Spotify users who don't pay for a subscription can once again see lyrics for any song they listen to on the service. Back in May, the company began a wider rollout of a test that it initiated last fall, requiring a paid subscription to see lyrics to any track. Free users could still follow along with the words, but only for three songs a month. Now, Spotify is removing the restriction so free users can see all the lyrics they need to with no cap on viewing them.At Spotify, were always testing and iterating. This means availability of our features can vary across tiers and between markets and devices," a Spotify spokesperson told Engadget. "Over the coming weeks, well be expanding Lyrics availability for Spotify Free users so more people can enjoy viewing more lyrics, globally.As you might expect, the initial move to cap access to lyrics for free users drew backlash earlier this year. Perhaps Spotify thought doing so was a way to push people to its revised subscription tiers that start at $11 a month for music streaming. CEO Daniel Ek explained during the company's most recent earnings call this month that plans were in motion to improve what's offered to free users. It seems that list of updates included bringing back full access to lyrics."We are prioritizing enhancements in our free product pipeline that based on existing performance in certain markets," Ek said on the call. "Further additional improvements will be integrated into our free experience in the coming months."This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-lyrics-are-back-for-free-users-175200293.html?src=rss

The Senate has passed two major online safety bills amid years of debate over social medias impact on teen mental health. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, also known as COPPA 2.0, passed the Senate in a vote of 91 - T3.The bills will next head to the House, though its unclear if the measures will have enough support to pass. If passed into law, the bills would be the most significant pieces of legislation regulating tech companies in years.KOSA requires social media companies like Meta to offer controls to disable algorithmic feeds and other addictive features for children under the age of 16. It also requires companies to provide parental supervision features and safeguard minors from content that promotes eating disorders, self harm, sexual exploitation and other harmful content.One of the most controversial provisions in the bill creates whats known as a duty of care. This means platforms are required to prevent or mitigate certain harmful effects of their products, like addictive features or algorithms that promote dangerous content. The Federal Trade Commission would be in charge of enforcing the standard.The bill was originally introduced in 2022 but stalled amid pushback from digital rights and other advocacy groups who said the legislation would force platforms to spy on teens. A revised version, meant to address some of those concerns, was introduced last year, though the ACLU, EFF and other free speech groups still oppose the bill. In a statement last week, the ACLU said that KOSA would encourage social media companies to censor protected speech and incentivize the removal of anonymous browsing on wide swaths of the internet.COPPA 2.0, on the other hand, has been less controversial among privacy advocates. An expansion of the 1998 Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act, it aims to revise the nearly 30-year-old law to better reflect the modern internet and social media landscape. If passed, the law would prohibit companies from targeting advertising to children and collecting personal data on teens between 13 and 16 without consent. It also requires companies to offer an eraser button for personal data to delete children and teens personal information from a platform when technologically feasible.The vote underscores how online safety has become a rare source of bipartisan agreement in the Senate, which has hosted numerous hearings on teen safety issues in recent years. The CEOs of Meta, Snap, Discord, X and TikTok testified at one such hearing earlier this year, during which South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham accused the executives of having blood on their hands for numerous safety lapses.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-senate-just-passed-two-landmark-bills-aimed-at-protecting-minors-online-170935128.html?src=rss

Meta has agreed to pay $1.4 billion to the state of Texas in order to resolve a lawsuit that accused the company of illegally using facial recognition technology. The suit alleges that Meta used this tech to collect the biometric data of millions of Texans without consent. The agreement marks the largest financial settlement ever paid out to a single state.The lawsuit was originally filed in 2022 and was the first big case brought under the states Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act, which was put into place back in 2009. A provision of this law mandates up to $25,000 per violation and Texas accused Meta of violating the statute billions of times via photos and videos that users uploaded to Facebook that were tagged without consent.Additionally, the original suit could have led to an additional $10,000 per alleged violation of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. In other words, Meta just saved itself a bunch of money, considering the sheer number of alleged violations and a maximum financial penalty of $35,000 each.BREAKING NEWS: We have secured a $1.4 billion settlement with Meta to stop the companys practice of capturing and using the personal biometric data of millions of Texans without the authorization required by law.This settlement is the largest ever obtained from an action pic.twitter.com/AkOppAGO0K Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) July 30, 2024 A spokesperson for Meta told Reuters that its happy the matter is settled and that the company is "exploring future opportunities to deepen our business investments in Texas, including potentially developing data centers. The company, however, continues to deny any wrongdoing, though it has shut down its automated facial recognition system.Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is taking something of a victory lap, declaring in an official statement that the state is fully committed to standing up to the worlds biggest technology companies and holding them accountable for breaking the law and violating privacy rights. Texas and Meta reached this settlement just weeks before a court trial was set to begin.Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of ones safety and well-being, Paxton said when the suit was originally filed. This is yet another example of Big Techs deceitful business practices and it must stop.This isnt the first time Meta has had to issue a large payout to a state regarding the alleged collection of biometric data. The company agreed to pay Illinois $650 million back in 2020 to settle a similar class action suit. That suit alleged that the company had violated a privacy law that requires companies to get explicit consent before collecting biometric data from users. Once again, Meta denied any wrongdoing.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/meta-will-pay-14-billion-to-texas-settling-biometric-data-collection-suit-165451338.html?src=rss

Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson has said its College Football 25 developers implementing AI technology was critical for creating a game that lived up to its quality standards and impressed fans. Speaking during EA's latest earnings briefing, Wilson said AI "amplified and accelerated" the development on the game."In the absence of AI, we simply would not have been able to deliver College Football at the level we did, even though we'd given the team many, many years in development. It was the first time we had done it in 10 years, and the level of gameplay and the level of visual fidelity that we did, was a combination of many years of work of our incredible teams, amplified and accelerated by AI," he said. "Something that we just wouldn't have been able to do as little as two or three years ago."Prior to launch, EA explained how it was "never going to be a viable option" to create CFB 25's thousands of players manually by scanning them all into the game and using human hands alone to do it. Instead, EA used AI and a machine-learning toolset to create the character models. EA inputted "hundreds" of head shapes, hairstyles, skin tones, complexions, beards, and brows into the model. Using this data, along with a single reference photo of the athlete or coach in question, EA said it was able to create the player likenesses in the game.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Last week, video game voice actors voted to go on strike after a year and a half of back-and-forth negotiation with major gaming entities. The CEO of one of the companies at the bargaining table, EA, has said he's not concerned about the strike having a short-term impact on business.As part of EA's most recent earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson was asked about any potential impact from the strike, IGN reports. Due to the specifics of how the strike will operate, and how EA's business runs, he's not concerned that the strike will cause any disruption in the near future."We're working very closely; this is not an EA-specific situation, this is an industry-specific situation, and we're working diligently to negotiate at the table," Wilson said, noting that voice actors are an important and valued part of EA's business.Continue Reading at GameSpot

In its latest financial earnings call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella celebrated a major milestone for the company's gaming division, reporting 500 million monthly active users across all platforms and devices. While the success has clearly been influenced by Microsoft's acquisition of Activision, the Fallout TV show also got a shoutout from Nadella for its influence.The CEO talked up the success of Prime Video's live-action Fallout adaptation (via IGN) in his part of the presentation, saying the TV show was bringing Microsoft's IP to new audiences. Nadella revealed that player numbers for Fallout games on Game Pass had increased by five times compared to the previous quarter, with that increase attributable to the popular TV show.We've already seen plenty of statistics on how the TV show, which has become Prime Video's second-most-watched title, has led to a renewed wave of interest in Fallout video games. Steam rankings saw huge boosts across multiple Fallout titles, while 2018's Fallout 76 is more popular on Steam than it's ever been.Continue Reading at GameSpot

As the first entry in the franchise in over a decade, it's no surprise that EA Sports College Football 25 has been popular at launch, but new figures released by EA have revealed just how popular it's been. According to EA's quarterly financial results, CFB 25 saw over 5 million unique players in its first week.EA's quarterly report for Q1 2025, which ended on June 30, encompasses what EA calls the "record-breaking launch of EA Sports College Football 25."CFB 25 was drawing huge player numbers even before the game officially launched, with 2.2 million unique players logged during the game's four-day early-access period. That figure more than doubled in the first week after its full release on July 19, with 5 million unique players trying out the game--and that figure did not include an additional 500,000 players who checked it out via the EA Play trial.Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Xbox Series X and S will be four years old this year, and Microsoft's latest earnings call has revealed that its newest generation of consoles just aren't selling like they used to. While software and service sales have been strong, helped along by the massive Activision acquisition, hardware sales have seen a sharp decline.In its Q4 earnings presentation for the 2024 fiscal year, Microsoft noted that its gaming hardware sales have decreased significantly, with a 42% decline compared to the same period last year. Despite this, the company's overall gaming revenue was up 44%, with a 61% increase in content and services revenue that Microsoft says was "slightly ahead of expectations." Both of these growth figures were positively impacted by the Activision purchase, Microsoft says.The call also suggests that third-party content may not have performed as well as expected for Xbox in Q4, with Microsoft noting that "stronger-than-expected performance in first-party content was partially offset by third-party content performance."Continue Reading at GameSpot

The Game Boy is one of the most-successful gaming systems ever, having sold 118.69 million copies across all its variants (including the Game Boy Color). In Japan and the US, it was the first platform for one of the most-popular games of all time: Tetris. It launched the Pokemon franchise, which has since grown to massive proportions. And all of this combined to start Nintendo's handheld empire. Nevertheless, the Game Boy appeared to have some drawbacks at first. It was small, if bulky. It was deliberately less advanced than its handheld competitors at the time. Its limited color palette and sound board meant it had to lean on careful, deliberate abstraction. In other words, to be legible, exciting, and appealing, the Game Boy had to get weird. It was an outsider. And on the outside, strangeness flourishes.Perhaps the best example of this weirdness is The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. The game was originally an after-work project to port A Link to the Past to the Game Boy, as there was no intention to create an original Zelda title for the system. Eventually, the project flourished into a full, unique game of its own. Director Takeshi Tezuka even described the game as a "parody" of Zelda games proper.That statement undersells the game's relentless strangeness. One of the game's explicit inspirations was Twin Peaks, which broadcast in Japan in 1991. Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost even met with Nintendo to discuss the television show and bringing its sensibilities to video games, something we only discovered this year. Link's Awakening borrows the idea of a small town with a surreal populace, though it cranks the absurdity up from . Link is far away from Hyrule, having crash-landed on the mysterious island of Koholint. The game's initial hours play as a comedy where, in attempting to find a way off the island, Link must help the town's inhabitants live their lives. He walks their pets, shops for them, and does the more regular Zelda activities of solving puzzles, braving dungeons, and fighting bosses.Continue Reading at GameSpot

A new update for Call of Duty: Warzone and Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone addresses a specific issue affecting Xbox Game Pass users amid ongoing concerns about cheating within the franchise. Despite the Call of Duty: Warzone developers' continuous efforts to combat this persistent problem, instances of cheating continue to emerge, affecting gameplay and player experience.