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Tag: NMA

  • Alibaba IPO Gets The NMA Treatment

    Alibaba IPO Gets The NMA Treatment

    Next Media Animation is at it again. The Taiwanese animators have released this video depicting a predictably insane take on the Alibaba IPO. It involves a giant panda, some puppies, and a genie.

    The company filed for the IPO earlier this week. It’s said to be the largest ever for a tech company.

    The Chinese e-commerce giant dominates mobile commerce in that country, accounting for a reported 76% of all sales and roughly 136 million monthly active users. It detailed its financial performance for the first nine months of its fiscal year 2013, which includes revenue of $6.51 billion and net income of $2.85 billion.

    You can find the filing here.

    Alibaba expects to sell about 12% of its shares, which means that the IPO could generate around $20 billion, according to reports.

    Image via YouTube

  • Sergey Brin’s Love Life Gets The NMA Treatment

    Rumors and reports of affairs at Google are nothing new. Last year, it was reported that Eric Schmidt had numerous mistresses despite being married to Wendy Boyl. Now a new report is out on an even bigger affair involving Google co-founder Sergey Brin, his ex-wife, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend.

    It’s no secret that Sergey Brin and his wife Anne Wojcicki split last year. What was a secret until now was one of the reasons behind the split – Brin’s affair with another Google employee. Vanity Fair reports that Amanda Rosenberg, who was once dating Android’s vice president of product management, Hugo Barra, left him in favor of Brin. Barra left Google shortly thereafter, but his resignation was reportedly filed before they split up.

    Brin’s romance may be the central subject of the Vanity Fair piece, but it does touch upon the dating culture at Google. Unlike most workplaces, Google doesn’t seem to mind if its employees date and some sources say there are “hundreds of ‘Google Couples’ among its global offices.”

    All of this and more has been captured in a new report from our favorite Taiwanese animators. Like the Vanity Fair piece, it mostly concerns itself with Brin’s relationship with Rosenberg; but there is a bit on the casual romance club going on Google.

    Image via Taiwanese Animators/YouTube

  • Titanfall Gets The NMA Treatment

    Titanfall Gets The NMA Treatment

    After almost a year after its initial reveal, Titanfall is finally available today on Xbox One and PC. The Xbox One version is particularly important as its being positioned as the system seller Microsoft needs right now in the face of 6 million PS4 units sold and counting.

    So, will Titanfall “save” the Xbox One? At this point, probably not. The $500 price tag of the Xbox One – even with a free copy of Titanfall – is a little steep. That being said, we’ll definitely see a small sales boost thanks to the hype surrounding the game, but we’re likely to see it sell much better on the Xbox 360 when that version launches later this month.

    That’s only my take though. What does everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animation studio think? They’re certainly excited about the game, but they do feel it does have some drawbacks. Namely, the lack of a single-player campaign and a $60-a-year Xbox Live subscription hurts the Xbox One version. The subscription fees don’t affect the PC version, but they have to deal with ever-improving-but-still-not-quite-there Origin platform.

    Regardless of how well it does on the Xbox One, you’re going to be hearing a lot about Titanfall over the coming weeks and months. It’s an important title and, more importantly, it’s really good.

    Just don’t forget that death’s cold embrace will always be waiting for you in case you tire of mech warfare.

    Image via Taiwanese Animators/YouTube

  • Comcast-Time Warner Cable Merger Gets The NMA Treatment

    Last week, Comcast announced that it intends to purchase Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion. As expected, the announcement was met with criticism from pretty much everybody as words like “anti-trust” and “monopoly” were thrown around while others lamented a future of broadband data caps and terrible customer service.

    Besides the obvious threat to the Internet, the combination of Comcast and Time Warner Cable would also make the consolidated mass of power an unstoppable force when it comes to negotiating with content companies. Just last year, Time Warner Cable got into a fight with CBS over the cost of its programming rights which resulted in CBS being pulled from TWC’s offerings until an agreement was made. If Comcast and Time Warner Cable merge, it would give them considerable clout when dealing with content providers. It might be a good short term solution, but it would put cable companies and content providers consistently at odds which is never good for consumers.

    As always, the big news of the week isn’t complete without a report from our favorite Taiwanese animators. The folks at NMA cover all the basics while giving us a preview of the porn free future that would result from the merger going through.

