Gemini can now generate a 30-second approximation of what real music sounds like

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Google has announced that using its newly incorporated Lyria 3 model, Gemini users will be able to generate 30-second music tracks based on a prompt, or remix an existing track to their liking. The new model builds on Gemini's pre-existing ability to generate text, images and video, and will also be available in YouTube's "Dream Track" feature, where it can be used to generate detailed backing tracks for Shorts.

Like some other music generation tools, prompting Gemini doesn't require a lot of detail to produce serviceable results. Google's example prompt is "a comical R&B slow jam about a sock finding their match," but after playing with Lyria 3, you can definitely get more granular about individual elements of a track — changing the tempo or the style of drumming, for example — if you want to. Outside of text, Gemini can also generate music based on a photo or video, and tracks can be paired with album art created by Google's Nano Banana image model.

Google says that Lyria 3 improves on its previous audio generation models in its ability to create more "realistic and musically complex" tracks, give prompters more control over individual components of a song and automatically generate lyrics. Gemini's outputs are limited to 30-second clips for now, but given how Google's promotional video shows off the feature, it's not hard to imagine those clips getting longer or the model getting incorporated into other apps, like Google Messages.

Like Gemini's other AI-generated outputs, songs made with Lyria 3 are also watermarked with Google's SynthID, so a Gemini clip can't as easily be passed off as a human one. Google started rolling out its SynthID Detector for identifying AI-generated content at Google I/O 2025. The sample tracks Google included alongside its announcement are convincing, but you might not need the company's tool to notice their machine-made qualities. The instrumental parts of Gemini’s clips often sound great, but the composition of the lyrics Lyria 3 produces sounds alternately corny and strange.

If you're curious to try Lyria 3 for yourself, Google says you can prompt tracks in Gemini starting today, provided you're 18 years or older and speak English, Spanish, German, French, Hindi, Japanese, Korean or Portuguese.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-can-now-generate-a-30-second-approximation-of-what-real-music-sounds-like-204445903.html?src=rss

Google Released a New Pixel 10a and It’s Basically the Same Phone From Last Year

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Google would like you to meet the Pixel 10A. It has a new name, new colors, and a press release that runs to several pages. It costs $499, which is exactly what the Pixel 9A cost. It weighs the same. It measures the same. It has the same cameras, the same battery, the same chip, and the same 6.3 inch display. There is a episode of The Office where Pam preoccupies Michael by presenting two identical photo printouts as a spot-the-difference puzzle. Google has essentially done that, except the printout costs five hundred dollars.

To be precise about what actually changed: the display is about 10% brighter, the glass protecting it moved from Gorilla Glass 3 to Gorilla Glass 7i, wired charging climbed from 23 watts to 30, and wireless charging went from 7.5 watts to 10. The camera bump, already barely perceptible on the 9A, is now completely flush. In some regions, satellite SOS is supported. That is the complete list. Google did not forget to send the rest of it.

Designer: Google

The Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro both run on the Tensor G5. The Pixel 10A runs on the Tensor G4, the same chip from last year’s A-series, and the year before that in the Pixel 9 Pro. For years, buying the A-series meant getting the current flagship chip in a cheaper body. That was a genuinely good deal. Google has decided, apparently, that it was too good.

Best Take, Camera Coach, Call Screening, Clear Calling, Now Playing, Gemini as a built-in assistant, and seven years of updates add up to an experience that Android competitors at this price genuinely struggle to match. The Pixel ecosystem has real pull, and Google knows it. The 10A is banking on that pull being strong enough to carry a spec sheet that would embarrass a 2024 phone.

Google looked at the Pixel 9A, decided it had not been wrong about any of it, and shipped it again with brighter glass and a new colorway called Fog. In an industry that routinely invents problems to solve, there is something almost philosophical about a company that simply refuses to fix what it considers unbroken. The Pixel 10A does not have an identity crisis. It has its predecessor’s identity, and it is completely comfortable with that.

It will sell because the cameras are good, the battery lasts, the software support is unmatched at the price, and most people upgrading to it will be coming from something two or three generations older where the difference feels significant regardless of which Tensor chip is inside. Google understands its buyer perhaps better than its buyer understands the spec sheet. The Pixel 10A is a perfectly competent phone that knows exactly what it is. But also… this smartphone announcement could have been an email.

