firehose

China beat the US at the box office for the first time last month, bringing in $650 million compared to the United States' $640 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The milestone follows a month of surging ticket sales in China against a background of slowing box office results in the United States. In particular, the Reporter notes that the Lunar New Year played a big role in boosting China's ticket sales in February. February is also a famously bad month for movies in the US. That all said, this isn't exactly an anomaly, and it goes to underscore exactly how important Chinese audiences have become and will continue to be for Hollywood to cater to.

Hollywood movies weren't even the biggest players

What may scare Hollywood most about these figures is that its own movies didn't play a big role. The New York Times reports that foreign films aren't typically screened around the Lunar New Year, leaving room for films that were made, at least in part, domestically. The two biggest Hollywood movies in China during February were The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 1, which took in $36 million and $35.5 million respectively, according to the Reporter. That's not a huge sum, particularly compared to what the country's top films brought in: $104 million from The Man From Macau II; $95 million for Dragon Blade (which stars Jackie Chan, and — interestingly enough — John Cusack and Adrien Brody); and $72 million from Wolf Totem.

While Hollywood films didn't have a big presence last month, that isn't a sign that they aren't succeeding. The Reporter points out that China's second biggest box office month, July of 2014 with $580 million, succeeded in large part thanks to Transformers: Age of Extinction. The United States is still the largest movie market, according to the Times, but China, in second place, is quickly growing, adding thousands of more movie screens in response to that growth while the United States' total stays flat. Hollywood may not be able to reverse the box office trend in the US, but the growth in China suggests that it'll still have huge audiences to play to for some time.

Uber is trying to force GitHub to disclose the IP address of every person that accessed a webpage connected to a database intrusion that exposed sensitive personal data for 50,000 drivers. The court action revealed that a security key unlocking the database was stored on a publicly accessible place, the online equivalent of stashing a house key under a doormat.

Uber officials have yet to say precisely what information was contained in the two now-unavailable GitHub gists. But in a lawsuit filed Friday against the unknown John Doe intruders, Uber lawyers said the URLs contained a security key that allowed unauthorized access to the names and driver's license numbers of about 50,000 Uber drivers. The ride-sharing service disclosed the breach on Friday, more than two months after it was discovered.

"The contents of these internal database files are closely guarded by Uber," the complaint stated. "Accessing them from Uber’s protected computers requires a unique security key that is not intended to be available to anyone other than certain Uber employees, and no one outside of Uber is authorized to access the files. On or around May 12, 2014, from an IP address not associated with an Uber employee and otherwise unknown to Uber, John Doe I used the unique security key to download Uber database files containing confidential and proprietary information from Uber’s protected computers."

Tinder’s new premium service has launched in the UK, but the price will vary, depending on your age. According to the the Evening Standard, Tinder Plus costs £3.99 (about $6), and will grant you features like unlimited likes and the ability to go back on your last swipe, but that price jumps to £14.99 (about $23) for users over 28.

Tying pricing to a user's age won’t end well for Tinder

Tying pricing to a user's age won’t end well for Tinder, who will probably get backlash from users who feel they shouldn’t be penalized financially for their age. Adding paid tiers is a shameless and clear indication that Tinder does not want older users and will make them pay extra to get the best version of the service. There’s no indication if the age restriction will be expanded to the US when Tinder Plus launches here, but if it is, expect a large influx of 27-year-olds on Facebook in the coming days.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad told the Evening Standard that he believes heavy Tinder users will pay for the enhanced service. "There are users that are just so active — they are just almost addicted to the platform," Rad said. But Rad also realizes everyone won’t make the jump to Tinder Plus. "These features aren’t something that everyone is going to want to use, and we sort of don’t want everyone to use them." Especially if they’re over 28.

The beauty of what we can now call the Sharknado franchise is how it holds up a funhouse mirror to our society. It shows us a parallel universe in which Ian Ziering is a famous shark killer and almost everyone makes the worst possible choice in every situation. Given that commitment to creating a world where the stupidest decision is always made, it makes sense that supercilious assholes Mark Cuban and Ann Coulter will play the President and Vice President of the United States in Syfy’s upcoming Sharknado 3.

We already know that the film is going to launch a bunch of poorly rendered CGI sharks into the air of Washington D.C. and down the East Coast, so it‘s really just a matter of which glib and winking celebrity faces are going to make up the new cast. In addition to cameos by Jerry Springer and Bo ...

More troubled times for Google+. Just under a year ago, the social network had a major shakeup where Vic Gundotra, the then-head of Google+, left Google. Dave Besbris took over and has been running the social network for about 11 months, but now he's out, too. The new new head of Google+ is Bradley Horowitz, who was promoted from VP of product.

In eleven months under Besbris, Google+ appears to have accomplished almost nothing. The biggest—and pretty much only—feature that launched during that time was voting polls. According to a report from TechCrunch, morale at Google+ has been pretty low since Gundotra left, and over half the original staff has left to take on other projects at Google (which many Google employees are free to do). The blame for this doesn't necessarily all fall on Besbris, but the report mentions that employees weren't given many incentives to stay.

