Tech

Lara Cohen, after exiting Elon Musk’s Twitter last fall, is joining Linktree as VP of partners and business development. At Linktree, Cohen will oversee business development, strategic partnerships with tech platforms and the company’s community of creators across entertainment, music and other verticals. She reports to Linktree president Mike Olson. Cohen previously was Twitter’s global

Hoyeon and Donald Glover were among the honorees at the inaugural GQ Global Creativity Awards on Thursday at the WSA, a new cultural center in downtown Manhattan. Hosted by musical artist Ian Isiah, the black tie gala spotlighted several multidisciplinary creatives that encompass such industries as fashion, film, television, music, tech and design. The inaugural

Audible’s hit podcast “Bitter Blood” is back for a second season — and the service has tapped “Succession” star Alan Ruck to narrate a story with as much intrigue and drama as his TV family’s. “Murdoch v. Murdoch,” out April 6, is an eight-part deep dive into the Murdoch family, unearthing the contention and hostilities

British YouTuber, rapper and boxer Olajide Olayinka Williams JJ Olatunji, known professionally as KSI, has apologized again after a racial slur. On Sunday, KSI appeared in a mockup of U.K. game show “Countdown” and formed the word “P**i,” a pejorative term used to describe people of South Asian origin in the U.K. The subsequently deleted clip

In a shake-up of Disney’s streaming leadership ranks, the company is moving Hulu president Joe Earley into the role of president of direct-to-consumer for Disney Entertainment effective immediately — succeeding Michael Paull, who is leaving Disney after six years. In the new role, Earley will lead Disney Entertainment’s streaming businesses including Disney+ and Hulu, reporting

Savvy Games Group announced an agreement to acquire Scopely, a maker of mobile games including “Star Trek Fleet Command,” “Marvel Strike Force,” “Looney Tunes World of Mayhem,” “Scrabble Go” and “Yahtzee With Buddies,” in a deal valued at $4.9 billion. Savvy, a games and esports company that is wholly owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment

Bob Lee, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor and executive who created Cash App, died Tuesday after he was fatally stabbed in San Francisco, according to reports. He was 43. Lee was formerly CTO of Jack Dorsey’s payments company Square (which is now called Block) and most recently was the chief product officer at cryptocurrency company

Elon Musk’s Twitter slapped a new label on the account of American public radio broadcaster NPR that says it is “US state-affiliated media.” Other Twitter accounts with the state-affiliated media label include Russia Today (RT), Russia’s Sputnik and China’s Xinhua News. In a statement to Variety, NPR president and CEO John Lansing said, “We were

Paris’ NewImages Festival and parent organization Forum des Images have recently launched NewImages Hub, a support network offering XR professionals a set of complementary creative and mentoring programs throughout the year. Divided into three poles, the new lab will help immersive projects across development, production, and distribution, offering residencies and networking assistance at each phase.

Running April 5 – 9 at Paris’ Forum des Images, this year’s NewImages Festival reflects a young medium ever on the move, an ecosystem looking backwards and ahead in order to reimagine itself for the here-and-now. “We don’t want to be limited by someone else’s vision,” festival director Michele Ziegler tells Variety. “We don’t want

Variety scored four nominations for the 27th annual Webby Awards, including a nod for best entertainment website of the year. The publication’s nominations are for: entertainment website (in the general websites and mobile sites category); editorial writing (in the features and design category); Variety Power of Women 2022 from Los Angeles (under events and livestreams

TikTok has been fined more than $15 million by Britain’s data watchdog for failing to enforce rules under which children under the age of 13 are not allowed to use the social media platform without parental consent. The U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on Tuesday said the Chinese-owned video app didn’t do enough to prevent

Elon Musk is now using the design of Twitter itself to make hilarious (?) jokes. On Monday, without warning, the iconic Twitter bird logo above the home button on the social network’s web version changed to the “doge” of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. (Twitter’s mobile apps weren’t changed.) The doge image (of a Shiba Inu) is

The Italian government’s decision on Friday to ban artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT – becoming the world’s first country to block the chatbot – is sparking local controversy. The move is being criticized within the government itself just as Italy’s entertainment industry is up in arms against Silicon Valley on several other fronts. Italy’s Data Protection

British YouTuber, rapper and boxer Olajide Olayinka Williams JJ Olatunji, known professionally as KSI, has apologized after a racial slur and will take a break from social media. KSI is a co-founder and member of YouTube group the Sidemen. On Sunday, KSI and the Sidemen appeared in a video based on U.K. game show “Countdown”

