Tech

November 8, 2018 1:54PM PT Disney has unveiled the name for its Disney-branded streaming service set to launch late next year: Disney+. Disney chairman-CEO Bob Iger said the company is on track to launch Disney+ in late 2019. Iger also told Wall Street analysts on Disney’s quarterly earnings call Thursday afternoon that the company will

HTC’s Vive Focus virtual reality (VR) headset is finally making its way to markets outside of Asia: HTC Vive announced during a press event in San Francisco Thursday that the standalone headset is coming to 37 new markets in North America and Europe. The headset will sell for $599 in the U.S., with HTC Vive

Google announced revisions to its sexual-harassment policies — including ending forced arbitration in such cases — one week after thousands of employees walked off the job to protest its handling of misconduct complaints against high-level execs. On Nov. 1, an estimated 20,000-plus Google workers worldwide staged protests over the internet giant’s handling of the cases. The

November 8, 2018 9:00AM PT YouTube is officially launching on Nintendo’s Switch game console: An app for the Google-owned video service went live on the Nintendo eShop Thursday, where it can be downloaded for free, without the need for a Nintendo Switch Online subscription plan. The app offers access to YouTube’s vast catalog, both on the

Paula Faris recently served as one of the co-hosts on ABC’s “The View.” Now she’s about to examine a different kind of perspective. The ABC News journalist will launch a new podcast, “Journeys of Faith,” during which she will interview influential people and talk to them about how they’ve used faith and spirituality at crucial

As part of Spotify’s outreach efforts to the songwriting community, the company on Thursday announced a beta rollout of Publishing Analytics, “the first music streaming analytics tool built specifically for publishers, so they can better serve their songwriters.” According to the announcement, Spotify Publishing Analytics “will give publishers daily streaming statistics for the works and

November 8, 2018 6:05AM PT Red Bull Radio announced today that it has struck a deal to stream worldwide via the smart speaker brand, Sonos. The integration allows Sonos users to stream Red Bull Radio’s live on-air broadcast as well as its curated channels . iOS users can also play any content within the Red Bull Radio app on their Sonos Speakers by using Airplay

Global royalties collections for creators of music, audiovisual, visual arts, drama and literature rose to a record high of €9.6 billion in 2017 (nearly $11 billion), up 6.2% on the previous year, according to the 2018 Global Collections Report published today by CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers. Royalties from digital

Vice Media, under recently installed CEO Nancy Dubuc, is in for some belt-tightening. The company, looking to cut costs amid a revenue slowdown, has instituted a hiring freeze and is aiming to reduce the size of its employee base over the next year, sources confirmed. Vice is hoping to avoid layoffs per se, aiming to

A “Pacific Rim” anime series and Chinese-language “Triad Princess” are among a slate of new shows unveiled on Thursday by Netflix. The global streaming giant is making a significant push to expand its original content operations in the Asia region. Other new titles include: post-apocalyptic anime series “Cagaster of an Insect Cage” from Japanese studio

November 8, 2018 1:01AM PT Global streaming giant, Netflix is to give a second season to its period mystery action series “Kingdom” from Korea. The first season does not go to air until January 2019. The second season greenlight was announced by CEO Reed Hastings on Thursday at a strategy and content presentation in Singapore.

November 8, 2018 12:01AM PT Toronto-based Entertainment One (eOne) has announced that the animated series “Cupcake & Dino: General Services” will debut on Brazilian Netflix on Nov. 13 and Disney XD Brazil on Nov. 15. Created by Brazilian director Pedro Eboli, the series is an eOne co-production with Brazil’s Birdo studios, the company behind another

Deltatre, a global provider of sports-media technology and services, has reached a deal to acquire Massive Interactive, which sells a suite of software tools to develop and manage over-the-top video user interfaces. The deal is worth up to $127 million, with a combination of cash and earn-out provisions. The companies have targeted a closing date

Global streaming giant Netflix has unveiled five anime shows as exclusive original series and features. They range from spin-offs of global film properties to a Philippines-set fantasy. “At Netflix, we have chosen to focus on high concept anime with global travel prospects,” said Taito Okiura, Netflix executive responsible for anime and based in Japan. “This

November 7, 2018 6:30PM PT Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says the global streaming giant has become the world’s first “global television network.” “That is the beginning of very positive transformative force,” he said, and will help Asian content and talent reach wider, new audiences. Hastings touted the advantages of global sharing, and personalization. “There has

