Google partners with Fandango; Layoffs at Uproxx Media Group; lawmakers call for diversity in tech.
Google and Los Angeles-based Fandango have teamed up to let consumers buy movie tickets with voice commands, Variety reports. The two companies teamed up to bring Fandango’s online movie ticket sales to the Google Assistant, which powers voice interactions on Google’s line of Google Home smart speakers as well as Android phones, Android TVs and other devices running the assistant software.
Culver City based-Uproxx Media Group, which publishes digital brands like entertainment news site HitFlix, men’s lifestyle site BroBible, sports site Dime and Uproxx.com, laid off 10 employees between last week and this week as part of a corporate strategy shift, The Hollywood Reporter reports. According to the reporting, company sources said the terminations could be as high as 14 to 20 people.
Black Lawmakers Mull Regulations to Increase Diversity in Tech
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and other black lawmakers are growing impatient with tech companies’ lack of diversity, Recode reports. Waters said she was “floored” to find out that many tech companies had only 1 percent to 2 percent black employees. “I’m talking about some regulation,” said Waters, who was jokingly referred to by her fellow CBC members on their trip to Silicon Valley as “The Enforcer.” “I’m talking about using the power that our voters have given us to produce legislation and to talk about regulation in these industries that have not been talked about before,” she said. She later added, “I’m not urging, I’m not encouraging, I’m about to hit some people across the head with a hammer.”
Technology reporter Eli Horowitz can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachhorowitz13 for the latest in L.A. tech news.
