October 1, 2018 10:43AM PT Longtime Facebook exec Adam Mosseri has officially been named the new head of Instagram, assuming the helm after the surprise departure of the Facebook-owned service’s co-founders, CEO Kevin Systrom and CTO Mike Krieger. Mosseri, a 10-year veteran of Facebook, in May 2018 was named VP of product at Instagram. He
Tech
October 1, 2018 10:00AM PT Google hasn’t officially announced the next version of its Chromecast steaming adapter yet, but that didn’t stop a Best Buy employee from accidentally selling it to a lucky customer. The new device looks very similar to Google’s existing Chromecast, save for some minor design changes. “The top is no longer
Pluto is extending its orbit to Europe. The free streaming service has set the U.K. as the first stop of an international roll-out and will become available via Sky’s Now TV service in Britain starting Monday evening. Sky was an early investor in Pluto. Now TV is Sky’s low-cost streaming service. Pluto TV will be
October 1, 2018 9:00AM PT Can a brief audio snippet help Fandango close ticketing deals? The service will test that theory with its first-ever movie audio integration for Amazon’s Alexa voice service tied to superhero pic “Venom.” Starting Monday (Oct. 1), when users activate the Fandango skill on Alexa-enabled devices to find showtimes for “Venom”
Netflix beat out Silicon Valley’s biggest heavy-hitters on a new survey of the most-coveted places to work among technology pros. Netflix took the No. 1 spot on Hired’s 2018 survey of tech workers ranking the companies they’d most like to work for, moving up from fifth place on the job site’s 2017 survey. That put
October 1, 2018 7:00AM PT The first group to be featured will be K-Pop dance act NCT 127, who perform on October 8. Apple Music is partnering with ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for the second iteration of its “Up Next” program which showcases new and emerging artists. The first group to be featured will be
Consumer electronics upstart Caavo is back with a new gadget that’s supposed to simplify streaming across multiple devices. After first announcing a $399 limited-edition device in early 2017, Caavo introduced a new gadget aimed at the mass market Monday. The new $99.95 Caavo Control Center promises to unify streaming across up to 4 TV-connected devices.
As the National Hockey League gets ready to drop the puck on the 2018-19 season, Disney Streaming Services is promoting new and enhanced features of NHL.TV, the over-the-top hockey subscription package it operates on behalf of the league. For the new season, which starts Wednesday, Oct. 3, NHL.TV will add nearly 50% more local broadcast pre-
September 29, 2018 3:05PM PT Elon Musk has agreed to step down as chairman of Tesla’s board for three years as part of an agreement with the SEC to resolve a securities fraud case. He will also pay a $20 million fine, the New York Times reported. Tesla and Musk became the subject of an
Kiefer Sutherland’s accidental president is now streaming exclusively on Netflix: The first two seasons of “Designated Survivor” are now available to Netflix subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. Hulu had previously nabbed exclusive U.S. subscription VOD rights to “Designated Survivor” seasons 1 and 2, which aired on ABC, under a deal announced in November 2017. Episodes
September 28, 2018 1:03PM PT Disney tried to save the Club Penguin kids multiplayer gaming franchise with a mobile reboot last year — Club Penguin Island — but now has decided to shut down the whole thing. “There’s no easy way to say this but after 13 incredible years, Club Penguin will be sunsetting at
Facebook has reset the access to 90 million user accounts after finding a security breach, forcing the affected users to log back into their accounts, the company announced Friday. The breach allowed hackers to access other people’s accounts, and directly affected 50 million of those accounts. “We patched the issue last night,” Facebook CEO Mark
Redbox hired Chris Yates, who’s worked at companies including CinemaNow, Dell and Omnia Media, as general manager of Redbox On Demand — the DVD-rental kiosk operator’s bid to extend its business into digital. In the newly created role, Yates oversees Redbox’s digital video business and is responsible for P&L and strategy. Yates reports to Jason
Reinventing the DVR is hard, but Amazon thinks it can succeed where others have failed. Last week, the company announced the Fire TV Recast, a networked DVR for cord cutters and others looking to augment their TV viewing with recorded over-the-air broadcast programming. Amazon’s Fire TV Recast won’t ship until mid-November, but this week, the
Netflix is expanding its international footprint with the launch of a fully staffed Paris bureau, its third European outpost after Amsterdam and London. The Paris office will kick off with about 20 employees, some of whom are already working for Netflix in Amsterdam, and others who will be new hires. The French bureau won’t be
