News

 

Sony Pictures Entertainment Brings Marvel Studios Into The Amazing World Of Spider-Man

(Culver City, California, and Burbank, California February 09, 2015) – Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced today that Sony is bringing Marvel into the amazing world of Spider-Man.

Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.

Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films.

The new relationship follows a decade of speculation among fans about whether Spider-Man – who has always been an integral and important part of the larger Marvel Universe in the comic books – could become part of the Marvel Universe on the big screen. Spider-Man has more than 50 years of history in Marvel’s world, and with this deal, fans will be able to experience Spider-Man taking his rightful place among other Super Heroes in the MCU.

Bob Iger, Chairman and CEO, The Walt Disney Company said: “Spider-Man is one of Marvel’s great characters, beloved around the world. We’re thrilled to work with Sony Pictures to bring the iconic web-slinger into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which opens up fantastic new opportunities for storytelling and franchise building.”

“We always want to collaborate with the best and most successful filmmakers to grow our franchises and develop our characters. Marvel, Kevin Feige and Amy, who helped orchestrate this deal, are the perfect team to help produce the next chapter of Spider-Man,” said Michael Lynton, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment. “This is the right decision for the franchise, for our business, for Marvel, and for the fans.”

“Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios share a love for the characters in the Spider-Man universe and have a long, successful history of working together. This new level of collaboration is the perfect way to take Peter Parker’s story into the future,” added Doug Belgrad, president, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group.

“I am thrilled to team with my friends at Sony Pictures along with Amy Pascal to produce the next Spider-Man movie,” said Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. “Amy has been deeply involved in the realization on film of one of the world’s most beloved characters. Marvel’s involvement will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU. I am equally excited for the opportunity to have Spider-Man appear in the MCU, something which both we at Marvel, and fans alike, have been looking forward to for years.”

Spider-Man, embraced all over the world, is the most successful franchise in the history of Sony Pictures, with the five films having taken in more than $4 billion worldwide.

 

http://marvel.com/news/movies/24062/sony_pictures_entertainment_brings_marvel_studios_into_the_amazing_world_of_spider-man

 

In a new court filing Monday, RadioShack has formally announced the 1,784 stores that it will be closing between now and the end of March 2015.

They include stores nationwide, from Warwick, Rhode Island, to Redondo Beach, California—it’s likely that most are currently offering going-out-of-business sales.

A manager at a store in Fresno, California, told Ars that the store would be closing on February 15 and that everything in the store is currently 50 percent off. Ars has confirmed similar closing dates and discounts at other locations in Henderson, Nevada, and Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month, did not respond to Ars’ inquiry as to why these particular stores were selected.

Bankruptcy protection wouldn’t necessarily mean that RadioShack intends to go out of business. Rather, it means that RadioShack will be given a certain period of time to rebuild itself and shield itself from creditors. In a similar situation from September 2013, a smaller Kodak emerged from bankruptcy.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/02/1700-radioshack-stores-closing-soon-some-liquidating-stock-at-50-off/

 

 

Following Apple’s misadventures with iOS 8, this year’s update to the mobile operating system will center more on stability and performance improvements, says 9to5Mac.

 

Apple may use iOS 9 to add greater stability and performance enhancements to its mobile operating system.

Expected to be unveiled at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, iOS 9 will come packed with a number of “under-the-hood” improvements, according to 9to5Mac, which cited info from anonymous sources. A “huge” focus reportedly will be more on squashing bugs, ensuring stability and tweaking performance rather than just throwing in a bunch of new features.

Assuming the report is true, it would be a welcome change from the usual strategy of just cooking up a host of new features. Apple bumped into a slew of technical troubles with iOS 8, released in September, that frustrated users and forced the company to keep issuing one update after another over the course of just a few months — from iOS 8.0 to 8.1.3. The pace of iOS 8 adoption has been slower than that of iOS 7, possibly because of all the bugs and frequent updates. So the time may be ripe for Apple to pull back and roll out a more stable and bulletproof OS to address the complaints with iOS 8.

 

http://www.cnet.com/news/ios-9-reportedly-to-focus-on-stability-more-than-new-features/

 

At long last, the first Ubuntu phone is coming to market. Over the next few weeks, the Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition will be available in Europe, priced at €170 (about $190) through a series of online flash sales. It won’t be directly available in the US. As the pricing implies, the Aquaris is sadly nothing like the fabled Ubuntu Edge; rather, it’s just a mid-range Android phone that has been adapted to run Ubuntu.

The Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition has a 4.5-inch 960×540 display, a Mediatek SoC (quad-core 1.3GHz Cortex A7 CPU, unknown GPU), 1GB of RAM, and 8GB of on-board NAND storage. Storage is expandable through a microSD slot, and it has two SIM card slots (which isn’t unusual in non-US markets). The only real hardware highlight is a 5-megapixel front-facing camera—but again, don’t forget that this is a very cheap phone.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/the-first-ubuntu-phone-will-finally-go-on-sale-next-week/

Geek this Week

 

Aaron – We’re Alive audio drama, ANOTHER iPhone replacement. Disney Store 40% off sale!

 

Gozer – Zombies, West Wing & Fury

 

Review

 

Today Aaron reviews the Amazon Echo.

 

On the radar

 

Gozer –   5 Terabyte external hard drive – Xbone ( ebay for $120 ) & Boinx TV

 

Aaron – Hacking my Echo to try to work with my Nest

 

Listener Feedback & Items of Note:

 

Hi,

glad to hear you’re back from your break. Some items from the last show. Your comment that you think Samsung will stop making smart phones. That is truly one of the more ridiculous predictions. Kind of like — Apple will stop making iPads.  Samsung is shipping over 300 million smart phones a quarter. That is over a BILLION phones a year. Just because Apple posted a ridiculous quarter and are making huge margins, doesn’t by any means mean that everyone else should get out. Samsung by any other comparison is killing it in the smart phone business. They’re margins are slimmer, but the number of units they’re selling is ridiculous. Why would they stop, they don’t sell a BILLION of anything else. They do make a lot of tech, smart phones are by far their biggest margin business. I actually waited it out on Verizon and bought the Note Edge, and love it. The edge is really a useful addition, there are a number of nice tweaks that make use of the side screen, and obviously it’s a Note, so I was using the pen during my last company meeting.

 

Yakov

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