Spotify might soon let you watch music, not just listen to it. Bloombergsources claim the streaming service is mulling the addition of full-length music videos to its app. The company is reportedly talking to potential partners, but it's not clear who would support the feature or when it might arrive. Spotify has already declined to comment.

Video on Spotify is currently limited to podcasts, 30-second storytelling clips (to help artists talk about their work) and 10-second GIFs that loop while you listen to a given song. The media giant launched a TikTok-like home feed in March, but it's meant more for discovering music and podcasts than video viewing. The company tried using TV content several years ago, such as clips from Comedy Central and ESPN, but it didn't gain much traction.

The concept isn't novel for streaming music services. Apple Music has had music videos for years. Spotify's addition would help it match Apple, though, and might lure audiences who would otherwise watch the videos on YouTube. It would also add content to the new feed and help Spotify draw musically-inclined viewers from social networks like Instagram and TikTok.

Music videos don't generate much direct revenue by themselves. YouTube gives creators a 55 percent share of ad revenue, which on average amounts to $18 per 1,000 views. Artists, labels and others involved then have to split that small amount. The clips supplement audio income, though, and potentially improve exposure for musicians.

There's pressure to find new sources of income, too. Spotify laid off a significant portion of its staff earlier this year, including 200 in its podcast team, as it grappled with both a rough global economy and business missteps. Music videos could improve the company's finances without requiring a large production team, as is the case with podcasts.

Blizzard has released a string of excellent Overwatch animated shorts over the years. While the shorts are sublimely rendered and help to sketch out the backstories of the cast, Blizzard hasn't neatly pulled together the sprawling narrative of this universe so far. The developers have pledged to do a better job of that in-game starting with Overwatch 2's sixth season, which gets under way in August. Before we get there, though, Blizzard is releasing an Overwatch anime.

The three-episode miniseries is called Genesis. The title and a trailer suggest that it will focus on the early days of the Overwatch task force, which was set up amid a global war against robots. The clip shows a glimpse of humans and robots living in harmony before an AI rebellion kicked off the Omnic Crisis. It features three heroes from the game — Reinhardt, Torbjörn and Ana — as well as Mina Liao, an AI researcher and fellow founding member of the Overwatch organization.

The teaser, which has a different animation style from previous shorts, suggests the miniseries will help to tie together some of the many disparate, transmedia strands of the Overwatch narrative before co-op story missions go live in Overwatch 2. The first episode will hit YouTube on July 6th and it's just over five minutes long.

Overwatch fans have been begging for a show or even a movie based on the franchise for years. This miniseries might be as close as they get for now, but who knows? If it proves popular enough, Blizzard may be persuaded to invest in a bigger project that can put the Overwatch universe in front of a whole new audience. Meanwhile, Overwatch 2 game director Aaron Keller says each of the game's story missions will have an opening and closing cinematic to help spell out more of the narrative.

The rich, memorable cast of characters played a major role in making the original Overwatch a cultural phenomenon when it debuted in 2016. If Blizzard is successful in shining the spotlight more brightly on them again, that might help fans forgive the studio for some of the misstepsit has made with Overwatch 2 recently.

Sony blocked Roblox from PlayStation consoles because it was worried about inappropriate content reaching children. The revelation comes from a 2022 document, first reported byAxios, uncovered in the FTC’s Microsoft trial. However, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan said at the time that the company’s stance was softening, leaving the door open to an eventual PlayStation port for the viral user-generated platform.

Ryan explained the decision to withhold Roblox to investors early last year. “Historically, because of the large number of children that play on the PlayStation, we have been very careful with regards to opening them up to anything that could potentially exploit them,” he said at the time. But he struck an optimistic tone for investors eager to see Roblox on Sony consoles. “Over the last couple of years, however, we have reviewed those policies and relaxed a little on this. We have been conservative for too long, and now we are currently engaging with people at Roblox. We hope that the situation will change.”

Despite making the comments over a year ago, Roblox still isn’t on PlayStation consoles. The beloved title, which lets users create, share and play user-created content, is available for Xbox, iOS, Android, Windows and macOS. Nintendo hasn’t commented on Roblox’s lack of availability for Switch, but the console maker has also historically erred on the side of caution in keeping inappropriate content away from kids.

