Tech

Canceling a SiriusXM subscription isn’t just annoying — it’s illegal, according to a lawsuit filed by New York’s attorney general. New York Attorney General Letitia James this week filed a lawsuit against SiriusXM, accusing the satellite radio and streaming audio company of “trapping consumers” in subscriptions and “maintaining deliberately long and burdensome cancellation processes.” An

Joe Rogan claimed many Americans who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 are regretting that decision because of the 46th president’s alleged declining acuity — but in trying to prove his point, the popular podcast host incorrectly attributed to Biden something Donald Trump had in fact said. On the Dec. 21 episode of “The

The video game industry has been rocked by hackers this month, first with the early leak of Rockstar Games’ trailer for “Grand Theft Auto 6” and this week’s hack of Insomniac, the developer behind “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2” and the upcoming “Wolverine” game. Hackers stole private data from Insomniac Games employees and released early gameplay footage

Aylo, parent company of Pornhub and other sex sites, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. prosecutors to settle a charge it profited from deals with porn producers who were involved in sex trafficking. Under the settlement announced Thursday, Canada-based Aylo agreed to pay a criminal fine and forfeiture totaling $1.845 million to the

Really, a company that creates augmented reality content for theatrical release movies has hired veteran media executive Peter Gaida as its chief commercial officer in Asia Pacific. The appointment is part of a wider expansion into Asia by the AR company. Founded by media entrepreneur James Andrew Felts in 2017, Really creates “highly functional, large-scale

Lawyers for Ozy Media, the defunct media and entertainment company founded by Carlos Watson, allege in a new lawsuit that Ben Smith, BuzzFeed and Semafor (the media startup co-founded by Smith in 2022) misappropriated Ozy’s trade secrets “for their own benefit.” The suit additionally alleges that BuzzFeed breached a nondisclosure agreement it entered into with

Next month, Netflix will have a booth on the main CES show floor for the first time — where it will stage an “immersive experience” for the “3 Body Problem,” the sci-fi drama series from “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. The streamer’s exhibit space at CES 2024 will be located at

Perhaps no consumer-electronics product had a more audacious launch in 2023 than Telly, a TV set that was given out for free to thousands of U.S. consumers. But Telly came with a few strings attached. Or to be more precise than “strings,” a smaller second screen came attached to Telly’s 55-inch screen that displays ads

Bobby Kotick is officially leaving Activision Blizzard on Dec. 29, after more than three decades as CEO of the gaming giant, following Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of the company. With his exit, Microsoft Gaming has appointed Matt Booty, president of game content and studios, to oversee the Activision Blizzard teams. Now reporting into Booty, a

Techies and media execs will again ring in the new year at CES 2024 in Las Vegas — and the trade show’s producers say the C Space entertainment, advertising and content track will be bigger than ever. CES 2024, produced by the Consumer Technology Association, is scheduled for Jan. 9-12, 2024. It’s the largest business-focused

Google agreed to pay $700 million and will make certain changes to the Google Play app store for Android devices under the terms of a settlement with all 50 U.S. states, which had alleged in a lawsuit the app store operated as an illegal monopoly. As part of the settlement, Google will allow app and

Comcast, the largest cable operator in the U.S., said personal data for approximately 35.9 million customers of its Xfinity services may have been illegally accessed by hackers in a security breach that occurred in October. On Monday, Comcast began notifying customers of the hack. The cable giant disclosed in a filing with the Maine attorney

The New York Times Co. inked a deal with Apple to add The Athletic‘s full sports coverage to the Apple News+ subscription bundle. In addition, the Times’ Wirecutter product reviews will be available for free to all Apple News users beginning early next year. However, articles from the New York Times Co.’s namesake newspaper remain

Another season of Variety’s beloved interview series, “Actors on Actors,” has come to a close – with a bang.  Season 19 is officially the most successful rollout in franchise history, racking up over 145 million views across the brand’s social media platforms. This round of interviews featured stimulating conversations between the biggest stars in this

Vice Media Group, still grappling with the ripple effects of its bankruptcy and aftermath, has tapped Mike Lang, a 30-year-plus veteran of TV, film and game industries who was one of Hulu’s founding executives, as interim executive chairman. Lang joins as executive chairman of the Brooklyn-based media company after serving as an adviser to Fortress

