On Tuesday, Roku revealed that Howdy, its $3 ad-free streaming service, will be available on Amazon’s Prime Video. This announcement signifies the service’s initial foray beyond the Roku ecosystem.

Introduced in August 2025, Howdy boasts a collection of almost 10,000 hours of content from Roku’s collaborators, featuring Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Disney Entertainment, Warner Bros. Discovery, and FilmRise, along with a selection of Roku Original shows.

Subscribers can view offerings such as “A Haunting in Venice,” “Ice Age,” “Weeds,” and “Kids in the Hall,” along with romantic comedies, medical dramas, ’90s sitcoms, classics, and much more.

Upon its launch, Roku stated that Howdy was intended to enhance, rather than rival, premium services.

To subscribe to Howdy through Prime Video, an Amazon Prime membership or a separate Prime Video subscription is required.

“Our objective has always been to make exceptional entertainment more reachable,” expressed Gil Fuchsberg, president of Subscriptions, Partnerships, and Corporate Development at Roku, in a press release. “Expanding to Prime Video builds on our momentum and advances our mission to provide an ad-free streaming experience at a cost that simplifies access for audiences everywhere to enjoy the content they love.”

The move to Prime Video isn’t unexpected, as Roku’s CEO and founder, Anthony Wood, indicated at CES in January that Howdy would be available on additional platforms.

Roku launched Howdy shortly after acquiring Frndly TV for $185 million, a streaming service that provides live TV, on-demand video, and cloud-based DVR.

Howdy became a part of the company’s Roku Channel, its complimentary, ad-supported (FAST) streaming service. According to a report from last year, The Roku Channel is the leading FAST service, surpassing rivals Tubi and Pluto TV. Roku states that over 125 million people utilize the platform every day.

Last month, Roku disclosed its fourth-quarter earnings for 2025, reporting a net income of $80.5 million. The company also announced plans to introduce new streaming bundles.

The Federal Communications Commission has mandated a prohibition on the importation of new consumer routers produced abroad, citing potential cybersecurity threats.

The directive, released late Monday, stated that the import ban will “encompass all consumer-grade routers manufactured in foreign nations.” The FCC indicated that the order will not impact the importation or use of current routers, although new devices could receive an exemption if approved by the Departments of Defense or Homeland Security.

The FCC argued that routers produced overseas “present unacceptable dangers” to U.S. national security, alluding to threats from China-affiliated hacking groups Volt, Salt, and Flax Typhoon.

As per Reuters, China is believed to control approximately 60% of the market for consumer routers that connect residences and businesses to the internet.

The FCC asserted that it was taking steps because malicious hackers have taken advantage of vulnerabilities in foreign-made routers to target U.S. homes, disrupt networks, and facilitate cybercrime and espionage. 

Both state-sponsored hackers and cybercriminals have historically focused on routers as they provide access to home or business networks. Hackers are also capable of commandeering routers to launch attacks on other firms or organizations, overwhelming servers with excessive junk traffic, known as distributed denial-of-service attacks.

The FCC did not furnish evidence to suggest that domestically-made consumer routers are more secure compared to those created overseas. An FCC representative did not promptly respond to a request for comments.

Salt Typhoon, a China-backed cyber-espionage faction that has infiltrated numerous phone and internet companies globally, including in the United States, has been noted for exploiting weaknesses in routers produced by American technology leader Cisco. Flax Typhoon, another China-linked hacking organization which U.S. officials have accused of operating a vast botnet of compromised devices, targeted both U.S.-made and foreign-made routers to penetrate at least 126,000 devices in the United States, as well as thousands more worldwide. 

FCC chairman Brendan Carr stated in prepared comments that the agency will “continue to fulfill our role in ensuring that U.S. cyberspace, critical infrastructure, and supply chains are secure and protected.”

In spite of numerous Chinese cyber intrusions aimed at U.S. businesses and government entities, Carr was one of the two FCC commissioners who voted in November to eliminate cybersecurity regulations that mandated telecom operators to safeguard their lawful intercept systems against unauthorized access.

On Tuesday, TikTok revealed it is rolling out new advertising formats, which include a feature that presents another brand’s logo alongside TikTok’s logo on the launch page when users access the app.

