In the final Fall 2020 installment of ETC@USC’s Executive Coffee with… series on November 12, Dolby Laboratories proposed two discussion topics: 1) Virtual and augmented reality; what are they good for, and what concerns you about them? And 2) Privacy, security and controlling your own data. Richard Doherty, senior director of technology strategy, Office of the CTO at Dolby Labs led a group of 14 Dolby employees in a discussion with seven USC students studying cinema, engineering, music, communication and business. Continue reading ETC Executive Coffee: USC Students Meet with Dolby Execs

Facing a bipartisan push from Congress to change Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a liability shield against lawsuits for Internet platforms, tech companies have said they are now ready to discuss it. For 20+ years, Internet platforms have adamantly defended Section 230 but, in recent weeks, both Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey have voiced support for “updating” and/or “expanding” the law. Democrats and Republicans have threatened to repeal Section 230. Continue reading Internet Platforms Say They’re Ready to Discuss Section 230

The European Union’s executive branch issued drafts of two bills that would hike fines for illegal content and anticompetitive behavior up to 6 percent or 10 percent of annual worldwide revenue and even break up Big Tech firms to stop “competitive abuses.” Although the bills don’t mention any firms by name, they could be applied to Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. The UK, which is no longer part of the EU, has similar legislation in the works that would fine abusers up to 10 percent of annual global revenue. Continue reading EU Proposes Two New Laws in Its Effort to Regulate Big Tech

YouTube Premieres, first announced in 2018, allows content creators to promote pre-recorded videos via a landing page for fans to gather before new content debuts. Now YouTube is enhancing Premieres with three new features. Live Redirect lets creators livestream a pre-show to viewers before they debut a new video and then automatically redirect them to Premiere just before it starts. BTS and Cardi B have been beta-testing this feature for a couple of months. The other two features are Trailers and the option of a custom countdown via Countdown Themes. Continue reading YouTube Adds Features to Help Creators Promote Premieres

During the seventh installment of ETC@USC’s Executive Coffee with… series, Vubiquity CEO Darcy Antonellis posed an intriguing question for USC students: “If you were asked to create the educational system of the future, what would learning look like for college-age students or post-grads such as yourself?” Graduate and undergraduate students from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Iovine and Young Academy participated in this lively November 4 discussion. Students expressed interest in online schedules, networking meet-ups, collaboration and support, the technology gap, group-based learning and more. Continue reading ETC Executive Coffee: A Talk with Vubiquity’s Darcy Antonellis

The Entertainment Technology Center@USC’s next Digital Town Square will examine virtual production principles and lessons learned in the second of two programs breaking down production of the live-action short “Ripple Effect.” The virtual event, co-sponsored by Microsoft Azure, is free and open to the public. In the keynote address, Isaac Campos will analyze his 12-year journey in the LED panel market and describe the latest tools and technologies. Event panels and talks will address topics such as VAD (virtual art department) development and how to build a large LED volume. Register online now for this special event, scheduled for January 20, 1:00-3:30 PST. Continue reading ETC Digital Town Square: Virtual Production Lessons Learned

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined Twitter €450,000 (about $546,000) for failing to notify the regulator or document a data breach within 72 hours. The breach, revealed in January 2019, exposed some Android users’ private tweets for over four years. Twitter chief privacy officer Damien Kieran said the company takes responsibility … and remains “fully committed to protecting the privacy and data of [its] customers.” This is the first time a U.S. tech company has been served with a GDPR fine in a cross-border case. Continue reading Ireland Fines Twitter for Privacy Breach in a First for U.S. Tech

Apple launched mandatory labels that provide easy-to-grasp information of the privacy policies for apps in the Mac and iOS App stores. The mandatory policy applies only to new apps or updates of existing ones. Although countries such as Finland, Singapore and the UK have adopted such labels, Apple appears to be the first global Big Tech company to “embrace and promote” the idea. The labels list three items: Data Used to Track You, Data Linked to You and Data Not Linked to You, with details under each. Continue reading Apple’s Mandatory Privacy Labels Launch on All iOS Platforms

In Silicon Valley, some tech companies, investors and venture capital firms are relocating to cities with lower costs and less traffic. Oracle is pulling up stakes in Redwood City, California and heading to Austin, Texas, saying it plans to implement remote-work policies. Hewlett Packard Enterprise is moving its headquarters to Houston, Texas, where Elon Musk, long a Los Angeleno, has also moved. Although the reasons for leaving vary, many relocations seem to have been triggered by rising costs and the COVID-19 pandemic. Continue reading Pandemic, Rising Costs Ignite Tech Exodus From Silicon Valley

As part of ETC@USC’s Executive Coffee with… series, M&E leaders connected via Zoom with eight engineering students, three cinema students and one business student on October 29. The topic of discussion was “Production in the Cloud for Media and Entertainment; content and experience creation, distribution, interaction, and analytics.” Students were particularly interested in new advances related to areas such as production workflow, asset management, gaming, remote collaboration for live music, and the impact of analytics on content creation. Continue reading ETC Executive Coffee: Students, Execs Talk Cloud Resources

This week, the Federal Trade Commission and 46 state attorneys general filed lawsuits against Facebook for anticompetitive practices. But it is also looking at how Facebook leveraged user data to both lure and control third party developers, relying heavily on data sharing via application programming interfaces (APIs). MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy director Sinan Aral noted that the upcoming cases could set a precedent for any platform that shares data via an API and has conditions on that data sharing.

Continue reading Lawsuits Against Facebook Also Target Data Sharing via APIs

When Google’s next version of Chrome — Chrome 88 — debuts in mid-January, it will include the third version of Manifest, the company’s programming interface for privacy and security. The new version will limit some abilities of extensions used to customize the Chrome browser, and some developers are worried that it will hobble ad blockers. In fact, Manifest V3 limits the “rules” that extensions can be applied to a web page as it loads. Manifest V2 will continue to work for at least one year. Continue reading Google Intros New Security Interface Version with Chrome 88

App Annie predicted that mobile game and app spending will have grown 25 percent to $112 billion in 2020. Director of market insights Amir Ghodrati added that the company will likely revise these numbers upwards at the end of December. Both iOS and Android showed record-breaking growth, with 65 percent of spending going to the former and almost 30 percent to the latter. Apple iOS and Google mobile app and game downloads are expected to reach 130 billion in 2020, up 10 percent from 2019. Continue reading App Annie Reports Growth in Mobile Game and App Spending

Equinix executives led the fifth installment of ETC@USC’s Executive Coffee with… series. “AI development and ethics, what are the intended and unintended consequences of the rollout?” was the topic of the October 22 discussion. Kaladhar Voruganti, VP of technology innovation and senior fellow, and Doron Hendel, senior manager of global business development, ecosystem development, partnerships and alliances at Equinix led the discussion. Eleven graduate and undergraduate USC students, mostly computer science and data science majors, participated. Continue reading ETC Executive Coffee: Equinix Ponders Consequences of AI

Disney’s new streaming service Disney+ now has 86.8 million global subscribers and is growing so fast that the company expects it to triple to 260 million by 2024. The subscription VOD service has already passed Disney’s previous guidance, which stated it hoped to reach between 60 million and 90 million subscribers by that date. Disney has ratcheted up enthusiasm on its investor days, with bullish predictions in large part based on high-profile shows through its Marvel and Lucasfilm franchises as well as Disney Animation and Pixar Animation.  Continue reading Disney+ Subs Skyrocket as Company Focuses on Streaming