Tech

November 5, 2018 10:47AM PT Facebook is the latest company to reject a Trump campaign ad that has been decried as racist: The social networking giant suspended ad buys for the video Monday, with a spokesperson telling Variety that it violated its advertising policies. “This ad violates Facebook’s advertising policy against sensational content so we

Niantic, the company behind the wildly successful “Pokemon Go” mobile game, is looking to breathe some new life into “Pokemon Go” precursor “Ingress.” On Monday, it officially unveiled “Ingress Prime,” which combines a redesigned app with new storylines, a new onboarding experience and an accompanying web series. “‘Ingress’ was inspired by this idea that the

Snap is furthering its partnership with Barcroft Media and adding more of the U.K.-based content company’s digital series to Snapchat Discover. Barcroft launched its “Ridiculous Rides,” “Snapped in the Wild” and “Beast Buddies,” in the summer and followed those with “Shake My Beauty,” and “Born Different,” which launched at the end of October. The latter

Apple shares sank as much as 4.5% Monday following a report that the tech giant has scaled back production orders for its new entry-level iPhone XR model. The company’s stock drop — pushing Apple’s market cap below $1 trillion — comes after shares closed down 6.6% last Friday, to $207.48 per share, as investors reacted

MSNBC viewers know they can watch Stephanie Ruhle each weekday during daytime hours. But on Election Night, the anchor will show up at night on what may be an unexpected video perch. Ruhle, best known for doing two hours a day on the NBCUniversal cable network, will do another hour on Tuesday, November 6, at

November 2, 2018 10:35AM PT Could Super Deluxe win an Oscar posthumously? TBS on Friday released modern-day silent film short “The Passage” on its website and YouTube channel. The film comes from Turner’s Super Deluxe studio, which the WarnerMedia-owned programmer shut down last month. “The Passage” was created by and stars theatrical clown Philip Burgers.

November 2, 2018 9:38AM PT Disney-backed immersive media startup Jaunt is in talks to sell some of its virtual reality (VR) assets, including technology and intellectual property, Variety has learned from multiple sources close to these conversations. This comes after Jaunt officially announced last month that it would exit the VR business, lay off all of

November 2, 2018 9:04AM PT Hackers have published a sampling of private messages from 81,000 Facebook accounts online in order to find buyers for credentials for up to 120 million accounts, according to a BBC News report. The still-unidentified hackers were asking for $0.10 per account, according to the report. Most of the users included

Apple’s market cap skirted below the symbolic $1 trillion mark Friday morning. Investors pushed the stock down on lower-than-expected iPhone unit sales — a metric the tech giant said it’s going to stop reporting — and weaker holiday 2018 revenue guidance. The Cupertino colossus crested the $1 trillion-valuation mark in early August, the first U.S.

Apple didn’t sell as many iPhones during its most recent quarter as Wall Street had hoped, and investors responded by sending the company’s stock down 7% in after-hours trading. The Cupertino, Calif., company sold close to 47 million iPhones during the quarter ending on Sept. 30, which is about the same amount it sold a

Hulu is now the exclusive U.S. streaming home to “King of the Hill” — all 259 episodes from all 13 seasons of the animated sitcom. The streaming-video provider has added all seasons of “King of the Hill” exclusively to its service, under a deal expanding its licensing agreement with 20th Century Fox Television Distribution. In

Google CEO Sundar Pichai claimed the company has “drawn a very, very hard line” on sexual harassment, and that “it is a different place” now than it was several years ago. Pichai, speaking Thursday at the New York Times’ DealBook conference, was responding to the NYT report last week that several senior Google execs — including

Verizon’s Oath struck a deal with Roku to distribute live and on-demand content from Yahoo and other media properties on the device maker’s free-to-watch Roku Channel. None of the Oath programming will be exclusively available on the Roku Channel. That will also continue to be available for free on Oath’s owned-and-operated sites and apps. Through

It can be hard to recall that when “House of Cards” launched on Netflix, it was one of a kind. After all, the sixth and final season of the political drama is to arrive Nov. 2, along with this week’s flood of streaming content, including the Julia Roberts noir “Homecoming” and a new episode of

FuboTV has recruited Hannah Brown, who while at Sky led the U.K. satellite operator’s early investment in the streaming-TV startup, as chief strategy officer. In the new role, Brown is tasked with overseeing all strategic development and execution for FuboTV, which offers a sports-centric internet subscription pay-TV service in the U.S. and plans to launch

