Category: Technology

MUMBAI: mtvU, which is US broadcaster MTV‘s college network and the Kaiser Family Foundation have announced the “Change the Course of HIV Challenge.

This is a competition offering college students digital tools to reduce the spread of HIV/Aids among young people in the US. The challenge asks gamers, activists or any student with a great idea to propose a viral, Web-based video game concept to help raise awareness about HIV/Aids among 15-24 year olds in the US and to promote personal action in response to the epidemic.

The winning individual or team will work with mtvU and the Kaiser Family Foundation — which are committing $75,000 to the development and marketing of the game — to see their idea realised. mtvU GM Stephen Friedman, says, “No undergrad in school today has known a world without HIV/Aids and a new young person someplace in the world is infected every 15 seconds GM. Through this challenge, we hope to inspire college students to use the power of online gaming to engage their peers, re-awaken them to the magnitude of this deadly virus and effect prevention.”

Kaiser Family Foundation VP and director, entertainment media partnerships Tina Hoff says, “The competition is designed to help us reach young people in a different and engaging way to help inform them about HIV/Aids and spur action. As HIV remains the great public health challenge of this generation, it‘s essential to find new and creative ways to engage and inform young people about the epidemic.”

The two parties are looking for innovative, interactive concepts for video games that will spread rapidly online. Proposed projects should raise awareness about HIV/Aids among young people in the US, identify ways to stop its spread, and address the silence, stigma and discrimination surrounding the disease.

MUMBAI: Last year, the US telecom market grew at its fastest rate since 2000, showing that the drive towards convergence continues to stimulate the telecommunications industry, according to TIA’s 2007 Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast.

Each year, TIA’s Telecommunications Market Review and Forecast analyses the trends affecting the information and communications technology industry. The report includes an overview of the entire industry, as well as detailed sections on the landline, wireless, equipment and international markets.

TIA’s annual review of the health of the telecom industry shows that the worldwide telecom market grew 11.2 per cent in 2006 to total $3 trillion in revenue, while the US market grew 9.3 per cent to total $923 billion.

Demand for broadband and high-speed services is fueling this growth, as carriers invest in new fiber, new IP technology and new wireless infrastructure to provide state-of-the-art voice, video and data services.

Europe has the largest telecom market, measuring at $1 trillion, with the Asia/Pacific third at $715 billion. Overall, the international market grew 12.1 per cent in 2006. Middle East/Africa was the fastest- growing region, expanding at 21.6 per cent. By 2010, the global market is expected to reach $4.3 trillion in revenue.

TIA president Grant Seiffert says, “Consumers are thirsty for broadband, and this report shows carriers are rushing to meet the demand. Technologies like voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and broadband video, as well as new mobile data services, are sparking new growth in the telecommunications industry. As a result, carriers are offering more competitive all-in-one bundled packages, and consumers are seeing lower prices and more services.”

The report forecasts growth for competing new broadband technologies such as fiber, satellite, wireless and broadband over powerline, which combined will account for more than 11 per cent of broadband subscribers in 2010.

MUMBAI: Measat Satellite Systems has announced that Measat-3 has successfully completed in orbit testing and had entered commercial service.

At a ceremony held Thursday at the Measat Teleport and Broadcast Centre, located just outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the satellite was officially handed over by Boeing Satellite Systems International Inc and the first customer, Radio Television Malaysia One (RTM-1), up-linked onto the satellite.

“Thanks to the hard efforts of the Boeing and Measat teams, the deployment and extensive in orbit testing of the Measat-3 satellite has been completed ahead of schedule with the satellite now ready for commercial use” said Paul Brown-Kenyon, Chief Operating Officer, Measat. “We are focused on managing the migration of our lead DTH, Broadcasting and Telecom customers onto the new platform as they expand their services”.

Designed to work co-located with Measat-1, the deployment of Measat-3 at the 91.5°E orbital location will boosts Measat satellite capacity at its key orbital location by some 300 per cent. The satellite will also extend the network reach to over 100 countries across Asia, Australia, The Middle East, Eastern Africa and Eastern Europe representing 70 per cent of the world’s population.

MUMBAI: American consumers are willing to pay enough for watching TV on mobile phones to justify what it would cost carriers to build a new broadcast network to guarantee quality service, according to just-released study.

The study by the Mobile Digital TV Alliance discusses the economic viability and consumer adoption of mobile TV and concludes that a successful proposition for mobile TV in the United States is high-quality video and service and flat rates of about $20 a month for unlimited viewing.