Roblox introduced a content rating system in 2021 to help parents better control the user-created games their children play. More than half of the platform’s daily users are under 13. Although it forbids content displaying sexual activity, illegal substances and swearing, occasional rule-breaking content can slip past moderation in user-created titles. In addition, Roblox is working to hang onto its users as they grow, now allowing content for players 17 and older. It says the 17 to 24 age range is its fastest-growing segment.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has proposed a formal ban on fake reviews and testimonials. Companies would also be prohibited from using phony followers and views to inflate their social media metrics if the rule takes effect as it stands.

This isn't the first time the agency has trained its sights on fake reviews. In its first such case in 2019, it fined a third-party Amazon seller for paying for fake reviews (Amazon itself has sued phony review providers). Earlier this year, the FTC levied a $600,000 penalty against the owner of a vitamin brand for “review hijacking" on Amazon.

The new rule, which the agency said it was working on in October, is close to being finalized and it includes steep penalties for those caught peddling fake reviews and testimonials. As The Washington Post points out, the FTC plans to slap businesses that "buy, sell and manipulate online reviews" up to $50,000. Not only is that fine for each phony review, it's also for every time a consumer sees it. So, if the FTC finds out that one fake review has been viewed just 20 times, the business that bought it could be on the hook for $1 million.

“Our proposed rule on fake reviews shows that we’re using all available means to attack deceptive advertising in the digital age,” Samuel Levine, the director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement. “The rule would trigger civil penalties for violators and should help level the playing field for honest companies.”

Explicitly, the FTC aims to ban "businesses from writing or selling consumer reviews or testimonials by someone who does not exist, who did not have experience with the product or service, or who misrepresented their experiences." Similarly, companies won't be allowed to obtain or disseminate reviews and testimonials that they "knew or should have known that they were fake or false."

Repurposing an existing review to make it appear that it was written for a different product (i.e. review hijacking) will be outlawed, as will offering payments or other kinds of compensation for positive or negative reviews. The FTC says companies can still ask users to leave a review, as that's an important way for small businesses to enhance their reputations.

Managers and officers won't be allowed to post reviews of their company's products without clear disclosures and nor can they ask family members or employees to do so in certain circumstances. Under the proposed rule, companies won't be allowed to run websites that claim to offer independent reviews of categories of products and services that include their own offerings.

Review suppression will be banned as well. Companies won't be allowed to use intimidation tactics, such as legal threats and false accusations, to push customers to remove or avoid leaving a negative review.

In addition, the FTC seeks to ban companies from using fake followers and views to fluff up their social media numbers. "The proposed rule also would bar anyone from buying such indicators to misrepresent their importance for a commercial purpose," the agency said. This is a provision that could have far-reaching consequences beyond commerce — influencers may have to ensure they don't factor in bots when they try to secure brand deals.

Meanwhile, the proposed notice for the rule takes note of the popularity of generative AI. "It has been reported that an AI chatbot is being used to create fake reviews," it reads. "As the reporting notes, the widespread emergence of AI chatbots is likely to make it easier for bad actors to write fake reviews."

The rule won't take effect immediately. It will be open to public comments for a 60-day period, after which the agency will consider changes before finalizing the directive.

A lot of these provisions make sense. In essence, the FTC is trying to ensure that businesses and brands are transparent and honest with consumers. Actually enforcing these measures, however, is a different matter. The agency told the Post that it won't be getting extra resources to tackle purveyors of fake reviews, but a codified rule can strengthen its hand in court. Taking on companies based overseas that sell and post phony reviews might be a difficult task too. Still, a formal ban on these practices and the threat of eye-popping fines may be enough to deter some companies from using fake reviews.

The official Game Boy Camera is a treat for fans of lo-fi photography, but it’s also on the larger side, protruding from the retro console like a giant, creepy eyeball. That’s why modder and mega-fan Christopher Graves made his own version, the Game Boy Mini Camera, as originally reported via Gizmodo. This thing is tiny, as Graves managed to shrink everything down to the size of a Game Boy cartridge, with no protrusion necessary.

Graves used a custom board, the original camera’s sensor, a memory map controller and some capacitors to complete the project. He also used a lens from an iPhone XR, screwed into a custom sleeve, to keep protrusions to a minimum. Though this lens changes position to allow for new types of shots, it doesn’t impact the quality at all. In other words, you still get the grainy black-and-white look that makes the original Game Boy Camera so popular, even 25 years later.

