Tech

Elon Musk should bring Vine back from the dead — if not the app or the brand itself, a short-form video feature like the one pioneered by Twitter’s long-defunct and dearly departed app. Of course, Musk has more urgent business to attend to after he finally closed the rocky $44 billion Twitter deal this week.

Paperwork filed Friday morning confirms Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is the proud new owner of Twitter — and that the social network that is now privately held. An SEC filing Friday by the New York Stock Exchange was a formal notification that Twitter’s stock was delisted. That means Musk’s $44 billion acquisition has

First launched in Korea by Naver Webtoon in 2004, webtoons – comics read on smartphones and other devices – have become a worldwide phenomenon, consumed in more than 100 countries. That includes Japan, where webtoons – published in full-color in an easy-to-read vertical scrolling format – have challenged the supremacy of Japan’s native manga, which are

In a stunning development, internet users learned that the actor Vin Diesel bears an uncanny resemblance to scientists’ best guess of what Adam, the very first human who existed on Earth, looked like. According to a tweet indie theater operator Alamo Drafthouse NYC posted Thursday, “Scientists at Princeton University have reconstructed this 3D model of

Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter. The mega-billionaire’s $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter — following a six-month saga during which Musk tried to back out of the pact and Twitter sued to enforce the terms of his buyout — officially closed Thursday, as first reported by CNBC and followed by multiple reports. The

Netflix is getting a major new IRL point of sale for merchandise based on “Stranger Things,” “Squid Games” and other originals. Timed for the 2022 holiday shopping season, Walmart and Netflix announced an expansion of their previous online-only deal. Under the new agreement, the retailing giant is now stocking the streamer’s merchandise and gift cards

Japanese producer Wada Arihiro and multihyphenate Ito Taichi have unveiled CinemaAirLane, an international distribution platform that will deliver international films directly to U.S. theatres. The company’s system makes it possible to monetize films which do not have a distributor. It can also be used for distribution and marketing materials The minimum technical criteria are for

Apple was the only large tech company to beat Wall Street forecasts for the third quarter, posting top-line growth of 8% for the September quarter to reach $90.15 billion. That said, Apple’s Services business unit, which encompasses the App Store and subscription services like Apple TV+ and Apple Music, recorded revenue of $19.19 billion in

Despite inflationary headwinds Amazon pulled in a double-digit increase in third-quarter sales, which were up 15% to $127.1 billion, but still came in shy of Wall Street revenue expectations. The company expects growth to slow down considerably in Q4, projecting net sales for the year-end quarter to be between $140 billion and $148 billion, or

For four seasons, Jemele Hill has hosted the popular Spotify-exclusive podcast “Jemele Hill Is Unbothered,” and now she’s expanding her podcast empire. Hill has partnered with Spotify to expand her podcast and production company, the “Unbothered Network,” to house two additional podcasts led by Black women — “Sanctified” and “Black Girl Bravado” — furthering the

Marketing veteran Tammy Henault is jumping from Paramount Global to the NBA. The National Basketball Association announced that Henault has been named chief marketing officer. She replaces Kate Jhaveri, the former Twitch exec who left the NBA in August 2022 after three years at the league. Henault is currently senior VP of consumer marketing, streaming,

The official Twitter account of the right-leaning New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, was hacked Thursday morning before the publication restored control. The hacker or hackers who hijacked the Post’s Twitter account posted links to fake stories with extremely inflammatory headlines, including “We Must Assassinate AOC for America,” referring to Rep. Alexandria

Mega-billionaire Elon Musk, nearing the finish line in his rocky takeover of Twitter, posted an open letter to advertisers on the the social network — seeking to calm their nerves that he won’t turn Twitter into a fever swamp of misinformation and hate speech. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who is the world’s

Instagram has deleted a second account set up by Pornhub on the social service, which the adult-content site had created after Instagram removed its previous @pornhub account nearly two months ago in a permanent ban. In an Oct. 18 tweet, Pornhub had said, “We are BACK on Instagram with our new official account : p.hub.forever

Meta was buffeted by a broad ad-spending slowdown in the third quarter, reporting a year-over-year revenue decline of 4%, while its heavy metaverse investments continued to eat into earnings. The company said its flagship Facebook app had 1.984 billion daily active users on average in Q3, up around 16 million from 1.968 billion the prior

Disney is not currently in the market to buy another studio or network, chief executive officer Bob Chapek said. “We have the best creative teams, the best brands and franchises in the world,” said Chapek, speaking at the WSJ Tech Live 2022 conference Wednesday. “We’re quite happy to have the output level across our channels

Diva Media Group, in partnership with A Baker Production and Tello Films founder Christin Baker, is launching the LGBTQ streaming network DivaBoxOffice.tv. The channel premieres Dec. 1 on iTunes, Google Play, Roku and Amazon Firestick, among other major platforms. DivaBoxOffice.tv will include over 100 hours of queer programming, with Baker serving as president and CEO.

