ITV

Category: Software

  • Senet-SenRa tieup to help CSPs & MSOs for India IoT opportunities

    MUMBAI: Senet, the first and fastest growing provider of secure, public, low-power wide-area networks (LPWANs) and Managed Network Services for Internet of Things (IoT) applications supporting the LoRaWAN™ protocol, has announced that it has partnered with SenRa Tech Pvt. Ltd., a Low-Power Wide-Area Network provider deploying LoRaWAN connectivity throughout India.

    SenRa is utilizing Senet’s cloud-based Managed Network Services for IoT (MNSI). Senet’s MNSI solution allows SenRa to flexibly deploy LoRaWAN services on its local physical assets, supervise the network infrastructure, manage connectivity and control roles and access rights within a reliable and scalable solution. This in turn allows SenRa to accelerate the delivery of its IoT and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) network services for customers providing solutions in industries such as water metering and management, agriculture, building infrastructure and smart cities. Analysts project the IoT market in India to grow at almost 30 percent per year and reach a forecasted value of $15 Billion by 2020.

    Senet announced its Managed Network Services for IoT last week as part of its strategy to leverage a combination of its knowledge and experience gained running the largest LoRa IoT network in North America and its world class OSS and BSS software to partner with global Communication Service Providers (CSP), cable multiple-system operators (MSO) and application providers to rapidly take advantage of IoT opportunities. Senet’s MNSI solution also can be used to partner with application providers who have built public or private LoRa-based networks, who would rather focus on their core application business instead of managing a network. Senet’s Managed Network Services allows communication firms and application providers anywhere in the world to easily and completely deploy LoRaWAN IoT services on their existing infrastructure or Senet’s public network. MNS will rapidly accelerate time-to-revenue and securely activate, monitor and provide scale to support thousands, and ultimately millions of devices across a broad range of business models.

    “Senet is excited to be working with SenRa to meet the exploding demand for IoT solutions in India,” said Bruce Chatterley, CEO & President at Senet. “Senet’s Managed Network Services for IoT enables forward thinking companies like SenRa to deploy highly-secure and scalable LoRaWANs under their own brand with minimum time-to-market and the lowest possible capital expenditure and cost of ownership structure.”

    SenRa’s LoRaWAN roll out is currently underway and the company is committed to contributing to the evolution of the LoRaWAN ecosystem, including recently joining LoRa Alliance™, one of the fastest growing IoT alliances with more than 500 members.

    “Senet’s unparalleled experience in scaling and managing LPWANs made selecting their Managed Network Services an easy choice,” said Ali Hosseini, Chief Executive Officer of SenRa. “India aims to capture a 20 percent share of a global 300 billion dollar IoT market opportunity in another five years. The best way for us to support this growth is by partnering with market leaders and technology innovators like Senet who are proven capable of meeting the diverse challenges emerging in the M2M and IoT space.”

  • Virtual screens to start replacing TVs & theaters in a year, consumers expect: Ericsson

    MUMBAI: Ericsson ConsumerLab has reported that seven out of 10 consumers believe that virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) will become mainstream in media, education, work, social interaction, tourism and retail. Consumers expect virtual screens to start replacing televisions and theaters in less than a year.

    For VR and AR to merge with physical reality and become mainstream, 5G is crucial to provide mobility, improve social experiences and address nausea concerns.

    Ericsson has published its latest ConsumerLab report – Merged Reality – revealing insights into how consumers expect virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to merge with physical reality, and that 5G will be a key technology for such experiences to become mainstream. The report reveals that when boundaries between people’s perception of physical and virtual reality start to blur, this could result in a drastic impact on lives and society. The way we live, work, and consume information and media will fundamentally change.

    Realities will not merge if the user is tethered to a computer or cut off from physical reality. Early adopters of VR/AR expect next-generation networks like 5G to play a central role. Thirty-six per cent have expectations on 5G to provide VR/AR mobility through a stable, fast and high-bandwidth network. Thirty per cent of early adopters also expect 5G to enable tethered headsets to become wireless.

    Key findings of the latest report include that seven out of 10 early adopters expect VR/AR to change everyday life fundamentally in six domains: media, education, work, social interaction, travel and retail. Media is already being transformed and consumers expect virtual screens to start replacing televisions and theaters in less than a year.

    The qualitative research in the report included an innovative focus group discussion series completely in VR with participants from North America and Europe, as well as traditional focus groups with current users of VR from Japan and South Korea. A series of qualitative VR tests with 20 Ericsson employees were also done to understand how lag in VR can trigger nausea.

