Expect to have longer conversations with your smart speaker soon: Amazon revealed plans at its Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas Wednesday to give its Alexa smart assistant capabilities to carry on longer conversations, and help consumers with services across different providers. Alexa head scientist Rohit Prasad demonstrated the assistant’s new conversational capabilities, dubbed Alexa Conversations,
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BuzzFeed has recruited Shari Cleary, a Viacom veteran who most recently headed Comedy Central’s research team, as senior VP of research and insights. Cleary will oversee all of BuzzFeed’s advertising analytics and will lead the digital-media company’s efforts to establish accurate and standardized distributed, cross-platform measurement. She replaces Edwin Wong, who left BuzzFeed earlier this
“Chernobyl,” HBO’s gritty and horrifying retelling of the worst nuclear disaster in human history, has jumped to the No. 1 spot on IMDb’s all-time TV rankings just days after the limited series concluded. As of Tuesday, “Chernobyl” had a 9.7-star (out of 10) average rating from about 140,000 users on the Amazon-owned IMDb site. The
“Chernobyl,” HBO’s gritty and horrifying retelling of the worst nuclear disaster in human history, has jumped to the No. 1 spot on IMDb’s all-time TV rankings just days after the limited series concluded. As of Tuesday, “Chernobyl” had a 9.7-star (out of 10) average rating from about 140,000 users on the Amazon-owned IMDb site. The
Amazon worldwide consumer CEO Jeff Wilke gave attendees of the company’s Re:Mars conference a look behind the curtain of content recommendation for Prime Video Wednesday, explaining how the company improved its recommendation algorithms to become twice as good in recommending movies, TV shows and more. “Product discovery was heavily based on human curation and bestsellers
YouTube, after years of criticism, has finally decided to specifically ban videos that promote the idea that one group is superior to others. The new policy, announced Wednesday, includes a complete prohibition on neo-Nazi content, as well as conspiracy theories denying that certain violent events took place, like the Holocaust and the Sandy Hook school
June 5, 2019 8:06AM PT Netflix has begun to test a new feed in its mobile app that aggregates trailers, photos and alerts for upcoming shows in an Instagram-like fashion. The feed, dubbed Extras, is being tested with a subset of Netflix’s audience, confirmed a spokesperson via email: “We are testing a feed of video
The BTS Army will soon get the chance to virtually become managers to the world’s biggest K-pop group. The free game, BTS World, will be released June 26 worldwide (June 25 in the U.S.). It will feature an all-new, original soundtrack from BTS, including a sub-unit song by group members Jin, Jimin, and Jung Kook.
Actor Robert Downey Jr. used his part of the opening keynote for Amazon’s Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas Tuesday evening to announce the launch of a new organization that is committed to using advanced technologies for the good of the environment. The Footprint Coalition, as the group is called, is scheduled to officially launch by
UPDATED: Vice Media, in a shakeup of its digital editorial team, laid off two top editors — Vice.com editor-in-chief Jonathan Smith and managing editor Rachel Schallom. At the same time, Vice announced several new appointments: Erika Allen, most recently with New York Magazine’s The Cut, has rejoined the company as executive managing editor, reporting to
Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, the majority owner of the Crackle Plus free streaming-video joint venture with Sony Pictures Television, announced Philippe Guelton, a digital-media and publishing veteran, as president of the JV. Guelton, who joined CSS Entertainment in January 2019, also will remain as executive VP of CSS Entertainment and president of VOD
June 4, 2019 10:13AM PT Spotify’s personalized radio app Stations is now available to U.S. consumers: The free app, which offers music fans a way to stream curated and personalized radio stations similar to Pandora, debuted on the U.S. App Store and Google Play Monday. Techcrunch was first to spot the release Tuesday. “Easily create
Tig Notoro is hosting a new talk show in which she interviews famous people like James Van Der Beek – but she apparently has no idea who they are. The stand-up comic, writer, radio contributor and actor hosts “Under a Rock With Tig Notaro,” a six-episode series from Funny Or Die that’s part talk show
June 4, 2019 6:00AM PT USA Today launched a new Women’s World Cup augmented reality (AR) experience as part of its mobile apps Tuesday that gives users a chance to step into the shoes of Team USA goalie Alyssa Naeher. With the help of AR, users can practice blocking penalty kicks from a life-size goal,
As frightening as the world has become in the past three years, it’s also loaded with opportunity — commercial and otherwise — for a music industry rejuvenated by streaming but also ripe for change. The 50-plus-year-old annual Midem conference in Cannes has shrunk a bit as a horde of competitors has emerged, but it remains
