Apple Motorola Destiny2

Destiny 2's new live action trailer has quite the director behind it: Jordan Vogt-Roberts, director of this year's Kong: Skull Island, not to mention the upcoming Metal Gear Solid movie. For him, he told GameSpot, anything related to video games is a labor of love.

"It really did have to do with my love of video games, and sci-fi, and Destiny," he said. "It was just impossible for me to turn down. It had too many things that I love in it."

The latest in a long line of live action Destiny trailers, this Beastie Boys-scored spot begins with Cayde-6, voiced as ever by Nathan Fillion, introducing a trio of freshly resurrected Guardians to their new life in a world bereft of comforts. Then, they use their big guns and space magic to blow aliens up for a good minute of straight action. They also show off some of Destiny 2's new powers, including each class's new Super ability.

NEW DELHI: Motorola has finally launched its much-talked about budget smartphones, Moto G5S and Moto G5s Plus, in India. The Moto G5S is priced at Rs 13,999, while the Moto G5S Plus will be available at Rs 15,999. Both variants will be available from Amazon India starting at 11.59 am tonight.
The handsets are going on sale along with some offers. Customers can get Rs 1,000 off on exchanging their old Moto smartphone. There is also the option to buy the smartphone at no cost EMIs on credit cards. Moto G5S and the Moto G5S Plus customers will get the option to buy Moto Sports headphones at a discounted price of Rs 499. Furthermore, customers will get 80% off (up to Rs 300) on the Amazon Kindle app. Reliance Jio users will get 50GB additional 4G data on the purchase of the two smartphones.

Apple is reigniting its push for the living room, investing more in original shows and following in the footsteps of Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. But there's no doubt that Apple, which reports have said is spending as much as $1 billion on developing its own shows, is late to the party when it comes to courting audiences, and it's unclear how it will stand out to the average couch potato.

Apple is expected to announce at a Sept. 12 event that Apple TV is getting support for 4K — an ultra high-definition format — which would see it catch up to competitors that already do.

FOX NEWS CANCELED

TV viewers in the United Kingdom will likely not miss watching Fox News, as the network’s parent company 21st Century Fox announced on Tuesday that the company would pull the channel amid low ratings.

“Fox News is focused on the U.S. market and designed for a U.S. audience and, accordingly, it averages only a few thousand viewers across the day in the U.K.,” 21st Century Fox said in a statement provided to CNN. “We have concluded that it is not in our commercial interest to continue providing Fox News in the U.K.”

While 21st Century Fox said its decision was based on the channel’s inability to attract a considerable audience, critics say it’s actually an attempt to smooth over the media giant’s bid to take over European satellite company Sky. (21st Century Fox owns a controlling stake in Sky PLC, the parent company of the London-headquartered network.)

HuffPost UK reports that if the takeover is successful, it would give Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch access to Sky’s 22 million customers in Europe. This audience would be in addition to those of the three U.K. newspapers ― The Sun, The Times, and The Sunday Times ― that the media mogul already owns.

In June, officials delayed Murdoch’s attempted takeover of the 61 percent of Sky that his family does not currently own. British authorities asked regulators to review the deal to see if the takeover would give the family too much control over the country’s media landscape.

Sky ceased broadcasting Fox News on Tuesday at 4 p.m.

Hollywood Takes OFF

Hollywood effectively took the weekend off, resulting in one of the most dismal box-office results in 16 years.

An already slow August came to a screeching halt at the multiplex, where no major new releases were unveiled. That left the Samuel Jackson-Ryan Reynolds action-comedy "The Hitman's Bodyguard" to top all films for the second week with an estimated $10.1 million in ticket sales.

But the entire slate of films grossed only about $65 million in North America and the top 12 films generated just $49.6 million. There have been similarly slow weekends in recent years, including early September in 2014 and in 2016. But not since September 2001 have the numbers been quite so dreadful.

Mid-August through early September is historically the sleepiest time of the year for the movie business, but it's been especially so this year. This August is down a whopping 35 percent from last year, according to comScore. Next week is expected to be just as bad: No new wide releases are scheduled for Labor Day weekend.

For many, the weekend's top entertainment option was Saturday night's Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor match. The Fathom Events simulcast of the fight was one of the more popular offerings in theaters, taking in $2.4 million from 481 screens.