The post Google Released a New Pixel 10a and It’s Basically the Same Phone From Last Year first appeared on Yanko Design.

Cyberpunk platformer Replaced has once again been delayed

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The long-awaited cyberpunk platformer Replaced just got hit with a short delay. The pixel-art game was supposed to come out on March 12, but will now be released on April 14. That's just a month, which isn't that big of a deal considering this game has been on our radar for five years.

Why the delay? Developer Sad Cat Studios notes that the game is "technically finished" but the team needs a few more weeks for polish. The company says it wants the day-one release to be "polished, stable and true to the vision" of the original concept. This is something to be commended, in my opinion, given the sad state of many game launches in recent years.

This is just the latest delay for the game. However, previous delays have been for a very good reason. The development team had to relocate from Belarus to Cyprus after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Replaced is an absolutely gorgeous-looking 2.5D platformer set in a dystopian alternative 1980s America. You play as an AI unwillingly trapped in a human body. There looks to be plenty of cinematic action, with a blurb promising a combination of "precise melee strikes with satisfying ranged attacks."

The game will be available for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG and the Microsoft Store. It'll also be a day-one Xbox Game Pass release.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/cyberpunk-platformer-replaced-has-once-again-been-delayed-190621246.html?src=rss

Forget Mindfulness Apps, This Desk Top Spins for 2 Minutes Instead

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Screens are on all day, and hands tend to find something to do when focus slips. Pen clicking, phone picking, knuckle cracking, the nervous tics of modern desk work. Most “mindfulness” solutions are still apps, which is a bit ironic when the problem is too much screen time. There’s something to be said for a small mechanical object that gives your brain a reset without asking for any attention in return.

Amsterdam Dynamics’ ST-01 is a modular spinning top and tactile focus object built for desks, hands, and minds that rarely get a break. It’s intentionally simple but not single-purpose, offering multiple mechanical interactions with no correct sequence. You use one when you need it or work through all of them. No app, no setup, no instructions, just the object and whatever your hands feel like doing with it.

Designer: Antonio Lo Presti (Amsterdam Dynamics)

A gentle twist sets ST-01 rotating smoothly, and it’s engineered to keep going for over two minutes. That’s long enough to watch while thinking through a problem, waiting for a file to render, or cooling down after a difficult meeting. It functions as a visual anchor, something calm and physical in a field of notifications and browser tabs that all want something from you.

Pressing the top triggers a satisfying mechanical click with clear tactile feedback, the kind of repeatable, purposeful sensation that replaces the nervous habit of clicking pens or tapping a keyboard. Amsterdam Dynamics calls it “reset focus,” which is accurate if not exactly humble. The middle disc can also be flipped like a coin, adding a small decision-making tool and another texture to the interaction when you need a nudge in either direction.

Of course, there’s a modular construction underneath all of that. ST-01 is built from three parts that can be taken apart and snapped back together, held in alignment by two precisely positioned magnets. That magnetic core keeps the structure stable during spinning while making it easy to disassemble by hand. There’s also a built-in magnet that lets it stick to metal surfaces, which is either a neat trick or a genuinely useful parking spot depending on your desk.

CNC-machined, anodized aerospace-grade aluminum means it’s solid in the hand, balanced, and finished in a way you notice the first time you pick it up. Cheap fidget toys flex, squeak, and wear out quickly. ST-01 is designed to stay on the desk for a long time, with Amsterdam Dynamics framing it as “a beautiful object, made to last a lifetime” and something that can eventually be passed on.

That’s an unusual positioning for what is essentially a desk toy, but it fits the overall idea. ST-01 doesn’t ask for a lifestyle change, a daily streak, or a subscription. It just gives your hands a few repeatable interactions and a place to return when the work gets loud, which turns out to be the kind of quiet, mechanical company a desk actually needs.

The post Forget Mindfulness Apps, This Desk Top Spins for 2 Minutes Instead first appeared on Yanko Design.

Nevada sues Kalshi for operating a sports gambling market without a license

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Nevada is taking action against the rapidly growing Wild West of prediction markets. The state's gambling regulators and attorney general sued Kalshi on Tuesday. They accuse the company of bypassing Nevada law by operating a sports gambling market without proper licenses. In addition, they say Kalshi provides services to individuals under 21, which violates state law.

