A 41-year-old actress has lost her bid to sue the Internet Movie Database for publishing her true age on the popular site.

Junie Hoang, an actress with 99 IMDb credits to her name (mostly B-movies and TV shows), claimed that the Amazon-owned IMDb breached subscriber privacy agreements when they used information obtained through her IMDb PRo account to unearth her true age and report it on her page. A federal jury in Seattle has denied her claim.

Hoang singed up for IMDb in 2001, leaving her age blank at the time (not an uncommon practice among aspiring actors). Three years later, she updated her account, providing a 1978 date of birth.

Hoang was actually born in 1971.

Three years after that, she contacted IMDb and asked them to remove the untrue DOB. But IMDb did not comply. Finally, a year later, in 2008, she got IMDb to “go back to [their] files and see if [they] have any documentation, verification or identification” that her birthdate was, in fact, 1978.

It was then that she alleged someone at IMDb found her true DOB info in public records, based on information obtained from her IMDb pro account submission.

In their defense, IMDb said that it was their First Amendment right to publish the truth on their website, and that all of the information was obtained from public records. They also claimed that Hoang failed to adequately prove that she was actually harmed, monetarily, from her true age being published on the site.

Though Hoang failed to prove harm in this case, the Screen Actors Guild says that age discrimination continues to be a big problem in casting. In 2011, when Hoang first filed her lawsuit, the SAG said that they were “disappointed with IMDb.”

“Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strongly believe that businesses like IMDb have a moral and legal obligation not to facilitate age discrimination in employment. Entertainment industry employers who would never directly ask a potential employee’s age routinely access that information through IMDb and its professional subscription site IMDbPro. IMDb has the power to remove the temptation for employers to engage in age discrimination by accessing this information,” said SAG.

[Variety]

Amazon announced today that X-Ray for TV is now available to all Kindle Fire device owners, as well as those using the Amazon Instant Video app on the Wii U. Amazon says that X-Ray will be available for the most popular TV shows on Instant Video including Downtown Abbey, Game of Thrones, Lost, Doctor Who and The Walking Dead.

“X-Ray has been one of the most loved features on Kindle Fire HD since it launched last September,” said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “For people who are passionate about movies and TV, there is no better way to watch than on Kindle Fire HD, which combines an exceptional viewing experience with the unbelievable power of the over 100 million pieces of data in IMDb’s catalog.”

IMDb says that it’s now working to get X-Ray into every movie and TV show hosted on Amazon Instant Video:

“For over 20 years we have been cultivating a vast database of movie, TV and celebrity content,” said Col Needham, IMDb Founder and CEO. “Can’t remember where you’ve seen the actor playing Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey? No problem. Simply tap on the screen and you’ll see a full filmography, where you’ll realize that Hugh Bonneville was also in Notting Hill. Our vision is to make X-Ray available on every movie and TV show—we’re excited to make another big step forward today, and we are working hard to add X-Ray to more TV shows and movies in the future.”

X-Ray continues to be one of things that helps set Amazon Instant Video apart from the competition. It’s also investing in more original content to better compete with Netflix’s House of Cards and the new season of Arrested Development.

IMDb’s MOVIEmeter is based on algorithms that determine levels of public awareness and interest. It takes into account IMDb pageviews and well as star ratings.

“IMDb Pro uses proprietary algorithms that take into account several measures of popularity for people and titles. The primary measure is who and what people are looking at on the public IMDb.com website. Other factors include Box office receipts and user quality votes on a scale of 1-10,” says IMDb.

According to IMDb, this doesn’t mean that House of Cards is the best TV show out there (although I can personally confirm that it’s undoubtedly one of the most addictive). It’s not a rank of that. What it does show is a ton of buzz and interest for the new political drama.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings seems delighted by the news:

Reed Hastings10 hours ago

Wow. House of Cards now the #1 most popular TV show in the world, according to IMDb. And I still can’t get Ted Sarandos to tell me how many millions are enjoying it on Netflix.

IMDb: Most Popular TV Series With At Least 5,000 Votes
IMDb’s advanced search allows you to run extremely powerful queries over all people and titles in the database. Find exactly what you’re looking for!

Powered by socialditto  347 likes ·  9 comments

Earlier this week, we learned from Netflix Content Chief Ted Sarandos that House of Cards is currently the most-watched program on Netflix – both in terms of total hours streamed and total viewers.

“We’re not doing ratings, [but] we’re thrilled with the numbers,” said Sarandos. “It’s the most watched thing on Netflix in every country we operate in.”

More good news for Netflix, who spent a pretty penny on this series (and who has plenty of other original series in the works).

