Category: Software

The collaboration also provides opportunities for young, independent producers across the globe to boost their profile.

The Giffoni Film Festival is an annual event and enables the overall promotion of young people and film. Babelgum customers not able to attend the festival in Italy can now see the best in new talent from today’s young generation of independent producers at the same time as those attending.

A selection of shorts is available from the 2006 event as well as the current film festival, running from now until 21 July. To access the content, those not already using Babelgum can register for free on www.babelgum.com.

The festival will be on air on Babelgum with a selection of twelve shorts taken from the event in 2006 as well as from the current event currently taking place. Babelgum will also carry 29 trailers participating in this year’s event in lengthier format as well a selection of trailer previews from films such as The Simpsons, Ratatouille, Persepolis, Harry Potter and Shrek.

Those viewing the content on Babelgum are also given the opportunity to participate as judges, almost voting through viewing clips. The short with the highest rating will be presented with the Babelgum Award for the Giffoni Film Festival online 2007 during the evening of general awards in this year’s ceremony on 21 July at the Giffoni Village.

Babelgum CEO Valerio Zingarelli says, “The Giffoni Film Festival is the perfect opportunity for us to launch a series of special events on Babelgum around major independent festivals such as the Rushes Soho Shorts Festival in London and the Benicassim Music Festival in Spain, giving our customers
the chance to see them first online.”

The launches are part of Voom‘s worldwide distribution strategy, a roll-out that already includes Voom HD channels on four continents and international programming sales of over 500 hours of high-definition content.

VOOM HD Networks comprise a suite of high-definition content for distribution. It has programming in categories like sports, movies, fashion, music and art.

Voom HD Networks GM Greg Moyer says, “We are incredibly honored to be included in the groundbreaking launch of dedicated high-definition channels into Singapore and Hong Kong and are equally pleased at the opportunity to work with such respected television pioneers as SingTel and PCCW. It is gratifying to see Asia—and the rest of the world—mobilizing to meet the growing demand for high-quality digital entertainment.”

As far as PCCW is concerned while viewers are initially receiving the programming in standard definition (SD), the channel will be available in HD very soon, commencing with PCCW‘s launch broadcast of English Premiere League football. Both SingTel and PCCW launches fulfill the agreements facilitated earlier this year by Gang TV preisdent Gregory Ang who represents Voom HD Networks in Southeast Asia.

Ang says, “Voom developed its international channels with not only the clear objective to reach a global audience, but also the solid understanding of a marketplace in transition. As Voom continues to identify and fill the world‘s HD content void, I have enjoyed being part of its initial progress into Asia and look forward to seeing its continued global success.”

Voom’s first distribution in Asia began last September when a daily, two-hour branded block debuted on Skylife’s Sky HD, South Korea’s first and only full-time HD programming service.

Kohli‘s company Digicable Network (India) is planning to run a pan India cable network with a focus on digital cable. The total project cost, according to Kohli, is Rs 10 billion and the private equity firm has made a commitment to support the venture.

“We plan to pump in Rs 4.5 billion in the first year. The total project cost is Rs 10 billion which will be invested in phases over three years,” says Kohli who will be the managing director and chief executive of the company.

Ashmore Investment Management Ltd is a private equity firm which manages a $30 billion fund.

A doyen in the cable TV industry, Kohli was instrumental in growing Hinduja-owned Incablenet along with Shah, Yogesh Radhakrishnan and the late Ram Punjabi. Later he and his partners set up Win Cable which is owned by Hathway Cable & Datacom.

Ross and Hewitt will join Facebook‘s team to work on the development of Facebook Platform and the company‘s website.

“Blake and Joe built the Firefox web browser and then turned to the developer community to build on top of the foundation they had established, not unlike what we have done with Facebook Platform,” said Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

“The work they have done with Firefox and Parakey and their approach to building products fit right in at Facebook,” added Zuckerberg.

In early 2006, Ross and Hewitt founded Parakey to build a platform bridging the gap between information on the web and the desktop.

According to an official release, Firefox has been downloaded more than 300 million times by people worldwide.

CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis said, “CinemaNow is on a mission to enable simple and fast integration into our customers‘ lives. This upgrade alone makes our entire library of more than 7,000 videos available to the millions of Xbox users who are downloading movies online and watching them on their TVs.”

To facilitate the downloading process, the application automatically downloads to a user‘s PC when a video is rented or purchased. It has the ability to detect an Xbox 360 gaming console on a customer‘s home network. A customer can choose any video from CinemaNow‘s selection, download it to a Windows XP or Windows Vista PC and play it back on a TV using the Xbox 360 as a connective device.

The Media Manager also makes CinemaNow‘s Burn-to-DVD service available to Windows Vista users, so that they can choose select movies to burn a video to a DVD for playback in a standard DVD player.