The lawsuit follows a federal appeals court’s rejection of Kalshi's request to prevent the state from pursuing legal action. And it comes a day after the Trump administration claimed that only the federal government has the right to enforce the industry.

Prediction markets, which allow users to bet on events such as sports, political outcomes and wars, have exploded in popularity. Business Insider reports that Kalshi did 27 times as much business during this year's Super Bowl as last year's. Some of that growth has been at the expense of regulated gambling; Nevada's gambling operations did less business during this year's game.

"Kalshi has continued to dramatically expand its business, rather than attempting to maintain any kind of status quo," Nevada regulators wrote in a letter this month.

Kalshi and rival Polymarket insist that their businesses are "event contracts" and should be regulated as financial investments rather than gambling. The Trump administration, rife with conflicts of interest in this area, agrees. The Chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed an amicus brief on Tuesday, claiming that it alone has the authority to enforce the prediction market.

"The CFTC will no longer sit idly by while overzealous state governments undermine the agency's exclusive jurisdiction over these markets by seeking to establish statewide prohibitions on these exciting products," CFTC Chair Michael Selig wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Donald Trump Jr. speaks on stage during Turning Point's annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona on December 21, 2025. This year's conference commemorates the late right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot on a Utah college campus in September, sparking an outpouring of grief among conservatives and prompting President Donald Trump to threaten a crackdown on the "radical left." (Photo by Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)
Donald Trump Jr. (Photo by Olivier Touron / AFP via Getty Images)
OLIVIER TOURON via Getty Images

Not coincidentally, prediction markets are a growing part of the Trump family business. Donald Trump Jr. is a paid adviser to Kalshi. He's also an investor in and unpaid adviser to Polymarket. In January, his family's social media business said it would launch its own prediction market platform.

Prediction markets have the potential to be a hotbed of insider trading. According to blockchain analyst DeFi Oasis, fewer than 0.04 percent of Polymarket accounts have captured over 70 percent of the platform's total profits, totaling over $3.7 billion.

Last month, The Guardian highlighted the case of a Polymarket user who bet tens of thousands of dollars on "yes" to the question, "Israel's military action against Iran by Friday?" Within 24 hours, Israel bombed Iran, leaving hundreds dead. The user made $128,000 on that bet. The Guardian traced the blockchain data to a wallet associated with an X account. Its location on the social platform was set to Beit Ha'shita, a northern Israeli settlement. The user later transferred their bets to two other accounts, apparently to avoid detection. In January, the accounts held 10 live bets on Israeli military strategy.

Another anonymous user made over $400,000 by betting that Nicolás Maduro would be ousted by the end of January. The bets were placed in the hours and days leading up to the US strikes on Venezuela. In another case, eight jointly owned accounts collectively generated over $161,000 by betting on the country's María Corina Machado Parisca winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The accounts' handles used names such as "fmaduro," "madurowilllose," "striketheboats" and "trumpdeservesit".

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/nevada-sues-kalshi-for-operating-a-sports-gambling-market-without-a-license-175721982.html?src=rss

Here’s what to expect at Apple’s product launch event on March 4

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Apple has scheduled a product launch event, dubbed an "Apple Experience", for March 4 at 9AM ET. The company is reportedly holding this event in NYC, London and Shanghai.

Everyone loves shiny new products, so what can we expect to see at Apple's first launch event of 2026? We don't know anything for certain, but we have plenty of educated guesses that have been sourced from industry reports and speculation from analysts.

There have been rumors swirling that Apple is preparing to launch a cheaper alternative to the MacBook Air. Bloomberg reported on this all the way back in November. Industry rumors indicate that Apple will be stuffing this laptop with an iPhone processor, the A18 Pro, to keep the price down.

It's also been suggested that this laptop will only include 8GB of RAM, which kind of flies against the company's recent stance to outfit all Macs with at least 16GB of RAM. However, that would certainly help with the cost. You might have heard about a little thing called AI that chomp chomps on all RAM it can find.

TechRadar has reported that this could be Apple's biggest laptop launch in years, with potential initial shipments hitting 8 million units. The price is likely to be somewhere in the $699 to $799 range, which is pretty nifty. However, I'd still go for an Air at $999. They are absolute workhorses.

It's likely that Apple will release more powerful MacBook Pro models this year and the timing seems to match up. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has suggested a March launch and the event is on March 4.

