Category: Software

NEW DELHI: Repositioning of the mobile phone as an instrument of empowerment, “Broadband For All” at a minimum download speed of 2 Mbps, convergence of network, services and devices and liberalisation of spectrum are some of the salient points of the National Telecom Policy and Unified Licensing Regime for 2012.

The policy, approved by the Union Cabinet today, seeks to provide a predictable and stable policy regime for a period of about ten years. It will be operationalised by bringing out detailed guidelines, as may be considered appropriate, from time to time.

Implementation will enable smooth implementation of the policies for providing an efficient telecommunication infrastructure taking into account the primary objective of maximising public good by empowering the people of India.

The policy will further enable taking suitable facilitatory measures to encourage existing service providers to rapidly migrate to the new regime in a uniformly liberalised environment with a level playing field.

The Cabinet also approved introduction of Unified Licence and authorised the Department of Telecommunications to finalise the new Unified Licensing regime with the approval of Minister of Communications & IT.

The policy envisions providing secure, reliable, affordable and high quality converged telecommunication services anytime, anywhere for an accelerated inclusive socio-economic development. The main thrust of the Policy is on the multiplier effect and transformational impact of such services on the overall economy.

The aim is to increase rural teledensity from the current level of around 39 to 70 by the year 2017 and 100 by the year 2020.

Simplification of Licensing regime: Unified Licensing, delinking of Spectrum from License, Online real time submission and processing.

Consumer Focus: The policy calls for full mobile number portability and working towards one nation.

Free Roaming; Resale of Services; Voice over Internet Protocol; and Cloud Computing with Next Generation Network including IPV6 are among the salient features of the new policy.

MUMBAI: iNovo Broadband, which provides next generation CPE‘s to the market, has appointed Roshan D’souza as vice president and GM for Asia Pacific.

D’souza comes in from Hathway Cable & Datacom, where he was president – broadband. Prior to joining Hathway in September 2010, he was with Scientific Atlanta / Cisco.

iNovo was founded by Jack Miller and Himanshu Parikh in 2011. Miller also founded N2 broadband which he later sold to Tandberg Television (now part of Ericsson) for $130 million. Parikh started in 2000 the standard base CPE business in Scientific Atlanta (later acquired by Cisco) and after 11 years generated over $1 billion in annual sales.

Miller is CEO, while Parikh is CTO at the company. “We currently have on board a full team of marketing and engineering experts in the CPE business, most of them coming from Scientific Atlanta / Cisco,” D’souza said.

“We are seeing that worldwide deployment of video and IP based digital set-top boxes and modems are continuing to expand, with a market over $10 billion,” he further added.

iNovo will offer a full line of CPE products, such as digital STBs for cable, satellite and IPTV service providers besides DOCSIS 2.0 and 3.0 modems and residential gateways.

iNovo is discussing its products with several Asia Pacific customers and plans to ship its first products mid-to-late summer of this year. “We can bring to the market our combined team experience, from partner’s relationship like Contract manufactures, CAS vendors, chipset vendors and customer relationship,” emphasised D’souza.

MUMBAI: Yahoo! India has launched the country’s first-ever online retrospective from Vinod Chopra Films (VCF) on Yahoo! Video.

With this, internet users in India now have the opportunity to watch eight super hit films from this banner for free on Yahoo! Video. Starting 7 May and lasting through September this year, the festival showcases a selection of films from the banner of which some will be available online for the first time.

Movie buffs can catch movies like 3 idiots, Munna Bhai MBBS, Lage Raho Munna Bhai, Parineeta, Parinda, Khamosh, Mission Kashmir and Kareeb. Each film would be available for viewing on Yahoo! Video for 60 days from the day of launch.

Yahoo! India managing editor Prem Panicker said, “For movie buffs, the Vinod Chopra Films label has been a guarantor of quality – entertainment with a mind and heart. From classics like Parinda and Khamosh, to more recent block-busters like the Munnabhai franchise and 3 Idiots, VCF has produced films that have defined their time.

Yahoo! is proud to associate with VCF in its first-ever online retrospective. Online consumption particularly of entertainment content is growing exponentially, and the signal we get from our audience is that they are primed to enjoy such premium content.”

Commenting on the tie-up, Vinod Chopra Films CEO Sameer Rao said, “In launching the online Vinod Chopra Films retrospective, we are happy to partner with Yahoo! and take the benefit of their wide reach and strong editorial programming to bring our iconic films to online Indian audiences.”

Last year, in an first-ever for India, the kids full-length animation movie Super K produced by Shemaroo Entertainment Ltd. had an exclusive online premiere on Yahoo!

MUMBAI: Renowned CGI and VFX supervisor Ben Cowell-Thomas has joined the Mumbai commercials division of Prime Focus.

In his new role, Ben would be responsible for overseeing seamless delivery of VFX commercials in Mumbai.

