Google is testing a paywall for lyrics on YouTube Music, restricting access for free users after a limited number of views, according to Ars Technica. The move, which has led to a surge in user reports, marks a shift from the platform's previous policy of providing lyrics to all users.
For as long as YouTube Music has existed, lyrics have been accessible to all users in the mobile app, according to Ars Technica. The lyrics section still appears in the app when playing a song with a free account, but opening it eats into a limited allotment of lyric views.
This change comes as OpenAI's standalone Codex application, designed for Mac computers, surpassed 1 million downloads in its first week of availability, VentureBeat reported. This rapid adoption, reflecting a 60% week-over-week growth in overall Codex users, follows the February 2 launch of the app and the subsequent release of the underlying GPT-5.3-Codex model. While OpenAI is celebrating this rapid adoption, the company is signaling that the era of unlimited free access to its most powerful agentic tools is transitioning toward a more restricted model, according to VentureBeat.
Meanwhile, the online hangout Moltbook, a social network for bots, went viral in a matter of hours after its launch on January 28, according to MIT Technology Review. The platform, designed for AI agents to interact, was described by some as a glimpse into the future of AI, with one user even using it to negotiate a deal on a new car, MIT Technology Review reported. However, the platform was also flooded with crypto scams, and many of the posts were actually written by people. The whole experiment reminded some of something far less interesting: Pokémon, according to MIT Technology Review.
In other tech news, LG is offering promo codes and online exclusive discounts on home appliances, gaming monitors, and more tech, according to Wired.
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