The original version of “The Witcher” — the fantasy video game that spawned the popular Netflix series of the same name — is getting fully rebuilt from the ground up, in Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. “The Witcher” remake is currently in the early stages of development at Polish game studio Fool’s Theory, “where veteran

Dana Carvey and Conan O’Brien, two “Saturday Night Live” alums, have teamed on a scripted comedy podcast that takes a weird trip back to the ’60s-era “Twilight Zone.” “The Weird Place,” executive produced by Carvey, is an episodic sci-fi comedy adventure set featuring “manipulative aliens,” time-traveling pirates and a “power-hungry madman with a magic globe,”

ESPN has sold a majority stake in the X Games — its 27-year-old extreme sports event franchise — to private-equity firm MSP Sports Capital. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. MSP will assume day-to-day operational control of the X Games business, which will spin off from ESPN. ESPN Productions Inc. will retain a

Spotify added more users on both its free and paid tiers in the third quarter than expected, with the company citing particular strength in Latin America for the outperformance. Total monthly active users (MAUs) grew 20% to 456 million — 6 million above Spotify’s prior guidance — a net addition of 23 million, representing its

A pullback in ad spending cramped YouTube’s revenue for the third quarter of 2022, with Google’s video platform notching $7.07 billion in ad sales — a decline of 1.9%, falling well short of Wall Street forecasts and representing its first year-over-year drop in at least two years. Overall, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, also came in

A new podcast from Oscar Isaac and writer Edgar Castillo takes listeners on an unbelievable tale of murder and political corruption in “The Rosenberg Case” from indie studio Cavalry Audio. Issac (above left) serves as executive producer of the 10-episode true-crime series alongside Castillo (above right) and Cavalry Media’s Keegan Rosenberger and Dana Brunetti. “The

Characters created by beloved children’s author Roald Dahl are coming to the Calm meditation and sleep app, in a series of bedtime stories read by actors including Henry Golding and Kirby Howell-Baptiste. Calm entered into a multiyear deal with the Roald Dahl Story Company, which Netflix acquired last year, for a series of exclusive Sleep

Apple is hiking fees for the Apple Music and Apple TV+ subscription services for the first time. In the U.S., the cost of Apple TV+ for new and existing subscribers will increase to $6.99 per month. That’s a 40% increase form the original $4.99 per month, the price point it originally launched at in November

YouTube has raised the price on the YouTube Premium Family plan, the version of its ad-free, offline-viewing and music subscription service that provides access to up to six accounts. In the U.S., the price of YouTube Premium Family has gone up from $17.99 to $22.99 per month, an increase of 28%. According to Google, for

Rodolphe Belmer has quit Netflix’s board of directors after serving on the board since January 2018. Netflix disclosed the French business exec’s departure in a regulatory filing Friday. Belmer informed the company on Oct. 19 that he will be resigning from the board effective Oct. 27, 2022. “Mr. Belmer’s resignation is not due to any

Taylor Swift has joined YouTube Shorts as part of a multistage launch for her new album “Midnights,” unveiled the #TSAntiHeroChallenge — designed to push the platform’s TikTok-like short-form video feature. For the first time, Swift is inviting fans to share their anti-heroic traits to the soundtrack of the newly released track “Anti-Hero” exclusively on YouTube

TikTok pushed back on a report that ByteDance, its Chinese parent, planned to use the app to track the physical locations of at least two U.S. citizens. On Thursday, Forbes reported that ByteDance’s Internal Audit and Risk Control department, which investigates possible misconduct by employees, in at least two cases planned to “collect TikTok data

Elon Musk could be set to slash Twitter’s headcount drastically once his $44 billion deal for the social network goes through. The mega-billionaire has told potential investors in the Twitter deal that he plans to lay off almost 75% the company’s staff, or about 5,500 employees, to reduce the size of its workforce from 7,500