At CES 2025’s opening session on Tech Trends, futurist Brian Comiskey, the Consumer Technology Association’s senior director of innovation and trends, forecasted record retail revenues of $537 billion in 2025, representing a growth in hardware, software and services. He also enumerated the growth of AI as a continuing trend. Fueling this record growth is the dominance of Gen Z, which he dubbed “the first true digital natives.” Comiskey noted, however, that the incoming government proposal to establish tariffs threaten U.S. purchasing power for technology products. Continue reading CES: CTA Futurist Predicts the Impact of Latest Tech Trends

Fourth Frame Studios Head of Studio Oluwafemi Okusanya held a conversation with Blizzard Entertainment Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Monica Austin on how her company is defining its IP in the marketplace. Austin reported that “World of Warcraft” just had its 20th anniversary and reached one-quarter of a billion players. “Blizzard was the first studio to recognize community,” she said. “For the next 20 years, we want to think about a modern version of building community. Community from a marketing and Blizzard lens is the biggest opportunity for exploring our IP.” Continue reading CES: Power of Gaming IPs, Why Games Are the New Comics

At CES 2025 in Las Vegas this week, the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) unveiled transformative trends and expected highlights of the massive trade show during a media preview on Sunday. CTA Senior Director of Innovation and Trends Brian Comiskey led a discussion on the rise of Gen Z, the increasing influence of artificial intelligence, and predicted a “Quantum Decade” for the 2030s. Sustainability, energy transitions, and human security, especially around food, also emerged as critical themes. “Innovation is never just one thing — it’s the convergence of technology and human-centric values that drives progress,” Comiskey noted. Continue reading CES: Tech Trends Focus on Gen Z, AI, the ‘Quantum Decade’

CES Unveiled 2025 offered a preview of new technologies two days ahead of the official opening of the massive CES show floor in Las Vegas on January 7. From AI-powered tools and robotics to energy-saving innovations and immersive displays, the event showcased a spectrum of advancements. Among the more notable highlights included cognitive AI demonstrated by Neural Lab, the latest brain-computer interface tech from Naqi Logix, AR and smart glasses developed by companies such as Rokid and Mustard, and a variety of interesting video- and audio-related offerings to be showcased at CES. Continue reading CES Unveiled: Preview of Tech to Be Featured at Trade Show

Unless there is breaking news, ETCentric and The Daily News Brief will not publish during the upcoming holiday break. We wish you and your families a very happy holiday season. Our team is currently planning coverage for CES 2025 and will be back in January with the latest in entertainment technology news. Continue reading Happy Holidays: ETCentric to Return for CES in the New Year

Santa Monica-based Snapchat announced a new Monetization Program for content creators this week that will feature expanded revenue opportunities and evolving rewards. Beginning February 1, creators that have at least 50,000 followers and post at least 25 times each month to Saved Stories or Spotlight videos will have the option to place ads in videos that are longer than one minute. Eligible creators would also need to meet one of the following criteria in the most recent month: 10 million Snap views, one million Spotlight views, or 12,000 hours of total view time. According to Snap, Spotlight video viewership is up 25 percent year-over-year. Continue reading Snapchat to Empower Creators with Video Monetization Plan

CES 2025, taking place the week of January 5 in Las Vegas, is expected to focus on artificial intelligence, unveiling a wave of innovative offerings — whether practical, visionary or experimental. As we stand on the brink of transformative change, it’s worth recalling that early AI models often fell short when they attempted to mimic human methods. As we approach CES in service to the entertainment industry, we’ll be most interested in products that use this constant advance to assist and amplify human potential. Media applications that impact the next generation of compelling stories, production techniques, and consumer experiences will be of most interest. Continue reading CES Preview: Standing on the Brink of Transformative Change

