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DeepMind, Google’s AI research org, has unveiled a model that can generate an “endless” variety of playable 3D worlds. Called Genie 2, the model — the successor to DeepMind’s Genie, which was released earlier this year — can generate an interactive, real-time scene from a single image and text description (e.g. “A cute humanoid robot

After weeks of anticipation, some Spotify users are left underwhelmed by the streamer’s personalized year-in-review feature, Spotify Wrapped — with many even going so far as to call it “boring” or a “flop.” Chief among the complaints are that Spotify prioritized the inclusion of an AI podcast for Wrapped over the other, clever and creative

Spotify Wrapped, the streamer’s highly anticipated annual listening recap, has arrived. In addition to its usual personalized summary detailing your favorite artists, songs, podcasts, and more, the company this year is introducing two new features, including most notably, an AI-powered podcast of your 2024 Wrapped created with Google’s AI summarization tool, NotebookLM. Spotify is also

“I’m trying to find holiday gifts for my sisters. I open a bunch of tabs, I want my wife’s advice.” That’s Browser Company CEO, Josh Miller, in his company’s latest ad for its new AI browser, Dia. Consulting your spouse to find gifts for your siblings is a pure — and dare I say, sweet

Walmart just closed its acquisition of popular television maker Vizio in an effort to boost its advertising business. The acquisition was initially reported back in February; however, it took a few months to complete due to the waiting period under federal regulations.  The all-cash deal is valued at $2.3 billion.  With this strategic move, Walmart

World Labs, the startup founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, has unveiled its first project: an AI system that can generate video game-like, 3D scenes from a single image. Lots of AI systems can turn a photo into 3D models and environments. But World Labs’ scenes are unique in that they’re interactive — and modifiable.

A group of Canadian news and media companies filed a lawsuit Friday against OpenAI, alleging that the ChatGPT maker has infringed their copyrights and unjustly enriched itself at their expense. The companies behind the lawsuit include the Toronto Star, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the Globe and Mail, and others who seek to win monetary damages

As more publishers cut content licensing deals with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, a study put out this week by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism — looking at how the AI chatbot produces citations (i.e. sources) for publishers’ content — makes for interesting, or, well, concerning, reading. In a nutshell, the findings suggest publishers remain at the

Spotify will no longer allow developers building third-party apps with its Web API to access several features within the music streaming platform, such as song and artist recommendations, the company announced in a developer blog post on Wednesday. The company appears to be limiting third-party developers from building AI apps using data from Spotify listeners.

The long-standing feud between rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar is heating up. Drake — via a business entity called Frozen Moments LLC — filed a petition yesterday in a New York Supreme Court accusing distributor Universal Music Group (UMG) of artificially inflating the popularity of “Not Like Us,” Lamar’s recently released “diss” track directed at

Spotify on Tuesday introduced a new set of tools for authors and publishers distributing their audiobooks on its platform with the launch of Spotify for Authors. Similar to its existing efforts, Spotify for Artists and Spotify for Creators (previously Podcasters), Spotify for Authors will allow writers and publishers to track insights and analytics about their

The Onion, a satirical publication, won a bankruptcy auction earlier this month to purchase conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ website, InfoWars, and other related assets. However, that sale is now in limbo after a federal judge temporarily halted the deal. On Monday, Elon Musk threw yet another wrench in the works, objecting to the transfer of

A group appears to have leaked access to Sora, OpenAI’s video generator, in protest of what they’re calling duplicity and “art washing” on OpenAI’s part. On Tuesday, the group published a project on the AI dev platform Hugging Face seemingly connected to OpenAI’s Sora API, which isn’t yet publicly available. Using their authentication tokens —

With global content consumption rising and demand for non-English content surpassing that for English movies and shows, IMAX is leveraging AI to scale localization on its original content. The entertainment and media industry grew 5% to $2.8 trillion in 2023, according to a report by PwC. The industry is expected to continue its expansion, though

Want to keep up with what everyone’s talking about on alternative social media sites like Bluesky and Mastodon, but don’t have time to constantly scroll through their respective apps? A newly launched link aggregation service called Sill may be able to help. The service is similar to the older startup Nuzzel, which was ultimately acquired