Vice will become a profitable enterprise “within a fiscal year,” CEO Nancy Dubuc said Thursday during her Q&A at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference. Dubuc was pressed in Q&A with Dealbook chief Andrew Ross Sorkin about the health of the company and the role of founder and current chairman Shane Smith in the operations

Lionsgate India and Indian streamig platform Sony Liv have signed a multi-year content deal. More than 500 hours of premium English-language content will be available as a Lionsgate Play branded block on Sony Liv. Original series being made available to Indian audiences include “Power,” “Vida,” “Sweetbitter,” “The White Queen,” “The White Princess,” and “The Spanish

Hundreds of Google staffers joined a coordinated effort Thursday to protest the internet giant’s handling of sexual-harassment complaints against high-level execs. The walkouts were prompted by a New York Times report last week, which detailed how Google shielded key male executives and even rewarded them following sexual-misconduct investigations. Those included Andy Rubin, the creator of Android, who received $90 million

UPDATED: Spotify is up to 87 million paid subscribers, a 40% jump, the company announced in its third quarter earnings results today, and its total number of users is up 28% to 191 million. The company projected that its paid subscribers will be between 93 million and 96 million for the fourth quarter, while total

A slew of updates for Microsoft’s Mixer video streaming service starts to go live today for what the company is calling Season 2 of the service. Those updates include new ways for streamers to make money and build community and new ways for viewers to participate in streams. Skills, which is available now, adds the

EDO, co-founded by actor and entrepreneur Edward Norton, has banked $12 million in Series A funding to fuel its buildout of its data-analytics service that measures how effectively TV ads drive consumer purchasing behavior. The funding was led by Jim Breyer of Breyer Capital, with participation by Vista Equity co-founders Robert Smith and Brian Sheth

October 31, 2018 3:47PM PT Spotify is officially making its way back onto Roku streaming devices and Roku TVs: An app for the music streaming service became available on Roku’s channel store Wednesday, where it had been MIA since late last year. Spotify’s new Roku app is available both to free and paying users of

Hulu is expanding programming options available to its live-streaming TV customers — without raising the price of its core bundle. The company announced two new network add-on tiers: The Español pack, priced at an additional $4.99 monthly, with access to ESPN Deportes, NBC Universo, CNN En Español and History Channel En Español; and the Entertainment

Russell Wolff, a 20-year veteran of ESPN, is taking over the reins of the sports programmer’s ESPN+ streaming service. Wolff, as EVP and general manager of ESPN+, reports to Michael Paull, president of Disney Streaming Services (formerly referred to as BAMTech Media). Most recently, Wolff served as executive VP and managing director of ESPN International, where

October 31, 2018 10:13AM PT Facebook and Instagram have banned a number of accounts associated with the far-right Proud Boys group as well as its founder Gavin McInnes, who previously co-founded Vice. Accounts associated with the Proud Boys started to disappear from the site Tuesday. The take-down also impacted a number of groups and pages associated with

Cinedigm is prepping a new internet-streaming service designed for American fans of Chinese entertainment. The company plans to launch of Bambu in the first quarter of 2019, with a package of content aimed at Gen Z and millennial audiences in the U.S. Bambu will be available as both a free ad-supported VOD service and an

October 31, 2018 9:27AM PT Spotify is giving some of its members an early holiday gift: The company is gifting subscribers to its $14.99 family plan a free Google Home Mini speaker, it announced Wednesday morning. The music service is using the offer to tout its close integration with Google’s voice assistant, which allows Google

Vice Media president Andrew Creighton has left the company, coming nearly a year after it was revealed that he paid a former employee to settle a claim about sexual harassment, Variety has confirmed. According to an exposé by the New York Times published last December, Creighton paid $135,000 in 2016 to an ex-Vice employee after she alleged she was fired

October 31, 2018 5:15AM PT The U.K. and Canada have convened an “international grand committee” on disinformation and fake news and have written to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to call for him to give evidence when it meets on Nov. 27. U.K. and Canadian probes into fake news have both previously attempted to get Zuckerberg

Facebook is still adding users every quarter, just not in the U.S. or Europe: The social networking giant revealed as part of its Q3 earnings results Tuesday that its number of daily active users has been flat in the U.S. for all of 2018, while it continues to lose users in Europe. “We may be