Music startup Thoughtful Things has just launched the Kickstarter campaign for its first instrument, Engram. It's a sampler and groovebox that uses AI to mangle incoming audio and even hallucinate completely new sounds. This isn't Suno in a box, though. This isn't a "push-button, get-song" device, aimed at creating something that sounds ready for top-40 radio. It's about creating experimental, uncanny sounds and pushing AI audio models beyond their limits.

Engram isn't connected to the internet. Instead, it runs a "tiny AI" locally. According to the Kickstarter listing, the model is designed in-house and custom-trained. The company says:

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I don't think I'm going to hurt anyone's feelings by pointing out that Decap doesn't have the name recognition of Kendrick Lamar, Olivia Rodrigo, or Charli XCX. But his fingerprints are all over tracks from them, as well as many other artists, including Freddie Gibbs, Bad Bunny, Mac Miller, BTS, and even Ludwig Göransson's score for Oppenheimer.

Nicholas Piantedosi, better known as Decap, is a record producer, but perhaps more importantly, he's the man behind Drums That Knock, a series of sample packs that have found their way onto countless records across genres. The line is so successful that, after debuting in 2016, it's now on its 11th …

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Middle schoolers, likely blocked from other apps and social networks, apparently turned the Spotify comment section under an episode of NPR's Wild Card into an impromptu group chat. In a new episode of This American Life, host Ira Glass digs into how the kids landed there and why. But it mostly boils down to kids getting creative to work around the restrictions placed on them.

When Glass asked one of the kids why they picked this particular podcast, they said, "We just, like, looked for podcasts that didn't have many comments." Which, obviously, hurt Glass's feelings a bit.

Initially, showrunner Dave Blanchard thought the comments were a …

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A24, Sony and The New York Times Company all registered their interest in acquiring the cinephile’s paradise.

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Prime Video looks to have another hit on its hands with Neagley, a new spinoff series set in the same universe as the streaming platform’s critically acclaimed Reacher, now in its fourth season. Both shows are solidly addictive escapist fare, and while Neagley has some uneven elements, it mostly sticks to the successful formula while exploring new ground to give a very different main character her due.

(Some spoilers below, but no major reveals.)

Reacher fans will already be familiar with Frances Neagley, played to perfection by Maria Sten (Swamp Thing). She’s arguably the most diehard friend of former US Army military police officer turned drifter Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), coming to his aid again and again as he confronts a bevy of dangerous criminals over four hugely entertaining seasons. (Of course Ritchson’s Reacher makes an appearance in an opening scene, lending his muscle to rescue a kidnapped child.)

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