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All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Looking to upgrade your tablet? If so, consider adding the Aeezo Android 10-inch tablet to your shopping list. Originally priced at $209.99, you can now snag it for just $66.79. With its touchscreen, WiFi, and Bluetooth support, this is a great option for work, entertainment, or even as a thoughtful gift.

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The box includes the tablet, user manual, Type C Cable, and a charger. With this tablet, you can download as many apps as you like, including Netflix, YouTube, and more. The brand also describes their tablet as “lightweight,” making it easy to take with you wherever you go.

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This tablet also comes equipped with dual camera and dual speakers, including a high-quality 8 MP rear camera and 5 MP front camera. One Walmart customer said, “I love this tablet not only for myself with work and scheduling but it’s great for my seven year old too. Holds a charge well…”

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The Android interface of this tablet also makes navigation easy. You’ll keep track of your tasks, meetings, and to-do lists with ease. Other Walmart customers describe the tablet as “great quality” and “easy to setup.”

For more product recommendations, check out this Onn. Streaming Box powered by Google Assistant, these top 7 Headphones & Earbuds, wifi extenders, laptop deals and more to level you your tech devices.

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Source: John Keeble / Getty / Pokémon Company / Nintendo
Nintendo and The Pokémon Company have finally taken legal action against the developer of Palworld.
Spotted on Reuters, Nintendo, and The Pokémon Company hit Tokyo-based Pocketpair Inc., developer of Palworld, also called by gamers “Pokemon with guns,” an infringement lawsuit on Wednesday.
Per Reuters:
The lawsuit, filed with the Tokyo District Court on Wednesday, seeks an injunction and compensation for damages on the grounds that the game, made by Tokyo-based Pocketpair Inc, infringes multiple patent rights.
The lawsuit comes months after the game’s January release, quickly becoming one of the year’s biggest hits. In the action/survival game, players use guns to capture and train cute creatures called Pals to help them complete missions and build their bases.
Pocketpair confirmed it received the lawsuit Wednesday, noting that it does not know precisely what patents were infringed upon.
The studio said in a statement that it would begin appropriate legal proceedings and look into Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s claims.
“It is truly unfortunate that we will be forced to allocate significant time to matters unrelated to game development due to this lawsuit,” Pocketpair said.

Palworld has been on Nintendo and The Pokémon Company’s radar since January, with both companies saying they would look into the game since January.
Millions of dollars later and a partnership with Sony to license the game globally later, Nintendo has finally said aht aht aht.
As expected, this lawsuit has sparked plenty of conversations on social media.
You can see those reactions in the gallery below.

The Federal Trade Commission is being urged to investigate technology companies that create tools for ticket scalpers that violate existing laws and drive up the price of concert tickets.  
The warning and call to action comes by way of a letter signed by National Independent Talent Organizations president Jack Randall and executive director Nathaniel Marro, taking aim at the World Ticket Summit. Held in Nashville earlier this month, the annual conference is organized by the National Association of Ticket Brokers, the country’s largest member organization for professional ticket resellers and individuals who list and resell tickets on sites like StubHub and SeatGeek. 

At this year’s summit, members of NITO – which represent independent talent agencies and management companies including Arrival Artists, High Road Touring, Paladin Artists, Q Prime, Red Light Management and TKO – “observed a sold-out exhibition hall filled with vendors selling and marketing products designed to bypass security measures for ticket purchases, in direct violation of the BOTS Act,” a Sept. 9 letter to Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan reads. 

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That technology includes web browser extensions that set up multiple tabs masking a user’s IP address, proxy services that allow users to be logged in to multiple ticketing accounts from one location and virtual credit card services that bypass geographical restrictions on ticket sales, which are often put in place by event organizers to ensure fair access for local fans. 

According to the letter, the use of this type of technology to procure concert tickets is a violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act of 2016 which prohibits scalpers from using technology that circumvents “a security measure, access control system, or other technological measure used to enforce ticket purchasing limits for events with over 200 attendees.” 

Put more simply, most ticketing companies place a cap on how many tickets a fan can buy for a concert and the use of automated bots, proxy servers, VPNs and phantom credit cards to exceed purchase limits is a violation of the BOTS Act. 

“The presence of these vendors at a conference specifically for ticket brokers strongly suggests that a substantial portion of attendees either currently use these services or are likely to do so in the near future,” the letter reads. “This widespread availability and apparent demand for tools that can circumvent ticket purchasing limits indicates that many, if not most, scalpers are operating in violation of the federal BOTS Act.” 

