Executive Director/CEO Charles S. Schwartz Retires From ETC-USC
By Carolyn Giardina
This column focuses on education and advancements in the business. Along the way, it has included some of the special people who have made significant contributions in these areas. This week, I’d like to pay tribute to one of them: Charles S. Schwartz.
The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC-USC) announced last week that executive director/CEO Swartz has retired from his position at the University-based research organization. Swartz has stepped down because of health reasons.
“Charles took the reins at ETC-USC at a critical moment for emerging digital technologies,” said Elizabeth M. Daley, dean of the USC School of Cinema-Television. “Under his leadership, the Center has played an important role in helping the industry embrace digital content and distribution and new, digital-centered, business models.”
“Charles brought vision, focus and boundless energy to his work and thanks to him, ETC-USC will continue,” said Bob Lambert, corporate senior VP, worldwide technology strategy, The Walt Disney Company, and current chair of the ETC-USC executive board. “ETC-USC’s board of fourteen sponsoring companies unanimously agreed to confirm the direction of the organization and to move ahead with its slate of projects for 2007 and beyond.”
Swartz took his post at ETC-USC in February 2002. Under his watch, ETC-USC’s Digital Cinema Lab became Hollywood’s de facto digital cinema forum, most notably hosting and supporting the Digital Cinema Initiatives work toward establishing digital cinema specifications.
In addition, Swartz has built ETC-USC into a vital educational center for entertainment professionals, producing such events as the Digital Cinema Summit at NAB, Other Digital Stuff: Expanding the In-Theater Experience, the Digital Screening Series and the Entertainment Technology Summit. He also laid the groundwork for upcoming initiatives related to digital content and the digital home.
SHOOT senior editor, technology and postproduction, Carolyn Giardina can be reached at cgiardina@shootonline.com
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More