    In the quantitative part of the study, the report presents insights from a survey of 9,200 consumers in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, the UK and the US, aged between 15-69 with awareness of the concept of VR.

  • TV & mobile electronics: Domestic prod leaves $ 300bn gap for import

    NEW DELHI: The demand of electronic products in India is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41 per cent during 2017-2020 to reach $ 400 billion by 2020, but the government has to help domestic production.

    The local production of electronic products has to be increased significantly to meet the domestic demand. The industry suggest the government to focus on both infrastructural as well as at the policy level, increased emphasis has to be provided for increasing the percentage of local component manufacturing in India. This includes simplifying the complex regulatory structure for making compliance easier for new entrants and developing a participatory approach.

    A joint Study by ASSOCHAM and NEC (which provides product development, global product maintenance and global business enablement services) says India can become a manufacturing hub only with increased domestic production. Demand for electronic products in India is poised for significant growth in the next few years, driven by a strong economic outlook.

    The domestic production which is currently growing at a CAGR of 27 per cent may touch $ 104 billion leaving a huge gap for import to the extent of $ 300 billion. The study says the electronics industry valued at $ 1.75 trillion is the fastest growing industry globally.

    The Indian electronics and hardware market grew by 8.6 per cent Year on Year to reach $ 75 billion in 2015, driven by rising local demand. The worldwide electronics industry was valued at around $ 1.86 trillion in 2015.

    With a growing middle class population, disposable income has led to increased consumer demand for electronics products specially advanced TV’s, mobile phones and computers. This surge in demand is huge which shows a positive outlook for the industry.

    The Electronics industry valued at $ 1.75 trillion is the largest and fastest growing industry in the world, highlighted the study.

    India’s total electronics hardware production 2014-15 is estimated at $ 32.46 billion – representing a share of about 1.5 per cent in world electronic hardware production. The domestic consumption of electronic hardware in 2014-15 was $ 63.6 billion out of which 58 per cent was fulfilled with imports. With demonetisation adding to the demand for POS devices and mobile phones, this demand is going to increase manifolds.

    The investments in electronic manufacturing which was just Rs 110 billion in June 2014 has increased to Rs 1278.8 billion in 2016.

    Initiatives such as ‘Make in India’ and ‘Digital India’ and specially focusing on schemes such as the ‘Modified Special Incentive Package Scheme’ (M-SIPS) and ‘Electronic Development Fund’ (EDF) has helped this growth.

  • Principals discuss ’emotional wellbeing’ through Teno App

    MUMBAI: Teno App, India’s leading free-to-use mobile app for schools, is organizing a panel discussion where reputed educationists will deliberate on the role of educators in promoting emotional wellbeing amongst school students. This panel discussion will also be the first initiative as part of their unique series, which will be an open forum for lead industry conversations on various issues that impact school children.

    The event will host over 150 school principals from across Mumbai, New Mumbai and Kalyan alongside well-known educationalists and child psychiatrists. There will be an elite panelist of veterans from the education sector who will deliberate on the theme for the discussion. The discussion will also dwell on how schools can adopt technology to identify and tackle this menace among the student community and create an amicable environment for emotional wellbeing and bridge the communication gap between the school and parents.

    Talking about this initiative, Teno App vice-president Anurag Dixit said, “A child spends most of the active time of the day in school and hence it is imperative that schools have the right environment and infrastructure to accentuate the overall growth and well being of the child. We often read about heart-wrenching incidents of self-harm among students due to depression and it is critical that we have a forum to discuss the ways to mitigate the perils of this illness. We work with schools across the country offering an easy and efficient mobile App to facilitate communication between parents and schools. This helps us leverage our connect to create a platform for like-minded educational experts to discuss pertinent issues among school children.”

    It is always better to pre-empt circumstances rather than waiting to take curative measures once an unfortunate incident occurs. Children nowadays are influenced, not only by peers but also face cyber pressure, which often misleads them to feel inferior. This is one of the key reasons that leads to emotional trauma and disrupts their mental wellbeing, causing them to resort to unhealthy measures. It is difficult to wean away a child from technology and modern day lifestyle habits but one can mitigate the risk of the child suffering mental stress, by ensuring timely intervention and conversations. It is important for schools and parents to shift conversations beyond functional PTA meetings or report days, and be more accessible to each other, despite the hectic urban lifestyle. Use of school apps like Teno App helps achieve this objective without any hassle

  • Yoga-Day App by Esri India

    MUMBAI: Ahead of the International Yoga Day, Esri India, country’s leading Geographic Information System (GIS) Software & Solutions provider, has announced the availability of an app to help yoga enthusiasts locate a Yoga Centre and join the International Yoga Day celebrations on 21 June. This app – Yogamplify is available through web and mobile phones.

