Category: Technology

MUMBAI: Making a new move into internet television, Google will start selling a $35 gadget that will plug into a high-definition TV and stream video from Netflix, YouTube and other sources.

The two-inch device, dubbed Chromecast, is aimed at replacing set-top boxes and can be controlled by both Android and Apple smartphones or computers. Google said it will also stream music or even show web pages from computers using the Google Chrome web browser.

Analysts said the device could be a disruptive move by Google to compete with Apple and other tech companies that want to bring internet services to the television set. Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps tweeted that it represents a “smaller, more elegant approach” compared with Google‘s previously halting efforts at similar products.

The new Chromecast gadget looks something like a USB memory stick but packs far more capabilities. When plugged into a TV set, Google said the gadget will connect both to a home wireless router and to other devices such as smartphones, tablets or laptop computers. Anyone in range can then use their smartphone or computer as the “remote control” – to select a video from YouTube or Netflix, for example.

The Chromecast takes its cue from the selected device but then streams the video or other material directly from the internet, through the home router, so the smartphone‘s battery doesn‘t drain, Google representatives said.

MUMBAI: Vodafone India is offering its prepaid and postpaid mobile subscribers free Twitter access for a period of three months starting today (29 July).

Under the promotion, users will be able to access mobile.twitter.com or the Twitter Android app without incurring any data charges on the Vodafone network. The operator clarifies that access to mobile.twitter.com would be free only when the subscriber uses the native or default browser.

It also adds that “the Eligible Subscriber would only be charged for connection setup, at 10p/10KB on 2G all circles except Uttar Pradesh (West), Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka and 2p/10KB on 3G and 2G in Uttar Pradesh (West), Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka in case he/she is subscribed to Pay As You Go Tariff at Prevailing Pack Tariff in case he/she has subscribed to any of the Vodafone India Mobile Internet Packs.”

Free Twitter access is available only when the subscriber sets the APN to ‘www‘ in the Internet data settings on the phone. The offer is not available to BlackBerry users.

Vodafone is also running advertisement messages within the Android Twitter app showing promotional messages under individual tweets and pop-up messages when one tries to compose a tweet.

It‘s not the first time an Indian telecom operator has tied up with Twitter to offer free access. In April, Reliance Communications had also tied up with Twitter to offer a “Twitter Access” program for three months, wherein it offered its GSM subscribers access to Twitter‘s mobile website and app without levying any extra data consumption charges.

MUMBAI: Naredra Modi fans seem to be going all the way to promote him on every platform as well as take advantage of his popularity. The latest is a smartphone called Namo android smartphone that has been created by a group of people who claim to be ‘independent body of fans of Narendra Modi‘, the chief minister of Gujarat.

Namo is the short form of the popular politician as well as an abbreviation of Next-generation Android Mobile Odyssey, the creator of this phone.

The Facebook page for this already has over 3000 likes as well as coverage across many print and online spaces. The handset features are mentioned as follows on the website: 1 GB RAM + 16 GB ROM, 2 GB RAM + 16 GB ROM, 2 GB RAM + 32 GB ROM, 2 GB RAM + 64 GB ROM, 1.5 Ghz MT6589 Turbo Chipset, 13 MP Camera, Corning Glass 2, Screen 5 inches.

The launch has already been carried out and the phone is expected to be released to the market soon. They are also looking at getting permission from Modi for using his signature for their ‘signature edition‘ of the phones. The phones are said to be China made, which will be imported to India and branded with this name and then sold here at about Rs 15,000.

The reliability of such phones will surely be under question. However, fans on their Facebook page seem to be keen to buy one. Preloaded videos and applications about the popular chief minister will also be available in the phones.

MUMBAI: The ongoing struggle, regarding the entertainment tax, between the Cable Operators & Distributors Association (CODA) and the Maharashtra State government has reached the next level. After postponing the decision to blackout all Hindi, English and Marathi news channels on state revenue minister Balasaheb Thorat’s request a couple of weeks ago, the organisation met with him last week.

“He has asked us to give a detailed presentation about the current cable TV scenario in the state, the revenue generation in the current tax regime and also compare it with what will happen when entertainment tax on subscribers and set top boxes will be brought down,” confesses Anil Parab.

The Maharashtra regime currently levies entertainment tax on cable TV subscribers at the rate of Rs 45 per sub; CODA has been imploring and lobbying with the government to scale this down to Rs 15 or Rs 20 as is the practice in many other states and cities.

According to Parab, the current rate is too high considering that transparency in the cable TV sector has really gone up and leakages have reduced with the introduction of set top boxes and digitisation. “The only only reason we had agreed to a hike to Rs 45 per sub was because there was under-declaration in the ecosystem and hence a perceived loss to the state exchequer. But with declarations of cable TV subs by cable operators and MSOs more than doubling, rate needs to be brought down as the burden on the industry is crippling us and really hurting our viability,” he reveals.

CODA is slated to meet the minister this week and make its presentation. As of now, Delhi’s rate is Rs 20 while in other cities it is less than five per cent. “The current rate is too much. We would be happy with anything between Rs 15 and Rs 20,” says Parab.

