Tuesday, January 20, 2015

1.20.15

Entertainment:
·         Amazon Studios announced that it will begin producing and acquiring original movies both for theatrical release, and for early window availability on Amazon Prime Instant Video
·         Amazon Studios says it is beginning production with the goal of bringing customers a dozen movies each year, and announced that its movies will premiere on Prime Instant Video only four to eight weeks after their theatrical debut - Ted Hope will lead the creative development efforts as Head of Production at the Amazon studio
·         Latin Everywhere, the Spanish-language digital media company that was formed by the merger of Latin Anywhere and YouTube success GoTV last year, is launching a new streaming video service and acquisition that it hopes will help it drive more traffic to its own property
·         Video fitness startup Grokker is one of a large new group of startups aimed at helping people get fit - the company today is rolling out an iOS app that will now let users stream fitness content to their mobile devices
·         Marriott, recently in the news for attempting to block private hotspots, is working to offer familiar entertainment (Netflix, Hulu, and Pandora) via their in-room video systems
·         In a move to cut operating costs, DreamWorks Animation is planning a "substantial" number of layoffs
·         Justin Bieber will be roasted on Comedy Central
·         The Cannes Film Festival has announced that Joel and Ethan Coen will be presidents of the 68th edition of the festival
·         ShortsHD, the Short Movie Channel, and Magnolia Pictures are partnering to release 2015’s Oscar-nominated Short Films in a record 450+ theaters in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Latin America on Friday, January 30
·         The Imitation Game, which garnered eight Oscar nominations on Thursday, has reached a global box office cume north of $102.3MM
·         Amid a box-office slump, the average price of a movie ticket jumped to $8.17 over the past year, a slight rise over the 2013 ticket average
·         Overstock.com, which says it is second only to Amazon in retail sales on the Web, plans to launch VOD and streaming services, it was announced Tuesday at NATPE by company CEO Patrick M. Byrne
·         Alex Carloss, head of originals at YouTube, gave a little more color Tuesday at the NATPE confab on the Google-owned video powerhouse’s upcoming effort to finance original programming
·         Disney and Hearst, which co-own A&E, are insisting on a clause in the Vice contract that has angered CEO Shane Smith
·         Netflix has sent out the list of movies and TV shows that'll be vanishing from its service in February
·         Turner Broadcasting System's channel TBS veryfunny has seen 167% growth in prime time ratings and has a strong position among the young adult audience
Tech:
·         Please see below for an interesting article on the Silk Road trial
·         Apple has been granted a patent (via AppleInsider) that describes a method for tracking eye movement and using it to control UI elements on computing devices
·         AdWeek recently reported that Snapchat is asking brands for $750,000 per day to run its new “my story” ads
·         Tsu has launched a workaround to Apple’s longtime ban on “incentivized” app installs (aka pay-per-installs)
·         London-based developer Roman Mittermayr put together MediumSounds so he could mash together what he liked about the Medium design with the musical content he posts to SoundCloud
·         Samsung’s Portable SSD (solid state drive) T1 ticks both the security and speed checkboxes, and does so in high style without going overboard – this SSD holds 1 TB of storage
·         Uber chief Travis Kalanick said he wants to expand operations in Europe and, in the process, create 50,000 jobs and take 400,000 personal vehicles off the road
Deals:
·         Google may be in the final stages of investing in Elon Musk’s private space exploration company SpaceX, a move that would bolster SpaceX’s emerging satellite business and would help Google expand internet access around the world
·         Microsoft today announced that it has acquired Equivio, a text analytics service for legal and compliance that uses machine-learning techniques to identify documents relevant to their legal and compliance needs
·         Twitter has acquired ZipDial
·         Tastebud, a company that builds mobile loyalty applications for retailers, has acquired SocialCrunch
·         Please see below for today’s top tech funding stories
·         Starboard Value will threaten to seek a fight for representation on the board if Staples does not pursue a deal for Office Depot
Business:
·         Strategy Analytics has published its latest figures for advertising spend in the U.S., and in an overall pot that it estimates at nearly $187B, digital will account for just under 30% of that — 28%, or $52.8B
·         AOL is preparing to lay off staff and close or fold up underperforming titles as part of a bigger restructuring
·         Samsung Electronics is considering a stock split, making shares easier to buy and attracting more retail investors, as sliding profits continue to put pressure on the firm
·         It looks like Dove may be the first brand to release its Super Bowl ad online — and it's a tearjerker aimed at dads
·         Sources familiar with the Sony investigation told Re/code the attackers took advantage of what’s known as a “Zero-Day” vulnerability as part of a campaign to destroy the studio’s corporate network
Exec Moves:
·         Tommy Palm, the man credited with creating the most popular mobile game on the planet, Candy Crush Saga, has decided to leave King Digital Entertainment for a new startup
·         The CEO of Redbox parent company Outerwall, J. Scott Di Valerio, has stepped down and resigned from the Board
Retail:
Startups:
·         A16Z is leading a $40MM round of investment in Stack Exchange, a New York-based startup that operates the Q&A site Stack Overflow as well as a host of other programmer-focused forums, with 80 million users monthly
·         Visualead, an Israeli startup that specializes in QR code technology, announced today that it has raised Series B funding from Alibaba Group
·         Porch.com has raised $65MM in its Series B
Government:
·         Barack Obama will focus on the gap between wealthy Americans and middle- and lower-income households Tuesday night in Washington when he delivers his sixth State of the Union speech on what the White House is calling the “fourth quarter” of his presidency
·         Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) declared a state of emergency for two counties on the Yellowstone River, after a pipeline over the river burst on Saturday morning, contaminating the drinking water of Glendive and other towns
Other:
·         Please see below for the worst and most used passwords of 2014


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