Image: UPS UPS delivery drones are now allowed to fly longer distance flights beyond the sight of ground operators, the Federal Aviation Administration revealed in a press release on Wednesday. This is the kind of move that opens the door for drone delivery companies like Wing, FedEx, and Zip to deliver packages across a wider area and service more customers. UPS Flight Forward, a UPS subsidiary focused on drone delivery, can now deliver small packages beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) without spotters on the ground monitoring the route and skies for other aircraft, using SwissDrones SVO 50 V2 drones. The FAA also announced authorizations for two other companies to fly beyond sight for commercial purposes. That includes uAvionix Corp. and,... Continue reading…

Image: Universal Music / Deezer Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a new streaming deal today with French music service Deezer that aims to direct more listener payouts toward professional artists. The changes will essentially count a single listen as two listens on popular tracks, giving them more revenue than smaller ones. Currently, platforms like Apple Music and Spotify (and Deezer) generally divide payments based on total listens, regardless of what the track is or who made it.In the new deal, “professional artists,” from big stars like BTS and Billie Eilish to up-and-coming bands, will effectively see payout increases of 10 percent, the Financial Times reports. To qualify for the increased payouts, artists need a minimum of 1,000 streams per month by at least... Continue reading…

The Razer Blade 14 (2023) stands above most gaming laptops thanks to its powerful hardware. In addition to the blazing fast AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS processor and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 GPU, it comes with a premium QHD+ 240Hz display to provide a well-rounded gaming experience.

Illustration: The Verge Google will soon start requiring political advertisers to “prominently disclose” when they made their ads with AI, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. Starting in November, Google says advertisers must include a disclosure when an election ad features “synthetic content” that depicts “realistic-looking people or events.”That includes political ads that use AI to make someone look as if they’re saying or doing something they never did, as well as changing the footage of an actual event (or fabricating a realistic-looking one) to create a scene that never happened.Google says these types of ads must contain a disclaimer in a “clear and conspicuous” place, noting that it will apply to images, videos, and audio content. The labels will need... Continue reading…

Illustration by Nikolas Kokovlis / NurPhoto via Getty Images A few weeks ago, Mark Zuckerberg announced that WhatsApp was in the process of rolling out HD photo sharing, with HD video soon to follow. As of today, the process is complete: Meta has confirmed to The Verge that both HD photos and HD videos are available to everyone.“Both HD photos and HD videos have rolled out globally,” WhatsApp spokesperson Ellie Heatrick told The Verge in an emailed statement. The company also posted a promotional video to Threads earlier today encouraging users to “share epic moments” with the new feature, which has been available to beta testers for the past few months.After you select a photo or video to send from your camera roll, you should see an “HD” button at the top of your screen (to the left of the... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge In the first half of July, Microsoft disclosed that the Chinese hacking group Storm-0558 had gained access to emails from around 25 organizations, including agencies in the US government. Today, the company is explaining how that happened thanks to a series of internal errors while sharply underscoring just how serious a responsibility it is to maintain massive, growing software infrastructure in an increasingly digitally insecure world.According to Microsoft’s investigation summary, Storm-0558 was able to gain access to corporate and government emails by obtaining a “Microsoft account consumer key,” which let them create access tokens to their targets’ accounts.Storm-0558 obtained the key after a Rube Goldberg machine-style series of... Continue reading…

Image: CFOTO / Future Publishing via Getty Images Apple is investing millions of dollars per day into artificial intelligence, according to a new report from The Information. The company is reportedly working on multiple AI models across several teams.Apple’s unit that works on conversational AI is called “Foundational Models,” per The Information’s reporting. It has “around 16” members, including several former Google engineers. It’s helmed by John Giannandrea, Apple’s head of AI, who was hired in 2018 to help improve Siri. (Giannandrea has reportedly “expressed skepticism to colleagues about the potential usefulness of chatbots powered by AI language models.”) Additional teams at Apple are also working on artificial intelligence, per The Information. A Visual Intelligence unit is... Continue reading…

The latest iteration of Microsoft's budget-oriented laptop, the Surface Laptop Go 2, is just over a year old, and while we found it pretty good in our review, it's starting to feel a little long in the tooth. It does offer a premium-feeling design with the clean Surface design language and a tall 3:2 display, but as new hardware comes out, the need for improved specs is starting to show. So while this is still a great laptop in its own right, we're eagerly anticipating a successor, presumably to be called the Surface Laptop Go 3.

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Ghostwriter, the anonymous creator behind the viral AI Drake song, has released another track — and this time, it features the AI-generated voices of Travis Scott and 21 Savage. In a song titled “Whiplash” posted to TikTok, Ghostwriter leaves a note for the two artists at the very end.“The future of music is here. Artists now have the ability to let their voice work for them without lifting a finger,” Ghostwriter’s message reads. “It’s clear that people want this song. DM me on Instagram if you’re interested in allowing me to release this record or if you’d like me to remove this post.” Ghostwriter adds that if Travis Scott and 21 Savage allow the release of the song, Ghostwriter will direct royalties to them. @ghostwriter977 ♬... Continue reading…

An Interview With Janet Mesh of Aimtal Website redesigns are a necessary component for marketers. But with so many elements going into an effective redesign, do you know what to focus on to develop a solid plan from the start? Join us and hear from Janet Mesh, CEO and co-founder of Aimtal, as she and Loren Baker, our founder and host, break down the ways to effectively launch a website redesign using Webflow and HubSpot, and the factors you need to focus on when redesigning. You’ll get tips on honing in on your site’s infrastructure using Janet’s “do no harm” […]The post Effective Website Redesigns: How To Avoid Costly Mistakes [Podcast] appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Finding an affordable and capable laptop on a strict budget is tricky. There could be dozens or even hundreds of options to choose from, but most have major trade-offs. Even if you stick to one manufacturer, like HP, many options exist. Many of our favorite laptops from HP cost upwards of $1,000, but what if you can’t, or won’t, spend more than $600 on your laptop?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is making some notable changes to the ad controls available to creators. Beginning in November, YouTube is dropping individual ad controls in YouTube Studio for pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, and non-skippable ads on new videos, according to a support document from the company bylined by “Rob,” a member of the YouTube team.Instead, creators will only be able to choose between having ads before or after a video on or off. If you choose to have those ads on, YouTube will choose whether to show pre-roll, post-roll, skippable, or non-skippable ads “when appropriate,” per a notice on another support document.YouTube argues that this won’t be too big of a deal. “Most creators shouldn’t notice a change as they already have many of... Continue reading…