UMG and AI company Klay are forming their own foundational Music-generating AI model. | Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo from Getty Image Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a new deal centered on creating an “ethical” foundational model for AI music generation. It’s partnered with a company called Klay Vision that’s creating a “Large Music Model” named KLayMM and plans to launch out of stealth mode with a product within months. Ary Attie, its founder and CEO, said the company believes “the next Beatles will play with KLAY.” The two say the model will work “in collaboration with the music industry and its creators,” without many details about how, while Klay plans to make music AI “more than a short-lived gimmick.” This is how the companies explain their shared goals: Building generative AI music models ethically and fully respectful of copyright, as well as name and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Getty Images The Open Source Initiative (OSI) has released its official definition of “open” artificial intelligence, setting the stage for a clash with tech giants like Meta — whose models don’t fit the rules. OSI has long set the industry standard for what constitutes open-source software, but AI systems include elements that aren’t covered by conventional licenses, like model training data. Now, for an AI system to be considered truly open source, it must provide: Access to details about the data used to train the AI so others can understand and re-create it The complete code used to build and run the AI The settings and weights from the training, which help the AI produce its results This definition directly challenges Meta’s Llama, widely... Continue reading…

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is working on an AI-powered search engine to decrease its dependence on Google and Microsoft, according to a report from The Information. The search engine would reportedly provide AI-generated search summaries of current events within the Meta AI chatbot. The Meta AI bot built into Instagram and Facebook currently uses Google — whose parent company, Alphabet, will report quarterly earnings tomorrow — and Microsoft Bing to answer questions about recent news and events. That could eventually change, as Meta’s web crawler was spotted roving the web months ago. The Information’s source indicates a team has been working for about eight months to build a database of information for its chatbot. Meta has worked on building up location... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Fortnite is bigger than a battle royale now, and to help make progressing through the various available battle passes a little bit more streamlined, Epic Games is going to allow XP from any experience apply to any of those passes. Currently, XP you earn across various modes in Fortnite doesn’t help you progress through the special passes for Lego Fortnite and the music-themed Fortnite Festival. Instead, you progress by earning “studs” and “festival points,” respectively, by playing those modes. Starting November 2nd, however, Epic will begin the migration to let you progress using XP. As Epic details in a blog post, the change will first apply the upcoming Music Pass (renamed from Festival Pass), meaning festival points will go away. On... Continue reading…

“We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards,” Jeff Bezos, previously. | Laura Normand / The Verge The fallout from the non-endorsement of Kamala Harris at The Washington Post is here: more than 200,000 canceled subscriptions, NPR reports. This is about 8 percent of the paid subscriber base, and the number of cancellations is still growing. To put that in perspective, in an Oct. 15th story about Post CEO Will Lewis’s strategy to get more paying subscribers, The New York Times reported that the Post had added 4,000 subscribers since the beginning of 2024 through September. Like, I am actually flabbergasted: that’s fifty times as many cancellations in one weekend as The Post earned in the better part of a year. “This is obviously an effort by Jeff Bezos to curry favor with Donald Trump in the anticipation of his possible victory.” Now,... Continue reading…

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled Monday that state officials can accept ballots that arrive without a postmark up to three days after Election Day.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by the stage name "Kill Tony," pushed back on the outrage machine in the aftermath of his joke about Puerto Rico at Sunday's rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, saying Democrats "have no sense of humor."

More than 200,000 people had canceled their digital subscriptions for the Washington Post by midday Monday, following the newspaper's decision to block an endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president, National Public Radio reported.

Democratic Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., ignited fierce backlash from MAGA supporters after likening former President Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden rally to a "mini-January 6."

The U.S. has made it clear to Israel it is deeply concerned by Israeli legislation that could ban the U.N. aid agency in the Gaza Strip, as it carries out an irreplaceable role in delivering humanitarian assistance in the enclave, State Department spokesperson Matthew ...