- Disney is getting serious about shorts with a new incubator program for directors (LA Times)
- China’s film market is set to eclipse the US in 2020, but how will that affect movies? (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Apple is backing off its crackdown on parental control apps (New York Times)
- …Yet 55% of parents are at risk of endangering their kids online, according to a new study (Economic Times)
- iTunes is dead, long live iTunes! Apple is shutting down the long-running music service (Vox)
- …And it’s adding more safety features to phones, including restricting third-party trackers on kids apps (Tech Crunch)
- YouTube is making its own privacy moves, banning kids from livestreaming unless accompanied by an adult (Variety)
- Global SVOD subscriptions are about to hit one billion, and set to increase 86% by 2024 (Digital TV Europe)
- Mattel is teaming up with Blumhouse to make a Magic 8 Ball…horror movie? (Deadline)
- Hillary and Chelsea Clinton are reportedly building a TV and film prodco (The Guardian)
- Discovery is launching a cross-channel video game studio (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Gather together the team: Netflix, the Russo brothers and Hasbro are working on a Magic: The Gathering TV series (The Verge)
- Why children actually learn better together (The Week)
- Jam City on how it carefully balances storytelling and selling with its licensed game apps (Games Industry)
- Chinese steamers Tencent, Youku and iQIYI have cracked the global SVOD top-five, challenging the US players (Rapid TV News)
- A new study finds TV shows and movies still lack characters with mental health issues (Huffington Post)
- As tech infiltrates toys more and more, should we stop fighting it and let kids become friends with bots? (Medium)
- Why CBS and Viacom are licensing shows to rivals, rather than launching their own streamers (Digiday)
- There is controversy in the ASMR space, as more kids are making videos designed to give people the “tingles” (The Atlantic)
- Peek behind the curtain of the Apple team that picks which apps make it to the iPhone and which end up getting cut (Bloomberg)
- …Speaking of apps, following a FTC complaint, Google has rolled out new policies for kids apps (Tech Crunch)
- Lagardère has closed the sale of M6, officially taking over its kids channels (Digital TV Europe)
- YouTube tried to change the way it tracks subscriber numbers to curb influencer drama…but ended up creating more problems (WIRED)
- Pokémon is releasing a new game where the more you snooze, the better your score (The Verge)
- Common Sense Media’s latest report has found that it might actually be parents with the cellphone addiction (New York Times)
- One year into GDPR, not a whole lot has changed from those initial opt-in emails (Games Industry)
- Decentralized games promised to bring people to cryptocurrency, but so far users aren’t biting (Wall Street Journal)
- YouTube is shutting down its gaming app this week (The Verge)
- People are spending more time on Instagram than ever before, to the detriment of Snapchat and Facebook (eMarketer)
- Meanwhile, Facebook’s new VR headset gives a sneak-peek at the tech’s future (Tech Crunch)
- The “Netflix of learning” platform is the hottest new investment in the venture capital world (Quartz)
- Now that Aladdin has brought in US$207 million worldwide, should Disney consider connecting its stories in a live-action universe? (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Is a TikTok phone on its way? The app’s parentco Bytedance is looking into it (Tech Crunch)
- Marie Kondo is bringing her decluttering expertise to kids with a new children’s book (Entertainment Weekly)
- There are tons of kids books about the great outdoors, yet hardly any feature children of color (The Atlantic)
- Trans characters saw zero representation in mainstream movies last year, according to GLADD’s report (Variety)
- Ticket, please—Rotten Tomatoes will require reviewers to provide proof they bought a movie ticket (Vox)
- Why remakes struggle to meet expectations, and keep “ruining childhoods” (The Ringer)
- It’s a Disney exodus as the House of Mouse removes more of its films from Netflix (Entertainment Weekly)
- How Disney is future-proofing a galaxy far, far away with its new Star Wars lands (CNN)
- YouTube to stop providing exact subscriber counts, and won’t round up its abbreviations (Tubefilter)
- Talk about temporary: Snapchat quickly removes X-rated AR lenses (Variety)
- A US senator is trying to ban loot boxes, arguing the in-game features take advantage of kids (Verge)
June 5, 2019
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