“This list does change infrequently, and I began the project over a month prior to November 1, 2012, so attention to my haters…Yes…I KNOW some of these movies are not on the top 250. 53 Titles to be exact (as of 11/1/12). However, none of my haters can tell me that any of these 303 titles do not exist on IMDB,” says creator Jonathan Keogh.

Check out a lot of amazing films in rapid fire below:

Awesome, right? It’s amazing that you’re able to identify so many of the films with only second-long clips. I guess it’s a testament to the superb editing.

[via reddit]

But you’ve gotta love it when a website takes the time to makes their 404 error page enjoyable.

Everything about the IMDb is wonderful. The features, the trivia, the ability to settle every late night argument I have with friends. And the Amazon-owned site has even found a way to make messing up fun.

If you happen to mistype a IMDb URL into your browser, you’ll be greeted with quotes from classic movies featured in the database. All of the quotes have some relevance to the fact that you’ve landed on a page that cannot be found, but some have had to be altered just a little bit.

In the last 12 hours, a redditor “accidentally found, and fell in love with, IMDb’s 404 page.” And if you’ve yet to do that for yourself, check out this non-existent IMDb page.

Or, you can check out all of the different 404 messages below. After some serious refreshing, I think I’ve found all of the ones that IMDb currently offers:

From The Shawshank Redemption:

From The Wizard of Oz:

From True Lies:

From The Big Lebowski:

From Cool Hand Luke:

From Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope:

From Airplane!:

From Lost (TV series):

From The Muppet Movie:

Not sure if this is better than The Rolling Stones’ cheeky 404 page, but it’s pretty damn cool.

Let’s just say that if you started at #1 and began watching your way down the list, you wouldn’t have a bad time.

But recently, IMDb has changed a key mechanism of the Top 250 – the vote threshold. This small change has apparently wreaked a bit of havoc on the list. Here’s what an IMDb admin said about the changes on the boards:

In an effort to keep our charts and voting system relevant and accurate, we have made a small change to the way the IMDb Top 250 chart (http://www.imdb.com/chart/top) is calculated: the minimum number of votes needed to be included in the chart has been raised from 3,000 votes (a limit that had been set many years ago) to 25,000.

The change only affects whether a title is eligible to be featured in the IMDb Top 250 chart. Because of this, the composition of the chart will change slightly, as some titles that don’t meet the threshold are excluded and replaced by others with more votes.

Basically, any movie that was a part of the Top 250 because of a high rating but had less than 25,000 total votes is gone. And some (more questionable) films have taken their place.

For instance, The Dark Knight Rises is currently the 10th best picture of all time, wit an 8.8 rating with over 178,000 ratings cast. The top twenty actually looks pretty good for Nolan, as The Dark Knight clocks in at #8 and Inception comes in at #15.

Here’s a IN/OUT list that one IMDb user compiled:

Of course, the Top 250 is an ever-changing list, and as soon as some of those classics on the left garner enough ratings, they will pop back on the list.

But the vote threshold change to the IMDb Top 250 signals a move toward popularity. The films on the “out” list are, on the whole, a bit more obscure than the ones on the “in” list. Sure, The Passion of Joan of Arc may have a high rating, but it’s not going to have a lot of people rating it. On the other hand, more “popular” films like Big Fish and Rain Man have filled that void.

For the most part, however, this hasn’t really affected the cream of the crop. The top 25 or so of the Top 250 are pretty much unchanged, as those are the types of films that would have already easily crossed the new 25,000 rating threshold. The Shawshank Redemption still sits firmly in the top spot, followed by The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Pulp Fiction, & The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

With the announcement of that milestone, IMDb has also updated their iOS and Android apps to include a slew of new features, including a major push toward social interaction.

Today, IMDb ushers in the age of the check-in, incorporating a Get Glue-type feature where users can log their media-viewing activity. Those check-ins are tied to Facebook and Twitter, so you can let your friends know exactly what you’re watching and why they should be watching it as well.

Along with those social features comes access to the IMDb message boards where you can sound off about your favorite films, TV episodes, and troll the depths to your heart’s desire.

Here are some other improvements that come in version 2.7 (iOS):

• Filming Locations & Soundtracks: find even more IMDb data to satisfy your curiosity
• More Like This: discover new movies and shows while you browse
• Watchlist: tap the plus sign on posters to build your Watchlist
• TV shows: easily dive into each season, and tap ‘previous’ and ‘next’ to browse through episodes
• Your History: long-press on the Back button from any page to access pages you’ve recently viewed

“Today’s announcement reflects growing customer demand for discovery, personalization and social functionality on their favorite mobile apps,” said Col Needham, IMDb’s founder and CEO. “Given that IMDb.com’s message boards generate more than 2.5 billion page views annually, it’s no surprise that mobile-optimized message boards were our #1 customer request. Beginning today, more than 40 million movie, TV and celebrity fans — and counting — will enjoy mobile message boards, check-ins, similarities and more when using IMDb’s apps for iPhone, iPad and Android devices.”

