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Tidal is condensing its plans in a bid to compete with fellow music streamers. The platform is removing its HiFi Plus and HiFI tiers to create one individual plan, aptly called Tidal. The new option will offer everything Plus users paid $20 monthly for but for $11— the same price as Spotify and Apple Music’s one-person plans. It seems Tidal could no longer justify asking people to pay an extra $9 when its competitors offered similar perks for less (the company notably laid off 10 percent of its employees in December). 

The new solo tier will include Dolby Atmos, HiRes FLAC and lossless audio for over 100 million songs. Apple Music also offers lossless audio, but this puts Tidal ahead of Spotify, which has yet to roll it out. There is a small catch for current HiFi Plus subscribers: Tidal’s DJ integration feature is becoming a DJ Extension — which will cost subscribers another $10. Anyone who has used DJ integration in the last 90 days will automatically have the extension added to their new plan when the tier overhaul takes effect on April 10. Notably, Tidal’s family plan will also condense into just one option, a $17 offer rather than the HiFi Plus’ $30 a month price tag. 

While the changes are overall a good deal for Tidal subscribers, the music streamer is getting rid of multiple options — including its free tier. As of March 4, Tidal also removed its discount for newly subscribing military personnel and first responders. Existing free tier subscribers will have to pay full price starting April 10, while military personnel and first responders who already use Tidal will have to make the switch starting June 10. Students who use Tidal will keep their $5 monthly rate. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/tidal-cuts-9-from-the-price-of-its-hi-fi-audio-streaming-plan-101301143.html?src=rss 

Elon Musk, who sued OpenAI for violating its non-profit mission and chasing profits, allegedly wanted the organization to merge with Tesla when it was starting to plan its transition into a for-profit entity in order to accomplish its goals. Well, either that or get full control of the company, OpenAI said in a blog post. The organization responded to Musk’s lawsuit by publishing old emails from 2015 to 2018 when he was still involved in its operations. 

When OpenAI introduced itself to the world back in 2015, it announced that it had $1 billion in funding. Apparently, Musk was the one who suggested that figure, even though OpenAI had raised less than $45 million from him and around $90 million from other donors. “We need to go with a much bigger number than $100M to avoid sounding hopeless… I think we should say that we are starting with a $1B funding commitment… I will cover whatever anyone else doesn’t provide,” he wrote, according to the company. 

In 2017, OpenAI’s leaders realized that they truly did need a lot more money — billions of dollars — because artificial intelligence required vast quantities of computing power. That’s when they started discussing its transition into a for-profit structure. OpenAI said Musk was involved in the planning and originally wanted majority equity, control of the initial board of directors and the CEO position. However, the organization felt that it was against its mission to give one person absolute control over it. They couldn’t get to an agreement, and Musk reportedly withheld funding while talks were ongoing.

Musk then forwarded an email to OpenAI in 2018, which suggested attaching the organization to Tesla so that the automaker could provide its funding. He explained in his letter that he believed it was “the only path that could even hope to hold a candle to Google.” OpenAI didn’t say how their discussions progressed after that, but Musk’s idea obviously didn’t push through, and he soon left the company. In the last email from Musk that the organization posted, he said his “probability assessment of OpenAI being relevant to DeepMind/Google without a dramatic change in execution and resources is 0%.” 

In his lawsuit, Musk accused OpenAI of being a “closed-source de facto subsidiary” of Microsoft, which uses its AI technology for products like Bing after investing $13 billion into the company. “Microsoft stands to make a fortune selling GPT-4 to the public, which would not be possible if OpenAI — as it is required to do — makes the technology freely available to the public,” the lawsuit argued. OpenAI said Musk was aware its mission did not imply open sourcing its artificial intelligence technology, though. It released an email in which Ilya Sutskever, its co-founder and chief scientist, told Musk: “As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. The Open in OpenAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after its built, but it’s totally OK to not share the science.” Musk then responded with “Yup.”

“We’re sad that it’s come to this with someone whom we’ve deeply admired — someone who inspired us to aim higher, then told us we would fail, started a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress towards OpenAI’s mission without him,” the company wrote in its post. After Musk filed his lawsuit, the company sent internal memos to its staff denying his allegations. Chief Strategy Officer Jason Kwon said in one memo that Musk’s claims “may stem from [his] regrets about not being involved with the company today.” Sam Altman said in another memo that he misses the person he knew who competed with others by building better technology. He also responded to a five-year old tweet from Musk thanking him for defending Tesla.

