ACTIVISION BLIZZARD INC (ATVI)
US00507V1098 - Common Stock
Blizzard takes aim at Overwatch 2 console cheaters
Blizzard is targeting Overwatch 2 cheaters who use a keyboard and mouse on consoles to gain an advantage over controller users.
Is Microsoft Stock Going to $475? 1 Wall Street Analyst Thinks So
Microsoft's free cash flow is underwhelming, and its stock costs too much.
Microsoft Is Letting Blizzard Stay Blizzard, Says WoW VP
World of Warcraft VP Holly Longdale says it's business as usual at Blizzard following the $68.7 billion acquisition by Microsoft.
Homium Raises $10M Series A and Tokenizes First Home Equity Loans on Avalanche Blockchain
Already live in Colorado, Homium's platform launch marks the latest chapter in tokenized asset innovation and on-chain financeNEW YORK - April 17, 2024 - PRLog -- Homium, Inc., a home equity mortgage lender and securitization platform, has launched its tokenized home equity loans on Avalanche. Homium's shared appreciation mortgage provides homeowners with a novel way to borrow against their home equity without increasing their monthly debt burden. The first loans are live in Colorado, and the platform aims to expand to several other states. Through its platform and partnership with Securitize, Homium also offers a new investable asset to institutional investors via digital securities backed by homeowner equity designed to provide returns based on residential home price appreciation.To further develop the platform and scale its lending business, Homium raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by the Sorenson Impact Group and Blizzard, the Avalanche Ecosystem Fund. Also advising Homium is ATLAS SP Partners, which launched in early February 2023 following Apollo Global's acquisition of Credit Suisse's Securitized Products Group."The technical advancements behind Homium are compelling, and we eagerly anticipate witnessing its integration into the residential securitization market," said Jay Kim, CEO of ATLAS SP Partners.Homium's blockchain-native format and transparent terms make its home equity offering unique as a product for both homeowners and investors. Instead of paying interest or monthly payments, homeowners commit a portion of their home's price appreciation, potentially unlocking equity for home improvements, debt consolidation, or passing on to their kids. Investors receive a tokenized asset tracking the price appreciation of a pool of shared appreciation home loans issued in real-time on the Homium platform. The result is a potentially powerful new financial product that may help free up historically trapped home equity and address housing affordability issues in a variety of scenarios."The reason we are so passionately committed to Homium is we believe it will play a critical role in the future of attainable housing," said David Battany, executive vice president, Capital Markets for Guild Mortgage. "It provides a materially lower monthly payment, which keeps more money in the borrower's pockets, improves their financial position and promotes sustainable home ownership."Shared equity investments like Homium are a way for institutional investors to effectively partner with families and local governments to bolster homeownership and middle-class wealth creation, while reducing housing inequity and displacement. For this reason, Homium potential has attracted social impact partners, such as Realize Impact and Sorenson Impact Group."Homium is building a valuable new asset class for institutional investors, providing a new source of uncorrelated, inflation protected return in their core portfolios. For the first-time, institutions can invest side-by-side with homeowners, doing well and while doing good," said Tommy Mercein, CEO of Homium.The Homium platform unites the parties needed to offer shared appreciation mortgage loans to homeowners and issue a standardized, fungible digital asset backed by a pool of those mortgages to qualified investors at scale. Homium's unique loan origination platform streamlines and automates the lending process by combining reliable data integration, intelligent valuation, and highly auditable origination protocols in an open business ecosystem for participating mortgage originators. Guild Mortgage, an industry leading mortgage originator and servicer, is offering its shared appreciation mortgage loans through the platform in multiple states, beginning in Colorado."Homeownership is the foundation of financial security for most Americans; it has been, and continues to be, the gateway to the American dream,'' said Jim Sorenson, chairman of the Sorenson Impact Group."As a social impact investor, we are most enthusiastic about how Homium will help enable more equitable and fair access to capital for economically disadvantaged homeowners," said Matt Eldridge, Executive Director of Realize Impact.The potential to upgrade components of the real estate industry through blockchain has been discussed since the technology's early days. Over the past year and a half, the blockchain industry has witnessed a resurgence in focus on asset tokenization and the associated potential in on-chain finance, with Avalanche leading the charge. Homium marks the latest chapter in this story.For more information, visit Homium.io.