Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the missing-features department: Several users on Reddit have noticed that Spotify has started hiding song lyrics behind a paywall. "This means you won't be able to sing along unless you know the lyrics already, or are willing to look them up in another app," reports Android Police. From the report: Still, you lose the convenience of real-time sync with the track and automatic scrolling. Like skips per hour, it appears Spotify will implement a limit system and accessing lyrics will count against the user's limit, which should ideally reset after a stipulated time.
Spotify usually requests lyrics from songwriters, publishers, and independent artists. However, in most other cases, the company has a working relationship with MusixMatch to provide lyrics, and perhaps Spotify isn't willing to absorb the costs of this partnership. That would explain why lyrics are now paywalled, but as a free-tier user, such changes are chipping away at the service's appeal.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the growing-pains department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Last week, hundreds of nurses protested the implementation of sloppy AI into hospital systems in front of Kaiser Permanente. Their primary concern: that systems incapable of empathy are being integrated into an already dysfunctional sector without much thought toward patient care: "No computer, no AI can replace a human touch," said Amy Grewal, a registered nurse. "It cannot hold your loved one's hand. You cannot teach a computer how to have empathy."
There are certainly roles automation can play in easing strain on a sector full of burnout after COVID, particularly when it comes to administrative tasks. The concern, as with other industries dominated by executives with poor judgement, is that this is being used as a justification by for-profit hospital systems to cut corners further. From a National Nurses United blog post (spotted by 404 Media): "Nurses are not against scientific or technological advancement, but we will not accept algorithms replacing the expertise, experience, holistic, and hands-on approach we bring to patient care," they added.
Kaiser Permanente, for its part, insists it's simply leveraging "state-of-the-art tools and technologies that support our mission of providing high-quality, affordable health care to best meet our members' and patients' needs." The company claims its "Advance Alert" AI monitoring system -- which algorithmically analyzes patient data every hour -- has the potential to save upwards of 500 lives a year. The problem is that healthcare giants' primary obligation no longer appears to reside with patients, but with their financial results. And, that's even true in non-profit healthcare providers. That is seen in the form of cut corners, worse service, and an assault on already over-taxed labor via lower pay and higher workload (curiously, it never seems to impact outsized high-level executive compensation).
Posted by from MMO Champion
The War Within Alpha Development Notes - May 2, 2024
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
The War Within Alpha has been updated with the following changes:
NEW ZONES AND DELVES
Hallowfall
NEW DUNGEONS
The Dawnbreaker
Priory of the Sacred Flame
WARBANDS
Class set tokens from legacy raids (
Shadowlands and earlier) are now Warbound and can be transferred to characters on the account.
Developer’s note: Based on community feedback and to match our overall philosophy on transmog collection, class set tokens from legacy raids (Shadowlands and earlier) are now Warbound, allowing them to be transferred to alts in order to collect the transmog of your choice. For clarity, current expansion tier set tokens will remain unchanged from their previous status of bind on pickup, as they represent a large amount of power for the character who collects them. CHARACTER LEVEL
Developers’ note: With each phase, we encourage players to make a new template character and avoid using their previous characters as they could potentially be in a broken state. After making a new template character, make sure to talk to Questzertauren and he will prepare you for any available content. Level 75 Character Template
Maximum Level: 78
CLASSES
The following Hero Talents are available for playtesting in Public Alpha 3.
PRIEST
Archon (Holy/Shadow)
Archons are highly devout and deeply connected to the Light and Shadow. Archons can be blessed from higher beings to enter into an ascended state, becoming an ultimate version of themselves.
ROGUE
Fatebound (Assassination/Outlaw)
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the latest-twist department: Sony Pictures Entertainment and Apollo Global Management have made a bid to acquire Paramount for $26 billion and take it private. Variety reports: Sony and private-equity giant Apollo submitted a letter with the non-binding offer Wednesday to Paramount Global, as first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The bid, which would include the assumption of debt and could be negotiated, would be a premium over the company's current $22 billion enterprise value. Shares of Paramount Global jumped 13% on news of the offer from Apollo and Sony Entertainment, closing at $13.86 per share Thursday.
It's not clear how Paramount's board will proceed on the Sony-Apollo proposal, having rejected previous overtures from the private-equity firm. The company has an exclusive negotiating window with Skydance that ends Friday (May 3), but discussions among the parties could extend beyond that. If it happens, the combination of Sony Pictures with Paramount Pictures would likely result in mass layoffs -- and knock the number of major Hollywood studios from five to four, after Disney took over 20th Century. Sony Corp., which acquired Columbia Pictures in 1990 for $3.5 billion, is the largest studio operator in the industry that does not have a broad-scale direct-to-consumer streaming play.
