Spotify is rolling out AUX, an in-house music advisory agency for brands. “With AUX, we’ll use our deep expertise to counsel brands about how best to use music to enrich their campaigns and connect them with emerging artists to help them reach new audiences,” Spotify announced, joining Meta Platforms, YouTube, Snapchat and others in connecting creatives with brands. AUX aims to provide emerging artists with an avenue to another potential income source, as well as a path to wider exposure, as the idea is to get brands to pay Spotify to access the new service. Continue reading Spotify In-House Agency AUX to Connect Brands with Music

The Walt Disney Company announced revenue of $23.5 billion for the quarter ending December 31, essentially consistent year-over-year, while net income was up 49 percent to $1.91 billion year-over-year. CEO Bob Iger amplified plans to bring the company “to a period of sustained growth.” Following news that ESPN plans to partner on a new sports streaming platform, Iger disclosed a $1.5 billion investment in “Fortnite” creator Epic Games that will see the companies “collaborate on an all-new games and entertainment universe.” He also revealed Disney+ will exclusively stream Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concert film. Continue reading Disney Announces Gaming and Sports Part of Growth Strategy

Nuconomi CTO Greg Carron, tech and business journalist Molly Wood, and CBS Sports Radio host JR Jackson spoke with Consumer Technology Association Senior VP of Government Affairs Michael Petricone about how they’ve integrated artificial intelligence into their artistic expression. “The synergy of technology and creativity is creating a profound transformation,” explained Petricone. Reporter and climate change investor Wood noted that synergy led to the launch of Molly Wood Media where she uses AI to streamline her process. “I used AI to make myself a cyborg and do everything I want to do as a human being,” she said. “Turns out I don’t need a producer.” Continue reading CES: Creators Talk About Integrating AI into Their Media Work

Musician will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas — who is also a noted technologist, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist — discussed his work with Mercedes-AMG, why he attends the CES conference each year in Las Vegas, and his vision of the future. In 2022 he was asked by Mercedes to reimagine a vehicle. He loves pattern-matching, he said, and seeing how things align. After developing ideas with his team and auctioning off the working prototype WILL.I.AMG to raise funds for his inner-city education philanthropy, he went back to Mercedes with a simple but powerful pitch with a focus on audio. Continue reading CES: Will.i.am Discusses the Intersection of Music and Tech

Japanese triple-A game publisher Square Enix rang in the New Year with an open letter from President Takashi Kiryu emphasizing that the 20-year-old firm intends to reinforce its core business of content development and game publishing while aggressively exploring new areas like artificial intelligence and extended reality. In the short term, AI will be used “to enhance our development productivity and achieve greater sophistication in our marketing efforts,” Kiryu wrote in his letter, explaining that “in the longer term, we hope to leverage those technologies to create new forms of content.” Continue reading Square Enix to Explore New Content Possibilities with AI, XR

Microsoft has added generative music capabilities to its Copilot chatbot by integrating a plugin from Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup Suno AI. Microsoft calls Suno “a leader in AI music technology, pioneering the ability to generate complete songs — lyrics, instrumentals, and singing voices — from a single sentence.” Suno offers a generative tool on Discord. The Copilot plugin is specific to Microsoft, though the biggest difference is it will only generate one song per prompt as opposed to the app offered directly by Suno, which provides two. The songs are generally a minute or two in length, and come with lyric sheets. Continue reading Suno Plugin Gives Microsoft Copilot a Music Creation Feature

Apple has released the iOS 17.2 update for newer iPhones. New features include spatial video recording and a Journal app that generates prompts designed to get users writing about their lives based on data running through the phone. The 3D spatial video can also playback on 2D on any device but is optimized for dimensional viewing on Apple’s Vision Pro headset, due for release in 2024, starting at $3,500. The Journal app, unveiled at June’s WWDC, is described as a health and wellness feature (that oddly does not yet integrate with the Apple Watch). Continue reading Apple Intros Spatial Video Recording with Latest iOS Update