###About HomiumHomium Inc. helps homeowners and investors achieve their home financing goals by using patented technology to monetize and securitize owner-occupied home equity at scale. Homium leverages capital markets to unlock home equity through a fair and transparent product that puts homeowners' interests first. Homium enables individual homeowners to "sell" a slice of their primary residence, by taking out an on-title second mortgage in the form of a shared appreciation mortgage loan, which Homium then pools with other loans in an investment vehicle to offer a tokenized security to investors. For the first time, investors are able to gain exposure to home price appreciation at scale, in a uniform and tradable format. Homium loans are currently available in Colorado. For more information about Homium, visit https://Homium.io/.About Ava LabsAva Labs makes it simple to launch decentralized finance applications on Avalanche, the fastest smart contracts platform in the blockchain industry. We are empowering people to easily and freely digitize all the world's assets on one open, programmable blockchain platform.Ava Labs was founded by Cornell computer scientists who brought on talent from Wall Street to execute their vision. The company has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Initialized Capital, and Polychain Capital, with angel investments from Balaji Srinivasan and Naval Ravikant.Website | Whitepapers | Twitter | Discord | GitHub | Documentation | Forum | Telegram | Facebook | LinkedIn | Reddit | YouTubeAbout Blizzard Ecosystem FundBlizzard is a $200M+ fund accelerating development, growth, and innovation across the Avalanche ecosystem and beyond composed of contributions from the Avalanche Foundation, Ava Labs, Polychain Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Dragonfly Capital, CMS Holdings, Republic Capital, amongst others.About AvalancheAvalanche is a smart contracts platform that scales infinitely and regularly finalizes transactions in less than one second. Its novel consensus protocol, Subnet infrastructure, and HyperSDK toolkit enable Web3 developers to easily launch powerful, custom blockchain solutions. Build anything you want, any way you want, on the eco-friendly blockchain designed for Web3 devs.Website | Whitepapers | Twitter | Discord (https://chat.avalabs.org/) | GitHub (https://github.com/ava-labs) | Documentation (https://docs.avax.network/) | Telegram (https://t.me/avalancheavax) | Facebook (https://facebook.com/avalancheavax) | LinkedIn (https://linkedin.com/company/avalancheavax) | Reddit (https://reddit.com/r/avax) | YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/Avalancheavax)About Sorenson Impact GroupThe Sorenson Impact Group catalyzes intentional, scalable and equitable investing to help solve unprecedented global challenges. We offer solutions and tools the impact market needs to scale and succeed. The team brings the investment know-how and networks to accelerate an ecosystem focused on delivering competitive returns alongside real impact.We are grounded in the thesis that superior returns and measurable impact are not mutually exclusive. We believe our impact approach will drive both long-term value creation for our investors and positive outcomes in our communities.About ATLAS SP PartnersATLAS SP Partners is a global investment firm providing tailored solutions, industry expertise and execution certainty on asset-backed financing and capital markets activities that fuel business innovation and growth. ATLAS SP Partners offers a suite of flexible solutions across asset-backed warehouse financing, forward flow and asset purchase, and capital markets and distribution services. Companies of all maturities, from early-stage growth to large public companies, operating across real estate, corporate and consumer financing turn to ATLAS SP Partners for capital and advisory solutions. To learn more, please visit www.atlas-sp.com.+++MEDIA CONTACTHomium, Inc.:pressbox@homium.ioAva Labs:press@avalabs.orgATLAS SP Partners:info@atlas-sp.comSorenson Group:lindsay@thesorensongroup.comNothing herein constitutes an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any security. Any such offer will be made solely pursuant to a private placement memorandum and only to qualified investors.
The War Within Q&A – WoW Devs Dive Deep Into Every Aspect of the Expansion
We joined a press roundtable Q&A with Blizzard to learn more about The War Within, World of Warcraft's tenth expansion that is now in Alpha.
Call of Duty League Billionaire Owners Get Break from Microsoft
Microsoft Corp.’s Activision unit is offering teams competing in its professional Call of Duty League financial relief as the esports industry faces broad challenges generating profit.
Call of Duty League Billionaire Owners Get Break from Microsoft
(Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp.’s Activision unit is offering teams competing in its professional Call of Duty League financial relief as the esports industry faces broad challenges generating profit.Most Read from BloombergChina Tells Iran Cooperation Will Last After Attack on IsraelBeyond the Ivies: Surprise Winners in the List of Colleges With the Highest ROITreasury Yields Hit 2024 Highs as Powell in Focus: Markets WrapIMF Steps Up Its Warning to US Over Spending and Ballooning DebtIran’s Con
US Warns Agencies of Possible Breach Via Microsoft Hack
US federal agencies were ordered to analyze emails, reset compromised credentials and work to secure Microsoft Corp. cloud accounts amid concerns that a Russian nation-state hacking group may have accessed some correspondence.
