Trevor King and Kira Gourguechon have launched Kingdom, a national repping firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles. The new entity will handle East Coast representation for Mad River Post, which has offices in New York, Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco; East and West Coast representation for Reginaldo, a division of Reginald Pike, Toronto, that handles directors Brian Lee Hughes and Lena Beug in the U.S.; and national representation for music company Robot Repair, New York….M80 Films, Los Angeles, has secured independent reps Donna D’Aguanno to handle the Midwest, and Jolie Miller and Randi Arnold of Miller/Arnold to cover the East Coast….Nikki Weiss & Co., Chicago, has signed Big Lawn Films, Santa Monica, for Midwest representation. Big Lawn features director Chuck Bennett……New York-based The Blue Rock Editing Company has added Emilianne Slaydon as an in-house sales rep. She will work alongside Blue Rock’s rep Samantha Tuttlebee in representing the company nationally…..Nancy Charade has been named head of marketing at Rex Edit, Venice, Calif. She is working in-house at Rex while continuing to represent La Fabrique, Montreal, to U.S. houses looking to shoot in Canada….Hillary Pitcher, formerly on the sales team at Steam Films, Toronto, has become head of sales at Fever Films North America, also in Toronto….DPs David Boyd and Jamie Barber are again available for spots via The Montana Artists Agency, Los Angeles, after wrapping their respective TV series assignments. Boyd just completed the second season of Without A Trace. Meanwhile Barber finished season two of the hit show The OC….
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