Games Industry Biz reports: “GameStop is in the process of closing its cryptocurrency marketplace a year and a half after launch. In a notice posted to the NFT marketplace, the company announced it was in the process of “winding down” operations and will close on February 2, 2024. Past this date, customers won’t be able to buy, sell or create NFTs, but they will “remain accessible and saleable through other platforms.'”
Social Media Today reports: “Bad news for fans of images of cartoon monkeys, with X removing its support for NFT profile pictures, which, till this week, had been a feature included in its X Premium package. Originally launched in 2022, as a feature of its paid “Twitter Blue” offering, NFT profile pictures enabled digital art enthusiasts to showcase their radically overpriced JPEGs, and linked back to information about the art via users’ crypto wallets.”
Deadline reports: “Brat TV, the Gen Z studio behind digital series like Chicken Girls, has acquired Crypt TV, a similar company in the horror space. The acquisition marks another expansion for Brat TV, which launched its flagship channel in 2016, and now includes Past Your Bedtime, a video podcast network, and an influencer marketing division called Beeline Talent.”
VentureBeat reports: “MMGuardian introduced an AI-powered smartphone for kids emphasizing child safety. Announced at the CES 2024 tech trade show in Las Vegas, MMGuardian designed the AI smartphone particularly for kids to address the evolving needs of teenagers. It offers a suite of features designed to enhance parental control and child safety.”
Engadget reports: “OpenAI has rolled out its store for custom GPTs and a new ChatGPT subscription tier for smaller teams. The GPT Store allows developers and users to share and profit from their custom versions of the viral chatbot. Meanwhile, ChatGPT Team costs $25 to $30 monthly per user while offering data security and supporting longer queries.”
TechCrunch reports: “Google wants to inject a little generative AI into retail. Or to try, at least. To coincide with the National Retailer Association’s annual conference in NYC, Google Cloud today unveiled new gen AI products designed to help retailers personalize their online shopping experiences and streamline their back-office operations. As to whether they perform as advertised, this writer can’t say — TechCrunch wasn’t given the chance to test the new tools prior to this morning’s unveiling.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “Usually when you turn to a TV channel or streaming platform that has a live sporting event, they won’t point you in the direction of another rightsholder. After all, why secure exclusive rights if you can’t hoard them for your own platform? Roku and Formula E are taking an entirely different approach for their new deal, which kicks off Jan. 13 from Mexico City.”
Digital Music News reports: “AI music-generation platform Splash has officially released a skill for Amazon Echo devices, enabling users to create custom songs with voice prompts.
Amazon-backed Splash, which has trained its AI model exclusively on a self-owned music library, unveiled the skill at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) today. Also detailed in a formal announcement message that was shared with DMN, said skill is already live on devices with Alexa support.”
Broadband TV News reports: “Hewlett Packard Enterprise has agreed to purchase networking equipment specialist Juniper Networks in an all-cash deal worth in the region of $14 billion. The deal represents a doubling of the HPE business; Juniper CEO Rami Rahim would lead the combined group, reporting to HPE CEO, Antonio Neri, according a company statement released Tuesday.”
Music Business Worldwide reports: “Global on-demand audio streams reached the 4 trillion mark for the first time ever in a single year in 2023. That’s according to market monitor Luminate (formerly MRC Data / Nielsen Music), which published its Year-End report for 2023 on Wednesday (January 10, 2023). You can download it here. On-demand audio song streams globally rose 22.3% to 4.1 trillion in 2023 (compared to 3.4 trillion in 2022) according to Luminate’s new report.”