Ben will work along with creative directors Huzefa Lokhadwala and Prakash Kurup to expand Prime Focus’ recently revamped Khar facility. In addition, he will further develop the international production pipeline working with Juan Pablo Brockhaus, recently appointed VFX supervisor in London, and Jake Braver managing VFX supervisor at the newly launched New York facility.

Ben has created award winning commercials and short films across a wide variety of media including CG, live action, stop-motion and interactive. Awards to his credit include a Grand Prize (Ottawa), BTAA Silver Award, Grand Prize (International 3D Awards) and an Oscar nomination. His work has taken him around the world with stints at Condor Post in London, Ambience Entertainment in Sydney, Australia and as a 3D Animation and VFX lecturer for Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore.

Some of the recent projects Ben has been involved in include Intel The Chase, Honda This Unpredictable Life, Coca Cola Avatar, Coca Cola Videogame and Toyota Scion Transformer.

Said Prime Focus co-founder and creative director Huzefa Lokhandwala, “Ben’s appointment is of great essence to us. His talent and invaluable experience will complement the incredible talent we already have at our VFX Studio. We look forward expanding our Khar VFX offering with Ben on board.”

Said Prime Focus VP for films and commercials in India Niraj Sanghai, “Ben joining the team in India is of great significance not only to what it will bring to our Mumbai offering, but also to our global offering. The appointment of Ben, Juan and Jake at our key offices in Mumbai, London and New York respectively will allow us to present high-end creativity to local markets whilst utilising our Global Digital Pipeline to unite these cities.”

MUMBAI: Jump Games, Reliance Entertainment Digital‘s mobile and web games developer and publisher, has launched a series of games under the title ‘Indian Warriors’.

Indian Warrior allows gamers to adapt a role of their favourite freedom fighter- be it Shivaji Maharaj , Rani Lakshmi Bai, Bhagat Singh or Tipu Sultan.

Each of this individual game is based on their favourite freedom fighter and will offer circumstances and situation to escape death from the Britishers. It will offer a glimpse of freedom fighter’s life.

Jump Games business head India Chaitanya Prabhu said, “This series is been made in conjunction to the Border War series. With Border War we got the insight that Indians love to be a part of freedom fights and games based on patriotism evoke a very strong emotion. Hence Jump Games is once again living up to its motto of Think Global – Play Local. We are expecting the series to hit some great numbers on all leading operators and on Nokia Stores.”

The game will be available on all leading operators like Vodafone, BSNL, Idea, Docomo. Priced at Rs 50, it has been made for Java, Blackberry and Android technologies.

The various features of the game series are a classic arcade game with very vivid and crystal clear graphics; two game modes; simple controls for pick-up and play; innovative power-ups; and easy to use controls.

NEW DELHI: ZengaTV, offering 2.5 G mobile video streaming, has entered into a partnership with ETV to make all the 12 ETV channels available for free.

Zenga TV claims 55 million video views month on month at an average viewership of over 12 minutes.

ZengaTV CEO Shabir Momiin said, “it is a proud moment for us as this addition of 12 channels from the ETV Group now takes our offering of channels close to 100. This partnership has further strengthened our commitment to offer our viewers the best of entertainment through mobile screens including mobiles, laptops and tabs. The 12 channels from ETV group gives us the chance to offer viewers regional channels and to reach out to those who are more glued to channels pertaining to their mother tongue. Our focus in future will be to add more regional channels to our platform.”

ETV Network‘s bouquet consists of 12 regional channels: ETV Telugu, ETV2, ETV Bangla, ETV Marathi, ETV Kannada, ETV Oriya, ETV Gujarati, ETV Urdu, ETV Uttar Pradesh, ETV Rajasthan, ETV Bihar and ETV Madhya Pradesh.

ZengaTV is an operator agnostic service and can be accessed through any mobile operators as well as on the web.

MUMBAI: iMusti.com, an audio and video content provider, has partnered Shemaroo Entertainment to distribute the latter‘s collection of more than 500 classic Hindi as well as contemporary titles on DVDs and VCDs in USA and Canada.

The online content provider will also sell Shemaroo’s regional collection including those in Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi and Bengali albums.

Said Shemaroo Entertainment Director Hiren Gada, “We have been making constant efforts to be present on every platform wherever our consumers are present. Through this tie up we will offer original high quality content on an affordable price point.”

MUMBAI: Tata Docomo, the telecom brand of Tata Teleservices (TTL), has announced the launch of first of its kind e-commerce initiative by a telecom company.

The company has introduced a Twitter application for its GSM pre-paid customers that will allow them to recharge and activate a Value added service/ application through Twitter with the use of hashtags.

The e-commerce initiative, called Twittcom, has been developed by the team at TTL.