PRESS DIGEST- New York Times business news - April 11
The Department of Justice has weighed in on a court battle over an oil and gas pipeline in Wisconsin, saying that Enbridge , a Canadian oil company has been willfully trespassing on tribal lands in the state for more than a decade. - The Chinese company NetEase said on Wednesday that it had struck a deal to distribute titles from Microsoft's Blizzard Entertainment, restoring access to popular video games like World of Warcraft for Chinese gamers. - Ippei Mizuhara, the former translator for Shohei Ohtani who was fired late last month amid allegations he stole millions of dollars from the baseball star's bank account to cover debts that Mizuhara owed to an illegal bookmaker, is in negotiations to plead guilty to federal crimes in connection with the purported theft.
Blizzard games are returning to China this summer
Blizzard games including World of Warcraft and Overwatch 2 are returning to China after the publisher reached a new licensing deal with NetEase. The games vanished from the country in January 2023 after a previous agreement expired.
NetEase Brings Blizzard Games Back to China in Summer, Signs Deal with Microsoft to Bring Its Games to Xbox
NetEase will bring Blizzard games back to mainland China starting in Summer. It also signed a deal with Microsoft to bring its games to Xbox.
Blizzard and NetEase Settle Their Beef, Returning Warcraft to China
The deal between the gaming company Blizzard, now owned by Microsoft, and the Chinese giant NetEase renews a partnership that lapsed more than a year ago.
UPDATE 1-Microsoft, NetEase to re-launch Warcraft and other games in China
China's NetEase and U.S. games peer Microsoft said on Wednesday they will bring popular titles including "World of Warcraft" back to China after a fallout involving the developer that ended an almost 15-year partnership. The pair said they are working to bring online games from Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard which Microsoft bought last year, back to the world's second-largest economy, starting this summer. NetEase was the publisher of Blizzard games in China from 2008 to 2023.
‘Warcraft’ Returns to China as Blizzard and NetEase End Spat
(Bloomberg) -- NetEase Inc. reached a new agreement to distribute games in China for Microsoft Corp.’s Blizzard Entertainment, salvaging a 15-year relationship and reviving titles like World of Warcraft for the world’s biggest gaming market.Most Read from BloombergIran’s Better, Stealthier Drones Are Remaking Global WarfareUS Slams Strikes on Russia Oil Refineries as Risk to Oil MarketsTrumpism Is Emptying ChurchesUkraine Says It’s Behind Blaze on Russian Warship in Baltic SeaBond Trader Places
Microsoft and NetEase to re-launch Warcraft game in China, ending feud
A number of popular online games developed by Blizzard were taken offline in China last year after the company terminated its partnership with NetEase.
Microsoft and NetEase to re-launch Warcraft game in China, ending feud
Chinese video games giant NetEase said it is working with Microsoft to bring popular games including "World of Warcraft" back to the country after a public fallout that ended a decade-long partnership in 2023. The two companies said in press release on Wednesday that they are working to bring games developed by Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of U.S. gaming giant Activision Blizzard which Microsoft acquired last year, back to the world's second-largest economy, starting this summer. NetEase was the publisher of Blizzard's games in China from 2008 to 2023.
‘Warcraft’ Returns to China as Blizzard and NetEase Settle Spat
NetEase Inc. reached a new agreement to distribute games in China for Microsoft Corp.’s Blizzard Entertainment, salvaging a 15-year relationship and reviving titles like World of Warcraft for the world’s biggest gaming market.
3 Strong Buy Gaming Stocks to Add to Your Q2 Must-Watch List
Dive into the future with strong buy gaming stocks, riding the wave of 5G, next-gen consoles, and mobile gaming.
Activision is reportedly looking into the malware stealing its users' login credentials
Activision is reportedly in the midst of investigating a hacking campaign that's stealing log-in credentials from people playing its games.
Activision says it’s investigating password-stealing malware targeting game players
Hackers are targeting some video game players with malware designed to steal their passwords.
Reddit to the moon won’t launch an IPO boom
While two knockout IPOs on Wall Street by tech companies will boost confidence, it won’t herald a blizzard of initial public offerings.
'Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile' Finally Launches on iPhone and iPad
Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile finally launched globally today on iOS and Android, after spending the last couple of years in various beta versions and...
