Entertainment:
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Epoxy was founded with the idea of helping YouTubers to engage
with audiences and track their reach on platforms like Facebook, Twitter,
Instagram, and Vine, and today the company is announcing that it’s partnered
with some of the largest new multichannel networks such as Fullscreen,
AwesomenessTV and many more
·
"To Kill a Mockingbird" will not be Harper Lee's
only published book after all - Publisher Harper announced Tuesday that
"Go Set a Watchman" a novel Harper Lee completed in the 1950s and put
aside, will be released July 14
·
Scott Eastwood is set to co-star alongside Joseph
Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley in Oliver Stone’s untitled film about NSA
leaker Edward Snowden
·
‘Selma’ co-star and producer Oprah Winfrey has teamed with the
film’s director Ava DuVernay to create a new original drama series for OWN:
Oprah Winfrey Network
·
Suge Knight has pleaded not guilty to murder, attempted murder
and other charges filed after he struck two men with his truck last week
·
The opening of the Shanghai Disney Resort is to be pushed back
from late this year to the first half of 2016
·
Missy Elliott’s well-received guest turn during Katy Perry’s
Super Bowl halftime show is generating 1000% sales gains for Missy
·
Bandsintown, a Web-based service used by a quarter-million
artists and 15 million concert-goers, is announcing its new Bandsintown Manager
today, a free application for Facebook, iOS and Android
·
Japan is beginning to embrace digital video, witnessing 31%
growth in the sector last year to $670MM and marking its card against the
country's robust packaged video market
·
Grudge Match Sports is gearing up to officially launch this
August, as a multi-pronged entertainment platform that includes a video game,
online streaming platform and an updated television show, based on the 1991
Grudge Match TV program
Tech:
·
Despite investing $258MM in Uber in August 2013, Google is
preparing to offer its own ride-hailing service, which will most likely be in
conjunction with its driverless car project
·
Groupon founder Andrew Mason created an app called Detour to
help tourists and locals in San Francisco to wander around and discover parts
of the city they’ve never fully explored- it is available for download in the
Apple App Store
·
Curioos, a marketplace that allows digital artists to post
their work and print them on a variety of materials, launched an augmented
reality app letting you see everything in the catalog as it would look on your
own wall
·
Twitter began rolling out a new tool to make its service more
accessible to new users, it’s called Instant Timeline it’s now available to a
small percentage of Twitter users on Android phones
·
Eero is a new smart wireless routing system from the designers
at Nest
·
Lego set sharing platform Pley is debuting a crowdsourced set
creation platform called PleyWorld that can see a submission go from concept to
shipping product in as little as two weeks
·
Driver-on-demand service Uber is building a robotics research
lab in Pittsburgh, PA to “kickstart autonomous taxi fleet development”
·
Tinder Plus, the long-awaited “premium” version of Tinder’s
service, offering features like an Undo button for errant swipes and a Passport
option for searching outside your current geographic region, is nearing launch
here in the U.S. for iOS and Android users
·
The Galaxy S6 will be unveiled on March 1st
·
Google has released its annual “bad advertising” report,
revealing a sharp increase in the number of miscreant ads it removed in 2014
·
Please see below for an article on why every photo storage
startup dies or gets acquired
·
eBay and PayPal began notifying employees who were losing
their jobs as part of the cutsas management looks to scale back initiatives
that haven’t panned out ahead of the planned split of the two companies in the
second half of this year
·
Twitter will start running its core “Promoted Tweet” ad unit
on other people’s apps and sites
·
Apple will invest $2 billion to convert a failed sapphire
glass manufacturing plant in Arizona into a data center that will also serve as
a global “command center,” in an investment that it described as one of the
company’s largest
Deals:
·
Sony has sold Sony Online
Entertainment, the studio and publisher that created EverQuest (and, to a large
extent, the modern MMO genre), in a deal that will see it owned by investment
management firm Columbus Nova and rebranded as Daybreak
·
Fundable, a crowdfunding site meant
to help groups of people invest in early-stage startups, has acquired a Q&A
site for entrepreneurs, Clarity
·
Staples is in talks to buy Office
Depot
·
Amazon has discussed acquiring some
RadioShack locations, joining other potential bidders, including Sprint and
investment group Brookstone
Business:
·
China claims mobile Internet users reached 557 million as of
December 2014, a growth of 11.4 percent from the year before
·
Apple led 2014 in ad revenue by a wide margin, according to a
new study by Opera Mediaworks, despite Android reaching an all-time high in
terms of ad impressions, and leading the overall market for the year on that
score
·
Please see below for a slew of statistics that show how online
video viewing has increased in 2015
·
Alibaba and Leding Club announced on Tuesday that they were
forming a partnership to provide financing for manufacturers in the United
States to buy products and supplies through the Chinese marketplace Alibaba.com
·
Verizon is close to selling more than $15B in assets,
including towers and parts of its wireline business, as it looks to pay down
debt and cover the $10.4B in wireless licenses it won in the FCC's spectrum
auction (AWS-3) last week
·
Insider buying by Keurig executives signals the company is on
to something big
Exec Moves:
Retail:
Startups:
·
KnCMiner, which makes bitcoin mining
software, raised $15MM in its Series B
·
AnyPerk, which provides employee
perks such as discounts and VIP treatment in fitness, entertainment, travel,
raised $8.5MM in its Series A
Government:
·
The Reserve Bank of Australia has jumped on the easing
bandwagon, becoming the latest global central bank to cut interest rates in
response to slowing inflation and concerns over economic growth
·
ISIS published several photos Tuesday allegedly showing
captive Jordanian pilot Muadh al Kasabeh being burned alive
Other:
·
A mayor in Wisconsin was bit on the ear by a groundhog during
their Groundhogs Day Ceremony
