Netflix is thinking about adding video podcasts as an inexpensive way to expand program offerings and boost engagement. The streamer has reportedly been in discussions with agencies in recent months, exploring talent to host talk-based video podcast shows. Netflix execs had previously considered the format but were skeptical it could work on the platform. Having witnessed YouTube’s explosive growth on television screens, which have surpassed mobile and desktop in terms of viewing hours, podcasts are now getting a second look as an entry point to creator-driven content. Continue reading Netflix Explores Podcasts in Push for Creator-Driven Content

BuzzFeed is launching a new social media platform that aims to fight the tide of content designed primarily to please AI algorithms. BuzzFeed founder and CEO Jonah Peretti described the upcoming service in a “BF Island Manifesto” blog post that blasts SNARF media, an acronym that stands for Stakes, Novelty, Anger, Retention, Fear. “SNARF is the kind of content that evolves when a platform asks an AI to maximize usage,” Peretti writes. “Content creators need to please the AI algorithms or they become irrelevant. Millions of creators make SNARF content to stay in the feed and earn a living.” The nearly 3,000 word manifesto name-checks TikTok and Facebook. Continue reading BuzzFeed Social Platform to Battle Algorithmic Programming

TVs have become the primary viewing platform for YouTube in the U.S., surpassing mobile and desktop by watch time. The platform, which turns 20 this year, has gone from people “filming grainy videos of themselves on desktop computers to building studios and producing popular talk shows and feature-length films.” Content creators are “becoming the startups of Hollywood,” wrote CEO Neal Mohan in his annual letter to the YouTube user base. Mohan emphasized the company’s role in the entertainment ecosystem as 2024 marked the second consecutive year that YouTube was the most-watched streaming platform in the U.S., according to Nielsen. Continue reading TV Surpasses Mobile as YouTube’s Primary Viewing Platform

Adobe’s Firefly video is now in public beta as part of Firefly AI, now multi-modal with video, image and vector generation. Available for $10 for Firefly Standard or $30 for Firefly Pro, the Firefly app offers additional tiers for premium video and audio features, offering a degree of customization based on project needs. Adobe continues to position Firefly as “the only generative AI model that is IP-friendly and commercially safe,” offering the option of contractual IP indemnification to protect against infringement lawsuits “in the unlikely event of a claim involving a Firefly output.” Continue reading Adobe Firefly Video Now in Public Beta Starting at $10 Month

OpenAI has decided to simplify its product offerings. A month after announcing the in-development GPT-o3 as its next frontier model, the company has canceled it as a standalone release, explaining that it would be integrated into the upcoming GPT-5 instead. “A top goal for us is to unify o-series models and GPT-series models by creating systems that can use all our tools, know when to think for a long time or not, and generally be useful for a very wide range of tasks,” OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman wrote in a social media post this week. Expected to ship later this year, the GPT-5 models will incorporate voice, canvas, search, deep research and more, OpenAI says. Continue reading Sam Altman Reveals Plans to Simplify OpenAI’s Product Line

Thomson Reuters scored a victory defending its intellectual property in the first AI model training case to produce a substantive legal judgment. U.S. District Court of Delaware Judge Stephanos Bibas on Tuesday issued a partial summary judgment for Westlaw parent Thomson Reuters in its copyright infringement case against Ross Intelligence. The court found that after Thomson Reuters refused Ross’ offer to license Westlaw material the startup hired a third-party to procedurally reconstitute the material, resulting in infringement. Ross defenses, including fair use, “all fail,” says the court. Continue reading Round One in Thomson Reuters AI Lawsuit Is a Victory for IP

Anthropic is launching an AI Economic Index aimed at understanding the technology’s effects on labor markets and the economy over time. The Anthropic Economic Index kicks off with a report that indicates the most concentrated uses of AI today are in software development and technical writing tasks. The information was culled by analyzing data from millions of anonymized conversations on Claude.ai with the goal of revealing how AI is being incorporated into real-world tasks across global markets. It also found that AI usage trends more toward augmenting human capabilities (57 percent), compared to using it for automation (43 percent). Continue reading Anthropic Launches Economic Index to Track the AI Economy

