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Music startup Thoughtful Things has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for its first instrument, Engram . It's a sampler and groovebox that uses AI to mangle incoming audio and even hallucinate completely new sounds. This isn't Suno in a box, though. This isn't a "push-button, get-song" device, aimed at creating something that sounds ready for top-40 radio. It's about creating experimental, uncanny sounds and pushing AI audio models beyond their limits. Engram isn't connected to the internet. Instead, it runs a "tiny AI" locally. According to the Kickstarter listing, the model is designed in-house and custom-trained. The company says: … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/rBTasQJ

This is The Stepback , a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on the fragile state of your connected devices, follow Jennifer Pattison Tuohy . The Stepback arrives in our subscribers' inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here . How it started A decade ago, a group of former Apple engineers built a beautiful smart oven. With a built-in scale, restaurant-grade heating elements, a camera, and the intelligence to recognize a chicken breast and cook it perfectly, the June Oven set the standard for smart cooking appliances. At $1,495, it was absurdly expensive, but it quickly grew a smal … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/pZNgqPB

Haptics tech company Taction sued Apple in 2021, alleging it infringed two of its patents. Now a federal jury in San Diego has awarded Taction over $5.7 billion in damages. According to CNBC , "The lawsuit centered around U.S. Patent Nos. 10,659,885 and 10,820,117, which both involve vibration-based, tactile transducer technology that helps users feel a device responding to their input." Taction argued that Apple's Taptic Engine in its Apple Watches and iPhones used technology that it had developed without a proper license, and the jury agreed. It found that Apple had infringed on two claims in one patent and one in the other. However, the j … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/KvLNHu2

Drums on film. | Image: Decap I don't think I'm going to hurt anyone's feelings by pointing out that Decap doesn't have the name recognition of Kendrick Lamar, Olivia Rodrigo, or Charli XCX. But his fingerprints are all over tracks from them, as well as many other artists , including Freddie Gibbs, Bad Bunny, Mac Miller, BTS, and even Ludwig Göransson's score for Oppenheimer . Nicholas Piantedosi, better known as Decap, is a record producer, but perhaps more importantly, he's the man behind Drums That Knock , a series of sample packs that have found their way onto countless records across genres. The line is so successful that, after debuting in 2016, it's now on its 11th … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/IyN7Zvh

In Control Resonant , the entire world is at stake. But that didn't stop the diligent employees of the Federal Bureau of Control from filing reams of paperwork, and it didn't stop me from reading everything I could find, either. Reading is often optional in Resonant , but it's where some of the game's best details - and even love stories! - can be found. In the world of Control Resonant and its predecessor, 2019's Control , the FBC deals with mysterious, otherworldly objects and entities that defy explanation. But the FBC itself is still an old-school bureaucratic agency, and that means tons of (often heavily redacted) reports and memos and mi … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/5eAamLK

Earlier this month, Pokémon card content creator Natalie Roush posted a video to her YouTube and Instagram pages that enraged the larger collection community. In the now-deleted video, Roush shows off two premium boxes of cards that had not yet been officially released, and implores viewers not to be mad. But they were; other creators claimed that cards Roush had purchased were stolen from the manufacturer and mocked her for trying to sell them at exorbitant prices . The Roush situation was a high-profile example of the way Pokémon card collecting culture has been upended by the influencer economy and people trying to profit off the hobby. Th … Read the full story at The Verge. from The Verge https://ift.tt/M6XV5jB