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OpenAI has debuted its cheapest subscription yet for India only, product head Nick Turley announced on X. Called ChatGPT Go, the 390 rupee ($4.60) GPT-5 plan will offers users 10 times more message limits, image generation and file uploads than the free offering. “Making ChatGPT more affordable has been a key ask from users,” Turley wrote. “We’re rolling out Go in India first and will learn from feedback before expanding to other countries.” 

The new plan was leaked earlier and OpenAI recently introduced local currency pricing in India via India’s payment framework. With that, ChatGPT Plus and ChatGPT Pro are now offered for 1,999 rupees ($22.95) and 19,990 rupees ($229.50) — more expensive than the $20 and $200 users paid prior to the local currency rollout. 

ChatGPT Go now gives local users a more budget-oriented option. However, it doesn’t offer access to GPT-5’s advanced reasoning, has “limited deep research,” no custom GPTs and lower message, image and file upload limits compared to the higher-end subscriptions, according to OpenAI’s plan page in India. 

India is a key market for OpenAI, being second only to the US by user base. CEO Sam Altman recently met with India’s IT minister about a plan to introduce lower-cost AI plans. According to Turley’s X post, it looks like ChatGPT Go will come to other countries soon, though the company has yet to say which ones. Turley recently said that ChatGPT now has 700 million weekly users globally, up from 500 million in March. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openais-chatgpt-go-plan-arrives-in-india-only-for-under-5-per-month-120053087.html?src=rss 

Leave it to Tesla to charge its customers for a feature it purposely left out. The company is now selling an almost $350 retrofit turn signal stalk for its Model 3 cars after removing from the initial model. Instead, it used buttons to activate the turn signal.

As of now, the add-on is only available in the Chinese market. But, Model 3 drivers will need to shell out another 2,499 yuan ($348) to get a normal part of almost every car. However, there’s a slight catch: The turn signal stalk is only compatible with models produced from February 7 of this year onward. 

Only one month earlier, Tesla launched a refreshed Model Y that brought back the turn signal stalk. “We always say at Tesla, if you aren’t deleting so much that you have to put something back, you have’t deleted enough. Well, maybe we deleted too much,” Tesla’s vice president of engineering Lars Moravy said in an interview with Jay Leno shortly after. 

The option to buy a retrofit signal stalk isn’t that surprising. Creator Chris Zheng first leaked the news back in February on X (formerly Twitter). It’s unclear whether Tesla plans to bring the add-on to additional markets. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/transportation/evs/tesla-offers-a-350-retrofit-turn-signal-stalk-after-removing-it-from-the-model-3-123034169.html?src=rss 

UK officials will no longer compel Apple to create backdoor access to its users’ data, according to US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. She wrote on X that she, President Trump and Vice President Vance worked closely with their “partners in the UK” over the past months. “As a result,” she continued, “the UK has agreed to drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.”

As The New York Times notes, the UK government issued the secret order earlier this year after amending the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016. The law gives the UK government the right to compel companies to turn over data to law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Reports about the mandate started to come out in February, however, and Apple pretty much confirmed it when it disabled iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection feature in the UK. ADP gives users the power to to add optional end-to-end encryption to a variety of iCloud data, which means the information can’t be accessed by authorities unless they have the user’s device in their hands. “As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will,” Apple said at the time. 

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers asked Gabbard to take measures to prevent what they called “a foreign cyberattack waged through political means” after the information about the mandate went public. Meanwhile, Apple filed a complained with the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which “investigates complaints about the alleged conduct of public bodies in relation to members of the public,” to get the order reversed. The company has yet to issue an official statement about the reversal of the UK mandate. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/the-uk-will-no-longer-require-apple-to-create-backdoor-access-to-users-data-110014398.html?src=rss 

Spotify routinely debuts new playlist features for its users, but the company’s latest update has the potential to dramatically alter custom mixes. Starting today, premium users will have access to a new tool for creating customized transitions within playlists. This will allow seamless progression from one track to the next, with natural-sounding changeovers and no awkward silence. 

Once you’ve created a playlist, you’ll notice a Mix option on the toolbar. When selected, the tool gives you the option to pick Auto and allow Spotify to instantly make the transitions, or you can tap in further to customize things as you see fit. From there, you can choose presets like Fade or Rise to quickly apply transition styles or try specific changes to volume, EQ and effects. The app will display a waveform for the two songs, helping you select the best place to make the swap. 

