*By Christian Smith*
The streaming service Philo is testing a suite of new features to make watching TV more interactive, said the company's chief executive, Andrew McCollum.
"We do believe that we can make TV a much more social experience, and that's going to be a big innovation we can bring to the product," McCollum said Wednesday in an interview with Cheddar. "It's something that really no one is doing right now, and it has never really been done before, and we want to get it right."
McCollum wouldn't give many details about the new features, or when they would be released publicly, but he said the company's employees were testing the new features on an employees-only version of the platform.
"We're thinking about how exactly we want to roll it out. We generally prefer to do things in smaller pieces so that we can kind of see how people are using it," McCollum said.
Philo already offers a "deep link" feature that allows its users to share links to specific parts of a video, and a simplified sign-in process that only requires your phone number. McCollum said it takes about 10 seconds.
He was one of dozens of TV, cable, telecom, and tech executives participating at The Pay TV Show this week in Denver, where participants were discussing innovations and strategies in television.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/philo-plans-new-tech-innovations-for-streaming-service).
Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni introduce Phia, a fashion tech startup that helps users find price comparisons and discover alternative options for apparel
Universal Music Group and AI platform Udio have settled a copyright lawsuit and will collaborate on a new music creation and streaming platform. The companies announced on Wednesday that they reached a compensatory legal settlement and new licensing agreements. These agreements aim to provide more revenue opportunities for Universal's artists and songwriters. The rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the music streaming industry, leading to accusations from record labels. This deal marks the first since Universal and others sued Udio and Suno last year. Financial terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
Microsoft says users of its Azure cloud portal may be not be able to access Office 365, Minecraft or other services due to issues with its global content delivery network services. The tech company posted a note to its Azure status page that its teams are currently deploying a fix to address the outage.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
A new poll finds that as the United States rapidly builds massive data centers for the development of artificial intelligence, many Americans are concerned about the environmental impact.