    Image via Taiwanese Animators

  • Flappy Bird Gets The NMA Treatment

    Flappy Bird Gets The NMA Treatment

    If you follow fads at all, you’re no doubt aware of the rise and fall of Flappy Bird. The simple, yet unfairly difficult, game has been the subject of much debate over the past few weeks. Critics and gamers have been going back and forth over whether or not it can even be considered a game while some have questioned the integrity of its creator.

    The creator, Dong Nguyen, had enough over the weekend and announced he would be pulling the game from both the iOS app store and Google Play on Sunday. It’s unclear why he pulled it only saying that he “cannot take this anymore.”

    After his statement, some speculated that he was under some legal pressure over his game featuring pipes that are of the same color and similar design to those found in Super Mario Bros. games. Nintendo and Nguyen have both dismissed that as a reason though.

    The most likely answer can be found in the fact that gamers (and people in general) can be the absolute worst. It’s no secret that Nguyen received death threats from trolls on a constant basis for his game being too difficult, but a new wave of abuse hit him when people began to accuse him of stealing assets from Nintendo games or using bots to inflate his position on the iOS app store.

    The same kind of pressure forced Phil Fish, creator of Fez, to leave the gaming industry. Nguyen won’t be giving up on game development, but he pulled Flappy Bird because of all the negative attention it brought him.

    As is customary, the Flappy Bird saga has now been immortalized by NMA. If you’re too lazy to read the sad story of a man who just wanted to make games, you should watch NMA’s humorous take on it instead:

    Image via Taiwanese Animators/YouTube

  • Here’s Your Super Bowl XLVIII Preview Courtesy Of NMA

    Beast, Macklemore and chugging bottles of Cheez Whiz – all signs of the impending Superb Owl Super Bowl.

    During the past week, we’ve already seen a number of predictions regarding which team is going to take home the trophy this year. The two big ones – the Madden NFL simulation and players from both teams playing Madden – both have the Broncos winning the game. What do our favorite Taiwanese animators think?

    NMA doesn’t like to play favorites and point out that it’s going to be a close game. They point to the Seahawk’s impeccable defense and the Bronco’s unstoppable offense as signs that Sunday’s game may be pretty close. Of course, even in the end, we all know the real winner is going to be the Polar Vortex as it has already dominated America much like the Seahawks have dominated Bing search traffic.

    Image via Taiwanese Animators/YouTube

  • NSA Court Decision Gets The NMA Treatment

    Yesterday, a federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled that the NSA’s mass collection of phone records was unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. The ruling was certainly welcome, but it doesn’t actually put an end to the NSA’s surveillance program. We’ll have to wait until the case goes to the Appeals Court.

    In the meantime, our favorite Taiwanese animators over at NMA have thrown together a little short about yesterday’s ruling. The short gives a brief history of the past year in leaks from Edward Snowden and Wired Magazine and how the Obama administration has tried to paint its programs as legal under precedents set during the 80s.

    While this ruling doesn’t really mean anything for now, it’s still a symbolic victory for the people who have been fighting against the NSA’s surveillance powers for years now. Those same people might have another victory on their hands later this week when Obama meets with tech giants to discuss the NSA and its spying powers. If the President can’t convince these companies over to his side, he and those who support the NSA will have some powerful opponents in the coming years.

    Image via Taiwanese Animators/YouTube

  • Britain’s Gaming Addiction Gets The NMA Treatment

    Are you addicted to video games? You probably want to say no, but you realize that spending 40 or more hours a week in front of a screen might not be all that healthy. Well, rest easy knowing that you’re not as bad as some gamers in the UK.

    Domino’s Pizza recently surveyed UK gamers to ask them multiple questions about their gaming habits. While most surveys would be content to just ask about average weekly playtime, Domino’s went a bit deeper. The chain found that half of all male gamers would rather play games than have sex. Some female gamers also reported not showing up to important events, like weddings or funerals, to play games.

    As expected, our favorite Taiwanese animators at NMA couldn’t leave such a story alone. In it, we’re treated to the extremes some people will go through to keep playing games. The video may even be prophetic as a bride is playing games via the Oculus Rift while she’s at the altar. Nothing says love like ignoring the groom to play a French Revolution simulator.