The newly introduced “Logo Takeover” advertisement format enables companies to co-brand with TikTok in a manner that seizes users’ attention right from the moment they launch the app. TikTok asserts that this ad format reflects partnership, trustworthiness, and cultural significance while providing advertisers with extensive outreach.

A fresh “Prime Time” ad format permits brands to display a series of ads at designated moments, such as during live events or other interactive periods. This format shows three consecutive ads from a single advertiser to the same user within a specific 15-minute timeframe. TikTok indicates that brands can leverage this format to narrate a continuous storyline during peak activity phases.

Additionally, a new “Top Reach” ad format merges two of TikTok’s existing ad placements, TopView and TopFeed. TopView is the initial ad users encounter upon opening the app, while TopFeed is the first in-feed advertisement displayed in the For You feed. TikTok claims that by merging these placements, brands can engage the highest number of users for the day through prominent visibility.

While TikTok maintains that these new ad formats will empower brands to enhance their reach, they may prove to be more intrusive than existing ad placements on the platform. For example, encountering an ad within the first second of launching the app could be frustrating, and users might not appreciate seeing three advertisements from the same brand in just 15 minutes. Nevertheless, TikTok does not regard these as interruptions.

“TikTok is where people go to discover what’s trending at the moment,” stated Khartoon Weiss, VP, GM, Global Business Solutions at TikTok, in a press announcement. “Major cultural occurrences first appear on TikTok, along with the everyday items people share with one another. This implies brands are not interrupting users – they are entering the discussion. What distinguishes TikTok is that advertisements coexist with the content and products people already cherish. Whether it’s a creator’s video, a search outcome, or a live shopping experience, brands can engage in ways that feel organic and beneficial.”

Moreover, the social platform is enhancing its TikTok Pulse suite with a new “Pulse Mentions” feature that positions brands alongside moments when users are already engaging in discussions about them and their categories. The new “Pulse Tastemakers” addition enables brands to associate their advertisements with a selection of qualifying creators.

Mirage, the creator of the video editing application Captions, has successfully secured $75 million in growth funding from General Catalyst’s Customer Value Fund (CVF).

Throughout the past year, the company has implemented substantial modifications to its product and corporate branding. The business transitioned from Captions to Mirage in order to establish itself as an AI laboratory that develops various models and serves sectors like advertising and marketing. It has also developed a model specifically designed for pacing, framing, and attention dynamics in brief videos.

In January 2025, the firm adopted a freemium model to enhance its competitiveness against applications like ByteDance’s CapCut and Meta’s Edits, which was launched later that year. It now offers a comprehensive video creation suite, incorporating several features from Captions, allowing businesses to produce and share videos in large quantities.

Gaurav Misra, co-founder and CEO of Mirage, mentioned that the organization intends to develop additional models. However, he did not elaborate on what the forthcoming models would accomplish, merely stating that they would concentrate on “assembly intelligence” — essentially assembling a video from various sources and elements.

Discussing Mirage’s innovative audio model, which claims to maintain accents in generated videos, Misra remarked, “The rationale behind the audio model was our discovery of an accent gap because many of our users are international. Accents hold significant importance. I recall my dad trying to utilize the app, and he would pronounce a word in an Indian accent, which always translated into an American accent in the app.”

According to information from analytics firm AppFigures, Captions has been downloaded over 3.2 million times in the past year, generating $28.4 million in in-app revenue. Misra stated that the platform has been utilized to produce over 200 million videos to date, attracting a global user base, with only 25% of its revenue originating from the U.S.

Presently, Mirage’s marketing suite is accessible online, while Captions primarily provides a mobile-optimized editing suite. The organization plans to integrate these two platforms to more effectively target small businesses that may wish to develop marketing videos.

Pranav Singhvi, managing director of General Catalyst’s CVF fund, mentioned that Mirage possesses strong product-market alignment.

“Mirage’s business model is thoroughly understood. They have a clear strategy for utilizing each dollar to achieve an appealing ROI. Considering the market they are pursuing, it’s essentially an infinite total addressable market. They can initiate within the creator and influencer sectors and subsequently leverage that to sell to enterprises as well,” Singhvi conveyed to TechCrunch.

