VTubers have quickly become my favorite new type of content creators on the internet. Though I’ve seen enough now to know that the possibilities for what creative and wildly entertaining forms their avatars might take are endless, I still wasn’t prepar…
Ubisoft First Major Pub To Befoul Own Game With NFTs
Ubisoft just announced Ubisoft Quartz, an NFT initiative which allows people to buy artificially scarce digital items using cryptocurrency. This announcement represents the AAA-industry’s first real foray into NFTs, which a lot of people absolutely hat…
TechCrunch+ roundup: Credit Karma post-exit, recruiting developers, re:Invent recap
The very day in Feb. 2020 that Credit Karma planned to announce that it had been acquired by Intuit for over $7 billion, the stock market tanked, spooked by news that a virus could start a pandemic.
Facebook’s new website lets fans buy ‘Stars’ without paying the app stores’ commissions
Meta (formerly Facebook) has found a new way to avoid the app stores’ commissions on in-app purchases with the launch of a new website where people can buy “Stars” — the virtual items that allow fans to express their support for favorite creators during Facebook videos and livestreams. Typically, Stars are bought as in-app purchases […]
Amazon Web Services Outage Affects Several Major Games
Amazon Web Services, upon which much of the internet is built, is experiencing issues with its biggest hub of data centers. Naturally, this means a lot of folks are having trouble logging into and playing some of their favorite games.Read more…
PlayStation Executive Fired After Pedophile Allegation Video Posted Online
George Cacioppo, a senior vice president at Sony Interactive Entertainment who had worked in engineering and on the PlayStation Store since 2013, has been “terminated” from his position after he reportedly appeared over the weekend in a pedophile sting…
Is the UK government’s new IoT cybersecurity bill fit for purpose?
Internet of Things (IoT) devices — essentially, electronics like fitness trackers and smart lightbulbs that connect to the internet — are now part of everyday life for most. However, cybersecurity remains a problem, and according to Kaspersky, it’s only getting worse: there were 1.5 billion breaches of IoT devices during the first six months of […]
MrBeast’s ‘Real Life Squid Game’ and the price of viral stunts
First, everyone was talking about “Squid Game,” the Korean psychological thriller that became Netflix’s biggest series launch ever, with 142 million viewers. Now, everyone’s talking about YouTuber MrBeast’s recreation of the show’s titular fight-to-the-death, which racked up 142 million views in eight days. (Don’t worry, no one was killed). Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast), the 23-year-old who […]
Social app IRL makes its first acquisition with deal for digital nutrition company AaBeZe Labs
IRL, the SoftBank-backed social app and recent unicorn, is today announcing its first acquisition. The company is purchasing, for an undisclosed sum, the “digital nutrition” company AaBeZe Labs and its portfolio of IP with the goal of making IRL a healthier and more ethically designed social networking app. AaBeZe’s founders Michael Phillips Moskowitz, the former […]
Playground launches in beta to help creators cultivate community
Launching today in beta, Playground is a social platform that seeks to help people discover and develop community while empowering creators to monetize their audience. Already, the website has a wide variety of users like the Museum of Modern Art, comedy host Alexis Gay, the Abolitionist Teaching Network, activist Nupol Kiazolu, and a Malaysian virtual […]