Capitulating to outside pressure, after a barrage of media reports citing unsafe conditions for minors, Roblox is implementing new safeguards. Parents can now access parental controls from their own devices in addition to their child’s device and monitor their child’s screen time. New content labels and improvements to how users under age 13 can communicate on Roblox are additional protections that are now baked into the platform. “We’ve spent nearly two decades building strong safety systems, but we are always evolving our systems as new technology becomes available,” explained the Roblox. Continue reading Roblox Tightens Child Safety Guidelines Amidst Media Outcry

YouTube has come up with a new way for creators to earn. During vertical live streams, viewers can now gift hosts with “Jewels,” a form of digital currency available for purchase. The gifts appear onscreen as animations during vertical live streams, but are a cash equivalent for creators. The initial denomination, “Rubies,” equal one cent per stone, or about $1 per 100 Rubies. The new feature is rolling out to eligible creators in the U.S. who are currently enrolled in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and have accepted the Virtual Items Module in YouTube Studio. Continue reading YouTube Introduces Jewels, a New Way for Creators to Earn

AI is apparently whetting appetites for more than creative exploration. Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, says its new AI-driven marketing campaigns are driving more customers into stores, increasing purchases and reducing churn. Trials with “personalized marketing campaigns” that leverage artificial intelligence to produce are leading to strong results, according to the company. Meanwhile, Coca-Cola has revamped its circa 1995 “Holidays Are Coming” TV ad with the help of artificial intelligence and production studio Secret Level, though the critical and customer reaction to that has reportedly been mixed. Continue reading Small to Super-Sized Businesses Are Getting a Boost from AI

A digital avatar may soon join the talent lineup on ESPN’s college football show “SEC Nation.” Called FACTS, the AI-generated character was developed at the ESPN Edge Innovation Center as “a way to help foster engagement and educate fans on complex sports analytics,” according to ESPN. The avatar was unveiled last week at the 4th Annual ESPN Edge Conference. Built on Nvidia’s Omniverse platform, using the company’s ACE microservices, FACTS integrates with Azure OpenAI for natural language processing and ElevenLabs for text-to-speech integration. Continue reading ESPN Readies a Data-Filled Sports Talk Host Generated by AI

The Walt Disney Company’s revenue rose to $91.4 billion for its fiscal year 2024, which ended September 28, a 2.8 percent increase from 2023. For the fourth quarter, revenue rose 6 percent to $22.6 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations. Company-wide, net profit climbed 74 percent in Q4, to $460 million, thanks largely to the strength of the streaming and theatrical film units. Improvements in the Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ businesses marked the streaming sector’s second consecutive quarterly profit. Net profit for the year was a tick under $5 billion, up a whopping 111 percent from 2023. The results sent Disney shares up 6.2 percent on Thursday. Continue reading Disney Ends Fiscal Q4 Strong Thanks to Movies and Streaming

LG Display has unveiled what it is calling “the world’s first stretchable display,” a screen capable of elongated up to 50 percent, “the highest rate in the industry.” At LG Sciencepark in Seoul this month, the company demonstrated the new panel at a meeting of more than 100 South Korean industry, academia and research stakeholders involved in a stretchable display national project. The free-form prototype has a 12-inch screen that can be folded and twisted and stretched up to 18 inches while continuing to deliver resolution of 100ppi and full RGB color by using a silicon substrate and special wiring structure. Continue reading LG Says Its New Flexible Screen Can Stretch Up to 50 Percent

YouTube has added a new feature to its Dream Track toolset, which lets select U.S. creators use AI to generate songs using the vocals of artists including John Legend, Demi Lovato, Charli XCX, Charlie Puth and others. Now users can remix Dream Track songs using natural language to describe the changes they would like, stylistic and otherwise. Selecting the “restyle a track” option will steer users to creating a 30-second generative snippet for use in YouTube Shorts. The remixed snippets will credit the original song with “clear attribution” through the Short itself and the Shorts audio pivot page. It will also clearly indicate that the track was restyled with AI, according to Google. Continue reading YouTube Dream Track Toolset Introduces an AI Remix Feature

