Tech

When he was the CEO at Microsoft over a decade ago, Steve Ballmer dreamed of bringing interactivity to TV. He explored the possibilities of innovating everywhere from scripted entertainment to video games, but didn’t get far. Now as CEO of pro basketball’s Los Angeles Clippers, his dream is finally becoming a reality Wednesday when his

Facebook’s in-app games capabilities have come a long way from “hidden” basketball and chess. Now, its Instant Games platform is expanding upwards and outwards. The in-app game platform, which allows users to play single-player and multiplayer games through Facebook and Messenger, will soon be available directly through the site’s massively-popular Groups feature and the Facebook

As chairman, Endemol Shine Americas and CEO, Endemol Shine North America, Cris Abrego oversees both the North American and Latin American divisions of Endemol Shine Group. Since he added oversight to the company’s Latin American biz in January 2016, Abrego has sought to streamline operations by optimizing Endemol’s production hubs in Mexico and Brazil. Endemol

Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, two of the most-watched personalities on Fox News Channel, will hold programming roosts on Fox Nation, the streaming-video service slated to debut in fall from the 21st Century Fox-owned news outlet. Ingraham is slated to co-host the new show “Laura & Raymond” with Raymond Arroyo, a regular guest on her

Each year Variety’s New Leaders feature profiles the most prominent up-and-comers in the entertainment business. To determine this year’s worthies, Variety looked across disciplines, from television, digital, music and film, to law and finance, as well as content creators. They were proposed by their bosses and peers who have worked with them and seen their rise.

October 17, 2018 9:51AM PT Facebook didn’t tell advertisers and publishers about known problems with its video viewing data, effectively duping them into investing in video ads and products, a new lawsuit filed in California alleges. The lawsuit refers back to a disclosure Facebook made in 2016, when it admitted that it inadvertently had been

Tastemade, the lifestyle and food digital-media network and studio, closed $35 million in Series E funding, with ecommerce giant Amazon joining the mix for the latest round. The new financing — which brings millennial-focused Tastemade to about $115 million raised since its founding in 2012 — was led by Goldman Sachs Growth Equity along with

Following on Spotify’s announcement last month that artists can upload music directly to the platform, many asked what becomes of the independent distributors like TuneCore and CD Baby, which specialize in bringing artists’ music to digital platforms, including Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon, Pandora, iHeartRadio and others. Today Spotify squeezed the indies just a bit more

Logan Paul, after being penalized multiple times by YouTube for outrageous behavior and posting content that violated its policies, has been granted a pardon by the Google-owned video giant to reprise his starring role in YouTube original movie “The Thinning: New World Order.” Dystopian teen thriller “The Thinning: New World Order” is releasing on Wednesday

Huawei rolled out a bit of a surprise this week at the tail end of an event meant to reveal two new phones: A third device, a 7.2-inch smartphone, that the company president said is “the best portable mobile gaming machine” on the market, including the Nintendo Switch. “Today we also want to bring you

Gong Yu, founder and CEO of China’s leading streaming platform iQIYI, said at Mipcom content market on Tuesday that artificial intelligence “will reshape the entertainment industry over the next 10-15 years, much more so than the internet did over the past three decades.” There was a shift underway from the “internet era” to the “A.I.

Imagine a world where your favorite game is playable on any device: your PC, your phone, your toaster. This idyllic daydream — our amusements readily available in all places, finally unchained and free — is being promised to us not by niche hobbyists working in their garage but the biggest of tech company titans. And

Chris Kelly, chairman of and principal investor in Fandor, has assumed the CEO role at the indie-film streaming service, and the company announced that longtime advertising exec John Zamoiski has joined as its first chief marketing officer. The management changes come after the departure of Larry Aidem, who left Fandor last month after more than

Hispanic media startup Raze has struck a deal with WarnerMedia’s Turner Latin America to coproduce and finance the first Raze Awards, aimed at celebrating Latino digital creators. The first edition of the Raze Awards, scheduled for September 2019, will feature entertainers from across the globe in a one-hour event that will be televised throughout Latin

E-book service Scribd has teamed up with the New York Times for a new joint subscription offering: Subscribers of the new Scribd and New York Times bundle get unlimited access to the Times’ website as well as over one million e-books, magazines and audio books for $12.99 a month. Included in the bundle is basic

