Finger Music & Sound Design has secured Meredyth Mann as its East Coast representative. Mann is the founder and owner of Bespoke360, a new boutique talent representation firm. She started in the advertising business in Ogilvy & Mather's production department and moved to sales in '05. Prior to Bespoke360, she was head of sales for Compulsive Pictures during a three-and-a-half-year stretch….Cynthia Mudd has joined Holiday Films, Toronto, as director of marketing. Mudd's past experience in commercial film production included sales and marketing positions at Toronto-based production companies Radke Films and Brown Entertainment. At her new roost she will working with Holiday exec producers Derek Sewell and Josefina Nadurata….DP Doug Chamberlain, who's repped by Innovative Artists, recently wrapped the feature project Maladies starring James Franco and Catherine Keener. And production designer Peter Benson, also of Innovative Artists, recently finished a Toyota project directed by Geordie Stephens from Tool of North America and is now available for upcoming film and commercial work….
Apple and Google Face UK Investigation Into Mobile Browser Dominance
Apple and Google aren't giving consumers a genuine choice of mobile web browsers, a British watchdog said Friday in a report that recommends they face an investigation under new U.K. digital rules taking effect next year.
The Competition and Markets Authority took aim at Apple, saying the iPhone maker's tactics hold back innovation by stopping rivals from giving users new features like faster webpage loading. Apple does this by restricting progressive web apps, which don't need to be downloaded from an app store and aren't subject to app store commissions, the report said.
"This technology is not able to fully take off on iOS devices," the watchdog said in a provisional report on its investigation into mobile browsers that it opened after an initial study concluded that Apple and Google effectively have a chokehold on "mobile ecosystems."
The CMA's report also found that Apple and Google manipulate the choices given to mobile phone users to make their own browsers "the clearest or easiest option."
And it said that the a revenue-sharing deal between the two U.S. Big Tech companies "significantly reduces their financial incentives" to compete in mobile browsers on Apple's iOS operating system for iPhones.
Both companies said they will "engage constructively" with the CMA.
Apple said it disagreed with the findings and said it was concerned that the recommendations would undermine user privacy and security.
Google said the openness of its Android mobile operating system "has helped to expand choice, reduce prices and democratize access to smartphones and apps" and that it's "committed to open platforms that empower consumers."
It's the latest move by regulators on both sides of the Atlantic to crack down on the... Read More