Award-winning American cinematographer Mike deGruy and Australian television writer-producer Andrew Wight have died in a helicopter crash in eastern Australia, their employer National Geographic said.
Police said two people — an Australian pilot and an American passenger — died Saturday when their helicopter crashed soon after takeoff from an airstrip near Nowra, 97 miles (156 kilometers) south of Sydney, but did not immediately release the victims’ identities. Australia’s ABC News reported that Wight was piloting the helicopter when it crashed.
National Geographic and “Titanic” director James Cameron confirmed the victims’ identities in a joint statement Sunday that said “the deep-sea community lost two of its finest” with the deaths of the two underwater documentary specialists.
David Bennett, president of Australia’s South Coast Recreational Flying Club, said the pair had set off to film a documentary when they crashed.
DeGruy, 60, of Santa Barbara, California, won multiple Emmy and British Academy of Film and Television Arts, or BAFTA, awards for cinematography.
Wight, 52, of Melbourne, was the writer-producer of the 3D movie “Sanctum,” which took in $100 million and was Australian cinema’s biggest box office hit of 2010.
The joint statement said deGruy spent 30 years producing and directing documentary films about the ocean. An accomplished diver and submersible pilot who spent many hours filming deep beneath the sea, he was the director of undersea photography for Cameron’s 2005 “Last Mysteries of the Titanic,” the statement said.
“Mike and Andrew were like family to me,” Cameron said. “They were my deep-sea brothers and both were true explorers who did extraordinary things and went places no human being has been.”
After spending three years at the University of Hawaii in a Marine Biology Ph.D. program, DeGruy moved to the Marshall Islands, according to his website. He spent three years there, working as the manager of the Mid-Pacific Marine Lab, with his knowledge of and fascination with the ocean growing rapidly.
DeGruy spent much of his early film career traveling the world, shooting films for clients including the BBC, PBS and National Geographic, his website says. He later began producing and hosting the films.
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