Entertainment:
·
The UK government’s culture secretary Sajid Javad today
announced that the co-production treaty between the UK and China has been
formally ratified
·
Warner Bros. gets serious about mobile with 5 new games,
including Game of Thrones
·
Synacor, which provides TV Everywhere and portal solutions to
small-and-medium sized pay-TV operators, has partnered with thePlatform to
integrate the latter's mpx video management system
·
Netflix is closing a deal in the vicinity of $12MM for
worldwide rights for ‘Beasts of No Nation’
·
Vega Baby, the Singapore-based film production and
distribution company, has set up a fund to finance two to three films a year
with budgets up to $10MM
·
Broadway ticket sales dropped $4.6MM from the previous frame
for the week ending Sunday
·
Oprah’s Chicago-based Harpo Studios will close its doors, with
the 26-year-old company's productions transitioning to OWN headquarters in Los
Angeles
·
The major American broadcast networks declined to carry live
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of
Congress boycotted by many leading Democrats Tuesday
·
Republic Records and independent film and television studio IM
Global have announced a multi-picture co-financing and co-production
relationship for a series of music-driven titles
·
Warner Bros. has attached Jennifer Lawrence to star in
director Steven Spielberg’s “It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and
War”
·
Younger audiences watch more hours of video on YouTube and
other digital outlets than TV — simply because they find it more enjoyable and
relevant to their lives, according to a new study
·
Smashd.co, which debuted March 2, is a new online news
vertical founded by Troy Carter (Atom Factory) dedicated to uncovering the
personalities and trends in “tech, culture and hustle”
·
Improbable has an ambitious plan to help indie game studios
make MMOs
·
SXSW will use a mobile app that takes advantage of
location-aware Apple iBeacon technology to bring people together
·
Connected TVs surpass Blu-ray disc players in app delivery
Tech:
·
Google says its new wireless service will operate on a much
smaller scale than the Verizons and the AT&Ts of the world, providing a new
way for relatively few people to make calls, trade texts, and access the good
old internet via their smartphones
·
Waze is now included in the section of apps that make up
Google Mobile Services, or the pre-installation software bundle Google offers
to smartphone and device OEMs building Android gadgets
·
Pebble announced Pebble Time last week, the next-generation
version of its Pebble smartwatch, and today it’s revealing another new product:
Pebble Time Steel
·
Alibaba Group’s announcement yesterday that it will launch a
non-$316MM fund for entrepreneurs in Taiwan was overshadowed by a government
investigation into its local operations
·
Tinder’s “Rewind” functionality just went live, finally giving
users the ability to go back in time and swipe right instead of left
·
A pair of Twitter vets today launched a handy mobile
application called OneShot that makes it easier to share screenshots of text to
Twitter, along with your comment and a link to the page in question
·
Twitter has launched an embedding feature for Twitter-hosted
videos, letting you put any movies shot using its native video capture and
publishing tool on your site
·
NextVR, which is developing technology to capture 3D,
broadcast-quality virtual reality, said today that it will be adding
"light field" capture technology to its platform
o
http://www.socaltech.com/nextvr_includes_light_field_technology_in_3d_vr_technology/s-0059181.html
·
Los Angeles-based advertising technology developer Vantage
Media said this morning that it has rebranded the company, and has changed its
name to Katch, as a new focus on its software platform
Deals:
·
PCH International, the company that
designs supply chain solutions for hardware startups, is buying Fab for an
undisclosed amount
·
Purch, a network of digital media
publications, is acquiring comparison-shopping app Consumr
·
Western Digital said this morning
that its subsidiary, HGST, has agreed to acquire object storage software
developer Amplidata
·
Springleaf agrees to $4.25B deal for
Citigroup’s OneMain
Business:
·
Warren E. Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire
Hathaway, has released his annual shareholder letter, and it is unusually critical
of the financial industry
·
Barclays said on Tuesday that it fell to a loss in 2014 as its
annual results were dragged down by charges related to potential fines and
litigation costs for past conduct by its employees
·
Caesars Entertainment's 6.3% rise in fourth quarter was not
enough to lift the casino operator out of the red this year, as the company
reported a 2014 net loss of $1.01B, compared with a year-earlier loss of $1.76B
·
Best Buy unveiled plans to buy back shares for the first time
since 2012 and boosted its dividend by 21%, as the electronics retailer posted
better-than-expected profit in its holiday quarter
Exec Moves:
Retail:
Startups:
·
Haltbox is a social &
professional networking site that allows members to create connections, search
for jobs, and find potential clients
·
Booker, which is a web-based
platform enabling businesses to sell their services online, through their
website, network of partner sites and apps, raised $35MM in its Series C
Government:
·
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the United
States on Tuesday against agreeing to a nuclear deal with Iran and working with
a country "deeply rooted in militant Islam", saying Tehran "will
always be an enemy of America"
·
Australian shares fell back from seven-year highs today after
the Reserve Bank of Australia surprised markets by holding interest rates at
2.25% instead of lowering rates for a second consecutive month
·
Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a personal e-mail address
as secretary of state has sparked alarm even among many of her supporters, but
current and former State Department officials are defending the practice as
they explain how she used e-mail during her four years in the job
·
Retired four-star general David Petraeus reached a deal with
the Department of Justice and plead guilty to one count of unauthorized removal
and retention of classified information
Other:
