“Why, don’t you look fresh,” a grandmotherly robot in a rocking chair told me, admiring my just-washed hair and reminding me to hydrate throughout the day. The adorable and slightly unsettling robot was a precursor to the Google Ride, an attraction the tech company set up at its Google Assistant Playground at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on Tuesday (Jan. 8).
MoviePass and other movie-ticket subscriptions in the US proved themselves to be more trouble than they were worth in 2018.
On the heels of Netflix’s big experiment in interactive video, Black Mirror‘s “Bandersnatch,” the streaming giant poached an executive from the video-game industry to be its next chief financial officer. Spencer Neumann, who was CFO of Activision Blizzard—the company behind mega-hits World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and Call of Duty—and worked at Walt Disney Company before that, is Netflix’s new financial chief, the company announced on Jan. 2.
Netflix released a ridiculous amount of original programming in 2018. How ridiculous? By Quartz’s measure, the streaming-video giant put out nearly 90,000 minutes—close to 1,500 hours—of original series, movies, and other productions this year. That’s nearly nine consecutive weeks of binge-watching. It would have taken more than four hours of streaming per day, every day of 2018, to watch all of it.
Disney dominated the box office in 2018 even before its big holiday blockbuster, Mary Poppins Returns, hit US theaters on Wednesday (Dec. 19). The mammoth movie studio said on Dec. 9 that its movies had grossed more than $7 billion worldwide year-to-date, or roughly 19% of the global box office at that time, based on ComScore estimates.
A lot of forces are threatening US movie theaters in 2018. Tech companies like Netflix and Amazon are putting out more movies than all the major movie studios combined, and many of them are bypassing theaters. Studios such as 20th Century Fox are questioning how long movie theaters should have exclusive access to their new releases. Subscription services like MoviePass and Sinemia are altering the way people buy movie tickets. And, now, the US Department of Justice is reviewing a mid-century antitrust rule that’s meant to prevent movie studios from wielding too much power over cinemas.
One of the best parts of the winter holidays in the US is seeing how people incorporate unique cultural traditions into their family feasts.
In 1898, when it wasn’t uncommon for minstrels to perpetuate racist stereotypes and for vaudeville shows to use blackface, a 29-second silent picture depicted a touching moment between two African-American lovers.
Bohemian Rhapsody has as big a range as Freddie Mercury’s vocals.
Earlier this month, people panicked at the possibility that the beloved 1990s sitcom Friends might be leaving Netflix in the new year. The streaming-video service ultimately renewed its license for Friends through 2019. But it’s not the first time people were up in arms over an old TV show leaving a streaming platform. It happened with Futurama and 30 Rock and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which all moved from Netflix to Hulu in the US. And users on social media regularly threaten to depart Netflix if it ever removes The Office from its streaming library.
Facebook wants to become the home for all of your streaming-TV apps.
YouTube’s 2018 Rewind video is officially the most-disliked video ever on its own platform. It might be the perfect recap of the online-video giant’s year.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai is the latest Silicon Valley leader to be grilled by US Congress this year.
Ted Farnsworth, the CEO of MoviePass’s parent company, is seeing his compensation dwindle alongside his company’s market performance.
Movies usually stay in their lanes. It’s rare for a character from an R-rated franchise to appear in a PG-13 film, for instance. That’s one reason Sony made Venom to be rated PG-13. It creates the possibility that your friendly neighborhood, and very lucrative, Spider-Man could appear in future films.
Google is hurrying to shut down its troubled Google+ social-media platform.
You see, it was all just a test.
If you don’t know what streaming service the TV show or movie you want to watch is on, you might soon be able to Google that information quickly. As more streaming services pop up and popular TV shows like Futurama and 30 Rock change platforms, Google has begun testing ways to make it easier to find TV shows and movies across streaming apps.
“Friends will still be there for you throughout 2019 in the US,” Netflix reassured people on Monday afternoon (Dec. 3), after rumors broke that the show would leave the streaming-video service on January 1.
You might notice, while scrolling through Netflix’s library, that the streaming giant’s video categories go well beyond the broad genres of TV and film like Comedy, Action and Adventure, or Horror that you might have found perusing the aisles of a video store back in the day. On Netflix, you’re more likely to see rows of recommendations labeled, “Fight-the-system TV shows” (Black Mirror, The Staircase) or “Critically-claimed irreverent comedies” (BoJack Horseman, Fawlty Towers).
AT&T is thinking of getting out of the Hulu business.
One part movies; one part original programming; one part bundle. WarnerMedia’s recipe to take on Netflix is starting to come together.
“We’ve launched our last satellite,” John Donovan, CEO of AT&T Communications, said in a meeting with analysts on Nov. 29.
How do you get people to pay for TV shows and movies on a social network where content is otherwise free? Maybe you don’t.
