A week after Miranda Lambert scolded fans for taking selfies, another of her followers wore a shirt suggesting they ‘shoot tequila’ instead – and Miranda thought that idea deserved a drink.
A week after Miranda Lambert scolded fans for taking selfies, another of her followers wore a shirt suggesting they ‘shoot tequila’ instead – and Miranda thought that idea deserved a drink.
Listening to your favorite songs uninterrupted is about to get a little pricier: Spotify has announced it’s raising the price of all its Premium plans. In the United States, this means a Premium Single subscription is going from $10 a month to $11 a month — its first increase since Spotify launched over a decade ago. Its Premium Family and Student plans are also going up by a dollar, now costing $17 and $6 per month, respectively. Premium Duo has the largest bump, going up two dollars per month from $13 to $15.
The move follows similar price hikes by competitors, with Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music all raising their ad-free individual plans to $11 in the past year. Last October, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek seemed to revel in other companies’ increased costs, “When our competitors are raising their prices, that is really good for us.” At the time, Ek said he would like to charge more for subscriptions, especially in the US, and felt confident Spotify would be able to in 2023.
People keep coming to Spotify, with the music streamer reporting five million more users during 2023’s first quarter worldwide, and an extra $12 a year might not impact that much. Updated prices are rolling out in countries across the world, from the United Kingdom to Thailand. Spotify says it will contact users via email to share how much their bill will go up and when it will happen.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/spotify-raises-iprice-of-premium-plans-115138529.html?src=rss
Fans of Doja Cat were left confused after some harsh comments she made online about her loyal supporters.
Fans of Doja Cat were left confused after some harsh comments she made online about her loyal supporters.
In a series of tweets last Saturday, Musk said the company’s famous bird logo and name would soon disappear. The company will change from Twitter to “X.” According to Platformer, Musk emailed staff later over the weekend saying the company would become X and his note “was the last email he’ll ever send from a Twitter email address.” And a lot of those changes have now happened.
Twitter’s own account is now all “X” branding, and it’s rolled out quickly elsewhere. Twitter employees are getting an “X” tag to their Twitter handles, next to their blue check, while the “X” logo has already been projected on a building, like a bat signal for self-aggrandizing tech executives and their minions. (I’m still not sure what this tweet (X?) even means.)
X.com was once an online bank co-founded by Musk in 1999. It eventually became PayPal and was bought by eBay. Of course, we already have SpaceX, his recently announced AI venture is called xAI and Twitter’s holding company was rammed to X Corp in April. Musk has also talked about how X would help Twitter become an “everything app.”
Terms that still need to be rebranded: subtweets, retweets, fail whales.
– Mat Smith
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AI can now place us inside South Park episodes – should we be worried? This week, Devindra and Deputy Editor Nathan Ingraham chat with Edward Saatchi, the CEO of The Simulation, about his company’s new AI technology that can generate TV episodes, movies and more. We preview a test South Park episode featuring Devindra and discuss if this technology is actually a good thing for creatives. Also, Editor at Large James Trew joins to discuss his piece on AI-powered immortality.
Some redditors were very excited about a new World of Warcraft feature called Glorbo. Just one problem: Glorbo isn’t real. Their faux enthusiasm for Glorbo caught the attention of a blog named The Portal, which publishes “gaming content powered by Z League” – often tenuously rewritten subreddit scraping, seemingly done by AI. (We hope it’s not a human.)
Redditor u/kaefer_kriegerin noticed The Portal was turning discussions from some gaming subreddits into blog posts. They decided to try to trick the content farm into covering a fake WoW feature. The ruse was a success. The Portal‘s now-deleted blog post even quoted u/kaefer_kriegerin as stating, “Honestly, this new feature makes me so happy! I just really want some major bot-operated news websites to publish an article about this.”
The best VPNs stay out of your way, and you’ll barely even notice they’re running. But ExpressVPN internet speeds outperformed even our baseline internet speed measures. The service is likely circumventing traffic shaping by the internet service provider or a similar anomaly because every other VPN will hurt internet speed in some way. It was also easy to access geo-blocked content using ExpressVPN, with little-to-no buffering – which is the cheeky reason a lot of us invest in a VPN.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/the-morning-after-twitter-rebrands-itself-as-x-and-ditches-the-bird-111524841.html?src=rss
‘The Bachelor’ star Raven Gates is officially a mom-of-two as her second baby with Adam Gottschalk was born on the weekend of July 23.
