If you don't yet have YouTube picture-in-picture on your Apple device, you will soon. YouTube has told users PiP should be available "in a matter of days" across all devices running iOS 15 or later. As with other apps that support PiP on iOS, this will let you keep a floating video window pinned to your screen while you shift your focus to other activities.

The feature has been a long time in coming. YouTube said it was first rolling out PiP to Premium subscribers in June of last year, with plans to eventually bring the perk to all viewers. Some users found workarounds (such as using the mobile website) shortly after Apple enabled PiP with iOS 14, but that functionality quickly disappeared.

YouTube is relatively late when Disney+, Netflix, Twitch and others enabled PiP within months. Nonetheless, it remains a large upgrade. You won't have to confine yourself to YouTube's app just to catch up on your video queue, and it should be that much easier to use the service as a jukebox without subscribing to YouTube Music.

Sonic has done it again. With a $71 million debut at the domestic box office, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 has set a new record for the US film debut of a video game adaptation, beating out the previous high watermark set by its predecessor in 2020. The first movie in what now Paramount plans to expand into a cinematic universe made $57 million during its opening weekend. 

Before the pandemic shut down theaters throughout the US and other parts of the world, the first Sonic film went on to gross $319 million globally. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is currently on track to beat those earnings having grossed approximately $141 million globally.

As with the first movie, timing appears to have been a significant factor in Sonic 2’s early success. Its main competitor at the box office was Sony’s much-maligned Morbius, which saw a drastic 74 percent drop in ticket sales from its opening weekend last Friday. It only earned $10.2 million in additional domestic revenue after a $39 million debut. What we can say, people love Idris Elba. 

Twitter has temporarily walked back a controversial change that made it difficult for people to preserve deleted tweets. On Wednesday, writer Kevin Marks pointed out that the company had recently tweaked its embedded javascript so that the text of deleted tweets was no longer visible in embeds on third-party websites.

By late Friday evening, however, one Twitter user noticed the company had reverted the change, with Twitter confirming the move one day later. “After considering the feedback we heard, we’re rolling back this change for now while we explore different options,” a spokesperson for the company told The Verge. “We appreciate those who shared their points of view — your feedback helps us make Twitter better.”

When the initial change was first spotted, Twitter product manager Eleanor Harding said the company made the tweak to “better respect” people who decide to delete their tweets. Part of what made the move problematic for many was that it simply left a blank space where the embed of a deleted tweet had been previously. Harding said Twitter was planning to roll out additional messaging that would explain why a tweet was no longer visible.

Twitter didn’t elaborate on the “different options” it was exploring following its reversal. For many, the decision to change how embeds work was a strange one. When Twitter first introduced embedding in 2011, it said it intentionally wanted to maintain the text of deleted tweets. And for many years afterward, company executives, including former CEO Jack Dorsey, stressed the role of the platform as a kind of “public record.”

WarnerMedia and Discovery have completed their merger. Warner Bros. Discovery, as the new entity is called, will eventually combine HBO Max and Discovery+ into a single streaming service. The blend of entertainment and reality programming could help Warner Bros. Discovery better compete with the likes of Netflix and Disney+. In the meantime, the company will likely offer a bundle of the two services. WarnerMedia recently launched another streaming service in CNN+.

Not long before the merger closed, WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar announced his departure. Kilar, who started running the company in May 2020, was behind the controversialplan to release all 2021 Warner Bros. movies on HBO Max and in theaters on the same day amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The move seemed to have paid off, as HBO Max and HBO had 73.8 million subscribers combined at the end of 2021.

As if the departures of Kilar and several other WarnerMedia executives didn't make things clear enough, Warner Bros. Discovery will have a new leadership structure. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is running the company.

The merger is the latest in several major media consolidation moves in recent years. Amazon sealed its $8.45 billion purchase of MGM only last month. Disney spent $71.3 billion to snap up most of 21st Century Fox a few years back, while Microsoft agreed a $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard, which is expected to close by June 2023.

AT&T announced last year it was spinning off WarnerMedia in a $43 billion deal that would combine it with Discovery. Now that the T's are crossed and I's are dotted, the deal is done and AT&T is more or less out of the content business.

In 1998, Brooklyn-based hip-hop superstars Talib Qweli and yasiin bey (still then going by Mos Def and capitalizing his name) found themselves recording at the same time, each working on a solo album. With the support of DJ and producer, Hi-Tek, they decided to put their individual projects on hold and make a joint album. That collaboration brought us Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star, one of the most critically acclaimed albums in the history of hip-hop. 

Now, Qweli and bey, this time with Madlib on the boards, have announced the imminent release of Black Star's sophomore album, No Fear of Time, on May 3rd. But for indiscernible reasons, the collective's first drop in nearly a quarter century is exclusive to the Luminary podcast network.

“About 3-4 years ago I was visiting yasiin in Europe and we started to talk about songs to do on an album," Kweli recalled in a Friday press release, "so I flew an engineer out just to see what that would be. Once I realized this conversation is starting to organically become a creative conversation, I started making sure to have the engineer around at all times. There was one day we were just in a hotel listening to Madlib beats, and he’s like ‘Play that Madlib tape again.’ I’m playing the beats and he starts doing rhymes to the beats. And that’s how we did the first song.”

Kweli added, “This is very similar to how we did the first album. But the first album, there were no mobile studios. This entire album, we have not set foot in one recording studio. It’s all been done in hotel rooms and backstage at Dave Chappelle shows.”