    Yogamplify mobile app can be downloaded from the Google Playstore.

    Using Yogamplify app, Yoga event organizers can list their International Yoga Day events and provide details like location, timing, chief guest and capacity. This information will be placed on an interactive map. Yoga enthusiasts can view the yoga events organized near their locations on the map and find the best way to reach there. Yoga practitioners as well as enthusiasts can also share the events details with their contacts through social media directly from the app to promote the event and inspire more people to be a part of Yoga day celebrations. This app makes use of Esri’s Cloud known as ArcGIS Online.

    Commenting on the initiative, Agendra Kumar, President, Esri India, said, “Esri India supports government’s vision for promoting Yoga around the globe. Yoga day is a global event that promotes yoga for healthy living. Yogamplify is our contribution to support this vision through an innovative application that demonstrates the simplicity and accessibility of the GIS technology.”

  • Govt launches ‘selfie with daughter’ mobile app

    NEW DELHI: A new mobile app to shoot ‘Selfie with Daughter’, carrying forward a message given by the prime minister Narendra Modi in one of his ‘Mann ki Baat’ broadcasts on All India Radio, was launched in the capital by the president Pranab Mukherjee.

    The president hailed Sunil Jaglan not just on the launch of the mobile-app but on carrying on a campaign in this regard in Haryana.

    Selfie-with-Daughter has become a worldwide movement against female foeticide and sex selection. He hoped that this would eventually help in dealing with the problems arising out of gender imbalance.

    Mukherjee said the app is an innovative concept and an act of gentle persuasion. He urged people to take photographs with their daughters and upload on the app to make the campaign a success.

    The ‘Selfie with Daughter’ campaign was started by Sunil Jaglan in June 2015 in village Bibipur, Jind, Haryana. A former sarpanch, Jaglan has been working in the field of women empowerment and village development. The aim of the campaign is to motivate the society to feel proud to be parents of a girl child which will result in improving the sex ratio in India.

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  • TCS launches BaNCS app development kit

    MUMBAI: Digital tech is empowering businesses to get things done interactively and instantaneously. It is increasingly becoming critical for financial institutions to have architectures that will enable continuous availability of data, systems, applications and business processes.

    Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has launched BaNCS App Development Kit (ADK) which enables banks to build their own apps faster and deploy them seamlessly across devices and desktops.

    TCS BaNCS digital head Sathish Vallat said, “We envision apps to supplant browser-based interfaces in a single code base. The vision for BaNCS ADK is to transfer flexibility and speed of development to the bank, leveraging a library of business aware financial widgets and components.”

  • Powering television with voice-based search

    SINGAPORE: For many years, effective voice-based search technologies have eluded businesses that have tried to bring next-generation input methods to customers. Command-based speech systems have been perceived as ineffective and hard for viewers to use. However, the widespread adoption of smartphones and tablets, and their minimised keyboards, has led to a renewed interest in this genre of technology. For example, Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa have progressed beyond basic menu navigation functions. In fact, any device with a microphone has potential for speech-based commands, and can become an intelligent discovery system that uses a sophisticated entertainment brain to understand customer desires.

    This technology is important and under-explored by the TV industry, which often appears to have been left behind in terms of intuitive discovery functionality. For content providers, voice-based search and recommendation should be a core part of their customer service provision to provide customers with accessibility to their favourite shows and genres.

    Speaking the viewer’s language

    With the chaos of content available today, consumers have preferred selections and considerations across cast, plot and genre. Conversational interfaces simulate natural communication qualities and remove the need to conform to hierarchical menu structures. Most importantly, the technology must understand when a user is drilling into a particular genre in detail, or when they have lost interest and have completely switched topics.

    To be successful, natural language search needs to encompass a variety of different points, each crucial to success:

    Disambiguation: Natural language technology must understand and interpret the user’s intent. For example, the phonetic sound “Kroos” can be interpreted to apply to Tom Cruise or Penelope Cruz, and the system should be able to understand what the user is looking for in relation to the original query.

