Nic Seresin, an award-winning Flame artist and VFX supervisor, has returned to Smoke & Mirrors, his professional home for many years before leaving to go freelance in 2010. Seresin has worked with a long list of top-shelf directors, including Michel Gondry, Tim Burton, Jonathan Glazer, Frank Budgen, Rupert Sanders, Stacy Wall, Tony Kaye, Spike Lee, Traktor, and Ulf Johansson. Seresin has also worked on several features, including 12 Monkeys, Sweeney Todd, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and the James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough…. Entertainment creative agency mOcean has added Brumby Boylston as group creative director, entertainment marketing, and David Kleinman as managing director of entertainment marketing. Kleinman arrives at mOcean following a six-year tenure as executive producer at Blind Visual Propaganda. Prior to Blind, he served as R&D Unit Manager at Lightstorm Entertainment, collaborating with filmmaker James Cameron and VFX supervisor Rob Legato to develop technologies and new workflow methodologies for the 2009 feature film “Avatar.” He entered the entertainment industry working on the live-action side as executive producer/head of production at Crash Films. Boylston was previously co-founder/creative director at National Television, a bicoastal production company specializing in design, animation, and live-action for brands and network clients, including American Express, ABC, Volvo, ING, ESPNU, SyFy and Disney. Prior to launching National Television, he was a writer/creator at The Walt Disney Company….
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