Archives for October 13, 2019

The follow-up to ‘Band of Brothers’ is coming to Apple TV+

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After trying to adapt ‘Masters of the Air’ with HBO, Steven Spielberg turns to Apple for help.

Just one day after signing Alfonso Cuarón to a multi-year deal, Apple has scored another coup for its upcoming Apple TV+ streaming service. Variety reports the company will produce Masters of the Air, the follow-up to 2001’s Band of Brothers and 2010’s The Pacific. Both Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who helped create the two World War II series, will serve as executive producers on the new show.

This time around, the source material comes from historian Donald Miller’s book of the same name. Masters of the Air documents the contributions of airmen from the 8th Air Force during World War II. The 8th Air Force was the largest of the air components the US army deployed in western Europe. It took part in both the invasion of Normandy and the bombing of Dresden. Spielberg and Hanks had been trying to adapt Masters of the Air with HBO since at least 2013. According to Variety, John Orloff, who worked on Band of Brothers (he penned the series’ emotional “Why We Fight” episode) is writing the script for Masters of the Air.

Notably, after House of Cards, this marks the second major series HBO has lost to one of its streaming competitors, though this one comes as less of a surprise since Apple and Spielberg were already working together on Amazing Stories. Apple TV+ will launch on November 1st with a $4.99 per month price tag.

Apple adds five new Arcade games as its free trial draws to a close

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Roughly a week left to binge for free.

Not sure what to make of Apple Arcade, the company’s $5 a month gaming service? It didn’t really matter, as the service landed in September (or earlier if you were on the beta) with a free month trial on iOS and iPadOS and MacOS. But it’s a few weeks on, and in a bid to keep you playing (and start paying), Apple Arcade’s latest update lands today, adding to the 75 games already on board.

Inmost

Publisher Chucklefish is best known for Stardew Valley and Wargroove, but Inmost, from studio Hidden Layer Games, looks like a very different game again. With bleak pixel art wrapped around a 2D puzzle adventure, you’ll control three different characters, trying to defeat enemies and use traps to your advantage.

ShockRods

For something completely unlike Inmost, ShockRods is another racing game for Apple arcade, with multiplayer and gameplay modes including deathmatch and capture the flag. It looks like a destructive racer — so it’s probably completely different to Sonic Racers, then. The game will also be coming to Steam soon.

Stela

Apple Arcade already has no shortage of puzzle games (they’re good on phones, okay?), and Stela should offer a degree of cerebral challenge alongside platform traversing and exploration. Oh and a creepy soundtrack. Headphones in. You might recall Stela being revealed for the Xbox One — it’s still headed for the Microsoft console on October 17th and Steam early 2020.

Decoherence

Decoherence, a new RTS game involving armies of robots, combines PvP matches with a single-player campaign. Your character will join the fight as a pilot, and you’ll be able to customize your robots to tackle anything. Apparently “anything can happen” during matches. And, importantly, your character can be a penguin general.

Mind Symphony

Mind Symphony promises to “emotionally and mentally impact you”, but we don’t know much about this game, besides the fact that gameplay will sync with the music and play a little like a bullet-hell shoot-em-up. In Release Mode, enemy attacks synchronize with the soundtrack. Meanwhile, Calm Mode focuses more on the melody for timing your attacks — and presumably making things a little easier.

Google bans predatory payday loan apps from the Play Store

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It’s trying to prevent exploitative behavior, but companies aren’t happy.

Google has fought predatory loans for a while, but now it’s taking that fight to its app store. The Wall Street Journal has learned that Google recently banned Play Store apps with “deceptive or harmful” personal loans where the annual percentage rate is 36 percent or higher, such as many payday loans. A spokesman said the expanded financial policy, implemented in August, was meant to “protect users” against “exploitative” terms.

Apple doesn’t have a similar ban, but told the WSJ that it routinely reviews its App Store rules to “address new or emerging issues.”

To no one’s surprise, affected lenders aren’t happy — this forces them to either offer lower rates or bow out entirely. Online Lenders Alliance CEO Mary Jackson repeatedly maintained that the companies’ practices were allowed, arguing that the ban hurts “legitimate operators” as well as customers looking for “legal loans.”

