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• Apple is reportedly looking to make AI tools the default search option for Safari
• Google is the current default search engine for Safari in a $20B-a-year deal
• Apple sees the AI as possibly more appealing to users for search purposes

Apple is flirting with the idea of making AI tools the default search option for Safari instead of Google. As first reported by Bloomberg, Apple’s services chief Eddy Cue revealed during testimony this week in the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust trial against Google that Apple is “actively looking at” bringing AI-powered search engines as a Google replacement.

Apple and Google currently have a mutually beneficial and lucrative deal where Google pays Apple around $20 billion a year to remain the default search engine across all Apple devices. That deal was part of the antitrust scrutiny, which led to the revelation of Apple's interest in alternatives.

Eddy Cue mentioned several major AI chatbot developers as potential new search partners for Apple, including OpenAI, Perplexity, Anthropic, and xAI. Cue told the court that searches on Safari actually declined last month for the first time in recent memory, and his theory is that people are starting to swap out standard search engines for AI tools. Instead of typing in “how does Wi-Fi work?” into a search bar, users are asking ChatGPT to explain it like they’re five.

Cue wasn’t exactly subtle in hinting that Apple thinks traditional search might be on the way out. "The only way you truly have true competition is when you have technology shifts," he said. “AI is a new technology shift, and it’s creating new opportunities for new entrants.”

Apple AI search

Apple’s already dipped its toes into AI search, linking Siri to ChatGPT and supposedly planning to do the same with Google Gemini. Cue also noted that Apple’s open to adding multiple AI search options directly into Safari, though no decision about a new default was mentioned.

AI search tools have some good points, but they come with glaring weaknesses. In particular, they can respond with incomplete, inaccurate, or downright hallucinatory information. Whether those issues are worth the advantages of AI search tools is debatable, but Apple clearly thinks it might be a worthwhile change to make. After all, if people are okay switching from Google to AI tools because they're easier, and despite their errors, that's the direction any company would want to follow.

And there's a reason Google has been willing to pay so much for its status on Apple devices. That user base is crucial to its search dominance. Just hinting that it might not be the case forever sent Google’s stock dropping nearly 9% after Cue’s testimony. Apple shares slipped too, but much more modestly.

None of this may matter if Apple decides it has a good thing with Google as a company and makes Gemini its default search tool with a similar deal. And while AI still can’t quite be trusted to write a college essay or navigate the DMV website, it's already reshaping how we expect to interact with information. That means the tools we use to access that information are going to evolve in a way they haven't since perhaps the widespread adoption of mobile versions of websites.

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• Backblaze B2 Overdrive delivers up to 1 Tbps for AI without sky-high pricing headaches
• Backblaze includes egress, read, and write in one price
• Designed for AI and HPC, B2 Overdrive redefines performance at petabyte scale

American cloud storage company Backblaze has launched a new B2 Overdrive tier designed to support AI, HPC, and other high-bandwidth workloads.

With prices starting at $15 per terabyte and sustained network throughput of up to 1Tbps, the service positions itself as an affordable option for businesses handling massive data volumes.

B2 Overdrive includes storage, read (Get), write (Put), and egress at a single price point. This contrasts with the tiered and often unpredictable pricing models used by competitors.

Takes aim at AWS with a bold alternative

The service is available immediately to customers with multi-petabyte workloads. It complements Backblaze’s existing B2 cloud storage tier, priced at $6 per terabyte per month.

That basic tier includes features like object lock immutability and a 99.9% uptime SLA and is often listed among the best cloud backup services for small businesses or individual users.

B2 Overdrive, by contrast, is aimed at organizations working at scale. According to Backblaze, it delivers 100% performance at roughly one-fifth the cost of AWS S3 and includes free egress up to three times the average monthly storage amount, with additional egress priced at $0.01 per GB.

The tier is built on disk-based infrastructure and connects directly to customer environments via secure private networking. It enables data to move freely to GPU clouds or high-performance compute clusters without incurring egress charges.

