
AI tracker: Passive listening is giving a boost to AI music
A rising tide of artificial intelligence (AI) bands is ushering in a new era where work will be scarcer for musicians, reported AFP. Whether it's Velvet Sundown's 1970s-style rock or country music projects 'Aventhis' and 'The Devil Inside,' bands whose members are pure AI creations are seeing more than a million plays on streaming giant Spotify. No major streaming service clearly labels tracks that come entirely from AI, except France's Deezer. Meanwhile, the producers of these songs tend to be unreachable. Artistes see the rise of AI music as a sign of how generic and formulaic genres have become. AI highlights the chasm between music people listen to 'passively' while doing other things and 'active' listening in which fans care about what artists convey, said producer and composer Yung Spielburg.
At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) held in Shanghai recently, more than 150 robots were showcased by China in what appears to be the country's largest and most advanced lineup to date. The robots could be seen serving craft beer, playing mahjong, stacking shelves, and boxing, AFP reported. Organizers said the forum involved more than 800 companies, showcasing over 3,000 products, with the most popular exhibits displaying human skills, even badly. At one booth, a robot played drums, half a beat out of time, to Queen's 'We Will Rock You', for instance.
Microsoft announced a new experimental mode in its Microsoft Edge browser called Copilot Mode. Switched on (the user has to actively make the choice), 'you enable innovative AI features in Edge that enhance your browser,' said the company in a blog post, explaining the features you may experience: 'It doesn't just wait idly for you to click but anticipates what you might want to do next. It doesn't just give you endless tabs to sift through but works with you as a collaborator that makes sense of it all.'
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Mint
8 hours ago
- Mint
Spotify to raise Premium subscription price in multiple regions from September: New pricing details
Spotify has announced plans to raise the price of its Premium Individual subscription in several global markets, effective from September. The monthly fee will increase from €10.99 to €11.99 in regions including South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. The streaming company confirmed that subscribers would receive email notifications detailing the change over the coming month. The move is part of Spotify's broader strategy to strengthen its profit margins. This follows previous price adjustments and a series of cost-cutting measures that have contributed to the company's first annual profit in 2024. Despite a rise in both monthly active users and paying subscribers during the second quarter, Spotify reported a quarterly loss attributed to higher taxes tied to employee compensation. The tax impact has also led to a more cautious profit outlook for the third quarter. In a bid to diversify its offering and attract more users, Spotify has been increasing its video content through its Partner Program. The initiative provides podcast creators with monetisation tools and has seen a growing number of contributors, significantly boosting the platform's video catalogue. Additionally, the firm is beginning to benefit from regulatory changes in the United States. Apple has approved Spotify's app update that includes subscription pricing and external payment links, following a court ruling that blocked Apple from charging commission on off-app purchases. Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek noted that this development has resulted in a 'very positive uptick' in the US market. He added that similar regulatory shifts in Europe and the UK could further benefit Spotify and other developers. Spotify revealed that its platform now features a total of seven million podcasts, including more than 430,000 video podcast titles. In addition, it offers over 350,000 audiobooks available for one-time purchase. As of June 2025, the company employed 7,309 full-time staff across the globe. (With inputs from Reuters)


Time of India
8 hours ago
- Time of India
'Let's go fly a kite': Capturing wind for clean energy in Ireland
AI image BANGOR: On Ireland's blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites, not for fun but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a "revolution" in wind energy. "We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power," Padraic Doherty of Kitepower , the Dutch firm behind the venture, told AFP. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-metre (645,000-square-feet) kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a cable tether to the machine and acts like a "yo-yo or fishing reel", Doherty said. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Stylish New Mobility Scooters Available for Seniors (Prices May Surprise You) Mobility Scooter | Search Ads Search Now Undo "It gets cast out and flies up, the tether pulls it back in, over and over again, creating energy," he said, testing the kite's ropes and pulleys before a flight. The sparsely populated spot near the stormy Atlantic coast is the world's first designated airborne renewable energy test site. And although the idea is still small in scale, it could yet prove to be a mighty plan as Ireland seeks to cut its reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and gas. "We are witnessing a revolution in wind energy," said Andrei Luca, operations head at Kitepower, a zero-emissions energy solutions spin-off from the Delft University of Technology. "It took nearly 25 years for wind turbines to evolve from 30-kilowatt prototypes to megawatt scale, and decades to offshore wind farms we see today," he added. The system flies autonomously, driven by software developed at the university in the Netherlands, but Doherty acts as the kite's "pilot" on the ground, monitoring its flight path for efficiency. The kite flies up around 400 metres (1,300 feet) and reels in to about 190 metres, generating around 30 kilowatts for storage. The force spins "like a dynamo on a bike", Doherty said, adding that "it generates up to two and a half tonnes of force through each turn". The electricity is stored in batteries, similar to solar photovoltaic systems, with the kite currently able to fully charge a 336-kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery. "That's a meaningful amount of energy, sufficient for powering a remote outpost, a small island, polar station, or even a construction site," Luca said. "Add additional kites and we can power a bigger island." 'Mobile, flexible' According to Doherty, a chief advantage of the kite system is its flexibility and swift start-up capability. "We can set up in 24 hours and can bring it anywhere, it's super mobile, and doesn't need expensive, time- and energy-consuming turbine foundations to be built," he said. A kite system is "way less invasive on the landscape (than wind turbines), produces clean energy and doesn't need a supply chain of fuel to keep running", Luca added. During January's Storm Eowyn, which caused widespread and long-lasting power outages in Ireland, the system showed its value in Bangor Erris, according to Luca. "Paired with a battery, it provided uninterrupted electricity before, during and after the storm," he said. Ireland's wind energy sector has long been touted as full of potential. But progress on large-scale delivery of onshore and offshore turbines has been held up by planning delays and electricity grid capacity constraints. The Irish government has set ambitious targets for offshore wind energy to deliver 20 gigawatts of energy by 2040 and at least 37 gigawatts by 2050. In 2024, Irish wind farms provided around a third of the country's electricity according to Wind Energy Ireland (WEI), a lobby group for the sector. This compares to the UK, where, according to trade association RenewableUK, wind energy from the country's combined wind farms first reached 20 gigawatts in November 2022. The ability of airborne wind energy (AWE) systems to harness high-altitude winds with relatively low infrastructure requirements "makes them particularly suitable for remote, offshore or mobile applications," Mahdi Salari, an AWE researcher at University College Cork, told AFP. But he said Kitepower would face challenges on "regulation, safety, and system reliability". Such technology however could plug gaps in places where "land availability, costs or logistical constraints hinder the deployment of traditional wind turbines", Salari said. By the 2030s, he said: "I expect AWE to contribute meaningfully to diversified, flexible and distributed renewable energy networks". Discover stories of India's leading eco-innovators at Ecopreneur Honours 2025


India Today
11 hours ago
- India Today
Spotify Premium gets price hike in India, check new prices here
Spotify has confirmed that Premium subscription prices are going up across many regions, including India, starting this September. The price increase is part of a larger move by the company to deal with rising costs while continuing to invest in its platform. As part of this change, users in countries across South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific will see their monthly subscription fees go up. The company said affected customers would get emails over the next few weeks, explaining the price changes and when they would take for users in India, the new prices have already kicked in. Spotify's website now shows the updated rates across its different Premium plans. This is the first time Spotify has increased its subscription costs in India since it entered the country in Individual Premium plan is now priced at Rs 139 per month, up from Rs 119. The Duo plan, which gives access to two accounts, has gone from Rs 149 to Rs 179. The Student plan will now cost Rs 69 per month, up from Rs 59, and the Family plan has jumped from Rs 179 to Rs 229 — the biggest hike at 28 per cent. According to a report by MoneyControl, a Spotify spokesperson said, 'As we continue to grow our platform, we are updating our Premium prices for new subscribers in India, from today.'This comes just a few months after Spotify made changes to its free service in India in October 2023, putting some features behind a paywall in an effort to boost paid CEO Daniel Ek had mentioned earlier this year that India, along with other growing markets, could become a strong source of revenue in the future. At the same time, the music streaming space has become smaller, with some platforms shutting down in recent years. Wynk, Resso, and Gaana have all either exited the market or changed hands, leaving Spotify to compete with players like YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, JioSaavn, and global price update also follows Spotify's latest earnings, where it posted a 10 per cent jump in revenue year-on-year. However, the company also reported a loss of 86 million Euros in the last quarter. As per the company, this was partly due to rising employee costs and something called 'social charges' — taxes linked to employee pay that go up as the company's share price rises.- Ends