Tech

Annie Wersching, an actor best known for her roles in “24” and “Bosch” and for voicing Tess in the 2013 video game “The Last of Us,” has died following a two-year battle with cancer. She was 45. Wersching’s death was confirmed through a GoFundMe campaign, shared to draw financial support for the actor’s family. The

DATES Project Brazen and PRX released their new podcast, “The Sound: Mystery of Havana Syndrome Podcast” with international journalist, Nicky Woolf, on Jan. 23. The eight part investigative narrative podcast will peek behind the curtain, and uncover the unsettling global medical mystery affecting American diplomats and spies. “The Sound” will transport listeners to Havana, Cuba

Coming soon to BuzzFeed: a new pop-culture quiz — possibly generated by a robot. BuzzFeed, amid an economic downturn that last month led it to lay off 12% of its workforce, this year will increasingly rely on artificial-intelligence technology to help produce content, CEO Jonah Peretti said in an email to staff Thursday. In 2023,

Dotdash Meredith, the IAC publishing division whose brands include People, EW, Real Simple and Better Homes & Gardens, is the latest media entity to cut jobs amid a decline in ad spending and looming “economic uncertainty,” CEO Neil Vogel said in a memo to staffers Thursday. Dotdash Meredith was formed in the fall of 2021

Meta said it will reinstate Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks — two years after he was suspended from the platforms for violating rules against inciting violence — with “new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.” “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the

Elon Musk, Twitter’s new overlord, promised advertisers that he wouldn’t turn the social network into a “free-for-all hellscape.” But many big marketers didn’t believe him — and hundreds temporarily halted their spending on Twitter amid concerns that Musk’s ownership would present “brand safety” risks. The concern: that their ads could show up adjacent to hate

Netflix has set a Feb. 15 drop date for its new Italian original series “The Law According to Lidia Poët,” a period piece about Italy’s first female lawyer. The show will go out globally roughly one month after Netflix’s well-received Elena Ferrante adaptation “The Lying Life of Adults.” It features rising Italian star Matilda De

Vice Media Group has signed a substantial content partnership with Saudi-owned MBC Group, the Middle East’s top broadcaster. The wide-ranging deal will see the financially ailing youth-focused digital media company create Arabic-language content exclusively for MBC “across a wide range of lifestyle verticals, including food, music, fashion, the visual arts, and video games,” according to

Microsoft reported its slowest top-line growth in more than six years, with total revenue inching up 2% for the December 2022 quarter, and took an $800 million charge related to its layoff of 10,000 employees. Last week the tech giant announced it was eliminating 10,000 positions, about 5% of its global workforce, amid signs of

The Justice Department, along with eight states, has filed a new antitrust lawsuit against Google, alleging the tech giant has engaged in anticompetitive conduct to preserve a “monopolistic grip” on digital advertising. The eight states joining the suit include Virginia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Tennessee. “Google, a single company

The Podcast Academy has tapped Larry Wilmore, Emmy-winning producer, writer, comedian, actor and podcast host, to host its third annual Awards for Excellence in Audio — a.ka. “The Ambies,” positioned as the Oscars of the podcast space. The March 7 ceremony will be livestreamed on Twitch from the International Theater in Las Vegas from 6-7:30

Apple recruited Nick Mohammed — one of the stars of “Ted Lasso,” Apple TV+’s biggest show — for a short film (i.e., a commercial) extolling the built-in privacy features of the iPhone. The running joke in the short, “A Day in the Life of an Average Person’s Data,” is that Mohammed wants to be recognized

The colorful, talking M&Ms “spokescandies” — you’ve no doubt seen them in countless ads — are taking an “indefinite pause,” the company announced Monday, after they received some strange blowback from Tucker Carlson that went viral on Twitter after the candies’ last makeover. Comedian Maya Rudolph will now be the face of M&Ms and appear

“Do or not do. There is no try.” — Yoda (“The Empire Strikes Back,” 1980) Disney’s prowess as an entertainment powerhouse is undisputed. Aaron LaBerge, chief technology officer of the Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution (DMED) division, argues that the company also has also built an industry-leading competency in ad tech. Over the last several

Netflix still spends a small fortune on content. But relatively speaking, the streamer in 2022 kept a lid on payments for TV shows and movies — underscoring that the days of runaway spending on programming are behind it. Last year, the streamer paid out $16.84 billion on a cash basis for content, which was 4.9%