But the bigger problem was the death of significant releases. The six major studios have released only two new wide-release films this August: Sony's poorly received Stephen King adaptation "The Dark Tower" and Warner Bros.'s successful horror spinoff sequel "Annabelle: Creation." The latter came in second this weekend with $7.4 million, bringing its three-week total to $77.9 million.

The Weinstein Co. animated release "Leap!" was one of the few new films to hit theaters. It earned a scant $5 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"It's a black eye for Hollywood but not a knock-out punch," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. "Make no mistake about it, there was little foot traffic in theaters this weekend. But the story line will change in two weeks when 'It' opens."

That second recent King adaptation is the only near light on the horizon for theaters, which are struggling through the lowest-grossing summers in years. ComScore estimates that this will be the first summer in a decade not to cross $4 billion in domestic ticket sales. The summer as a whole is running 14 percent behind last year — and the deadly quiet August is a big reason.

Hurricane Harvey had a minimal effect on nationwide grosses. Instead, mediocre offerings were largely to blame. The Bruce Lee homage "Birth of the Dragon" opened with $2.5 million in 1,618 theaters for BH Tilt and WWE Studios. The low-budget Sony Christian film "All Saints" took in $1.6 million from 846 theaters.

One of the few bright spots on the weekend was the expansion of the Weinstein Co.'s "Wind River," Taylor Sheridan's thriller set on an Indian Reservation in Wyoming. The Jeremy Renner-led film expanded to 2,095 theaters and earned $4.1 million in its fourth weekend.

Steven Soderbergh's heist comedy "Logan Lucky" also held well in its second week, taking in $4.4 million. The film's $15 million two-week total, though, isn't the movie industry game-changer its makers hoped it would be .

With so little action, Warner Bros. put one of the summer's biggest hits — "Wonder Woman" — back into theaters ahead of its home entertainment release. It added $1.7 million, or about three times what the 3-D restoration of James Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" made in 563 locations. Cameron was much criticized last week for comments he made about the feminist credentials of "Wonder Woman."

Trump's Black Man

On The Daily Show With Trevor Noah, comedian Roy Wood Jr. stopped by to shed light on the mysterious Donald Trump supporter who was seen at Trump’s recent rally in Phoenix. His name is Michael the Black Man — and yes, that is what he goes by. Michael the Black Man is African-American, sported a perm and a ponytail, and carried a sign saying “Blacks For Trump” while standing behind Trump at the rally. It’s safe to say he stood out in a Trump crowd and drew a bit of media attention. But his history is a little startling.

Miami New Times reported that Michael is a former member of the murderous Yahweh ben Yahweh cult, and MSNBC reported that that cult stabbed and beheaded people in the early 1990s.

Though Michael the Black Man has a bit of a shady history with following a charismatic leader, not to worry — he’s reformed. Wood Jr. said, “Don’t freak out about it. He wasn’t accused of beheading anybody, though he was accused of gouging a dude’s eyes out with a stick. But he was acquitted. It was the ’90s. Sh*t was crazy. Hammer pants, cocaine. Everybody had a stick in the ’90s.”

Michael the Black Man has a website that claims, among other things, that Cherokee Indians are the real KKK, and that ISIS is teaming up with Hillary Clinton to start a race war.

THOSE 90'S WILL DO IT TO YOU!

Trump Surgery

Hopeful Botched patient Tiffany Taylor is a huge fan of Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka Trump.

In fact, she loves them so much, she has had 13 plastic surgery procedures to look like Ivanka’s “twin sister,” Tiffany Trump.

Perhaps Taylor was unaware that Ivanka already has a sister named Tiffany Trump. Regardless, the Houston woman is determined to make her face great again through plastic surgery.

Taylor said she decided she wanted to look like Ivanka shortly after ending a 10-year relationship. She said that in less than a year, she has had 13 procedures, and was fully anesthetized for three of them.

The work she had done to look more Ivanka-like was grafting of her cheeks, liposuction on her jaw, stomach, butt and arms, breast implants, eyelid lifts — top and bottom — and, of course, a nose job.

Taylor was hoping the doctors could give her a more Trump-like nose. But the surgeons were concerned that Taylor had not given her previous procedures time to heal. Dr Terry Dubrow said, “If you have more plastic surgery, the chances that you run into a significant complication are ‘yuuuuge.'”