The company has already released a MacBook Pro with an M5 chip, but both the M5 Pro and Max are likely on the horizon. We could be getting new laptops outfitted with these chips in various display sizes.

A laptop on a table.
Devindra Hardawar for Engadget

There have also been reports that both of the higher-end M5 chips are getting a redesign to help improve heat dissipation and reduce defective chip rates. Additionally, the new chiplet design would allow the M5 Pro and Max to raise the total number of CPU and GPU cores. The Max is expected to have more cores than the Pro.

This idea is helped along by the fact that MacBook Pro M4 Max orders are currently delayed. This is typically the case with an outgoing model as stock dries up to make room for new releases. Also, the Pro and Max variants typically get announced in the Fall, so we are due. 

Rumors have been circulating that we are about to get new iPads, including an update to the base model and the Air. The standard model, which would be the 12th-gen release, is expected to upgrade the A16 chip to an A18. This should also allow for the integration of Apple Intelligence tools, if that's your bag.

An iPad.
Nathan Ingraham for Engadget

As for that iPad Air, rumors suggest an upgrade to the M4 chip from the M3. An extremely light tablet with an M4 would be fairly notable in my estimation, as only the newest iPad Pro has that chip.

It was almost exactly a year ago that Apple announced the iPhone 16e, so you know what that means. It's time for a refresh. Recent reports have suggested that an announcement regarding the iPhone 17e is imminent, so this launch event seems like as good a place as any to reveal the latest "budget-friendly" smartphone.

As for specs, Mark Gurman has suggested that it'll be getting an upgrade to the A19 chip, which is nice. Also, it could be getting MagSafe support. That sounds like an iterative upgrade, but the price is expected to remain steady at $599.

The following stuff is less likely, though certainly possible. There have been rumors that Apple is currently preparing a revamped Studio Display and Mac Studio desktop. The reports suggest a release sometime in the first half of the year, and March is right in the middle of that timeframe.

It's also possible that the company will reveal an upgrade to the MacBook Air with the M5 chip. Reports indicate that this is unlikely to happen during this event, but it is worth noting that the M4 Air came out in March of last year. In other words, it's a toss up.

What's not a toss up? You shouldn't expect anything regarding the long-anticipated Siri refresh. This looks to be a hardware event, so any software updates will likely have to wait until WWDC this summer. In any event, Engadget will be on hand to report on all of Apple's new products. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/heres-what-to-expect-at-apples-product-launch-event-on-march-4-173612772.html?src=rss

This Air Purifier Concept Looks Like Scandinavian Audio Gear

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Air purifiers tend to look like medical equipment and come with apps you didn’t ask for. They arrive with dashboards, push notifications, and Wi-Fi setup rituals that turn “cleaner air” into another thing to manage on a phone. Most of them sit in corners behind plants because they look clinical, and no one wants to acknowledge the white plastic box while having guests over for dinner.

The Beolab Air 1 is a concept air purifier designed to sit in a room without announcing itself. It was developed as a student project and draws inspiration from the calm, material-driven design language of Bang & Olufsen’s Beolab line, though it’s not affiliated with the company in any way. The goal was to see what happens when you apply that kind of sculptural thinking to clean air, instead of just adding another screen to the wellness toolkit.

Designers: Ahaan Varma, Malhar Gadnis, Michelle Sequeira, Sharanya Karkera

The most refreshing part of the concept is the interaction model. A single button press is all it takes to start, with no app pairing, no IoT setup, and no onboarding routine. The project frames this as “digital detox,” which is a reasonable description when most purifiers try to sell you sensor graphs and weekly air quality reports. You turn it on the way you’d turn on a lamp or a speaker, then leave it to work.

The materials do a lot of the talking. Angled teak wooden ridges wrap the body and function as vents for filtered air, so the aesthetic choice also serves a purpose. Textured aluminum handles the rest of the exterior. The project’s own critique of the category is blunt: plastic yellows and looks cheap over time, while wood and metal age better. A purifier built to look like a piece of considered furniture has a better chance of earning a spot on a sideboard than one that resembles a hospital accessory.

Under the surface, there’s a plausible engineering stack. A high-efficiency BLDC fan delivers strong airflow while staying quiet, a HEPA filter handles particulate capture, and an MQ135 gas sensor pairs with PM2.5 sensing to monitor air quality without forcing anyone into an app. The concept keeps the monitoring internal and the feedback subtle, a soft ambient light band that changes gently rather than a display demanding attention.