Android users get a few bonus updates as well, including the ability to log in via their Amazon accounts and better personalized recommendations.

For movie fans, an indispensable app just got better.

Since just about every notable film since the turn of the century (that’s last century) is listed on here, it gives us some vital information on where the film industry as a whole has been and where it is going.

Since the beginning of the MPAA, Rated “R” films comprise a large majority, beating out all other ratings combined. This is interesting given the amount of films that pander to the family friendly crowd, and the constant battle with the MPAA to keep ratings lower in order to appeal to a broader audience.

We see a huge spike in the number of documentaries made in the beginning of film’s history and today. One may accredit the early spike to experimentation with the new medium during the early days of filmmaking. In the modern era people have much easier access to professional or near professional grade camera equipment, accounting for the large number of documentaries made today. With a few notable exceptions, documentaries can be funded with a lot less money than feature films, paving the way for indie filmmakers to explore this genre.

And finally, notice the huge number of films released in the past decade. Film is certainly alive and kicking. New technological advances have made filmmaking more easily accessible to art-house producers and theaters. Technology has also brought more people to the theaters than ever before, with advances in digital exhibition and 3D motion pictures creating a more enjoyable experience for movie-goers everywhere.

If you want to get your own statistics from the International Movie Database, check out their new advanced search function. The creator of this infographic, TDYLF, describes his foray into the search feature in his creation:

.

According to a recent report from Forrester, 85% of tablet owners use their devices while watching TV. What’s more, 30% of all tablet use is done while watching TV. Tablets allow users to enhance their TV watching experience in a variety of ways. Apps like GetGlue let you share what you’re watching with friends, while Miso shows you content related to what you’re watching on your TV. Even apps like IMDB and Wikipedia can come into play: how often have you seen an actor on the screen and wondered what else they’ve played in?

The report also found that 18% of tablet owners take advantage of their devices’ ability to connect to their living room TV via HDMI or VGA cable, a feature that is available on the iPad 2 and new iPad, as well as on several models of Android tablet. In fact, these users are more likely to turn to their tablet than the built-in features of their “Smart TV” for certain kinds of content.

Interestingly, the study also found that tablets are taking a bite out of the market for smallers (24 inches or less) TVs. Nearly a third – 32% – of tablet owners said they would not be buying such a TV in the future. These same tablet owners, however, said that they watched more video than before they bought their tablets. They also said that they used their tablets to watch video in the kinds of places they had never been able to do so before, including the kitchen, the bathroom, airports, and more.

When Tim Cook introduced the new iPad last month, he talked a lot about the iPad’s role in what he called the “post-PC era,” for which the iPad was the “poster child.” While it would certainly not be accurate to talk about the iPad’s role in a post-TV era (a 10-inch screen will never beat a 40-inch screen, no matter how many pixels you cram in), this report suggests that the rise of the tablet has had a major impact on how we watch TV.

What do you think? Do you have your tablet with you when you watch TV? What about your smartphone? What do you think of the second screen experience? Do you use your tablet to watch TV in places you couldn’t before? Tell us about it in the comments.

IMDB Trivia is a free-to-play app, meaning that it’s a free download and the game itself is free – but you can purchase additional question packages if you run out of the free stuff. Upon opening the app, you’ll be prompted to select your game pack. Only one will be available at first, but other game packs can be unlocked by completing challenges in the game like answering a certain number of questions or scoring a particular amount of points. You can, of course, buy more question packs in-app as well.

Each time you answer a question, you’ll get a little fun-fact about either the film, character, actors, or some other aspect of the question content. Some of the types of trivia exercises are reminiscent of games like Scene-It – name that quote, match that movie poster, and decipher the blurred celeb photo. Here’s a list of many of the game modes -

• Five levels of increasing difficulty and many different ways to win
• Catch a Star: Tap five correct answers before your time runs out
• Movie Order: Arrange movies in order of release
• Quotables: Match the quote to a movie, TV show, character or celebrity
• Celebrity Photo Match: Match each of five celebrities with their movie, TV show, or character
• Movie Poster Match: Match each of five posters with a movie or a TV show
• Mystery celebrity: Guess the celebrity in a blurred photo

The app is integrated with Apple Game Center, so you can compete with friends. You can also pause and resume your trivia games anytime.

You can play without 3G or wi-fi access, but the question sets will be smaller. The two current trivia packs available to be purchased are “TV Favorites” and “Blockbuster Films.” They are both $0.99.

Currently, it’s only available for iOS.

Upon early testing, the app seems fun as hell. I don’t know about you, but I can see my phone battery dying at we speak.