Tag Archives: request

Amazon.com Content Push Takes A Woody Allen Plot Twist

In Amazon.com ‘s ( AMZN ) latest bid to dominate the video streaming business — it added the service as a perk for its Amazon Prime loyalty program subscribers — the company announced Thursday that it had acquired the rights to famed film director Woody Allen’s forthcoming movie. The yet-to-be-named film is set to be released this summer in a standard theatrical release and then will be available exclusively to Prime members via video streaming, Amazon said. “Woody Allen is a brilliant filmmaker,” Roy Price, head of Amazon Studios, said in the company’s press release. “We’re so proud to be in business with him for both his next film and his first ever TV series.” Amazon also said that it’s hired Allen to produce an as-yet untitled six-episode television series that will begin shooting next month and star Miley Cyrus and Elaine May. The Seattle-based company has been upping its portfolio in the increasingly crowded video-streaming sector vs. Netflix ( NFLX ), Time Warner ’s ( TWX ) HBO and others. Apple ( AAPL ), for example, has been trying to put together its own video-streaming service, it’s been widely reported. In January, Consumer Intelligence Research Partners released research that indicated that Amazon Prime had 54 million U.S. members, compared with 44.7 million for Netflix. But Netflix has more actual viewers; only 40% of Amazon Prime members (21.6 million) use the free video streaming service at least once a week, CIRP said. Amazon Prime also includes free two-day shipping. On Feb. 11 Netflix announced that it had completed its migration to Amazon’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services. The move makes Netflix one of the largest companies in the world to rely entirely on the public cloud. Netflix also develops its own original content, and content from Netflix and Amazon is getting more and more award nominations and wins. Several analysts say that Amazon is poised to roll out a stand-alone video streaming service. “As Amazon has begun to re-imagine the multichannel TV bundle, we believe they are looking to create their own stand-alone bundle of on-demand and potentially linear (live event) video programming,” BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield said in a research report last month. “In December 2015, Amazon announced it was offering add-ons to Prime such as Showtime, Starz, TriBecA Shortlist, Lifetime Movie Club, among many others. And this is just the start, as we expect other services such as WWE Network to become available in the future.” Amazon said that Allen’s film is a romantic comedy that stars Jeannie Berlin, Steve Carell, Jesse Eisenberg, Blake Lively, Parker Posey, Kristen Stewart, Corey Stoll and Ken Stott. In afternoon trading in the stock market today , Amazon is up 1%, near 530. The company has an IBD Composite Rating of 73, where 99 is the highest. Image provided by Shutterstock .

5 Hot Tech Stocks You Should Be Watching Ahead Of Earnings

Loading the player… Quarterly earnings reports almost always impact a company’s stock, whether good or bad. Here’s a look at five hot tech names with earnings due for you to keep an eye on: Fibit ( FIT ), NetEase ( NTES ), WebMD ( WBMD ), First Solar ( FSLR ) and Salesforce ( CRM ). Fitbit reports after the close on Monday. Analysts expect the bottom line to climb 32%, a healthy rise but still a second quarter of decelerating growth. Revenue is projected to pop 75%. Fitbit competes against the Apple ( AAPL ) Watch, and both were named hot gift items during the holiday quarter. Fitbit shares are trading below their IPO price of 20, and are trying to make their way off of their all-time low reached last week. The stock is trading nearly 70% below its all-time high reached last August. NetEase is projected to grow earnings by 52% in local currency when it reports after the close on Wednesday. Revenue is estimated to jump 121%. The stock was able to retake its 200-day line earlier this week. It’s trading about 17% below a potential buy point. NetEase is a member of the IBD 50 list of leading stocks, and so is WebMD. The health care information site is expected to see earnings jump 58% and sales rise 17% when it reports after the close on Tuesday. Both mark an acceleration of growth from last quarter. WebMD is currently trading about 8% below its intraday peak reached in mid-January. First Solar is not on the IBD 50 list, but it earns an IBD Composite Rating of 97 out of 99. The company reports its results after the close on Tuesday as well. Earnings are expected to fall 59% on an 8% dip in sales. The stock is working on a consolidation base and is currently trading about 13% below the pivot. And software giant Salesforce reports after the close on Wednesday. Earnings are expected to jump 36%, while revenue rises 24%. Shares have risen seven out of the last eight sessions as they work their way higher from about a 16-month low. Salesforce is about 25% below its November high.

Feds File Motion To Force Apple To Help FBI Hack iPhone

The Justice Department on Friday filed a motion to compel Apple to comply with a court order to help the FBI hack an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre. Apple earlier in the day had been given a three-day extension, until Feb. 26, to respond to the federal court order issued Tuesday. Apple CEO Tim Cook issued an open letter late Tuesday opposing the court order. He said the order would set a “dangerous precedent” and threaten the privacy and security of all its customers. The court’s demand would force Apple to write new software that would create a “backdoor” to bypass password-protection measures on its smartphones. Tech industry and civil liberties groups have voiced support for Apple’s position, while a number of politicians and law enforcement officials have backed the government’s stance. The DOJ motion seeks to expedite the court’s order that Apple help the FBI in accessing data on an iPhone 5C used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the shooters in the Dec. 2 attack, which left 14 people dead. The phone is owned by Farook’s former employer, the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health. The FBI wants to see if the iPhone holds data about possible accomplices and links to Islamist terrorist groups like ISIS. But the data is encrypted by default by Apple’s iOS operating system. The FBI wants Apple to disable the security option that erases data from an iPhone after 10 unsuccessful attempts to unlock it with a password. Investigators want to crack the password using “brute force” — electronically entering millions of combinations without risking deletion of the data. “Rather than assist the effort to fully investigate a deadly terrorist attack by obeying this court’s order of February 16, 2016, Apple has responded by publicly repudiating that order,” prosecutors wrote in a new filing Friday, ABC News first reported. The DOJ filing says Apple’s refusal to cooperate is “based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy,” AppleInsider reported.