Media & Entertainment News | TechCrunch

Spotify launches a new Basic streaming plan in the US

Aisha Malik — Fri, 21 Jun 2024 14:31:13 +0000

Spotify is introducing a new “Basic” streaming plan in the United States, the company announced on Friday. The new plan costs $10.99 per month and includes all of the benefits of a Premium plan but without the monthly audiobook listening time. The launch of the new streaming plan comes a few weeks after Spotify increased […]

YouTube confirms crackdown on VPN users accessing cheaper Premium plans

Lauren Forristal — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 17:55:44 +0000

YouTube appears to be taking a firm stance against Premium subscribers who attempt to use a VPN (virtual private network) to access cheaper subscription prices in other countries. This week, a number of users took to Reddit to express their frustration after their Premium plans were canceled for using a VPN to purchase the subscription […]

DeepMind’s new AI generates soundtracks and dialogue for videos

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 18:03:57 +0000

DeepMind says that it sees the tech, V2A (short for "video-to-audio"), as an essential piece of the AI-generated media puzzle.

Runway’s new video-generating AI, Gen-3, offers improved controls

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 17 Jun 2024 16:20:15 +0000

The race to high-quality, AI-generated videos is heating up. On Monday, Runway, a company building generative AI tools geared toward film and image content creators, unveiled Gen-3 Alpha. The company’s latest AI model generates video clips from text descriptions and still images. Runway says the model delivers a “major” improvement in generation speed and fidelity over […]

YouTube is testing another way to combat ad blockers

Anthony Ha — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 14:53:58 +0000

YouTube continues its efforts to circumvent ad blockers. Earlier this week, ad blocker SponsorBlock posted that the Google-owned video service is testing out server-side ad injection with a limited number of users. Essentially, this means that the ad is injected into the video before it arrives on your device (in contrast to client-side ad injection, […]

YouTube creators can now test multiple video thumbnails

Lauren Forristal — Wed, 12 Jun 2024 15:21:30 +0000

YouTube announced this week the rollout of “Thumbnail Test & Compare,” a new tool for creators to see which thumbnail performs the best. The feature first launched to select creators last year but is now widely available. When creators publish a new video (or update an existing video), they can test up to three thumbnails, […]

AI news reader Particle adds publishing partners and $10.9M in new funding

Sarah Perez — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Particle announced it has partnered with news organization Reuters to collaborate on new business models and experiments in monetization.

Apple TV+ introduces InSight, a new feature similar to Amazon’s X-Ray, at WWDC 2024

Lauren Forristal — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 18:21:13 +0000

To use InSight, Apple TV+ subscribers can swipe down on their remote to bring up a display with actor names and character information in real time.

Twitch DJs will now have to pay music labels to play songs in livestreams

Lauren Forristal — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Twitch has come up with a solution for the ongoing copyright issues that DJs encounter on the platform. The company announced Thursday a new program that enables DJs to stream millions of tracks in a new DJ Category, giving them more clarity on which songs are safe to use in their streams. The only catch […]

Punk singer Shira Yevin pushes for fair pay with InPink, a women-focused job marketplace

Lauren Forristal — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 13:18:53 +0000

It’s been 20 years since Shira Yevin, the lead singer of punk band Shiragirl drove a pink RV into the Vans Warped Tour grounds, the now-defunct punk rock festival notorious for being male-dominated. In response to the festival’s lack of female-fronted bands, Yevin’s band crashed the festival and set up an impromptu all-female stage. This […]

Amazon buys Indian video streaming service MX Player

Manish Singh — Thu, 06 Jun 2024 08:19:02 +0000

Amazon has agreed to acquire key assets of Indian video streaming service MX Player from the local media powerhouse Times Internet, the latest step by the e-commerce giant to make its services and brand popular in smaller cities and towns in the key overseas market. The two firms reached a definitive agreement for the deal […]

Cartwheel generates 3D animations from scratch to power up creators

Devin Coldewey — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 17:01:11 +0000

Cartwheel helps animators go from zero to basic movement, so creating a scene or character with elementary motions like taking a step, swatting a fly or sitting down is easier.

Discord and TuneIn partner to bring live radio to the social platform

Lauren Forristal — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 15:30:00 +0000

Audio streaming service TuneIn is teaming up with Discord to bring free live radio to the platform. This is TuneIn’s first collaboration with a social platform and one that is likely to help it reach a larger audience. Discord has a vast user base of 200 million, while TuneIn today touts 75 million monthly active […]

Storyblok raises $80M to add more AI to its ‘headless’ CMS aimed at non-technical people

Ingrid Lunden — Tue, 04 Jun 2024 11:13:27 +0000

The startup targets the middle ground between platforms that offer rigid templates, and those that facilitate a full-control approach.

People are using AI music generators to create hateful songs

Kyle Wiggers — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 19:19:19 +0000

Malicious actors are abusing generative AI music tools to create homophobic, racist, and propagandistic songs — and publishing guides instructing others how to do so as well. According to ActiveFence, a service for managing trust and safety operations on online platforms, there’s been a spike in chatter within “hate speech-related” communities since March about ways […]

Spotify to increase premium pricing in the US to $11.99 per month

Paul Sawers — Mon, 03 Jun 2024 10:47:31 +0000

Spotify has announced it’s hiking subscriptions for customers in the U.S., the second such price increase in the space of a year. The music-streaming giant reports that premium pricing will increase in July from $10.99 to $11.99, representing a rise of nearly 10%. The Duo and Family plans will go up to $16.99 and $19.99, […]

Spotify offers Car Thing refunds as it faces lawsuit over bricking the streaming device

Sarah Perez — Thu, 30 May 2024 18:01:35 +0000

Though Spotify never shared official numbers, it's likely that Car Thing underperformed or was just not worth continued investment in today's tighter economic market.

Amazon is rolling out AI voice search to Fire TV devices

Lauren Forristal — Thu, 30 May 2024 13:00:00 +0000

Amazon is rolling out its AI voice search feature to Alexa, which lets it answer open-ended questions about content.

This founder says meme tech is the next big thing

Amanda Silberling — Wed, 29 May 2024 16:00:01 +0000

Alex Taub, a longtime founder with multiple exits under his belt, believes it’s time to disrupt the meme industry. “I have this big thesis that meme tech is going to be the next big category,” Taub told TechCrunch. “Like, there’s health tech, there’s proptech, there’s adtech, there’s fintech… I think meme tech is about to […]

MoviePass co-founders speak their truth in HBO’s new documentary

Lauren Forristal — Wed, 29 May 2024 15:01:29 +0000

HBO’s new documentary, “MoviePass, MovieCrash,” tells a story that many of us know about: how MoviePass, the subscription-based movie ticketing startup, was a catastrophic failure. After a series of mishaps and deception, it filed for bankruptcy in 2020. However, the movie also tells the underreported tale of two Black men who aimed to disrupt the […]