Weekly News from the West
Jean-Baptiste Piron
Cultural Attaché I Attaché culturel I Québec Office Los Angeles
-The Venture Reality Fund: Arcades, games, enterprise, and health care are driving VR forward: The number of venture capital investments is still growing in virtual reality, though not nearly at the pace it was in the past. The Venture Reality Fund, a venture capital fund that tracks investments in the sector, reported that the number of investments in VR companies rose 10 percent in the first half of 2018, compared to the first half of 2017. By contrast, in the second half of 2017, the number of VR investments tracked was up 79 percent, compared to the same period a year earlier. Overall, the combination of VR and augmented reality investments (the latter is perceived as hotter) was up 15 percent in dollars in the first half and 11 percent in number of deals, compared to the previous first half of 2017. Tipatat Chennavasin, general partner at The VR Fund, said in a statement that most of the investments went into VR startups in location-based entertainment, gaming, enterprise and healthcare. “VR is definitely spreading its wings and not slowing down,” Chennavasin said. One of the biggest successes so far in VR games is Beat Saber, which so far is the fastest selling VR game to date. In addition to home use, 168 arcades in 24 countries are holding tournaments for Beat Games’ hit title, making it a new kind of esport. The company has a launch on PSVR by the end of the year, and Chennavasin expects the title to be one of the most successful VR games to date. There are now over 47 titles which have generated over $1 million in revenue with some companies making over $10 million in the VR consumer market, he said. For location-based entertainment, while IMAX VR has closed down two of its locations, the Void and Sandbox VR are continuing to expand, and major players like Spaces and Two Bit Circus have had successful launches with VR arcades.
-Imax CEO says he’s in ‘active discussions’ with streaming services like Netflix about releasing their movies: Would you leave your couch to see a Netflix movie on an Imax screen? That’s the crux of discussions the leading large-format screen company is having with not just Netflix, but all of the streaming services. Imax CEO Richard Gelfond said during a session at Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference that his company had been in ? active discussions" about streaming original movies getting the Imax treatment. ? Over time, to me, it's inevitable that these big blockbusters that people are spending all this money on, are going to have a theatrical release and I think almost certainly an Imax release," Gelfond said. Imax has already gone down this road with Netflix in the past. Netflix's 2016 movie, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny," the sequel to the Oscar-winning 2000 original, was quietly shown on 10-12 Imax screens when AMC allowed the movie to be on large-format screens in select theaters in New Jersey and California during the movie's opening weekend. (The box-office results for those screenings were never reported). Gelfond said any deal Imax had with a streaming title would respect the 90-day exclusive theatrical window currently in place for all theatrical releases. That's a surprising development since all the major movie chains generally will not show Netflix movies as the streamer never obeys the 90-day theatrical window. (In contrast, movies relased by Amazon have a traditional theatrical release before streaming.)
-T-Mobile details 5G home broadband plan to undercut Charter and Comcast: In making a case for merging with Sprint, T-Mobile said in May that it hoped to leverage the smaller carrier’s network to offer “fixed 5G” service — home broadband internet — in a challenge to cable companies. Now the carrier is telling the FCC (via FierceWireless) that it’s planning to challenge top cable internet providers Charter and Comcast on pricing, service levels, and scale. According to T-Mobile’s FCC filing, the company’s fixed 5G push will begin in earnest, initially winning 1.9 million customers by 2021, then 9.5 million by 2024 — enough to make it the country’s fourth-largest home ISP. By 2024, the company expects to be offering home internet service in 52 percent of U.S. zip codes — which equates to 64 percent of Charter’s territory and 68 percent of Comcast’s — while also using network optimization technologies to serve more households per area than the cable companies. One interesting data point is T-Mobile’s planned home broadband service level: a nationwide average download speed of 100Mbps. While that’s 3 times faster than standard residential broadband today, it’s only one-third the speed Verizon is calling typical for the 5G home broadband service it will launch next month and one-tenth Verizon’s promised peak of 1Gbps. T-Mobile expects to increase its speeds by 2024, offering 300Mbps downloads to over 250 million potential customers and over 500Mbps downloads to another 200 million people, depending on region. It remains to be seen whether that will be enough to compete with Verizon, to say nothing of the cable companies, which are now looking at 10Gbps wired solutions as a way to retain customers.