    Statefulness: During a dialogue with a user, the system should be able to maintain context, and understand that people change their minds quickly. For example, the user could say that they are “in a mood for thrillers,” then jump to “Bond” and then to “old ones”. Ideally, the system should understand these requests, and serve up a series of older James Bond films for the viewer to select from.

    Personalisation: Conversational systems need to understand their users on an individual basis. For example, the system should learn that a user based in New Zealand who asks “when is the game tonight” wants to know about their local team, and if they say, “when is the Blacks game” they mean the rugby team All Blacks.

    Taking understanding to the next level

    Behind successful natural language technology lies excellent search capabilities. New technologies such as graph, have introduced high-quality and relevant search results to consumers everywhere, setting a benchmark across industries. Unlike a traditional database, a graph is much more scalable and flexible because it allows the connection of all sorts of information to records, without the reliance on “tables.”

    In the context of TV, most consumers have viewing patterns that can be mapped to provide highly personalised results to searches. This is more accurate than user-based profile creation or ‘thumbs up/down’ ratings that are both error-prone and do not automatically take into account users’ changing tastes and preferences over time. The ability to make personalisation precise and extremely relevant – what the industry is now terming hyper-personalisation – is correlated to the knowledge graph’s semantic capabilities.

    At its core, a quality conversational search engine should include the following aspects:

    Knowledge graph: This graph maps search results to intent, and prioritises those results based on the weight of their connection and should be able to:
    -Look at named entities in media, entertainment and geography and extract, de-duplicate and disambiguate the entities across sources
    -Recognise similarities and build relationships between entities
    -Identify a multidimensional view of popularity and how audience interest in the entities shift over time
    -Generate a large vocabulary such as keywords and sub-genres to help search systems identify relevant content

    Personal graph: Crucial to true conversational systems, the personal graph tunes the conversational system to individuals to enable natural conversations around the user’s preferences and context. The personal graph is:
    -Based on statistical machine learning
    -Able to learn individual behavioural patterns and interests
    -Learns how time and device affect recommendations

    At the front end of the system, the conversational query engine is required to bind all aspects together. This brings together key algorithms to map and learn linguistic features and provide content discovery features to customers.

    Intuitive search and recommendation

    Natural language technology backed with knowledge graphs can provide a revolution in TV search and recommendation. Based on excellent metadata that covers actors and actresses, content synopsis and even famous quotations from films, TV providers can create a second to none entertainment brain that offers customers speedy and accurate access to their favourite shows, and similar content that they might enjoy. Voice-based discovery around knowledge graphs is no gimmick – it is set to change the way that people interact with their TV sets – as long as service providers make it personalised, intuitive and natural.

    public://Sue Couto.jpg Sue Couto is the senior vice president, APAC Sales, at TiVo. Views expressed here are of the writer’s, and indiantelevision.com may not subscribe to them.

     

  • Dalet to expand opportunities for b’casters & content producers

    MUMBAI: Dalet Digital Media Systems will present its forward-thinking, agile media solutions at the BroadcastAsia2017 show (BCA), held in Singapore from May 23-25, on stand 4T3-05. Dalet solutions streamline a wide range of workflows for broadcasters and media organizations around the world, including:

    Unified News Operations – Dalet delivers a truly connected newsroom with fully integrated media logistics, newsroom computer system and news production functions, powered by the Galaxy platform, for many broadcasters including recent adopters Euronews in Europe (Lyon, Brussels, Athens and Budapest), Metro TV in Indonesia, and the brand new WION/Zee Media Corporation in India.

    Programs, promo management and multi-platform distribution – Dalet breaks silos and seamlessly connects workflows, processes, users and departments to simplify content production, versioning and delivery. This has been implemented by Fox Networks Group, MediaCorp and SBS Australia.

    MAM for post – Dalet improves content management, versioning and advanced file delivery, providing key automation and data access to elevate client services; recently implemented by Hollywood power house Colortime.
    Sports highlights and magazines – Dalet transforms sports production and broadcast; Mediaset (Italy) is a leading example of what can be achieved across sites, channels and an entire operation.

    Multimedia radio – Dalet offers tools designed for the way radio works in today’s digital age, from multimedia production to multiplatform delivery, helping put stations like KEXP (USA) on the global stage.

    New features and solutions shown at BroadcastAsia2017 include: the Dalet Orchestration Solution, winner of the NewBay Best of Show Award presented by TV Technology at NAB; a new range of options for cost-effective Business Continuity; a full suite of tools and data models to manage IMF packages at scale; and enhancements to post-production workflows enabling seamless integration with Adobe Creative Cloud and especially Adobe Premiere CC.

