In an earnings call today, Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced that the merging of HBO Max and Discovery Plus was going so well that the target date for the launch of the new service would be moving from summer 2023 to spring 2023.

From their user interface to their backend to their content, the two services are extraordinarily different, with HBO Max likely leading Discovery Plus in subscriptions as it had approximately 76.8 million users in April before the acquisition, and the combined services now have 94.9 million subscribers. But Zaslav’s plan has always been to merge the two services, which his team views as targeting very different markets. Early this year, a slide claiming HBO Max skewed male and Discovery Plus skewed female offended users of both services even while reinforcing Zaslav’s view on the matter.

Zaslav, as I’ve noted before, isn’t particularly concerned with who gets offended in his quest to make Warner Bros. Discovery a profitable company. On the earnings call, he noted that when the show Fixer Upper: The Castle premiered on HBO Max, it quickly moved into the top five most watched shows on the service, confirming WBD’s “thesis” that a combined app will be more successful and drive more subscriptions and less churn. The show also aired on the Magnolia Network and streamed on Discovery Plus.

It’s Zaslav’s hope that this merged app will drive not just increased subscriptions but also significantly higher advertising revenue. As for the content coming to the

Google TV added kids profiles to the platform in 2021, giving young viewers their own portal designed to showcase only age-appropriate content. Today, the company is building upon kids profiles with new features, including parent-managed watchlists, recommendations on the homescreen, and supervised usage of the normal YouTube app. All of these software capabilities begin rolling out today and will continue to reach Google TV customers over the next several weeks.

Managed watchlists are exactly what they sound like: parents can add movies and TV shows to a universal watchlist that will appear on the child’s Google TV homescreen. This will make it easy for them to progress from one video to the next. Adding content to a kids profile is simple: just select a movie or TV show as you normally would, press the watchlist button, and choose the right account.

Google is also bringing specific content recommendations directly to the homescreen for kids profiles. Until now, that homescreen has just displayed various kid-friendly streaming apps — but without the actual recs that appear on adult accounts. According to the company, these recommendations are “based on the apps you’ve added and the rating settings you’ve set.” Google notes it’s easy to hide anything you don’t want to appear on the homescreen again.

And lastly, Google is trying to create a natural pipeline for moving young viewers up and onward from YouTube Kids and get them using the

The European Commission has reportedly probed rival gaming companies on Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard as it scrutinizes the deal.

EU regulators asked other game developers whether they think Microsoft could potentially block their access to Activision Blizzard’s games following the acquisition, Reuters reported Thursday, citing an EU document it saw. It also asked rivals whether the user data gained by Microsoft through the acquisition could give the US company a competitive advantage in console and computer games development and distribution.

Microsoft filed its proposed acquisition with the European Commission last week. The provisional deadline for whether the EU will clear the acquisition is Nov. 8.

“The European Commission’s review of the deal is progressing in line with the expected regulatory schedule and process, and we remain confident that the acquisition will close in fiscal year 2023,” a Microsoft spokesperson told CNET in an emailed statement.

The takeover is also under scrutiny by regulators in the UKwith the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority saying last month it’s concerned Microsoft’s purchase of Activision could “substantially less competition“across the gaming industry.

“We are concerned that Microsoft could use its control over popular games like Call of Duty and World of Warcraft post-merger to harm rivals, including recent and future rivals in multi-game subscription services and cloud gaming,” Sorcha O’Carroll, senior director of mergers at the CMA, said in a statement.

Microsoft said it’s ready to work with the CMA to address its concerns.

“Sony, as the

After earning a graduate degree from Syracuse University in 2009, Nick Shekeryk faced a total of $93,000 in student loan debt.

Then, last year, he accomplished something that tens of millions of borrowers from his generation haven’t been able to: He paid it all off.

His student loan journey had been anything but smooth up to that point. For over a decade, due to his high balance, monthly payments were eating up a considerable portion of his budget. Because of loan interest, he could barely make a dent in his principal, and couldn’t put money aside for savings or investments. The burden of debt was affecting his relationships, making it impossible to plan for the future. “I was prepared to deal with it for the rest of my life,” Shekeryk said.

Well into their adulthood, millennials are finding it impossible to achieve the financial milestones of their parents or grandparents. A 2018 study published by the Center for Household Financial Stability found that those born in the 1980s face the greatest risk of becoming the “lost generation” for accumulating wealth. Young adults today face declining mobility, decades of stagnant wages and broader economic uncertainty. Millennials also have the highest debt burden, making them especially susceptible to financial instability.

After meeting with a financial adviser in 2020, Shekeryk and his wife decided to take advantage of the pandemic-era pause on student loan interest and payments, and threw every spare penny at knocking down the balance to zero. “I’m fortunate to be

Intel is planning a major workforce reduction, with job cuts likely numbering in the thousands, in the face of a downturn in the PC market, Bloomberg reported Tuesday.

The layoffs will be announced as early as this month, coinciding with Intel’s third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 27, the news agency reported, citing unidentified sources. Some divisions, such as the chipmaker’s sales and marketing groups, could see staff reductions of about 20%, the report said.

After the pandemic spurred demand for devices while everyone was forced to stay home, consumer spending in the second half of this year has been hurt by the effects of high inflation, rising interest rates and geopolitical tension.

Intel’s profit and revenue plunged in the second quarter, with revenue from its PC business dropping 25% to $7.3 billion. Global PC shipments likely declined 15% in the third quarter year over year, the International Data Corporation predicted Monday.

The reported layoffs come as Intel tries to claw its way back to the cutting edge of chip manufacturing and lead the US semiconductor industry to reclaim clone lost to Asia.

Intel’s last major round of layoffs came in 2016, when it announced it would cut 12,000 jobs, or 11% of its global workforce. The chipmaker had 113,700 employees as of July.

An Intel spokesperson declined to comment on the report.