Tech

Monday is the coming-out party for Apple’s Hollywood ambitions: After years of trademark secrecy about its plans to stream into video entertainment, the tech giant is set to pull back the curtain at a media event. The live program kicks off at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET, on Monday, March 25, from the

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this year, Google announced that it has taken up the long and ever-lengthening dream of the video game streaming service. Meant to replace the hefty, pricey, altogether confounding experience of buying and using various gaming hardware, Google Stadia will run video games on Google’s own hardware in a server

March 22, 2019 12:31PM PT AT&T-owned anime subscription video service Crunchyroll is raising its monthly subscription price from $6.95 to $7.99 a month, it announced in an email to members Friday. It’s the service’s first price increase ever, according to a spokesperson. The new pricing will go into effect on May 1 for new subscribers,

The axe is falling on StyleHaul: The fashion, beauty and lifestyle digital media and marketing company owned by RTL Group is shuttering U.S. operations, resulting the layoff of around 65 employees. StyleHaul offices in L.A., with about 55 employees, and in New York City, with around 10 staffers, are closing. RTL said StyleHaul’s U.K. operations,

Bandsintown, a leading platform for letting music fans know about upcoming concerts by their favorite artists, has acquired Hypebot, a news site publishing stories about the music industry and technology, and its sister site MusicThinkTank. “I’m proud to share that Hypebot and MusicThinkTank have been acquired by Bandsintown,” wrote Bruce Houghton, the founder of the

More Disney content is about to roll off Netflix: The 2008 “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated movie as well as six seasons of the subsequent “Clone Wars” series are among the titles set to leave the streaming service next month. According to Netflix, the original Lucasfilm movie along with “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”

As virtual reality becomes more and more available, many developers are looking for new frontiers to expand the experiences offered by the tech. For Netherlands-based Vertigo Games, that next frontier is what they call “location-based virtual reality.” It’s essentially high-quality VR experiences where players aren’t tethered to a PC or even to the confines of

The day has nearly arrived for Apple to show the world whether there’s any fire behind the smoke of its streaming service. Apple has kept a tight lid on most of the details of its upcoming service, even keeping its creative partners in the dark about how exactly their work will be distributed. What is

Streaming giant Netflix is testing a mobile-only subscription in India that costs half of its basic plan. Netflix India’s monthly plans begin at INR500 ($7.27). The mobile only plan is being trialled at INR250 ($3.63) per month. “We are always looking for ways to make Netflix more enjoyable and accessible,” a Netflix spokesperson told Variety.

“They’re going to do some great shows. I’m going to be envious.” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings practiced humility when he was asked about new competitors like Disney’s and Apple’s upcoming streaming services this week. “These are amazing, large, well-funded companies with very significant efforts,” he said. “But you do your best job when you have

Comcast said it would unveil “Flex,” a hub for its Internet-only customers that allows them to stream and purchase shows and movies, the latest effort by a traditional cable provider to latch on to customers who are migrating to broadband services, The Philadelphia cable giant will also make free, ad-supported services available via the service,

Splice, a favorite of music creators that allows access to a library of three million rights-cleared sounds, announced today that the company closed a Series C funding round at $57.5 million. That brings Splice’s total amount raised to roughly $102 million since its launch in 2013. It raised a Series B in November of 2017.

Amazon has launched MLB.TV on Prime Video Channels for Prime members in the U.S., just in time for the start of Major League Baseball’s 2019 regular season start next week. The MLB.TV package provides regular-season out-of-market baseball games, both live and on-demand. Prime members in the U.S. can subscribe to MLB.TV for $24.99 per month,

Proving that good is not always good enough, Tencent Music Entertainment shares fell 9 percent after the Chinese company released its 2018 earnings, wiping out $2.7 billion in market capitalization of what is arguably the biggest audio music service in the world. Chalk it up to big expectations and a short track record: Wednesday’s earnings

UPDATED: T-Series pulled ahead of YouTube’s PewDiePie as the No. 1 most-subscribed channel on the platform — before PewDiePie’s fans rallied once again to put him on top. In a months-long symbolic running battle for the title, PewDiePie and his fans have waged a concerted campaign to fend off the steady encroachment by T-Series, India’s top

Netflix is getting ready to try a new thing to help younger viewers discover new shows: The video service will start testing character-driven video previews of some of its shows later this year, executives revealed during a press event in Los Angeles Tuesday. The test, which will be rolled out on some members’ TV devices

March 20, 2019 9:35AM PT Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney kicked off the company’s annual Game Developers Conference keynote with some big news for creators: a commitment to hand out $100 million to game makers, film and TV creators, students, educators, tool developers, essentially anyone working to enhance 3D graphics and inspire creativity.

