Music Business Worldwide reports: “New York-based Udio on Tuesday (April 29) said it will integrate Audible Magic‘s audio fingerprinting and content identification technology directly into its generative music platform. Audible Magic is a California-based company that provides content identification services to social networks, record labels, music publishers, and TV and movie studios.”
GamesBeat reports: “PlaysOut, the startup redefining how mini-games scale, launched its on-chain mini-game Platform and SDK toolkit, fully integrated with WeChat’s mini-game publishing framework. PlaysOut recently raised $7 million in seed funding at a $70 million valuation, with backing from top-tier investors including KBW, OKX Ventures, Kenetic Capital, and Pacific Century Group.”
TechCrunch reports: “Freepik, the online graphic design platform, unveiled a new “open” AI image model on Tuesday that the company says was trained exclusively on commercially licensed, “safe-for-work” images. The model, called F Lite, contains around 10 billion parameters — parameters being the internal components that make up the model. F Lite was developed in partnership with AI startup Fal.ai and trained using 64 Nvidia H100 GPUs over the course of two months, according to Freepik.”
The Verge reports: “Apple has quietly launched a new website called “Snapshot on Apple” that presents viewers with a carousel of celebrities and information on where you can find their work across the company’s services. The website, spotted by 9to5Mac reports, presents two slowly moving rows of celebrity images, with no way to manually scroll or search them. In total, we have counted 36 profiles, including Bad Bunny, Dua Lipa, Matt Damon, Serena Williams, Kendrick Lamar, and Drake.”
Digital Music News reports: “Reverb reached out with a formal announcement about its sale – and its return to private ownership – this morning. Meanwhile, Etsy confirmed the divestment in a regulatory disclosure, chalking up the move to a “focus on driving growth in the core Etsy marketplace.” The seller, which previously acknowledged “significant GMS [gross merchandise sales] headwinds in 2024,” also noted that it would provide additional information in its Q1 2025 earnings report.”
Screen Rant reports: “Max is following Netflix’s footsteps to end account sharing for subscribers as the streamer rolls out a new feature. After months of gently preparing subscribers for the change, a new feature has been set in motion on April 22 as part of the streamer’s effort to crack down on password sharing. This has been an ongoing trend in recent years for various streaming platforms, with services such as Disney+ and Hulu also taking steps to moderate how many households can use a single subscription.”
The Hollywood Reporter reports: “U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Thomas Horan on Tuesday approved an offer from Alcon Media Group for Village Roadshow’s collection of 108 feature films, including stakes in The Matrix and Ocean’s franchises, its fledgling studio business and ownership of various copyrights that’ll give the buyer the rights to co-produce proven tentpoles.”
Variety reports: “Blow out the candles! YouTube has been pumping out videos for two decades — and to give you one idea of how massive the Google-owned platform has become, YouTube says more than 20 billion videos have been uploaded to date. Wednesday (April 23) marks the 20th anniversary of the the first video shared on YouTube: “Me at the Zoo,” a 19-second clip that co-founder Jawed Karim shot in front of the elephant exhibit at the San Diego Zoo.”
Games Industry Biz reports: “New venture fund Blue Ocean Games has launched with a $30 million investment fund for indie game developers. Blue Ocean Games was founded by Damian Lee, former head of investments at Krafton. The fund is also backed by the publisher. The company will implement an investment structure known as SAIL – Structured Agreement for Indie Launch.”
The Verge reports: “Meta is opening up ads on Threads to “all eligible advertisers globally” and plans to show them to users in “select markets at launch,” according to an update to the company’s January blog post about ads on the platform. The company plans to test ads in more than 30 countries globally, including the US, spokesperson Matthew Tye tells The Verge.”
