Happy Friday! I’m visiting my home country (Australia), and tomorrow I’ll be heading up to the Great Barrier Reef for a few days. Taking next week off to relax and recharge, and will be back on Monday 5/22! 🏖️🇦🇺

🌶 Highlight of the day 🌶

Google launched MusicLM, a text-to-music AI model, in public beta. Users can type in prompts such as “soulful jazz for a dinner party”, and Google’s AI model will create two versions of a song based on those prompts. Users can also specify instruments as well as their desired vibe 🎷

Can’t imagine music labels will be too enthralled…

♨️ Hot off the press launches

Big tech

• Google to add ‘human perspectives’ to Search

• YouTube tests requiring users to disable ad blockers

• Meta announces generative-AI features for advertisers

• WhatsApp rolls out backend fixes to block spam calls 

• Pinterest combines Pins and Idea Pins into single format

• Robinhood announces 24 hour trading for select stocks

General and early-stage

• Artifact lets users follow individual writers

• AI2 unveils a new LLM that’s optimized for science

• Capchase ships a buy-now-pay-later offering for SaaS 

• Beehiiv launches a Boosts marketplace for paid referrals

• Anthropic expands the context window for its Claude model

• Maven launches an AI vertical for cohort-based classes

🔍 Other good finds

• Down not out. How Google is making up for lost time

• Kingdom Tears. The Legend of Zelda surpasses predecessors

• Honor among thieves. D&D gets its own streaming channel

🧈 Twitter nugget

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- Amol