YouTube experienced what appeared to be global access problems Tuesday evening for at least 90 minutes, with issues that also affected the YouTube TV and YouTube Music services. At 9:41 p.m. ET, the Team YouTube account on Twitter posted about the technical issues: “Thanks for your reports about YouTube, YouTube TV and YouTube Music access

Two years into Snap’s effort to expand the Snapchat app beyond mere mode of communication to a platform for content as well, a new slate of original series will feature a first wave of scripted projects. But as Snap’s VP of content, Nick Bell, recalled on the latest episode of Variety‘s “Strictly Business” podcast, this

DramaFever, the streaming-video service specializing in Korean dramas and other Asian programming, is shutting down immediately. Founded in 2009, New York-based DramaFever was acquired by Warner Bros. in 2016 from Japan’s SoftBank Group. New York-based DramaFever has operated as a unit of Warner Bros. Digital Networks, which has touted the streaming infrastructure and expertise it obtained through the acquisition.

Netflix turned in much stronger results for the third quarter of 2018 than investors anticipated, sending its stock climbing in after-hours trading. During Q3, the streaming giant netted 1.09 million new streaming subs in the U.S. and 5.87 million internationally. That’s compared with Netflix’s forecast of 650,000 domestic net adds and 4.35 million overseas for

San Francisco-based Onedome is unveiling a decidedly different take on location-based immersive entertainment in the Bay Area later this week: The company will open its very first augmented reality art exhibit to the public in downtown San Francisco this coming Friday. Dubbed “The Unreal Garden,” the exhibit lets consumers freely roam an enchanted world of

October 16, 2018 10:10AM PT Facebook is working on a TV-connected device that combines streaming with video chat, according to a new Cheddar report. The device, code-named Ripley, is reportedly based on some of the same technology as Facebook’s recently unveiled Portal smart display. Ripley is reportedly still in development, but could be unveiled in

Hulu wants to cater to a new crowd of pay-TV “cord-shavers” with stripped-down, less-expensive live television bundles that include sports, news and on-demand content — dropping linear entertainment networks to save costs. Hulu CEO Randy Freer sketched out the concept in an interview with The Information published Tuesday, saying that the skinnier bundles would be

Netflix is getting a steal on a huge TV and film production facility in Albuquerque, N.M. Netflix estimates it will make a total capital investment of about $30 million to acquire and improve ABQ Studios, located south of the city’s center, under a deal the streamer announced last week, according to documents filed with the

Google CEO, Sundar Pichai says that plans to launch search and news products in China are still at a “very early” stage. He explained that a censored product could serve 99% of queries, while still complying with Chinese government restrictions. Pichai was speaking on Monday at a San Francisco conference organized for the 25th anniversary

October 15, 2018 6:03PM PT Twitter was never truly meant to be the free speech wing of the free speech party, said the company’s CEO Jack Dorsey said on stage at the Wired 25 Summit in San Francisco Monday. “This quote… was never a mission of the company,” he said. “It was a joke.” Twitter

October 15, 2018 5:27PM PT Google’s YouTube video service is growing out of its teenage years, suggested CEO Susan Wojcicki at the Wired 25 Summit in San Francisco Monday. “The last 18 months, I really think (of as) our growing up years,” she said. “I think we are in a much better place, we worked

Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates and chaired Vulcan Inc., died Monday in Seattle from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 65. Allen was born in Washington in 1953 where he attended both high school and college, before dropping out of Washington State University in the 1970s to co-found Microsoft with his high

Influencer-driven subscription video service Zeus is set to premiere three new original comedies this fall starring social-media stars DeStorm Power, BlameItOnKway and Michael Blackson. The $3.99-per-month service, launched this past July, is geared around a diverse, millennial-targeted slate of premium content starring and produced by popular creators. Zeus was co-founded last year by a trio

San Mateo, Calif.-based virtual reality startup Jaunt XR is laying off a significant portion of its staff as it shifts its focus to augmented reality, the company announced Monday. “Today we had to make some difficult decisions in an effort to realign Jaunt for continued success,” the company said in a statement sent to Variety.

October 15, 2018 11:38AM PT CAA has signed Roy Purdy, the digital star who boasts 7.6 million followers across his social media channels. As a music artist, Purdy’s singles have collectively generated more than 20 million streams on Spotify, Apple, and Soundcloud, while his music videos have garnered over 17 million YouTube views. The video