In case you missed it this morning, Disney is making their play for Fox’s huge entertainment division to the tune of almost $53 billion dollars. Better known as 21st Century Fox Incorporated, the Fox deal brings some huge names to Disney, including the X-Men franchise, the Avatar franchise, the Alien franchise, the FX Networks, the Simpsons, Futurama, National Geographic, 22 regional cable systems, and much, much more.
But here’s what the deal doesn’t bring to Disney: Fox News, the Fox broadcast networks, or the FS1 sports network, and some other lesser properties. According to multiple sources and Fox tycoon Rupert Murdoch, terms of the deal will spin those properties off into another as-yet unnamed Fox-controlled company. Fox will also continue to operate News Corp, which runs the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and other legacy papers and properties.
So, what does it mean for you? Mainly this: The upcoming Disney streaming network is going to be a juggernaut right out of the gate, and you can count on a lot of Disney stuff disappearing from rival streamers like Netflix and Amazon Instant Video – unless they’re willing to pay dearly for them. So basically, it’s going to be game on in the streaming space in a big way.
And you thought your cell phone data plan was expensive
In more tech marketplace news, today is the day net neutrality died at the hands of the FCC. Ajit Pai, the new head of the communications agency, has made it no secret he thinks the notion of net neutrality – or that the Internet is a basic service, like water and electricity – is a quaint idea. Instead, he thinks the invisible hand of marketplace competition will somehow improve American’s access to online data, as long as you can pay the price.
But among many questions are ones like what will the price be, and how often will you have to pay it to experience the internet like we did before; when it was more like a utility? With media consolidation continuing unabated, and ISPs hungry for ever more profits, there are plenty of serious concerns about the future effects of today’s vote. We’re eager to hear your views on Net Neutrality – and the apparent end of it – in our YouTube comments section.
Maybe it needs a quarter slot
More sad news: Today was also supposed to be the day the long-vaunted retro gaming console known as the AtariBox was supposed to go up for pre-order. Apparently not, and we don’t think you can blame Ajit Pai for this one. According to Engadget, emails went out to prospective pre-orderers informing them that there is still work to be done and that the pre-order data has been pushed back. Unfortunately, they didn’t say until when.
That’s bad news for Atari as well, of course; retro consoles are a hot item these days, what with the two Nintendo has produced – and sold by the millions. There’s still no hard list of games that might appear on the machine with the optional wood veneer front panel, but rumor is it’s going to have an AMD processor and run on Linux, so some customization – or maybe a slate of apps – could be possible install options. When we know more, we’ll be sure to update you.
We’ve got more news on our Facebook page and YouTube channel, and be sure to tune in to this week’s DT podcasts: Trends with Benefits (general tech shenanigans) on Thursdays, and Between the Streams (movie and TV topics) every Friday.
