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Google Gemini, Apple add music-focused generative AI features

Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc. are adding music-focused generative artificial intelligence features to their core consumer apps, underscoring how advanced AI tools are moving into mainstream use.

Google’s Gemini AI assistant can now create 30-second music tracks based on text, photos or video uploaded by users using Google DeepMind�...Read more

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OpenAI blocked from using Cameo name for its AI video features

OpenAI has been temporarily blocked from using the word "Cameo" in a product that allows people to generate videos based on prompts amid a trademark dispute.

Last year, the celebrity video platform Cameo sued OpenAI, alleging that the San Francisco company infringed its trademark. People use Cameo to purchase personalized videos of celebrities ...Read more

Plugging in costs more these days. Devonyu/iStock / Getty Images Plus

How deregulation made electricity more expensive, not cheaper

American families are feeling the pinch of rising electricity prices. In the past five years alone, the generation portion of the standard service residential electric bill in Columbus, Ohio, has increased by 110%. This is one data point in a national trend.

Energy affordability is quickly shaping up to be a key election issue at all ...Read more

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Review: 'The Berlin Apartment' is a game about one flat packed with stories

BERLIN — The location where "The Berlin Apartment" is set is both fictional and real.

We see that in the large mural opposite the apartment. "Astronaut Cosmonaut" is a work of art that really exists, though in real life, you can find it on completely different buildings to the ones that players see in this game.

Nevertheless, the view from...Read more

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Jim Rossman: I just want to hear the old Alexa

We use Amazon’s Echo device at my house, mainly for voice control of our smart home devices like lights.

Recently, Amazon introduced their new and improved Alexa service called Alexa+, which is designed to be more conversational and have expanded capabilities.

Alexa+ is included with certain new Echo devices and for Amazon Prime ...Read more

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Gadgets: Great sound for anyone

At first glance, Fosi Audio’s ZH3 desktop HiFi DAC/headphone amp/preamp seems built for advanced users. To an extent, it is. Still, you don’t have to be an audiophile to want great sound. The ZH3 is designed to make premium listening accessible to all. It lets everyday listeners use advanced sound features without the usual complexity.

...Read more

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Commentary: Blending hydrogen into gas pipelines would enrich utilities and harm Californians

The people of Orange Cove in Fresno County could soon be an unwilling part of an experiment in dangerous, expensive utility boondoggles. And if California’s gas companies get their way, families statewide will be forced to pay higher energy bills, breathe more indoor air pollution and bear greater safety risks.

Southern California Gas Co. ...Read more

Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Commentary: Don't let natural gas exports wreck the Gulf of California ecosystem

As the effects of climate change intensify, it has become standard practice for major corporations to pledge their support for environmental sustainability. This is as it should be, because genuine corporate engagement is essential to the success of our collective response — and it makes good business sense.

Sempra, one of California’s ...Read more

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Louisville found PFAS in drinking water. The Trump administration wouldn't require any action

Every day, the Ohio River sends billions of gallons of water flowing past Louisville’s pumping station, where the Kentucky city’s utility sucks it up to turn it into tap water.

To ensure it tastes good and is safe to drink, a small team of scientists and technicians is constantly testing the water for pH, odors, heavy metals, and microbes. ...Read more

Paul W. Gillespie/Staff/Baltimore Sun/TNS

Small nuclear reactors move forward. Will Maryland catch up?

BALTIMORE — Small, possibly portable, nuclear reactors that can’t melt down are moving toward reality in the United States, with what may be the first two coming online or beginning construction this year.

The US Army just transported its first small reactor for testing, and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, is working on what ...Read more

Hector Amezcua/The Sacramento Bee/TNS

Hundreds of young Chinook salmon found dead in Yuba River. What happened?

Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of juvenile Chinook salmon were found dead in the lower Yuba River after a large water pipe burst at the New Colgate Powerhouse on Friday, according to a local conservation group.