The NATB’s executive director Gary Adler issued a lengthy statement in response to NITO’s letter, writing “The vast majority of technology exhibitors at the conference were inventory management systems that help ticket companies organize their tickets, offer them for resale, and help with pricing.” 

“There are many friction points in ticketing,” Adler continued “and high-tech ways that players in the system try to monopolize every dollar spent on ticketing and to prevent the resale of tickets. For more than half of events there are lower cost options on the secondary market and some in the primary market don’t like seeing their previously sold tickets being offered for resale at deep discounts. Artists, venues, and primary ticketers abuse technology every day to create fake scarcity and deceive consumers into paying higher prices when really, they are secretly holding back tickets to slowly drip more on sale over time to cheat and fool the fan. This is most likely an illegal deceptive marketing and advertising practice, driven by artists, venues, and primary ticketing companies, that the FTC should immediately investigate.” 

Adler notes that the NATB “advocated for the passage of the BOTS Act in 2016 as we fully support the banning of bots. There is no place in the system for illegal bot use. We stand for doing resale the right way and passing strong laws to protect fans and competition across the ticketing industry. If any exhibitors were offering technology that violates the BOTS Act, we want to know as they will not be welcomed back.”   

Since its passage in 2017, the BOTs Act has only been enforced one time, in 2021, when three New York-based ticket brokers were charged with violating the law. The government’s enforcement of the BOTS Act has been an “abysmal failure” writes songwriter and music industry analyst Chris Castle, noting that StubHub’s scheduled IPO this fall was a tell-tale sign that the BOTS Act was “under-enforced.” 

“Let’s face it – if there were no bots and no boiler room operations, StubHub probably wouldn’t have much of a business,” Castle wrote. Lawmakers including Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have introduced legislation like the Mitigating Automated Internet Networks for (MAIN) Event Ticketing Act of 2023 which would force ticketing companies to be more proactive about reporting BOT usage, but those efforts have largely stalled in Congress. 

NITO’s letter includes eight recommendations for rights holders and the FTC, calling for the regulator to subpoena the customer lists of “companies offering services that fall into the categories likely to facilitate BOTS Act violations” as well as increased enforcement actions, prioritizing “investigations into large-scale ticket reselling operations, focusing on those using multiple technologies to circumvent purchasing limits.” 

By implementing these recommendations, the letter explains, “rights holders and the FTC can take significant steps towards curbing BOTS Act violations and ensuring fairer access to event tickets for consumers.”

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Perfectly pink! Sony released a new colorway of the WH-1000XM5 headphones and earbuds in collaboration with LESSERAFIM on Wednesday (Sept. 18).

The K-Pop group stars in a futuristic campaign for the WH-1000XM5 headphones and earbuds, featuring the single “CRAZY,” the title track off their latest mini album, which was released on Aug. 30. CRAZY landed LE SSERAFIM its first-ever No. 1 debut on Billboard’s Top Album Sales Chart.

Sony

WH-1000XM5 Wireless Industry Leading Noise Canceling Headphones | Smoky Pink

“The connection we have with our fans is everything, and we can’t wait for them to be able to experience our music with Sony’s awesome Smoky Pink 1000X headphones and earbuds,” the girl group comprised of Kim Chaewon, Sakura, Huh Yunjin, Kazuha and Hong Eunchae, said in a statement.

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The “soft and sophisticated” Smoky Pink colorways offer a “powdery matte texture,” per Sony. The audio technology brand’s bestselling WH-1000XM5 headphones and earbuds are equipped with superior, noise-canceling technology and top-of-the-line audio quality, especially for the price point, and the cushion are comfortable enough to wear for at least a few hours at a time.

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Sony’s, foldable WH-100XM5 headphones retail for $399.99 and feature up to 30 hours of battery life (with quick charging), crystal-clear sound and intuitive touch control settings. The new colorway is available for pre-order now and will be released on Oct. 14.

Beyond the newly-released pink shade, Sony’s WF-1000XM5 are available in black and platinum silver, while the WH-1000XM5 earbuds come in black, platinum silver and midnight blue. 

LE SSERAFIM are the latest music stars to star in Sony’s for the Music Campaign joining Miguel, Olivia Rodrigo, Tate McRae and SZA.

Watch LE SSERAFIM in Sony’s new campaign below.