    While the above may be in jest, any kind of addiction is no laughing matter. I have stared into the abyss of gaming addiction and it isn’t pretty. This isn’t to say that you should give up on your current gaming habits, but sprinkling in other activities, especially those with friends, is never a bad idea.

    [Image: Taiwanese Animators/YouTube]

  • Amazon Prime Air Gets The NMA Treatment

    Amazon Prime Air Gets The NMA Treatment

    Over the weekend, Amazon surprised just about everybody with its announcement of Amazon Prime Air. For those just joining us, it’s a new project at Amazon R&D that seeks to deliver packages to customers via drones. The hope is that Amazon can finally deliver same day delivery as the drones would take only 30 minutes to reach a customer.

    As you might expect, the news have received mixed reactions. Some people welcome a future full of delivery drones while others are still distrustful of the technology. Those who are distrustful cite privacy claims as well as safety hazards that might result from the use of autonomous drones.

    Like always, our favorite Taiwanese animators at NMA already envision a future of Amazon Prime Air where drones take pictures of our private underwear parties while our redneck neighbors shoot down the drones. There’s also the concern that people might “kidnap” the drones to keep, but I’m sure Amazon will have anti-theft measures in place to keep people from getting a five-finger discount on a multi-thousand dollar piece of technology.

    Are you one of the many Americans that still don’t trust drones, or do you think Amazon Prime Air is a natural evolution of package delivery? I for one welcome our new flying robot masters if it means I get free air delivery by drone. Hopefully others will follow suit, including pizza delivery by air.

    [Image: Taiwanese Animators/YouTube]

  • The History Of Black Friday As Told By NMA

    On the day after Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will practice a tradition that’s uniquely American – Black Friday. It’s a day when Americans and corporations can agree that greed is good as they trample each other in the pursuit of the best deals possible. You may be wondering then how all this Black Friday stuff started.

    According to Wkipedia, Black Friday as a term came into existence after the financial crisis of 1869. It wasn’t until 1961, however, that the term became associated with shopping. At the time, the term was still related to a financial crisis, and some suggested the name be changed to Big Friday. That obviously didn’t happen. From there, Black Friday started to impress itself onto the national consciousness and sales on the day after Thanksgiving were increasingly called Black Friday sales.

    While that may be the real history, fake history is always more fun. That’s where everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators come in with a tale of pilgrims, slavery and HD butter churns. It may not be historically accurate, but it’s pretty damn funny.

    Check it out:

    [Image: Taiwanese Animators/YouTube]

  • The iPad Air Gets The NMA Treatment

    The iPad Air Gets The NMA Treatment

    Did you hear? Apple unveiled its latest iPad – the iPad Air – yesterday. The company boasted that it was the lightest full-sized tablet in the world at just 1 pound, and even tossed in free iLife and iWork apps to sweeten the deal for those buying the new 64-bit tablet.

    Now, new Apple products are always a source of joy for the ardent Apple devotee, but it’s also a source of humor for everyone else. Enter NMA – it’s latest parody revives the ghost of Steve Jobs for one more sketch as it makes fun of everything from the iPad’s dwindling marketshare to Apple’s developer policies.

    Google’s latest smartphone – the Nexus 5 – and tablet – the Nexus 10 – are expected to be unveiled next week. Here’s hoping NMA has more fun with that next week.

    [Image: NMAWorldEdition/YouTube]

  • Facebook Privacy News Gets The Taiwanese Animation Treatment

    On Thursday, Facebook announced that users would no longer be able to keep their profiles out of Graph Search. Last year, the company already removed the ability for users who weren’t taking advantage of it. Now, people that were taking advantage are losing it too.

    More on that here.

    Now, we get the fun Taiwanese animation version of the story courtesy of Next Media Animation:

    Always a treat.

    Image: NMA

  • Marina Shifrin “I Quit” Video Parodied By WAH Mom

    A few days ago, Marina Shifrin’s “I Quit” video blew up around the web. The now ex-web content producer had a job working for NMA, and because she disagreed with the company’s business strategy, she made a cute video of her dancing to Kanye West, informing her superiors of her decision to move on. Needless to say, Shifrin’s video grew some incredibly powerful viral legs, gaining almost 10 million views in under a week. As is the case when something becomes virally popular on the Internet, imitation, parody, and creating memes becomes the order of the day.

