Michigan’s pool of skilled and unskilled labor along with the state’s attractive tax incentives for moviemakers have helped lure a $146 million film and television production complex to the Detroit area.
That’s very good news for the region, which has one of the country’s highest unemployment rates.
The complex will be built on 105 acres (42 hectares) in Allen Park, just outside Detroit, officials said at a Tuesday afternoon news conference.
Its eight sound stages will be housed in a 750,000-square-foot (69,677-square-meter) production and post-production facility. Equipment rentals, sound and music recording facilities and animation design also will be housed in the facility.
Allen Park beat out a location in Louisiana for the complex, said Unity Studios Inc. President Jimmy Lifton, a former Detroit area native.
Groundbreaking is expected to take place within 60 days with the studio going operational in October, Lifton told reporters, union members and Allen Park residents in city council chambers.
Michigan has been drawing more moviemakers since the tax incentives went into effect last year. The refundable movie tax credit of up to 42 percent on production expenses in the state is the most lucrative in the country.
Officials in February announced planned production studios in Detroit and Pontiac that are expected to bring thousands of jobs
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