DeepL, a German company that gained a profile with online text translation, has released DeepL Voice, a B2B tool that translates to captions in real time. DeepL Voice debuts in two iterations: DeepL Voice for Meetings, which allows participants to speak in their preferred language while serving colleagues with captions, and DeepL Voice for Conversations, which works on mobile devices, facilitating in-person, one-on-one conversations “with customers, colleagues or anyone else, in the language that works best for them,” the company explains, noting that real-time voice translation offers specific challenges. Continue reading DeepL Voice Translates 33 Languages to Captions in Real Time

Reports indicate that Meta Platforms is preparing to introduce advertising to Threads, perhaps as soon as January. Threads is the year-old social platform it launched to compete with Twitter in July 2023, the same month Elon Musk was rebranding that platform as X. Meta is looking to begin Threads’ transition to ad support by initially allowing only a small group of advertisers to create and publish ads before opening the platform to the ad industry at large later in the year. Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri, who also runs Threads, has said Meta is “definitely” planning to open ad inventory on Threads. Continue reading Meta Readies Year-Old Threads for Advertising in Early 2025

Signal, the encrypted messaging app, has added video call features that could position the company as a rival to communication platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Signal has also added a “Calls” tab that lets users initiate new calls, review call history and create call links, which can conveniently be shared with colleagues via normal messaging instead of having to create specific call groups. The reusable links also make it easy to share invites for recurring calls. Signal Calls is available for iOS, Android and desktop. The desktop app lets users choose between grid, sidebar and speaker views. Continue reading Signal’s New Video Call Feature Takes on Zoom, Meet, Teams

Particle, the AI-powered news aggregator created by a pair of Twitter alums, has launched after a year in beta. The iOS app summarizes current events in quick hits the startup says do not violate the copyrights of publishers whose news it shares. Instead of simply scraping publishers’ work for proprietary use, the startup seeks to compensate publishers and drive traffic to news sites with prominent links to sources accompanying each AI news summary. Developed by Sara Beykpour and Marcel Molina, Particle has raised more than $11 million in early funding led by Lightspeed. Continue reading Particle Launches AI News App That Summarizes in Quick Hits

Ernie, the foundation model for Baidu’s generative AI, has been updated with iRAG technology to mitigate visual hallucinations and a no-code tool called Miaoda that creates apps using natural language. The company behind China’s largest search engine says Ernie now handles 1.5 billion daily user queries, up from 50 million circa its March 2023 launch (a 30x increase). Baidu also debuted Ernie-powered smart glasses from its Xiaodu Technology hardware unit. The Xiaodu AI Glasses features built-in voice activation and cameras for taking photos and video. The news was shared at this week’s Baidu World 2024 in Shanghai. Continue reading Baidu’s Ernie AI Gets Improved Text-to-Image and App Builder

Clip It, the Roblox social media contender in the TikTok space, has crossed the one billion views threshold, according to the company. Roblox reportedly plans to leverage that achievement by launching an ad-supported product for Clip It that merges aspects of its custom-branded Roblox game spaces with programmatic advertising. Clip It offers an endless feed of short-form video, with video ads peppered amidst the content, drawing comparisons to TikTok. Clip It currently serves the same programmatic ads as the Roblox mothership, but that is about to change, thanks to its growing popularity. Continue reading Roblox Plans an Ad Revamp as ‘Clip It’ Passes 1 Billion Views

TiVo owner Xperi is gearing up for the launch of TiVo OS-powered smart TVs in the U.S., with production beginning as soon as this month. The company revealed that a U.S. manufacturing partner will enter production sometime in November, with another partner expected to do the same shortly after. Xperi expects to achieve its target goal of at least two million TiVo OS smart TVs on shelves by year’s end, which is about double what is currently available. However, the company addressed shipment delays that could push monetization expectations to 2025. Xperi is projecting seven million TiVo OS smart TVs will enter the global market by the end of next year. Continue reading Xperi Plans Launch of TiVo OS Smart TVs by End of This Year

Nvidia is updating its cloud-based GeForce NOW game platform with 1440p streaming, ultrawide resolution and, in lieu of a price increase, a 100-hour monthly playtime cap for new subscribers at the Priority tier (now called Performance), or Ultimate level, effective January 1. Existing Priority members will be automatically upgraded to Performance, which also lets members save in-game graphics settings across streaming sessions, including GeForce RTX features in supported titles. Ultimate members continue with RTX 4080-powered game performance of up to 4K resolution at 120 fps, or 1080p and 240 fps in Competitive mode. Continue reading Nvidia Ups GeForce NOW Gaming Cloud to 1440p Streaming