Tuesday, March 24, 2015

3.24.15

Entertainment:
·         Vessel, the new online video subscription service built by some of the early team at Hulu, is launching to the public today
·         Amazon announced that its streaming media players Amazon Fire TV and Fire TV stick will be soon receiving a software update that will deliver a series of new features, including support for expandable USB storage and wireless Bluetooth headphones
·         Opening up a new door for the sports-media industry, the NFL has announced it would test placing one football game this season on a national digital platform and not on national television, as a trial effort to understand the market for digital rights
·         After a review of the James Bond bootleg from producer Adi Shankar, Google/YouTube removed the copyright strike against him and is allowing the parody directed by Tyler Gibb to stand
·         This year’s Cannes Film Festival poster will pay tribute to actress Ingrid Bergman in honor of the centenary of her birth
·         Paramount Pictures is dismantling its microbudget film branch Insurge Pictures, reducing it from a separate division although it intends to keep the name for use as a label on future genre pictures
·         Apple TV has added TED Talks, Tastemade, and Young Hollywood to its set-top box
·         Online artist management company ReverbNation today announced the first initiative behind its artist incubator, CONNECT
·         As of this morning, most of Taylor Swift's albums (save 1989) are now streaming on TIDAL, the music streaming service Jay Z recently purchased via S. Carter Enterprises after putting in a $56.2MM bid
·         Netflix seen as the ‘clear winner’ in TV unbundling despite Apple’s entry - per an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald
·         In its first forecast for worldwide advertising expenditure in 2016, global media network Carat is predicting a big upswing in digital media spending, even when faced with negative economic headwinds
Tech:
·         See below for an article on all the ways the new Apple TV will dominate your living room
·         See below for an interesting article on how Facebook and Instagram are making us happier
·         Microsoft is launching Azure App Service today, a new cloud-based service that gives developers a single service for building mobile and web apps, combined with tools for automating business processes across cloud services, and a new service for building and consuming APIs
·         Twitter has unveiled a new “quality filter” that lets verified users weed out problematic tweets from their notifications – in an effort to combat cyber bullying
·         Joyent today announced the launch of Triton, its new container infrastructure for making Docker deployments in on-premise clouds and on its own cloud architecture easier
·         Tesla’s pure electric SUV is nearing launch and there is apparently at least one cruising around California
·         Apple has secured a new patent (via AppleInsider) for a special three sensor camera designed for thin, wireless devices like the iPhone
·         After a few months of beta testing, Reddit has officially launched embeddable comments
·         Instagram announced the debut of a new application called Layout, the company’s next standalone creation tool outside of its flagship photo-sharing application
·         Twitch forcing all of its users to change their passwords due to a security breach
·         Twitter is bringing the ability to tag specific locations to Tweets via official apps and the web, through a partnership with Foursquare
·         Last week, Pinterest made a huge change that will allow its employees to collect equity on terms more favorable to them
·         Facebook is testing a voice-calling app that can screen your calls and show you information about who is calling
·         Twitter is testing autoplay videos in user timelines, meaning you may no longer need to click a play button in order to see what people are sharing
Deals:
·         Accel announced a new $305MM fund dedicated to India
·         Slack is talking to investors for yet another round, this time at a valuation of around $2.5-2.6B
·         RiteTag acquires ScrapeLogo to optimize beyond the hashtag
Business:
·         Oil prices dropped again this morning following an overnight report which showed Saudi production close to an all-time high and data that showed China's factory sector falling to an 11-month low
·         eBay, which is spinning off its PayPal division later this year, plans to pay each of the two new companies' chief executive officers $14MM in total compensation after the split
Exec Moves:
·         Oyster, a Netflix-style service for e-books, has brought on its first chief financial officer, Jeannie Mun
·         Morgan Stanley’s CFO, Ruth Porat, is leaving to become Google’s new CFO
Startups:
·         Andreessen Horowitz invested $20MM in the startup Improbable to build massive simulated game worlds
Government:
·         Israel spied on private talks the U.S. held with Iran on nuclear weapons, and gave information to members of Congress in order to gain support against the deal
Other:
·         An Airbus 320 carrying 144 passengers flying from Barcelona, Spain, to Düsseldorf, Germany, crashed in the alps of southern France on Tuesday morning
·         Islamic State has recruited at least 400 children in Syria in the past three months and given these so-called "Cubs of the Caliphate" military training and hardline indoctrination
·         Angelina Jolie said Tuesday that she underwent preventative surgery to have her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed last week after doctors detected early signs of cancer

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