To meet those standards, the alliance suggests building a separate broadcast network, which would cost a carrier between $500 million and $2 billion.

“The Economics of Mobile TV,” authored by Yoram Solomon, discusses how open standards promote mature competition furthermore improving the economics of mobile broadcast TV, how mobile TV adds a new dimension of value to existing products; as well as why – contrary to popular belief – consumers will pay to use this added service.

MUMBAI: BenQ, a leading player in digital network devices, today announced their participation as official display partner at India‘s biggest gaming event Skoar! 2007 at Pragati Maidan, Hall no. 12, New Delhi.

Skoar! 2007 is an expo for gamers, game publishers, content providers and gaming-related hardware manufacturers.

Leveraging this platform, BenQ also announced the availability of new products in India including the BenQ FP92W, claimed to be the worlds fastest LCD wide screen monitor, and the new BenQ MP510 projector for professionals.

The BenQ FP92W will offer a completely new “viewing” experience and comes with a 5ms-response time, the release says.

Further BenQ MP510 projector is an affordable big screen home entertainment well suited for gaming. With a 1500-lumen lamp and 2000:1 contrast ratio, the MP510 adds wall color correction which gives picture quality even withoput a projector screen, the release claims.

Says Robert Dung, BenQ managing director IMEA (India-Middle East-Africa), “With the advent of hi-tech games, movies and animation there would be an increasing demand for fast and wide screen LCD monitors as compared to the CRT monitors.”

MUMBAI: The Tata Sky DTH platform has reached an agreement with Neo Sports, the channel that has rights to telecast India cricket.

An immediate fallout of this is the fact that Tata Sky subscribers will get to watch live the third ODI that kicked off in Chennai today and the subsequent matches as well.

The remaining matches of the series will be available live on Tata Sky and in digital picture quality, a release issued by the DTH service provider states.

Doordarshan is also showing the matches but with a seven-minute delay. The national broadcaster was allowed to telecast the matches ‘deferred live‘ following a Delhi High Court ruling on dispute between Nimbus and Prasar Bharti.

MUMBAI: Singapore based pay-TV operator StarHub and French company Visiware, provider of interactive TV games channels, announced the launch of Playin‘TV Triple Play -the first triple-play gaming offer in Asia that will be made available to customers of StarHub from 1 February 2007.

Games like Sudoku or Carrot Mania on Ice are some of the interactive games that customers can subscribe to through StarHub‘s mobile platform and the Internet for free due to Visiware‘s Playin‘Code technology.

This means that they will be able to enjoy the games anytime, anywhere, on any of StarHub‘s media platforms -TV, mobile and online. They can pick up from where they ended a game, without having to start from scratch. The company is also exploring ways to enhance the Playin‘TV service by incorporating contests, real-time leaderboards and multiplayer games that will allow gamers to pit their skills against other players.

StarHub vice president Cable TV services Patrick Lim said, “StarHub‘s advantage as a fully integrated information, communications and entertainment provider is its ability to offer customers access to a converged suite of services across different product lines. We have consistently worked to incorporate new technologies that allow us to present our customers more breadth and depth in content applications, and Playin‘TV Triple Play is an example of the fruit of such efforts. Customers can certainly expect more of such innovations from StarHub.”

“We are delighted that Playin‘TV Triple Play is now making its entry into the Asian market. StarHub‘s efficient and advanced network provides us with the opportunity to effectively deploy true triple-play content, to allow fans of Playin‘TV to enjoy the games even when they‘re on-the-go,” said Visiware executive chairman Laurant Weill.

Playin‘TV, a 24-hour interactive games channel, was launched on StarHub Digital Cable in August last year.

MUMBAI: Nielsen Analytics in the US has released a new report revealing that advertisers and television programmers are finding new and more lucrative advertising opportunities with broadband video.

The study has also determined that the use of broadband video actually extends the reach of traditional TV, and that broadband consumers are young, affluent, highly educated, and tend to have high speed web access virtually 24/7, making it an integral part of their lifestyle.

The study, Whatever, Whenever, Wherever: How Broadband is Redefining the Economics of Television is authored by Nielsen Analytics head Larry Gerbrandt and completed in partnership with Scarborough Research.

He says, “By researching controlled broadband access, this study concludes that programmers have the opportunity to create new revenue models to benefit content owners and their affiliated stations. Such ad-supported models are uniquely adaptable to the broadband environment and are potentially superior to existing models because they can take full advantage of the digital environment. With broadband streams, for example, fast forwarding through commercials can be disabled making it more likely the consumers will watch the spots and possibly interact with them.”

