Entertainment:
·
Periscope, the Twitter-owned mobile video streaming app, is
getting loads of good old-fashioned free publicity today via doddering news
reports that some users of the app shared with their Twitter followers the
first episode of HBO’s “Game of Thrones”
·
The Los Angeles Dodgers and R/GA said Tuesday afternoon that
the two are setting up a new, startup accelerator in Los Angeles, called the LA
Dodgers Accelerator
·
“Heads Up!” originally a game Ellen DeGeneres played with her
talk show’s audience and later turned into a hot-selling mobile app, is taking
the next logical step, becoming a game show on HLN
·
Two months after the California Film Commission board approved
new regulations for the state’s film and television tax incentives, Sacramento
has signed off - today, the Office of Administrative Law approved the new regs
pretty much as the CFC submitted them back in February
·
WME/IMG acquired Australian music-booking powerhouse Artist Voice
and Bull Riders, Inc.
·
Children’s app maker Toca Boca will translate those digital
experiences into “TV You Can Touch,” interactive video offerings created by a
just-launched New York production unit headed by Sesame Workshop veteran J
Milligan
·
New Mexico Governor Susana has signed a second bill in seven
days that boosts the state's film incentives program
·
Netflix has renewed “Orange is the New Black” for a fourth
season, the streaming service announced Wednesday
·
Netflix is teaming with the World Wide Fund for “Nature” and
the creators of “Planet Earth for Our Planet” an eight-part natural history
series in 4k set to air in 2019
·
Hotel giant Marriott has checked into Hollywood with its
Global Content Studio, producing films and shows with the aim of becoming the
biggest travel brand in the world
·
Drake's Toronto-based hip hop festival OVO Fest received
$300,000 last year from Canada's Ontario government but this year their grant
application was denied
·
Al Jazeera's premium sports channel BeIN Sports will be
launching in Spain this summer, following a distribution agreement between the
Qatari media group and Mediapro
Tech:
·
Spotify, the popular music-streaming service, is soon expected
to announce its latest round of funding, an anticipated $400MM from investors
at a valuation of $8.4B
·
Tinder released an update today that integrates directly with
Instagram, letting users scroll through the Instagram profiles of their
potential matches within the app itself
·
Dormi allows you to re-use old Android smartphones or tablets
in order to remotely monitor your baby’s room
·
Musicyou raises a Series A round for its private music sharing
platform
·
JD.com, the second-largest e-commerce company in China after
Alibaba, is taking on its bigger rival with the launch of JD Worldwide
·
Twitter confirmed that NTT Data, which resold Tweets and their
metadata in Japan, will indeed no longer have firehose reselling rights come
August
·
This weekend, Vine debuted a channel dedicated entirely to
Coachella, but did so in a very different way - instead of opening it up to the
masses of content about Coachella, they focused on a narrative created by two
highly popular Vine users
·
More than a year ago, AOL executives Tim Armstrong and Bob
Lord first publicly outlined their plans to unify AOL’s various ad products as
a single platform called One - yesterday that platform launched
·
Sixense announced a partnership with SapientNitro and the
availability of a VR shopping platform they call vRetail
·
Tumblr 4.0 comes to iOS with new video features, filtered
search, and more
·
Samsung has pulled together a 200-person team dedicated to
producing screens for Apple devices
Deals:
·
Nokia has announced that it plans to
move ahead with the purchase of Alcatel-Lucent, less than one day after
confirming that the two companies were discussing a deal - Nokia will pay
$16.6B in shares for the rival telecom equipment maker
·
Menlo Ventures is announcing today
that it has $400MM in fresh capital to invest in new startups, thanks to the
close of its twelfth fund
·
In the latest tech M&A rumor,
Yahoo is in talks to buy Foursquare
·
RetailNext, the leader in Applied
Big Data for physical retail, delivering real-time analytics that enable
retailers, shopping centers, and manufacturers to collect, analyze, and
visualize in-store data, raised $125MM in its Series E
·
Hello Alfred, which provides the
smart way to take care of weekly errands without actually doing them
individually, raised $10.5MM in its Series A
·
New Enterprise Associates has raised
the biggest venture capital fund in the industry- $2.8B on its 15th
fund
·
Apple has acquired LinX Computational
Imaging, an Israeli developer of multi-sensor mobile camera modules declared to
deliver SLR-level image quality and superior low-light shots.
