Monday, December 1, 2014

12.1.14

Entertainment:      
·         5 Sony screeners were leaked after the hack, including “Fury” and “Annie:
·         Sony Pictures has hired FireEye's Mandiant forensics division to help restore the studio's computer network
·         The Sony hack could have been linked with North Korea due to its film about Kim Jung Un’s assassination - “The Interview”
·         Audience Entertainment aims to get movie watchers engaged in the theater as they play games together
·         Netflix took to social media to announce that Season 3 of its political drama House Of Cards will debut on February 27, 2015
·         Please see below for an interesting article on Google and Samsung and the future of mobile entertainment
·         Dalian Wanda Group wants to own a controlling stake in Lionsgate, the Chinese conglomerate’s chairman told Bloomberg
·         Danish directory Lars von Trier gave his first interview after 3 year vow of self-imposed silence
·         The Supreme Court is weighing the free-speech rights of people who use violent or threatening language on Facebook and other social media
·         Idina Menzel has confirmed that a sequel to Disney’s record-breaking 2013 animated film "Frozen" is in the works
·         Andy Serkis voiced the Star Wars teaser trailer
·         Please see below for the “Better Call Saul” teaser trailer
·         Disney’s Maker Studios and Wikia, an online network of fan communities, will launch a new video series: “The Year in Fandom”
Tech:
·         The Girl Scouts of the USA is launching a national online cookie selling platform that will allow girls to set up their own personalized online sales pages (with video), take online orders that allow for direct shipping to the customer, and generally reach a larger audience
·         Amazon has begun using its Kiva Systems robots to streamline online order fulfillment
·         eBay is beginning to use digital mirrors to bring digital connectedness to physical retail
·         Twitter will soon identify the other apps on your phone in an effort to personalize your experience on its service—i.e. serve you targeted ads
·         Based on PayPal’s online commerce data, the company reports having seen a 47% increase in global mobile payment volume on Black Friday
·         Penguin Books has launched a cloud reader for its resurrected Pelican educational imprint — to experiment with delivering e-books in the browser
·         Lazada, the Rocket Internet-backed e-commerce firm in Southeast Asia, announced that it has raised $250MM
·         Recently, PayPal announced several partnerships aimed towards enabling certain PayPal merchants to be able to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment from their customers
·         Line, the messaging app company with 500 million registered users, just announced the closure of 15 of its third-party games, that’s nearly half of the titles on its games platform and its second purge in six months
·         A new patent published by the USPTO details an invention by Nintendo that would allow it to emulate its mobile game consoles, including the Game Boy, in other settings - including on seat-back displays in airplanes and trains, and on mobile devices
Deals:
·         Telecoms group Altice SA has agreed to buy the Portuguese operations of Brazil's Grupo Oi for about $9.2B
·         Microsoft is to acquire Acompli, an email app, for $200MM
·         Vox Media, which owns sites like The Verge, Racked, and SB Nation, has raised $46.5MM from General Atlantic at a valuation of $380 million
·         Ingram Micro has made a binding offer to acquire ANOVO, a provider of reverse logistics and repair services for high tech products
·         Intel has acquired PasswordBox, a Montreal-based maker of digital identity management software
·         Fosun International, an industrial and financial conglomerate based in Shanghai, together with its French partner, Ardian, said its Gaillon Invest II vehicle was now offering $29.30 a share for Club Med, valuing the company, including its convertible bonds, at $1.4B
·         Lending Club disclosed in an amended prospectus on Monday that it planned to price its stock sale at $10 to $12 a share, potentially raising up to $692.4MM
·         Vodafone is said to be considering potential acquisitions, including a takeover of Liberty Global, the media company controlled by John C. Malone
·         Vivendi has closed the sale of its mobile carrier SFR to domestic cable company Numericable (Altice's subsidiary) for $16.7B
Business:
·         Google is working on rolling out the next version of Google Glass and has ditched Texas Instruments in favor of Intel
·         With the recent launch of Apple Pay and leaked screenshots of Facebook integrating payments with Facebook Messenger fintech companies, there is a lot of speculation regarding the future of banking
·         Microsoft is holding an event late in January to present Windows 10 consumer features properly
·         Los Angeles-based Wi-Fi and small cell network provider Boingo Wireless has raised $50MM in a new credit agreement
·         Crude oil hit a 5 year low, and now stocks are rallying
Exec Moves:
Retail:
·         Please see below for WIRED’s top 50 cyber Monday deals
·         Black Friday sales broke $1B and projected total holiday spend will be $89B
·         Retail spending over this year's four-day Thanksgiving weekend fell 11% to $50.9B according to the National Retail Federation, although total holiday sales through the end of the year are expected to rise 4.1%
Startups:
·         Seoul-based startup Woowa Brothers, which operates food delivery app Baedal Minjok, has announced that it has raised a $36MM round led by Goldman Sachs
Government:
Other:
·         A missing Ohio State University football player was found dead in a dumpster from a self-inflicted gunshot wound


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