‘The Bachelor’ star Raven Gates is officially a mom-of-two as her second baby with Adam Gottschalk was born on the weekend of July 23.
Unlike when Dogecoin’s Shiba Inu briefly replaced it, it seems Twitter’s longstanding bird logo is genuinely having its last curtain call. Elon Musk and Twitter (or should we say X?) CEO Linda Yaccarino announced that the company was rebranding as “X” and projected the new emblem onto the company’s San Francisco headquarters. So far, the simple white logo with a black background has replaced the bird in the top left spot of the website, and the pair have it next to their respective names and blue checks. Twitter’s official account has also been renamed X, with the new logo and a stark black background. As of publication, the blue bird still exists in the browser icon, but that will likely change soon.
Lights. Camera. X! pic.twitter.com/K9Ou47Qb4R
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayacc) July 24, 2023
Musk has long had an affinity for the letter X, naming his 1999 banking startup x.com, aerospace company SpaceX and recent AI venture xAI. Speaking of x.com, type that into your search bar, and it will automatically reroute you to Twitter’s homepage — Musk bought x.com back from PayPal in 2017.
Musk and co have made hefty claims about Twitter’s future since he first took ownership, and its rebrand is no exception. “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Yaccarino said in a Twitter thread repeating much of what Musk has said in the past. “Powered by AI, X will connect us all in ways we’re just beginning to imagine.” We’ll have to wait and see if the rebrand does anything to bring back all the advertising dollars the company has lost or help it compete against Meta’s Threads.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/twitter-begins-its-transition-to-x-100901444.html?src=rss
Star Trek musical parodies have been a thing since the Shatner days, but no official Star Trek musical has ever been released officially. That’s about to change, though, as Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 will feature the first ever Star Trek musical episode, Paramount announced. Called Subspace Rhapsody, it will be the ninth episode of the season and debut on Paramount Plus on August 3rd at 7PM ET.
The news dropped at San Diego Comic-Con during the Star Trek Universe panel, along with a video (below, US only). It features 10 new songs composed by Kay Hanley and Tom Polce of the rock band Letters to Cleo.
Strange New Worlds has been a success with both critics (including Engadget’s Daniel Cooper) and audiences since its debut, thanks in large part to the cast led by Anson Mount (Captain Pike), Rebecca Romjin (Number 1) and Ethan Peck (Spock). It also brought a lighter touch to the Star Trek universe following darker shows like Picard. As we detailed yesterday, the show dropped its Lower Decks crossover episode earlier than expected, and it’s now available to stream.
Musical TV episodes are nothing new, with some of the more noteworthy ones coming out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Scrubs and Xena, Warrior Princess (yep). Sometimes these are, well, unmotivated, with everyone suddenly breaking into song (Scrubs), or the musical is built as a bottle episode outside the reality of the main show (Xena).
Subspace Rhapsody seems to be set in motion by plot events, though, with some kind of (insert your favorite Trek MacGuffin here) event bringing out the characters’ inner theater kids. As shown in the trailer and retro-style poster, it’s staged and performed as a full-blown musical, and looks like some silly fun.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/star-trek-strange-new-worlds-season-2-will-include-a-musical-episode-042558081.html?src=rss
During the July 23 episode of ‘RHONY’, Jenna Lyons revealed the moment she discovered she was attracted to women. Plus, she shared how she was ‘outed’ by the press.
During the July 23 episode of ‘RHONY’, Jenna Lyons revealed the moment she discovered she was attracted to women. Plus, she shared how she was ‘outed’ by the press.
Drew found herself battling friends and some serious allegations about her past when she accused Kandi of telling a lie.
Drew found herself battling friends and some serious allegations about her past when she accused Kandi of telling a lie.
The actress and her spouse enjoyed spending time on a boat and staying cool in the water during the summer vacation.
The actress and her spouse enjoyed spending time on a boat and staying cool in the water during the summer vacation.