Google has introduced Gemini 2.0, the latest version of its multimodal AI model, signaling a shift toward what the company is calling “the agentic era.” The upgraded model promises not only to outperform previous iterations on standard benchmarks but also introduces more proactive, or agentic, functions. The company announced that “Project Astra,” its experimental assistant, would receive updates that allow it to use Google Search, Lens, and Maps, and that “Project Mariner,” a Chrome extension, would enable Gemini 2.0 to navigate a user’s web browser to complete tasks autonomously. Continue reading Google Releases Gemini 2.0 in Shift Toward Agentic Era of AI

Unless there is breaking news, ETCentric and The Daily News Brief will not publish during the upcoming 4-day holiday weekend. We wish you and your families a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. We’ll be back on Monday with the latest in media and entertainment technology news. Continue reading ETCentric to Return After the Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend

Google announced it is rolling out its Gemini AI-powered video presentation app that enables users to easily create video presentations. Vids is a productivity app featured in the company’s suite of Google Workspace products. The new app uses AI model Gemini to automatically insert royalty-free stock video footage, create storyboards and scripts, and generate music and voiceovers. It allows users to add documents, slides, visuals, audio and transitions to the presentation’s timeline. “Personalize your content with Vids recording studio to deliver employee training, share company-wide announcements, meeting updates, and more,” suggests Google. Continue reading Google Offers New AI-Powered Vids App to Workspace Users

In a move that may appeal to music fans as well as marketing professionals, ByteDance-owned video platform TikTok just announced the availability of a new promotional feature called “Share to TikTok” that enables users to share music, podcasts and audiobooks from Apple Music and Spotify to TikTok, directly from the share menus of the streaming services. Content shared to TikTok will feature links directing users to the original sources to foster discovery and engagement on the partnering services. The new feature follows the launch of “Add to Music App,” a tool for users to save songs they discover on the TikTok app to their streaming service of choice. Continue reading TikTok Introduces New Feature to Share and Promote Music

Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) announced the availability of its next-gen Cloud TV platform designed for global broadcasters and video service providers. Cloud TV provides companies with a system for delivering a multi-platform TV experience across broadcast and OTT via the cloud. The company promises a streamlined experience that will help broadcasters, content owners and distributors “limit costs, reduce duplicative efforts, and monetize more effectively.” In addition to tools for transcoding, content processing, distribution, and managing metadata, Cloud TV also addresses areas such as advertising, subscriptions and analytics. Continue reading Comcast Announces Its Next-Generation Cloud TV Platform

The government of Canada has ordered social video app TikTok to shut down its business operations in the country, following a national security review under the Investment Canada Act. and potential risks posed by TikTok and parent ByteDance. “The government is not blocking Canadians’ access to the TikTok application or their ability to create content,” explains François-Philippe Champagne, minister of innovation, science and industry. “The decision to use a social media application or platform is a personal choice.” Canada previously banned the TikTok app from official government devices, while the U.S. passed a law that could also ban the app. Continue reading Canada Orders TikTok to Shut Down Its Business Operations

Amazon reported major revenue and profit increases during its third quarter, beating Wall Street’s forecasts, based largely on the company’s e-commerce sales and increasing demand for its cloud services. Capital expenditure, which reached a record amount following Amazon’s recent investments in artificial intelligence, will maintain its momentum as the company plans $75 billion capex on developing generative AI services over 2024-2025. “The faster we grow demand, the faster we have to invest capital in data centers, network gear and hardware,” explained CEO Andy Jassy. “We invest in all that upfront in advance of when we can monetize it.” Continue reading Amazon Pushes AI, Records Growth in Q3 Revenue and Profit

Revenue reached an all-time high for Apple’s most recent quarter as iPhone sales experienced an uptick due in part to consumer excitement for the arrival of Apple Intelligence, the company’s heavily advertised set of AI tools. Total sales reached $94.9 billion for the quarter, up 6 percent year-over-year and exceeding the $94.5 billion that financial analysts had predicted. The company’s iPhone business reported sales of $46.2 billion, following disappointing consecutive quarters in the first half of the year. The AI boom resulted in strong quarters for other Big Tech leaders including Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Continue reading Jump in iPhone Business Results in Record Quarter for Apple