Technology Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

Lil Yachty and Soulja Boy are among a group of famous faces who have been charged with illegally advertising cryptocurrency by the Securities and Exchange Commission. On Wednesday, the SEC filed the charges against the group of eight celebrities, which also includes musicians Ne-Yo and Akon, as well as Jake Paul, Lindsay Lohan, Austin Mahone, and Kendra Lust, with “illegally touting" crypto asset securities Tronix (TRX) and BitTorrent (BTT) "without disclosing that they were compensated for doing so and the amount of their compensation.” Despite not admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, each of the names mentioned by the SEC, except for Soulja Boy and Austin Mahone, has agreed to pay a total of over $400,000 in disgorgement, interest, and penalties to settle the charges.

It's been a tumultuous seven-ish days for internet users of a certain generation. Last Sunday, rumors began to circulate that the legendary mixtape archive DatPiff was gone for good, though the site denied that less than a day later, blaming "technical issues" with its website and app for the user issues.

Spotify is wading into the controversial, often repulsive menage-a-trois of A.I., art, and business with a new listener guide called DJ. Powered by OpenAI and Spotify’s proprietary personalization technology, DJ speaks to Spotify users and offers recommendations based on your listening history as well as commentary between songs.

Kanye West is set to acquire Parler, a conservative social media site notorious for misinformation and conspiracy theories, according to a statement released on Monday (October 17) by the company.

The Security and Exchanges Commission (SEC) has charged Kim Kardashian with "unlawfully touting crypto security." In June 2021, Kardashian shared an Instagram post promoting a crypto security asset created by EtheriumMax called "EMAX Tokens" and did not disclose that she was paid $250,000 for the post.

Riot Games, the parent company behind League of Legends, has brought Lil Nas X on board as president of the popular arena battle video game. It doesn't sound like the responsibilities will involve the nitty gritty of day-to-day management.

After years of complaints and requests, Twitter has begun beta testing an edit button.

The Washington Post.The scheme allegedly took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were closed for over a year and were struggling to connect students to virtual learning platforms. Prosecutors claim Ward took advantage of the situation to put in orders for technology that never materialized, instead using the money to purchase a $169,000 property in West Virginia, at least nine vehicles — including two Teslas worth $218,000 and a Ford F-450 worth $120,000 — and assorted art and sports memorabilia.

Few recent crypto-related endeavors have generated as hard and swift a backlash as HitPiece did back in February. The website promised "one-of-one NFTs of all your favorite songs" with dozens of tracks listed without permission from the artists.

Earlier this week, two of YouTube’s most popular and influential radio streams suddenly disappeared. Lofi Girl is the 10 million subscriber-strong YouTube account behind the seminal “lofi beats to study to,” streams which have logged over 668 million views over two years.

Elon Musk could be in the process of pulling out of his $44 billion deal to purchase Twitter, according to a report from the Washington Post. The social media platform accepted Musk's $44 billion bid in April.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club is an NFT collective popular with celebrities like Post Malone and Steph Curry who pay in the millions for the rights to some of the ugliest cartoons you've ever seen. They are also regularly stolen.

The iPod is dead, long live the iPod. Apple has announced that the company will no longer produce the foundational portable music device more than 20 years after it first debuted.

Twitter has accepted Elon Musk's $44 billion offer to purchase the social media site and take it private, CNBC reports. Talks between Musk and Twitter stalled for weeks before escalating quickly on Monday with the company agreeing to Musk's price of $54.20 per share just hours later.

Elon Musk's attempt to stage a takeover at Twitter appear to be gathering pace with the New York Times reporting on Sunday that the Tesla CEO has entered negotiations with the board of the social media company. This latest development follows Twitter's decision last week to take the "posion pill" option of diluting its stock in order to make any potential takeover prohibitively expensive.

If you're still watching Netflix on your ex's roommate's account, that access may not last much longer: Netflix is considering cracking down on password sharing, according to a report from the Associated Press. The streaming platform may also add a new, lower-cost subscription tier supported by ads, similar to its rival Hulu's.

Elon Musk has confirmed his interest in becoming the outright owner of Twitter and says he has submitted a bid to purchase the social media company. Musk says he feels he can unlock the "extraordinary potential" of Twitter, which he bought a 9.2% stake in just 10 days ago. Musk, the world's richest man through his business interests in Tesla and SpaceX, used Twitter to share a link to a regulatory filing on Thursday, confirming that he had launched a takeover bid.

Kanye West's new album Donda 2 has been disqualified from the Billboard charts, the publication reports, thanks to rules regarding merchandise bundles. Donda 2 was released on February 25 on Kanye West's Stem Player, a device that isolates songs into different musical elements.

If Donda represented Kanye West leaving conventional albums in the dust, Donda 2 was him stomping on their remains in his rubber boots. West shook the music industry when he revealed that Donda 2 would only be released on his Stem Player, a proprietary device capable of isolating different musical elements of songs uploaded into it, available on his website for $200.

The digital assets known as NFTs have exploded over the past year, with their growth inviting increasingly polarized responses from artists and fans alike. Tyler, The Creator revealed himself as one of the increasing number of NFT skeptics during a talk for the Converse All Star Series published on Wednesday.

