Topic: digital media
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Stereogum's Survival Guide for the Streaming and AI Era
Stereogum, founded in 2002 as a pioneering music blog, has evolved into a major voice in music journalism and recently underwent a significant relaunch to adapt to challenges like AI in media. The site's recent updates include technical improvements, a visual refresh with dark mode, and a shift t...
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Merriam-Webster's 2025 Word of the Year Revealed: 'Slop'
Merriam-Webster has named "slop" its 2025 Word of the Year, formally defining it as low-quality, mass-produced AI-generated digital content. The year saw a split in industry response, with some major platforms implementing policies to curb AI slop while others, like Meta and OpenAI, launched appl...
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Amazon's AI-Animated Good Advice Cupcake Show Angers Original Creator
Loryn Brantz, the creator of the "Good Advice Cupcake" character, is in an intellectual property dispute with BuzzFeed and Amazon after BuzzFeed licensed Cuppy to Prime Video for an AI-generated animated series without her consent. Brantz accuses BuzzFeed of breaking promises to not continue the ...
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Peacock Launches Vertical NBA Streams for Mobile
Peacock is launching a vertical video format for mobile, allowing viewers to watch NBA games in portrait mode without rotating their device, using an algorithm to automatically follow the on-court action. This initiative is part of Peacock's broader push to enhance mobile viewing, potentially usi...
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HBO Max Expands Password-Sharing Crackdown Worldwide
HBO Max will begin a global enforcement rollout to curb password sharing in 2026, following stricter measures already implemented in the United States. The company aims to convert shared accounts into new revenue streams, particularly in newly launched international markets, to help achieve a tar...
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Adobe's AI Can Now Change the Emotion in Any Voice Recording
Adobe has demonstrated AI technology that can transform the emotional tone of any audio recording while preserving the speaker's original voice characteristics. The system analyzes acoustic properties like pitch and tempo to seamlessly inject new emotions, with potential commercial release expect...
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Peacock's AI Andy Cohen Narrates Endless Bravo Clips
Peacock is launching an AI-generated avatar of Andy Cohen to guide users through "Your Bravoverse," an endless, personalized feed of short clips from Bravo shows. The platform is adopting short-form video to boost engagement, using AI to create billions of unique feed variations by analyzing view...
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Snapchat's Quick Cut Automatically Edits Your Videos
Snapchat launched Quick Cut, a built-in video editor that automatically transforms saved photos and clips into polished, music-synced videos, simplifying content creation for users without advanced skills. The feature automatically syncs music to visuals and allows for song changes and Lens appli...
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Our AI Policy for Newsrooms
Ars Technica has published its public policy on using generative AI in its newsroom, fulfilling a promise made earlier this year and emphasizing transparency. The policy is based on the belief that human creativity is irreplaceable and that AI should only be used as an aid for professionals, neve...
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Pete Davidson and Michael Irvin Star in Netflix's First Original Podcasts
Netflix is launching its first two original video podcasts this month, featuring comedian Pete Davidson and NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin, marking its strategic entry into the podcasting arena. **The Pete Davidson Show** premieres January 30th with weekly, unfiltered discussions from his garage...
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Peacock's App Opens With a Flurry of Ads
Peacock is introducing "arrival ads" on its profile selection screen next year, expanding its ad inventory by targeting viewers immediately upon launching the app. Subscribers to the ad-free Premium Plus tier will be exempt from these new profile screen advertisements, which the company describes...
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Humble Bundle Founders Launch New Game Discovery Platform
Digiphile is a new digital marketplace launched by former Humble Bundle executives, focusing on community-driven curation and partnerships with creators and charities to reshape digital media discovery. The platform features limited-time collections curated with experts, includes The Digiphile Ex...
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From Online Warrior to Congress: Her Fight Against the Far Right
Kat Abughazaleh is learning that engaging voters in person demands different skills than online activism, using creative tactics like offering hot sauce to spark conversations about her policies. She represents a wave of young, left-leaning candidates challenging the Democratic establishment, wit...
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AI Code Competition Intensifies in 2026
The competition for AI-powered coding tools, which began with GitHub Copilot in 2021, has become a central battleground for major tech companies in 2026, fundamentally reshaping software development workflows and industry economics. These tools have evolved from simple autocomplete into comprehen...
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Suno v5.5 Adds New Customization Features
Suno's latest update, version 5.5, shifts focus from audio quality to user empowerment by introducing tools for personalization. The new "Voices" feature, the most requested addition, allows users to train the AI's vocal model using their own voice via various input methods. The system is designe...
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Anthropic urges global pause on AI development
Anthropic has urged global leaders to pause advanced AI development, warning that innovation is outpacing society's ability to understand or control these systems. The proposed halt would allow time to establish robust safety standards and governance frameworks, addressing risks like economic dis...
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Internet's Top Lawyer: Multiple Watergate-Level Scandals Weekly
Legal analyst Devin Stone argues the unprecedented weekly frequency of major political scandals, comparable to Watergate, is distorting public perception of political reality and accountability. This constant churn of controversies creates a normalization effect, blurring ethical and legal lines ...
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AI Agents Demand Machine-First Website Architecture
Current website architecture is human-centric, creating an accessibility gap for AI agents that process structured data, which can render valuable content invisible or misinterpreted. AI agents are already actively consuming web information, and sites with complex or unstructured content risk los...
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Claude Code adds safer auto mode
Anthropic has launched a new "auto mode" for Claude Code, designed to provide a safer, hands-off AI coding experience by balancing autonomy with risk management. The feature enhances safety by automatically flagging and blocking potentially dangerous actions, such as file deletion or code executi...
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Kamala Harris Launches Gen Z Progressive Content Hub
Vice President Kamala Harris has rebranded her former campaign social media account into a new, independent Gen-Z led progressive content hub called @headquarters_67, focused on sharing political news and updates. The hub is a partnership between a digital agency and an advocacy group, with Harri...
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