Category: Software

MUMBAI: The year 2012 will see online movie viewing in the US surpassing digital video disc and Blu-ray sales for the first time, according to a report by IHS Screen Digest.

Legal online viewings of films will more than double to 3.4 billion this year from 1.4 billion in 2011, the report said. Physical viewings of DVDs and Blu-ray discs will shrink to 2.4 billion from 2.6 billion, according to the forecast.

The report highlights the price disparity between online purchases and movies sold in retail shops. Consumers paid an average of 51 cents for every movie consumed online, compared with $4.72 for physically purchased videos, IHS found.

Last year, unlimited-streaming subscription plans, including those offered by Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and online retailer Amazon.com (AMZN)’s Prime service, accounted for 94 per cent of all paid online movie consumption in the US, the report said.

Streamed movies have been replacing video discs much as streamed music is overtaking compact audio discs.

MUMBAI: Yummly.com, the leading recipe search platform, today announced that it has closed a $6 million Series A funding round led by Physic Ventures, with contributions from Unilever Corporate Ventures, Harrison Metal Capital, First Round Capital, Intel Capital, The Harvard Common Press, and angel investors.

Andy Donner of Physic Ventures and Andy Porteous of Unilever will join the company‘s board of directors. Yummly will use the funds to further expand its team, scale its marketing efforts and add new features and functionality to the site.

“Innovative solutions that help people cook and eat healthy, flavorful meals are core to Physic Ventures‘ mission of investing in keeping people healthy,” said Physic Ventures partner Andy Donner. “We believe that Yummly has the opportunity to assist both experienced cooks and newcomers in the kitchen by providing a comprehensive digital platform encompassing meal planning, procurement, preparation and participation.”

Said Phil Giesler, Venturing Director for Unilever Corporate Ventures, “Unilever Corporate Ventures invests in early-stage companies that have the potential to be strategically relevant to Unilever and can benefit from access to Unilever‘s assets and capabilities, particularly in the areas of sustainable living, health, novel foods, personal care and digital marketing. Yummly fits this bill well and we are now exploring how it might be able to support Unilever brands in the digital space.”

Launched in April of 2010 by co-founders David Feller and Vadim Geshel, Yummly is a food and recipe platform that seeks to understand recipes from across the Internet and intuitively match them with its users‘ tastes.

“In less than two years, Yummly is now attracting more than 4 million unique visitors each month. I am thrilled at our progress in such a short time — end user response has already far exceeded our wildest expectations,” said Yummly CEO and co-founder David Feller. Buoyed by the support of Physic Ventures and Unilever, we now look forward to focusing on the continued expansion and evolution of the Yummly platform to become an invaluable digital resource for foodies and cooks of all skill levels.”

MUMBAI: UK pay TV service provider Sky has announced that its new Internet TV service, offering access to Sky content on a wide range of broadband-connected devices, will be called Now TV.

The new brand was revealed by Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch, as he delivered the opening keynote at the Media Guardian Changing Media Summit in London.

Launching later this year, Now TV will provide instant access to some of Sky‘s most popular content, including hundreds of films from Sky Movies. With a distinctive look and identity, it will stand out from the existing Sky TV service and offer even more choice and flexibility to customers.

In his speech, Darroch explained the significance of introducing an entirely new brand: “The launch of a second brand is an exciting opportunity for us and the rationale is very simple. Having two brands will allow us to meet the needs and preferences of different customer segments more effectively.”

Sky will offer customers two distinctive choices: the market-leading full Sky service for the whole family, complete with the widest range of channels, high quality products like Sky+, HD and Sky Go, and the peace of mind of a monthly bill; or the flexible, more spontaneous, pay-as-you-go service of Now TV.

Now TV will be available on a wide range of devices and offer instant access to a range of high quality Sky content, with no install and no contract. Starting with movies, it will soon expand to offer sport and entertainment as well. And customers will be able to pay monthly or rent a movie on a simple, pay as you go basis.

Now TV is part of the company‘s aim to make it as easy as possible for customers to access and enjoy its content. Darroch told the conference that, alongside the continued growth of its satellite TV service, broader distribution on other platforms is an opportunity for Sky to reach even more customers:

“As the quality of the TV experience over broadband has improved, people have become more willing to consume content in different ways. That presents a great opportunity to distribute our programmes which wasn‘t there even a year or two ago. With the long-awaited explosion of connected devices now upon us, this opportunity is only going to grow. And it‘s something we believe is highly complementary to our existing service.”

Now TV wants to reach out to the 13 million homes that don‘t yet take pay TV from any provider.