While there won’t be too many people mourning the absence of these loans, Google’s decision does raise the question of whether store operators should ban apps whose business models are ethically shaky, but still legal. Much like retailers’ approaches to e-cigarettes, tech giants may have enough power to decide whether or not entire business categories can succeed.

Stocks to Watch: Chevron Corporation (CVX) Closes 1.36% Up

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Shares of Chevron Corporation (CVX) ended the trading day at $116.15, representing a move of 1.36%, or $1.56 per share, on volume of 5.13 million shares.

Chevron is an integrated energy company with exploration, production, and refining operations worldwide. Chevron is the second-largest oil company in the United States with production of 2.9 million of barrels of oil equivalent a day, including 6.9 million cubic feet a day of natural gas and 1.8 million of barrels of liquids a day. Production activities take place in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Its refineries are in the United States, South Africa, and Asia for total refining capacity of 1.6 million barrels of oil a day. Proven reserves at year-end 2018 stood at 12.1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, including 6.8 billion barrels of liquids and 31.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

After opening the trading day at $115.69, shares of Chevron Corporation traded between a range of $115.36 and $117.03. Chevron Corporation currently has a total float of 1.9 billion shares and on average sees n/a shares exchange hands each day.

The stock now has a 50-day SMA of $n/a and 200-day SMA of $n/a, and it has a high of $127.34 and low of $100.22 over the last year.

Chevron Corporation is based out of San Ramon, CA, and has 48,600 employees. The company’s CEO is Michael K. Wirth.

Stocks to Watch: Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) Closes 1.07% Up

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Shares of Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) ended the trading day at $68.98, representing a move of 1.07%, or $0.73 per share, on volume of 10.1 million shares.

ExxonMobil is an integrated oil and gas company that explores for, produces, and refines oil around the world. In 2018, it produced 2.3 million barrels of liquids and 9.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day. At the end of 2018, reserves were 24.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (including 4.2 billion for equity companies), 65% of which are liquids. The company is the world’s largest refiner with a total global refining capacity of 4.7 million barrels of oil per day and one of the world’s largest manufacturers of commodity and specialty chemicals. It operates its business divisions in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa, and the Asia-Pacific.

After opening the trading day at $68.98, shares of Exxon Mobil Corporation traded between a range of $68.89 and $69.49. Exxon Mobil Corporation currently has a total float of 4.23 billion shares and on average sees n/a shares exchange hands each day.

The stock now has a 50-day SMA of $n/a and 200-day SMA of $n/a, and it has a high of $84.17 and low of $64.65 over the last year.

Exxon Mobil Corporation is based out of Irving, TX, and has 71,000 employees. The company’s CEO is Darren W. Woods.

Stocks to Watch: Apple Inc. (AAPL) Rises 2.66%

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Among the biggest risers on the S&P 500 was Apple Inc. ($AAPL), popping some 2.66% to a price of $236.21 a share with some 41.67 million shares trading hands.

Starting the day trading at $232.95, Apple Inc. reached an intraday high of $237.64 and hit intraday lows of $232.31. Shares gained $6.12 apiece by day’s end. Over the last 90 days, the stock’s average daily volume has been n/a of its 4.52 billion share total float. Today’s action puts the stock’s 50-day SMA at $n/a and 200-day SMA at $n/a with a 52-week range of $142.00 to $230.44.

Apple designs a wide variety of consumer electronic devices, including smartphones (iPhone), tablets (iPad), PCs (Mac), smartwatches (Apple Watch), and TV boxes (Apple TV), among others. The iPhone makes up the majority of Apple’s total revenue. In addition, Apple offers its customers a variety of services such as Apple Music, iCloud, Apple Care and Apple Pay, among others. Apple’s products run internally developed software and semiconductors, and the firm is well known for its integration of hardware, software and services. Apple’s products are distributed online as well as through company-owned stores and third-party retailers. The company generates about 40% of its revenue from the Americas, with the remainder earned internationally.

Apple Inc. has its corporate headquarters located in Cupertino, CA and employs 132,000 people. Its market cap has now risen to $1067.48 billion after today’s trading, its P/E ratio is now n/a, its P/S n/a, P/B 11.07, and P/FCF n/a.