Spotify is aiming to give YouTube some competition with its new partner program for video creators and content that goes viral. The music and podcast app announced a new Partner Program that monetizes audio and video beyond income from advertising starting on January 2, 2025.
The new monetization program pays Spotify creators in two ways. Creators can earn a share of ad revenue from their content on all platforms through its Partner Program. They can also earn money through monthly podcast subscriptions that allow listeners to support creators directly in return for exclusive bonus content and perks.
Both tiers also come with eligibility requirements. The Spotify Partner Program requires participants to host and upload their content through its Spotify for Creators platform, have streamed 10,000 hours and at least 2,000 unique views in a 30-day period and published at least 12 episodes. Subscriptions will be open to content creators who have at least two published episodes and at least 100 unique Spotify listeners in a 60-day period. The new programs will be available for subscribers in the US, UK, Canada and Australia next January.
Spotify has taken other steps to make its video and music content more accessible and mainstream. The music and video streamer integrated with TikTok and Instagram so users can post tracks on the social media sites.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/music/spotify-unveils-a-new-payout-model-for-creators-with-popular-videos-221706698.html?src=rss
After a lengthy consideration, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Amazons captive-audience meetings are a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. These are mandatory meetings where an employer shares its stance on unionization.
Ensuring that workers can make a truly free choice about whether they want union representation is one of the fundamental goals of the National Labor Relations Act. Captive audience meetingswhich give employers near-unfettered freedom to force their message about unionization on workers under threat of discipline or dischargeundermine this important goal, Chairman Lauren McFerran said of the ruling. Todays decision better protects workers freedom to make their own choices in exercising their rights under the Act, while ensuring that employers can convey their views about unionization in a noncoercive manner.
The decision noted that employers may hold meetings about unionization as long as workers receive advanced notice about the topic, are told that attendance is voluntary and without consequences for opting not to participate, and that attendance records are not kept.
Todays ruling centers on Amazon, which has a rocky history with its employees efforts to organize and with the NLRB. However, the decision could impact other big tech firms that have followed similar practices around unionization.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amazon-cant-force-employees-into-anti-unionization-meetings-214438177.html?src=rss
A startup called Wonder is now the new owner of Grubhub. The food delivery app announced its acceptance of the deal on its website earlier today.
Wonder acquired Grubhub from the Dutch food company Just Eat Takeaway for $650 million. Pending regulatory approval, the deal will close early next year. Wonder also announced it has raised an additional $250 million in venture capital funding to further its mission and growth.
Chicago software engineers Matt Maloney and Mike Evens founded Grubhub in 2004 as an online restaurant ordering service and an alternative to those paper menus that showed up on doorsteps and in junk mailings. The company merged with the automated food ordering and delivery company Seamless in 2013. Just Eat Takeaway bought Grubhub in 2020 for $7.3 billion at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The numbers for restaurant delivery apps started to drop once the pandemic became part of history and people started going out again. Legal troubles started in 2021 when Chicago took Grubhub and some of its competitors to court for alleged unfair business practices and fees. Companies like DoorDash eventually settled but Grubhubs legal battle with Chicago is still raging in court, according to the Chicago Business Journal.
The District of Columbia won a similar lawsuit against Grubhub in 2021 that ended with a $3.5 million settlement. The following year, Grubhub announced it would lay off 15 percent of its corporate staff.
Wonder is a new fooddelivery company started by Marc Lore, a former Walmart executive who owns two professional basketball teams. Lowe previously founded Diapers.com and Jet.com. The New York Times published a profile on Lore and his newest venture Wonder, which he said could be the Amazon of food and beverage.
Wonders original focus was to get its own restaurants up and running and create a delivery service that offers cheaper, quicker build-outs. Maybe thats because third-party food delivery services like Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber have seen their prices jump in the last couple of years, according to CNBC.
