The Disney+ streaming video service, which launched in November 2019 and is already available in 64 countries, plans to launch in 42 additional countries and 11 new territories sometime this summer. The announcement did not include exact release dates or regional pricing, but the scope of the expansion should help the platform jumpstart subscriber growth to better compete with other streaming services such as Netflix and HBO Max. The expansion plans should also steer Disney toward its previously predicted target of 230 million subscribers before the end of 2024. Disney+ already had 118 million global subscribers by the end of last year. Read more

Microsoft ended Q2 for fiscal year 2022 on a high note, with sales up 20 percent to $51.7 billion, and net income rising 21 percent to $18.8 billion, beating analysts’ predictions. Cloud revenue grew 32 percent year-over-year, hitting $22.1 billion. Revenue in Microsoft’s Intelligent Cloud business was $18.3 billion, a 26 percent jump propelled largely by a basically flat 46 percent increase from Azure and cloud services. “Digital technology is the most malleable resource at the world’s disposal to overcome constraints and reimagine everyday work and life,” Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella said in the earnings release. Read more

Squarespace has introduced a new video feature for content creators that provides them with the ability to sell access to videos either as a one-off or via a continuing subscription plan. The website creation and hosting service will offer 30 minutes of uploaded content for free, while creators looking to post more content have the option to sign up for Member Areas plans, starting at $9 per month. To compete with the likes of YouTube, Patreon and OnlyFans, users will be able to upload video directly to their Squarespace site with options for monetizing content. The company’s native video player offers “slick playback” and “deep integration into the Squarespace platform.” Read more

The immersive experiences Meta Platforms has planned for the metaverse will require processing power beyond what’s possible today, tipping into the quintillions of operations-per-second. But the company has a fix for that. Meta announced Monday that it has been working on a new artificial intelligence supercomputer called the AI Research SuperCluster, that will be the fastest in the world when fully built this summer. Drawing on resources from partners like Nvidia, Penguin Computing and Pure Storage, the effort took two years and involved several hundred people who collaborated remotely through the COVID-19 pandemic for much of the project. Read more

Australian researchers have had a breakthrough in quantum computing, proving that nearly error-free processing is possible, which could lead to the possibility of silicon-based quantum machines whose manufacture could be compatible with today’s semiconductor manufacturing technology. “Our operations were 99 percent error-free,” said University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) professor Andrea Morello, who led the work with partners in the U.S., Japan, Egypt, and at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Melbourne. “When the errors are so rare, it becomes possible to detect them and correct them when they occur.” Read more