Spotify expects its active listener base to hit 450 million by October, the music streaming service said in its second-quarter earnings report Wednesday, after finishing the period with 188 million subscribers and 433 million active listeners who visit the service at least once a month.  Even as Spotify girds for the possibility of economic slowdown, “it’s …

Spotify said Wednesday it has stopped manufacturing Car Thing, the music streaming service’s first and only hardware. Nearly a year elapsed between Spotify unveiling Car Thing and then fully launching it, only for the company to stop making it about five months after bringing it to market.  “We tested a number of price points, and we frankly haven’t seen the [sales] volume,” Spotify’s …

Netflix lost fewer subscribers than feared in its latest quarter, reporting a significant decrease in members overall — but only after warning it would suffer a more dramatic drop.  Earlier this year, Netflix reported its first decline in membership in more than a decade — a dip that was supposed to presage an even deeper plunge in subscriptions now. But Netflix, still …

What’s happening Three of the best augmented reality projects from Tribeca Festival are available for anyone — free, no trip to New York required. Why it matters Whatever our metaverse future may be, artists’ AR experiences can give you a glimpse of its more thoughtful possibilities. Augmented reality took a backseat to virtual reality in the pandemic. VR headsets, which …

Where the Crawdads Sing, a lush Hollywood adaptation of the popular mystery-thriller novel, hit theaters Friday. And though lots of movies are reaching streaming services much faster than they would’ve before the COVID-19 pandemic, Where the Crawdads Sing isn’t likely to be one of them.   Where will Where the Crawdads Sing stream?  The film is going to stream first …

Spider-Man: No Way Home was the first film in the pandemic to hit $1 billion in global box office receipts. But even as months passed since its theatrical release, and even as it became available to buy online, the movie wasn’t streaming on a subscription service at all, until Friday.  And it won’t be on one of the services that first …

Spider-Man: No Way Home hit theaters in December, laying the storytelling groundwork for Marvel fans to jump next into Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in May. But even though the latest Spider-Man movie preceded Strange in theaters by almost five months, Doctor Strange started streaming on Disney Plus in late June, long before No Way Home will be available …

The Black Phone hit US theaters Friday. But fans who want to watch it at home will need to wait awhile before it’s available on a streaming service.  Last year, an unprecedented number of new theatrical movies streamed online the same day they hit cinemas. But this year, as COVID-19 restrictions have eased and audiences have returned to cinemas, the …

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said the streaming giant is holding talks with multiple advertising companies about partnerships that would help it introduce a cheaper membership with ads, according to reports.  “We’re talking to all of them right now,” Sarandos said Thursday, according to Reuters, when he was asked on a panel about the advertising companies it’s pursuing for potential partnerships. Sarandos’ …

Disney Plus has been the breakaway success among a wave of new streaming services in the last two-plus years, thanks in part to its large library of shows, movies and exclusive originals. During the pandemic, Disney Plus streamed big-screen movies the same day they hit theaters. But recently, Disney has been holding most of its movies in theaters exclusively for …