Just in New York City, food delivery prices increased by 58 percent in just under a year, according to Bloomberg. A new law that went into effect at the end of last year raised the minimum wage for New York delivery drivers to $17.96 an hour. The New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection reported that food delivery workers saw their wages increase by 64 percent and their tips decreased by 60 percent in just eight months.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/grubhub-just-sold-for-a-tenth-of-what-it-was-worth-during-the-pandemic-204555195.html?src=rss
Sure, early Black Friday deals offer a great opportunity to snag some essentials and upgrades for a lower price than usual, but if you have the leeway for a fun treat for yourself or a loved one, you'll find plenty of discounts in that realm too. For instance, you can snag the Ninja Creami ice cream maker for $50 off the list price. At $180, that's not too far away from its record low price, making it a solid deal. While it isn't quite the season for ice cream in North America, there's never truly a bad time to enjoy it.
The Ninja Creami is among our picks for the best kitchen gadgets. In fact, we reckon it's the best ice cream maker around.
This is a more compact ice cream machine than many other household models. The Ninja Creami is very easy to use as well, since it operates in a similar way to a food processor. You'll need to make a liquid ice cream base and then freeze it, ideally for 24 hours. You can then use the machine to blend in flavors. Cleaning up is a cinch if you have a dishwasher, since everything aside from the machine component is safe to place alongside your dishes on the racks.
On the downside, it is a rather noisy machine. We estimate that the volume is somewhere between that of a food processor and a countertop blender running at full speed. It's fairly tall too at 16 inches, so you'll want to make sure you have enough space for the Ninja Creami before buying it. Otherwise, we have no major complaints, other than the design not being overly attractive. As such, we gave it a score of 90 in our review.
The Ninja Creami has seven one-touch programs, but if you'd prefer an 11-in-1 deluxe model, you're in luck: that's on sale too. At $220, it's $30 off. It supports 24 oz tubs that hold 50 percent more ice cream than those in the original Ninja Creami. The Deluxe model also has a dual processing feature. This allows you to add two different mix-in flavors to the same base. So you can, for instance, add sprinkles to the top part and cookies to the bottom.
Check out all of the latest Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/deals/the-ninja-creami-ice-cream-maker-is-50-off-in-an-early-black-friday-deal-203207931.html?src=rss
Blizzard pulled off a rare surprise today by shadow launching remasters of the original Warcraft and its sequel to commemorate the franchises 30th anniversary. These updates of the hit RTS games are available right now and look to merge retro goodness with some modern sensibilities.
The remasters feature brand new, hand-drawn visuals that capture the original art style from each game. Players will be able to swap between the original graphics and the remastered versions in real time. If the trailer is anything to go by, the games look purdy. The simple animations match the vibe of the two games nicely.
The original Warcraft is getting some serious quality-of-life changes to make the game more appealing to modern audiences. The update includes 16:9 resolution support and modern control options. For instance, players can now right-click to move units instead of having to rely on hotkeys.
Both remasters have also received "various UI and UX improvements such as tooltips and health bars, mission select screens, and increased unit selection." The original games placed strict limitations on how many units could be selected at once, so that last one is a nice improvement.
Warcraft 2 will even be available for multiplayer sessions. Franchise manager Brad Chan said during todays 30th anniversary livestream that all legacy custom maps will still be fully compatible and playable. These remasters are available right now. Warcraft 1 is $10 and Warcraft 2 is $15.
Todays 30th anniversary stream also dropped all kinds of other nuggets beyond the remasters. Warcraft 3: Reforged got a major update today that fixes many long-standing issues. Blizzard also announced that the affiliated mobile title Warcraft Arclight Rumble will be playable on PC starting on December 10, albeit as a beta.
The developer is relaunching WoW: Classic, complete with all-new, fresh realms. WoW: Classic 20th Anniversary Edition will be available on November 21 and will include PvE and PvP servers, in addition to Hardcore realms.
WoW Classic is even getting a new (old) expansion. Mists of Pandora Classic will be available next year. Check the trailer above for proof.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/warcraft-1-and-2-remastered-are-available-right-now-for-some-retro-rts-goodness-194335478.html?src=rss
Google is conducting a test that will omit results from EU-based news publishers. The company says the time-limited trial will only affect a small portion of users in nine EU countries and will help assess how results from EU news publishers impact the search experience for our users and traffic to publishers. But given the fragile state of the news media and the companys history of threatening to pull its services in the face of news-related regulations its tempting to view it as the equivalent of a mob boss conducting a little test to see how the corner laundromat fares without its protection.
