<p>Amazon is raising eyebrows with the timing of its big book sale for 2025, which runs from April 23 to 28 — which means it’s competing directly with Independent Bookstore Day. As writer Maris Kreizman explained in Literary Hub, Independent Bookstore Day is an annual event organized by the American Booksellers Association (ABA), with events, [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Netflix just introduced a new way to experience subtitles that eliminates the need to read audio cues like “door slams” or “phone rings.” Announced on Thursday, Netflix’s new dialogue-only subtitles can be enabled by going to “Navigate to Audio” and then “Subtitles.” Users will see an option labeled “English” instead of “English (CC),” indicating that [&hellip;]</p>

<p>At Semafor’s 2025 World Economy Summit on Wednesday, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said he believes Netflix’s long-term goal to achieve a $1 trillion market capitalization is possible if the streaming giant continues to perform well. Sarandos said, “In the previous five years, we&#8217;ve doubled our revenue, we grew profits 10 times, and we grew our [&hellip;]</p>

<p>The U.S. Department of Justice is probing Disney&#8217;s deal to take a controlling stake in FuboTV, Bloomberg reports. Fubo is a live TV streaming service known for its&nbsp;extensive sports coverage. Officials are examining whether the deal would create a concentration of power in the sports streaming market. In January, Disney announced that it was going [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Character.AI, a leading platform for chatting and roleplaying with AI-generated characters, unveiled its forthcoming video generation model, AvatarFX, on Tuesday. Available in closed beta, the model animates the platform&#8217;s characters in a variety of styles and voices, from human-like characters to 2D animal cartoons. AvatarFX distinguishes itself from competitors like OpenAI&#8217;s Sora because it isn&#8217;t [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A pair of undergrads, neither with extensive AI expertise, say that they&#8217;ve created an openly available AI model that can generate podcast-style clips similar to Google&#8217;s NotebookLM. The market for synthetic speech tools is vast and growing. ElevenLabs is one of the largest players, but there&#8217;s no shortage of challengers (see PlayAI, Sesame, and so [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“A Minecraft Movie” isn’t just a hit — after three weekends in theaters, the film is estimated to have grossed $344 million domestically and $720 million worldwide. That makes it the biggest movie of an admittedly underwhelming year at the box office (so far), and the second biggest video game movie of all time. Coming [&hellip;]</p>

<p>A new animated kids’ series expected to premiere this year won’t be headed for a TV network. Or a streaming service.&nbsp;Instead, the founders of production studio We Ghosted Media plan to launch on a decentralized web platform that uses blockchain technology. And yes, a crypto wallet will be involved.&nbsp; We Ghosted Media — founded by [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Netflix is building a new search experience aimed at improving the discovery experience, and it&#8217;s going to use AI to do it, the company&#8217;s CEO Greg Peters said during its first-quarter results conference call. Peters said Netflix is working on &#8220;interactive search that&#8217;s based on generative technologies&#8221; to help people find different titles. Answering an [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Last month, Deezer reported its first positive cash flow in 2024, marking a significant milestone in its history. As the music streaming platform nears profitability, it’s launching new features to differentiate itself in the highly competitive market. On Wednesday, Deezer announced several features aimed at providing listeners with a more personalized experience. These include a [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Patreon is finally experimenting with native livestreaming, a new feature that could attract more creators and help them earn more money. The capability is rolling out to select testers this week and will become more widely available this summer. Similar to other platforms, Patreon’s new livestream feature comes with a live chat where fans can [&hellip;]</p>

<p>You could say that TikTok is ruining our attention spans, and yet, viewers around the world are tuning in to watch a monotonous livestream from a Swedish TV station that they&#8217;ve probably never heard of. It&#8217;s time for the Great Moose Migration. For thousands of years, moose have crossed the Ångerman River each spring, trekking [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Swedish company Baseload Capital is developing the project.</p>

<p>Publishing platform Medium says it&#8217;s still committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), even as many other U.S. tech companies have scaled back their efforts in this space to appease the Trump administration. In a blog post published on Monday, Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine backed the company&#8217;s diverse community, saying that businesses shouldn&#8217;t have to [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Google is bringing its Veo 2 video-generating AI model to users who pay for Gemini Advanced, the company&#8217;s premium AI plan. The expansion comes as Google looks to deliver an answer to OpenAI&#8217;s Sora video generation platform, and as competition in the space grows fiercer. Two weeks ago, one of the more formidable synthetic media [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Reshma Saujani, founder of the nonprofit Girls Who Code, got straight to the point.&nbsp; “If I had applied to be the CEO of Girls Who Code, I wouldn’t have gotten the job,” she told Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, on the latest episode of the duchess&#8217; podcast, “Confessions of a Female Founder.&#8221; “I didn’t code,” Saujani [&hellip;]</p>

<p>“Mythic Quest,” the Apple TV+ workplace comedy about the making of a popular online role-playing game, is ending after four seasons. A new version of the show’s fourth season finale — first aired on March 26, and now the de facto series finale — will premiere on Apple TV+ next week, with a new ending. [&hellip;]</p>

<p>YouTube is looking into potentially offering a feature that would allow users to set a daily timer to limit how long they spend on Shorts. Recent findings from the beta version of the YouTube app, first reported by Android Authority, suggest that the platform is developing a feature to help users stop the endless scrolling [&hellip;]</p>

<p>TechCrunch Sessions: AI is fast approaching. So, what does that mean for you? It means exhibit tables are nearly gone — and now’s your chance to grab one before they’re all sold out. If you’ve got a game-changing product to showcase to the AI world, don’t keep it quiet. Exhibit your brand in front of [&hellip;]</p>

<p>Season 7 of “Black Mirror” premiered on Thursday, introducing a new mobile game connected to one of its episodes. The game, titled &#8220;Thronglets,&#8221; from Netflix&#8217;s own Night School Studio, serves as a companion to the episode called “Plaything.” Players interact with virtual yellow pets and strive to keep them alive. If players are successful in [&hellip;]</p>