·
DJI, a Chinese startup that makes
consumer drones, is in funding talks for a round that would make the company
worth $10B
Business:
·
On Wednesday the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission,
announced it had served Google with a formal complaint known as a Statement of
Objections
·
Hawthorne-based SpaceX has delivered another payload into
space, successfully launching its sixth, commercial resupply mission to the
International Space Station Tuesday afternoon
·
Apple on Tuesday announced that its annual developer
conference, WWDC, would take place June 8-12
·
British regulators on Wednesday fined Bank of New York Mellon
126 million pounds, or about $185MM, for failing to comply with rules intended
to protect client assets if the bank were ever to become insolvent
·
Intel met first-quarter profit expectations but fell slightly
short of revenue estimates after the bell yesterday, citing sluggishness in its
personal computer business but strong growth in the data center segment
·
With the FCC's new net neutrality rules published in the
Federal Register, AT&T and three industry trade groups representing
cablecos and wireless carriers have filed separate lawsuits challenging the
rules, which subject firms to heavier "telecom services" regulations
o http://www.itworld.com/article/2909135/fcc-net-neutrality-rules-published-to-federal-register.html
·
Morgan Stanley has been offered more than $1B for its merchant
oil trading business by Castleton Commodities International, a U.S.-based trading
house
·
After months of negotiations, Target is close to a settlement
with MasterCard that would reimburse banks with roughly $20M for costs they
incurred from its massive data breach two years ago
·
A Tax Day strike by fast-food workers in more than 200
American cities is expected to be the largest of its kind - the employees
demand a $15 per hour living wage for the workforce, more than half of whom
rely on public assistance to supplement their incomes
Exec Moves:
·
Lionsgate’s Motion Picture Group
just promoted Patricia Laucella, who has negotiated production and talent deals
for some of the studio’s splashiest projects, to President of Business &
Legal Affairs
·
STX Entertainment has staffed up its
marketing department with a quartet of executive hires
·
Jonah Minton, an early member of the
executive team at Fullscreen, has left the online-video giant for DigiTour
Media, where he will be chief revenue officer
·
Univision Communications has hired
Mark Lopez, formerly Google’s head of U.S. Hispanic audience sales, as
executive VP and general manager of Univision Digital
Startups:
·
Kymeta, is a communications company
that is making WiFi antennas (the size of an extra-large pizza) that will help
connectivity on planes
·
Fleep, the team messaging app built
and backed by a number of ex-Skype engineers, is another step further in its
mission to help wean you off email
·
FightMe is a video challenge app
similar that will create campaigns similar to the ice bucket challenge
·
U.K.-based serial gaming
entrepreneur Tony Pearce has pulled in another tranche of early stage funding
for gamesGRABR, his Pinterest style social network for gamers, bagging £450,000
($665,000) in seed funding from ~220 investors in a second crowdfunding round,
via Crowdcube
Government:
·
China grew at its slowest pace last quarter since the global
financial crisis in 2009, official data showed on Wednesday, building the case
for further stimulus from policymakers
·
Talks on resolving Greece's financial deadlock resumed on
Wednesday amid growing creditor concern that Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras'
government won't come up with the necessary overhauls to unfreeze aid by an
April 24 deadline
·
Japan is set to overtake China as America's largest overseas
creditor when the U.S. Treasury releases its February investment figures at 4
p.m. in Washington
·
The White House announced Tuesday that it is now prepared to
sign a modified version of the Corker-Menendez Bipartisan Iran Nuclear
Agreement Review Act of 2015, a piece of legislation that in its original form
at least was seen as a poison pill to kill the Iran deal
Other:
·
Police in Marana, Arizona released a graphic dash cam video
Tuesday showing a police officer running over a robbery suspect in his patrol
car
·
Former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez was found
guilty Wednesday of first-degree murder in a deadly late-night shooting,
sealing the downfall of an athlete who once had a $40MM contract and a standout
career ahead of him
·
A headache-inducing logic problem from Singapore's Math
Olympiad went viral this week, sparking online debates, a Twitter hashtag, and
even a song that mimics the process of elimination that leads to the correct
answer
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