Randy Travis gets his voice back in a new Warner AI music experiment
For the first time since a 2013 stroke left country singer Randy Travis unable to speak or sing properly, he has released a new song. He didn’t sing it, though; instead, the vocals were created with AI software and a surrogate singer.
The song, called “Where That Came From,” is every bit the kind of folksy, sentimental tune I came to love as a kid when Travis was at the height of his fame. The producers created it by training an unnamed AI model, starting with 42 of his vocal-isolated recordings. Then, under the supervision of Travis and his career-long producer Kyle Lehning, fellow country singer James DuPre laid down the vocals to be transformed into Travis’ by AI.
Besides being on YouTube, the song is on other streaming platforms...
Bluesky confirms Jack Dorsey is no longer on its board
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey is no longer on the board of Bluesky, the decentralized social media platform he helped start. In two posts today, Bluesky thanked Dorsey while confirming his departure and adding that it’s searching for a new board member “who shares our commitment to building a social network that puts people in control of their experience.”
The posts come a day after an X user asked Dorsey if he was still on the company’s board, and Dorsey responded, without further elaboration, “no.” As TechCrunch points out, Dorsey was on a tear yesterday, unfollowing all but three accounts on X while referring to Elon Musk’s platform as “freedom technology.”
Neither Bluesky nor Dorsey himself seem to have said how or why...
Tesla plans to charge some Model Y owners to unlock more range
Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted on Friday that the Standard Range rear-wheel drive Model Y the company has been building and selling “over the last several months” actually has more range than the 260 miles they were sold with. Pending “regulatory approval,” he wrote that the company will unlock another 40–60 miles of total range, depending on which battery Model Y owners have, “for $1,500 to $2,000.”
Tesla replaced the Standard Range Model Y with a 320-mile range version for $2,000 more. The car now starts at $44,990, or about $37,490 if you qualify for the $7,500 federal EV tax credit.
The “260 mile” range Model Y’s built over the past several months actually have more range that can be unlocked for $1500 to $2000 (gains 40 to 60 miles...
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight — here’s how to see it
If you’ve got clear skies and want an excuse to get away from town, the Eta Aquarid meteor shower is roughly at its peak and should be going strong tonight. Made up of remnants of Halley’s Comet that the Earth passes through, this annual shower is active from April 15th to May 27th and can show up at a rate of about 10–30 meteors per hour, according to the American Meteor Society.
You can see the Aquarids starting around 2AM local time in the Northern Hemisphere, radiating from the Aquarius constellation (though you’ll want to look 40–60 degrees around Aquarius to see them). Weather permitting, conditions are pretty good for watching them since the moon is in its late waning period and won’t be reflecting much light. Try to plan your...
A speedrunner’s quest to (re)build the perfect N64 controller
A good video game speedrun is a marvel to witness. You watch players fly through your favorite games, hitting impossible jumps and finding shortcuts you never knew existed. It makes you see a familiar game in a whole new light. If you’ve never watched a speedrun, check out this world-record run through the original Super Mario Bros., and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Being, you know, a speedrun, it’ll take all of five minutes of your time.
But what you won’t see (unless you follow speedrunners on Twitch) is the hours upon hours of work it took to create that perfect run — the thousands of attempts to navigate a game with perfect precision, shaving off every unnecessary move, exploiting every weird glitch. It’s punishing work for the...
Better Siri is coming: what Apple’s research says about its AI plans
Apple hasn’t talked too much about AI so far — but it’s been working on stuff. A lot of stuff.
The best new browser for Windows
Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 36, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, hello, I’m thrilled you found us, the Installerverse loves you, and also you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.)
I missed you all last week! I was at a friend’s bachelor party in South Carolina, playing golf and eating burgers and mostly staying offline. Thanks to everyone who reached out to say you missed the newsletter! But I’m back now, and so is Installer. We are so back. This week, I’ve been writing about AI gadgets and iPads, watching Baby Reindeer and The Fall Guy, reading A Drink Before the War, and listening to the excellent Challengers score.
I also have for you a new browser for...
The Verge’s 2024 Mother’s Day gift guide
We found a collection of unique gift ideas that go beyond the flowers and chocolates that typically rule the day.
The newest Star Wars Acolyte trailer seems to reveal the show’s big bad
Disney’s newest Star Wars show, The Acolyte, is just a month away on Disney Plus, and the newest trailer for it hints that the show will pull on a thread that Rian Johnson’s Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi tugged on back in 2017: Is the Jedi order actually all that good?
Set well before the events of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, The Acolyte sees High Republic-era Jedi master Sol (Lee Jung-jae) investigating a string of murders (which include at least one Jedi). Today’s trailer reveals that the mysterious black-clad Mae (Amandla Stenberg), is a former student of his, and it seems like she’s probably a suspect in the murders. It also reinforces the idea that this will be a particularly grim series.
ChromeOS gets better multitasking and Wi-Fi traffic prioritization
The latest version of ChromeOS (M124) is out with a couple of nice upgrades, including faster split screen setup and a new web traffic prioritization feature. The update brings other updates with it as well, like a settings UI refresh and updated gesture controls.
Judging from screenshots published by 9to5Google, the new “Faster Split Screen Setup” feature will be familiar to Windows users. After you snap an app to one side of the screen, previews of other apps pop up on the other side — pick one, and it pins there for you. Before this update, you had to navigate to the other app and repeat the side-by-side pinning process, so this should remove a little of that friction.