    Dalet Orchestration is an enterprise, media supply chain orchestration solution that integrates content pools and automates workflows across different verticals (programs, promos, news, sport, lifestyle, etc.), providing a consolidated view of media assets across the business, and enabling easy and efficient distribution of content by the various broadcasting and publishing systems. Delivered with Dalet Report Center, the solution offers business intelligence specifically tailored for media operations in order to measure performance throughout the chain and build sound data-driven strategies.

    Dalet Business Continuity offers a range of solutions, based on a secondary site, which can be hosted in an environment of the customer’s choice including on-premise, hosted in a private cloud, or in a public cloud such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure. The secondary site provides access to back-up content (video, audio, scripts, rundowns, etc.) replicated from the primary platform – from a few hours up to days or weeks of content, depending on capacity and replication policies. Available within minutes, all operation-critical workflows defined by the customer’s contingency plan will be switched on. The pay-as-you-go and on-demand infrastructure models of the cloud require minimal upfront investment compared to classic plans that require large capital investment.

    To manage and package IMF content at scale, the need for a powerful media asset management (MAM) with integrated Workflow Engine such as Dalet Galaxy becomes critical. The enhanced Dalet Galaxy platform offers a sophisticated set of tools to manage mass IMF packaging at the production, distribution and contribution points of a media business. The comprehensive workflow covers the full range of services for IMF package creation, from importing IMF packages natively into the MAM, to visualizing IMF structures and components with Dalet Context Maps, to building versions and supplemental packages with Dalet Track Stack and Version Editor, and eventually wrapping the compositions for distribution using a connector to an IMF-compliant transcode farm such as Dalet AmberFin.

    The recently updated HTML-5 Dalet Xtend panel connects Adobe® Premiere Pro® CC users to the Dalet Galaxy MAM, providing a direct gateway to metadata-rich assets and facilitating collaboration with users such as journalists, prep editors, sports producers and other production personnel on the Dalet Galaxy platform. New features and capabilities include support for multi-sequence export, locator inheritance, configurable metadata forms for exporting content, and support for the ‘while’ scenarios when exporting from Adobe Premiere Pro.

  • LG & SES to demonstrate 4K high frame rate tech

    MUMBAI: SES and LG Electronics will demonstrate OLED TV’s cutting-edge 4K High Frame Rate (HFR) broadcast at the tenth SES Industry Days conference in Luxembourg on 16 & 17 May.

    The 4K HFR content will be transmitted live via an ASTRA satellite at 19.2 degrees East and displayed on LG’s OLED TV, using prototype HFR software. This demonstration will offer visitors the opportunity to experience the highly-improved picture quality of next generation 4K HFR broadcast content.

    HFR is a new broadcast technology that enhances the quality of 4K Ultra HD delivery by increasing frames per second (FPS) up to 120, the maximum for broadcast content, compared to most current technology which typically supports 50 FPS content or less. The enhanced FPS rate is particularly beneficial for fast action such as sports with lifelike, highly fluid images, while eliminating motion-related picture degradation found on conventional TVs such as motion blur and judder.

    In addition to display manufacturers, such as LG, global broadcasters and content providers are also preparing for the launch of the second phase of Ultra HD using the DVB UHD-1 Phase 2 specification, which features 4K HFR technology. The UHD-1 Phase 2 standard includes other cutting-edge technologies such as High Dynamic Range (HDR) and Next-generation Audio (NGA).

    “We are very excited to demonstrate just how effective LG’s OLED TV is as a platform for 4K HFR and other high grade content,” said Sam Kim, senior vice president and head of TV product planning at the LG Home Entertainment Company. “LG is committed to offering consumers around the world the latest in TV technologies and High Frame Rate on OLED TVs must be seen to be believed. Watching 4K HFR content on an OLED TV as it’s being transmitted in real time by ASTRA’s satellite is a great example of pushing the limits of current TV technologies.”

    “SES has been steadily pushing forward the development of Ultra HD, and the Industry Days event has always been an excellent platform to showcase new TV technology,” said Thomas Wrede, Vice President New Technology & Standards at SES. “High Frame Rate will be an important step towards further enhancing the quality of Ultra HD satellite transmissions, in particular for sports and reality TV events. Our continued partnership with LG Electronics is important in setting the broadcast standards of tomorrow and pioneering future TV technologies, and we are very pleased to work with LG Electronics on such an important milestone