The camera slides into the cartridge slot and can even run ROMS, if that’s your bag. It’s also been upgraded with flash memory, so your stored photos last forever (or until the drive dies.) Graves has plans to refine the design, as he's considering swapping out the iPhone XR lens with an iPhone 14 lens, among other options.

The real treat here is miniaturization. When attached to a Game Boy Pocket, for instance, the whole thing actually fits in a pocket, saving you the embarrassment of having to sit through dumb “or are you just happy to see me” jokes.

Of course, this is a DIY project made by one person, so don’t go breaking out the checkbook just yet. It’s still neat to see how far miniaturization technology has advanced since the late 1990s when the original Game Boy Camera launched. If the creator’s name sounds familiar, he also converted a standard Game Boy Camera into a modern mirrorless version. The retro enthusiast certainly knows his stuff. 

University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton, often called the “Godfather of AI” for his pioneering research on neural networks, recently became the industry’s unofficial watchdog. He quit working at Google this spring to more freely critique the field he helped pioneer. He saw the recent surge in generative AIs like ChatGPT and Bing Chat as signs of unchecked and potentially dangerous acceleration in development. Google, meanwhile, was seemingly giving up its previous restraint as it chased competitors with products like its Bard chatbot.

At this week’s Collision conference in Toronto, Hinton expanded his concerns. While companies were touting AI as the solution to everything from clinching a lease to shipping goods, Hinton was sounding the alarm. He isn’t convinced good AI will emerge victorious over the bad variety, and he believes ethical adoption of AI may come at a steep cost.

A threat to humanity

Photo by Jon Fingas/Engadget

Hinton contended that AI was only as good as the people who made it, and that bad tech could still win out. "I'm not convinced that a good AI that is trying to stop bad I can get control," he explained. It might be difficult to stop the military-industrial complex from producing battle robots, for instance, he says — companies and armies might “love” wars where the casualties are machines that can easily be replaced. And while Hinton believes that large language models (trained AI that produces human-like text, like OpenAI’s GPT-4) could lead to huge increases in productivity, he is concerned that the ruling class might simply exploit this to enrich themselves, widening an already large wealth gap. It would “make the rich richer and the poor poorer,” Hinton said.

Hinton also reiterated his much-publicized view that AI could pose an existential risk to humanity. If artificial intelligence becomes smarter than humans, there is no guarantee that people will remain in charge. “We’re in trouble” if AI decides that taking control is necessary to achieve its goals, Hinton said. To him, the threats are “not just science fiction;” they have to be taken seriously. He worries that society would only rein in killer robots after it had a chance to see “just how awful” they were.

There are plenty of existing problems, Hinton added. He argues that bias and discrimination remain issues, as skewed AI training data can produce unfair results. Algorithms likewise create echo chambers that reinforce misinformation and mental health issues. Hinton also worries about AI spreading misinformation beyond those chambers. He isn’t sure if it’s possible to catch every bogus claim, even though it’s “important to mark everything fake as fake.”

This isn’t to say that Hinton despairs over AI’s impact, although he warns that healthy uses of the technology might come at a high price. Humans might have to conduct “empirical work” into understanding how AI could go wrong, and to prevent it from wresting control. It’s already “doable” to correct biases, he added. A large language model AI might put an end to echo chambers, but Hinton sees changes in company policies as being particularly important.

The professor didn’t mince words in his answer to questions about people losing their jobs through automation. He feels that “socialism” is needed to address inequality, and that people could hedge against joblessness by taking up careers that could change with the times, like plumbing (and no, he isn’t kidding). Effectively, society might have to make broad changes to adapt to AI.

The industry remains optimistic

Photo by Jon Fingas/Engadget

Earlier talks at Collision were more hopeful. Google DeepMind business chief Colin Murdoch said in a different discussion that AI was solving some of the world’s toughest challenges. There’s not much dispute on this front — DeepMind is cataloging every known protein, fighting antibiotic-resistant bacteria and even accelerating work on malaria vaccines. He envisioned “artificial general intelligence” that could solve multiple problems, and pointed to Google’s products as an example. Lookout is useful for describing photos, but the underlying tech also makes YouTube Shorts searchable. Murdoch went so far as to call the past six to 12 months a “lightbulb moment” for AI that unlocked its potential.