The new service will offer some of Sky‘s most popular programming. Sky Movies will be available from launch and the service will expand to offer sport and entertainment soon afterwards.

With no minimum contract, customers will be able to choose from a variety of pricing options. For example, people will be able to pay monthly for unlimited access to Sky Movies or rent a single movie on a simple, pay-as-you-go basis.

The new service will roll out across a wide range of connected devices, including PCs, Macs, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, games consoles and connected TVs.

With immediate streaming through an intuitive interface, backed up by recommendations and editorial support, customers will quickly and easily find the content they most want to watch.

More details about Now TV will be revealed closer to launch.

MUMBAI: MediaTek, a fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, has announced the release of “Mobile Theater”, a video and audio compression software tailored specifically for handset users.

The new software runs both MPEG-4 and H.264, among other popular digital video/audio coding formats. With this feature support, digital or audio files can be easily stored up to 50 film clips on a 2GB T-card.

With MediaTek’s long experience in bringing optical storage and digital media to video compression technology, “Mobile Theater” optimises subtitle crispness and sound quality parameters to ensure that compressed video/audio files retain high fidelity. With “Mobile Theater”, not only has the problem of video or audio files taking up excessive memory space in handset devices been solved, it also offers a clear improvement on the image and sound quality of compressed files during playback.

MediaTek’s full range of handset solutions, including the MT6252, all run “Mobile Theater”, which means even more handset users can now enjoy high quality movies on the go.

According to the Indian research company Tavess’ Report, the mobile entertainment industry in India is witnessing growth and will reach $4.9 billion by 2015. Mobile entertainment has a huge potential in India and the current localisation of mobile entertainment content is driving the industry in the right direction, bringing in greater usability of content.

Mobile music will continue to dominate the mobile entertainment services landscape with significant growth
potential presented by mobile video and TV. With regard to mobile handset manufacturers, MediaTek’s “Mobile Theater” audio-video compression software can help them further enhance the competitiveness of their products in the Indian market, which is currently seeing the rapid growth of video and audio consumption on mobile handset devices.

MediaTek president Hsieh Ching-Jiang said, “As we work to enrich the mobile life worldwide, MediaTek continues to leverage our own innovative technology and long experience in the mobile handset market to create uniquely differentiated mobile platform solutions, giving users the ability to enjoy the advantages and excitement of cutting edge communications technology. As the world’s leading handset IC solutions provider, MediaTek has packaged “Mobile Theater” with advanced features that give feature phone users more added value, at no added cost.”

MediaTek Mobile Theater runs both MPEG-4 and H.264, among other popular digital coding formats; therefore, files compressed by “Mobile Theater” will play on almost any brand of feature phone. Mobile Theater also ensures that compressed files retain the high fidelity of the original, uncompressed file. During file compression, standard audio and video parameters have been optimised, giving users both AAC sound quality and crisp and clear subtitles, while also keeping file distortion to a minimum. In addition, Mobile Theater software also supports 2D/3D content switching.

The company said Indian handset manufacturers like Micromax, Spice and Karbonn, have embraced this technological innovation.

MUMBAI: The Indian government should learn. As part of its cable television digitisation process, the South African government has approved a subsidy scheme to make the service accessible to underprivileged.

As part of the Ownership Support Rollout Framework for Set-Top-Boxes (STBs), poor households that own television sets will get full subsidy for outdoor and indoor antennae and the installation costs associated with rolling out digital signals.

The South African cabinet further approved the full subsidisation of television owning households in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) project area in the Northern Cape. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is a radio telescope in development which will have a total collecting area of approximately one square kilometre which is also being hosted by South Africa besides other countries.

The cabinet expressed sensitivity to poor households who may have already invested in analogue television sets and particularly those in the Northern Cape whose television signal would otherwise be scrambled by the SKA project, the government said in a statement.

The South Africa government has identified set- top-box as an important tool for public access to government information and services. Through the subsidy scheme the government is playing a critical role in bridging the digital divide in the country.

Furthermore, the cabinet approved the STB Manufacturing Sector Development Strategy and agreed that the Minister of Communications, Trade and Industry and Economic Development further consult on measures to ensure localisation.

The Government-STB Manufacturing Industry Partnership approach to develop this sector will form a good platform for the creation of a strong and globally competitive electronics manufacturing industry and spur job creation along the total digital migration value chain.

MUMBAI: Integrate, the multi-channel performance marketing technology and solutions provider, has closed an $11 million growth equity investment from Comcast Ventures and Liberty Global in another round of funding which has also seen participation from existing Integrate investor Foundry Group.