    The first to strike this parody iron was a work at home mom by the name of Brenna Jennings. Apparently, Jennings has a family that makes the working at home portion of her existence a tiring one, and so, she made her own “I Quit” video, which leads this article. Instead of quitting a 9-5 office job, Jennings has had enough of cleaning up after her kids and husband, and so she bails on the situation; or goes to the store to pick up some milk.

    Whichever.

    Jennings deserves all the credit in the world for getting the interpretive dance portion of the video right, and she does so quite well. The response video was posted two days after Shifrin exploded on the seen, and while it hasn’t accumulated anywhere near the same kind of views the original did, the parody has collected over 100,000 views, which is nothing to turn your nose up to. As you might expect, some jokers are using YouTube’s last days of anonymity to poke fun at the parody’s creator, and she holds her own quite admirably:

    FatWalruses 15 hours ago
    This comment has received too many negative votes
    ‘Work’ at home. These videos are cringingly awkward. If you don’t like to work, then don’t. Poor husband, he probably never gets laid anymore. Last blowjob for him was in the eighties.

    Brenna Jennings 11 hours ago
    My husband was a little boy in the 80s, so that would be really weird. Thanks for your witty observations, though.

    Rock on with your bad self, Brenna.

    [Lead image courtesy of Brenna Jennings]

  • NMA Employee Quits in Amazing, Viral Fashion (with an Interpretive Dance Set to Kanye)

    Well, this is one way to quit your job.

    “I work for an awesome company that makes news videos. I have put my entire life into this job, but my boss only cares about quantity, how fast we write and how many views each video gets,” said Marina Shifrin on her now-viral YouTube resignation. “I believe it’s more important to focus on the quality of the content. When you learn to improve this, the views will come. Here is a little video I made explaining my feelings.”

    And with that, she’s gone. She’s gone to the tune of Kayne West’s “Gone,” and a nice bit of interpretive dancing. If this isn’t the most meta way to quit a job where you produce viral videos, I don’t know what is.

    Shifrin works worked for Next Media Animation – the popular Taiwanese animation company that has become internet famous for their short, bizarre animated renderings of the day’s hottest news items.

    You can read her brief interview with Gizmodo from last year, where she talks about the hectic process of speed animation. I guess it all became too much to handle.

    And if you’re going to go out, there’s nothing like going out with hundreds of thousands of YouTube views.

    Image via YouTube

  • Valve’s SteamOS Gets The NMA Treatment

    Valve’s SteamOS Gets The NMA Treatment

    Yesterday afternoon, Valve announced SteamOS. It’s an open and free Linux-based operating system built specifically to play PC games. Valve reportedly has the support of many major industry players, and will be rolling it out this year.

    Before that, though, you must be wondering what everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators think about Valve’s move into the standardized gaming market. Well, wonder no more as below you’ll find a video featuring the death of Mario, a naked Gabe Newell and a stack of Ouya consoles being burned. In short, it’s entirely too prophetic

    Like always, NMA’s animations may be in jest, but they do bring up a good point. Is Valve going to take over living room gaming with SteamOS? It’s hard to say at this point, but standardized PC hardware that can be upgraded at a faster pace than consoles, but at a lesser cost would do wonders for the PC market. Linux also has the potential to benefit greatly as it may finally have the vehicle it needs to encourage broad consumer adoption.

    Finally, what about microconsoles? SteamOS will most likely run on miniPCs that can better compete with the Ouyas and GameSticks of the world. Who wants to play mobile games on their TV when they can play the latest indie and AAA PC titles on their TV instead?

    [Image: NMAWorldEdition]

  • Grand Theft Auto V Gets The NMA Treatment

    Tomorrow is the day – Grand Theft Auto V launches on Xbox 360 and PS3. The millions of gamers across the country who pre-ordered will be able to pick up what is arguably the biggest entertainment launch of the year at midnight.

    Before you drop everything to play GTAV for two weeks straight, you might want to check out what everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animation outlet has to say about Rockstar’s latest. As expected, the focus is on the series’ trademark violence, sexuality and controversy. Beyond that, you’ll wanna stick around until the end for the cocaine road lines and grave robbing-fueled deviancy.