Overwatch 2 players won't have to pay or grind through a battle pass to unlock new heroes
Blizzard just announced some major changes to Overwatch 2 that should please players. Starting with season 10, new heroes will automatically unlock upon launch.
Blizzard Bound: A Photojournalist Takes the Galaxy S24 Ultra to Tahoe
I put the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra's cameras in action under the most extreme conditions.
Steamroller Taps Shawn Dunn For Chief Technology Officer
MOUNT DORA, Fla. - March 13, 2024 - PRLog -- Steamroller Animation has announced that Shawn Dunn will be joining the studio as Chief Technology Officer. Dunn will be responsible for guiding and overseeing the studio's technology vision, most notably Steamroller's continued exploration into feature quality animation utilizing real time workflows.Prior to joining Steamroller, Dunn was a Senior Product Manager at Epic Games where he was instrumental in the company's development direction of Unreal Engine in order for it to be easily adopted and used in the Media & Entertainment industry in Virtual Production, Visual Effects and Feature Animation. Shawn spent 3.5 years at Original Force, a privately owned animation studio with bases in Los Angeles, Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and Chengdu, where he was responsible for overseeing the technology foundation of the company, implementing IT and workflow innovations that support the creative and artistic process. Dunn also spent 13 years at Weta FX where he served as Head of Research and Development for the motion group, managing R&D for its animation, motion editing, pre-vis and crowd simulation units. Throughout his 28 year career, Shawn worked on over 30 feature films including Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin and The BFG, James Cameron's Avatar, Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy, King Kong, The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of the King, Rise of The Planet of The Apes, Iron Man 3, Man Of Steel, Dawn of the Planets of the Apes, The Avengers, X-Men: First Class and The Jungle Book."In talking with Jalil and Aaron at Steamroller Animation it was very clear that they have big ideas and goals that they are driving towards. I have worked in the industry for many years and most of my experience has been developing workflows and pipelines to enable companies to work on projects of any scale while being artist and production friendly. I have also been pushing real time workflows for most of my career and these are both areas that Steamroller Animation has been striving towards," says Shawn Dunn, Chief Technology Officer of Steamroller Studios.With its inception in 2014, Steamroller Animation has provided services in animation, rigging, story development, character and concept art across all sectors of the entertainment industry. Steamroller has supported projects such as Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch 2, Epic Games' Fortnite and Lego Fortnite, Disney's Avatar The Way of Water, Netflix's Slumberland and Yu Yu Hakusho, and Guerilla Games' Horizon Forbidden West, to name a few. The independent company has studios in Florida, Mauritius and Vancouver and currently has a global footprint of 260 staff. In 2020, Steamroller released its award winning short film, Spice Frontier, with a pilot episode for the animated series currently in production. In 2021, Steamroller released a teaser for Master, created by Jamaal Bradley. In 2022, the studio released Curse of the Deadwood, a video game available on the Steam platform."Shawn is a perfect match for us, not only because of his constant drive to use technology to improve efficiency but also because of his love for storytelling and Original IP development," says co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Jalil Sadool."He always has the artist in mind whenever he is championing a new technology. It's incredibly refreshing to have someone with so much experience who also really sees himself a servant to everyone on his team. We think the timing for Shawn to join us is perfect! His knowledge will be essential for these next critical steps in our journey as we continue to develop new tools for all departments in our real time pipeline."Aaron Gilman, Chief Executive Officer of Steamroller Studios says, "We are beyond excited to welcome Shawn to Steamroller. I worked with Shawn for years at Weta FX where we formed a great relationship collaborating on cutting edge visual FX and animation projects. At Steamroller, we've built this amazing real time animation pipeline for Spice Frontier. But there's still a huge amount we need to develop as we look to adapt this technology to our slate of original content. With all the new tools and workflows we see in our future, Shawn is going to be instrumental in the next steps of our journey."With production on the pilot episode of Spice Frontier wrapping this year Steamroller plans to shift its focus back to developing Master into an animated feature along with a number of other original stories.To learn more about Steamroller Animation click here.
Political Ads Surge on Streaming TV as Candidates Follow Viewers
In the days leading up to the Super Tuesday primaries this month, viewers of Walt Disney Co.’s Hulu streaming service in Los Angeles saw a blizzard of political ads featuring everything from US Senate candidates to the battle over a city council seat.
Biggest snowstorm of season may be headed for Denver - UPI.com
Forecasters expect the Colorado Rockies to be the site of another helping of heavy snow this week, with the potential for wintry weather and blizzard conditions to snarl travel.