The Series B financing will help drive the next phase of product development and also get the company closer to their goal of connecting every channel of advertising into one unified platform.

Integrate addresses the reality that audiences are more fragmented and new media is becoming more measurable, effectively shifting the $280 billion advertising market from a disconnected-channel model to an interconnected-performance model. Integrate advertisers leverage ad optimisation and audience analysis data to plan, launch, track, analyse ROI and optimise performance-advertising campaigns across both online and offline channels.

“Today‘s successful advertisers need more than an outstanding creative approach. They need an integrated distribution strategy that places their messages in front of the right eyeballs on the right devices, combined with real-time attribution data that measures the full impact per channel,” said Integrate co-founder Jeremy Bloom.

“We are extremely excited about Integrate‘s vision to become a leading, cross-channel marketplace for the purchase of performance-based advertising,” said Sam Landman, principal, Comcast Ventures. “As advertisers shift more budget towards performance buys and as audiences become increasingly fragmented, Integrate is using technology to simplify process and optimise results for their customers.”

Founded in 2010, Integrate has built a technology that automates ad serving, tracking and the attribution value for advertisers in a combination of online (mobile, display, email, social, digital video) and offline (telemarketing, television, print, radio, outdoor, billboard) channels to pursue, monitor and measure their advertising impacts.

“Integrate has been able to scale its business extremely rapidly since Foundry‘s initial funding of the business in late 2010. This rapid growth speaks to the market demand for a truly integrated platform through which marketers can manage and optimize all types of performance campaigns,” said Foundry Group MD Seth Levine.

MUMBAI: Samsung Electronics has introduced its 2012 product category with the aim of delivering connectivity and content across all its devices – TV, mobile phones, tablets, Notebook PCs, cameras and home appliances.

The product innovations come under three guiding pillars: Smart Interaction, Smart Content and Smart Evolution.

Samsung‘s growth remains strong in the South West Asian market and has committed investments towards research and development in the region. The South Korean multinational conglomerate retained its leadership position in a number of product categories including flat panel televisions, side by side refrigerators, and colour monitors. It also became the market leader for smartphones for the first time.

India is the regional headquarters for Samsung‘s South West Asia operations.

Says Samsung India MD and Samsung Electronics – South West Asia president and CEO B D Park,”The South West Asia region remains a strong growth market for Samsung and will continue to grow as consumers today lead increasingly dynamic lifestyles, requiring technology and products that will enrich and enhance their experiences. We will continue to ensure that our products are always one step ahead, through new product innovation and continued investment in research and development in the region.”

In 2011, Samsung Electronics achieved record sales of $143 billion.

Showcasing its array of new products at the Samsung South West Asia Forum 2012 in Bangkok, the company presented Galaxy Tab 310 (7”), the first series to run on the Android 4.0 operating system, which is also referred to as Ice Cream Sandwich. Available in 3G and Wi-Fi versions, the Galaxy Tab 310 device is launching across different markets in South West Asia, starting April.

It will be launching the second generation of Samsung’s Notebook Series 9. The new Series 9 is 21 per cent thinner and 28 per cent smaller than its predecessor. The notebook has Intel Core i7 Processor and Samsung solid state drives (SSD).

Samsung also announced its mono laser multi-function printer, the SCX-3406FW. The printer’s state of the art ‘ecobutton’ will reduce overall print costs by more than 20
per cent. The device also comes set with a downloadable mobile print application, enabling customers to print and order items from the convenience of a single smart device, such as PCs, mobile phones and tablets.

For 2012, Samsung will expand the use of innovative features in its home appliances in Asia. The company is approaching this by investing in the development and launch of new products that push boundaries, in the present and future, through three pillars: Eco, Space and Smart Future.

Keeping its Asian consumer needs in mind, Samsung also applied various space technologies to its newest product line. “With refrigeration and food storage, the vast majority of Asian consumers are experiencing restrictions and limitations when using their fridge freezers. To help minimize these space constraints, Samsung developed the SBS refrigerator which not only fits well with their kitchen line but gives 890-liter capacity, India’s largest to date,” the company said.

Delivering on the Smart Future vision, the new ‘Top Load’ washing machine is equipped with Samsung’s Wobble 3D Technology which saves water consumption by up to 30 per cent and eliminates tangles and prevents fabric damage caused by friction. Developed specially for the Indian market, the washer is equipped with special functions such as Sari Course which enables consumers to gently wash their Saris.