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Taking your music on the go usually comes in the form of listening to songs on your smartphone through your earbuds, […]

On Sept. 4, the public learned of the first-ever U.S. criminal case addressing streaming fraud. In the indictment, federal prosecutors claim that a North Carolina-based musician named Michael “Mike” Smith stole $10 million dollars from streaming services by using bots to artificially inflate the streaming numbers for hundreds of thousands of mostly AI-generated songs. A day later, Billboard reported a link between Smith and the popular generative AI music company Boomy; Boomy’s CEO Alex Mitchell and Smith were listed on hundreds of tracks as co-writers. 
(The AI company and its CEO that supplied songs to Smith were not charged with any crime and were left unnamed in the indictment. Mitchell replied to Billboard’s request for comment, saying, “We were shocked by the details in the recently filed indictment of Michael Smith, which we are reviewing. Michael Smith consistently represented himself as legitimate.”) 

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This case marks the end of generative AI music’s honeymoon phase (or “hype” phase) with the music industry establishment. Though there have always been naysayers about AI in the music business, the industry’s top leaders have been largely optimistic about it, provided AI tools were used ethically and responsibly. “If we strike the right balance, I believe AI will amplify human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways,” said Lucian Grainge, Universal Music Group’s chairman/CEO, in a statement about UMG’s partnership with YouTube for its AI Music Incubator. “You have to embrace technology [like AI], because it’s not like you can put technology in a bottle,” WMG CEO Robert Kyncl said during an onstage interview at the Code Conference last September.

Each major music label group has established its own partnerships to get in on the AI gold rush since late 2022. UMG coupled with YouTube for an AI incubator program and SoundLabs for “responsible” AI plug-ins. Sony Music started collaborating with Vermillio for an AI remix project around David Gilmour and The Orb’s latest album. Warner Music Group’s ADA struck a deal with Boomy, which was previously distributing its tracks with Downtown, and invested in dynamic music company Lifescore. 

Artists and producers jumped in, too — from Lauv’s collaboration with Hooky to create an AI-assisted Korean-language translation of his newest single to 3LAU’s investment in Suno. Songwriters reportedly used AI voices on pitch records. Artists like Drake and Timbaland used unauthorized AI voices to resurrect stars like Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. in songs they posted to social media. Metro Boomin sampled an AI song from Udio to create his viral “BBL Drizzy” remix. (Drake later sampled “BBL Drizzy” himself in his feature on the song “U My Everything” by Sexyy Red.) The estate of “La Vie En Rose” singer Edith Piaf, in partnership with WMG, developed an animated documentary of her life, using AI voices and images. The list goes on. 

While these industry leaders haven’t spoken publicly about the overall state of AI music in a few months, I can’t imagine their tone is now as sunny as it once was, given the events of the summer. It all started with Sony Music releasing a statement that warned over 700 AI companies to not scrape the label group’s copyrighted data in May. Then Billboard broke the news that the majors were filing a sweeping copyright infringement lawsuit against Suno and Udio in June. In July, WMG issued a similar warning to AI companies as Sony had. In August, Billboard reported that AI music adoption has been much slower than was anticipated, the NO FAKES Act was introduced to the Senate, and Donald Trump deepfaked a false Taylor Swift endorsement of his presidential run on Truth Social — an event that Swift herself referenced as a driving factor in her social media post endorsing Kamala Harris for president.

And finally, the AI music streaming fraud case dropped. It proved what many had feared: AI music flooding onto streaming services is diverting significant sums of royalties away from human artists, while also making streaming fraud harder to detect. I imagine Grainge is particularly interested in this case, given that its findings support his recent crusade to change the way streaming services pay out royalties to benefit “professional artists” over hobbyists, white noise makers and AI content generators.

When I posted my follow up reporting on LinkedIn, Declan McGlynn, director of communications for Voice-Swap, an “ethical” AI voice company, summed up people’s feelings well in his comment: “Can yall stop stealing shit for like, five seconds[?] Makes it so much harder for the rest of us.” 

One AI music executive told me that the majors have said that they would use a “carrot and stick” approach to this growing field, providing opportunities to the good guys and meting out punishment for the bad guys. Some of those carrots were handed out early while the hype was still fresh around AI because music companies wanted to appear innovative — and because they were desperate to prove to shareholders and artists that they learned from the mistakes of Napster, iTunes, early YouTube and TikTok. Now that they’ve made their point and the initial shock of these models has worn off, the majors have started using those sticks. 

