Thursday, January 15, 2015

1.15.15

Entertainment:
·         Please see below for the list of Oscar nominations, including snubs and surprises
·         Amazon has a slate of new shows available now on its Instant Video streaming service, which includes 13 new comedy, drama, documentary and kids shows
·         The White House has invited three top YouTube creators — Bethany Mota, GloZell Green and Hank Green — to interview President Obama next week, two days after his Station of the Union address
·         Vimeo and Maker Studios are announcing a partnership that will bring new videos from the Disney-acquired content network (that’s Maker Studios) to the IAC-owned streaming video service (that’s Vimeo) for an exclusive time window
·         GoPro has forged a partnership with Vislink to bring live HD broadcasting to the GoPro line of portable, rugged HD cameras
·         Tremor Video has unveiled its video supply side platform, with 40 publishers on board, including existing customers USA TODAY Sports, Bonnier Corp. and Young Hollywood
·         Chris Hemsworth and Naomi Watts will be on hand to receive top honors at China's 11th annual Huading Awards
·         Discovery Communications’ founder will launch a new project: CuriosityStream, which will be like a Netflix for nature and science enthusiasts with prices ranging from $2.99 a month (for standard resolution video) to $9.99 (for 4k, or Ultra HD)
·         Discovery Communications looks to be signaling a more aggressive move into the European sports rights arena
·         Teamsters Local 399 is signing up members for picket duty in preparation for a possible strike against producers of TV commercials
·         LBI Entertainment has signed a first-look deal with Jeff Robinov’s Sony-based Studio 8 as the fledgling company builds up its first slate of projects and cements filmmaker relationships
·         Mike Myers has signed a two year overall deal with HBO
·         Break.com will stream over 200 Lionsgate movies for free on over-the-top platforms for a month
·         Jukely Unlimited, a social concert app that gains members entry into a selection of venues and concerts with a monthly subscription fee, launches today (Jan. 15) in Los Angeles
·         Netflix has begun its first Spanish-language original series
Tech:
·         Elon Musk announced a donation of $10MM to help fund research to “keep AI beneficial” to humanity today
·         MySpace still reaches 50 million people each month, large figures come from users logging into the site to download pictures for throwback Thursday posts
·         Booking.com, a subsidiary of the Priceline Group, launched a new app called Booking Now, which lets travelers find last-minute hotel deals anywhere in the world and book them with a single click
·         Apple has a new patent application that describes a pop-up home button which can work as an analog joystick
·         Timeline is a news aggregator app that gives you insider context behind the day’s headlines
·         Twitch is launching Music Library, a curated collection of music that broadcasters can use in their streams for free
·         India has welcomed the first international music streaming service to its shores after Rdio, the San Francisco based company, launched in the country
·         Keysweeper is a new device that looks like a phone charger, which actually monitors your keystrokes
·         Google announced that it will launch its modular smartphone, known as Project Ara, with a limited market pilot in the US territory of Puerto Rico later this year
·         Peer-to-peer lending service Lending Club has announced a new tie-up with Google that will help facilitate funding for “eligible Google partners”
·         Santa Monica-based secure messaging software developer TigerText announced partnership with Casa de la Luz Hospice
·         Talko, developed by software legend Ray Ozzie is a coworking and communication app attempting to reinvent the phone call, which falls in the same genre as popular online tools like Slack and HipChat
·         Please see below for the “Beginner’s Guide to Understanding the Internet of Things”
Deals:
·         On Wednesday, Samsung approached the beleaguered BlackBerry to buy the company for as much as $7.5B – but Blackberry has denied the rumor of the bid
·         Synacor, a Buffalo, NY-based company that provides technology and services to the pay-TV industry, has purchased NimbleTV in what it described as a “part acqui-hire” transaction
·         The German publisher of Scientific American and Nature magazines has agreed to form a joint venture with the private-equity backed Springer Science & Business Media to create a global science and education publishing house
·         Telefónica has reached an agreement with Mediaset Premium, the Italian group's pay-TV company, through which the Spanish telco will acquire 11.1% of its capital by paying around €100 million
Business:
·         Bank of America is the latest large bank to report uninspired earnings for the fourth quarter of 2014, which fell 11 percent, to $3.05B, or 25 cents a share, from $3.44B, or 29 cents a share, in the period a year earlier
·         Caesars Entertainment put its largest unit into Chapter 11 bankruptcy, forging ahead with a planned restructuring over the forceful objections of some creditors
·         BP is planning to cut 300 jobs from its 4,000-strong North Sea business following a review of its operations
·         Adobe's Board of Directors has approved a new buyback, granting the company authority to repurchase up to $2B in common stock through the end of fiscal 2017
·         Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan cut interest rates in an unscheduled review to revive growth in Asia’s third-largest economy after inflation eased
·         Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu now owns more of the New York Times Company than does the Sulzberger family, which has controlled the venerable news provider since 1896
·         The Federal Communications Commission asked Dish about how it reached agreements to carry channels on its new service, as the agency’s review of Comcast’s $45B deal to acquire Time Warner Cable heats up
Exec Moves:
·         Kevin Rose has stepped away from his role as an investor at Google Ventures to work full-time on his mobile app development startup North Technologies, which just raised $5MM in funding led by True Ventures
·         Jonathan Barzilay was named COO of PBS today
Retail:
Startups:
·         Skydio announced a $3MMseed round led by Andreessen-Horowitz for the company to build computer vision into drones that can be flown with your phone
·         Classpass, the NY-based company that offers unlimited fitness classes at 2,000 different studios and boutique gyms for $99/month, has closed a $40MM Series B led by General Catalyst and Thrive Capital
·         Moovit, which is a mobile application that enables users to track information on public transport, raised $50MM in its Series C
Government:
·         Rupert Murdoch praised Jeb Bush, while calling Mitt Romney a "terrible candidate"
·         Traveling to Cuba will be much easier due to a set of new regulations implemented by the Obama administration
·         Marco Rubio is working with Utah Senator Mike Lee on a tax plan that would expand the Child Tax Credit and allow it to offset both income and payroll tax liabilities
Other:
·         The Australian website Ship Your Enemies Glitter claims that it’ll send “so much glitter in an envelope that [the recipient will] be finding that s*** everywhere for weeks”


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