Git Down git-down lets you download one or multiple directories from a Git repository without the hassle of cloning or downloading the whole repository, with one simple command. Usage It's really easy to use. $ git-down -d < DESTINATION_DIRECTORY > < REPO_URL.git:branch > FILES The -d <DESTINATION_DIRECTORY> option above is optional. If not specified the files will be downloaded into a directory under the name of the target repository. We're using the bootstrap repo as an example for how t

Google’s former security leads raise $13M to fight email threats before they reach you

As AI is increasingly helping hackers to launch mass-scale email attacks, former Google security leaders have joined forces to build autonomous AI agents that aim to stop phishing, malware, and business email compromise threats before they ever reach user inboxes. That is the mission behind AegisAI, a new email security startup that has just emerged from stealth with $13 million in seed funding co-led by Accel and Foundation Capital. More than 90% of successful cyberattacks begin with a phishi

Klarna prices IPO at $40, above online lender's expected range

Klarna is synonymous with the "buy now, pay later" trend of making a purchase and deferring payment until the end of the month or paying over interest-free monthly installments. Online lender Klarna priced its IPO at $40 per share on Tuesday, above its expected range, in a deal that values the Swedish company at about $15 billion. Klarna, known for its popular buy now, pay later products, said it raised $1.37 billion for the company and existing shareholders, who are looking to exit a portion

Beats' new iPhone 17 case has a lanyard that turns into a kickstand

Beats has launched a new collection of cases to go with Apple's latest iPhones, including one with a removable lanyard that doubles as a kickstand. Lanyards and cross-body straps for phones are becoming pretty common these days. If you're someone who travels every now and then, they can help protect you from pickpockets or from accidentally leaving your phone behind while you struggle with your luggage. The lanyard on Beats' case comes with something extra: It has an adaptor at the end that slid

US High school students' scores fall in reading and math

WASHINGTON (AP) — A decade-long slide in high schoolers’ reading and math performance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 12th graders’ scores dropping to their lowest level in more than 20 years, according to results released Tuesday from an exam known as the nation’s report card. Eighth-grade students also lost significant ground in science skills, according to the results from the National Assessment of Education Progress. The assessments were the first since the pandemic for eight

Coursera Will Soon Have AI Personas to Help You Practice for a Job Interview

Generative AI is changing the way we learn. Tools like NotebookLM or chatbots make it easier to absorb information… or cheat. Global online learning platform Coursera is taking action by adding new features to help students master skills while deterring cheating. I've taken several Coursera courses and revisited them in recent months, only to see new sections dedicated to working with AI in the context of the course subject. This makes sense not only for the courses themselves, but also for the

Immunotherapy drug clinical trial results: half of tumors shrink or disappear

Over the past 20 years, a class of cancer drugs called CD40 agonist antibodies have shown great promise—and induced great disappointment. While effective at activating the immune system to kill cancer cells in animal models, the drugs had limited impact on patients in clinical trials and caused dangerously systemic inflammatory responses, low platelet counts, and liver toxicity, among other adverse reactions—even at a low dose. But in 2018, the lab of Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey V. Ravetch

Cindy Cohn Is Leaving the EFF, but Not the Fight for Digital Rights

After a quarter century defending digital rights, Cindy Cohn announced on Tuesday that she is stepping down as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cohn, who has led the San Francisco–based nonprofit since 2015, says she will leave the role later this year, concluding a chapter that helped define the modern fight over online freedom. Cohn first rose to prominence as lead counsel in Bernstein v. Department of Justice, the 1990s case that overturned federal restrictions on pu

As AI Reigns, Students' Math and Reading Scores Just Hit an All-Time Low

The US Education Department, which the Trump administration is actively attempting to dismantle, has released the latest math and reading test scores for American high-school seniors — and they're an absolute disaster. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the scores have hit an all-time low, even by America's historically underwhelming standards. It's a worrying sign that the rapid rise of technologies like AI — combined with other likely factors, like the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pande

Immunotherapy drug eliminates aggressive cancers in clinical trial

Over the past 20 years, a class of cancer drugs called CD40 agonist antibodies have shown great promise—and induced great disappointment. While effective at activating the immune system to kill cancer cells in animal models, the drugs had limited impact on patients in clinical trials and caused dangerously systemic inflammatory responses, low platelet counts, and liver toxicity, among other adverse reactions—even at a low dose. But in 2018, the lab of Rockefeller University’s Jeffrey V. Ravetch

MAGA Congressman Explains Trump’s Signature in Epstein Birthday Book by Floating Autopen Conspiracy

A Congressional document dump of Jeffrey Epstein files on Monday has created a certifiable public relations nightmare for the Trump administration, and its allies are currently scrambling for some sort of explanation as to why what looks a whole helluva lot like the President’s signature would be found on an alleged birthday letter included in the trove. On Tuesday, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tennessee) offered up the latest excuse: some sort of conspiracy involving a signing machine called an autopen

GPT-5 Is Making Huge Factual Errors, Users Say

It's been just over a month since OpenAI dropped its long-awaited GPT-5 large language model (LLM) — and it hasn't stopped spewing an astonishing amount of strange falsehoods since then. From the AI experts at the Discovery Institute's Walter Bradley Center for Artificial Intelligence and irked Redditors on r/ChatGPTPro, to even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman himself, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that OpenAI's claim that GPT-5 boasts "PhD-level intelligence" comes with some serious asterisks.

