Five years after Waze first added Spotify integration, Google’s navigation app finally supports Apple Music. Starting today, you can use Waze’s built-in audio controls to play, pause and switch between songs in your iPhone’s Apple Music library. That means you don’t need to switch between apps when trying to drive to a destination you haven’t been to before.

Before today’s announcement, Apple Music was effectively the last major music streaming app that didn’t include integration with Waze. Over the years, Google has added support for a long list of smaller services, including Pandora, Deezer and iHeart Radio. Before today's announcement, it was even possible to listen to audiobooks and podcasts through integrations with Audible and Stitcher. All of that is in the past now. And if you’re an Apple Music subscriber with a fondness for Waze, you’re probably just happy that you can use the two apps together.

At its annual developer conference, Microsoft doesn’t typically announce new hardware. But at Build 2022 the company made time to unveil Project Volterra, a PC Microsoft designed to assist developers with building native ARM apps that employ AI-accelerated workloads.

While we don’t have all the details on Project Volterra just yet, what we do know is that it will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset with a dedicated neural processing unit or NPU. Microsoft told TechCrunch the component would deliver “best-in-class” AI computing capacity and efficiency.

A neural processor isn’t something you typically see on PCs. They’re far more common in phones where they help save on battery power by taking on machine learning tasks from the CPU. But with chips like Apple’s M1 including built-in NPUs, they’re becoming more commonplace, and it’s that future that Microsoft wants to be prepared for when it comes.

“Because we expect to see NPUs being built into most, if not all future computing devices, we’re going to make it easy for developers to leverage these new capabilities, by baking support for NPUs into the end-to-end Windows platform,” said Panos Panay, Microsoft’s chief product officer.

With Volterra, Microsoft is adding Windows support for NPUs. The company also said development tools like Visual Studio 2022 and Windows Terminal would soon run natively on ARM hardware. All of that suggests the company is keener than ever to get developers to program native ARM apps for Windows.

For nearly two years, Walmart has been testing a drone delivery program across parts of the US. Now the company says it’s ready to expand that offering. By the end of the year, the retailer plans to add 34 sites to its existing DroneUp network. With the expansion, approximately 4 million households in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah and Virginia will have access to drone deliveries from the retailer. For a delivery fee of $4, you can order up to 10 pounds of groceries and household items. If you use the service, Walmart says to expect your package in “as little as” 30 minutes.

By the end of 2022, Walmart estimates it will have the capacity to deliver 1 million packages by air annually. It’s an impressive milestone, to be sure, but it doesn’t sound like the program is profitable just yet. The retailer notes it will offer drone services to local governments and businesses. As just one example, Walmart suggests the drones could help construction companies with one-site aerial photography. “Not only will the added revenue help offset the cost of delivery, but it also serves the entire drone industry by gathering more flight data as we work together to expand drone operations in a safe and regulated way,” the company said.

Walmart won’t be the only company operating a drone delivery service in Texas. Alphabet’s Wing division recently expanded its program to include the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Starting later this year, NVIDIA will begin selling a liquid-cooled version of its A100 GPU for data centers. The GPU maker is positioning the video card as a way for cloud computing companies to make their facilities more energy-efficient. It may seem unintuitive, but by adding a water block to the component, data centers can reduce their dependence on inefficient air- and water-based chillers.

In testing, NVIDIA claims a facility outfitted with its water-cooled A100 GPUs ran the same workload as an air-cooled data center while using about 30 percent less power. The new version of the A100 is also more space-efficient. Thanks to its water block design, it occupies a single PCIe slot instead of two like its air-cooled sibling.

In the consumer market, we’ve already seen companies like EVGA offer GPUs with built-in water blocks, and companies like EK sell aftermarket units you can install on your existing video card. We’re hopeful today’s announcement is a sign that NVIDIA plans to push water-cooled GPUs toward the mainstream. In the meantime, the company has begun sending out samples of the new A100 to enterprise customers. It also plans to introduce a water-cooled version of its H100 Tensor Core GPU sometime next year.

Former PlayStation employee Emma Majo has filed a new lawsuit against the company after her previous complaint was dismissed by a federal judge in April. According to Axios, Majo’s new filing includes many of the same gender discrimination allegations found in her original one, but the scope of the lawsuit is more limited.

Rather than seeking to represent all women employed by Sony’s PlayStation unit in the US as was previously her intent, the complaint instead seeks damages for those women who worked for the company in California. When judge Laurel Beeler dismissed the original case, she said Majo could file again with additional details. The new complaint incorporates allegations from the nine women who came forward to support the first suit.

“Sony tolerates and cultivates a work environment that discriminates against female employees, including female employees and those who identify as female,” the complaint reads. We’ve reached out to Sony for comment. In the meantime, we'll note the company previously asserted Majo’s claims were based on “unactionable allegations.”

