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Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Getty Images) It's not just you—Google Search is getting worse. A new study from Leipzig University, Bauhaus-University Weimar, and the Center for Scalable Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence looked at Google search quality for a year and found the company is losing the war against SEO (Search Engine Optimization) spam. The study, first spotted by 404media, "monitored Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for a year on 7,392 product review queries," using queries like "best headphones" to study search results. The focus was on product review queries because the researchers felt those searches were "particularly vulnerable to affiliate marketing due to its inherent conflict of interest between users, search providers, and content providers." Overall, the study found that "the majority of high-ranking product reviews in the result pages of commercial search engines (SERPs) use affiliate marketing, and significant amounts are outright SEO product review spam." Search engines occasionally update their ranking algorithms to try to combat spam, but the study found that "search engines seem to lose the cat-and-mouse game that is SEO spam" and that there are "strong correlations between search engine rankings and affiliate marketing, as well as a trend toward simplified, repetitive, and potentially AI-generated content." Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

Enlarge / Amazon demoed future generative AI capabilties for Alexa in September. (credit: Getty) “If this fails to get revenue, Alexa is in trouble.” A quote from an anonymous Amazon employee in a Wednesday Business Insider report paints a dire picture. Amazon needs its upcoming subscription version of Alexa to drive revenue in ways that its voice assistant never has before. Amazon declined Ars' request for comment on the report. But the opening quote in this article could have been uttered by anyone following voice assistants for the past year-plus. All voice assistants have struggled to drive revenue since people tend to use voice assistants for basic queries, like checking the weather, rather than transactions. Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

Enlarge (credit: Samsung) Samsung's big Galaxy S24 launch was yesterday, and to hear Samsung tell the story, the big highlight of the event was "Galaxy AI." Another view is that Galaxy AI is the usual bundle of baked-in Samsung features skinned on top of Android, but with generative AI being the hot new thing, Samsung went with AI-centric branding. Whatever value you want to place on Samsung's AI features, it might soon be an actual monetary one: Despite devices like the Galaxy S24 Ultra costing $1,300, Samsung might start charging for some of these AI phone features. The fine print on Samsung's Galaxy S24 promotional page features 44 asterisks and footnotes, and tucked away in that pile of caveats is the line "Galaxy AI features will be provided for free until the end of 2025 on supported Samsung Galaxy devices." That means Samsung reserves the right to charge for Galaxy AI after 2025. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

Enlarge / Vision Pro will allow users to watch movies on a virtual TV set. (credit: Apple) In the leadup to Vision Pro preorders tomorrow, Apple has seemingly been prioritizing the message that the device will be an ideal way to watch movies and TV shows. In many ways, that might be true, but there's one major caveat: Netflix. In a statement reported by Bloomberg today, Netflix revealed that it does not plan to offer an app for Vision Pro. Instead, users will have to use a web-based interface to watch the streaming service. Additionally, it was later revealed that Spotify and YouTube will also lack Vision Pro apps. Netflix compares the experience to the Mac, but there are a few reasons this won't be an ideal experience for users. First, the iPad and iPhone mobile apps support offline viewing of downloaded videos. That's particularly handy for when you're flying, which is arguably one of the best use cases for Vision Pro. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

An underrated thing about hardcore: You can sometimes identify a venue just by YouTube thumbnail — not even the video itself, but just the still image of a screengrab. I can’t think of any other genre of music where that’s the case. Most genres happen in the same clubs or arenas or festivals. Hardcore bands sometimes play in those spaces, but hardcore itself tends to happen in buildings that have character — DIY spaces that serve as refuges because for-profit entertainment venue’s can’t or won’t support everything that comes along with hardcore. Philadelphia’s First Unitarian Church is one of those spaces. So is LA’s 1720 Warehouse. And you can always recognize Tampa’s Bryan Glazer FCC at a glance, even if it hosts only one weekend of hardcore bands per year. If your social-media feed is suddenly full of images of huge crowds acting reckless in a cavernous and unforgivingly lit community center, that means FYA Fest is happening. View the full article

"A lot of the ideas came in the middle of the night or in that moment right before sleep," singer says of first (non-Christmas) LP in nearly four yearsView the full article

The three artists will perform at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Sunday, Feb. 11 ahead of the big night, during which Usher will lead the Super Bowl LVIII Halftime ShowView the full article