Rock group KISS concluded the last show of its “End of the Road” farewell tour as digital avatars who performed the encore tune “God Gave Rock and Roll to You” to mark the “withdrawal of the flesh and blood group” and usher the band into an era of virtual touring. The KISS avatars were created by Industrial Light & Magic and facilitated through a partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, a Swedish company known for music and entertainment brand extensions as well as a lead investor and production partner for the ABBA Voyage virtual concert residency. Pophouse says the KISS avatars will perform for fans “for decades to come.” Continue reading KISS to Go Fully Virtual with Avatars from ILM and Pophouse

TikTok is further entrenching itself in music streaming with its new “Artist Account” toolbox that allows followers to play tunes, buy merchandise and access news and information. The new feature is designed to allow artists to promote their work and increase discoverability using such tools as an artist tag and new release highlights on discovery pages. TikTok describes the Artist Account as a “toolbox of features” to support promotion and “forge a closer relationship between artist and fan on TikTok.” Available to every music creator that has uploaded at least four songs, more than 70,000 accounts are eligible from the drop. Continue reading TikTok Adds ‘Artist Accounts’ to Help Boost Music Streaming

Bill Gates has published his thinking about the future of computing, and fascinatingly, it’s the same as his prediction from decades ago: agents. No mere bots — and certainly not anthropomorphized paperclips — agents (to Gates) will abstract almost all HCI to a natural language conversation with systems that have our permission to take meaningful actions. Gates makes a highly specific prediction: within five years, the very idea of an app itself will seem as outdated as a rotary phone dial does next to an iPhone. A conversational UI will sit on top of a language model that has access to as much of our private data as we wish to give it. Continue reading Bill Gates Imagines Agents as the Human-Computer Interface

Music tech studio CreateSafe has officially launched its generative AI-powered platform Triniti in open beta. Triniti lets artists create AI voice clones, generate text-to-audio samples, get assistance monetizing and managing music IP or interact with a chatbot on industry-specific music questions. The company has raised $4.6 million in a seed round led by cryptocurrency and blockchain investment firm Polychain Capital to further develop Triniti. Crush Ventures, hip hop music manager Anthony Saleh, and Paris Hilton’s 11:11 Media also participated in the funding round. Continue reading Voice Cloning Startup CreateSafe Introduces GenAI Platform

Samsung TV Plus reports it has seen enthusiastic consumer use over the past year, with a 60 percent rise in global viewership. Accordingly, the TV maker is upgrading its free streaming service — available on Galaxy devices, Samsung Smart TVs, Smart Monitors and Family Hub appliances and on the Web — with an emphasis on discoverability for kids and music programming. Launched in 2015, the free ad-supported TV (FAST) and ad-based video on-demand (AVOD) service offers content spanning news, sports, entertainment, music, and more, in 24 countries where it is accessed on 535 million TV and mobile devices. Continue reading Samsung TV Plus Hits Refresh on a 60 Percent Viewer Surge

YouTube Music is testing the first in a series of AI-related music experiments. Dream Track for Shorts and the Music AI tools suite were built in collaboration with Google DeepMind’s Lyria music model to allow both original and emulative song creation. Dream Track lets users combine text prompts with the selection of a participating artist to create sound for a YouTube Short of up to 30 seconds featuring an AI simulation of the performer’s voice. Music AI can generate new music from scratch, change audio from one style or instrument to another or add vocal accompaniments. Continue reading YouTube AI Music Generator Mimics Stars with Their Approval

SiriusXM will roll out a redesigned app and new logo to North America subscribers beginning on December 14, the company announced at its Next Generation event in New York City for industry and press. Along with the new look, the company will debut an updated pricing structure that includes a $9.99 per month Streaming All Access plan aimed at “a new generation of SiriusXM listeners,” the company explained. The new SiriusXM app will first be available in Apple’s App Store, Google Play, and on Amazon Fire devices, with additional platforms and features to come in early 2024. Continue reading SiriusXM Updates Streaming App, Introduces Budget Pricing

Sweden-based digital music service Spotify has redesigned its television user interface to make it look and feel more like the platform’s desktop and mobile experiences, a move its users have been waiting for. The frequently played content now appears at the top of the interface, while playlists and favorites are also easily accessed. A playback queue that opens from the side of the screen lets you see what’s playing and program what’s coming up, and you can easily switch accounts by toggling profile options. A dark mode option has been added for the television interface as well. Continue reading Spotify Redesigns TV Interface to Better Match Its Mobile App