Brightcove, a cloud platform that helps businesses manage and monetize video content, is being taken private by Italian technology company Bending Spoons in an all-cash deal valued at $233 million. The transaction prices Brightcove at $4.45 per share, translating to a 90% premium on its 60-day average. Founded out of Boston in 2004, Brightcove develops

It’s not exactly a secret that Apple has explored the possibility of building a television. Before his death in 2011, co-founder Steve Jobs famously told biographer Walter Isaacson that he’d “finally cracked it,” but no full-fledged Apple TV (as opposed to the Apple TV set-top box) has emerged in the years since. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman

It may be hard to remember, but George Clooney and Brad Pitt co-starred in a movie, “Wolfs,” that Apple released just two months ago. On Friday, the film’s writer and director Jon Watts said Friday that a sequel is no longer happening; in a follow-up interview with Deadline, he explained that he “no longer trusted

The European Commission (EC) has quietly closed a longstanding antitrust investigation into Apple over rules it enforces against third-party e-book and audiobook app developers. The EC opened the probe back in 2020 after receiving complaints over how Apple forced competing e-book and audiobook app developers to use Apple’s own in-app payment system, while also preventing

Tubi, the free ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox, has unveiled a new feature designed to set it apart from its rivals, such as Pluto TV and the Roku Channel, as well as put it in closer competition with short-form video-sharing platforms like Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.  Called “Scenes,” the feature allows viewers

Cable television has long been viewed as a stagnant business, showing little promise for growth over the years. However, Comcast believes it has found a new growth opportunity. On Wednesday, the company announced that it’s spinning off NBCUniversal’s cable television networks — such as CNBC, E!, Golf Channel, MSNBC, Oxygen, SYFY, and USA Network —

Netflix is adding a new title to its gaming library: a daily word puzzle that is eerily similar to a lot of other mobile games that exist already.  Announced in October, the streaming giant teamed up with TED, the well-known nonprofit media organization, to launch TED Tumblewords, a new daily word puzzle game. In this

Chroma, a startup building a new type of audiovisual entertainment for mobile devices, has been sold. The company, which had financial backing from Twitter and Medium co-founder Biz Stone as well as Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp, is headed to London-based audio technology company Bronze, an AI music startup. Founded by record producer Lex Dromgoole, who’s

Generative AI has upended how we write things, or even if we write at all. Now a startup wants to be the main character in the next chapter of that story: AI that replaces the role of the publisher.  Spines is a self-publishing platform that claims that — thanks to being powered by artificial intelligence

Unions representing Hollywood actors and writers went on strike last year to secure protections against AI systems taking their jobs. But Ben Affleck says that actors and screenwriters shouldn’t worry about AI because it’s not capable of doing either job today, and likely won’t for a long time. “Movies will be one of the last

Beyoncé is headed to Netflix. The singer will perform live during the halftime show during the Houston Texans vs. Baltimore Ravens Christmas Day game, which is set to be streamed on Netflix as part of its newly minted three-year deal with the NFL.  “Your early Christmas wish has been granted as Beyoncé will perform during Netflix’s

The wide availability of tools to build generative AI has led to a Cambrian explosion of startups in the space. Plentiful capital hasn’t hurt, either — nor has the declining cost of the requisite technical infrastructure. In fact, one of the flashiest applications of generative AI, generative video, risks becoming oversaturated. Labs such as Genmo,

Blizzard Entertainment first released World of Warcraft in November 2004, so The New York Times celebrated the anniversary by outlining the many ways we can still see the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game’s influence’s 20 years later. For one thing, while multiplayer games and early social networks such as MySpace already existed, WoW provided a

Viewers have been talking about Friday evening’s boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul — but probably not for the reasons Netflix was hoping. Yes, the 27-year-old Paul (a YouTuber turned professional boxer) defeated the 58-year-old Tyson (a former heavyweight champion who came out of retirement for this match) in eight rounds, but the

Instyle reported yesterday that Meghan is an investor in the hair and wellness company Highbrow Hippie, founded by her colorist Kadi Lee, and Myka Harris. The company was announcing the launch of a new hair care line and Meghan told the outlet that she was “proud to invest in her as a friend and as