Backblaze says B2 Overdrive is intended for use cases such as AI and machine learning training, inference, large-scale analytics, media processing, and research computing.

Unlike most public cloud storage providers that emphasize latency, Backblaze focuses on sustained throughput.

Among major US providers - AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, and Oracle - Backblaze is the only one to publish throughput numbers directly.

Though not a general-purpose solution, B2 Overdrive may appeal to businesses seeking performance and pricing transparency.

While not commonly used for photo management, its affordability and expandable storage could make it a contender for archival photo storage as well.

“With B2 Overdrive, we’re challenging the industry’s assumption that organizations must pay colossal prices for colossal performance. We’ve engineered a solution that delivers the sustained high-throughput organizations need, without the egress fees and complex pricing tiers that are pervasive among legacy providers,” said Backblaze CEO Gleb Budman.

Via Blocksandfiles

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• Spotify has announced some new app features, including a 'Snooze' button
• This lets you ban a track from your recommendations for 30 days
• It, along with other new features, is being tested with Premium users

Spotify has been busy making small tweaks to its mobile app, like finally giving you the option to disable its Smart Shuffle feature – and it's just announced several more, including a potential godsend addition called '30-day Snooze'.

While Spotify's music algorithm is one of the things that's kept me with the music streaming service for over a decade, it also has infuriating blind spots, like continually recommending the same song across automated playlists like Discover Weekly or Smart Shuffle.

The new '30-Day Snooze' button is designed to fix this, letting you temporarily remove a track from your recommendations (without completely eradicating it from your musical life). Unfortunately, Spotify is only "starting to test this for Premium users" but says it's "planning to bring it to more listeners soon".

30-Day Snooze will be a bonus option among the tracks that you've chosen to 'hide' from playlists – this is done by tapping the three dots next to a song and hitting 'Hide in this playlist'. The 'Snooze' feature will give you a "don't suggest this song anywhere for 30 days" option, which will apply to all personalized playlists.

If the feature hasn't rolled out to you yet, Spotify has pushed out some other new tweaks to keep you happy while you wait. The Queue button (the three lines in the bottom-right of the 'Now Playing' view) now gives you handy shortcuts to Shuffle, Smart Shuffle, Repeat, and Sleep Timer.

In a tweak related to 30-Day Snooze, Spotify will also now show you the recommended songs it plans to play at the end of your queue, so you can eject any unwanted ones in advance. Spotify's 'Hide' button is also now more powerful – when you tap it, the song will be hidden from that playlist across all your devices, not just the one you're listening on.

Training the algorithm

For Premium subscribers, the Queue section in the 'Now Playing' view (above) now has shortcuts to Shuffle, Smart Shuffle, Repeat and the Sleep Timer. (Image credit: Spotify)

These changes are an admission from Spotify that its algorithms don't always get everything right, and I can definitely see myself using 30-Day Snooze when it eventually reaches my Premium account.

For some reason, Spotify has persistently recommended Yo La Tengo's 'Autumn Sweater' across all of my automated playlists. Despite it being the least offensive song ever committed to recorded music, the opening drums now send me into a mild fit of rage, even though it's a perfectly pleasant track.

It's my prime candidate for a 30-Day Snooze, and others on the TechRadar team have enthusiastically submitted theirs, including Mk.gee's 'Are You Looking Up' after an unfortunate incident where our team's shared playlist was remotely co-opted by our cameras editor's son.

One other new feature I'll likely use to escape the algorithm is a tweak to 'Liked Songs'. It's now possible to use this to build playlists: tap on a genre in the 'Liked Songs' playlist, and you'll now see a new 'Make this a playlist' option.

We may still not have Spotify HiFi (will it ever arrive?), while both price hikes and optional add-ons are seemingly on the cards – but at least Spotify is still making small, free improvements to save us from persistent earworms.

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