June 18, 2025

Puzzle Corner

Ready for a fresh set of puzzles? Click here for the July/August 2025 Puzzle Corner, brought to you by guest editor Ed Faulkner ’03. Send problems, solutions (by August 1), and comments to puzzlecorner@technologyreview.com. Editor emeritus Allan Gottlieb ’67 launched Puzzle Corner in 1966. Find back issues through 2022 at cs.nyu.edu/~gottlieb/tr and more recent back issues at technologyreview.com/puzzle-corner.

Apple Music introduces Sound Therapy, songs for focusing, relaxing and sleep

May 13, 2025
Apple Music is introducing a new “audio wellness” collection of songs called Sound Therapy. Designed in partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), the feature combines songs that subscribers already know with other sound waves that promote focusing, relaxing, or sleeping. Songs may include auditory beats or colored noise, sound waves where the intensity varies at […]

Trump admin officially rescinds Biden’s AI diffusion rules

May 13, 2025
After a week or so of rumors, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) formally rescinded the Biden Administration’s Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule days before it was set to go into effect. The Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule, which was introduced by former president Joe Biden in January and set to come into force on May 15, […]

Left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker says he was detained and questioned at airport

May 13, 2025
Hasan Piker, one of the most popular left-wing political creators in the U.S., says he was detained and questioned at the Chicago O’Hare Airport upon returning to the U.S. after a trip to France. In a stream in which he addressed the experience, Piker claims that he was questioned about his views on Trump, Hamas, […]

Audible is expanding its AI-narrated audiobook library 

May 13, 2025
Audible, Amazon’s audiobook service, announced on Tuesday that it’s partnering with select publishers to convert print and e-books into AI-narrated audiobooks. This initiative aims to quickly expand its catalog as it competes with Apple, Spotify, and others in the rapidly growing audiobook market. Audible is leveraging Amazon’s AI capabilities to assist publishers in producing audiobooks. […]

Notion takes on AI-notetakers like Granola with its own transcription feature

May 13, 2025
Meeting transcription space is a hot commodity for all productivity suites. Companies like ClickUp and Zoom have added transcription with an AI summary to take on another upstart in this vertical, including Read AI, Zoom’s assistant, Circleback, Granola, or Otter. The latest entrant in the race to build meeting transcription tools is Notion. The company is rolling out an […]