Bandcamp has been acquired by Epic Games, the publisher behind the megahit online game Fortnite. Ethan Diamond, Bandcamp's co-founder and CEO, revealed the acquisition in a statement published on Wednesday, March 2.

Snoop Dogg announced plans to turn Death Row Records into a non-fungible token (NFT) label in a Clubhouse call on Tuesday, less than a week after taking ownership of the label. "We will be putting out artists through the metaverse and through a whole ‘nother chain of music,” he said, according to audio from the call posted to Youtube. “Just like when we broke the industry when we were the first independent to be major, I want to be the first major in the metaverse.” The rapper and entrepreneur, who performed alongside Death Row co-founder Dr.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has moved to condemn comedian and podcast host Joe Rogan after another week of controversy. Over the weekend video clips of Rogan repeatedly using racial slurs, and laughing when white guests did the same, went viral.

HitPiece, a website accused of offering NFTs of songs, came under scrutiny on Tuesday after musicians accused it of minting the NFTs without their permission. NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are digital certificates of ownership that are stored in a database called the blockchain.

India.Arie says she will remove her music and podcast SongVersation from Spotify, making the R&B songwriter the latest musician to leave the streaming platform over comments made by Joe Rogan on his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. "Neil Young opened a door that I MUST walk through," India.Arie wrote on Instagram, referring to Young's decision to leave Spotify over vaccine misinformation on Rogan's podcast.

Spotify will direct listeners to correct Covid-19 information on any and all podcasts discussing the pandemic, CEO Daniel Ek has announced. The news comes in the wake of the company losing billions in market value and musicians including Neil Young removing their music from the platform in protest at podcasters such as Joe Rogan sharing misinformation to millions of listeners.

Yesterday, Spotify removed Neil Young's music from the platform at the singer's request after Young shared an open letter criticizing the platform for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines via the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. On Friday, Young shared a new statement on his website, saying that he "felt better" once his music was removed from the platform. Young's new statement focuses on his criticisms of Spotify's technology and business model.

MailOnline found.Virtual reality headsets, worth almost £400, can weigh almost 610g, though medics in the German man’s case did not detail the brand used.The man needed to wear a type of neck brace for six weeks to support his neck while it healed and he made a full recovery after 12 weeks. The headsets are becoming increasingly popular equipment among gamers, with millions of them sold in both the UK and US in recent years. Dr David Baur, an orthopedics and trauma specialist at the hospital where the man was treated, said the injury resembled “clay-shoveler’s fracture.”This fracture is named after injuries recorded in clay miners in Australia in the 1940s.Workers were injured after rapidly flinging material over their shoulders out of mining pits using shovels.This injury has also been recorded in professional athletes like volleyball players and horse riders. Dr Baur said: “Since the patient had been playing VR games for many hours weekly with lightweight devices in his hands and on his head.“We conclude that a stress-type fracture seems to be the more likely reason for the dislocated fracture of the spinous process from the seventh cervical vertebra.“The repetitive movements and intense gaming habits could have led to a fatigue fracture.”Repetitive stress fractures of this type are a common injury in soldiers on long marches, researchers said.Doctors did not detail exactly when the man was injured – but virtual reality headsets have become increasing popular among gamers in recent years. More information can be found in the Journal of Medical Case Reports.This story originally appeared on The Sun and has been reproduced here with permission.

In a new statement shared on Wednesday, Neil Young confirmed that his music will be removed from Spotify. In a post shared on his website earlier this week, the singer-songwriter blasted Spotify and its popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience for "spreading fake information about [COVID-19] vaccines," and demanded that the platform either pull his music or its support for Rogan. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that Spotify is currently in the process of removing Young's music.

now streaming on Disney+) follows Smith, 53, as he takes his trademark quips, enthusiasm and adventurous spirit into remote slices of the natural world to discover and explore hidden places that the average person can’t reach.

explains a video on the canine conversation tool produced by the University of Glasgow. “When the accelerometer senses movement, it initiates a video call on a laptop in their living room allowing Zack to see and interact with his owner whenever he chooses.

An NFT collaboration between TikTok and Lil Nas X will no longer be released, Rolling Stone reports.

for promoting the birth of his new albums. Governing emojis body The Unicode Consortium has announced its finalized list of new emojis, set to hit devices “sometime next year.”  The 838 new characters in Unicode 14.0 offer 75 more skin tone options and 37 new emoji characters — including pregnant men, potentially useful to “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)” singer Nas — plus more obscure options for writing the northeastern Indian language Toto, a Kyrgyz Republic currency sign and undeciphered

inaccurate information. “Examples of automated accounts you might see on Twitter include bots that help you find vaccine appointments and disaster early warning systems,” Twitter wrote in a press release-like FAQ about the new bot labels.

told Variety of his decision to lend his audio likeness to the voluntary wiretap. “I think the fans are gonna love it.

coronavirus pandemic — by installing a giant 3D cat billboard above one of the Japanese megacity’s busiest districts.“We all felt warmth the moment the cat appeared on-screen,” marveled one gawker of the hyperrealistic “Catzilla” attraction, which overlooks the Shinjuku train station from a 1,664-square-foot curved 4K LED screen on the side of a building, Reuters reported.