    Regardless of how you feel about Grand Theft Auto, it’s all anybody is going to be talking about for the next few weeks. You might as well get used to it.

    [Image: NMAWorldEdition/YouTube]

  • iPhone 5C = 5 Babies In This Taiwanese Animation Version Of Apple’s News

    NMA is at it again. The Taiwanese animation studio has put out its parody of Apple’s new iPhone 5C and 5S unveilings.

    The video includes such scenes as a woman trying to trade a baby for an iPhone 5C, only to be greeted with a sign from Tim Cook indicating that one of the devices is worth five babies. Another involves a criminal stealing somebody’s iPhone 5S, and also chopping off the victim’s finger and wearing it on a necklace to get around the fingerprint security.

    Yeah, it’s classic NMA stuff.

    Don’t worry. They’re not biased. The other day, they some fun with the Android Kit Kat announcement too.

  • Android KitKat Gets The NMA Treatment

    Last week, Google announced that its latest Android operating system would be called KitKat instead of the oft-rumored Key Lime Pie. Google said the name was chosen partly due to its employees’ love for the crunchy chocolate bars. Leave it up to NMA then to turn it into a story about a laser-eye KitKat Bugdroid.

    In the latest video from our favorite Taiwanese animators, NMA reports on a recent study from Google that sought to cut down on the amount of chocolate that its employees were eating. The company felt that too many of its employees were eating way too many M&Ms, and such a poor diet could lead to the employees being unhappy. They found a clever way around the chocolate obsession by storing the M&Ms inside opaque jars while leaving healthier options in clear jars.

    That’s one problem solved, but Google still has a hankering for chocolate. It’s one of the reasons why the company decided to name its next Android version KitKat. Does that mean that we’ll have an Android version named M&M in the next few years? I don’t know, but I’m not entirely opposed to having candy coated shells shaped like Bugdroid.

    [Image: NMAWorldEdition/YouTube]

  • Miley Cyrus’ Twerking Gets The NMA Treatment

    You can’t walk two steps this week without hearing something about Miley Cyrus or twerking. Since her now infamous VMAs performance, everybody has been trying to explain the twerking phenomenon. Now everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators have thrown in their two cents.

    Unlike some other outlets that tried to explain the reason behind Cyrus’ performance, NMA goes right to the heart of the matter. They feel that twerking is forever ruined as everybody, including your parents, will now start shaking their booty at the most inappropriate moments.

    Is twerking the next Macarena? For the sake of all our souls, I hope not. I don’t think I could take Ellen, Al Roker or other daytime TV personalities twerking on national television. We should just all forget it happened before we start seeing it show up on children’s television. The dancing in Yo Gabba Gabba is already weird enough.

    [Image: NMAWorldEdition/YouTube]

  • Hyperloop Gets The NMA Treatment

    Hyperloop Gets The NMA Treatment

    Earlier this week, Elon Musk formerly revealed his proposal to revolutionize transportation in the state of California with the hyperloop. In short, it’s a capsule that travels in a tube, and can turn a grueling 6 hour car ride into a pleasant 30 minute commute.

    After the announcement, people immediately became interested in the project with some Redditors even joining together to form the proposal that would seek to replace California’s high speed rail project with the hyperloop in 2016.

    As for other opinions, let’s see what our favorite Taiwanese animators have to say:

    At least they seem to like the idea, unlike Microsoft’s Xbox Live Enforcement United.

  • The Latest iPhone 5S Rumors Get The NMA Treatment

    Did you hear? The iPhone 5S is going to be revealed on September 10. That’s at least what industry sources are saying.

    Over the past few months, those same industry sources have said that the iPhone 5S will include a fingerprint scanner, a dual-LED flash and other improvements to the tried and true iPhone hardware. It will be interesting to see how Apple sells these features to the public, such as the enhanced security features afforded by a fingerprint scanner. Everybody’s favorite Taiwanese animators point out, however, that it may not as foolproof of a plan as Apple may think:

    I can see it now – “Man has arm torn off by random thug in iPhone theft.” And Apple thought its knock-off charger problem was bad.