Monday, April 6, 2015

4.6.15

Entertainment:
·         The Roku 2 and Roku 3 streaming boxes are getting refreshed with new hardware providing faster movement through the interface as you jump around between channels and apps
·         Google’s VP9 video codec — its more efficient replacement for H.264 — powered 25 billion hours of video streaming on YouTube in the last twelve months, the company announced today
·         According to BuzzFeed, Apple is holding off on including 4k technology in its new Apple TV, most likely until costs come down
·         On Sunday's edition of HBO's "Last Week Tonight," host John Oliver traveled to Russia to interview NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
·         Comic-Con International and the City of Los Angeles have reached an agreement to relocate the annual WonderCon, the sister convention to San Diego Comic-Con, to Los Angeles in 2016
·         “Furious 7” raced beyond even the highest expectations this weekend to gross $146.5MM
·         As anticipated, CAA has taken its second legal action over UTA’s poaching of several of their agents earlier this week
·         Bloomberg TV will begin streaming online this month on Pluto TV under a new partnership, making Pluto the first “over-the-top” online-video provider to offer the business news cable channel for free
·         Barely more than an hour after David Lynch said he was pulling out of the “Twin Peaks” revival over money issues, Showtime issued a statement saying it’s still trying to resolve deal points with Lynch and his reps
·         OWN just had its most-watched quarter in primetime in network history - the 581,000 audience for Oprah Winfrey’s network was up 44% compared with the previous quarter
·         Underlining his status as the toughest Bond yet, Daniel Craig has had surgery on his knee a full two months after reportedly injuring himself during a fight scene for the next 007 film, “Spectre”
·         Netflix has picked up a satirical movie by Ricky Gervais about a radio journalist who resorts to faking stories
·         WME sent framed “CAAN’T” posters to the CAA defectors at their new UTA offices
·         Discovery Communications president and CEO David Zaslav's 2014 compensation package was worth $156.08MM
·         Theatergoers are already using Twitter’s Periscope and Meerkat live-streaming video apps, which have launched in the past few weeks, to broadcast movies directly from cinemas — including this weekend’s blockbuster, “Furious 7”
·         Alignment Artist Capital says it wants to lend money to musicians, using funds provided by BlackRock, the $4.6 trillion asset manager
·         Content giant HBO has launched its TV everywhere platform HBO GO on Android devices for Latin America, enabling more mobile devices to screen its over-the-top (OTT) and video-on-demand (VOD) content through second screens.
Tech:
·         Hoping to solve expensive roaming charges, Google is in talks with Hutchison Whampoa for a deal that would allow Americans to use their phones abroad at no extra cost
·         Everfest is a global calendar and search engine for festivals - music, film, food, drink, art, sports, and culture
·         Indie bookstores have turned to crowdfunding to stay alive
·         Philips has a new addition to their Hue smart lighting system: The Hue Go, a portable light that packs three hours of use on a full charge before it needs to be plugged in again
·         It was always weird that Snapchat exposed who you snapped with most in the “Best Friends” list, so today the app is ditching that for a new private way to see who you’re closest to
·         See below for an interesting article on virtual reality and augmented reality and how it will be a $150B market by 2020
·         Last week, Tinder unveiled its first ad in the form of a video promoting Budweiser’s next #Whatever, USA campaign
·         MakerSquare, which operates coding camps and classes to help students get software jobs, is setting up a new location in Los Angeles
·         Snapchat released its first transparency report, detailing all of the legal and government demands for information from its systems, showing that the company fielded more than 375 U.S. criminal legal requests for information--via subpoenas, court orders, search warrants, and emergency orders--from November of 2014 until February of this year
·         LG just revealed Apple's plans to release an 8K iMac later this year
Deals:
·         Pinterest today scored two notable new hires with the acquisition of a small, two-person startup known as Hike Labs, which had been developing a mobile publishing application called Drafty
·         The quarter had 17 IPOs of venture-backed companies that raised $1.4B - that’s down 54% by number of IPOs and a 58% decrease in the amount raised
·         ZenPayroll has raised a $60MM Series B round led by Google Capital, the company announced Monday
·         Comcast has recruited its beneficiaries to lobby for the Time Warner Deal
·         Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman and his partners are creating a $16B fund to invest in tech and telecom companies in the U.S. and Europe
Business:
·         Hedge funds increased bullish oil bets by the most in four years as negotiators worked to reach a deal over Iran’s nuclear program
Exec Moves:
Startups:
·         California-based startup EchoPixel is the latest company to jump into the fray of bio-medical holograms, with its new True3D Viewer - the FDA recently approved the software platform for use in diagnostics and surgical planning
·         Crowd Supply is a new crowdfunding site for physical products
·         Vibbidi, a mobile app that hasn’t yet launched, offers a set of slick video-editing features that gives users a bit more flexibility than others have traditionally offered
·         Wooter is a new trending platform that helps you find any sport or activity in your area
Government:
·         The Kenyan air force has destroyed two al Shabaab camps in Somalia in the first major military response since the Islamist group massacred students at a Kenyan university last week
·         Kenyan government officials say they have identified Mohamed Mohamud as the orchestrator of the bloody attack on a university last week that left 150 people dead
·         President Obama laid out his own version of an Obama Doctrine — "We will engage, but we preserve all our capabilities" — and talked about the interim nuclear agreement with Iran, U.S. relations with Israel and Sunni allies, and other foreign policy issues in an interview
Other:
·         Domino's will now let you order a pizza from your Samsung Smart TV, a true revelation in the pizza-ordering ecosystem
·         A woman who's been unable to get in touch with her husband will be allowed to serve him divorce papers over Facebook, a Manhattan judge has decided




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