Tech

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” has hit digital channels a few days before originally scheduled. The final installment of the original Star Wars saga became available for purchase late Friday (March 13) across digital retailers, four days before its previous March 17 release date. Disney’s early digital drop of “Rise of Skywalker” may have

March 14, 2020 6:03AM PT Apple is shutting down its nearly 500 retail stores worldwide outside of China until March 27 in an effort to minimize the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). The move was announced late Friday in a statement by CEO Tim Cook. In the Greater China region, where the COVID-19 outbreak

UPDATED: Donald Trump claimed Google was assisting in the U.S. government’s efforts to address the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak by developing a site that would point Americans to locations they could get tested. But there were several inaccuracies in what Trump announced Friday at a press conference, as Google later clarified. First, the project is not

March 13, 2020 11:47AM PT Apple is the latest company to alter plans in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19), moving its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June to a virtual, online-only event. The tech giant announced it will commit $1 million to organizations in San Jose, Calif., to offset lost revenue associated with WWDC

Sony’s “The Nightingale,” starring Dakota and Elle Fanning, and an adaptation of Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” fantasy series, produced by Sony and Amazon Studios, and starring Rosamund Pike, are the latest projects to be hit by the growing spread of coronavirus, with both productions’ European shoots disrupted this week. Production on “The Nightingale,”

At least 69 U.S. cable and telecommunications companies have pledged to not cut off broadband or telephone service for the next 60 days to any customers — even if they’re unable to pay their bills — as the country reels from the coronavirus pandemic with offices, schools and events shutting down temporarily. Amid the quickly

March 13, 2020 8:47AM PT Cable giant Charter Communications will provide free broadband for two months to households with students, as a number of U.S. schools are shutting down because of concerns about the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Starting next Monday (March 16), Charter will offer free Spectrum broadband and Wi-Fi access for 60 days to

For now, VidCon’s flagship U.S. edition is still a go amid a wave of cancellations of other events and shutdowns including the closure of Disneyland and other theme parks over the coronavirus outbreak. VidCon US 2020 remains scheduled to be held at the Anaheim Convention Center from June 17-20, 2020, according to a spokesperson for

European broadcasting giant RTL Group on Friday reported a 10% increase in 2019 profit as revenue reached a record €6.65 billion ($7.44 billion), driven mainly by higher sales from global content unit Fremantle and its digital business. With sales up 3.2%, 2019 marked the fifth consecutive year that RTL’s revenue reached record levels. The group’s

After more than two decades at Amazon, Greg Hart — most recently head of worldwide video and a member of Jeff Bezos’s senior leadership team — is leaving the ecommerce giant for a new gig. Hart has been hired as chief product officer of Compass, a venture-backed company that provides online tools and services to real-estate

With the U.S. reeling from the novel coronavirus pandemic — and as many people are being forced to work from home temporarily — Comcast is expanding its broadband service for low-income families to provide free access for 60 days and increasing speeds. Starting next Monday (March 16), Comcast said, it will launch two new features

Spike Jonze has dropped the first trailer from his forthcoming documentary, “Beastie Boys Story,” on the trailblazing New York trio of rappers due later this year. Dubbed “the story of three friends who inspired each other and the world,” the doc centers around cofounders Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz looking back on their 40 years

When Tika Sumpter was pregnant with her daughter four years ago, she was frustrated at the lack of internet content and community about motherhood for women of color. So the star of ABC comedy “Mixed-ish” decided to launch her own media company to fill the gap. Actor-producer Sumpter teamed up with media exec Thai Randolph,

Amazon Prime has commissioned a new documentary series about Spanish racing driver Fernando Alonso, it announced Thursday. Titled “Fernando,” the new documentary will feature intimate access to Alonso and his racing team throughout the past year in the lead up to his debut at the Dakar Rally in South America. The 5-part series will delve

MADRID  — HBO Europe’s “Patria” will debut day and date on May 17 in the U.S. and 61 countries across Europe and Latin America, a first for HBO Europe, the pay and streaming TV service announced on Thursday, also dropping the first trailer to the series. In the U.S., “Patria” will be made available on

The Overwatch League has cut all of its events through March and April, another major cancellation in gaming and esports as the industry grapples with COVID-19 (coronavirus). Activision Blizzard announced the move with a statement on Wednesday, the same day the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a global pandemic. The publisher said it’s monitoring “city-level

While Miptv has been canceled and Cannes Film Festival hangs in the balance, Cannes Lions, the other event set in the French Riviera town, has unveiled a contingency planning for its upcoming edition in light of the coronavirus outbreak. Cannes Lions, an annual celebration of commercials, marketing and creativity, has secured alternative dates of Oct.