Variety.com, the online home of legacy brand and weekly entertainment business magazine Variety, scored record-breaking traffic in 2022. An average of 28.5M unique users visited the site each month in 2022 — and Variety reached a bigger digital audience than consumer news publications such as Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly, as measured by unique visitors

Digital media firm Vox Media, home of brands including Vox.com, SB Nation, New York Magazine, Vulture, The Verge, Thrillist and NowThis, is laying off 7% of its workforce across departments, resulting in the elimination of about 130 jobs. Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff informed employees of the cuts in a memo Friday, citing “the challenging

Amazon Music is getting a bit pricier for some customers. In the U.S. the Amazon Music Unlimited individual plan for non-Prime members is rising $1 per month, from $9.99 to $10.99 per month. In addition, the Amazon Music unlimited student plan is going from $4.99 to $5.99 per month. In the U.K., Amazon Music Unlimited

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is laying off 12,000 employees, CEO Sundar Pichai revealed in a blog post on Friday. The lay offs will reduce the company’s global work force by 6%. In an email to Google employees, Pichai wrote: “I have some difficult news to share. We’ve decided to reduce our workforce by

Netflix’s new co-CEO duo, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters, along with Reed Hastings, who’s stepping into an executive chairman role, discussed the leadership change and more on its fourth-quarter 2022 earnings interview. Overall, the execs said there’s no significant change in strategy with the executive changes. “We’ve always been focused on the future and where

Reed Hastings, co-founder and co-CEO of Netflix, has stepped down as chief executive officer. He remains an employee of the company, serving as executive chairman of the board. Ted Sarandos, co-CEO and formerly chief content officer, and Greg Peters, previously chief product officer and COO, will now serve jointly as co-CEOs. In addition, Netflix named

Fandom has made an unspecified number of layoffs at GameSpot, Giant Bomb, Metacritic and TV Guide — four months after buying the entertainment and gaming sites for about $50 million — and also has let go other Fandom employees. Multiple staffers of the websites affected by the job cuts posted on social media Thursday about

Manta, the South Korea-based digital comics publisher, announced today the platform will begin offering its content in the Spanish language. The Jan. 18 soft launch of the service marks Manta’s latest move toward global expansion as the platform grows in popularity among Spanish-language readers. A full launch is expected to follow suit, though an official

It doesn’t take an industry insider to understand how busy Kevin Hart is. But what his many fans may not know is that in addition to the many films, TV series and stand-up performances that feature his talents, Hart also has a budding media empire he’s been building with its CEO, Thai Randolph. Hart turned

Apple is back, big time, in the smart speaker space: The tech giant announced its second-generation full-size HomePod — promising “next-level acoustics” — representing a new competitor to the likes of Amazon’s Echo, Google’s Nest and Sonos speakers. The launch of the new $299 HomePod, which measures 5.6 inches wide and 6.6 inches high, comes

Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amer (“Mo,” “Ramy,” “Black Adam”) will host of the next season of the televised debate series Doha Debates. The series is an entertaining, educational tool funded by the non-profit Qatar Foundation. Filmed in front of a live studio audience in Qatar’s Education City, each episode of the Doha Debates show will feature a

Tech giant Microsoft said it is cutting 10,000 jobs, representing about 5% of its global workforce, in an effort to cut costs amid signs of an economic slowdown. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced the layoffs in a memo to staff Wednesday, which the company disclosed in an SEC filing. The job cuts will occur through

Fuse Group, a visual effects firm that has acquired a number of smaller shops in recent years with private equity backing, has changed its name to Pitch Black as it looks to grow into a top post-production vendor for studios and streamers who need to produce content at high volume. Pitch Black CEO Sébastien Bergeron

Meta is still buying VR entertainment content — and Eli Roth, for one, is still selling. “Eli Roth’s Be Mine: A VR Valentine’s Slasher,” a 30-minute virtual reality horror experience starring Peyton List (“Cobra Kai,” “Bunk’d”), will launch in Meta Horizon Worlds and Meta Quest TV, available in Meta Quest VR headsets, on Friday, Feb.

Premium audio storytelling platform Audible announced a multiproject development and first-look deal with award-winning actor, director and producer Daniel Dae Kim. The first project under the pact is “Yellow Face,” an audio adaptation of David Henry Hwang’s play of the same name that will be produced by Audible Studios in collaboration with Kim’s 3AD production