Former Activision Blizzard employee Jessica Gonzalez is appealing the publisher’s recent $18 million settlement with the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). On Monday, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) announced Gonzalez is challenging the settlement on the grounds that it prevents workers who apply as claimants from suing Activision Blizzard in the future.

When the settlement was first approved by a federal judge in late March, many Activision Blizzard employees criticized it for not going nearly far enough to hold the company accountable. The fact the settlement prevents claimants from taking part in future litigation against Activision Blizzard was seen as particularly problematic as it would make those individuals ineligible to participate in California’s sexual harassment lawsuit against the publisher.

Employees have also argued $18 million is far too little to compensate everyone who could come forward with a claim against the company. The sum means there’s only enough money for the EEOC to award 60 employees with the maximum settlement allowed.

“The court allowed Activision and the EEOC to keep the affected workers and others who had an interest in holding the company accountable out of the process. Eligible employees should not have to give up their right to pursue other legal remedies if they accept the settlement,” Gonzalez said.

There is a precedent for workers winning a better settlement in these types of situations. Following a 2018 class-action lawsuit alleging sexual harassment and discrimination at the studio, Riot Games was ordered to pay $10 million to eligible employees. California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing later blocked that settlement, and the amount was eventually increased to $100 million.

Meta’s AI division has been busy in recent months finding ways to make concrete production more sustainable and machine translation better. Now one of the company’s ML teams has created a tool that builds realistic musculoskeletal simulations that run up to 4,000 times faster than state-of-the-art prosthetics. According to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company can train the models to do things like twirl pens and rotate objects.

At the moment, Meta sees the platform’s usefulness in two different ways. To start, there’s the obvious metaverse angle. Zuckerberg suggests MyoSuite could help the company develop more realistic avatars for applications like Horizon Worlds. Another more interesting use case could see researchers tapping the platform to develop new prosthetics, as well as novel surgery and rehabilitation techniques. To that end, Meta says it plans to open-source the model.

Meta isn’t the first company to think to use AI to improve prosthetics. Back in 2019, an independent team of researchers created a machine learning system that allowed them to quickly tune a robotic knee to an individual patient. That same year, Intel unveiled a “neuromorphic” deep-learning chip that the company said would make prosthetic limbs more efficient.

Following a pilot last fall that saw AT&T test Google’s Immersive Stream for Games technology to allow its customers to stream Batman: Arkham Knight, the carrier is back with a new game. Starting today, AT&T mobile postpaid subscribers can play Control: Ultimate Edition on their phones, tablets and computers at no extra charge. To access the game, all you need to do is visit the company’s Play Now website and input the phone number and ZIP code associated with your account.

No download is necessary as you’re streaming the game through the same technology that powers Stadia. AT&T envisions a future where publishers could use the technology to offer limited-time demos of their games. The carrier says you could search for a game and then, if you decide to buy it, your progress from the demo would carry over. Coincidently, that’s functionality Google already offers in Stadia through the platform’s “Click to Play Trials” feature.

WhatsApp plans to end support for iOS 10 and 11. A new notification spotted by WABetaInfo prompts iPhone users to install the latest version of Apple’s mobile operating system supported by their device to continue using the app after October 24th. A support article from WhatsApp notes the company recommends iOS 12 as a baseline for iPhone owners. If you’re still holding on to an iPhone 5s, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6s, you’ll be able to continue using WhatsApp on your device, but iPhone 5 and 5c owners will need to consider upgrading to a new handset.

With the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c nearly a decade old at this point, chances are the move won’t affect too many people. When you do see an iPhone 5 out in the wild, it’s usually a hand-me-down. Still, millions of people around the world depend on WhatsApp to communicate with their friends and family, and there are bound to be at least a few iPhone 5 and iPhone 5c owners among that group.

Hyundai will allocate an additional $5 billion toward investments in the US, the automaker announced on Sunday. The funds will support the company’s work in electric vehicles, robotics, air taxis, self-driving cars and artificial intelligence. The announcement follows the recent news that Hyundai plans to build a $5.54 billion electric vehicle plant in Georgia. With that facility included, the automaker intends to invest $10 billion in the US by 2025.

Some of the money will go toward supporting Boston Dynamics, which Hyundai acquired in 2021. The automaker said it is committed to growing the robotics firm by expanding its manufacturing capabilities and product lineup. The company will also support Motional, its Boston-based self-driving unit, by working to make its driverless technology safer and more accessible to customers in the US and other parts of the world.

“The move supports carbon neutrality goals with new technologies and contributes to manufacturing in the US,” Hyundai said in a statement. According to the automaker, its new Georgia plant will produce 300,000 EVs per year once production starts sometime in the first half of 2025. Construction on the facility will begin in early 2023.