Under the proposed bid with Apollo, Sony would be the majority owner of the combined company. Sony Corp. would merge Sony Pictures Entertainment into a joint venture with Paramount Global. Sony and Apollo would both contribute cash to finance the deal. What's unclear is what would happen to the 28 local TV stations CBS owns; FCC rules bar foreign entities (i.e. Tokyo-based Sony) from having majority ownership control of broadcast TV stations, so Sony would need to carve out a separate U.S. ownership structure for the station group.
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the cease-and-desist department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Microsoft has changed its policy to ban U.S. police departments from using generative AI through the Azure OpenAI Service, the company's fully managed, enterprise-focused wrapper around OpenAI technologies. Language added Wednesday to the terms of service for Azure OpenAI Service prohibits integrations with Azure OpenAI Service from being used "by or for" police departments in the U.S., including integrations with OpenAI's text- and speech-analyzing models. A separate new bullet point covers "any law enforcement globally," and explicitly bars the use of "real-time facial recognition technology" on mobile cameras, like body cameras and dashcams, to attempt to identify a person in "uncontrolled, in-the-wild" environments. [...]
The new terms leave wiggle room for Microsoft. The complete ban on Azure OpenAI Service usage pertains only to U.S., not international, police. And it doesn't cover facial recognition performed with stationary cameras in controlled environments, like a back office (although the terms prohibit any use of facial recognition by U.S. police). That tracks with Microsoft's and close partner OpenAI's recent approach to AI-related law enforcement and defense contracts. Last week, taser company Axon announced a new tool that uses AI built on OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo model to transcribe audio from body cameras and automatically turn it into a police report. It's unclear if Microsoft's updated policy is in response to Axon's product launch.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the closer-look department: An anonymous reader shares a column: When Apple CEO Tim Cook and a bunch of his deputies take the virtual stage next week to announce new iPads, they're going to spend a lot of time talking about specs. If the rumors are true, we're going to get new iPad Pros with OLED screens and thinner bodies, new Airs with faster chips and a correctly placed front camera, and a couple of new accessories. Before they even launch, I feel confident telling you these are the best iPads ever. But after all these years, I still don't know how to tell you whether you should want an iPad. Or what you'd want to do with it.
This has been true forever, of course. The iPad is the jack-of-all-trades in Apple's lineup, a terrific device in many ways that still feels increasingly redundant now that so many people have big phones and long-lasting laptops. Apple seems to have spent the last decade-plus enamored with the idea of the iPad as a shapeshifter -- a device that can be exactly what you need at any given time. The company loves that the iPad's use case is hard to pin down, that it means different things to different people. It's a fun, good, ambitious idea: The One Gadget To Rule Them All. The way to make that happen, though, is not to upgrade the chips or move the buttons or redesign the rounded corners. It's to focus less on the iPad itself and more on the things you attach to it.
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Starfield, Bethesda’s large open-world space RPG released last year, is set to receive a big new update later this month. One of the big features being added is 3D surface and city maps, something the game has needed since its launch. But these new maps also reveal that Starfield’s biggest cities are actually pretty… 
While recent big-budget, $60+ games like Suicide Squad and Immortals of Aveum seem unable to find success, many smaller and weirder titles are exploding on Steam and developing large communities around them. Games like Helldivers 2, Palworld, Lethal Company, and Sons of the Forest are all major standouts for this… 
Another Crab’s Treasure is a bright and wonderfully challenging soulslike that’s out now. In it, you can learn multiple techniques that make combat a touch easier, and some of these are super moves called Adaptations. While you’ll collect most of the game’s Adaptations by simply going around and fighting both… 
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Players were excited at the prospect that Redfall might combine the fun co-op loot mechanics of a Borderlands with the bespoke environmental storytelling of a Dishonored. Ultimately, though, the day-one Game Pass blockbuster didn’t quite accomplish either of these things, and it was burdened at launch by bugs,… 
Are you playing Another Crab’s Treasure and wondering which shell is the best one? They all have their utilities, so there isn’t a one-size-fits-all shell, but Another Crab’s Treasure does have one that comes pretty damn close, and you can unlock it relatively early on if you play your cards right. The valve shell,… 
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