Social media companies appear to be reducing efforts to combat misinformation at a time when the capabilities to foist false narratives is reaching new levels of sophistication. As a result of staff cuts at Alphabet, Google’s YouTube subsidiary is reportedly left with one person overseeing worldwide misinformation policy. Twitter eliminated its safety and trust division, while Meta also made changes to its disinformation filtering. Meanwhile, The Guardian has unearthed Israeli misinformation contractors operating under the name “Team Jorge” that says it manipulated more than 30 presidential elections worldwide. Continue reading Disinformation Rising on Social Platforms as Policing Wanes

Social VR firm Bigscreen has opened pre-orders for Beyond, its first virtual reality headset. The $999 model, which the company says is the “world’s smallest,” offers a custom-fit from a 3D scan of each purchaser’s face. The PC-only wearable is also lightweight, at just under 6 ounces, including the strap. Delivery int eh U.S. is slated for Q3. The slight packaging doesn’t come at the expense of resolution, with dual 5K (5,120 x 2,560) micro OLED displays. However, some say the 93- degree horizontal field of view (90 degrees vertical) is a drawback. Continue reading Bigscreen’s First VR Headset Is Now Available for Pre-Order

Neeva is promising a more intelligent form of AI-powered search. The company — which says it has amassed more than 2 million subscribers since it began globally launching its ad-free, subscription-based Neeva engine in 2020 — is now going global with NeevaAI, which became commercially available in the U.S. in January following a monthlong beta test. Positioned as a direct competitor to ChatGPT, NeevaAI is styling itself as a smarter, more accurate form of artificial intelligence, one that “combines the best of large language models such as ChatGPT with the authority and timeliness of search.” Continue reading NeevaAI Takes on ChatGPT in the Generative AI Search War

TikTok is launching new targeting and boosting features for Promote, a tool designed to drive traffic to a profile or brand home page. First launched in 2021, Promote is touted as a way to turn viewers into potential leads. TikTok says Promote improves audience targeting while letting small businesses and creators strengthen ties with communities by customizing how users interact with their ads. A recent study shows that positioning an “organic” TikTok video before a paid ad “increases aided brand recall by 27 percent” and holds attention to the ad “12 percent longer,” according to the social platform. Continue reading TikTok Adding New Traffic and Audience Targeting Features

The Entertainment Technology Center@USC has begun releasing its case study entitled “Fathead: Virtual Production & Beyond.” Section 1 of the four-part white paper is “Cloud Computing: Growth Without Bounds.” “Everything on this production was done in the cloud, minus the shoot on set,” explains ETC@USC head of virtual & adaptive production Erik Weaver, executive producer of the 20-minute “Fathead” film. “We did some very innovative work, ingesting ARRI Alexa RAW to Amazon S3 buckets on the AWS cloud in real time, which had never been done before and I don’t think has been done since.” Continue reading ETC Releases First Section of Virtual Production White Paper

LG is bringing to market a line of LED screens designed for small movie theaters, the LG Miraclass line. The four initial models range in size from 16- to 46-feet wide, offering 24-bit color and resolution from 2K to 4K. The screens are comprised of smaller panels featuring self-emissive LED pixels that run edge-to-edge (eliminating visible seams). Brightness adjusts across five stages — from 48 to 300 nits  — making the displays suitable for a range of use-cases, from the brightness required for 2D/3D movies to less light-intensive corporate presentations. Continue reading New LG Miraclass LEDs Offer Cinemas Projection Alternative

Apple, which has identified financial services as a growth area, has experienced delays in rolling out such products, including Apple Pay Later, a “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) service announced in June 2022 and initially scheduled to launch in September. The service reportedly began rolling out in a beta test among Apple’s retail employees this month and could be available to consumers by March or April this year, according to recent reports. A proposed high-yield savings account tied to the Apple Card and Wallet app was unveiled in October but has yet to release. Continue reading Apple Pushing Forward into Financial Services Despite Delay