TTL head of brand marketing Ritesh Ghosal said, “As a brand, Tata Docomo has always differentiated itself with its innovations, whether it is 1p/sec pricing for calls, or advertising, efforts have always been made to add value to the lives of consumers. With the increasing consumption of Internet and the rise of social media it makes ample sense to be present on the medium where people are spending time at present or they are likely to spend time in the future. Our community on Facebook is amongst the strongest in the world and Twitter too will reach the same levels quite soon.”

For registering their numbers, customers have to go to the twitter handle of the company @tatadocomo, type in #reg and they will receive a pin code for verification through SMS. Once the verification code is received, customers need to go to the twitter handle again, key in #code and they will get a retweet confirming registration.

For activating value added services, a customer needs to go to the handle (@tatadocomo) and key in #act#. They will get a tweet back confirming activation of the service.

MUMBAI: Digital agency Red Digital has created a TweetMob for PVR Cinemas in their attempt to engage “Twitterati”.

According to the company, the result of the TweetMob was that PVR became the most talked about thing on twitter for the day- across India in a short span of 60 minutes.

Red Digital is expected to further build and execute strategies that will help PVR Cinemas reach and engage their target audience. It will play a key role in generating online buzz on new movie screenings at the multiplex, by launching various campaigns and hosting engagement activities.

Red Digital co-founder and managing director Harsh Jain said, “Social media provides seamless opportunities for brands. We are glad to have a partnership with PVR, which opens up a new array of interaction for us. Red Digital is focused on taking the exclusive PVR experience to the online world. We plan to focus on high levels of engagement for PVR fans and create a convergence for them between the online and offline worlds. Our innovative ‘TweetMobs‘, which take the concept of Flash Mobs to Twitter, have proved Red Digital‘s ability to focus on digital innovation aimed at bringing value to our clients.”

PVR Cinemas group president Pramod Arora added, “Realising the immense power and the connect that the medium has with Youth, there was no better time to start than the release of our home production Shanghai which will be hitting theatres on June 8. We are pleased to partner with Red Digital for this initiative to ensure there is a high level of engagement and traction for PVR Cinemas as a brand. PVR is India‘s leading lifestyle entertainment provider and we want to entrust the same experience for our fans and followers in the digital world too. The phenomenal response to our first activity on twitter clearly indicates the love and connect that people have with our brand. ‘Happy Movie Days‘ have just begun in an all new fashion.”

Red Digital had launched two hash-tags: #PVRFriday and #PVRTweetHour for PVR Cinemas under the aegis of ‘Men in Black-3‘ (MIB3) and ‘Shanghai‘. Using #PVRFriday, Twitterati were asked to Tweet who their favorite agent was between Agent J and Agent K in the MIB series and why? The Twitter handle of PVR Cinemas (@_pvrcinemas) trended in India and reached over 86,170 Twitter users, the company said.

#PVRTweetHour was used for promoting the movie Shanghai (a PVR Pictures release) in a span of 60 minutes with 10 questions that were tagged with #PVRTweetHour. As per the company, before the end of those 60 minutes, the hash-tag saw over 281,761 PVR branded impressions within an hour, and reached 34,142 twitter users. The activity saw close to 4,700 PVR branded impression being seen every minute for one hour.

MUMBAI: LazyCounty.com, a free online entertainment content provider has launched. It offers social networking, online communications and entertainment which encompass a TV, radio and a games station at one platform.

LazyCounty.com allows users to create their own radio channel and earn some money while at it. Positioned as India’s first and only free of cost digital TV showcasing over thousands of national and international TV channels apart from thousands of radio stations, and games (both national and international), LazyCounty.com aims to take it to another level with the mobile interface which is accessible through any mobile device in the world enabled with basic GPRS connectivity.

The core idea was based on one observation that individuals are basically too lazy to look for different websites to cater to our tastes in music, television or essentially any other form of entertainment. The Social Broadcast channel allows a user to simply register and broadcast himself on his very own channel, whether a lecturer to his students across the globe or a CEO to his employees across offices. LazyCounty.com aims to connect entertainment and friends from the world over through one single window. Now a user can view and share unlimited music, movies, shows, concerts, lectures, conversations etc for free of cost.

Lazycounty.com CEO Ankur Sachdeva said, “We are glad to introduce a platform where a billion mobile internet users (GSM/CDMA) across the world apart from 381.40 million in India can combine the power of mobility with that of digital TV, Radio and Games. By reaching out to maximum users, we wish to verify the potential of the unlimited range of entertainment provided by this portal in the Indian market. We are aiming at entertaining at least over 100 million subscribers over the next 2 years.”

LazyCounty.com also offers an application called ‘Hear Me Out’. This setting allows a user to create their own radio station by uploading audio tracks of their choice.

One can also Live Chat with friends while sports teams battle it out, comment on an international movie and share reviews on the go, enjoy a few hours daily with ones own radio station and connect with friends all over the world. With over 100 million users being able to access chat from any mobile device, Lazy Messenger (LM) is all set to give IM Services a run for their money within the next two years.