MADRID  — Sergio G. Sánchez, scribe of J.A. Bayona’s “The Orphanage” and “The Impossible,” has signed with Netflix to create and direct “Alma,” the streaming giant’s fifth original scripted series in Spain. A young adult supernatural drama, “Alma” is produced by Belén Atienza, a regular production partner on such Bayona movies as “Jurassic World: Fallen

A strange thing happened on the iTunes U.S. store on Monday (Nov. 5) when Kris Wu, a Chinese-Canadian actor and artist, practically swept the Top 10 songs chart. For much of the day and into the night, the only non-Wu track in the top five was Ariana Grande’s “Thank U, Next,” which had premiered amid

Roku continues its transition from a hardware company to a company that primarily makes money with advertising at a rapid pace. The company revealed Wednesday that it surpassed $100 million in advertising and services revenue during its most recent quarter for the first time in its corporate history. But while Roku’s ad revenue grew 74 percent

Netflix last month concluded the fall 2018 Hack Day, an in-house hackathon where it invites employees to cook up out-of-the-box ideas, apps and tools — sometimes fairly silly and useless ones — over a 24-hour period. This year, projects included an overlay on the Netflix app that uses Apple’s ARKit augmented-reality toolkit to let a

Samsung used its developer conference in San Francisco Wednesday to officially announce that it will launch a foldable smartphone some time in 2019. The phone is using the company’s own new Infinity Flex display, which allows it to be folded and unfolded repeatedly without wear and tear. “When it’s open, it’s a tablet, offering a

The future of storytelling is happening all around us — we just have to look through the right lens to see it. That’s the idea behind “Wonderscope,” an augmented reality app for children that Los Angeles-based immersive media start-up Within is set to release in November. “Wonderscope” uses mobile AR to superimpose characters, scenes and

Search-technology company Foursquare wants to get in on the race to devise a better yardstick to measure the effectiveness of TV commercials. Sandwich-chain Subway has agreed to use Foursquare’s attribution technology that measures how effective TV ads are at driving consumers to stores, restaurants and other retail outlets. The partnership helps to illustrate the growing

AT&T’s WarnerMedia has shut down two niche streaming-video businesses — but it’s apparently still bullish on some narrowly targeted entertainment plays. VRV, the fandom-focused video platform run by the media group’s Otter Media, is boosting its lineup of animated programming from other parts of WarnerMedia. VRV has nabbed exclusive streaming rights to intergalactic comedy “Final

Leading up the 2018 midterm elections, Fox News Channel was looking to entice fans of Infowars — the right-wing purveyor of conspiracy theories that has been booted from most internet platforms — to download its app. As of Wednesday, an ad for Fox News’ app appeared at the top of a search for “Infowars” on

November 6, 2018 9:33AM PT Facebook has taken down another 115 accounts likely linked to foreign powers just hours before the opening of the U.S. midterm election polls. The social networking giant disclosed Monday night that it had acted on a tip from U.S. law enforcement. “Our very early-stage investigation has so far identified around

Defy Media, the digital media company whose brands include Smosh and Clevver, is shutting down its production facility in Beverly Hills and will lay off all employees at the location by the end of the year. Per notices sent to Defy employees, the Beverly Hills office will be closed effective Jan. 2, 2019. All employees

UPDATED: Defy Media, the digital media company whose brands include Smosh and Clevver, is shutting down operations and laying off its employees. “Regretfully, Defy Media has ceased operations today,” the company said in a statement released Tuesday evening. “We are extremely proud of what we accomplished here at Defy and in particular want to thank

Music streaming service Pandora still makes most of its money with ad-supported streaming, but its paid subscription business is growing quickly: The company generated close to 30 percent of its Q3 revenue with paid subscriptions, it revealed as part of its most recent earnings report Monday. Altogether, Pandora brought in some $417.6 million in revenue for

Boomplay, Africa’s leading music streaming and download service, has struck a licensing agreement with Universal Music Group covering multiple markets within Africa. The company, which launched in 2015, is jointly owned via a parent company called Transsnet Music Limited JV by two Chinese companies, Transsion Holdings (which is currently the number one smartphone company by

Samsung will give us a first glimpse at its plans for augmented reality (AR) at a developer event this week. The company is expected to unveil an AR Cloud service dubbed Project Whare, and may even preview a dedicated AR headset. The Korean consumer electronics giant is holding its annual developer conference in San Francisco