Source code for the X recommendation algorithm

X's Recommendation Algorithm X's Recommendation Algorithm is a set of services and jobs that are responsible for serving feeds of posts and other content across all X product surfaces (e.g. For You Timeline, Search, Explore, Notifications). For an introduction to how the algorithm works, please refer to our engineering blog. Architecture Product surfaces at X are built on a shared set of data, models, and software frameworks. The shared components included in this repository are listed below:

Nasdaq to invest $50 million in Winklevoss-founded crypto exchange Gemini

Tyler Winklevoss, chief executive officer and co-founder of Gemini Trust Co., left, and Cameron Winklevoss, president and co-founder of Gemini Trust Co., speak during the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida, U.S., on Friday, June 4, 2021. Gemini, the crypto exchange founded by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, has secured Nasdaq as a strategic investor ahead of its initial public offering this week, CNBC has confirmed. Nasdaq plans to invest $50 million in the crypto company in a partnership

Apple raises iPhone Pro starting price in U.S. for first time since 2017

A next generation iPhone 17 is held during an Apple special event at Apple headquarters on September 9, 2025 in Cupertino, California. Apple increased the starting price of one of its iPhone models and replaced another with a pricer device on Tuesday, as analysts and investors widely expected. Apple's iPhone 17 Pro now starts at $1,099. That's $100 more than last year's iPhone 16 Pro. Apple also replaced last year's $899 iPhone 16 Plus in its lineup with a new thin-and-light device called the

Google's on a quest to future-proof your kids with new AI literacy games

Screenshot taken by Aly Windsor (ZDNET). Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Google's first AI Quest is available now for kids ages 11 to 14. Each quest is based on actual Google AI research. Tech companies are racing to market AI to students. Google has launched a new effort to teach young students about some of the practical, real-world uses of AI -- and in the process, to normalize the technology among the next generation. Also: Claude can create

Google's AI Quests gamifies how to use AI in the real world

Hector Roqueta Rivero/Moment via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Google's first AI Quest is available now for kids ages 11 to 14. Each quest is based on actual Google AI research. Tech companies are racing to market AI to students. Google has launched a new effort to teach young students about some of the practical, real-world uses of AI -- and in the process, to normalize the technology among the next generation. Also: Claude can c

Tesla is seeking permits to offer ride-hail services at Silicon Valley airports

Tesla has asked the San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland airports about acquiring permits to operate a ride-hailing service at each location, according to Politico. Tesla appears to have contacted each airport right around the time it started up a nascent charter service in California in late July. In the case of the San Francisco and Oakland airports, representatives told the outlet that they had been contacted, but had yet to meet with Tesla. The San Jose airport spokesperson confirmed no app

How External Attack Surface Management helps enterprises manage cyber risk

Every day, businesses spin up new digital services (websites, APIs, and cloud instances) and it can be for security teams to keep track. Somewhere in that churn, an unmonitored subdomain or misconfigured bucket lurks, waiting for an opportunistic attacker to slip in. External Attack Surface Management (EASM) flips the script: instead of reacting to breaches, you map and monitor every internet‑facing asset continuously. Hidden exposures become visible vulnerabilities you can close before they’re

X open sourced their latest algorithm

X's Recommendation Algorithm X's Recommendation Algorithm is a set of services and jobs that are responsible for serving feeds of posts and other content across all X product surfaces (e.g. For You Timeline, Search, Explore, Notifications). For an introduction to how the algorithm works, please refer to our engineering blog. Architecture Product surfaces at X are built on a shared set of data, models, and software frameworks. The shared components included in this repository are listed below:

Claude can now edit and create files, including Excel spreadsheets

Anthropic has begun rolling out a small but significant update to Claude. Starting today you can use the chatbot to create and edit Excel spreadsheets, documents, PowerPoint slide decks and PDFs. In the past, Claude offered rudimentary file support, but now you can interact with any documents you need to modify directly through the chatbot. The new functionality is part of a feature preview you can try out as long as you have a Max, Team or Education subscription. Sorry, Pro and free users, you'

US HS students lose ground in math and reading, continuing yearslong decline

WASHINGTON (AP) — A decade-long slide in high schoolers’ reading and math performance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 12th graders’ scores dropping to their lowest level in more than 20 years, according to results released Tuesday from an exam known as the nation’s report card. Eighth-grade students also lost significant ground in science skills, according to the results from the National Assessment of Education Progress. The assessments were the first since the pandemic for eight

Anscombe's Quartet

Four data sets with the same descriptive statistics, yet very different distributions The four datasets composing Anscombe's quartet. All four sets have identical statistical parameters, but the graphs show them to be considerably different Anscombe's quartet comprises four datasets that have nearly identical simple descriptive statistics, yet have very different distributions and appear very different when graphed. Each dataset consists of eleven (x, y) points. They were constructed in 1973 b