Roblox Chief Scientist Morgan McGuire largely agrees. He believes the game platform’s generative AI tools “closed the gap” between new creators and veterans, making it easier to write code and create in-game materials. Roblox is even releasing an open source AI model, StarCoder, that it hopes will aid others by making large language models more accessible. While McGuire in a discussion acknowledged challenges in scaling and moderating content, he believes the metaverse holds “unlimited” possibilities thanks to its creative pool.

Both Murdoch and McGuire expressed some of the same concerns as Hinton, but their tone was decidedly less alarmist. Murdoch stressed that DeepMind wanted “safe, ethical and inclusive” AI, and pointed to expert consultations and educational investments as evidence. The executive insists he is open to regulation, but only as long as it allows “amazing breakthroughs.” In turn, McGuire said Roblox always launched generative AI tools with content moderation, relied on diverse data sets and practiced transparency.

Some hope for the future

Photo by Jon Fingas/Engadget

Despite the headlines summarizing his recent comments, Hinton’s overall enthusiasm for AI hasn’t been dampened after leaving Google. If he hadn’t quit, he was certain he would be working on multi-modal AI models where vision, language and other cues help inform decisions. “Small children don’t just learn from language alone,” he said, suggesting that machines could do the same. As worried as he is about the dangers of AI, he believes it could ultimately do anything a human could and was already demonstrating “little bits of reasoning.” GPT-4 can adapt itself to solve more difficult puzzles, for instance.

Hinton acknowledges that his Collision talk didn’t say much about the good uses of AI, such as fighting climate change. The advancement of AI technology was likely healthy, even if it was still important to worry about the implications. And Hinton freely admitted that his enthusiasm hasn’t dampened despite looming ethical and moral problems. “I love this stuff,” he said. “How can you not love making intelligent things?”

The technology industry isn't thrilled with Arkansas' law requiring social media age checks. NetChoice, a tech trade group that includes Google, Meta and TikTok, has sued the state of Arkansas over claimed US Constitution violations in the Social Media Safety Act. The measure allegedly treads on First Amendment free speech rights by making users hand over private data in order to access social networks. It also "seizes decision making" from families, NetChoice argues.

The alliance also believes the Act hurts privacy and safety by making internet companies rely on a third-party service to store and track kids' data. State residents often don't know or associate with the service, NetChoice claims, and an external firm is supposedly a "prime target" for hacks. The law tries to regulate the internet outside state laws while ignoring federal law, according to the lawsuit. As Arkansas can't verify residency without requiring data, it's effectively asking everyone to submit documents.

State Attorney General Tim Griffin tells Engadget in a statement that he looks forward to "vigorously defending" the Social Media Safety Act. The law requires age verification for all users by submitting driver's licenses and other "commercially reasonable" methods. Anyone under 18 also needs to get a parent's consent. There are exceptions that appear to cover major social networks and their associated categories, such as those for "professional networking" (think LinkedIn) or short entertaining video clips (like TikTok).

Arkansas' requirement is part of a greater trend among politicians to demand age verification for social media. States like Utah, Connecticut and Ohio have either passed or are considering similar laws, while Senator Josh Hawley proposed a federal bill barring all social media access for kids under 16. They're concerned younger users might be exposed to creeps and inappropriate content, and that use can harm mental health by presenting a skewed view of the world and encouraging addiction.

There's no guarantee the lawsuit will succeed. If it does, though, it could affect similar attempts to verify ages through personal data. If Arkansas' approach is deemed unconstitutional, other states might have to drop their own efforts.

Sega is not for sale, according to company COO Shuji Utsumi. The executive told Bloomberg News that the company isn’t open to acquisition talks at the moment, despite rampant speculation that Microsoft was about to swoop in and force a shotgun wedding between Sonic and Master Chief.

Some of these rumors popped up due to a general consolidation trend in the gaming industry, with big fish gobbling up everything in sight. Microsoft’s one of the biggest fish of all and it’s been many years since Sega sat on top of the gaming throne, despite remaining a solid developer and publisher. Also, a potential merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard led to the FTC filing an antitrust lawsuit, which is ongoing. During the associated trial, it was revealed that Microsoft had many companies on its wishlist, including Sega. So the rumor mill continued unabated.