Twitter had said it was going to start removing the blue check-marks of legacy verified users starting April 1, so that only people who paid Elon Musk’s company $8 or $11 per month would have the badge going forward. On Sunday, Twitter did something different: It updated the language in the description of verified users

Zenia Mucha, formerly Disney’s top spokesperson for almost two decades, was recruited as part of the team that coached TikTok’s CEO for his congressional hearing earlier this month, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. In addition to Mucha, TikTok tapped former Obama advisers David Plouffe and Jim Messina to prep Shou

About half of Americans are in favor of the U.S. government banning TikTok, the hugely popular video app owned by China-based internet giant ByteDance. Amid intensifying scrutiny of and antagonism toward TikTok, a newly released survey by Pew Research Center found that 50% of Americans support a U.S. government ban on the app, with 22%

Elon Musk-owned Twitter says that as of Saturday, April 1, it will begin removing “legacy” verified badges from individuals and organizations approved under the company’s previous criteria. Going forward, only paying customers will be granted the verified check-marks, which are now blue for individuals, gold for brands and companies, and gray for governmental organizations. Twitter

The Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, has canceled its 2023 event. E3 was previously scheduled to take place June 13-16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, in-person for the first time since 2019. The gaming convention, once considered the most influential showcase in the industry, was canceled in 2020 and 2022 due to COVID-19 concerns.

If nothing else, $44 billion has bought Twitter power-user Elon Musk status as the No. 1 most-followed account on the social network. As of Thursday morning, Musk had 133.088 million users — up more than 20% since he closed the Twitter deal last October. That pushed the billionaire ahead of the previously most-followed account, that

Roku is handing out pink slips again and exiting some office space as the streaming platform company takes additional steps to rein in costs. The company said Thursday it will lay off about 200 employees, or 6% of the company’s remaining workforce. In addition, Roku said, it will exit and sublease (or discontinue use of)

Electronic Arts will cut 6% of its headcount, amounting to about 800 jobs, and reduce its office space, the company announced. The video game company, whose popular titles include “Madden NFL,” “EA Sports FIFA 23,” “Apex Legends” and “The Sims,” is restructuring to focus on “strategic priorities,” CEO Andrew Wilson said in a memo distributed

Apple announced that this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will take place June 5-9, 2023 — and it could be the virtual launching pad for the tech giant’s long-awaited mixed-reality headset. WWDC23 will be presented in an “online format,” free to all registered Apple developers, although the company also will stage an in-person “special experience”

Critical Role, the company that adapted its popular and long-running Dungeons & Dragons livestreamed campaigns into animated series “The Legend of Vox Machina” on Prime Video, has made its first acquisition. Metapigeon, Critical Role’s development and production company, announced the acquisition of podcast “Midst,” described as a semi-improvised audio drama. Financial terms of the deal

George Michael’s enduringly popular 1984 chart-topper “Careless Whisper” has officially surpassed 1 billion views on YouTube. “Careless Whisper,” originally released on Wham!’s album “Make It Big,” has averaged more than 400,000 daily views globally on YouTube in 2023, according to the video platform. The official music video of the ’80s classic, which Michael wrote with

Jake Shane, a 23-year-old comedian and TikTok content creator best known for his character dubbed “octopusslover8,” has signed for representation with WME. To date, Shane’s octopusslover8 has gained 1.5 million followers on TikTok alone, with celebs and companies commenting on his posts including Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and Hulu. His bio on TikTok reads, “Rating/reviewing

Adnan Syed’s murder conviction — which gained worldwide attention from the hit podcast “Serial” in 2014 — has taken another turn. A Maryland court has reinstated Syed’s conviction after it was previously overturned in September 2022 and Syed was released from prison. The Appellate Court of Maryland ruled on Tuesday that a lower court had

As part of a companywide cost-cutting effort, Disney has axed its cross-divisional Next Generation Storytelling & Consumer Experiences group, which encompassed the Mouse House’s metaverse ambitions. The elimination of Disney’s Next Generation Storytelling & Consumer Experiences group, led by company veteran Mike White, affects about 50 employees, Variety confirmed. The news was first reported by

The changes at Elon Musk’s Twitter just keep coming. On Monday, Musk — who became the CEO of the social media giant when he purchased it in October — announced that starting in April, only verified accounts will show up in Twitter’s For You recommendations. This follows Musk’s revelation last week that all users with