Charlotte Henry

Satellite radio platform SiriusXM is continuing its push into podcasts buying Stitcher. The deal is worth $325 million, according to The Verge.

Stitcher is not only a popular podcasting app with a premium, ad-free subscription service, but it’s also a network that, combined with its other entity Earwolf, produces shows like Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. Scripps also combined Stitcher with Midroll Media, a podcast ad company that sells ads for other shows like The Dream and Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness that it acquired in 2015 for $50 million. The Sirius deal will give it ownership of all these companies, which, in some cases, could be redundant with what it already owns and operates. For one, Sirius owns Pandora, which it acquired in 2018 for $3 billion. Pandora, of course, is a popular place to listen to music and podcasts and also has its own exclusive content deals, like one with Marvel that was signed last year. It also owns AdsWizz, a podcast ad technology company that places ads in shows.

The first wave of Apple Silicon Macs are set to include a 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Those will be released this year, With 14.1-inch and 16-inch, MacBook Pro Models coming in 2021. That’s according to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, in a note reported on by MacRumors.

In a research note with TF International Securities today, seen by MacRumors, Kuo said he expects the ‌Apple Silicon‌ 13.3-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ to go into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, but he also now predicts we will see an Arm-based MacBook Air either in the same quarter or in the first quarter of next year. Kuo still believes that Apple intends to launch a mini-LED 16-inch ‌‌MacBook Pro‌‌ and a 14.1-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌, also with a mini-LED display, but these will likely arrive in the second or third quarter of 2021, and intriguingly, both will have an “all-new form factor design.” Previous rumors suggested an updated 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ could arrive this year in October or November.

Little Voice arrived on Apple TV+  on Friday. It features an autistic character Louie King, who was played by an actor who is on the autism spectrum, Kevin Valdez. The actor joined the show’s co-creator, Jessie Nelson, to explain why this was so important.

“He’s really similar to me,” Valdez says. “It’s almost like this role was made with me in mind”… Apple’s service has a show, See, that features a large cast of actors who are blind or low vision.  “I was so pleased with how far we’ve come that Apple was so supportive of finding an autistic actor to play this role,” Nelson says. “This is a very different moment in history.” Increasingly, autistic actors are playing characters on the autism spectrum. And those characters are moving beyond the male autistic savant stereotype, says Arianna Esposito, director of lifespan services at Autism Speaks. Having a person with autism playing a role like Louie “really brings an authenticity to the character,” Esposito says.