YouTube TV, ESPN, and Disney: the latest on the blackout
On October 31st, ESPN, ABC, Nat Geo, and over 20 other Disney-owned channels went dark on YouTube TV. As the two sides disagree about terms for a new content distribution contract, Google has a...
Anthropic and the Future of Copyright
Over two years ago I wrote a blog post about AI. Specifically about Large Language Models that have been trained on pirated novels, and the resulting class action lawsuit, Bartz v Anthropic.Since writ...
Arturia’s KeyStep mk2 MIDI controller is a shortcut to flow state
Don’t mind my desk toys.
Arturia's KeyStep is one of the most popular MIDI controllers ever made, especially with modular synth users and the DAWless crowd. It's small, cheap, has an easy-to-u...
The tale of the Fire Phone, Amazon’s very strange smartphone
When Jeff Bezos decided Amazon needed to get in the smartphone game, he went all in. And the resulting device, the Fire Phone, wound up more densely packed with big ideas than just about any ga...
The algorithm failed music
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on how to break free of the algorithm and discover things you love, follow Terrence O'B...