Musk’s lawsuit accuses OpenAI of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and unfair competition. He is currently seeking a jury trial and wants the court to order OpenAI to follow its “longstanding practice of making AI research and technology” available to the public and to prohibit it from using its technology for the financial benefit of Microsoft and any other particular organization or individual. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/openai-says-elon-musk-wanted-it-to-merge-with-tesla-to-create-a-for-profit-entity-063050178.html?src=rss 

Mini has promised to go all electric by 2030, a date that seemed pretty far off back in 2021 but right now is starting to sound not that far off at all. While the company’s prior battery-powered efforts have been great, it’s going to take something more serious and more practical to convert the masses to the wonders of electrification.

That something might just be the 2025 Mini Countryman. While Mini will offer this car with a gasoline-burning engine if you’re feeling traditional, the star of the lineup will be the new, $45,200, all-electric Countryman SE. With 313 horsepower and 363 pound-feet of torque, it’s quick, and with way more cargo space, it’s practical too.

But how does it drive? That’s what we headed to Portugal to find out, and while the extra volume and weight of the new Countryman does come with some compromises, it’s an engaging SUV to drive with a fantastic interior that’s just a few software updates away from perfection. Full the full preview, watch the video up top.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/minis-first-electric-countryman-has-a-wild-interior-thats-not-to-be-missed-041508080.html?src=rss 

A group of lawmakers have introduced a new bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok in order for the app to remain available in the United States. The “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” would prohibit US app stores and web hosting services from distributing TikTok unless it divested from parent company ByteDance.

The bill is the latest in a long line of attempts by lawmakers and other officials to ban or force a sale of the app. Former President Donald Trump attempted to force a sale of TikTok in 2020, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The Biden Administration has also pressured the company to divest. And a US District Court Judge recently blocked an attempt to ban the app in Montana.

The new bill, which comes from a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House, takes a different approach. It would give ByteDance a six-month window to sell TikTok before app store-level bans would come into effect. It would also require TikTok and other apps to “provide users with a copy of their data in a format that can be imported” into competing apps. And though TikTok is referenced several times in the text of the bill, the legislation would open the door for bans on other “foreign adversary-controlled” apps if the president deemed them to be a national security threat.

“This bill is an outright ban of TikTok, no matter how much the authors try to disguise it,” TikTok said in a statement. “This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs.”

TikTok CEO Shou Chew has maintained that a divestment would not fully address officials’ concerns about US user data. The company has spent years trying to address national security concerns about its service with an initiative called Project Texas. Under the plan, created as a result of years of negotiations with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), US users’ data would be separated into US-based servers and government officials would be able to oversee audits of TikTok’s source code and other aspects of its operations.

The Washington Post reported last year that TikTok’s negotiations with CFIUS had been recently “revived amid doubts the [Biden] administration has the authority to ban TikTok on its own.” If Congress was able to pass the new bill, it would clear up such questions and create a new process for forcing ByteDance’s hand. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/lawmakers-have-a-new-plan-to-force-bytedance-to-sell-tiktok-220408004.html?src=rss 

Microsoft will reveal the Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 on March 21, according to a report. This isn’t likely to just be a matter of a hardware refresh, however. Microsoft is expected to call these systems its first AI PCs, as Windows Central notes.

The devices are set to be equipped with new Intel Core Ultra or Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite-based processors that feature the latest neural processing units (NPUs) to boost AI capabilities. They’re said to approximately match the iPad Pro and MacBook Pro in terms of efficiency and performance.

The Surface Pro 10 and Surface Laptop 6 are expected to be among the first machines to support upcoming AI features in Windows 11. Along with on-device Copilot support, these functions are expected to include real-time live captions and translations, upscaling for games, frame rate smoothing, upgraded Windows Studio Effects and something that (at least for the time being) is seemingly called AI Explorer.

Windows Central suggests the latter will be the feature that sets AI PCs apart from regular computers. AI Explorer will apparently work across any app and let you search through documents, web pages, images and chats using natural language. It’s believed that the feature will create a history of everything you do on your computer and make it searchable. The tool is said to be capable of understanding context and suggesting tasks based on what’s on the screen. AI Explorer is also expected to support text-based image editing. According to the report, these AI features are likely to roll out as part of this fall’s 24H2 update for Windows 11.

As for what else to expect from Microsoft’s next laptops, both are said to have all-day battery life. The Surface Pro 10 is slated to include an anti-reflective, HDR-capable OLED screen. Rumors suggest it will have a front-facing ultrawide webcam and an NFC reader.

The Surface Laptop 6 is believed to have a more significant redesign compared with its predecessors. Along with thinner bezels and rounded corners, it’s expected to have a haptic touchpad, a dedicated key for Copilot and a revamped group of ports. It’s also slated to be the first Surface Laptop with an Arm variant (it’s worth noting that we had major reservations about the Arm-powered Surface Pro 9). The report suggests that the Intel versions of the Surface Laptop 9 and Surface Pro 10 will ship in April, with the Snapdragon variants to follow in June.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/microsoft-may-debut-its-first-ai-pcs-later-this-month-204522580.html?src=rss