Welcome to Tech Beat, your daily look at the stories shaping our digital world.
Spotify is moving deeper into fan creativity with a new AI-powered remix and covers tool, partnering with music licensing network Merlin to make it happen. It sounds like a win for listeners, but industry professionals are raising serious concerns about artist consent, compensation, and where the line between fandom and exploitation actually sits.
Shifting to a story with much broader implications, a draft rule obtained by WIRED would reshape the United States Census in significant ways — blocking the counting of undocumented immigrants and removing questions about race and sexual orientation. Critics argue that stripping that data doesn't reduce distortion, it just makes certain populations statistically invisible to policymakers.
And on a lighter note, someone has gone and put Mario Kart sixty-four inside a virtual reality headset, and the results are exactly as chaotic as you'd expect. The classic rainbow roads and banana peels translate surprisingly well to immersive three-dimensional space — though reviewers are united on one point: skip the meal beforehand.
Those are the stories moving the needle today. Keep surfing. Tech Beat out.
