CNN has acquired Canopy, a 15-person startup that developed a personalized, privacy-focused content-recommendation engine. The WarnerMedia-owned news outlet said it will use Canopy’s technology to accelerate development of a new project to connect users “to trusted sources, storytellers and creators.” Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Founded in 2017, Canopy (canopy.cr) had raised $4.5 million
Tech
Since he can’t pop into the Stone Pony to play a surprise set, Bruce Springsteen will perform livestream a performance from home that will broadcast on SiriusXM’s E Street Radio on Wednesday (April 8) at 10 a.m. ET, according to Rolling Stone. “Bruce will be playing songs and sharing thoughts about the times we live
Quibi’s first-day app downloads hit around 300,000, coming after months of steady hype surrounding Jeffrey Katzenberg’s ambitious mobile-only streaming service. That’s according to preliminary estimates from mobile-analytics firm Sensor Tower. Currently, as of Tuesday morning, Quibi ranks as the No. 3 top free app overall on Apple’s App Store in the U.S. (following Zoom and
Vizio moved up the launch of 30 new free linear streaming channels on its internet-connected SmartCast TVs, as viewing on surges during the coronavirus crisis. As of April 7, Vizio SmartCast users can find 30 new channels, spanning news, entertainment, lifestyle, DIY, sports, comedy and music. The company had planned to start rolling them out
A few hours into Quibi’s much-hyped debut, people have expressed irritation over something that’s supposed to be one of the streamer’s key differentiating features: You can only watch its lineup of original movies and shows on a mobile device. Why, amid the stay-at-home COVID-19 crisis, is Quibi limiting itself only to the smallest screens in
Iflix, the multi-territory streaming firm based in Malaysia, has confirmed a significant wave of job cuts. The company is under pressure during the coronavirus crisis and ahead of debt repayment deadlines. The company is laying off more than 50 people across its various locations, but did not disclose an exact figure. “The industry is not
Chinese video streaming giant iQIYI is making hit animated film “Nezha” available to viewers in South East Asia. The move is part of a corporate response to the coronavirus lockdowns across much of the region. These have caused cinemas to close and consumption of online entertainment to spike upwards. It is also a move that
Disgraced comedian Louis C.K. has returned with a surprise stand-up special, after admitting to several accounts of sexual misconduct in the 2010s. He was one of the first men in Hollywood whose behavior came to light during the #MeToo movement, but he started to re-emerge in comedy clubs in 2018 with new material. He jokes
Turns out the 500 hours of free HBO content that the premium cabler unlocked Friday is available on Roku devices in the U.S. — but on the streaming platform’s Roku Channel, not on HBO’s own apps for Roku. To find the free HBO programming, which includes full seasons of “Silicon Valley” (pictured above), “The Sopranos,”
Streaming giant Netflix will donate $1 million to the Producers Guild of India (PGI) relief fund, the company announced Friday. Set up in March by the PGI, the fund will provide emergency short-term relief to thousands of daily wage earners in the Indian creative community, who are now out of work due to the closure
UPDATED: Amid a bigger workforce reduction at Bustle Digital Group, the company laid off the staff of The Outline, the tech-focused site founded by journalist Joshua Topolsky, and abruptly shut it down just about one year after acquiring it. BDG laid off 24 employees across the company, including those at The Outline, and it also
James Charles, YouTube’s most famous beauty vlogger, has unveiled the contestants and his judge sidekick for a reality-competition show to find the next makeup artist star. And Charles is certainly grateful that the YouTube-funded series, “Instant Influencer,” has already been shot and will be ready to roll out starting April 24 on his YouTube channel.
