Entertainment:
·
Digital purchases of movies in the U.S. boomed in 2014, to
$1.55B, up 30% from $1.19B in 2013, according to new data from the Digital
Entertainment Group
·
British audiences will get to see The Interview after all with
the news that the film will get a wide theatrical release in the UK and Ireland
on February 6
·
YouTube stars KickThePj and Sawyer Hartman will each launch an
online-video series exclusively on Vimeo On Demand through a deal announced
this morning with New Form Digital Studios
·
Ryan Seacrest rockin’ New Year’s Eve Special – featuring
performances by Fergie, Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum – topped the week’s Twitter
TV ratings from Nielsen
·
Media company stocks are among the big losers as the Standard
& Poor’s 500 endured its fifth straight day of decline, the longest such
stretch since 2013
·
While Sony’s limited theatrical release brought in $5MM, The Interview
notched a whopping $31MM with 4.3 million transactions from film rentals and
sales between December 24 and January 4
·
Annapurna Pictures and VICE are teaming up to produce The Bad
Batch, the next film from breakout indie helmer Ana Lily Amirpour
·
Netflix opened the semi-annual Television Critics
Association's winter press tour with a bit of breaking news: Period drama Marco
Polo will be back for a second season
·
Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” and Ed Sheeran’s "X" were
2014's biggest sellers in Australia
·
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has named the
North Korean official who allegedly ordered the hacking attack on Sony Pictures
·
BitTorrent will release its first feature film called Hits
·
VHX has raised an additional $5MM to help filmmakers sell
their films online
Tech:
·
OmniProcessor is a new kind of low-cost waste treatment plant
funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
·
Amazon is now selling the Fire Phone today for $189, off
contract, including a year of Amazon Prime (normally $99)
·
Google TV’s long, drawn-out good-bye has finally reached an
end, with Google confirming today that it will no longer support the platform
now that its successor, Android TV, has launched
o
http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/06/google-tv-development-support-ends-as-google-moves-onto-android-tv/
·
The FAA now allows real estate agents to use drones for aerial
photography
·
Rdio announced a raft of integration partnerships that it
hopes will give its service more ubiquity and make it more attractive
·
Uber is launching its new ‘Momentum’ rewards program for U.K.
drivers, two months after the U.S. launch
·
Kingston Digital is targeting the new 4K and HD video capture
market, with a brand new, ultra high speed microSD flash memory card
·
Amazon has been hiring for a new venture with the goal of
creating the “best end-to-end platform for startups.”
Deals:
·
Visual Supply Co., better known as
VSCO, has acquired Artifact Uprising, a Denver-based startup focused on
bringing photographers’ work from the digital hubs frequented by modern
creatives to the real world as tangible books and prints
·
An obscure marketing firm out of North
Carolina called Red Ventures just landed $250MM in funding from Silver Lake
Partners — a firm known for investing in tech companies like Dell, WME, and
Alibaba Group
o http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/07/marketing-firm-red-ventures-comes-out-of-nowhere-and-scores-250m/
Business:
·
Not even a month after T-Mobile announced its rollover data
plan called “Data Stash,” competitor AT&T is following with the unveiling
of a rollover data plan of its own
·
Intel has promised to spend $300MM to boost the representation
of women and minorities in tech
·
Monster, the consumer electronics firm which co-designed the
original Beats By Dr. Dre headphones, has sued Beats Electronics, saying that
Beats stole the technology behind its immensely popular headphones from the
company
·
Keurig Green Mountain has signed a deal with Dr Pepper Snapple
to sell capsules that make its sodas in its planned cold-drink machine
·
Venezuela has announced it has reached several agreements to
increase China's investment in the country's telecoms sector, especially in 4G
networks and mobile manufacturers
Exec Moves:
·
Formation 8 has been on a bit of
hiring spree recently, bringing on multiple partners and advisors over the past
few months
·
Bonnie Hammer, chairman of
NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment, has been appointed an independent director on
eBay’s Board of Directors
·
Hypebot is reporting that top
executives Eric Garland and Ethan Kaplan at Live Nation Labs have exited the
company's three-year-old digital innovation division, and signs are pointing
towards a larger restructuring within the unit
Retail:
Startups:
·
LineO, a food delivery startup that
guarantees delivery from local restaurants in less than an hour, raised $30MM
in its Series B
·
fitmob, which is redefining the gym
in the digital age delivering unique group workouts with top trainers in your
neighborhood, has raised $5MM in its Series B
Government:
·
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) would like some
credit for all the recent rosy economic news as he states that the economy is
improving due to the recent GOP Congress
Other:
·
Al Qaeda gunmen stormed the
Paris offices of a weekly satirical magazine renowned for lampooning radical
Islam, killing at least 12 people, including two police officers
·
The tail of the crashed AirAsia
jet has been found on the sea bed about 30 km (20 miles) from the plane's last
known location, a breakthrough that investigators hope will lead to the crucial
black box recorders
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