Numerous companies are developing AI video-generation frameworks for marketing. Canva has rolled out various tools for marketing creation and analytics, while platforms such as D-ID, HeyGen, Webflow, and Avataar have been launching new models and features.

Nevertheless, Singhvi appears to have confidence in Mirage’s positioning and unit economics. “Despite the existence of other tools, Mirage is evidently ahead of the competition from a unit economics standpoint. Ultimately, it’s all a reflection of their product,” he noted.

Mirage intends to utilize the new funding to accelerate growth and expand into rapidly growing Asian markets.

On Tuesday, Snapchat revealed it is introducing AI Clips in Lens Studio, its tool that enables creators to craft and release AR and AI effects known as Lenses. The new Clips represent an AI-enhanced Lens format that converts a single image into a five-second video.

In contrast to open-ended text-to-video applications, AI Clips are intended as a closed-prompt format, where Lens designers create the Lens, and users can tap it to produce a video using their own images.

For instance, a Lens designer could create a Lens that permits users to generate a clip of themselves strolling down a red carpet utilizing their photo.

Snapchat asserts that both seasoned and novice developers can leverage the new Lens format to convert a single prompt into a published Lens in just minutes without relying on external tools.

AI Clips are accessible to Snapchat users who subscribe to the platform’s Lens+ package, priced at $8.99 per month. As the name implies, Lens+ provides users with access to exclusive Lenses and AR experiences, alongside features included in the regular Snapchat+ subscription.

“For the first time, developers have the capability to create and publish photo-to-video AI directly to Snapchat via the GenAI Suite in Lens Studio,” Snapchat stated in a blog entry. “Currently, there is nothing available that merges closed-prompt AI video generation with direct photo input, genuine distribution, and monetization.”

Lens creators participating in Lens+ Payouts, Snapchat’s monetization initiative that allows developers to earn from their Lenses, can generate income from the AI Clips they produce.

Snapchat is not the sole platform aiming to facilitate users in creating AI clips from their photos, as YouTube announced the previous week that it is launching “Reimagine,” a new feature that enables users to change a single frame from an existing YouTube Short into an 8-second clip using their photo.

The introduction of AI Clips coincides with Snapchat’s declaration that users generated nearly two trillion Snaps, averaging 63,000 Snaps per second, in 2025.

On Tuesday, Spotify unveiled the global launch of a novel feature, SongDNA, enabling listeners to delve deeper into their preferred music.

Now accessible to Premium users on both iOS and Android, this feature offers an engaging experience that allows users to explore various elements of a song beyond the artist, songwriter, or performer. With SongDNA, listeners can investigate other relationships, such as who might have covered that track, as well as additional details like samples, interpolations, or what other works the song’s contributors have participated in.

This concept serves as an enhancement to the current “About the Song” function, enabling Spotify patrons to gain insights into the writers, producers, and collaborators behind their beloved music. This might help users understand how artists are intertwined and inspired by each other’s creations. For individuals within the music industry, the feature could facilitate the discovery of new collaborators, producers, engineers, and others they might wish to partner with.

It also grants professionals behind music production greater visibility and respect than they’ve previously experienced in the era of streaming.

TechCrunch reported in October that Spotify was crafting the SongDNA feature to assist users in discovering music via a song’s credits, after mentions of the feature were uncovered in the app’s code by reverse engineer Jane Manchun Wong. The following month, the company officially announced plans to roll out SongDNA in early 2026.

Partially, SongDNA is built on data from the community-driven music database WhoSampled, which Spotify acquired the previous year. This feature also competes with TIDAL’s interactive credits, which similarly highlight the contributors behind the tracks you listen to.

“By aggregating collaborators, samples, and covers in one location, we’re enabling fans to easily discover new music and understand how songs interconnect and evolve—while providing songwriters, producers, and rights holders significant acknowledgment for their contributions in the creation process,” stated Jacqueline Ankner, Spotify’s Head of Songwriter & Publisher Partnerships, in a press release.

The feature is currently being rolled out in beta to Premium users worldwide on iOS and Android devices, with plans for the completion of the rollout anticipated by April.