Wednesday, January 21, 2015

1.21.15

Entertainment:
·         Vessel, Jason Kilar’s (founder of Hulu) competitor to YouTube and Vimeo, has opened an invite-only beta test
·         Netflix predicts it will wrap up its global expansion in two years – the company beat the street yesterday by adding 4.3 million new subscribers. Also, Netflix will stream “The Interview” starting on Saturday
·         NBCUniversal has said it will offer an 11-hour free digital video stream of this year’s Super Bowl, including pre-game coverage, the halftime show, and even an episode of “The Blacklist” following the big game
·         Quiver Digital is a new distribution dashboard through which participants can very quickly and easily push their movies to iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, Google Play, Vudu and Sony Entertainment Network, all at once and all in one place
·         DTS has inked a deal with Starz, where Starz will use its DTS-HD audio technology as part of a new service for the Xbox One
·         Please see below for an article on how YouTube and MCNs use OpenSlate to set the demographic parameters they’re targeting
·         Sony’s entertainment unit investigated its Indian operations for possible legal violations including bidding fraud and kickbacks, according to internal e-mails released by hackers
·         George Lucas told Cinema Blend in an interview posted yesterday that when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney in 2012, along with the company came some of his ideas for a new Star Wars trilogy - but it sounds like none of them will be part of the new Star Wars universe
·         Harvardwood, the entertainment-industry networking group for Harvard grads, has named winners of its annual writers competition and what it calls the Most Staffable TV Writers
·         The FCC rejected the companies’ claims that they shouldn’t be held responsible for fines it imposed last year, requiring Viacom to pay $1.12 million and ESPN to cough up $280,000 for misusing emergency alerts sounds
·         Bleecker Street, Andrew Karpen’s newbie indie U.S. distributor, has sealed a multi-year output deal with Canadian distributor Elevation Pictures to distribute its films across Canada
·         Publicists of the International Cinematographers Guild have named Bob and Harvey Weinstein as Motion Picture Showmen of the Year
·         Relativity Media has made an investment in Say Media and will use the firm to promote its films and TV shows, music, fashion, sports and branded entertainment division
·         The Australian theatrical box office dropped by 2.3% for the second successive year
·         John C. Reilly stars as Dr. Steve Brule starring as Steve in a faux failed pilot called Bagboy that'll air in February on Adult Swim
Tech:
·         Andrej Karpathy and his team of Stanford researchers are working to improve AI algorithms to identify images
·         Facebook has added an option to its social networking service that will let users flag news stories as hoaxes
·         Amazon Wallet, an Android app developed by the company to store loyalty and gift cards, has now been pulled from the Google Play store and Amazon’s own app store
·         Shazam has taken in a new round of financing, scooping up $30MM of investment — in a deal which values the business at more than $1B
·         Plex, which allows users to access all the TV series and movies they have stored on their Plex device, is coming to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3
·         Amazon announced that it is working with the Pattern Energy Group to construct and operate a 150 megawatt wind farm in Benton County, Indiana, to power its data centers
·         Starting February 1, 2015 certain brands will be able to push out articles, videos, products and photos inside Flipboard’s magazine app
·         Dealing a blow to Qualcomm, Samsung Electronics says it will not use the company's processors for its next version of the Galaxy S
·         Amazon’s line of Amazon Elements diapers may have been ethically made, but apparently they were less than sustainable - less than two months after launching the new product, Amazon has announced that it is pulling them from sale in order to make "design improvements"
·         Kik is working on a plan to better compete against Snapchat by allowing companies to send sponsored texts to its users
Deals:
·         SpaceX announced that it just raised $1B in funding from Google and Fidelity for 10% of the company
·         Dropbox announced earlier today it had bought CloudOn, a tool for editing Microsoft Office documents on your iPad, it represented another step in Dropbox’s attempt to become friendlier to the enterprise
·         Apple appears ready to add more analytics and analysis to Beats, the streaming service it acquired last year, after news surfaced that the U.S. company bought the British company behind Musicmetric
·         Spanish soccer club Atletico Madrid has confirmed that the Chinese property to cinemas group Dalian Wanda is buy a 20% stake in the club
·         Pinterest announced the acquisition of Kosei, a Palo Alto-based startup with technology for making personalized product recommendations to Internet users
Business:
·         Microsoft will today show off and demonstrate the mobile, and consumer-facing elements of its Windows 10 operating system
·         Please see below for an interview with Scott McGregor, CEO of Broadcom, where he explains the top tech trends of 2015
·         IBM is announcing a significant stride in its bid to be the best cloud company with a $500MM services contract today with Anthem
·         The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is not planning to significantly reduce its allocation to private equity, but it may redistribute the investments among fewer managers, a spokesman said
·         BHP Billiton says it will shut down 40% of its 26 U.S. shale oil rigs by the end of its fiscal year, and will focus on drilling in the liquids-rich Black Hawk basin while cutting back in the Permian and Hawkville acreage
·         Sony plans to cut 1,500 jobs in various divisions in Japan before March
Exec Moves:
·         Christopher Poole, best known by the moniker ‘moot’ on the 4chan site he founded over 11 years ago, has announced plans to “move on.”
Retail:
Startups:
·         Air, a startup building a live broadcasting service for mobile users, previously known as Yevvo, has raised close to $4MM in Series A funding
·         The Black Tux, a suit rental service, has raised $10MM
·         Coinbase, which makes it easy for people, businesses, and develoeprs to use Bitcoin, has raised $75MM in its Series C from prominent investors
Government:
·         The Bank of Japan held off on expanding its massive stimulus program today and cut its core consumer inflation forecast for the year beginning in April to 1% from 1.7%
·         Senate Republicans blocked two attempts yesterday to amend legislation forcing approval of the Keystone XL pipeline that would have required the project be built with domestically produced steel and that the oil be used only in the U.S. More politically treacherous debates are set for today
·         During his State of the Union address on Tuesday night -- amid talk of the economy, national security and health care -- President Obama took time to highlight the hot-button tech issue of net neutrality
·         Republican lawmakers have released draft legislation that would ban broadband providers from discriminating against certain kinds of web traffic
Other:
·         The New England Patriots had 11 of 12 designated game footballs underinflated by 2 pounds per square inch of air during their AFC championship win over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday


No comments:

Post a Comment