Of course, that ambient feedback is the whole point. Clean air is invisible and usually silent, and a purifier that communicates the same way feels more appropriate than one with a scrolling PM2.5 count on a bright panel. You can check in when you feel like it, and the rest of the time it just works.

The concept calls out a genuine gap in the category: people want wellness that integrates quietly into a room, not hospital aesthetics, and yet another app. Whether or not Beolab Air 1 ever gets built, asking what a purifier looks like when treated with the same care as a premium speaker is a question the category probably needed someone to ask.

The post This Air Purifier Concept Looks Like Scandinavian Audio Gear first appeared on Yanko Design.

Spotify debuts SeatGeek integration for concert ticket sales

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Ticketing marketplace SeatGeek has announced a partnership with Spotify that will direct an artist's fans to its platform from the Spotify app. The integration is currently limited to a few participating venues for which SeatGeek is the primary ticket seller.

While SeatGeek is one of the largest online marketplaces for the secondary ticketing market, the company's announcement makes clear that this Spotify integration only applies to venues where it's the primary ticketing company. For now, that's just 15 US partner venues, primarily professional sports arenas like AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Spotify has experimented with direct ticket sales in the past, but now focuses on signing on partners to integrate into the streaming experience. The company currently lists 46 ticketing partners, including Ticketmaster, AXS and others. The app also allows users to follow specific venues to be notified about upcoming concerts and events.

The world's largest music streaming service has added a glut of new features recently. One helps listeners learn more about a song, while another new addition finally added group messaging. The platform, which now boasts some 750 million monthly users, has also been trying to address AI slop in its library, although not very hard by the looks of it.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/spotify-debuts-seatgeek-integration-for-concert-ticket-sales-162248870.html?src=rss

This Does Not Compute Turns Tiny Mac Clock Into Working Raspberry Pi Macintosh

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If you appreciate retro computing and DIY electronics, a new project from This Does Not Compute (YouTube channel) will be the best thing you will see today. The build emulates the 1984 Apple Macintosh, but in a miniaturized version. Not the smallest, but decently small to sit in the corner of your desk and do more than its intended function of a clock.

If that sounds puzzling, here’s a clearer explanation. The modder has actually taken a Maclock, which is a clock that looks identical to the original Mac, but of course considerably smaller, and ripped it open. He replaced the original alarm clock mechanics with a Raspberry Pi, turning it into a homage to the classic Apple computer.

Designer: This Does Not Compute

The project, as the modder himself states, “is just for fun” and doesn’t really reach out to prove anything other than love to toil with anything Mac. With the innards of the clock replaced by Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, the original display of the clock is also swapped with a 640×480 2.8-in color screen from Wave Share, and the project is interestingly called Wondermac. The name is in reference to Wonder Boy, the Chinese company that makes Maclock.

The modder, as you can see in detail in the video above, starts by cracking open the Maclock case, which has screws, but they are only used to mimic the Macintosh and have no significant usage. Opening the case was “probably the hardest part of the whole project,” he says. The case is clipped together pretty tightly, but he was able to separate the front bezel from the back using a wide metal pry tool. Once the front panel was free, he unplugged the wiring harness and pulled out the main circuit board and the screen to clear up the space inside the Maclock body, which will now have new guts and a new purpose.

“Compact, low power, and relatively inexpensive,” Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W was a clear choice for the Mac’s innards, the modder affirms. It comes with a pin header presoldered and includes a heatsink, which would be a nifty addition to keep this tiny computer cool when it does some computing. The Pi is now connected to the externally purchased screen, and the modder gets down to launching the Raspberry Pi imager app and installing Minivvac on an SD card for the software side of the project.

For powering the Wondermac, the modder doesn’t rely on the Maclock’s built-in battery; instead, they take advantage of the USB-C port on the back housing for power. After some tweaking to power output, some wire soldering, and sticking, he was able to get the power going as required to run the screen. Finally, he designed a 3D printed bracket with black filament to fit the screen in place, and then everything was assembled back into shape. Content with the outcome, he leaves the little Mac on the desk with the Afterdark screen saver.

The post This Does Not Compute Turns Tiny Mac Clock Into Working Raspberry Pi Macintosh first appeared on Yanko Design.