-FCC boss warns against state net neutrality policy: Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), threatened a legal challenge against a net neutrality bill proposed by the state of California, as clashes over the controversial internet policy mount. California and a handful of other states have moved to propose their own net neutrality rules in response to the FCC’s decision to repeal rules around throttling internet traffic which were introduced under the previous administration. Pai (pictured) led the FCC’s move to roll back the rules, which gives internet service providers the ability to slow down some internet traffic in favour of others, and to accept payments to make certain websites or apps perform faster. The repeal has, however, been met with a backlash from some states and big internet companies, which believe the move could stifle innovation and investment. Last month, almost two dozen US states filed a court appeal arguing for the reinstatement of the rules. California’s own bill, meanwhile, has not been signed into law, suggesting the state’s governor Jerry Brown has doubts about making the move, reported The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
-Amazon and Hulu won best series Emmys before Netflix: For all the money Netflix spends each year on content (reportedly more than $8 billion) and the vast number of original shows that money helps create (about 700 last time we checked), the most popular streaming service in the world still does not have a best series Emmy. Its two major streaming rivals, Amazon and Hulu, both do. Amazon won the Emmy award for best comedy at the 70th annual Primetime Emmy Awards tonight (Sept. 17) for its show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, about a housewife-turned-standup comic in 1950s New York City. The win, one of eight for the show, was not only Amazon’s first ever in one of the five best series categories (comedy, drama, limited, variety talk, and sketch), but it was also the first time a streaming service has ever taken home the best comedy award. The big win for Amazon comes a year after Hulu won its first series Emmy with The Handmaid’s Tale, which won best drama in 2017 and made Hulu the first streamer ever to win one of the major series awards. Netflix was nominated 112 times this year—more than any other network—and ultimately came away with 23 prizes, tying HBO for the most. (Yep, after all that, HBO and Netflix ended up tying!) But its nominations dominance has not yet been enough to break through in the biggest categories. Amazon won only eight awards total, though it bested Netflix in the one that mattered most. With The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel headed into just its second season, it’s possible that the quippy period comedy could own the comedy series category for years to come. That’d be great news for Amazon, of course, and a tough break for Netflix as it keeps trying to put that top trophy on its mantle.
https://qz.com/1393583/amazon-and-hulu-won-best-series-emmys-before-netflix/
-John Hancock will include fitness tracking in all life insurance policies: John Hancock, one of the oldest and largest North American life insurers, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance and instead sell only interactive policies that track fitness and health data through wearable devices and smartphones, the company said on Wednesday. The move by the 156-year-old insurer, owned by Canada’s Manulife Financial, marks a major shift for the company, which unveiled its first interactive life insurance policy in 2015. It is now applying the model across all of its life coverage. Interactive life insurance, pioneered by John Hancock’s partner the Vitality Group, is already well-established in South Africa and Britain and is becoming more widespread in the United States. Policyholders score premium discounts for hitting exercise targets tracked on wearable devices such as a Fitbit or Apple Watch and get gift cards for retail stores and other perks by logging their workouts and healthy food purchases in an app. In theory, everybody wins, as policyholders are incentivized to adopt healthy habits and insurance companies collect more premiums and pay less in claims if customers live longer. Privacy and consumer advocates have raised questions about whether insurers may eventually use data to select the most profitable customers, while hiking rates for those who do not participate. The insurance industry has said that it is heavily regulated and must justify, in actuarial terms, its reasons for any rate increases or policy changes.