HBO made good on its promise, throwing the doors open on a free, live-streaming buffet of some 500 hours of premium content Friday morning. The free #StayHomeBoxOffice programming — served up without any ads — includes every episode of nine HBO series: “The Sopranos,” “Veep,” “Succession,” “Six Feet Under,” “The Wire,” “Ballers,” “Barry,” “Silicon Valley”
Google publicly released a massive new set of data, collected from users’ mobile devices, showing where stay-at-home directives during the coronavirus pandemic are working — and where they’re not. On Friday, Google published what it called an early release of its COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports (available at google.com/covid19/mobility). The data spans 131 countries and regions,
Facebook is one of the few companies that says it’s staffing up amid the coronavirus crisis, which has already led to an unprecedented 10 million U.S. unemployment claims over a two-week span in March. The social-media giant plans to hire 10,000 additional workers for its product and engineering teams by the end of 2020, Facebook
LeVar Burton, known to many Americans as the longtime host of PBS’s “Reading Rainbow,” wants to spread the love during the coronavirus crisis with a new story-reading series he’s launching on Twitter — for kids and adults. Burton says he plans to host three “LeVar Burton Reads” sessions a week on Twitter (at @levarburton): Mondays
“Outer Wilds,” the action-adventure mystery about a solar system trapped in an endless time loop, won best game, game design and original property at Thursday’s British Academy Games Awards, which took place virtually due to the coronavirus crisis. Also winning three BAFTAs was the open-world, role playing detective game “Disco Elysium,” for debut game, narrative
Zoom, the internet videoconferencing platform that has seen usage boom 20-fold during the COVID-19 pandemic, is going into triage mode. In the past few weeks, as Zoom virtual meetings have become ubiquitous, new concerns and government scrutiny — and at least one lawsuit — have reared up about the company’s privacy and security measures. In
The Walt Disney Company is not planning to launch its streaming service Disney Plus in the Middle East region in the near future, but will license its original content instead exclusively to regional pay TV and streaming firm OSN. Originals including “The Mandalorian,” “Lady and the Tramp” and docuseries “The World According to Jeff Goldblum”
Will Smith is joining the ever-growing sheaf of Hollywood talent in Quibi’s quiver. The Jeffrey Katzenberg-founded mobile subscription service announced the acquisition of “This Joka,” a 16-episode stand-up comedy series hosted and executive produced by Smith. Quibi is set to debut next Monday, April 6, with 50-odd shows. For now, there’s no premiere date for
Andrew Lloyd Webber is to stream a production of one of his musicals for free on YouTube each week during the coronavirus crisis. Lloyd Webber’s YouTube initiative to entertain fans, titled “The Shows Must Go On!,” will begin with his 2000 adaptation of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” starring Donny Osmond, Joan Collins and
SoundCloud today announced a series of initiatives designed to help creators get their music heard on the platform, including what it describes as a $15 million investment in promotional support and its “artist accelerator program.” “As the coronavirus crisis has unfolded, we’ve seen a global outpouring of tracks on SoundCloud,” CEO Kerry Trainor wrote in
MTV International has ordered a fast-turnaround live and interactive digital gameshow series designed to entertain viewers in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, hosted by reality TV star Charlotte Crosby. The “MTV Game Night With Charlotte Crosby,” consisting of six 30-minute episodes, will stream live from Crosby’s home on a weekly basis from 8.30 P.M.
Amazon, in partnership with Apple, has quietly turned on a new feature in Prime Video’s apps for Apple devices that lets users buy or rent TV shows and movies, using the in-app payment feature. Previously, the Prime Video app for Apple’s family of devices didn’t let you make purchases. The Prime Video app for iPhone,
Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy spent eight years working on the script for their feature film debut, Amazon’s “Blow the Man Down,” about a pair of sisters who go deep into the underbelly of their New England hometown to cover up a crime. But the filmmakers’ relationship dates back further than that — to
Quibi has spent more than $1 billion so far gearing up for what founder Jeffrey Katzenberg touts as a category-defining pay-TV service of the future, uniquely built for smartphones. It’s not clear when, or even whether, the startup will recoup that. In the months leading up to Quibi’s still-planned April 6 debut, industry insiders privately
On March 11, comedian Jim Gaffigan was in Bogotá, Colombia, in the midst of his worldwide Pale Tourist tour when he received a call from his manager that Argentina was closing its borders in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, and his upcoming show there was canceled. He had a choice: fly to São Paulo,Brazil, for his
Five days before Quibi’s scheduled April 6 launch, the Jeffrey Katzenberg-founded mobile-video venture has been hit with another legal action — demanding that Quibi be forced to stop using technology it allegedly stole from an interactive-video company. The motion seeking a preliminary injunction against Quibi comes from New York-based Eko, which last month sued Quibi
With schools closed due to the COVID-19 crisis, millions of children are stranded at home — and most parents working from home say they find it tough to manage the daily juggle. How to keep the kids occupied in a way that isn’t totally mindless? Here are 15 of the most popular shows available on
When the film and TV industry emerges from self-isolation to a forever altered landscape, one silver lining will be the online savvy newly gained by traditionally digitally-shy businesses, some of whom have reacted with lightning speed to devise virtual showcases. A drive towards virtual events initially manifested in early March across disrupted festivals such as