Still thought 8K TVs were a fad? Think again: Mass-market TV manufacturer TCL is jumping on the 8K bandwagon by announcing its very first Roku 8K TVs at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. 8K TCL Roku TVs are expected to ship in late 2019, the company revealed Monday. “Together TCL
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Nvidia unveiled its latest graphics card and a new line of laptop models during its CES keynote on Sunday. The GeForce RTX 2060 costs $349 and promises new levels of performance and features previously available only in high-end gaming GPUs, Nvidia said. It contains Turing architecture and is reportedly 60% faster on current titles than
Is the next frontier for virtual reality on the roadways? At CES 2019, German automaker Audi is showing off a new in-car VR system, designed to let backseat passengers watch movies, play video games and experience interactive content using a virtual-reality headset. The interesting wrinkle: the VR content can respond to the movements of a vehicle in
HyperX revealed new gaming headsets, microphones, keyboards and more at CES 2019, according to a press release. HyperX is partnering with Audeze and WavesNX technology to bring the new Cloud Orbit and Cloud Orbit S gaming headsets to consumers. With its head-tracking technology, the Cloud Orbit S delivers a 360-degree audio environment, delivering a more immersive
January 7, 2019 9:31AM PT SoulPancake, the Participant Media-owned media company founded by actor Rainn Wilson, has expanded its executive roster with the hire of Jordan Allen as senior VP of revenue, strategy and operations and Mick DiMaria as VP, creative director. Allen (above left) will report to SoulPancake CEO Shabnam Mogharabi and DiMaria (right)
Staffers at Vice Media have ratified four master contracts with management covering 200 staffers represented by the Writers Guild of America. The deals cover staffs at Vice Editorial, Vice News, Viceland, and Vice Digital, representing the company’s reach across multiple platforms including nightly television news, weekly documentaries, nonfiction TV series and real-time digital news, both
BuzzFeed News and Twitter are bringing back millennial-targeted morning talk show “AM to DM” for at least another year — claiming the show now averages 400,000 views per episode. The partners say the renewal of “AM to DM,” through the end of 2019, is an indication of its success in delivering a new take on
Verizon Media recruited Elizabeth Herbst-Brady — a media-biz veteran who most recently was head of global strategic partnerships at Snap, Snapchat’s parent company — as head of U.S. field sales. She will be based in New York, reporting directly to Jeff Lucas, head of North American sales and global client solutions. Lucas also had been at
January 7, 2019 6:34AM PT Surprise wins by “Bohemian Rhapsody” and star Rami Malek, along with Sandra Oh’s trophy for actress in a TV drama, captured the top social buzz from Sunday night’s 76th annual Golden Globe Awards. The “Bohemian Rhapsody” win for drama film and actor Malek, for his portrayal of Queen frontman Freddie
Fandango’s FandangoNow will become the first U.S. digital retailer to sell Imax Enhanced films released to home video, expected beginning in the second quarter of 2019 on Sony’s Bravia TVs. Imax Enhanced establishes specs for content producers and consumer-electronics makers for Imax’s digitally remastered 4K HDR and DTS audio content — a proprietary encoding layer on
Samsung doesn’t exactly know how the TV of the future will look like — but the South Korean consumer electronics giant wants to be prepared for every possibility. That’s why Samsung is doubling down on modular MicroLED displays that can be freely combined to all kinds of shapes, and screens of up to 219 inches
Talk about unlikely bedfellows: Samsung has struck a deal with Apple to include an iTunes Movies and TV Shows app on its 2018 and 2019 smart TVs. The TVs will also support Airplay, making it easier for iPhone owners to beam music and videos to their TV sets. The iTunes app and Airplay update will
Sony Pictures Entertainment and AT&T are awaiting the first round of bids for GSN Games, a unit of the GSN cable channel that produces social and casino games. GSN Games was quietly put on the block a few months ago. Sony owns 58% of the company while AT&T holds the remaining 42%. Aryeh Bourkoff’s LionTree
Netflix has changed the way it accounts for personnel expenses related to its streaming service — a move showing the company has invested more in its global streaming rollout than previously disclosed. As detailed in an SEC filing posted Thursday, Netflix is reallocating costs for employees previously recorded in “general and administrative” (G&A) and “technology and
HQ Trivia is still amassing live audiences bigger than many cable TV networks for its daily trivia competitions — and the app startup appears to be landing a few TV-size deals. For a special truck-themed game on Jan. 8 at 9 p.m. ET, HQ Trivia will give away an all-new 2019 Chevy Silverado to one