YouTube has reversed course on its policy of automatically demonetizing videos discussing the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. About a month ago, YouTube had announced that videos about coronavirus would not be eligible for ads under its guidelines. The video platform said the coronavirus outbreak fell under its monetization ban on videos concerning “sensitive events,” which YouTube

In a milestone development, the Writers Guild of America  East has negotiated a first collective bargaining agreement with CBSN, the first anchored live-streaming news service to be unionized. The guild announced Wednesday that the new three-year agreement was unanimously ratified by the more than 65 writers, producers, and graphic artists in the bargaining unit. It

Purely Capital, which is headed by Wayne Marc Godfrey, announced Wednesday the launch of their entertainment FinTech receivables platform backed by $150 million from a variety of institutional lenders and banks. The platform’s founders describe it as a bespoke technology-driven solution to automate, streamline and standardize the process of financing film and TV production, giving

March 11, 2020 8:29AM PT E3 organizers, bowing to the inevitable, announced that this year’s video-games conference scheduled for June in L.A. has been canceled because of the ongoing coronavirus epidemic. Last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, drew 66,100 attendees. The 2020 gaming showcase had been scheduled to run June 9-11 at

YouTube will not host its annual in-person Brandcast marketing presentation in New York City this year, citing concerns about the coronovirus epidemic. Instead, it will stream the event on the video platform. YouTube’s Brandcast had been scheduled for April 30, part of the eight-day Digital Content NewFronts series produced by the Interactive Advertising Bureau. The

March 11, 2020 7:00AM PT Entertainment companies are doing business online while the world confronts the epidemic. Online film festOnline film platform Stage32 is inviting filmmakers who were accepted to SXSW to screen films via their platform, saying it will promote the titles to its community of more than 600,000 creatives and industry executives. Patton

YouTube on Stage, a live event showcasing artists on the streaming platform, has been canceled several hours before it was scheduled to take place Wednesday night in London, amid signs that growing fears over the spread of the coronavirus in the U.K. will take a toll on large public gatherings. “Due to changing circumstances, we

Interactive-video company Eko struck back against Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi with its own lawsuit, accusing Quibi of infringing one of Eko’s patents and misappropriating its trade secrets. The Eko suit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California Western Division, comes a day after Quibi proactively filed a federal lawsuit seeking

Alex Jones, notorious conspiracy theorist, radio host and founder of right-wing site Infowars, was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated early Tuesday morning in Travis County, Texas, officials said. Jones, 46, was booked at 12:37 a.m. on March 10 at the Travis County Jail in Austin on the DWI charge, which is a Class

March 10, 2020 7:39AM PT Snap canceled its second Snap Partner Summit next month in Los Angeles for Snapchat developers, content creators and advertisers, moving the event instead to an online-only streaming presentation amid the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). “Out of an abundance of caution for the well-being of our partners and our team,

On Tuesday, an appeal by Amazon, Google, Pandora and Spotify that seeks to overturn the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2018 decision to raise by 44% the royalties paid to songwriters by streaming services will come before the U.S. Court of Appeals. Attorneys for Amazon and Spotify will make their cases Tuesday (the four companies filed their

Quibi — less than a month away from the commercial launch of its mobile-subscription service — is trying to get rid of patent claims from a company that is asserting the Jeffrey Katzenberg-led startup stole its technology. In a lawsuit Monday (March 9), Quibi asked a federal court for a ruling that its technology does

The coronavirus’ impact on Apple’s current-quarter results is shaping up to be worse than previously expected: According to data from the Chinese government released Monday, iPhone unit sales in the country dropped by more than half in February. The tech giant last month already warned investors that the coronavirus would hurt sales in China and