Google describes the experiment (via The Verge) as a small, time-limited test to omit EU results from search, Google News and the personalized Discover feed. It will only affect one percent of users in Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. Those users will still see results from other websites, including non-EU news publications.
The company says news results will reappear as usual once the test concludes. (It didnt list a specific timeframe.) Google stresses that the experiment wont impact the publisher payments it makes under the European Copyright Directive (EUCD), under which the company has inked deals with over 4,000 EU publishers.
Google does have a history of using the potential withdrawal of its visibility as a negotiating stick in similar situations. In some cases, the tactic has helped it draw concessions.
Last year, Google pulled its news links from Canada in response to Bill C-18 (the Online News Act), which required tech companies to negotiate compensation with online publishers for linked content. After months of negotiations, Google said Canada had addressed its concerns and given it a path to an exemption. Canada said it granted one to Google last month, with the company agreeing to pay $100 million annually to news organizations.
In April of this year, Google briefly removed links to California news outlets in response to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), which would require Google to pay news publishers in exchange for continuing to link to their websites. Although the bills fate is still up in the air, Google struck a deal with state lawmakers this summer, committing tens of millions of dollars to a fund supporting local news.
In 2021, the company threatened to remove its entire search engine from Australia in response to a then-proposed law requiring tech companies to share royalties with news publishers. The nations then-Prime Minister stood firm. Let me be clear. Australia makes our rules for things you can do in Australia, Scott Morrison said. After the bill was passed and enacted, Google struck deals with Australian media companies to license content.
Google says it hopes the data analysis tools it provides publishers will help them use the EU test to understand traffic patterns.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/a-google-test-will-omit-eu-publishers-from-news-links-184536615.html?src=rss
Threads could start getting ads much sooner than Meta has let on. The company is now planning to bring ads to its newest app early next year with the first ads arriving in January of 2025, according to a new report in The Information.
That suggests Meta is looking to start making money on the rapidly growing service far sooner than Meta executives have previously suggested. In August, when the app reached 200 million users, Mark Zuckerberg said Threads could become the companys next billion-user service. He said making money off the app would be a "multi-year" effort.
All these new products, we ship them, and then there's a multi-year time horizon between scaling them and then scaling them into not just consumer experiences but very large businesses, Zuckerberg said. In the companys most recent earnings call, Meta CFO Susan Li said the company doesnt expect Threads to be a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue at this time.
According to The Information, Meta is planning a slow rollout for ads on Threads. The company will start with a small number of advertisers in January. Its unclear how quickly the effort may expand. "Since our priority is to build consumer value first and foremost, there are no ads or monetization features currently on Threads," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
Metas reported plans highlight just how quickly the service has grown in recent months. Threads has 275 million monthly users and is seeing more than 1 million new sign-ups a day, according to Zuckerberg. That makes it by far the largest of the X alternatives that have sprung up over the last couple years.
Bluesky, another popular Twitter-like service, has also seen significant growth recently, adding a million new users in the last week, the company said Tuesday. It is still much smaller than Threads with 15 million users. Like Threads, it also currently has no advertising and the company has said it plans to experiment with subscription-based features.
Update November 13, 2024, 2 PM ET: Added a statement from a Meta spokesperson. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-reportedly-bring-ads-to-threads-as-soon-as-january-183044211.html?src=rss
AMD has confirmed its laying off roughly four percent of its global workforce, according to reports by TechCrunch and others. Its not entirely clear how many people will be impacted by this move, or which divisions the laid off employees will be pulled from.
We can, however, do some math. The company had around 26,000 employees last year, according to an annual filing by AMD. Four percent of 26,000 comes out to just over 1,000 people. Thats a lot.
So that leads us to why. You already know the answer. Its a bunch of corporate gobbledygook. As a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps, an AMD spokesperson told CRN.
Dont worry. The company also said its committed to treating impacted employees with respect and helping them through this transition. Engadget reached out to AMD for more information as to what that respect and help will look like. Well update this story if we find out anything.
