disney

In the cold Alaskan winter, alone with her infant son while her husband was stationed in the Air Force nearby, Ashley Bauza needed something to entertain both herself and her child, something she could get on a tight budget.

She moved north in 2010 and quickly learned after giving birth to Lukas the next year that the rural state not only crimps her kid's playtime options with minus-40 degree temperatures it also amps up the cost of cable and Internet.

"We are on a fixed budget, we do really need to figure out what we forgo," said … Read more

Apple TV is getting live sports and "Game of Thrones" beamed straight to its box, as Apple announces Time Warner's HBO Go and Disney's WatchESPN apps are now available.

But confounding would-be cord cutters, most of the content appears limited to people who already subscribe to a pay-TV provider. It was a sticking point Apple had reportedly fought against.

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of software and services, predicted in a statement that HBO GO and WatchESPN still will be "huge hits on Apple TV," given the two apps are some of … Read more

To the delight of many gamers at E3 on Monday, EA DICE showed off Star Wars Battlefront -- a next-generation "Star Wars" video game that uses the Frostbite 3 graphics engine. DICE uses the same graphics engine in Battlefield 4.

As the 30-second trailer kicks off, you can clearly see a snowy tundra on the ice planet Hoth, presumably set during the battle seen in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," or perhaps a different time in the canon. … Read more

Companies looking to get a piece of the Hulu pie had until this week to put in their first round of bids for the video streaming service. And, it appears that four companies have gone in for a slice.

Former News Corp president Peter Chernin, private equity fund Guggenheim Digital Media (which is headed the former interim Yahoo CEO by Ross Levinsohn), satellite operator DirecTV, and cable operator Time Warner Cable have all put in bids, according to Reuters.

Hulu has supposedly been looking for a buyer over the past couple of years, and recently several companies have allegedly expressed … Read more

There's big, then there's really big, and then there's colossal, which might be a good word to use when describing a near 46,000-pound Lego X-Wing that made a triumphant debut Thursday in New York's Times Square.

The full-size replica, about 42 times the size of the Lego "Star Wars" X-Wing (#9493) set available on store shelves, celebrates the debut of Cartoon Network's "The Yoda Chronicles," which premieres on May 29 at 8 p.m. … Read more

Disney said today that it has begun production on "Star Wars Rebels," a new animated television series. It will air in 2014, first as a one-hour special, and then will continue as a regular series.

The special will be shown on the Disney Channel, while the series will air first on Disney XD channels globally, Disney said. It will be produced by LucasFilm Animation.

The announcement that production has commenced on "Star Wars Rebels" comes just two months after Disney shut down "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a popular and long-running cartoon series. What's unclear is whether the announcement of "Star Wars Rebels" will do anything to ease the enmity toward Disney that has sprung up in the wake of the "Clone Wars" shutdown, as well as the closure of LucasArts, the video game arm of LucasFilm. … Read more

ABC's new live TV video service Watch ABC has arrived on smartphones, tablets, and the Web, though its availability is highly limited for now.

Disney/ABC on Tuesday announced the availability of the live programming feature in its mobile app in New York City as well as Philadelphia though local respective networks WABC-TV and WPVI. The update adds a "live" button to ABC's newly renamed Watch ABC software for iOS devices that lets users in those markets watch live streams of those two stations, just like they would on a TV.

News of the feature came over the weekend … Read more

Television network ABC will reportedly launch an app this week that will allow residents of New York and Philadelphia to watch local programming live on their iPhones and iPads.

The new app will deliver live broadcasts from the local ABC stations at the touch of a "Live" button, making ABC the first U.S. broadcaster to embark on constant live streaming for smartphones and tablets, according to The New York Times. The app is expected to deliver the same programming viewed on traditional sets, except to Internet-connected mobile devices, where ever they happen to be.

The live stream, … Read more

Even if you're too short to join the Galactic Empire as a Stormtrooper, at least you can still see yourself as one with the magic of 3D scanning and printing.

For $99.95, visitors to Florida's Walt Disney World during "Star Wars" Weekends (running each weekend from May 17 to June 9) can immortalize themselves as a 7.5-inch-tall Stormtrooper figurine. In some ways, it's probably a better deal than being a real Stormtrooper. They usually end up getting vaporized aboard a Death Star or miss every shot they fire at fleeing Rebels. … Read more