The Dish Network’s Internet-streaming division Sling TV is being rebranded as Sling Freestream, offering free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) and free, ad-supported VOD in attempt to better connect with consumers who don’t want to pay monthly subscription fees. Although the Sling live TV service was already free, the move sees it doubling down in the sector by expanding from 150 to 210 free channels with 41,000-plus on-demand titles. Sling Freestream users will also be able to subscribe to 50-plus standalone streaming services, including Showtime, Discovery+, MGM+ and AMC+. Continue reading Dish Network’s Sling TV Is Reimagined as ‘Sling Freestream’

Peacock is adding a new “Watch With” feature that lets fans watch special episodes with their favorite personalities, including live commentary, real-time reactions and live Q&A it says will be unfiltered. Watch With debuts with “Bel-Air” stars Jabari Banks and Olly Sholotan on February 24 at 9:00 p.m. ET, immediately following the show’s Season 2 premiere. Peacock will also add the feature to the live song contest “Eurovision” with host Johnny Weir and “The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip” with stars Candiace Dillard Bassett and Marysol Patton, with more to come. Continue reading Peacock ‘Watch With’ Feature Adds Split-Screen Interactivity

Netflix is expanding its paid sharing program to Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. The program, which was tested last year in several Latin American markets, is the company’s attempt to crackdown on the unauthorized password sharing that deprives the company of what one analyst estimates is billions of dollars per year. Where the program is live, subscribers can pay to add non-household members to their account at the rate of an extra CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, Euro 3.99 in Portugal, and Euro 5.99 in Spain. Continue reading Netflix Password Sharing Plan Added in Four Global Markets

Google unveiled new search features during its “Live from Paris” event via a YouTube stream. The emphasis was on multisearch, which will go live globally to mobile platforms in more than 70 languages where Google Lens is used, according to the company. Introduced last year, the multisearch feature looks through images and text, driven by an AI technology the company has developed called MUM, for Multitask Unified Model. There were no new announcements regarding Bard, Google’s new conversational AI search tool, although media outlets reported that Bard responded incorrectly in a Twitter promo the same day. Continue reading Google Touts Search Plans During Its ‘Live from Paris’ Event

GlossAi can turn full-length videos — or even whole libraries of video and podcast content —into an array of short clips and posts suitable for dissemination across a wide swathe of outlets. The Israel-based firm has raised $8 million in a seed round as it enters an emerging market in which Adobe and AI startup QuickVid are already playing, but no single app has definitely taken hold. GlossAi has the ability to take a video and automatically generate not only a highlight reel, but also things like 15-second snippets, blog posts (from a transcript), slide decks and more. Continue reading GlossAi Content Propagation App Raises $8M in Seed Round

Pinterest grew Q4 year-over-year revenue by 4 percent, to $877 million, while full year sales jumped 9 percent in 2022 totaling $2.8 billion. The company said that global monthly active users also grew by 4 percent in the three month period ending December 31, to a total of 450 million. CEO Bill Ready emphasized on the earnings call the intent to eventually “make every pin shoppable.” Similar to how it is monetizing still images Pinterest is focusing on making videos “more actionable” by applying what it calls “our computer vision technology.” Continue reading Pinterest Grows Its Active Users, Focuses on Video Shopping

President Biden’s second State of the Union speech Tuesday night included calls for stronger consumer privacy protections and tougher antitrust laws in direct challenge to what many perceive as the unchecked power of Big Tech. “Pass bipartisan legislation to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent big online platforms from giving their own products an unfair advantage,” Biden stated, urging Congress to “stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and impose stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us.” Continue reading Biden Challenges Big Tech, Calls for Children’s Online Safety

It appears 2023 will mark a critical inflection point for artificial intelligence, according to Microsoft vice chair and president Brad Smith, who calls AI “the most consequential technology advance of our lifetime” and says it will change “almost everything. Because, like no technology before it, these AI advances augment humanity’s ability to think, reason, learn and express ourselves.” One example is Microsoft’s infusion of AI in two common tools — the search engine and the web browser — with new versions of its Bing search engine and Edge browser, tools positioned “as an AI co-pilot for the web.” Continue reading AI ‘Inflection Point’ in 2023 Ushered in with Search, Browsing