K-drama fans will be able to dig into new series of “micro-stories” on the Yarn app — embroidering on the narrative arcs of characters from popular Korean TV shows — under a partnership between DramaFever and Mammoth Media. Mobile-entertainment startup Mammoth Media is launching serialized short-form fiction content on Yarn, inspired by shows on DramaFever,
Die-hard Philadelphia sports fans who reside outside the City of Brotherly Love’s market confines can now stream NBC Sports Philadelphia’s programming for the Eagles, Phillies and Sixers — but the new subscription plan doesn’t include any live games. NBC Sports Regional Networks is launching “Philly Pass,” a direct-to-consumer product targeted at displaced Philadelphia sports fans,
WndrCo, the investment and holding company led by Jeffrey Katzenberg, invested $30 million in The Infatuation, a digital-media and events company focused on restaurant guides and food. The Infatuation was founded in 2009 in by Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal, two former music-industry execs. The New York City-based company in March 2018 acquired restaurant-review brand
Reflector Entertainment has announced its “Unknown 9” franchise, and will host an experiential showcase introducing the transmedia universe during New York Comic-Con. The Montreal-based production company enlisted industry veterans to bring the project to life across multiple platforms, including comic books, podcasts, novels, video games, film, and TV. The company’s CEO and creative director Alexandre
Fox Sports hired David Katz, founder of ThePostGame and a former exec at Yahoo and CBS, as executive VP of digital. In the role, Katz is responsible for managing the Fox Sports digital business, overseeing content and distribution for the group. Fox Sports Digital’s properties include FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports Go live-streaming authenticated video
The NFL’s live-streaming pact with Amazon for the 2018 season kicks off Thursday — and the ecommerce giant company has some new tricks up its sleeve for “.” Amazon is offering Fox’s feed of 11 “Thursday Night Football” games this season, available across Prime Video and Twitch, the company’s game-streaming platform. New this season, Amazon
September 27, 2018 5:30AM PT ABC, CBS, and NBC — preempting their usual daytime TV lineups — will air live reports as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The highly anticipated event, which is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday, Sept.
DVR pioneer Tivo isn’t ready to cede the cord cutting market to Amazon and its new Fire TV Recast: The company is releasing a new version of its Bolt DVR this Friday that’s squarely aimed at people without cable television. The new Tivo Bolt OTA is capable of recording up to four programs at the
September 26, 2018 11:28AM PT [embedded content] Lucasfilm’s immersive R&D unit ILMxLab is getting ready to embrace Facebook’s new Oculus Quest VR headset: “Vader Immortal,” a new 3-part VR series, is going to debut as a launch title when Oculus Quest becomes commercially available next year, ILMxLab’s executive in charge Vicki Dobbs Beck announced at
September 26, 2018 10:59AM PT Facebook’s Oculus Go VR headset is getting access to more than 800,000 360-degree videos, thanks to a new partnership with Google’s YouTube service. The service’s YouTube VR will launch on the headset soon, announced Oculus Go product manager Sean Liu at Facebook’s Oculus Connect VR developer conference in San Jose,
CollegeHumor, the IAC-owned comedy website that’s been around since 1999, was running into roadblocks in pushing the creative envelope. First, YouTube and Facebook have increasingly been cracking down on advertiser-inappropriate content, penalizing CollegeHumor’s edgier material by demonetizing or curtailing it — even some of its political comedy has been penalized by the tech platforms, said
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg used his keynote at the company’s Oculus Connect VR developer conference in San Jose, Calif., Wednesday to announce the next major product coming out of the company’s VR subsidiary: Oculus Quest, which was previously known as Project Santa Cruz, will ship next spring for $399. Oculus Quest is a standalone VR headset, meaning
September 26, 2018 7:42AM PT Warning: Downloading “Game of Thrones” on illegal piracy networks could potentially open the door for cybercriminals to hijack your computer. Piggybacking on pirated content is a tactic long employed by the internet’s underworld. But hackers are increasingly are turning to pirated episodes of popular TV shows as a vehicle to
In the past few days, the Music Modernization Act — which will bring sweeping changes to outdated copyright laws — has passed both the Senate and the House of Representatives unanimously, and is now set to go to President Trump’s desk for signature. In this guest post, Recording Industry Association of America president Mitch Glazier reflects
Larry Aidem, after more than three years at the helm of indie movie-streaming service Fandor, is departing to serve as managing partner of Reverb Advisors, a boutique technology investment and consulting firm. Aidem will continue to serve on Fandor’s board. The company has not named a replacement CEO for Aidem, who informed staff Monday that