After making your transitions, you can save them for future use or for sharing with friends. And speaking of friends, the transition editor is available for collaboration on any playlists you build with your pals. Spotify allows you to toggle the Mix option on and off at any time, so you’re free to listen without any of that creative customization if needed. 

To help you create a playlist that’s ready for mixing, Spotify will show you the tempo in BPMs (beats per minute) and Camelot keys for each song once you tap Mix. The company reminds users that the best options for this tool are songs that were created for seamless transitions, so genres like house and techno will provide the best results. Spotify also recommends using the Mix tool for making running playlists with consistent BPMs to help with pace or to create roadtrip playlists that can maintain “the vibe.” Lastly, you can create your own cover art for mixed playlists using Spotify’s built-in editor that debuted last fall. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-now-lets-you-create-seamless-transitions-between-songs-on-your-custom-playlists-100051537.html?src=rss 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced plans to investigate both Meta AI Studio and Character.AI for offering AI chatbots that can claim to be health tools, and potentially misusing data collected from underage users.

Paxton says that AI chatbots from either platform “can present themselves as professional therapeutic tools,” to the point of lying about their qualifications. That behavior that can leave younger users vulnerable to misleading and inaccurate information. Because AI platforms often rely on user prompts as another source of training data, either company could also be violating young user’s privacy and misusing their data. This is of particular interest in Texas, where the SCOPE Act places specific limits on what companies can do with data harvested from minors, and requires platform’s offer tools so parents can manage the privacy settings of their children’s accounts.

For now, the Attorney General has submitted Civil Investigative Demands (CIDs) to both Meta and Character.AI to see if either company is violating Texas consumer protection laws. As TechCrunch notes, neither Meta nor Character.AI claim their AI chatbot platforms should be used as mental health tools. That doesn’t prevent there from being multiple “Therapist” and “Psychologist” chatbots on Character.AI. Nor does it stop either of the companies’ chatbots from claiming they’re licensed professionals, as 404 Media reported in April. 

“The user-created Characters on our site are fictional, they are intended for entertainment, and we have taken robust steps to make that clear,” a Character.AI spokesperson said when asked to comment on the Texas investigation. “For example, we have prominent disclaimers in every chat to remind users that a Character is not a real person and that everything a Character says should be treated as fiction.”

Meta shared a similar sentiment in its comment. “We clearly label AIs, and to help people better understand their limitations, we include a disclaimer that responses are generated by AI — not people,” the company said. Meta AIs are also supposed to “direct users to seek qualified medical or safety professionals when appropriate.” Sending people to real resources is good, but ultimately disclaimers themselves are easy to ignore, and don’t act as much of an obstacle.

With regards to privacy and data usage, both Meta’s privacy policy and the Character.AI’s privacy policy acknowledge that data is collected from users’ interactions with AI. Meta collects things like prompts and feedback to improve AI performance. Character.AI logs things like identifiers and demographic information and says that information can be used for advertising, among other applications. How either policy applies to children, and fits with Texas’ SCOPE Act, seems like it’ll depend on how easy it is to make an account.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/texas-ag-to-investigate-meta-and-characterai-over-misleading-mental-health-claims-221343275.html?src=rss 

Mark Rober will bring his scientific talents to Netflix with two upcoming projects. Rober is a former NASA engineer who parlayed his skills into an entertaining and educational YouTube career. In past years, we’ve seen him develop not just one, but two stinky glitter bombs to fend off porch package thieves, as well as leading work on a Guinness World Record-holding robot called the Dominator. 

According to an announcement from Netflix, Rober “will bring some of his most beloved, ambitious, and informative experiments” to the streaming platform later this year. Then in 2026, he’ll also host a competition series aimed at kids and family viewers. Rober’s CrunchLabs business and Kimmelot, late night host Jimmy Kimmel’s production company, will be producing.

Netflix has been adding several YouTube creators to its content lineup, with a particular angle toward family-friendly science programs. Earlier this year, it brought some content from Rachel Accurso’s Ms. Rachel channel, with educational topics for very young children, to the platform.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/streaming/youtuber-mark-rober-is-bringing-his-experiments-to-netflix-201853920.html?src=rss