Facebook will remove its troubled “Trending Topics” section next week, the company said Friday, signaling that the controversial feature was better off dead as Facebook builds different products for news. The section, which takes up important real estate on the social network’s desktop interface, has faced backlash since it first rolled out in 2014. Often criticized …

Wall Street is a topsy-turvy world, and now Netflix is the media king on top of it.  Thursday, Netflix’s market capitalization — finance-speak for the total value of its stock — crested higher than the market cap for Disney, previously the most valuable media company in the world. Netflix is worth about $153.8 billion compared with Disney‘s $152 billion, as of recent trading. Netflix surpassed …

Pandora is taking on Spotify‘s popular Discover Weekly personalized playlists with its own individualized mixes it calls Soundtracks, which center on themes like high-energy music or tunes to help you focus. Pandora, a streaming-music provider best known for its free digital radio, is widening these personalized playlists Wednesday to all subscribers of its Premium service, which is a $10-a-month membership that competes with …

YouTube is remixing its subscription services, relaunching its Spotify-like YouTube Music as a $10-a-month membership mostly devoid of video and recasting YouTube Red’s ad-free, paywalled video tier as YouTube Premium — with a $2 price bump.  In addition, Google Play Music, the other subscription streaming music service from the same parent company as YouTube, will be going away eventually. In a …

Apple Music has 50 million users, if you count those listening with free trials, Apple CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday on Bloomberg TV.  It seems like a big jump from the 38 million subscribers Apple Music touted in March, but Apple typically didn’t include people listening with three-month free trials in its previous tallies until Cook’s interview Tuesday.  Tuesday, Cook said that …

It’s apt that breastfeeding has a term called “letdown.” Most breast pumps haven’t changed significantly in their design since they were modified from the mechanized gadgets designed to milk cows. And using one today, you feel — literally — the lack of innovation. Enter Willow, one of a crop of new breast pumps that aims to reinvent the concept by …

Spotify isn’t shying away from making artists face the music.  Spotify on Thursday initiated a new policy around hate. It lets the music-streaming service ban or bury music or artists it judges to be “hateful,” whether it be songs that incite violence or artists whose conduct it won’t tolerate. On Friday, Pandora followed suit.  R. Kelly is the first. While the R&B star’s catalog will …

On this podcast, we talk about: Google’s experimental Duplex technology that empowers Assistant to make calls on your behalf to book appointments or make reservations, with a shockingly realistic pattern of speech.  Google Home’s new continued conversation setting, which may end the days of parroting “Hey, Google” when you want to keep asking questions.  Android P‘s measures to help you …

Pokemon Go’s maker, Niantic, has ambitions to build a three-dimensional map of the world by crowdsourcing the cameras on players’ phones, CEO John Hanke told Reuters. Pokemon Go was a breakout hit two years ago, a mobile game phenomenon that familiarized millions of consumers with the concept of augmented reality, a technology that overlays digital images on the real world.  …

Facebook is testing the ability for you to rewind live videos while they’re still happening.  Viewers have requested the feature so they can rewatch or catch up on important moments in a live video, Facebook said on its media blog Tuesday. After a period of testing, Facebook said it would bring Live Rewind to users globally.  Now playing: Watch this: Facebook’s …