If there’s one thing the European industry can agree on ahead of the Variety European TV Summit it’s this: a flood of OTT launches looks set to upend the TV market. New streaming services from global companies like Disney, Warner Bros., Comcast and Apple, as well as local players such as ITV and the BBC’s
FloSports, a provider of live-streaming and on-demand niche sports programming, announced a $47 million Series C funding round, led by current investor Discovery. The round, which brings FloSports to $75 million raised to date, also included participation from other existing FloSports investors WWE, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments, Causeway Media Partners, DCM Ventures, and Fertitta Capital,
Apple used its worldwide developer conference (WWDC) in San Jose, Calif. Monday to preview the next major versions of its mobile and desktop operating systems. In addition to announcing that it would replace iTunes with 3 dedicated media apps, Apple also showed off a bunch of new products and features. Among the announcements, 3 stood
June 3, 2019 1:48PM PT Hold off on the iTunes epitaphs: Apple’s iTunes Store is remaining in place, and the iTunes software for Windows will live on. Here’s what the tech giant announced at its 2019 Worldwide Developers Conference on Monday: With the introduction of macOS X 10.15 (code-named “Catalina”), the iTunes software application will
Apple used its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, Calif., Monday to officially announce its plans to end the Mac version of iTunes. The company will phase out its well-known media application with the introduction of OS X 10.15, code-named Catalina, which is expected to be released in September alongside the next version of iOS
June 3, 2019 10:36AM PT [embedded content] At long last, Apple has dropped a full trailer for one of its upcoming originals. The first show to get the treatment is “For All Mankind,” the alt-history drama series from Ronald D. Moore that imagines a world in which the space race between the U.S. and the
June 3, 2019 10:22AM PT Apple introduced a new version of tvOS for at its worldwide developer conference (WWDC) in San Jose, Calif. Monday. The new version of tVOS comes with a redesigned user interface as well as multi-user support, allowing Apple TV owners to access personal content recommendations for each and every household member.
Apple said it will also be contributing to the development costs and working closely with creators to bring the games to life. The service will feature games from Annapurna Interactive, Bossa Studios, Cartoon Network, Finji, Giant Squid, Klei Entertainment, Konami, LEGO, Mistwalker Corporation, SEGA, Snowman, ustwo games and dozens more. Apple has already announced a
June 3, 2019 9:53AM PT In a surprise move, Ole Obermann, Warner Music’s chief digital officer, is leaving the company, a rep confirmed to Variety. The news was first reported by Music Business Worldwide. A source tells Variety that the parting was basically mutual and Obermann elected not to renew his contract, and that Warner
Twitter, as part of ongoing efforts to improve the “health” of discussions on the platform, announced that it has acquired U.K.-based artificial-intelligence startup Fabula AI. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The initial focus for Fabula as part of Twitter “will be to improve the health of the conversation, with expanding applications to stop spam
June 3, 2019 8:30AM PT Facebook’s new Oculus Quest virtual reality (VR) headset will get a second browser any day now: Mozilla, the non-profit behind the popular Firefox browser, has been working on a Quest version of its Firefox Reality VR browser, a spokesperson told Variety over the weekend. “Mozilla was part of the Oculus
YouTube is taking additional steps to restrict the possibility that children will be targeted by predators on the video platform — including banning young kids from live-streaming with adult supervision. The Google-owned video platform, in a blog post Monday, also said it is limiting recommendations of videos that depict “minors in risky situations.” The updated
Carnival Cruise Line is creating some high-seas drama of its own. The cruise-line operator is working with travel-and-entertainment recommendation site Thrillist to launch “Island Hoppers,” a comedy-competition series that will begin to stream via Thrillist’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter channels. Thanks to Discovery’s stake in Thrillist parent Group Nine, the series will also make
Apple is widely expected to formalize the end of iTunes as we know it at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Jose, Calif. Monday, when the company will give us a first view at the next versions of its desktop and mobile operating systems. As part of that update, Apple is poised to unveil new
When Katie Nolan hosts an ESPN telecast of Game 2 of the NBA Finals this Sunday, some viewers may think she’s there to rattle off play by play. Others may think she’s ready to laugh with pals. And executives at the sports-media giant are OK with that. Nolan, analyst Jay Williams, Snapchat “SportsCenter” host Gary