Periscope users can now live stream video from their GoPro Hero4 camera by toggling a button in Periscope’s iOS app. GoPro cameras are popular for drone videography and recording extreme sports, both of which might be able to draw new live streaming viewers. Many of those viewers are on Twitter, the social media platform that plays Periscope live streams directly in its timeline. This new partnership may bring new sales to GoPro and new users to Periscope and Twitter. Continue reading GoPro Partners with Periscope to Livestream Extreme Video

Visual effects facility Digital Domain, known for its digital work on the “Transformers” series, the “X-Men” series, “Iron Man 3” and “Her,” acquired an 85 percent stake in Hong Kong’s Post Production Company Limited and its parent company for about $17.3 million, with the goal of making a big move into virtual reality. Post Production — which Digital Domain chief executive Daniel Seah calls “the Digital Domain of China” — has worked on many major Chinese movies, TV ads, and music videos. Continue reading Digital Domain Moves into VR with Hong Kong Post Acquisition

Today’s game developers are most interested in creating virtual reality projects for the Oculus Rift headset, according to a new survey from the Game Developers Conference. Nineteen percent of the 2,000 respondents said they were currently working on a new game for the device and 20 percent said their next VR project would be for the Oculus Rift. Only 8 percent of respondents said they were working on VR projects for Samsung’s Gear VR, the second most popular VR headset. Continue reading Oculus Rift the Most Popular VR Platform Among Developers

Assessing and quantifying reaction to content and advertising on social media has been limited to the fuzzy capabilities of “sentiment analysis” tools that capture only generic positive and negative attitudes. Now, Viacom believes it’s found the perfect tool to do better. Media conglomerate Velocity’s marketing and creative content division teamed with tech startup Canvs, whose database of 4 million words and phrases — including millennial slang and social media shorthand — falls into 56 emotional categories. Continue reading Viacom Teams with Canvs to Track Emotions on Social Media

Apple fans browsing the Internet were excited to read about a new 4-inch iPhone 6c. Not so fast. According to sources who have used the upcoming iPhone with a 4-inch display, the information is false. Rather than release a smaller version of the iPhone 6s (for customers yearning for a less daunting screen size than 4.7 or 5.5 inches), Apple is upgrading the iPhone 5s first released in fall 2013. The upgrade is not a preview of the iPhone 7, as rumored, but retains the 5s’s design and include a headphone jack. Continue reading Apple Readies Debut of iPhone 5se, Feature-Rich Version of 5s

Football coaches are already using artificial intelligence to help them on the sidelines. Students at North Carolina State University built an AI that could predict whether an NFL team would pass or run the ball. The AI called the plays correctly 91.6 percent of the time during an NFL game. The technology may not yet be ready for a real-time game situation, but with more data and research into machine learning and game theory, AI could become a big league contender. Continue reading Data Analytics: AI Could Assist Coaches in Professional Sports

Amazon is looking to expand its services, particularly online grocery shopping and video streaming, in Europe this year. The company plans to add several thousand new jobs in Europe to help expand its operations. Amazon has already found success in its online grocery shopping and delivery service, Amazon Fresh, in the United Kingdom, and will likely use that model in other major cities. Amazon’s online sales continue to grow at the same pace as the online sales rate across the region. Continue reading Amazon Plans to Expand Online Grocery Shopping in Europe

After coming up empty at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, streaming services Amazon and Netflix made some significant acquisitions at this year’s indie film festival in Utah. Prior to the festival, Netflix spent $5 million for the streaming rights to “Tallulah,” starring Allison Janney and Ellen Page, and almost $7 million for “The Fundamentals of Caring,” starring Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez. Amazon inked a deal for Kenneth Lonergan’s “Manchester by the Sea,” with Kyle Chandler, Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges. Continue reading Amazon and Netflix Acquire Movies and Visibility at Sundance

For the eighth year in a row, YouTube launched its AdBlitz platform, a channel and separate website that displays Super Bowl television spots online before game day and allows viewers to vote for their favorite ads. This year, YouTube has unveiled a new feature: a real-time advertising tool, which enables advertisers to run ads across Google’s platforms, timed to big moments during live events, such as a game-winning field goal. Currently in beta, the feature was already tested by a Marco Rubio Super PAC on debate night. Continue reading YouTube Adds Real-Time Spots to Super Bowl AdBlitz Platform

Brendan Eich created JavaScript, the world’s most widely used programming language and co-founded Mozilla, the organization behind the Firefox browser that has become one of the most popular ways to navigate the Web. Now he’s back with Brave Software, a startup developing an open source browser for desktop and mobile that carves a middle path between excessive online advertising and antagonistic ad blockers. In his paradigm, advertisers, browser companies, websites and users stand to win. Continue reading Brave Browser Aims to Reinvent Online Advertising Paradigm

Google has released a beta Android app for its Google Expeditions Pioneer Program that allows educators to bring their students on a virtual reality field trip. The VR content includes immersive educational experiences in locations such as Machu Picchu, Mars, the Great Barrier Reef and Buckingham Palace. Students use Google Cardboard headsets to view the content while the teacher can use a tablet to guide their students through the location and monitor where each student is looking. Continue reading Google Expands Access to its Educational VR Field Trip App

Some traditional watch companies are taking a different approach to the wearables market than the tech companies that have joined the competition in recent years. Instead of manufacturing smartwatches with all of the bells and whistles of today’s smartphones, traditional watchmakers like Fossil are making wearables that look more like traditional analog watches. These devices only have basic fitness tracking and notification features, but they may be the key to helping wearables go mainstream. Continue reading Fossil’s New Smartwatches Mimic Design of Analog Watches

At the Sundance Film Festival, the latest in virtual reality appears at the New Frontier, the Sundance Institute’s showcase for virtual reality, immersive cinematic works, and media lab innovations. 2016 is no exception, and the buzz is already out about some of the must-see virtual reality movies and experiences. Among them, “The Wasteland” from 8i is one recommendation. Other notable VR experiences at Sundance include “American Bison,” “Kiya” and “Wave of Grace.” Continue reading Must-See VR at Sundance: Volumetric Capture, Empathic Tales

Verizon is already developing a 5G cellular network, the next generation of wireless technology following 4G LTE. Chief financial officer Fran Shammo says the company plans to launch the first 5G network in the U.S. Verizon hopes to begin trials of the 5G network as early as this year, but the technology probably won’t be widely available until 2020. Verizon says the 5G network is different from the LTE network because 5G is designed to accommodate demands of the Internet of Things. Continue reading Verizon Plans to Test 5G Network Technology in U.S. in 2016

A look back at 2015 reveals memorable trends in social media: the birth of live social streaming, with Periscope and Meerkat winning over early adopters; the growth of Snapchat, with its more than 200 million active users; and video, with Facebook users logging about 8 billion video views a day (possibly even more than on YouTube). Looking ahead to 2016, it appears that new technologies will change how we interact with social media, creating new options for everything from shopping to sharing real-time experiences. Continue reading Predicting the Five Biggest Changes in Social Media This Year