SIGGRAPH 2022 has announced the award winners and lineup of 25 short films, cinematics, scientific visualizations, visual effects breakdowns, and more set to appear in the first hybrid edition of the Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater this August. Highlighting the best in computer graphics storytelling, the Electronic Theater will premiere in-person at the Vancouver Convention Centre on Monday, August 8, and is available via separate ticket. Virtual access to the show will open on Tuesday, August 9.
A qualifying festival for the Academy Awards®, the SIGGRAPH 2022 Electronic Theater received over 325 submissions, which the expert jury whittled down to a lineup that spotlights work from 10 countries–including Sweden, Taiwan, France, the United States, and China. For the first time ever, the show will premiere in person and also offer a separate virtual ticket. In addition to juried selections, the festival will showcase a mixture of curated bonus content.
“The Electronic Theater is back,” exclaimed SIGGRAPH 2022 Electronic Theater director Darin Kyoichi Grant, of Animal Logic. “I am thrilled to be bringing back the in-person show this year and am even more thrilled to introduce the jury’s incredible selections to our global audience, which offer an incredibly diverse array of content types and storytelling perspectives. For virtual viewers, don’t worry: We have not forgotten about you and are committed to upgrading the virtual viewing experience with more ways to watch and more time to watch.”
SIGGRAPH 2022 Electronic Theater juror Michela Ledwidge, of Mod, added, “The variety of submissions my fellow jurors and I reviewed was awe-inspiring, whether that was pandemic-era visualizations or deep, heartfelt stories. It was extremely difficult to make our final decisions–all who submitted should be proud of what they presented.”
From a pool of nine student and 16 professional studio productions, including world premiere short films from Marza Animation Planet Inc. and Tsinghua University, the 2022 award winners are:
Best in Show
“The Seine’s Tears”
Pôle 3D
Yanis Belaid
(France)
Jury’s Choice
“The end of war”
Tsinghua University
Lei Chen
(China)
Best Student Project
“Yallah!”
Rubika
Nayla Nassar
(France)
For more on the Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater lineup, click here.
Google is blasted by UK watchdog for what it calls anti-competitive behavior through digital ads
Google was slammed Friday by U.K. regulators who say it's taking advantage of its dominance in digital advertising to thwart competition in Britain, ratcheting up pressure that the tech giant is facing on both sides of the Atlantic over its "ad tech" business practices.
Britain's Competition and Markets Authority said that the U.S. company gives preference to its own services to the detriment of online publishers and advertisers in Britain's 1.8 billion pound ($2.4 billion) digital ad market. The watchdog leveled its accusations after an investigation, and the findings could potentially lead to a fine worth billions of dollars or an order to change its behavior.
Google is a major player throughout the digital ad ecosystem, providing servers for publishers to manage ad space on their websites and apps, tools for advertisers and media agencies to buy display ads, and an exchange where both sides come together to buy and sell ads in real time at auctions.
"We've provisionally found that Google is using its market power to hinder competition when it comes to the ads people see on websites," the watchdog's interim executive director of enforcement, Juliette Enser, said in a press release.
The watchdog's charges, known as a statement of objections, arrive two years after it opened its investigation. Google's digital ad business is also the focus of a European Union antitrust investigation and a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit that's set to go to trial this month.
The CMA said that Google's "anti-competitive" conduct is ongoing, but the company disputed the allegations Friday.
"Google remains committed to creating value for our publisher and advertiser partners in this highly competitive sector," the company said in a prepared... Read More