Speculation is afoot as to the fate of popular subscription streaming service Hulu, initially launched 15 years ago. Disney presently owns 67 percent of the company, and Comcast 33 percent. The two had agreed to come to terms of a sale by January 24, but now there is talk that Disney wants to resolve the matter sooner and is planning to buy out Comcast and integrate Hulu into Disney+, providing access to titles from Disney’s “Star Wars” and Marvel Universe franchises along with popular Hulu originals such as “Only Murders in the Building,” “The Great” and “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Continue reading Disney Could Be Planning to Create a Mega Bundle with Hulu

Mozilla has bundled two premium security products into a subscription package. Firefox Relay and Mozilla VPN are available together for $6.99 with an annual subscription. With the holiday sales season in full swing, retailers are bracing for hacker attacks and phishing schemes, an angle Mozilla is leveraging with its push. Axios Codebook says “the ongoing economic downturn is prompting more shoppers to look for online discount codes and more hackers to trick these consumers with phony deals.” Firefox Relay protects identities by hiding users real email addresses, while Mozilla VPN is a virtual private network service. Continue reading Mozilla Sets Discount Privacy Bundle: VPN Plus Firefox Relay

LinkedIn is amping up its B2B marketing features designed to give brands an edge in a recessionary climate. In an effort to drive ad spending in the midst of economic uncertainty, the company has introduced a suite of tools — unveiled at the company’s B2Believe marketing summit — that aim to provide granular control over media investments on the Microsoft-owned platform. The new capabilities include ancillary measurement tools and fresh ad formats as well as a Brand Safety hub, allowing advertisers to boost performance on the LinkedIn Audience Network while setting brand safety guardrails. Continue reading LinkedIn Adds B2B Tools to Enhance Brand Safety, Exposure

The Federal Communications Commission has unveiled a draft of its long-awaited broadband maps, which detail broadband availability across the country. “The maps will only get better from here,” FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, emphasizing that even in this early form they are a lot better than what had been available. The new maps integrate information from broadband providers with hundreds of location-specific data sources, providing an accurate-to-the-home picture of fixed and mobile broadband availability. Users now have “a one-stop-shop” to search their address and find the Internet service providers available to that location. Continue reading FCC’s Latest Broadband Maps Aim to Turn Up Heat on ISPs

Meta Platforms is introducing updates to further protect teens on Facebook and Instagram. Starting this week, those under the age of 16 (or under 18 in certain countries) will be defaulted into more stringent private settings when they join Facebook. A similar default was put into effect on Instagram last year. Meta is also restricting “potentially suspicious adults.” For example, adults will be restricted from messaging teens they aren’t connected to and from seeing teens in their People You May Know recommendations. A “suspicious adult” is one that has recently been blocked or reported by a young person. Continue reading Facebook and Instagram Roll Out New Safety Tools for Teens

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have launched a production company called Artists Equity that will offer profit participation to creatives working behind the scenes as well as on camera. The new venture has secured $100 million in financing from RedBird Capital Partners, and Affleck and Damon have also committed undisclosed sums. Affleck has committed to working exclusively for Artists Equity while Damon says he will star in a predetermined number of films. The move is in response to streamers’ reluctance to share earnings, and reported industrywide dissatisfaction with that new status quo. Continue reading Artists Equity Is Launched to Share the Wealth with Creatives

Intel has debuted FakeCatcher, touting it as the first real-time deepfake detector. capable of determining whether digital video has been altered to change context or meaning. Intel says FakeCatcher has a 96 percent accuracy rate and returns results in milliseconds by analyzing the “blood flow” of pixel patterns, a process called photoplethysmography (PPG) that Intel borrowed from medical research. The company says potential use cases include social media platforms screening to prevent uploads of harmful deepfake videos and helping global news organizations to avoid inadvertent amplification of deepfakes. Continue reading Intel Promises 96 Percent Accuracy with New Deepfake Filter

Google is starting to publicly roll out many of the new features introduced at its Search On event in September. Spanning Google Search, Shopping and Maps, the tools let consumers do things like search their favorite restaurant dish by name, like “truffle mac and cheese near me.” A visual search experience for Maps called Live View lets users glimpse street scenes in cities including London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. And an AR shopping feature invites people to try on everything from makeup to accessories using a library of 148 models. Continue reading Google Intros New Features for Search, Maps and Shopping

