Media & Entertainment

AMC Entertainment chairman-CEO Adam Aron said the chain will be technologically equipped to start accepting Bitcoin payments for U.S. movie tickets and concessions ordered online by the end of the year, which raises a very personal question: How do I feel about buying a slice of pizza and a Diet Coke with four (4) bitcoins back in April 2011? Continue Reading →

Technology is meaningless unless it changes the way we behave. As many of you have pointed out, my writing is increasingly focused on blockchain, cryptocurrency, smart contracts and NFTs, decentralized finance (DeFi), Web 3.0, and the role AI and other nascent computational tools may play in the future. There's a simple reason. They are all behavior-changing technologies. At one end of the spectrum, there's the potential of an alternative, decentralized system for value exchange that challenges our understanding about the role of central governance. At the other end of the spectrum, this is nothing more than a fad which can be easily ignored. In my experience, no technology is ever "either, or." As you know, almost $8 trillion of wealth vaporized when the dot-com bubble burst in 2000. Those speculative losses didn't have anything to do with the underlying technology; it was all about the hype. With that in mind, think about this... Continue Reading →

The first time I saw the word "Metaverse" was in Neal Stephenson's 1992 sci-fi novel "Snow Crash." The word has evolved over the years to describe immersive virtual worlds. These environments can be experienced on your computer on a 2D screen, but are best experienced using technology such as VR, AR, XR, MR, etc. This is where Facebook believes we/they are headed, and they are assembling a high-powered product team to get us/them there. Continue Reading →

You have a hidden talent I’d like to call your attention to. By the time you were 18 years old, you had watched more than 20,000 hours of video (TV, movies, online, etc.). That’s more than twice the number of hours most people need to become an expert at any skill. So while you may not know all the technical jargon, when it comes to judging content, creativity, and execution, you are truly a video production expert. This is going to come in handy, because today, every major corporate meeting and event needs to be reimagined and staged to work for both in-person and online audiences. Continue Reading →

Over the past few months, people have started using the term "NFT" interchangeably with the term "digital collectible." This is unfortunate, because while most of the digital collectibles in the news are NFTs, the technology can be used to create value in many additional ways. When thinking about fan development, which we will define (just for this article) as a collection of purpose-built tools designed to grow communities of interest, perhaps the most obvious use for an NFT is as a ticket to an event. Let’s review some of the benefits you might expect from combining a ticket, some unique digital assets, and a smart contract. Continue Reading →

According to the WSJ, Comcast is considering an acquisition of Roku or a tie-up with ViacomCBS to expand and enhance its streaming business. Continue Reading →

Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicked off on Monday with a keynote showing off new operating systems for all of its hardware. Here's everything you need to know. Continue Reading →

The NFT marketplace peaked on May 3, when $102 million worth were sold in a single day. Crypto-collectibles accounted for $100 million of those sales, but according to data analyzed by Protos, just $19.4 million in NFT sales (including $9.2 million in crypto-collectibles) were processed in the past week: a near-90% collapse from the market's peak just one month ago. Continue Reading →

If you have an Alexa-enabled device or any Amazon device that is Amazon Sidewalk-capable, you are automatically opted in to sharing up to 80Kbps (capped at 500MB per month) of your WiFi network with Amazon and your neighbors. After I tell you how to opt-out, I'll tell you what it is and why Amazon thinks it's a good idea. If you want to use the service and lend part of your WiFi network to Jeff Bezos, you don't need to do anything. You are opted-in unless you do the following. Continue Reading →

Amazon will buy MGM for $8.45 billion. This is not a surprise, as MGM has been for sale for quite some time, and secrets about this purchase were not well-kept. Continue Reading →