Behind the Scenes at Groupon’s Tech Headquarters as It Prepares to Report First Public Earnings

Groupon is slowly building out its technology prowess in Palo Alto, Calif., 2,000 miles away from its headquarters — one acquisition at a time.
Groupon's Palo Alto offices

At CES 2012, 3-D Is Riding Shotgun to “Smart” TVs

3-D isn’t going away — it’s becoming just another check-off feature, as TV sets get “smarter.”
3DvsSmartTV

News Byte

YouTube Movie Rentals Adding Pooh, Pirates and a Pile of Disney

YouTube’s movie rental operation is getting a big infusion of Disney over the next few weeks. Google announced today that the first handful of what will eventually be hundreds of films from Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks Studios are now available on the service in the U.S. and Canada, joining movies from Sony Pictures, Universal and Warner Bros.

Reed Hastings Lays Out the Netflix Comeback Plan

The idea is simple: Turn Netflix into a “premium television network,” like HBO. Convincing investors and customers that he can do it will be hard work.
reed hastings

News Byte

DreamWorks Announces Netflix Deal

DreamWorks Animation, the people who brought you “Shrek,” will be bringing their movies to Netflix. The company announced the deal Sunday, confirming earlier reports that it was exiting a deal with Time Warner’s HBO a year early. Netflix needs new content deals to help attract new customers and appease dissatisfied ones, but this one won’t help for a while — DreamWorks movies won’t arrive until 2013.

Netflix Grabs DreamWorks Deal From HBO

More movies you’ve heard of should end up in your Netflix queue — in a couple years.
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Voices

Film Titans Rush to Get Animated

DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc.’s chief executive Jeffrey Katzenberg played down a decision by Paramount Pictures to launch a rival animation division—a move by its partner that adds to other new challenges for the animation powerhouse.

Zynga Appoints DreamWorks CEO to Board, But No ShrekVille in the Works

Zynga is beefing up its board of directors by announcing today that it has added Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO and co-founder of DreamWorks Animation.

Zynga's FrontierVille Gets Product Placement From Paramount Picture's "Rango"

Zynga’s latest product placement launches today as the company tries to build up additional sources of revenue beyond relying on the few users who elect to pay for virtual goods.

Samsung Teams Up With Comcast, Time Warner, Hulu to Bring TV to Multiple Screens

During Samsung’s keynote at CES tonight, it invited a full cast of characters to demonstrate how it was moving TV from the living room to both tablets and phones.