By Gilbert Falso :: 7:16 PM
The popular Netflix original series, “House of Cards,” will be released on DVD this summer.
For diehard fans of the series, Amazon is offering release-day reservation and delivery services for the boxed set for most customers in the U.S.
It will retail for $44.69 for the standard DVD set
You may be wondering why anyone would plunk down that much cash when the series is available for Netflix streaming customers at only $8 per month? Well, Netflix doesn’t own the rights to distribute the series outside of its own network, for one. And secondly, while Netflix streaming services are available in a large chunk of North and South America, the U.K., and Europe, they are not available at all in Asia, Africa, Australia, and many southern European countries.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 12:51 PM
NBC today will announce that Jimmy Fallon will succeed Jay Leno as host of the late-night TV show The Tonight Show. In addition to the new host announcement, NBC will also announce the move of the show from its Los Angeles studio to New York City.
Rumors have been flying about this possibility for several weeks now, but a report in today’s New York Times confirms that the announcement is imminent.
Fallon will take over the host’s chair from Leno in 2014. NBC is timing the transition to occur immediately after the end of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, which the network will be carrying. Delaying the move until after the Olympics allows the network to use those two weeks of heavy TV time as advertising for Fallon as the new host.
By Gilbert Falso :: 6:56 AM
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced yesterday that it will allow publicly traded companies to use social media channels to notify investors of company news.
In a decision brought about by a Netflix Facebook posting a few months ago, the SEC now allows companies to use their social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to reach out to investors. However, the companies must ensure ahead of time that their investors know which sites will receive this information, and that investors can access the sites without restriction.
“One set of shareholders should not be able to get a jump on other shareholders just because the company is selectively disclosing important information,” said George Canellos, acting director of the SEC’s division of enforcement. “Most social media are perfectly suitable methods for communicating with investors.”
The Netflix post that spurred this change in policy was when CEO Reed Hastings posted on his Facebook page that the company’s monthly online viewing had reached 1 billion hours for the first time. The SEC argued that Netflix did not report that information to investors through a press release, so some investors were at a disadvantage because the company did not disclose that Facebook was an official channel for disseminating information.
By Cynthia Herbert :: 1:08 AM
A U.S. Marine based at Camp Pendleton has been arrested in a road rage incident that occurred just off the Marine base outside of Oceanside, California. The aftermath of the accident was captured on video by another Marine, who was a passenger in one of the cars involved in the incident.
The video has quickly spread across the Internet over the past day. It shows a Marine sergeant screaming at the driver of a truck that rear-ended his vehicle after he made numerous quick stops in front of it. For nearly three minutes, the sergeant, whose name has not been released yet, taunts the driver, and bangs on the vehicle.
Camp Pendleton’s Public Affairs Office has not yet viewed the video, but have confirmed that the sergeant was detained by military police after the incident, and has received a citation for “communicating a threat.” Additional charges could be pending.
The Marine base spokesperson released the following statement: “This individual’s behavior does not meet the standards that are expected of our Marines and it has received the attention of senior base staff.”
Watch the video below. Warning, extreme profanity.
By Paul Thomson :: 10:46 PM
New information has been released on the next generation Apple iPhones. Yes, that’s iPhones, plural.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, companies in Apple’s supply chain in Asia are working on two new models of the iPhone side-by-side. One is a high-end design with a metal shell, probably most closely related to the current iPhone 5 model. The other model currently under development is a non-metal shell model that comes in multiple colors. This second model is thought to be a lower-end market iPhone model for developing countries.
No release dates have been discussed, but the Journal’s sources seem to think that the high-end phone could be available sometime this summer, while the lower-end phone would be introduced later in the year.
The size of the screen for both phones will be identical to the current iPhone 5 screen. It does not appear that the company has any plans to introduce a larger screen at this time.