- Investment firm Fairfax has reportedly agreed to buy Toys “R” Us Canada (BNN)
- MoviePass shot onto the scene and promised to save the box office…so what happened? (Variety)
- Hey Alexa, what do most people use you for? Smart speakers are becoming an increasingly important shopping tool (eMarketer)
- The streaming wars are heating up as Hulu is now valued at US$8.7 billion (Bloomberg)
- Verizon has debuted new kid-tracking and monitoring tech (CNET)
- The 100 million club: Amazon reveals its Prime subscription numbers (The Hollywood Reporter)
- A Series of Unfortunate Events and The Fred Rogers Company are among this year’s Peabody Awards youth winners (Variety)
- FuboTV has raised US$75 million for its 70-plus online channel service (Recode)
- Next-level personal shopping: Zara launches an AR app to draw teens in-store (Teen Vogue)
- Nintendo strengthens its parental control offerings for Switch (Variety)
- Toys “R” Us has reportedly rejected MGA Entertainment’s rescue offer (Bloomberg)
- Sony Pictures Animation has teamed up with two Chinese prodcos for Wish Dragon (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Steven Spielberg is reaching for superhero status with DC Comics (Variety)
- Can virtual reality really change how humans connect with each other? (The Verge)
- Netflix hits 125 million subscribers worldwide (Variety)
- New research says less is more when it comes to children’s toys (Quartz)
- The magic number? Primo Toys says kids should learn how to code at age three (Evening Standard)
- Interpreting Daydreams: Will CBeebies’ new ambient TV initiative strike a chord with kids? (The Guardian)
- Amazon Studios kills its crowdsourced-script program (Variety)
- In a post-Toys “R” Us world, could toymakers increase sales by targeting grocery stores? (The Washington Post)
- Nintendo’s Super Mario Odyssey wins best design and family game at the 2018 BAFTA Games Awards (BBC)
- Researchers raise data privacy concerns over kid-centric Android apps (Gizmodo)
- With a US$890-million bid in hand, MGA’s efforts to rescue Toys “R” Us are officially underway (The Globe and Mail)
- A profile of Boundless Mind, the Silicon Valley startup trying to curb smartphone addictions (TIME)
- Are originals really paying off? Licensed content still drives 80% of Netflix viewing activity in the US (Variety)
- A bot for the books: This Siri-like machine wants to change the personalized tutor space (Springwise)
- Disney’s Andi Mack wins the inaugural GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids and Family Programming (Variety)
- What Netflix’s absence at Cannes will mean for the iconic film festival (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Oh, Snap: The next generation of Snapchat’s Spectacles were spotted in an FCC filing (The Verge)
- Science in motion: How UC Berkeley computer researchers are making animation more realistic than ever (Science Daily)
- Solo mission: How Disney is shaking up its Star Wars marketing strategy (Adweek)
- Why global co-pro agreements are thriving at this year’s MIPTV (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg pushes back on a proposed law to protect the online privacy of teens (ZDNet)
- Studies suggest the “learning styles” model of education is actually failing kids (The Atlantic)
- Leap Motion’s new AR headset is the stuff of science fiction (The Verge)
- Facebook launches a data-abuse bounty program in the wake of its privacy crisis (Variety)
- Amazon’s new development team shakeup sees Melissa Wolfe stay on as head of kids programming (The Hollywood Reporter)
- The hottest new YouTube format in Japan? Watching people study in utter silence (Tubefilter)
- How a grassroots collective hopes to transform the animation industry for black women (Teen Vogue)
- Advocacy groups want YouTube to pay the price for allegedly tracking children’s data (Variety)
- How Spin Master is thriving despite an unsteady toy market (The Toronto Star)
- The next level of eSports? Hacker dad turns a game console into a human-powered exercise machine (Vice)
- The Simpsons finally addresses Apu stereotype criticism (The Hollywood Reporter)
- Restaurant chains are serving up new ways to keep pace with Gen Z customers (Adweek)
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