During the 10th annual Roblox Developers Conference (RDC 2024) in San Jose, the gaming platform announced it is opening to global currencies in addition to its own Robux, which generates billions in virtual transactions each year. Starting later this year, a small test bed of developers will be able to charge real money for games that charge fees, with a program expected to open “to all eligible creators by mid-2025.” The massively multiplayer online platform that lets users build online game worlds also discussed a project to develop its own AI foundation model to power generative 3D creation on the platform. Read more

The first legally binding international treaty on artificial intelligence was signed last week by the countries that negotiated it, including the United States, United Kingdom and European Union members. The Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence is “aimed at ensuring that the use of AI systems is fully consistent with human rights, democracy and the rule of law.” Drawn up by the Council of Europe (COE), an international human rights organization, the treaty was signed at the COE’s Conference of Ministers of Justice in Lithuania. Other signatories include Israel, Iceland, Norway, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia. Read more

Gracenote, the Nielsen content solutions division, has launched Gracenote Watch Prompts, an AI-powered dataset that equips global video platforms and services with programming facts intended to help influence consumer viewing behavior. Designed to be paired with user preference and consumption data, the new Watch Prompts aim at delivering personalized film and TV promotion, resulting in increased tune-in. According to Nielsen, 74 percent of U.S. consumers last year either didn’t know or only had a vague idea as to what they wanted to watch when starting a streaming session, “meaning a large majority are making on-the-fly viewing decisions.” Read more

Verizon has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire competing fiber Internet service provider Frontier Communications in a transaction valued at $20 billion, including $9.6 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close in about 18 months, pending Frontier shareholder and regulatory approval. Verizon says the deal will increase its fiber subscribers by 2.2 million customers and extend its network reach to 25 million households across 31 states and Washington, D.C. It is also expected to expand Verizon’s intelligent edge network for digital innovations like artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things. Read more

Anthropic has launched the Claude Enterprise subscription plan to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Enterprise business solution. Focused on security and administrative controls, Claude Enterprise is designed to help organizations securely collaborate with artificial intelligence using proprietary internal data. Pricing will vary based on the number of seats and how Claude is used but is expected to be more expensive than Claude Pro and Claude Teams ($20 and $25 per month, respectively). An expanded 500K context window, more usage capacity, and a native GitHub integration for work on entire codebases are advantages Anthropic touts for Claude Enterprise. Read more