OpenAI is getting close to finalizing its first custom chip design, according to an exclusive report from Reuters that emphasizes the Microsoft-backed AI giant’s goal of reducing its dependency on Nvidia chips. The blueprint for the first-generation OpenAI chip could be finalized as soon as the next few months and sent to Taiwan’s TSMC for fabrication, which will take about six months — “unless OpenAI pays substantially more for expedited manufacturing” — according to the report. Even by usual standards, the training-focused chip is already on a fast track to deployment. Continue reading OpenAI In-House Chip Could Be Ready for Testing This Year

Samsung is showing off what it calls the “next generation of commercial displays” at the Integrated Systems Europe 2025 show in Barcelona. Included are a 115-inch, 4K Smart Signage screen designed to deliver “a new level of immersive visuals” and the Samsung Color E-Paper EMDX that goes up to 75 inches at 5K, uses digital ink and operates at 0.00W power when displaying static images. Both devices consume significantly less energy at their height of workload compared to traditional digital displays, a high priority for business customers. Continue reading Samsung Demos 75-Inch E-Paper Display and AI Smart Signs

T‑Mobile is acting to eliminate mobile dead zones by launching T-Mobile Starlink, which it says is “the first and only space‑based mobile network in the U.S. that automatically connects to your phone in areas no cellular network reaches.” For now, the service offers SMS text messaging, with “data and voice calls coming later,” according to T-Mobile. The beta is open to everyone, “even Verizon and AT&T customers,” with registration required for free access through July, at which point added fees will kick in for all but those on the T-Mobile Go5G Next plan, on sale now for $150 per month. Continue reading T-Mobile Launches Starlink-Based Mobile Service for Everyone

Meta is seeking to make AI more inclusive with a program to support underserved languages “and help bring their speakers into the digital conversation.” Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) unit has teamed with UNESCO to launch the Language Technology Partner Program, which is looking for people who can provide more than 10 hours of speech recordings (with transcriptions) and chunks of written text (200+ sentences, with translation) in diverse languages. “Partners will work with our teams to help integrate these languages into AI-driven speech recognition and machine translation models, which when released will be open sourced,” Meta said. Continue reading Meta Adds Indigenous Languages to Speech and Translation AI

Chinese phone manufacturer Oppo has developed what it is calling the world’s thinnest book-style foldable phone. Powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, the Oppo Find N5 runs on Android and includes Google’s Gemini AI to power its Oppo AI intelligent features. The company has put a lot of effort into reducing the visibility of the display’s crease, said to be imperceptible at certain angles and nearly impossible to detect by touch. Beyond that, it has IPX6/IPX8/IPX9 water resistance ratings and 50W wireless charging. The Oppo Find N5 is scheduled for global release on February 20. Continue reading Oppo Find N5 Is World’s Thinnest ‘Book-Style’ Foldable Phone

Amazon is predicting more than $100 billion in capital expenditure for AI in 2025. The majority of that will be invested in the AWS cloud division, according to Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy, indicating Big Tech is not planning to back down on AI. Amazon’s Q4 profit hit $20 billion, an 88 percent increase over the same period in 2023, and full year profit was $59.2 billion, a 94 percent increase, on revenue of $638 billion, an 11 percent rise. On an earnings call, Jassy said the $26.3 billion in Q4 2024 capex spending “is reasonably representative” of what the company can be expected to spend on an annualized basis this year. Continue reading AWS Cloud Computing Generates Half of Amazon’s Q4 Profits

Model training continues to hit new lows in terms of cost, a phenomenon known as the commoditization of AI that has rocked Wall Street. An AI reasoning model created for under $50 in cloud compute credits is reportedly performing comparably to established reasoning models such as OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek-R1 on tests of math and coding aptitude. Called s1-32B, it was created by researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington by customizing Alibaba’s Qwen2.5-32B-Instruct, feeding it 1,000 prompts with responses sourced from Google’s new Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental reasoning model. Continue reading Reasoning Model Competes with Advanced AI at a Lower Cost

Spotify and Warner Music Group have entered into a new multi-year agreement covering recorded music and publishing that will see the companies “work together to shape the future of audio-visual streaming and enhance the value of music.” The news followed Spotify’s Q4 earnings report that included the company’s first annual profit, with net income of $1.18 billion. Paid subscriptions were up 11 percent for the quarter, closing the year with 263 million premium users and record engagement growth overall, with 35 million new monthly active users for the quarter. Moving forward, the company is looking to new subscription tiers and content bundles. Continue reading Spotify Signs New WMG Deal and Teases Additional Paid Tiers