Despite growing numbers of prime time television shows being streamed (or pre-viewed) on network web sites, or the increasing popularity of user generated content (UGC), there has been no measurable negative impact on traditional television viewing. Video on PCs and iPods actually is expanding the audience of traditional TV programmes, supported by the fact that total TV usage was at a record high in U.S. households at 8 hours, 14 minutes a day during the 2005-2006 TV season according to Nielsen Media Research data. Household viewing has risen more than an hour a day over the past decade – or more than a half hour more per person.

Gerbrandt adds, “Advertisers and programmers using broadband have a unique advantage in the increasingly competitive advertising world. Ad models can be customized and managed in a broadband environment, and interactivity can be embedded into the program in such a way as to enhance engagement which does not take viewers away from the enjoyment of the programme.”

Broadband Video Advertising Models: There is a general consensus that viewers prefer short web-served ads, though the market is split between 15-second and 30-second pre-rolls per program segment. Furthermore, because broadband video offers levels of interactivity and viewer engagement not possible in a traditional TV spot, that argues for a higher CPM.

But television – especially the ad-supported kind – works according to a very different revenue model, and systems such as broadband streaming and downloading, could represent a new frontier to be explored and exploited. However, the posting of copyrighted content to web sites still presents challenges that remain to be litigated.

About the Broadband Consumer: Broadband access across the US has reached critical mass and is having a clear impact on user behaviour. According to Scarborough Research broadband consumers tend to have high speed web access virtually 24/7 – at work, at home and increasingly across an array of portable devices such as laptops, PDAs and mobile phones.

While only about nine per cent of US adults report spending 20 hours or more a week on the Internet, this number nearly doubles, to 17 per cent, among those with broadband access at home.

There is a strong correlation between education and Internet access, and the same holds true for broadband connections. Of the roughly one-third (33 per cent) of U.S. adults reside in households without any Internet connection, 69 per cent have only a high school degree or less. The comparable percentage for those in broadband households is one-third or 33 per cent.

Of all US adults, almost a quarter (24 per cent) have a college degree or greater. This number increases to 35 per cent among adults with broadband Internet access at home. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of those with post-graduate degrees have an Internet connection, and most of those have a broadband connection.

Broadband consumers are upscale: According to Scarborough‘s findings, 17 per cent of consumers have an annual household income of $100,000 or more, compared to 28 pr cent of those with broadband connectivity. Less than a quarter (21 per cent) of all consumers live in homes worth $300,000 or more; but the figure is 30 per cent for those consumers with broadband in their household.

There is a clear generational divide in broadband adoption. The 18-34 demographic represents 34 per cent of those with broadband connectivity in their household. Though consumers 55+ are less likely than their 18-34 or 35-54 year-old counterparts to be broadband customers, broadband penetration among this older age group will likely increase. The 35-54 demographic is currently most likely to have home broadband access (45 per cent).

MUMBAI: News Corp‘s social networking site, MySpace, plans to more than double the number of countries it will operate in by the end of the year.

Media reports state that the goal is to have a presence in 11 countries. This includes China. The company has test-launched a service in Mexico.

Meanwhile MySpace has sued an e-mail marketing executive for an unspecified amount of damages, saying that he and his company were behind millions of junk e-mail, or spam, messages sent to its customers‘ accounts.

MySpace filed the lawsuit against Scott Richter in US District Court in Los Angeles.

MUMBAI: BBC World Service has teamed up with QA Konsortium, a mobile content aggregator in Bangladesh, to launch a SMS news service in Dhaka.

The service provides subscribers with news from the BBC gathered from all over the world via a single SMS sent to their mobile phone.

BBC news on-demand is available in seven categories – Asia Pacific, Breaking News, Cricket, Entertainment, Football, South Asia and World News.

Subscribers can register by sending “reg bbc” to 6666.

BBC Bengali head Sabir Mustafa said, “News through mobile phones is the newest frontier of today‘s broadcasting world, and the BBC is at the forefront of this new media revolution.

“By combining cutting edge technology with our high editorial standards and unequalled newsgathering capability, we are able to bring the world to mobile phone users in Bangladesh at the touch of a button.‘‘

QA Konsortium head AK Mahuiddin said, “The BBC‘s credibility and position of clear global news leadership will add unparalleled value to our subscribers‘ experience.

“Staying in touch through a credible news media is now virtually mandatory in a world where reliable information has become a vital decision-making currency for all walks of life.”