Spotify grows its podcast ambitions with two new acquisitions

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Spotify is building its podcast business through two new acquisitions. The music streaming service acquired Gimlet Media and Anchor. The former is a startup podcast network, while the latter provides creators with tools to help them build, publish, and monetize podcasts. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek claims the company is now the second-biggest podcasting platform and that its podcast users “spend almost twice the time on the platform, and spend even more time listening to music.” And it wants to provide these users with more original programming as well as entice potential listeners to turn their platform into “the world’s number one audio platform.”

The company plans to invest more into podcasts this 2019 and said that it’s willing to spend around US$500 million to grow its podcast business. According to Recode, Spotify paid around US$230 million on Gimlet alone.

Google Assistant’s Interpreter Mode is now live

After making its debut at CES 2019, Google has finally brought Assistant’s Interpreter Mode to smart displays and speakers. It’s available on all Google Home speakers, some with Google Assistant built-in, and all smart displays. To activate the feature, you need to say something like “turn on interpreter mode” or “Help me speak Spanish” in either English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, or Spanish. It can translate between 26 languages with support for more on the way.

Source: Engadget

‘Captain Marvel’ will be first Disney+ exclusive film

Marvel Studios

After Captain Marvel hits theatres next month, you won’t be able to re-watch it later on any other streaming service except for Disney’s upcoming Disney+ service. The company’s CEO Bob Iger announced at an investors call on February 5^th that Captain Marvel will be the first film to exclusively stream on its service. Disney also plans to drop its US$140 million licensing program so all its content will be made exclusive on its service. Iger is also saying that many of its sub-brands—which include Marvel, Pixar, and Lucasfilm—are working on content specifically for Disney+. He even mentioned National Geographic, which Disney is in the process of acquiring as part of its purchase of 21^st Century Fox.

This move will not impact theatrical releases though, according to Iger. We also don’t have that many details about the service right now. But it’s expected to cost less than Netflix and come out sometime at the end of the year.

Source: Hypebeast

Autoplaying videos on Firefox will soon be played on mute by default

Don’t you just hate it when a video just starts playing in the background on your browser and disturbs the peace? Well, Mozilla is doing its part to make sure you aren’t annoyed by the sounds of an autoplaying video. The upcoming Firefox 66 version will automatically mute any autoplaying video or audio clip, unless you actively click on the play button. You can also manually allow sites to autoplay videos—like YouTube, where it’s expected that people want videos to play as normally as possible. There will be a new icon that pops up in the URL bar when a site blocks an autoplaying video or audio clip.

What you must remember though is the videos will continue to play, you just won’t be able to hear them. So, you still need to keep an eye out for these bandwidth-hogging videos. Also, sites where users allow the browser to access their camera and microphone are exempted. These are typically used for audio and video conferences, so the exception makes sense. This feature is expected to roll out on March 19^th.

Source: TechCrunch