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The open-source library and search engine Anna’s Archive has been ordered to pay Spotify and the three of the world’s largest music labels $322 million in damages after it claimed to have scraped the entirety of the streaming platform’s library of music. Spotify, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment, sued Anna’s Archive in January for a slightly comical $13 trillion. They alleged Anna's Archive had illegally scraped 86 million songs — a significant chunk of all the music on the planet — and intended to make them available for download via BitTorrent. At the time, Spotify called the scraping a "brazen theft of millions of files containing nearly all of the world’s commercial sound recordings." In a since-deleted blog post , Anna's Archive stated the scraping was an act of preservation. Still, a New York federal judge sided with the plaintiffs after the archive's anonymous operator failed to respond to the lawsuit. The court order finding Anna's Archive guilty of direct copyright infringement, breach of contract and violation of the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) was filed on April 14. A further claim of violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was dismissed by the judge. The total breakdown of damages includes $7.5 million to each of Sony and Universal Music and $7.2 million to Warner Music, with the remaining $300 million going to Spotify. The latter figure amounts to $2,500 for each of the 120,000 scraped music files already made available by Anna’s Archive. The remainder of the 86 million files were due to be released to the public at a later date. The court also ordered Anna’s Archive to "immediately destroy all copies and phonorecords of any work ‘scraped,’ downloaded, copied or otherwise extracted from Spotify," but whether it actually does this, or indeed hands over a penny of the damages, remains to be seen. The bizarre reality of this case is that the person (or people) behind Anna’s Archive remains a mystery. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/annas-archive-told-to-pay-spotify-and-record-labels-322-million-over-unprecedented-music-scraping-151034032.html?src=rss
Intel has unveiled its new Core Series 3 chips, the official title for its Wildcat Lake-codenamed series intended for mainstream and value-oriented laptops. Built using the same Intel 18A process as its Core Ultra Series 3 chips, they’re significantly more powerful than the previous generation and promise "exceptional battery life" and "boosted AI-ready performance." Intel says the Core Series 3 offers up to 47 percent better single-thread performance and 41 percent better multi-thread performance, as well as 2.8x better GPU AI performance compared to a five-year-old PC. Stacked up against its last-gen Intel Core 7 150U processors, the new mobile chip uses up to 64 percent lower processor power and is capable of 2.7x AI GPU performance. In other words, expect more grunt and improved efficiency. At the top end of the lineup sits the six-core Intel Core 7 360, which has a P-core Max Turbo frequency of 4.8GHz and NPU TOPS performance of 17. This scales down as you move through the other six-core options, and there’s also a five-core Core 3 processor at the entry level with a more modest GPU. Intel promises all-day battery life, rated at 12.5 hours in the office and 18.5 hours for streaming from Netflix. As for connectivity, there’s support for Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and two Thunderbolt 4 ports. The Core Series 3 chips will be making their way into a variety of laptops throughout 2026, including Acer’s Aspire Go 14, 15 and 16, the ASUS Vivobook 14/15/17 and ExpertBook B5 Flip, B3 G2 and P3 G2. The likes of Dell, Samsung and Lenovo will announce their own Core Series 3 devices in the near future. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/intel-launches-new-core-series-3-chips-for-mainstream-laptops-164821846.html?src=rss
Your Google Photos library could soon influence the kind of images you can generate with Gemini. After letting users personalize the AI assistant's responses with data from Gmail, Search and YouTube, Google says it's bringing that same "Personal Intelligence" to Nano Banana 2 to make it easier for users to create personalized images with the AI model. The goal is to have the data affiliated with your Google account — your YouTube history, emails, Google Photos, etc. — provide context to Nano Banana 2 so you don't have to. Rather than prompting Gemini's image generation model with information about you or photos of your belongings, a direction to "create a picture of my desert island essentials" should produce an image that includes the things you care about without any extra context. Similarly, if you use labels in Google Photos to identify people or pets, you can tell Gemini to "create a hand-drawn illustration of mom," and it should be able to use Google Photo's labels to find the right reference photo and create an image of the right person. Google If Gemini creates images that don't look right, you can still send a follow-up prompt to refine the result, or select a new source image from Google Photos with the "+" button. Google says you can also click the "Sources" button to view what images the AI referenced in the first place, or ask it directly for the attribution and sources used for a specific image. Personalized user data is one of the unique advantages Google has over companies offering competing AI assistants, so expanding Personal Intelligence to an already popular feature like image generation is a natural way to build on that lead. For now, this more personalized version of Nano Banana 2 is available in the Gemini app for eligible AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers. Google says the feature will come to Gemini in Chrome and other users "soon." This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/gemini-can-now-draw-on-your-google-data-to-personalize-the-images-it-generates-160000269.html?src=rss
The RAM crisis has prompted another company to jack up hardware prices. Meta says it will be increasing the price of Quest headsets on April 19. The Meta Quest 3 will get a $100 hike to $599, while the Quest 3S will be $50 more expensive at $350 (for a version with 128GB of storage) and $450 (256GB). Meta is blaming the increases on the rising costs of RAM, which has skyrocketed in price due to a shortage of chips as AI companies gobble up as much memory as they can for their data centers. Sony recently bumped up the prices of PS5 consoles and the PlayStation Portal handheld for similar reasons. Microsoft made its Surface PCs more expensive this week too. Meta Quest accessories are staying at the same prices, but refurbished Quest units are somehow getting more expensive as well. Refurbished Quest 3S units will be also be $50 more at $320 (128GB) and $410 (256GB). Meta is increasing the price of a refurbished Quest 3 by $100 to $550. I’m not exactly sure how the company can pin those changes on increased manufacturing costs. Meanwhile, Meta told The Verge that it doesn’t expect to increase the prices of its smart glasses anytime soon. Correction April 16, 2026, 11:28AM ET: This story initially stated that the price of a refurbished Quest 3 is increasing by $170. It’s going up by $100. We regret the error. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ar-vr/meta-quest-headset-prices-are-going-up-on-april-19-143259031.html?src=rss
