Entertainment:
·
The film festival community has come together to sign a
statement of support for the Beijing Independent Film Festival against the
Chinese government
·
Johnny Knoxville signs a first look deal with ABC Studios
·
Youku is launching a film production arm called Heyi Film
·
2014 has been declared the ‘year of the megadeal’ in the
media industry
·
George Lucas’ THX is going to open a Beijing corporate
office
·
Philip Seymour Hoffman’s accused drug dealer was able to
avoid jail time
·
Please see below for a list of films that will become
available on Netflix this September
Tech:
·
Google X has been developing delivery drones, called ‘Project
Wing’, and has been testing them for the past two years
·
Apple is in the midst of launching a mobile wallet
·
Pomplamoose musician started Patreon to help pay artists for
their work
·
CalPal makes it easier to set meetings/events and
communicate through your calendar
·
Ustream, live-streams red carpet events, could possibly be
the next big acquisition for a media company
·
Apple’s wearable devices allegedly won’t be shipped until
2015
·
Aziz Ansari is directing his Twitter followers to go to his
site and input their phone numbers to enter a lottery to win tickets to surprise
‘pop-up’ shows in certain cities
Deals:
Business:
·
Tencent, Baidu, and Wanda form an $814MM joint venture to
take on Alibaba
o
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/28/tencent-baidu-and-wanda-form-814m-joint-venture-to-take-on-alibaba/
·
Microsoft is shutting down MSN Messenger
·
Tesla shares reached an all-time high after news was
released that they reached an agreement with China Unicom
Exec Moves:
·
Evite names new CEO – Victor Cho
·
TNT & TBS head of programming,
Michael Wright, to exit
·
Chelsea Clinton to exit NBC News
·
Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds,
hired Pekka Rantala to be name their new CEO
Retail:
·
JustFab, an online subscription retailer, raises $85MM in a
Series D round at a $1B valuation
Startups:
Government:
·
Barclays loans Detroit $275MM to help get the city out of
bankruptcy
·
UK terror threat level has been raised to ‘severe’
Other:
·
Malaysia Airlines to cut nearly a third of its workforce