Taylor was disappointed, and said, “I’m just looking to be greater, of course. Isn’t everybody?”

Taylor Swift Pics Fox Ads

Is that you, Taylor Swift?

Courtroom sketches of the superstar singer are being derided on social media for not quite capturing her famous visage.

Tweets about the renderings of Swift have provided levity for some in an otherwise serious case of alleged sexual assault.

Swift has accused former Denver radio DJ David Mueller of inappropriately touching her at a backstage meet-and-greet at one of her concerts in June 2013.

Photographers are not being allowed in the courtroom, so a courtroom sketch artist has been providing visual documentation.

One person joked in a tweet, "I think the artist's name is katheryn hudson" -- the birth name of Swift's sometimes rival, Katy Perry.

Why does the @taylorswift13 courtroom sketch look like #OwenWilson ???

Fewer TV commercials don't necessarily have to mean less ad revenue.

Fox Networks Group is lowering the national ad load in Sunday's broadcast of the Teen Choice Awards by 20%, but the awards show is on track to book 30% more ad revenue than last year, according to Suzanne Sullivan, exec VP of entertainment ad sales.

The Teen Choice Awards are the latest front in a growing experiment in TV, where ratings are on a long-term decline. The awards show itself drew just 1.8 million viewers last year, a 30% drop from the year prior. Networks hope reducing commercial interruptions can help keep viewers tuned in and increase the impact of the ads that remain.

But there are plenty of questions surrounding the economics. In order to maintain ad revenue while decreasing ad loads, networks have to raise prices on the inventory. Marketers are far from convinced that they should necessarily pay more to be in a program with less commercial clutter.

Not everyone is finding it easy to maintain ad revenue while working to improve the consumer experience on TV. Viacom CEO Bob Bakish blamed the company's 2% decline in ad revenue during the most recent quarter on the company's decision to reduce inflated ad loads on its networks, which include MTV, VH1and Comedy Central.

At the same time as Fox is reducing ad loads in the broadcast, the network is experimenting with the six-second ad format that's been championed by YouTube since last year. And YouTube has signed on to be a partner of the awards show, with plans to stream Teen Fest 2017, a free music and arts festival held in conjunction.

Facebook X-file Snap

The X-Files revival, a six-episode miniseries, has just come and gone and the reaction seems clear enough. It was a mixed bag, with real highs and, er, not-so-highs. And it certainly proved popular enough for another run of the venerable show, a true pioneer and powerhouse of the ‘90s which, after nine full seasons, petered out the spring after 9/11. Which is fortunate, given what a complete cliffhanger the ending of this run turned out to be.

 SAN FRANCISCO — Ever since Snap, the maker of the messaging app Snapchat, went public in March, the company has become a closely watched barometer for Silicon Valley and Wall Street.

The technology world is scrutinizing Snap as an indicator of whether smaller social media companies can compete with behemoths like Facebook. And Wall Street is using Snap to gauge whether investors will embrace other unprofitable tech companies if they go public.

Snap has not delivered on either front. Over the past few months, the once-buzzy company has faced a litany of issues. Facebook’s photo-sharing app Instagram, as well other Facebook apps that have copied Snapchat’s main features, have been growing more rapidly than Snapchat.

In May, Snap reported disappointing earnings, its first as a public company. Its stock has since plunged well below its $17 public offering price.

SHANGHAI — Facebook and many of its apps have been blocked in China for years. To change that, Mark Zuckerberg has made a big point of meeting with Chinese politicians, reading stodgy Communist Party propaganda, studying Mandarin and — perhaps more daunting — speaking it in public.

Now the social network is trying a different way into China: by authorizing the release of a new app there that does not carry the Facebook name.

Facebook approved the May debut of a photo-sharing app, called Colorful Balloons, in China, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s plans, who declined to be named because the information is politically sensitive. The app, which has not previously been reported, shares the look, function and feel of Facebook’s Moments app. It was released through a separate local company and without any hint that the social network is affiliated with it.

The stealthy and anonymous release of an app by a major foreign technology company in China is unprecedented. It shows the desperation — and frustration — of global tech companies as they try to break into the world’s largest online market. It also underscores the lengths they are willing to go, and their increasing acceptance of the idea that standards for operating in China are different from elsewhere.