The 9-track album drops on May 3rd. You'll need a Luminary subscription ($3 a month after a 7-day trial) or access to Apple Podcasts in order to listen. 

The long-running series Dancing With the Stars is leaving ABC for Disney+. Disney announced that at least two future seasons of the popular competitive dance show will debut on its streaming platform. The first season will debut fall of this year, around the same time that Disney is launching a cheaper, ad-supported tier in the US. Dancing will also be the first live broadcast show to move to a streaming platform, likely due to a broader shift in how the industry is treating live content.

For ABC, the departure of Dancing — a show that has aired on the network for 16 years — means there will be more room for football. “After over 30 seasons of the program on ABC, including two spin-offs, Dancing With the Stars will move off of ABC this fall in order for the Network to showcase several Monday Night Football games as well as develop and invest in new and future programming,” said the network in a statement.

Landing Dancing is a significant coup for Disney, which has been trying to boost its flailing audience numbers. Disney+ recently started catering to adults, even debuting parental controls for its R-rated content. The platform has invested heavily in programming for adults, including original Marvel series like Moon Knight and Daredevil. Dancing regularly lands in the most widely-watched network TV series among adults from the ages of 18 to 49, and already has a committed fanbase. Dancing is also likely to draw a more diverse audience than Marvel — the show is widely watched by women and older people.

“The show’s broad appeal, as well as the overwhelming popularity of its Disney-themed competition nights, make Disney+ the perfect home for Dancing with the Stars while continuing to expand our demographic reach,” said Kareem Daniel, chairman of Disney Media and Entertainment Distribution in a statement.

Microsoft and 343 Industries have revealed that season two of Halo Infinite will get underway on May 3rd. The season, which is called Lone Wolves, will herald the arrival of fresh arena and Big Team Battle maps, more modes (including Land Grab and free-for-all elimination in Last Spartan Standing) and limited-time events. There'll also be a new battle pass that won't expire and a slew of other updates.

Season two was initially supposed to arrive three months after the game's launch. That would have been February or March, depending on whether 343 Industries defined the launch date as mid-November (when the multiplayer component debuted) or December, when the full game was released. However, in November, the studio said season one would run until May.

What's more, fans will need to be a bit more patient for the arrival of the long-awaited campaign co-op mode. That was originally supposed to be available at the start of season two. It will emerge sometime later in the season. Forge mode, which allows players to create custom games with map modifiers and unique rules, is still slated to arrive in season three. At least players will have new maps to learn and more game modes to master in the meantime.

Spotify's TikTok-style music discovery feed is official. The streaming service has formally launched a beta test that helps you find new tunes through a vertical, customized feed of Canvas visual loops. The test is limited to Android and iOS users in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK, but promises a relatively easy way to find new artists and songs.

The new discovery tool is available from the home screen and, like TikTok, lets you scroll when you're done with a given track. If you like what you hear, you can follow the artist, add the song to a playlist or share it with your social networks. Spotify will offer up to 15 new recommendations per day — you won't have to listen to old material, but you also won't be scrolling for long.

The company didn't say if or when the beta might expand to the US. Having said this, it wouldn't be shocking to see an expansion. The TikTok-like vertical feed could help Spotify court younger listeners by giving them both a familiar experience and a reason to keep coming back.

What a week it’s been for Twitter. Elon Musk snapped up 9.2 percent of the company, becoming its biggest shareholder. He soon became a board member and shortly after, Twitter announced it was bringing a long-awaited Edit feature to its Blue service. Senior reporter Karissa Bell joined us this week to discuss how it all went down, as well as the potential repercussions. Then, we looked at Peloton’s newest gadget, Microsoft’s updates to Windows 11 as well as more controversy over Apple’s AirTags.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

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Topics

• Why did Elon Musk buy 9.2% of Twitter? – 1:42

• Our Peloton Guide hands-on – 27:08

• Windows 11 getting a redesigned File Explorer and video call upgrades – 38:31

• Dyson’s headphone / mask combo isn’t an April Fool’s joke – 41:01

• OnePlus 10 Pro review – 44:07

• Dates for Microsoft Build and WWDC have been announced – 46:40

• Police reports indicate AirTag stalking may be more prevalent than we know – 48:34

• Snapchat Lens helps users learn the ASL alphabet – 52:38

• Open AI’s DALL-E 2 latest generative art project creates amazing images – 53:41

• What we're working on – 56:25

• Our pop culture picks – 1:02:15

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Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Mat Smith
Producer: Ben Ellman
Livestream producers: Julio Barrientos, Luke Brooks
Graphics artists: Luke Brooks, Brian Oh
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Twitter might not have an edit button just yet, but it's still delivering at least one useful feature this week. The social network is now rolling out a previously hinted-at "Unmention" feature that lets you remove yourself from a conversation. The experimental offering is limited to the web for now, but you just have to choose "leave this conversation" from a tweet's options to avoid constant notifications for a chat you never wanted to join.

Unmentioning is available for some people today, Twitter says. It's not clear if or when the feature might be widely available, or when it might reach mobile apps. In its current form, the text for the mention remains — it just doesn't send an alert.

The company has tested or deployed numerous features to keep mentions civil, including an anti-harassment Safety Mode that automatically blocks mean-spirited users. This, however, might be one of the most practical. Twitter users often deal with unwanted mentions from friends, spammers and others. This gives you more control over your participation and lets you focus on the chats you care about.