Samsung has introduced a full line of smart cameras and camcorders with the new Smart Wi-Fi technology. With Wi-Fi Direct, photo enthusiasts can link their camera to a phone or tablet for photo sharing across platforms like Facebook, YouTube or Picasa.

The ES8000 LED TV features the slim bezel Samsung first introduced in 2011, complemented this year by a new matching arch flow stand and an increased screen size of up to 75 inches. Inside, a dual-core processor powers the ES8000, allowing users to multitask by surfing the web while using or downloading multiple apps simultaneously.

“A variety of content is also available through Samsung Apps, the industry’s preferred TV apps platform,” the company said.

MUMBAI: The promoters have pledged 5.6 per cent of their stake in Dish TV worth around Rs 3.35 billion.

Essel Corporate Resources, a promoter group company, has pledged 60 million shares, representing 5.63 per cent stake in Dish TV.

The shares have been pledged with IDBI Trusteeship Services Ltd. The value of pledged shares is Rs 3.35 billion, based on the Wednesday’s closing price of Rs 55.85 per share on the BSE.

The transaction took place on Wednesday but the company did not disclose at what price the shares were pledged.

Shares of Dish TV India on Thursday closed at Rs 55.35 on the BSE, down 0.90 per cent from its previous close.

MUMBAI: NDS and DoxTV are partnering to enable the launch of push video-on-demand (VOD) services and HD digital video recorder (DVR) technology to OCN, a Chinese cable operator.

OCN will deploy market-leading solutions from NDS including VideoGuard® conditional access (CA), MediaHighway® set top box software, XTV™ DVR technology, push VOD capability and an electronic programme guide (EPG) developed by NDS and DoxTV.

OCN is implementing the Next Generation Broadcast (NGB) project. There are currently one million households connected to the NGB network in Shanghai through OCN and the operator aims to roll out NGB solutions to an additional six million households by 2015.

OCN executive deputy GM Liu Jiuping said,“There is a great appetite for premium HD content among our subscribers; with NDS and DoxTV we are in a position to offer a vast selection of content on demand – including Hollywood blockbusters and the most popular series’ which provides us with a great competitive advantage”.

DoxTV has rights to Hollywood movies, series, dramas, entertainment and educational programming with international and local content in both SD and HD. Much of this high-quality content is exclusive to DoxTV in China, with programming from Universal Studios, Fox, Sony, Paramount Studios, Time Warner, Disney, the BBC and The National Geographic Channel.

NDS China chairman Sue Taylor said, “These new services will help OCN grow their digital TV business by enabling them to offer a compelling proposition to viewers, including access to more attractive content and features than was previously available. The cable industry in China is embracing the marketing opportunities presented by DVR and push VOD services while at the same time consumers are starting to demand more content and new functionality such as pausing live TV.”

The NDS solutions selected by OCN will empower their subscribers with flexible TV viewing, NDS Push VoD technology enables OCN to deliver a selection of content, through their DoxTV agreement, to the STB to be viewed when the subscriber chooses.

Content is delivered to the STB overnight via broadcast and a new selection is made available each day. NDS XTV DVR technology revolutionises TV viewing by enabling subscribers to pause live TV, record, play back, rewind and fast-forward their favourite TV programmes to view when they choose.

Viewers can record one TV show while playing another, or record both simultaneously.

NEW DELHI: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is expected to come out with its policy for a unified licensing regime for broadcasting and telecom by the end of this month.

Trai Chairman J S Sarma said the work on the consultation paper in this regard was in the final stage.

Speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of the 20th Convergence India organised by Exhibitions India, Sarma also said the guidelines for the spectrum auction would be announced early in April.

Meanwhile, the Inter-Ministerial Group set up by the Communications and Information Technology Ministry has already begun its discussions on the spectrum auction.

In his budget, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee proposed to raise Rs 400 billion through auction of airwaves including the one to be freed by the cancellation of 122 licences following the Supreme Court‘s order last month. The Budget also proposed to raise a total non-tax revenue of Rs 582.17 billion in 2012-13 from other communication services, as against just Rs165.508 billion last year.

These would also include receipts from spectrum held in excess of 6.2 MHz and receipts from auction of spectrum available with the government, including spectrum to be vacated by 122 licences, in view of the order of the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, in its 2 February order, had cancelled 122 2G spectrum licences given in 2008 by then telecom minister A. Raja, terming the exercise illegal. The Government has sought time of 400 days to complete the exercise of re-auctioning.

The government is likely to complete the process of spectrum auction including the one for 2G services by January-February next year, a senior Finance Ministry official said last week.