-LeBron James Is Already Winning Hollywood: As he prepares to debut with the L.A. Lakers, the NBA’s biggest star has emerged as one of the town’s hottest producers, setting up a dozen film and TV projects and starring in a new ‘Space Jam’ as he sounds off on Serena Williams (“I feel that struggle”) and becoming a Trump Twitter target: ? What bothers me is that he has time to even do that." It's a Wednesday in early September, and LeBron James — newly minted Los Angeles Laker, $1 billion Nike endorsement juggernaut, noted Trump repudiator — is folded into a golf cart whirring across the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank. Shouts of "LaaaaaBraaaan" and "Welcome to L.A.!" pierce the air. Here, where star sightings are routine and treated with studied indifference, the 6-foot-8, 250-pound James is a different story. Strangers ask for selfies, tell him how thrilled they are that he’s in town and divulge their hopes that he'll revive what was once the NBA's most glamorous franchise. James, 33, is always polite, doesn't mind the attention, doesn't wish he could disappear into a scrum of extras, even for a spell. "Anonymous? No. That's weird. I'm not an anonymous guy," he says. "You gotta understand, I'm an only child. I like people. ? But James isn't on the lot for an athlete meet-and-greet. He's had an office at Warners since 2016, when SpringHill Entertainment, the shingle he started in 2008 with childhood friend Maverick Carter, set up shop in a blue-clad Cape Cod bungalow with a barn-red door in Warner Village, the Potemkin neighborhood that has served as the exterior for such Hollywood creations as Gilmore Girls. James doesn't use his second-floor office all that much. In fact, he’s on-site today mostly because he's booked on Ellen, which tapes on the lot, to promote Warners' animated feature Smallfoot, to which he lends his voice.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/lebron-james-conquers-los-angeles-hollywood-1145452
-Amazon Officially Announces The New OTA DVR For The Fire TV Called Recast: Amazon announced the new OTA DVR for the Fire TV called the Fire TV Recast. This lets you stream your antenna to Fire TV, Echo Show, Android, and iOS. (Sadly that is the full lineup of supported devices.) The new DVR costs far more than their competitors who already have apps on the Fire TV with a cost of $229.99. Yet you do get built-in storage with enough space for up to 75 hours of HD programs and free channel guide and on the go stream to help cover the slightly higher upfront cost.
-Disney has a million subscribers for its ESPN streaming-only service, which launched in April: Here is a number that will surprise lots of people in the media industry: Disney says it has a million paying subscribers for its ESPN+ streaming service, which it launched five months ago. Reminder: This isn’t “real” ESPN, but a service that lets you see a mixed bag of sports the programmer doesn’t run on its primary networks, like Italian soccer, small college sports and a smattering of pro baseball games. If you were skeptical ESPN would find many takers for that at $5 a month, join the club. Disney isn’t providing any detail about what has driven pickup for the service, with one caveat: It notes that it converted subscribers to ESPN’s existing “Insider” service — which gave hardcore sports fans access to bonus ESPN articles and the like — to ESPN+ subs at the end of August. But Disney says those converted subs are a “significant minority” of the one million number it’s announcing this morning. Full text, via their comms group: “The vast majority of the 1 million are new subscribers, who’ve signed up for ESPN+ since its launch in April. Adding ESPN Insider to ESPN+ did add some subscribers, but they account for a significant minority of the total.”
https://www.recode.net/platform/amp/2018/9/20/17882370/espn-streaming-one-million-subscribers-disney
-Apple Music’s Catalog Is Now Searchable by Lyrics: As part of the iPhone XS launch, Apple has released the iOS 12 update for most current iPhone devices. One of the new features in this update is the ability to search for a song by lyrics, rather than searching by name or artist alone. Searching by lyrics has been included in iOS since version 10. But this is the first time you get search results that contain the lyric, rather than songs and artists with a similar name as the lyrical query. It’s a nice addition for Apple Music users, and one that could stimulate greater discovery.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2018/09/20/apple-music-lyrics/
-Walmart buys 17,000 Oculus Go VR headsets to train a million employees: Thanks to the affordability of Oculus Go standalone virtual reality headsets, Walmart announced today that it will use Go hardware and STRIVR software to train over one million of its U.S. employees. The retailer says it will provide every associate-level employee with VR access to the same training offered at the company’s academy facilities. By year’s end, Walmart will distribute over 17,000 headsets to its U.S. stores: four per SuperCenter and two per Neighborhood Market and discount store. The headsets will reach a million employees across nearly 5,000 locations, and will get used primarily to brief associates on new technology, compliance, and “soft skills” including empathy and customer service. Prior to full-scale deployment, Walmart and STRIVR did a 10-store pilot test of the VR training, enabling associates to see and practice loading the Pickup Tower, a new online order pickup option, before it was even physically installed. STRIVR’s software has also been in use in the company’s academies, where managers and executives are trained. At this point, there are over 45 educational modules for Walmart’s use.