Utsumi declined to comment as to whether or not Microsoft approached Sega with an acquisition offer, but touted the “great relationship” between the two companies. This relationship has been on full display in recent years, with former Playstation exclusives from the Yakuza series to the Persona series showing up on Xbox consoles. A next-gen refresh of Yakuza: Like a Dragon was even an Xbox Series X/S exclusive for a few months before going multi-platform.

The budding corporate friendship (aww) is extremely important to Microsoft, as Sega titles are popular in Japan and, well, Xbox consoles aren’t. This is another reason the acquisition rumors spread so readily. However, Sega will remain as Sega Sammy Holdings for the time being, even if documents indicate that Microsoft was, at one point, ready to fork over serious cash to buy the house that Sonic built. Speaking of, there’s a new sidescrolling Sonic title launching later this year along with a new sidescrolling Mario. What is this, 1991?

For some bizarre reason (OK, manywidelyreportedreasons), Twitter is becoming less useful almost by the day. In its latest misstep, it seems the service is no longer letting people who aren't signed in see any tweets.

Until now, logged-out users were still able to check out tweets and user profiles, but at least for the time being, they'll have to either sign up for an account or plug in their login credentials to see whatever unattributed meme Twitter owner Elon Musk pinched today. The Verge spotted the issue, which Engadget has confirmed on multiple browsers and devices.

Twitter won't confirm whether this was a technical error or an intentional decision, as one of Musk's first moves after he took over the company was to all but wipe out its communications team. In any case, logged-out users haven't been able to use Twitter's search function since April.

It's unclear what kind of impact moves such as this and Twitter's API changes will have on things like Google being able to include tweets in its search results. This could also prove a roadblock to services that scrape data from public-facing platforms like Twitter.

Making tweets visible only to signed-in users won't necessarily prompt people to sign up for an account. If someone wants to share a tweet with a person who doesn't use Twitter, they may now be more inclined to send a screenshot than a link, perhaps making it less likely that the non-user will join the service.

Researchers have found that most US adults are spending less time on Twitter after Musk bought the service. You might think Twitter would be doing whatever it could to get more eyes on tweets and ads, given that its advertising revenue is said to have plummeted. Putting up a barrier between potential new users and content perhaps isn't the wisest way to go about that.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) plans to perform an in-depth probe into Adobe’s acquisition of Figma, the agency announced today (viaThe Wall Street Journal). Citing concerns about “a substantial lessening of competition” for screen design software, it plans to move into a “phase two” investigation. However, it’s giving the companies five business days to “offer legally binding proposals” to address the concerns; if their response doesn’t satisfy the CMA, the probe will begin. Adobe announced its plans last year to buy its smaller rival for $20 billion.

“The CMA found that Figma has established a substantial share of the market for screen design software and that Adobe has been continuously investing in and competing in this segment,” the UK agency, which recently rejected Microsoft’s proposed $75 billion purchase of Activision, wrote today. “The CMA found that competition between Figma and Adobe has driven investment in updating and developing screen design software, and this important rivalry could be lost if the deal goes ahead.” It described Figma as “an emerging competitive threat” to the Photoshop maker, expressing concerns about the reduced innovation that could come from Adobe scooping up an upstart competitor. The agency said it’s concerned the acquisition could lead to higher costs and fewer / less innovative products.

Adobe’s purchase of San Francisco-based Figma, founded in 2012, would be the largest-ever acquisition for the 41-year-old design behemoth. In Sigma’s 11 years on the market, it has established itself as a popular tool for vector-based design. The cloud-based software specializes in remote collaboration and is a direct competitor to Adobe’s XD and Illustrator products. At the time of the acquisition, Adobe said it wanted to bring features from its Creative Cloud suite into the collaborative software while incorporating more of Figma’s team-focused features into its core products — predictably framing it as a win-win for customers. The company added it was “deeply committed” to keeping Figma an independent company while insisting there was “no plan” to change its pricing — including its free tier.

“We’re worried this deal could stifle innovation and lead to higher costs for companies that rely on Figma and Adobe’s digital tools — as they cease to compete to provide customers with new and better products,” said Sorcha O’Carroll, the CMA’s Senior Mergers Director. “Unless Adobe can put forward viable solutions to our concerns in the coming days, we will move to a more in-depth investigation.”