Ruth Roland, co-owner of Arlington, Va.-based Roland House, has been appointed chairman of the 20th Annual International Monitor Awards.
Roland, who has been actively involved in the Monitors for the past three years, will be assisted this year by such Monitor Awards Committee members as chairman emeritus Adam Hurst, The Interface Group, Washington, D.C.; David Case, Production Masters Inc. (PMI), Pittsburgh; Tom Evans, Skyview Studios, Chicago; Maurice Prost, Mikros Image/ Levallois-Perret, France; Fumio Nobui, Eizo Shimbun Sha, Tokyo; Hiroko Nobui, Eizo Shimbun Sha, Los Angeles; Yuriko Yamada, Y2 Co., Tokyo; Carlos Chapin, In Your Ear Music and Recording Services, Richmond, Va.; Steven Wild, Grace & Wild Studios, Farmington Hills, Mich.; Julie Ogles, CF Video, Watertown, Mass.; Ted Gregory, AAV Australia, South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; and Rudi Dolezal, DoRo Productions, Vienna, Austria.
The International Monitor Awards competition is billed as being the only international competition devoted exclusively to honoring excellence in electronic production and postproduction. The Monitor Awards festivities begin on Saturday evening, July 24, in the Grand Ballroom of The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York.
Committee Members Also Announced.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More