Bicoastal Cohn+Company has added director Harry Patramanis for spots….Director Danny Boyle is joining Hollywood-based SunSpots….Tombo, the Hollywood-headquartered production house founded by executive producer Fred Porter, has signed director Branson Veal….Swedish director Johan Tappert has signed with Compulsive Pictures, New York for commercial representation….VP/executive producer Matthew Charde has exited San Francisco-headquartered Red Sky’s entertainment division and is pursuing other opportunities. The entertainment group was created last fall after Red Sky acquired Boston- and Burbank-based animation/effects/live-action studio Olive Jar, in which Charde was a principal, and Los Angeles-based multimedia firm White Noise (SHOOT, 10/6/00, p. 1). Earlier this year, Red Sky filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection (see SHOOT’s "Street Talk," 7/27, p. 22)….Bicoastal Believe Media has fortified its U.K. presence via an association with Rose Hackney Barber, London. Believe Media’s London operation will be quartered on the Rose Hackney Barber premises, with executive producer Mark O’Sullivan continuing to represent the Believe directorial roster in the U.K….Hollywood-based Orbit Entertainment Group, the parent to commercial production house Orbit Productions, is set to produce Phoenix Pictures’ military thriller Basic. Directed by John McTiernan (Die Hard, The Hunt For Red October) and starring John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, Basic is the first feature to come out of the strategic alliance entered into last year by Orbit Entertainment Group and Culver City, Calif.-based Phoenix Pictures (SHOOT, 1/21/00, p. 1)….PostWorks, New York, has named visual effects/graphics designer Victor Barroso director of the company’s newly created graphics and visual effects division…Smoke editor Nathan Hurlburt has joined Liquid Light, New York….Jeff Ross has come aboard Glendale, Calif.-based Sunset Digital (formerly Sunset Post) in the newly created role of executive VP/COO. Ross spent the past 11 years at Pacific Ocean Post, Santa Monica, joining as its COO in 1990 and then serving from ’97 on as managing director of POP Film and POP Animation (which have both since been merged into R!OT)….Amy Nicholson, creative director at the New York office of Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), has left the agency. Todd Waterbury, who had been at the Portland, Ore., headquarters of W+K, will succeed Nicholson….Nigel Williams has joined ad agency davidandgoliath, as creative director. He will be based in the shop’s Los Angeles headquarters (the agency also maintains a New York office), and report directly to David Angelo, chief creative officer/managing partner. Williams comes over from Suissa Miller Advertising, Los Angeles….After 15 years in business, Holland Mark Advertising, Boston, has closed. Clients serviced by the agency included Polaroid, which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Yankee Candle Co., and Veryfine Products’ juice line….
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