Aaron Zettler-Mann, executive director of South Yuba River Citizens League, explained that flows on the lower Yuba River briefly ...Read more

Greenland's cryolite mine, essential for U.S. airplane production, was below sea level and vulnerable to Nazi sabotage. Reginald Wilcox, ca. 1941. Peary–MacMillan Arctic Museum, Bowdoin College

In World War II’s dog-eat-dog struggle for resources, a Greenland mine launched a new world order

On April 9, 1940, Nazi tanks stormed into Denmark. A month later, they blitzed into Belgium, Holland and France. As Americans grew increasingly rattled by the spreading threat, a surprising place became crucial to U.S. national security: the vast, ice-capped island of Greenland.

The island, a colony of Denmark’s at the time, was ...Read more

Coffee wilt disease has spread widely in Africa. The first outbreak before the 1950s affected mainly central and western Africa (left map) while the second outbreak originated in central Africa and spread east (right map). Affected countries are colored by the decade the disease was first detected.
              Peck et al 2023/Plant Pathology, CC BY-SA

Coffee crops are dying from a fungus with species-jumping genes – researchers are ‘resurrecting’ their genomes to understand how and why

For anyone who relies on coffee to start their day, coffee wilt disease may be the most important disease you’ve never heard of. This fungal disease has repeatedly reshaped the global coffee supply over the past century, with consequences that reach from African farms to cafe counters worldwide.

Infection with the fungus Fusarium ...Read more

Mari Faiello/Tampa Bay Times/TNS

Florida House passes bill to add transparency on conservation land decisions

The Florida House unanimously passed a bipartisan bill Tuesday that would shed more light on state conservation decisions after a series of recent public lands controversies gave little room for public input.

The measure, House Bill 441, would require a month’s notice when the state considers selling or trading conservation land. The bill ...Read more

Pedro Portal/Miami Herald/TNS

Palantir is latest tech firm to move headquarters to Miami

Palantir Technologies Inc. said it’s moved its headquarters to Miami from Denver at a time when more tech firms are flocking to South Florida where local officials are promoting the region as an alternative to Silicon Valley.

The relocation announcement was made Tuesday in a brief statement on the social media platform X. A spokesperson for ...Read more

Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/TNS

NASA to try Artemis II test run again, could set up March moonshot

NASA is looking to make sure the problems with leaks in its moon rocket have been remedied with another Artemis II test run slated for Thursday night that could set up a launch in early March.

Teams tried to run through what’s called a wet dress rehearsal on Feb. 2 but ran into familiar problems with leaks of cryogenic liquid hydrogen flowing...Read more

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What's Minnesota's largest raptor? Hint: it might not be the bald eagle

MINNEAPOLIS — Look at the armpits — or, technically, the “wingpits.”

That’s what Scott Mehus, education director at the National Eagle Center in Wabasha, Minn., told a group of bird watchers recently as they prepared to scan the winter skies for a majestic raptor that’s especially tricky to identify: the golden eagle.

It’s easy ...Read more

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Trump, Moore feud expands to Potomac River sewage spill

Federal authorities will respond to the 300-plus-gallon sewage spill in the Potomac River, President Donald Trump said Monday in a Truth Social post where he blamed Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other Democrats for the spill.

“There is a massive Ecological Disaster unfolding in the Potomac River as a result of the Gross Mismanagement of Local ...Read more

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Trump, Moore feud expands to Potomac River sewage spill

Federal authorities will respond to the 300-plus-gallon sewage spill in the Potomac River, President Donald Trump said Monday in a Truth Social post where he blamed Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and other Democrats for the spill.

“There is a massive Ecological Disaster unfolding in the Potomac River as a result of the Gross Mismanagement of Local ...Read more

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SpaceX to compete in Pentagon contest for autonomous drone tech

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and wholly owned subsidiary xAI are competing in a secretive new Pentagon contest to produce voice-controlled, autonomous drone swarming technology, according to people familiar with the matter.

The entry of the two Musk companies — which he announced in early February would merge – into a new frontier of AI-enabled ...Read more