Comments from a few high-ranking Googlers seem to indicate that, as the original reports said, Google+ will be split up into several products. It seems that Photos and Hangouts will be split out from G+ somehow, and the social part is now casually referred to as "the stream." For instance, here's Horowitz's statement on his promotion: "Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true -- I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products!" And Sundar Pichai, SVP of Android, Chrome, and Google Apps, told Forbes "I think increasingly you’ll see us focus on communications, photos, and the Google+ Stream as three important areas, rather than being thought of as one area."

Tinder will introduce a paid version of its popular dating app on Monday, TechCrunch reports. The paid version, known as Tinder Plus, adds two main features: a "rewind" option that lets users reconsider the last person they rejected ("left-swiped"), and a passport function that lets them swipe in different cities. Citing sources familiar with the situation, TechCrunch reports that the paid version will be available for under $10 in the US, though prices will reportedly vary across different markets.

Paying for the service will also remove ads, which are reportedly launching on Tinder's network later this month. Last week, Recode reported that the Los Angeles-based startup is building an ad product that will be led by Brian Norgard, who co-founded the Tappy ephemeral messaging app that Tinder acquired earlier this year.

The company has been testing Tinder Plus across Europe over the past few weeks, with prices ranging from $0.99 to $19.99 per month. I was forced to update to the freemium version of the app last week, which limits my likes unless I pay $9.99 per month. Last month, the company said it was beta testing the 24-hour right-swipe limit as a way to crack down on porn-y spambots, but as Business Insider notes, the feature has resulted in some rather negative feedback in App Store reviews.

It's not yet clear whether limited likes will be included in the version of Tinder Plus that launches today. (TechCrunch makes no mention of it in its report.) A Tinder spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The FCC is looking into whether Comcast and Time Warner Cable have placed any restrictions or limits on companies' streaming video services. Last week, letters were sent to eight companies including Disney, CBS, and Viacom asking if either cable provider placed any "limits on distribution" on streaming video. The Justice Department is asking its own questions about Comcast and Time Warner Cable, according to Bloomberg, to find out if the potential merger would have a negative impact on online video. Both the FCC and the Justice Department are tasked with reviewing the merger between the two cable giants.

Responses to the FCC are due by March 13th

Back in 2011, Comcast was restricted from placing limits or restrictions on online video by the US government when it approved its acquisition of NBCUniversal. A decision on the merger is expected soon by the FCC; the commission places a 180-day goal for each merger it reviews — today is the 151st day. Last week, Comcast said it was "optimistic" that the deal will close in early 2015. The FCC is asking for a response to its questions by March 13th.

Google Senior VP Sundar Pichai today discussed a possible wireless service that Google could launch in the next few months.

"We don't intend to be a carrier at scale, and we're working with existing partners," Pichai said in a public Q&A session at Mobile World Congress, according to The Verge. "You'll see some of our ideas come to fruit in the next few months." Pichai oversees Android, Chrome, and Google Apps.

The Information reported last month that Google plans to become an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator), reselling Sprint and T-Mobile network capacity to consumers rather than building out its own cell towers. "Google is preparing to sell mobile phone plans directly to customers and manage their calls and mobile data over a cellular network, according to three people with knowledge of the plans," the site reported at the time.

Today at Mobile World Congress, Cyanogen and Alcatel announced the Hero 2+, a 6-inch smartphone that will come with CyanogenMod preinstalled. The Hero 2+ is a variation of the Hero 2 Alcatel released globally last year, and features a 6-inch, 1080p display, a 2GHz octacore Mediatek processor, 2GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera, support for LTE on AT&T and T-Mobile, and a stylus. It will be available in North America this spring for $299 unlocked.

CyanogenMod is already available on a handful of smartphones across the world, including the Oppo N1, OnePlus One, and devices in India. The Hero 2+ will run CyanogenMod 11, which is based on Android 4.4 KitKat, though it will likely be upgraded to newer version of the software as it is released. Alcatel says that the Hero 2's unique features, including the snap on LED covers and stylus will be supported in the Hero 2+ with CyanogenMod.

All of the Hero 2's unique accessories and features will work in CyanogenMod

Cyanogen has grown as a company since it was just a modification for Android phones designed to make the devices perform better and be easier to use than with their original software. The company's mission is to spread an "open Android" that is less reliant on Google's services. "We want to eliminate the problem of bloatware by enabling more powerful apps that hook deeper into the system," said cofounder Steve Kondik in a recent interview.

Not everyone shares Cyanogen's vision however. In a talk earlier today, Google's head of product (which includes Android) Sundar Pichai noted that he doesn't yet know the value propoisition in CyanogenMod, or versions of Android that bypass Google's services, such as the Play Store, Maps, and Gmail, in general. "I’d question the premise of building something without Google’s services ... these are services users ask for on their devices," said Pichai.

For its part, CyanogenMod does offer Google services in all of the countries where they are supported, and Kondik says the whole platform is Google compliant. Earlier today, Cyanogen announced a new partnership with Qualcomm that puts its software on reference devices Qualcomm provides to handset makers. The reference devices with Cyanogen's software will be low-end to mid-range devices, and should benefit from the performance enhancements CyanogenMod generally brings to underspecced phones.

Alcatel and Cyanogen say that the Hero 2+ is just the first fruits of a partnership that will result in multiple devices this year and next. Perhaps one of those will be a new Idol 3 running CyanogenMod?