The Producers Guild of America (PGA) today announced key dates for the innovation award for the 32nd Annual Producers Guild Awards. The PGA Innovation Award will be bestowed upon the production of a noteworthy, impactful new media program that significantly elevates the audience’s viewing experience. The winning submission will challenge the limits of standard formats and drive forward the industry’s perception and application of new media in an entertainment context.
The application period is open now and the deadline for submission is February 28, 2021. Programs released between January 1, 2020 and February 28, 2021 are eligible for the honor. For programs that cannot be viewed linearly via the existing submission procedure, a video demonstration may be submitted instead. For additional details about the submission process, the award and eligibility requirements, click here.
Last year, the PGA awarded the inaugural PGA Innovation Award to the team behind “Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series – Episode 1.”
In a joint statement, Jenni Ogden, VP of the PGA New Media Council, and Chris Thomes, New Media Council delegate, who are also co-chairs of the PGA Innovation Award Committee, shared, “This award honors disruptive entertainment created with a clear purpose and vision, that meaningfully pushes the boundaries through the merging of technological innovation and effective storytelling. The Producers Guild is proud to present this award in its second year, and we’re highly anticipating submissions from the inventive producers, artists, and engineers that make immersive entertainment an amazing reality.”
The award will honor exceptional distinctiveness, inventiveness, and impact of the submitted work in expanding the conventions of program format, content, audience interaction, production technique and delivery. Such work may reflect a reimagining or reworking of existing concepts and approaches in a new way, or may be an entirely novel type of experience.
Entries will be reviewed and voted on by a jury of blue-ribbon experts in the field of new media.
The Innovation Award, along with other key awards, will be given out at the PGA Awards Breakfast prior to the Producers Guild Awards show. Confirmed details about that event, which will happen prior to the awards ceremony on March 24th, are forthcoming.
Federal judge orders Google to open its Android app store to competition
A federal judge on Monday ordered Google to tear down the digital walls shielding its Android app store from competition as a punishment for maintaining an illegal monopoly that helped expand the company's internet empire.
The injunction issued by U.S. District Judge James Donato will require Google to make several changes that the Mountain View, California, company had been resisting, including a provision that will require its Play Store for Android apps to distribute rival third-party app stores so consumers can download them to their phones if they so desire.
The judge's order will also make the millions of Android apps in the Play Store library accessible to rivals, allowing them to offer up a competitive selection.
Donato is giving Google until November to make the revisions dictated in his order. The company had insisted it would take 12 to 16 months to design the safeguards needed to reduce the chances of potentially malicious software making its way into rival Android app stores and infecting millions of Samsung phones and other mobile devices running on its free Android software.
The court-mandated overhaul is meant to prevent Google from walling off competition in the Android app market as part of an effort to protect a commission system that has been a boon for one of the world's most prosperous companies and helped elevate the market value of its corporate parent Alphabet Inc. to $2 trillion.
Google said in a blog post that it will ask the court to pause the pending changes, and will appeal the court's decision.
Donato also ruled that, for a period three years ending Nov. 1, 2027, Google won't be able to share revenue from its Play Store with anyone who distributes Android apps or is considering launching an... Read More