A sold-out crowd celebrated Hollywood’s top technical achievements at the HPA Awards 2022, where FotoKem’s David Cole took top feature film honors in color grading for Warner Bros. Pictures’ “The Batman” and Picture Shop’s Steven Bodner was recognized for the “How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?” episode of Amazon Prime Video’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” Amazon Web Services’ Color in the Cloud was one of four corporate efforts to take home a coveted Engineering Excellence Award. The technology is capable of lossless image quality using JPEG XS over AWS Direct Connect, AWS VPN or the open Internet. Continue reading Innovative Tech, Industry Leaders Celebrated at HPA Awards

The Federal Communications Commission has unveiled specifics for new labels that clarify hidden fees and surprise rate hikes on consumer broadband services. Broadband providers will be required to display, at the point of sale, labels that show key information about prices, speeds, fees, data allowances, and other key information using a format that resembles the familiar “nutrition labels” that appear on food products. Emphasizing broadband as “an essential service, for everyone, everywhere,” FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the labeling rules apply to both wired and wireless services. Continue reading FCC Rules Require ISPs Provide Broadband Nutrition Labels

A coalition of more than 20 advocacy groups with an interest in child safety is petitioning the Federal Trade Commission to prohibit social media platforms including TikTok as well as online games and other services from bombarding kids with ads and using other tactics that may hook children online. Regulators are being lobbied to prevent online services from offering minors “low-friction rewards” — unpredictably granting positive reinforcement for scrolling, tapping or logging on to prolonged use. The groups say the technique is the same used by slot machine makers to keep gamblers engaged. Continue reading Advocacy Groups Seek to Enact Online Rules to Protect Kids

Even as linear broadcasters seek to find their place in the on-demand world, streamers are taking a page from their traditional playbook and embracing appointment TV strategies, according to a new forecast from Kantar Media. “Winners in the platform wars will deploy hybrid strategies balancing VOD and linear content,” Kantar says, predicting streamers will be forced to “shift away from all-at-once release strategies and box-set bingeing for new content in order to maximize revenues.” As global cost-of-living price increases impact consumer discretionary spending, improved campaign planning could make budgets go further, the report says. Continue reading Kantar Media Forecasts Streamers to Pursue Appointment TV

The advertising industry is pushing back against the Federal Trade Commission’s exploration of rulemaking as relates to collecting personal data to serve ads, which the FTC is calling a crackdown on “commercial surveillance.” The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) says the FTC’s definition of that loaded term is “so broad” that any resultant rulemaking “could criminalize the Internet itself” as well as potentially reduce digital ad spending by billions of dollars. FTC chair Lina Khan says “potentially unlawful practices may be prevalent” in the “endless hoovering up of sensitive user data” that has become common practice in ad targeting. Continue reading IAB Says FTC Digital Ad Inquiry May End Up Costing Billions

Microsoft has entered into a multi-year deal with Nvidia to build what they’re calling “one of the world’s most advanced supercomputers,” powered by Microsoft Azure’s advanced supercomputing infrastructure combined with Nvidia GPUs, networking and full stack of AI software to help enterprises train, deploy and scale AI, including large, state-of-the-art models. “AI is fueling the next wave of automation across enterprises and industrial computing, enabling organizations to do more with less as they navigate economic uncertainties,” Microsoft cloud and AI group executive VP Scott Guthrie said of the alliance. Continue reading Microsoft, Nvidia Partner on Azure-Hosted AI Supercomputer

As it prepares for a crackdown on password sharing next year, Netflix has introduced a feature that lets subscribers kick-off interlopers who are piggybacking onto their accounts without paying. Accessed from the account settings tab, the new “Managing Access and Devices” functionality lets subscribers see a list of recent devices that have streamed from their account, letting them log-off any unauthorized users with one click. Netflix calls this new option a “much-requested feature” and says it is now available to global subscribers through their web browser, or on iOS and Android. Continue reading Netflix Offers a Feature to Let Subs Boot Unauthorized Logins