This month, the movie camera collection of retired postman Dimitris Pistiolas made it into the Guinness World Records — for the eighth time.
Pistiolas owns the world’s largest private collection of movie cameras — 937 vintage models and projectors. They are neatly arranged, dusted and labeled in his tiny basement, where they cover every inch of wall.
Pistiolas, now 78, started buying cameras at age 15 and never stopped. The basement museum is padlocked and visits are by invitation only.
“When I get a new camera, I feel like a little kid, like I’ve been given a Christmas present,” he says. “The first thing I do is to restore it before I put it into the collection.”
Ronald Grant, a director at the Cinema Museum in London, says it takes time and money to hunt such cameras down at fairs and auction rooms.
“There’s a lot of investment there in time, and knowledge, and of course memory. Once you have a few hundred, then you have to remember, ‘Have I got this one?'” Grant says. “You can’t just buy these in a shop.”
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