Still using your ex-roommates cable credentials to watch “Game of Thrones?” That may soon be getting a lot harder, thanks to new efforts to crack down on password sharing for pay TV and online video services. One of these efforts, launched by London-based Synamedia ahead of next week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), even uses artificial
January 3, 2019 11:30AM PT Russia-based virtual reality (VR) startup PlatformaVR has opened its very first permanent U.S. outpost in Las Vegas, where it is offering visitors access to a total of three location-based VR experiences. The new location at the Avenue Shoppes at Bally’s Las Vegas opened just in time for next week’s Consumer
Longtime BitTorrent executive and recent CEO Rogelio Choy left the company just 6 months after its acquisition by blockchain entrepreneur Justin Sun. Coincidentally, Choy’s departure comes just as BitTorrent is doubling down on blockchain tech: The company announced Thursday that it is adding a crypto-currency to its popular uTorrent client. Choy had been BitTorrent’s chief
YouTube is going back to the California desert with Coachella — the video site’s ninth year as the event’s exclusive live-streaming partner. And for the first time, YouTube will present live content over both weekends of the music fest. The 2019 fest will run for two weekends — starting first on April 12-14 and again
January 3, 2019 7:04AM PT Apple shares sank about 9% at the start of trading Thursday, a day after the company issued a rare earnings warning that it chalked up largely to sluggish iPhone sales in China. Apple surprised Wall Street on Wednesday afternoon after the market closed by issuing revised guidance for its fourth
Apple revised its guidance for the holiday quarter on Wednesday, with CEO Tim Cook telling investors that the company had underestimated challenges in China. “We did not foresee the magnitude of the economic deceleration, particularly in Greater China,” Cook wrote in a letter to investors. As a result, Apple told investors that it expects to
Thousands of Google’s Chromecast streaming adapters, Google Home smart speakers and smart TVs with built-in Chromecast technology were targeted by hackers Wednesday, who forced the devices to play a video of controversial YouTube star PewDiePie. The hack attack, which began Wednesday morning, took advantage of badly configured routers to find streaming devices exposed to the
“Black Mirror: Bandersnatch,” the new “Black Mirror” choose your own adventure-style or interactive fiction game episode has been the subject of many articles in the past week. It took social media by storm with both the gaming community and TV fans exchanging thoughts and theories, sparking the hunt for all possible pathways and endings, including
How do you get millions of people to talk about your movie or TV show with almost zero promo dollars? Netflix has once again demonstrated its prowess in exploiting the social-media zeitgeist with a warning about the so-called “Bird Box Challenge”: The company is urging people to not get hurt if they’re emulating Sandra Bullock
In a succession first announced nearly two years ago, Mitch Glazier has formally taken office as Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, with Michele Ballantyne promoted to Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. Longstanding CEO Cary Sherman, who had been with the organization for more than two decades, retired from that post
Ashton Kutcher has sold his remaining stake in A Plus, the digital-media company dedicated to feel-good human-interest news stories, to Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment. Kutcher, best known for “That ’70s Show,” co-founded A Plus in 2014. In 2016, Chicken Soup for the Soul — the company founded around the brand of best-selling inspirational
Slightly Mad Studios is developing a “stand alone console,” that will support VR, CEO Ian Bell revealed Wednesday. The Twitter account of Ian Bell, CEO of Slightly Mad Studios cryptically tweeted “The Mad Box is coming” on Wednesday. When reached for more details, Bell told Variety that the console will ship in “around three years
January 2, 2019 9:49AM PT [embedded content] Wireless charging product maker Powercast unveiled new wireless charging grips for Nintendo Joy-Con controllers ahead of CES 2019. The Wireless Charging Grips for Nintendo Joy-Con Controllers are meant to replace the need for players to dock their Joy-Con controllers to juice them up. Instead, Switch owners can leave
It’s official: Netflix announced that Spencer Neumann — previously CFO of games company Activision Blizzard and a former Disney finance exec — is joining the company as chief financial officer. Netflix didn’t provide a start date for Neumann. He will succeed David Wells, the 14-year veteran of the company who is leaving after serving as
Netflix yanked an episode of “Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj” in Saudi Arabia after the government there leveled a legal threat over a segment in which the comedian criticizes U.S. ties to the regime and ridicules Saudi attempts to explain the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix removed the episode from its service in Saudi