News Wednesday that Ubisoft’s “The Division 2” runs on Google Cloud is the latest example of the company’s push to expand its services beyond the barebone resources for mobile titles, to rich, expansive support for major AAA games. “We were traditionally focused on mobile because of the strength of ‘Pokemon Go,’ but we have also

Netflix vice president of product Todd Yellin borrowed a line from one of the company’s newest stars this week to describe what makes its service special: “How do we measure success? Three letters: joy,” Yellin said to pictures from “Tidying Up With Marie Kondo” during a press event in Los Angeles. “If people enjoy our

March 20, 2019 8:00AM PT The redesigned Oculus Rift S won’t require external sensors to work, features a higher resolution display, improved optics, and the ability to quickly see the real world around a user through the headset’s built-in cameras. The new Rift hits this spring for $399, Oculus announced Wednesday. The headset is named

Virtual reality is a technology with seemingly limitless potential, not just in the gaming space, but across a range of industries. The health field, in particular, is interested in the potential applications of VR tech to assist patients suffering from chronic pain. In his talk at GDC, David Putrino, Ph.D., walked through his organization’s efforts

Google’s new game streaming platform Stadia made its debut at GDC. Although still missing some intangible details (namely, pricing or a launch date), publishers and developers still have thoughts on this ambitious attempt at bringing streaming to the mainstream. Stadia debuted with Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed as a key franchise for the platform. Ubisoft co-founder Yves

March 20, 2019 5:36AM PT The European Commission has fined Google €1.49 billion ($1.7 billion) for breaching E.U. antitrust rules by preventing rivals from placing their search advertisements on third-party websites. The Alphabet unit has now been hit with nearly $9.4 billion in fines by the E.U. antitrust regulator within the past two years. The

March 20, 2019 12:20AM PT “No Sleep No FOMO” is an eight-episode pan-regional travelog show that Asian streaming firm Viu hopes will help it win over more millennial generation audiences. It harnesses the potential of local social media celebrities and their 12 million followers. The show features “Running Man” star Kim Jong-kook, Korean musician Eric

One of the most surprising first-time attendees at FilMart is Chinese tech giant Huawei, which has come to Hong Kong to acquire the video content it needs to support its strategy of expansion into Southeast Asia. The company is currently embroiled in a PR nightmare as it defends itself against accusations that its equipment could

Guru Studio, an award-winning Canadian animation studio, is exploring the possibility of opening an office in Hong Kong or mainland China. The Toronto-based company is keen to get a slice of China’s animation market, which has been growing quickly. Louise Jones, Guru vice president of finance and business affairs, said at a FilMart panel discussion

Netflix is doubling down on interactive content for kids. The streaming service announced a new interactive animated show on Tuesday dubbed “Battle Kitty” from Matt Layzell. The company didn’t share a premiere date for the show yet. “Netflix has given me the incredible opportunity to help change how young people see themselves,” said Layzell. “Like

The rankings are in, and the 68-team field is set. March Madness is officially upon us, and if you want to catch the action from home, from the office, or on-the-go, there are a couple ways to stream March Madness online for free. The first game kicks off today, and the tournament runs until April

Stadia is Google’s game streaming service that is designed to let you play high-end games on most modern screens — be they phone, laptop, tablet, computer or TV — with very little download time and no loss of fidelity, the company announced Tuesday at the Game Developers Conference. The service is launching in 2019. Cost

While most of the discussion around Amazon’s presence in the game industry revolves around their scattershot game projects and rumored cloud gaming platform, the tech giant has been far more involved in building the backend infrastructure for major games. Companies like Square Enix and Zynga both use Amazon Games Tech, Amazon’s portfolio of services that