Later this year, the Jesus And Mary Chain, the often-imitated and never-duplicated duo of Scottish brothers Jim and William Reid, will return with their new LP Glasgow Eyes. It’ll be the first Mary Chain album in seven years and their second since reuniting in 2007. We already posted the absolutely sick lead single “jamcod.” Today, the band follows that one with a new jam called “Chemical Animal.” View the full article

Norah Jones last released an album in 2021 with I Dream Of Christmas. Today, the musician has announced her ninth studio LP Visions, for which she collaborated with producer and multi-instrumentalist Leon Michels. The lead single “Running” is out now. View the full article

Lana Del Rey has a lot going on right now. She’s currently up for a whole lot of Grammys, and she’s about to headline Coachella. Her album Did You Know That There’s A Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd is less than a year old, and now she’s already previewing new music. View the full article

The old-timey songwriter wants to help listeners check out from the modern world on her new album Trail of Flowers: “We’re just not supposed to be in touch with so many people"View the full article

The NFL has revealed the pregame music lineup for Super Bowl LVIII. Country music legend Reba McEntire is on “Star Spangled Banner” duty, while Post Malone, who is in the midst of his own country rebrand, will sing “America The Beautiful.” Andra Day will be on hand to perform “Lift Every Voice And Sing,” the Black national anthem. View the full article

CHAI are calling it a day. The restless, inventive Japanese band announced plans to “eternalize NEO KAWAII (=parting ways as a band)” on Instagram this morning. After a farewell tour of Japan, CHAI’s members will “continue to represent and spread NEO KAWAII in our own individual ways.” Here’s what they’ve written: View the full article

The plaintiffs accused Ice Spice and her producer of copying certain elements of their 2022 song "In That Mood"View the full article

In 2019, multidisciplinary live project Lost Souls Of Saturn released their eponymous debut album. Led by Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa, the project is getting ready for the release of the follow-up LP Reality. They recently released “Mirage,” a collaboration with Adam Ohr, and now they’ve shared the celestial “Lilac Chaser” with Protomartyr. Hear it below. View the full article

“I’m not backing down. I’m not going away. I’m not staying silent. I will fight for justice,” Schuman, a member of the former pop group Dream, tells Rolling StoneView the full article

Universal has optioned the rights to the Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman's 2004 memoirView the full article

Vermont-based musician Lutalo — full name Lutalo Jones — has been rising in the indie scene since touring with their cousin Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief. Their debut EP, Once Now, Then Again, arrived in 2022, and today they’re sharing “Running,” a collaboration with Saddest Factory superstar Claud. View the full article

I’ve been doing this for so long that I almost can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing this. I’m lost in the sea of tiny-font band names. Somewhere amidst all that chaos, there must be a pattern. It must mean something. I close my eyes, and half-remembered band names dance across my mind. Eagulls. Raury. Dreamcar. Idris Elba. Were these people ever real? Did I just… imagine them? The universe is trying to tell us something. I just need to figure out what. View the full article

A biopic about Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis is in development, as Deadline reports. Universal Pictures has optioned the rights to his 2004 autobiography Scar Tissue, which details his drug addiction and recovery. View the full article

Actress, who is married to singer-songwriter, choreographed, co-directed, and starred in video for song that will appear on upcoming 'Bleachers' albumView the full article

The mastermind behind Big Thief will release new solo album in March View the full article

Enlarge / The Galaxy S24 line. (credit: Samsung) Samsung has unveiled its new flagship phones for 2024: the Galaxy S24, S24+, and S24 Ultra. Considering Samsung's usually conservative year-to-year changes, there are a lot of differences this year. The S24 Ultra now has a titanium body, just like the iPhone 15. It also has a "fully flat display," ending years of Android's weird curved OLED panel gimmick that only served to distort the sides of the display. Samsung says the new Ultra design has "42 percent slimmer bezels" and a front hole-punch camera cutout that is "11 percent smaller" than those on the S23 Ultra. The rest of the design looks like Ultra models of past years, with rounded edges and a flat top and bottom. The bottom still houses an S-Pen for handwriting and drawing. All that titanium will cost you. The S24 Ultra is $100 more than last year, coming to an eye-popping $1,300. An iPhone 15 Pro Max is $1,200, and a Pixel 8 Pro is $1,000, so that's a tough sell. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments View the full article

The group is booked at Coachella for their first show in nearly a decade, but we have many questions about what this means for the future of the bandView the full article

The musician previously scrapped an entire project's worth of material after it leaked onlineView the full article