NEW DELHI: Horse & Country TV, the specialist equestrian sports and lifestyle network, has tied up with Amagi Media Labs to deliver its signal to cable, satellite and IPTV operators as part of its international expansion plans.

Amagi offers a next generation cloud-based broadcast distribution and play out infrastructure for television networks. The Bangalore-based company runs India’s largest local advertising network playing more than one million local ad seconds every month on more than ten TV networks ranging from sports and news to entertainment and lifestyle. The company also has international deployments of its broadcast infrastructure in Singapore and Africa.

Horse & Country will leverage Amagi’s cloudport infrastructure platform to deliver localised channel feeds to current and future markets where the channel is distributed.

The cloudport platform is designed as a full-featured alternative to traditional channel play-out options (like satellite, fibre). TV networks can deliver feeds with rich channel branding, diverse language versions and subtitles using cloudport.

The platform can incorporate local advertising and local programme insertion and will shortly also allow for the insertion of live programming. Unlike earlier iterations of remote play-out technologies, the platform allows for full monitoring of programme play-out and health of the play-out servers at the headends. The play-out servers are fully redundant which ensures seamless and fail-safe operation.

H&C TV conducted an extensive review of technology options for international delivery and play-out of localised content including satellite, fibre and IP delivery, working with John Wallace of Wallace Broadcast, before selecting Amagi cloudport as the best solution for its specific needs for international expansion.

H&C TV CEO and chairman Heather Killen said, “Future-proofing our channel for multi-platform international distribution has been a key strategic goal for H&C as we expand our presence in new markets. We are confident that we have found in Amagi a partner that will support our development in an extremely flexible and targeted way.”

Amagi co-founder strategy investments and R&D Baskar Subramanian said, “We believe that cloud-based models are the future of broadcast. Cloudport holistically addresses all the needs of broadcasters for channel play-out and is set to become the standard for multi-platform channel delivery, replacing expensive satellite and fibre-based content delivery. We are delighted to announce Horse & Country TV as Amagi’s first Europe-based, international channel and look forward to a long and successful partnership as they continue their international roll-out.”

Horse & Country TV broadcasts in the UK and Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and Malta. The Channel carries exclusive sports event coverage, news, documentary and personality-led programming to the passionate audience for horse sports and country living. 

NEW DELHI: DigiVive has bagged the mobile streaming rights for live and repeat ODI matches between India and Zimbabwe from Seven Sports.

The master distributor of the India-Zimbabwe series is Taj sports. The five ODI match series scheduled to take place in Zimbabwe between 24 July and 3 August will be streamed on DigiVive‘s mobile TV platform nexGTv. Over 14 million users of nexGTv and nexGTv HD will be able to enjoy the live matches right on their handsets.

Also, users will be able to watch matches at their convenience by watching repeat matches under the Video-on-Demand section.

DigiVive‘s mobile TV service nexGTv is second only to YouTube in video streaming space on mobile experiencing over 30,000 downloads every day is what the mobile service claims. In the past also DigiVive had picked up rights to stream live events, especially cricket series like T20 World Cup, IPL 2013 and others, attracting huge audience on nexGTv.

nexGTv‘s continuous strive towards providing appropriate and desirable content like Indian cricket matches, live channels, short and full-length movies, premium content during festivals, etc. has made it the people‘s choice for entertainment.

nexGTv has maintained its top position on various online stores and on other app stores as it remains among top five apps in the entertainment category.

DigiVive director G.D. Singh said, “Cricketing events on nexGTv help us to connect with masses at large because this is what they want to see and stay connected to.”

“Cricket on mobile platform has become a popular phenomenon through nexGTv. Now people are not only watching live action on the move on nexGTv but it is becoming a second television at homes. We have been living to our commitment of offering all Indian cricket extravaganzas to our end users. This will enable them to watch entire five match series”, Singh added. 

NEW DELHI: In an order that may help multi-system operators whose applications for DAS licence are pending with the government, the Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has directed Media Pro Enterprises to restore television signals to Lucknow-9 Cable Network of Lucknow as an interim measure.

The Lucknow-based operator had said that its application for licence under Digital Access System (DAS) has been pending before the Information and Broadcasting Ministry for several months.

Chairperson Justice Aftab Alam and member Kuldeep Singh also directed the Lucknow network to file an affidavit to the effect that its application filed in the Ministry for grant of license under Rule 11 C of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994 was not defective but was complete and in order, in all respects. It would also file a copy of the application in a sealed cover.

Meanwhile, the Lucknow-based operator would pay to content aggregator Media Pro all dues following a reconciliation of accounts and further to file an undertaking before this Tribunal that it would transmit or retransmit programmes of any channels following the provisions of section 4 A of the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995. This undertaking has already been filed.