This news comes after a fairly mixed Q3 earnings report. The company grew revenue and profit, but the gaming division saw a massive year-over-year decline of 69 percent, according to Wccftech. The company has also struggled to compete with NVIDIA in the world of AI chips.
Experts still predict that AMD will make nearly $33 billion in 2025, thanks to forthcoming next-gen GPUs. This isnt enough for investors, however, as its just an increase of around $7 billion when compared to 2024. The companys stock is down around four percent this year, and dropped further today. Capitalism demands massive and endless growth.
Rival (and occasional bestie) Intel has faced similar headwinds. The company announced over 15,000 layoffs earlier this year.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/amd-lays-off-4-percent-of-its-global-workforce-182534044.html?src=rss
Sony has revealed the latest slate of PlayStation Plus Game Catalog additions for Extra and Premium members, and it's a dang solid lineup this month. The biggest name, of course, is Grand Theft Auto V. That's returning to the Game Catalog after Sony removed it in June. GTA V has now sold more than 205 million copies (not a typo), but if you've yet to dive into the game or its perennially popular online mode, here's your chance. GTA VI, meanwhile, is set to arrive next fall.
In case you're all GTA'd out for the time being, there are lots of other PS Plus additions to explore. One of those is the open-world zombie survival action RPG Dying Light 2: Stay Human, which I've been meaning to check out for a long time. Like A Dragon: Ishin (which, coincidentally, is leaving Game Pass this month) and Chivalry 2 are among the other big names on the list, but I'm especially happy to see Overcooked! All You Can Eat make the cut.
That's a terrific bundle of both Overcooked games and all of the expansions. For years, I've been calling these games the perfect relationship test. Just, uh, maybe don't play with your partner if you're going through a rough patch.
Elsewhere, The Sims 4 expansion pack Island Living is included. Naturally, you'll need the free-to-play base game to access that. Moto GP 24, Digimon Survive, Stick Fight: The Game, Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, the intriguing Killer Frequency and Hungry Shark World round out the newcomers to the PS Plus Game Catalog's Extra tier.
The Premium lineup is pretty exciting this month as well. I spent many hours playing the multiplayer modes of Resistance: Fall of Man in the PS3 era. Insomniac Games has been on an incredible run for the last six years, so it should be fun to hop back into that game and its sequel, Resistance 2, for a hit of nostalgia and to see how far the studio has come. Note, however, that these two games are streaming-only.
Ahead of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1-2 Remastered arriving next month, you can warm up by playing Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Blood Omen 2. Last but not least, there's one PS VR2 addition to the lineup in the form of action shooter Synapse. PS Plus Premium and Extra subscribers can play these games at no extra cost starting on November 19.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/playstation/playstation-plus-game-catalog-additions-for-november-include-gta-v-again-and-dying-light-2-174646227.html?src=rss
Following an earlier campaign in July 2024, fast fashion brand Mango is presenting its current crop of sportswear for teens using AI models. Set in a dance studio as well as outdoors, the lookbook images are marked as generated by AI. The move is part of Mangos self-described earn lever, aiming to add value through better use of tech and data management.The upsides for Mango are clear: creating AI images, once technology and processes are up and running, is quicker and cheaper than hiring human talent saving not just on models but also on bookers, photographers, make-up artists, set designers, runners... In theory, AI models also make it easier to show clothes on a more diverse cast of people. So far, Mango seems to be skipping the opportunity to explore a range of sizes and ethnicities, sticking instead to a traditionally waifish, light-skinned young woman.AI models arent just a natural fit for large (fast) fashion brands, though. Gen AI could be a significant driver of efficiency and creativity for smaller labels, too sustainable knitwear brand Sheep Inc, for example, started experimenting with artificially generated models and backgrounds in 2023.In an interview with Country and Town House last year, co-founder Edzard van der Wyck explained how AI benefits Sheep Inc: AI offered us an innovative, energy-efficient way to create a campaign with high production values without leaving a trail of carbon and waste behind. Its been a real game changer for us, as it means we can combine detailed product photography with computer generated design, to create stunning visuals that showcase our products and world view in a much richer manner. It has also allowed us to make the sheep themselves central to our campaign without animal welfare issues. Hard to argue with that ;-)
