Google says YouTube now has over 100 million subscribersGoogle said today that YouTube now has more than 100 million paid users across YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. This number is up from the 80 million paid users the company mentioned in November 2022.Earlier this week, during its Q4 2023 earnings call, Sundar Pichai said that Google’s subscription business — which includes YouTube’s paid plans — has now crossed $15 billion annually.The company’s chief business officer Philipp Schindler said that prem ...

Fortnite maker Epic Games is preparing to fight Apple in court over how Apple has chosen to comply with a court order that required the tech giant to change its App Store rules. In the antitrust case filed by Epic Games, a district court judge in Northern California ruled that app developers should be able to point their users to links or buttons that connected to their websites, where their customers could learn about other ways to pay for apps beyond Apple’s in-app purchase. Apple agreed to allow such lin ...

Google announced today that its Bard chatbot is now powered by the Gemini Pro model globally with support for over 40 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam.In December, Google launched its new generative AI models with flagship Gemini Ultra, “lite” Gemini Pro, and Gemini Nano, which is designed to run on devices like the Pixel 8. At the same time, the company updated Bard with Gemini Pro for conversations in English. Go ...

Reliance-backed Viacom18 has reached an agreement to buy 60% of Disney’s India unit, WSJ reported Thursday citing unnamed sources, creating a pathway for the Indian conglomerate to form a $10 billion media giant in the South Asian market.The deal, which WSJ says will close this month, values Disney’s India unit at $3.9 billion, the report said, less than half of what Disney had originally hoped. Earlier this week, Reliance declined to comment on its engagement with Disney.Viacom18 is a joint venture among M ...

Tesla has been sued by 25 California counties alleging the automaker has repeatedly mishandled hazardous waste at facilities throughout the state. The lawsuit was filed after months of settlement talks apparently fell apart.The complaint, filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court, states that Tesla improperly labeled and disposed of materials like “lead acid batteries and other batteries,” paints, brake fluid, aerosols, antifreeze, acetone, diesel fuel, and more at its production and service facilities thr ...

Instagram Threads will adopt another Twitter/X feature: trends, the company has confirmed. In a reply to a user on the app, Instagram head Adam Mosseri noted that work on such a feature was in the works, responding that “we are working on surfacing trends” — a feature that would make the X rival even more competitive offering in terms of providing access to more real-time news and information.Threads, to date, has been criticized by some who felt the app’s “For You” algorithm prioritized creators and posts ...

Commerce platform Shopify is releasing new features for its Winter Editon rollout including an AI-powered media editor to enhance product images, improved semantic search, and a better way for merchants to showcase different variants of a product.Many companies including Meta, Google, and Amazon have allowed advertisers to generate backgrounds using generative AI since last year. Similarly, Shopify wants to help merchants edit their product images’ backgrounds and scenes using this tech. In the Magic Media ...

Google has today said its cloud region in South Africa is operational, coming a year after the tech giant picked Johannesburg as its first site in Africa.Cloud regions allow users to deploy cloud resources from specific geographic locations or closer to customers, and gives them access to several services including cloud storage, compute engine and key management systems.Google says the Johannesburg region will play an important role in providing the resources that businesses “need to scale, innovate and co ...

A Delaware judge ruled Tuesday that Elon Musk’s $56 billion multi-billion pay package is unfair, voiding the largest in compensation deal in corporate history.The decision, issued Tuesday in the Delaware Court of Chancery by Judge Kathaleen McCormick, means that Musk, the world’s richest person, can’t keep the 2018 compensation package. The ruling can be appealed. Chancery Daily, which follows and shares update on the Delaware Chancery Court, first reported the decision on Threads.The ruling doesn’t provide ...

Block, the fintech company whose subsidiaries include Square, Cash App and Afterpay, is laying off staff at a tumultuous time for tech industry workers.That’s according to an internal memo from CEO Jack Dorsey, obtained first by Business Insider, which states that “the growth of [Block] has far outpaced the growth of … business and revenue.”The layoffs were executed this morning and affected staff in the Cash App, foundational and Square arms of Block. Reportedly, around 1,000 people — or 10% of Block’s hea ...