<p>Imagine you’re watching a highly anticipated video from your favorite YouTube creator — perhaps the moment a famous couple finally gets engaged — when an ad pops up immediately after the clip. This is part of YouTube&#8217;s new ad format called &#8220;Peak Points.&#8221; The company revealed the new ad format during its Upfront presentation on [&hellip;]</p>

<p>YouTube made its pitch to advertisers on Wednesday, accompanied by a flashy performance from Lady Gaga and special appearances from popular YouTubers like Brittany Broski and MrBeast.&nbsp; During its Upfront presentation, YouTube executives introduced new ad formats coming to the platform, including an enhanced shoppable connected TV (CTV) offering that includes a new interactive product [&hellip;]</p>

<p>YouTube announced a range of initiatives designed to attract more TV ad dollars to its platform at Brandcast, its annual Upfront event for advertisers. Notably, the Google-owned video service is expanding its relationship with the NFL and plans to exclusively stream the NFL&#8217;s first Friday game of the 2025-2026 season. It&#8217;s also preparing to pilot [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Netflix is adding more livestreaming content, the company announced at its Upfront presentation on Wednesday. The service, which now reaches over 94 million global monthly active users, has been steadily introducing live TV to its audience with sports content from WWE wrestling, comedy, and awards shows, and other special events (some of which definitely didn&#8217;t [&hellip;]</p>

<p>AI startup Stability AI has released Stable Audio Open Small, a &#8220;stereo&#8221; audio-generating AI model that the company claims is the fastest on the market — and efficient enough to run on smartphones. Stable Audio Open Small is the fruit of a collaboration between Stability AI and Arm, the chipmaker that produces many of the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Two years after Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) rebranded its streaming service to Max, the company is reverting to its old name. On Wednesday, the company announced the good news at its Upfront presentation, with the name change becoming official this summer.&nbsp; When Max launched in 2023, the revamped platform was positioned as a win for [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Apple Music is introducing a new &#8220;audio wellness&#8221; collection of songs called Sound Therapy. Designed in partnership with Universal Music Group (UMG), the feature combines songs that subscribers already know with other sound waves that promote focusing, relaxing, and sleeping. Songs may include auditory beats or colored noise, sound waves where the intensity varies at [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Amazon will bring ads to movies and shows on Prime Video in India starting June 17, over a year after introducing ads in markets including the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada. On Tuesday, Amazon emailed Prime members in India to announce the rollout of &#8220;limited advertisements&#8221; on content streaming on Prime Video. Amazon originally announced [&hellip;]</p>

<p>For millions of moviegoers in the &#8217;90s, Moviefone’s 777-FILM number was the go-to source for learning about showtimes. Now, under new ownership, Moviefone is trying to make a comeback. On Friday, as part of its 35th anniversary celebration, Moviefone announced the relaunch of its mobile app and a new nationally syndicated broadcast TV series. Set [&hellip;]</p>

<p>On YouTube, hundreds of thousands of viewers around the world are staring at an unmoving broadcast of the Sistine Chapel chimney. Occasionally, a seagull will swoop in and perch atop the roof for a few minutes. But for the most part, nothing happens. On Wednesday, the College of Cardinals started the process of picking the [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“Day 25 of starting over my whole entire life,” Raegan Lynch narrates over a short video. “Right now, I’m wandering around the city I just moved to, in a country I’d never seen, all by myself after my relationship ended, and I had to leave my old life behind.” It’s a pretty enticing hook, which [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Spotify on Wednesday announced an update to its app designed to give users more control over their listening experience and recommendations. The refreshed experience introduces a handful of new features that will roll out gradually to Spotify users and Premium subscribers, including features to help you manage your Queue, your current listening experience, playlist creation, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>After hinting at a new AI-powered search experience during its recent earnings call, Netflix officially unveiled the feature at its tech and product event on Wednesday. This new search experience will utilize OpenAI’s ChatGPT to provide users with a conversational discovery experience. Users can enter their preferences using natural phrases like “I want something funny [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Netflix announced on Wednesday that it’s testing a short-form video feature, signaling that even a streaming giant with over 300 million subscribers is concerned about losing viewers’ time spent on mobile to apps like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels. The company debuted the feature at its first-ever product and tech event, where it also [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Particle, the startup behind an AI-powered newsreader that aims to help publishers, not just steal their work, is bringing its product to the web. On Tuesday, the company announced the launch of the new Particle.news website that connects news consumers with headlines and AI summaries from a variety of sources, plus the ability to delve [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Google is reportedly spinning up a film and TV project called 100 Zeroes. According to a report from Business Insider, this initiative is intended to make young audiences feel more positively about Google&#8217;s products, as well as tech at large. The report also states that Google is not intending to share these projects via YouTube, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Three years ago, a group of TikTokers joined NBCUniversal’s new initiative aimed at transforming social media influencers into the next generation of TV show creators.&nbsp; Now, four of these creators are set to launch their original series on Peacock.&nbsp; According to The Hollywood Reporter, the shows set to premiere are “The Warehouse Phase,” developed by [&hellip;]</p>

<p>MoviePass, the startup that made its mark with its movie theater subscription service, has always been known for shaking things up, and its latest venture is no exception. The company announced on Thursday the beta launch of Mogul, a new daily fantasy entertainment platform designed specifically for the Hollywood industry. To understand what Mogul is, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Freepik, the online graphic design platform, unveiled a new &#8220;open&#8221; AI image model on Tuesday that the company says was trained exclusively on commercially licensed, &#8220;safe-for-work&#8221; images. The model, called F Lite, contains around 10 billion parameters — parameters being the internal components that make up the model. F Lite was developed in partnership with [&hellip;]</p>

<p>YouTube&#8217;s support team is experiencing an outage, too. The company says the widespread power outages in Spain and Portugal have knocked some of YouTube&#8217;s customer support team offline, including those who offer support in related European languages. The company did not share how many employees are unable to work because of the outages, or how [&hellip;]</p>