Broadband TV News reports: “Leading streamers in the United States expanded their TV, movie and sports titles by 5% in Q2, according to Gracenote. Nielsen’s content data business unit reported quarter-on-quarter growth in available programming on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+, the top global subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services.”
GamesBeat reports: “FunCorp had an ad quality problem, so it turned to AppHarbr for a solution. FunCorp is a mobile entertainment company known for viral social content apps like iFunny, where memes and humor connect millions of young users across the U.S. FunCorp had long and unskippable interstitial ads that were disrupting the user experience, negatively impacting revenue and operational workload.”
AI News reports: “London-based AI lab Odyssey has launched a research preview of a model transforming video into interactive worlds. Initially focusing on world models for film and game production, the Odyssey team has stumbled onto potentially a completely new entertainment medium.”
TechCrunch reports: “GameStop announced on Wednesday that it bought 4,710 bitcoin, which is worth over $500 million at the time of the purchase. The video game retail chain has struggled to stay relevant in a time when digital gaming purchases are increasingly popular — plus, the company took on a new kind of notoriety when it unwittingly became the center of a short squeeze in 2021.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “BBC Studios Productions, a unit of BBC Studios, has boosted its investment in Mothership TV, the unscripted production firm founded by former Channel 4 deputy director of programs Kelly Webb-Lamb, to take full ownership of the company. In late 2022, BBC Studios Productions had taken a 25 percent stake in the company.”
Variety reports: “The New York Times Co. reached a multiyear deal to license content to Amazon “for AI-related uses,” marking the media company’s first generative AI deal. The announcement Thursday comes as the Times’ copyright-infringement lawsuits against OpenAI and Microsoft remain pending.”
GamesBeat reports: “Diversion, a Y Combinator-backed platform touting itself as the “GitHub for game development” announced today that it has raised $12 million in total funding. Most recently, it closed a seed+ round with $4.5 million, led by Konvoy. Diversion a version control platform created specifically with large-scale game development and other creative endeavors in mind. The funding will go towards expanding the company’s team and supporting larger studios.”
PYMNTS reports: “Anthropic has begun rolling out voice mode in beta for its artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Claude. “Try starting a voice conversation and asking Claude to summarize your calendar or search your docs,” the company said when announcing the feature in a Tuesday (May 27) post on X. Voice mode in beta is available in English and is coming to all the company’s subscription plans “in the next few weeks,” Anthropic added in another post on X.”
TFN reports: “The crypto industry has evolved from an infrastructure-focused early market into a mainstream technology sector defined by blockchain deployment across the global economy. Speaking exclusively to TFN, Mickey Graham, Metalayer co-founder and General Partner at Metalayer Ventures, said: “The starting point of this transformation will be the financial services industry, where crypto is rapidly being adopted to create vastly better products and services.”
PC Gamer reports: “In a bid to expand its advertising business, Discord has invented a new in-app currency to give away in exchange for watching commercials. They’re called Orbs, and you can use them to buy cosmetics from Discord’s shop. In a bid to expand its advertising business, Discord has invented a new in-app currency to give away in exchange for watching commercials. They’re called Orbs, and you can use them to buy cosmetics from Discord’s shop.”