This summer, then, has represented a serious vibe shift, to borrow New York magazine’s memeable term. All this recent bad press for generative AI music, including the reports about slow adoption, seems destined to result in far fewer new partnerships announced between generative AI music companies and the music business establishment, at least for the time being. Investment could be harder to come by, too. Some players who benefitted from early hype but never amassed an audience or formed a strong business will start to fall. 

This doesn’t mean that generative AI music-related companies won’t find their place in the industry eventually — some certainly will. This is just a common phase in the life cycle of new tech. Investors will probably increasingly turn their attention to other AI music companies, those largely not of the generative variety, that promise to solve the problems created by generative AI music. Metadata management and attribution, fingerprinting, AI music detection, music discovery — it’s a lot less sexy than a consumer-facing product making songs at the click of a button, but it’s a lot safer, and is solving real problems in practical ways. 

There’s still time to continue to set the guardrails for generative AI music before it is adopted en masse. The music business has already started working toward protecting artists’ names, images, likenesses and voices and has fought back against unauthorized AI training on their copyrights. Now it’s time for the streaming services to join in and finally set some rules for how AI generated music is treated on its platforms. 

This story was published as part of Billboard’s new music technology newsletter ‘Machine Learnings.’ Sign up for ‘Machine Learnings,’ and Billboard’s other newsletters, here.

If you have any tips about the AI music streaming fraud case, Billboard is continuing to report on it. Please reach out to krobinson@billboard.com. 

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Vlogs continue to be one of the highest consumed mediums — especially on YouTube, which had an estimated viewership of 234 […]

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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / Donald Trump
You can always count on Donald Trump and his family to find a new way to scam.
Fresh off the latest alleged “assassination attempt” on his life, which he wasted no time fundraising on, the disgraced former president hit an X Space for a 40-minute interview where he rehashed his greatest hits on the latest attempt on his life, the border, the evil forces conspiring against him and his granddaughter’s ability to speak foreign languages.
He touched on all of that in an X Space where he was supposed to speak about his latest scam; oops, we mean business venture, a new “crypto platform.”
When he finally got to the point, he touched on World Liberty Financial, which, according to a statement shared on his X account per The Verge’s reporting, “Trump’s new decentralized finance project is to drive “the mass adoption of stablecoins and decentralized finance.”
Even The People Involved Can’t Explain This Mess
According to the website, Trump or any of the other people involved in the Space on X on Monday night did a sh*tty job of explaining what World Liberty Financial is.
Helping to try to explain what the hell the platform is, Corey Caplan, founder of some sh*t called Dolomite, another “decentralized lending platform,” is also working as an adviser on Trump’s latest attempt to scam people out of money and fatten his wallet.
In his explanation, Caplan said World Liberty Financial would “sell and otherwise distribute governance tokens called WLFI.” He notes that sales of the token will be limited to “certain persons who would be eligible to participate in transactions that are exempt from registration under US federal securities law.”
What made the whole thing even funnier was Barron Trump, the family’s expert on Crypto, not being present when it was his turn to speak.
Per The Daily Beast:
Trump’s youngest son Barron, 18, was nowhere to be found when it came time for him to speak, some two hours into the meandering promotional for World Liberty Financial, which even Trump’s crypto sector allies reportedly think is a stupid idea.
“He’s not here anymore,” said Farokh Sarmad, the crypto entrepreneur who hosted the livestream on X. “We took too long. We’re gonna try and get him back.” It would have marked Barron’s first major speaking role in public.
“Damned teenagers,” joked Trump’s eldest child, 46-year-old Donald Jr., who sat in on the livestream along with his 40-year-old brother, Eric.
The gallery below shows more reactions to Donald Trump and his son’s latest scam.

1. Ruh Roh

4. Sounds about right

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Fujifilm is just one of the many digital camera brands that allow you to capture memories you can relive forever. From […]

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
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Get ready to level up your streaming experience in just minutes. With the power of Google assistant, you can use your voice to find your favorite shows across 10,000+ apps or explore more than 800 free channels for endless entertainment options. It also features a Chromecast built-in for streaming videos and music from your phone or tablet, making it easier to browse and watch content without going through menus. One Walmart customer said, “I love this little streaming device. It works very well and was easy to set up.”

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For more product recommendations, check out the Best Deals from the Samsung Fall Sale Event, these top 7 Headphones & Earbuds to add to your shopping list, and wifi extenders, laptop deals and more.