James McCaffrey, an actor who provided the voice of Max Payne in the popular video game series and most recently voiced Alex Casey in “Alan Wake 2,” died Sunday after a battle with cancer, Variety has confirmed with his manager. He was 65. McCaffrey was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, according to TMZ, which first reported

Just a normal beef between billionaire bros with raging egos. The feud started when Musk responded to a June 20 Twitter thread mocking Zuckerberg, with Musk writing, “I’m up for a cage match if he is lol.” That was in response to a user saying Zuckerberg “does the ju jitsu now,” a reference to his

Adobe called off plans to buy Figma, a web-based collaborative design platform, citing regulatory opposition to the proposed $20 billion deal. Adobe and Figma on Monday said they mutually agreed to terminate their merger agreement, originally announced Sept. 15, 2022. Adobe said it will pay Figma the previously agreed-on deal-termination fee of $1 billion. “Although

During the final “Last Week Tonight” episode of the year, John Oliver devoted an entire 30-minute segment to rehashing the past 12 months in the life of Elon Musk, billionaire and owner of X (formerly known as Twitter). Musk has had a particularly fraught 2023, which started with the removal of verified status from legacy

Studio71 has signed an advertising partnership with Unspeakable, a popular family-friendly content creator on YouTube who has more than 33 million subscribers across four channels and amasses 150+ million views every month. Houston native Nathan Milner, known online as “Unspeakable,” began creating Minecraft content more than ten years ago. His content has since expanded to

Two days after Twitch updated its Sexual Content Policy to allow depictions of “fictionalized nudity” — if properly labeled — the Amazon-owned livestreaming platform has done an about-face. “Upon reflection, we have decided that we went too far with this change,” Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote in a blog post Friday. “Digital depictions of nudity

It’s been a long-held suspicion by many people: that smartphones and smart speakers are listening in on their private conversations for various reasons. Now one company — Atlanta-based Cox Media Group — has revealed that yes, your devices are listening to you. Indeed, CMG touted its ability to identify “relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs

Hinge, the dating app owned by Match Group, has recruited Tamika Young as VP of global communications. Young most recently worked in PR for Netflix and prior to that spent more than five years at Spotify. She will lead global communications strategies across corporate, brand, consumer, trust and safety as Hinge continues to focus on

Legendary Entertainment and Activision are bringing the “Dune: Part Two” rivals played by Timothée Chalamet and Austin Butler into the Call of Duty universe. The characters played by the two actors are featured in new bundles for Activision’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III” first-person shooter and “Call of Duty: Warzone” battle royale game. The

The Game Awards 2023, the video game industry’s year-end celebration, was bigger than ever this year, according to the kudosfest’s producers. The 10th annual awards show, held Dec. 7, 2023, generated an estimated 118 million global livestreams, up 15% over 2022’s showcase, according to The Game Awards. The festivities were streamed live from the Peacock

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the internet giant is expanding Threads to countries across Europe — promising to give the X/Twitter competitor more momentum. The app’s rollout in the region comes with certain changes to conform with European Union rules. “Today we’re opening Threads to more countries in Europe. Welcome everyone 👋,” Zuckerberg wrote

Endeavor has made a strategic investment in Chess.com, which touts itself as the world’s largest online platform for the classic strategy game. In addition, Chess.com has signed for representation with Endeavor’s WME. Terms of the firm’s investment weren’t disclosed. As part of the investment taking a minority stake in Chess.com, Endeavor will advise the company

Amazon’s Audible announced that three veteran content execs — Diana Dapito, Kate Navin and Rhonda Adams Medina — have been promoted to new roles at the audiobook and podcast company. Dapito has been promoted to head of regional content, North America (previously senior VP, consumer content). Navin has been promoted head of creative development, North

X, the Elon Musk-owned social network formerly known as Twitter, was experiencing technical difficulties with links posted to the platform Wednesday. When URLs posted to X are clicked on, the site’s t.co redirecting service returns an error message that says, “This page is down.” Reps for X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.