Media Pro counsel Tejveer Singh Bhatia had told the Tribunal that his client could not supply the signals as it was prohibited from doing so under clause 3(2) of the Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable Services) Interconnection (Digital Addressable Television Systems) Regulations, 2012 ‘for the simple reason that the Petitioner did not have a license under Regulation 11 C of the Cable Television Networks Rules, 1994.’

But Counsel for the operator Vikram Singh said as there was inordinate delay in the grant of license, the operator had approached the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High Court which had disposed off the Petition by order dated 2 June 2013 directing the concerned authority to rid the application for license within 15 days from the date of receipt of the certified copy of that order. Counsel also stated that the date stipulated in the High Court’s order has expired on 2 July 2013 but it has so far not received any communication in regard to its application for the license.

NEW DELHI: The eminent ghazal singer Pankaj Udhas will now feature in the musical concert ‘Khazana – a festival of Ghazals‘ live on Tata Sky‘s interactive platform, Actve Music. While the event takes place in Mumbai, Tata Sky subscribers across the country will enjoy the Ghazal maestros live from the comfort of their homes.

Celebrating eleven glorious years of soulful melodies, “Khazana – a festival of Ghazals”, will raise funds for Cancer and Thalassemic patients and children through an annual event that provides a rare opportunity for Ghazal aficionados to experience the rich and vibrant performances of India‘s top performers on 26 and 27 July.

This year, “Khazana” will feature a multitude of talents including Bhupinder and Mitali Singh, Anup Jalota, Talat Aziz, Ahmed Hussain and Mohd. Hussain, Kavita Seth, Sudeep Banerji, Runa and Neha Rizvi, Anita Singhvi, Sumeet Tapoo, Pooja Gaitonde and Pankaj Udhas.

Tata Sky has associated with Hungama.com (which powers the Actve Music service), to bring to its customers, a first of its kind event where Pankaj Udhas will officially launch his Album ‘Sentimental‘ exclusively on Tata Sky Actve Music. A sneak peak of the album was made available exclusively to the Tata Sky.

MUMBAI: Search engine giant Google on an average day reportedly handles 25 per cent of web traffic running through North American internet service providers (ISPs) which makes it bigger than Facebook, Netflix and Instagram combined.

Founder of Deepfield, the internet monitoring company, Craig Labovitz said that over the past year Google has become pervasive not just in Google data centers, but throughout the North American internet and 62 per cent of smartphones, tablets and other devices that tap into the internet from throughout North America connect to Google at least once a day. According to the report, Google‘s lion share of the web traffic comes from YouTube and the growing traffic is the reason why Google is building data centers as fast as possible and has data centers on four continents.

Google has added thousands of servers called Google Global Cache servers to ISPs around the world which store the most popular content from Google‘s network and then serve it directly from the ISP‘s data center, rather than streaming it all the way from Google‘s data center.

Labovitz said that Google and Netflix‘s move into so many of the ISP network operation centers is likely to be followed by other internet giants like Apple and Facebook, the report added.

MUMBAI: Reliance Entertainment Digital‘s movie-on-demand service, Big Flix, has formed a licensing agreement with one of the leading content houses of the country – Shemaroo Entertainment. The alliance will allow users of Big Flix to stream a wide range of blockbusters movies by Shemaroo Entertainment – ranging from black and white films to some of the most recent releases.

The catalogue offers an assortment of classics to latest hits with a blend of genres in multiple languages – Hindi, Marathi and Tamil. Few of the finest Hindi classics like the iconic film Mughal-E-Azam, Raj Kapoor‘s Anari, Mithun‘s Disco Dancer, Rajesh Khanna‘s Roti to some of the contemporary films like Amitabh Bachchan‘s Black, Aamir Khan‘s Sarfarosh, Vidya Balan‘s Ishqiya & The Dirty Picture and so on form the part of the list.

The Marathi catalogue will feature key titles like Aaichcha Gondhal, Abhimanyu, Joshi ki Kamble and Juiley, while Tamil titles like Balam, Ivar, Mahesh Saranya Matrum Palar and Manja Velu will the add to the variety of the Shemaroo catalogue on Big Flix.

Commenting on the association with Shemaroo Entertainment, Big Flix business head Shreyash Sigtia said, “There is a definite demand for classic films amongst movie enthusiasts and Shemaroo Entertainment is credited to have given Indian audiences some iconic and successful titles in Bollywood for decades now. We are delighted to partner with Shemaroo Entertainment to add an array of blockbusters from every decade to the existing catalogue on Big Flix. The multi-lingual catalogue will cater perfectly to the movie enthusiasts who desire an assortment of film entertainment anytime, anywhere. Also with this alliance, Big Flix continues to tie up with leading entertainment companies, thereby acquiring internet rights of some of the best titles of the industry.”

Shemaroo Entertainment director Jai Maroo said, “We are glad to join hands with Big Flix as the association is in line with our strategy to be one of the major content providers across countries. Our vision is to be present on all devices, any time and on any connection. Big Flix being a prominent online platform in digital space will help us cater to wider range of audience across geographies. Shemaroo has turned into a one-stop-shop for many of the platforms where we not only provide the content but also manage it.”