CinemaNow has also integrated with HP‘s upcoming line of MediaSmart LCD TVs, which enable customers to rent or purchase CinemaNow movies from home.

The MediaSmart TV connects to a customer‘s home network either wired or wirelessly, so that a user can use their remote to purchase or rent a movie from CinemaNow, download the file to a designated hard-drive within their home network, and watch the video directly on their MediaSmart TV.

The new company will focus on developing backend sourcing infrastructure for Pantaloon Retail‘s existing telecom retailing business, to enable it to expand and scale up. Additionally, it will also create a nationwide network of state-of-the-art after sales service centers for mobile handsets in the country.

Future Group Group CEO Kishore Biyani said, “The current explosion of the telecom retail market that we are seeing is breaking new barriers every day. There is no doubt that mobiles will soon be the single largest electronic products retailed in the country. Future Group, with the knowledge and expertise of Axiom Telecom‘s systems and process in this area, will be best positioned to retail and service the Indian telecom market.”

The joint venture activities would be carried out by a separate company. This joint venture is a strategic business decision for the Future Group and reinforces its commitment to be a serious player in the telecom wholesale, retail and after sales service market in the country, adds the release.

Axiom Telecom LLC CEO Faisal Al Bannai said, “We see great business potential in India for distribution and servicing of telecom products, and are delighted to partner with Future Group, the largest retailer in the country. We believe that our expertise in distribution and after sales service operations, and Future Group‘s understanding of the Indian consumer and the marketplace, will create a win-win for us, as well as the Indian consumers.”

Rabo India Finance Ltd. And Alpen Capital (ME) Limited, Dubai were joint financial advisors to the transaction.

The number of user votes tabulated by the number of e-cards of each photo sent will help decide which contestants will win prizes sponsored by HP and Microsoft. The voting period begins today and ends on 29 July.

‘Project shutter‘ aims to be an online platform for photo enthusiasts to share and showcase their creative talents online. To enter the competition, participants were required to capture and submit up to three unique photos that best depict the spirit of their home city in any of the three categories: food, culture and architecture. The entries can be viewed at www.projectshutter.com.

A community for Project Shutter Community has also been created on Windows Live Spaces (projectshutter.spaces.live.com). The forum is meant to enable users to connect with photographers from across the region, show the world their recent work or simply express their views and opinions of the photos uploaded to the community.

Winners of the contest will receive an HP Pavilion Notebook PC with Windows Vista Ultimate or an HP Photosmart Printer.

This takes forward the aggressive distribution work that the premier cricket channel is undertaking, and on the face of market reports that subscribers are not interested in paying for the channel, company sources claimed that this proves otherwise.

This number increased from 70 million in September 2006 to 81 million in March 2007, a jump of 16 per cent in six months.

The analysis also showed that traditional home television ratings are minimally, if at all, affected by broadband video viewing over the internet, because broadband viewing was found largely to be incremental new viewing rather than a substitute for traditional television viewing.

The multi-phased study – A Barometer of Broadband Content and Its Users – provides a look at the relationship of broadband video consumption at home and at work to traditional television viewing behavior. It also presents a detailed analysis of specific television network viewing preferences among broadband video users across all key demographics.

Nielsen executive VP Susan Whiting says, “Nielsen was delighted to work with Ctam on this report, which reflects the value we can create by integrating data and analysis from across our company. This approach allows us to deliver new insight into our clients‘ customers and markets.”

Key findings from the report include:

Online Video Usage Supplements Traditional Television Viewing Overall: Online video (including broadband video at work and in the home) was shown to add to overall video viewing more frequently than it replaced traditional television viewing in the home, representing a net audience gain to total television viewing.

33 per cent of those surveyed indicated that watching video over broadband internet increased their television viewing time, versus 13 percent who indicated it decreased their traditional television viewing.

Programme viewing online is high among current broadband video users: An additional 32 million lighter broadband video users report being open to more TV programmes via the internet. Further, consumers indicate that greater awareness of where to find the videos they are seeking, better navigation interfaces and increased availability of more high-profile television programs online could significantly drive future broadband video content use over the long-term.

TV Set Access is the Tipping Point for Widespread Broadband Video Use: Based on respondent feedback, widespread consumer use of broadband video seems to be contingent on internet platform video content becoming more easily accessible via home television sets. At that point, consumers say, internet video fare could assume its place as another source for content on demand.

ABC.com was the leader across all broadband viewer visits to television network Web sites, while Yahoo Movies was the leader in the movies category.

Ctam president, CEO Char Beales says, “The growing popularity of broadband video programming makes it vital to better understand its true impact on the viewership of and engagement with television. This research provides an unprecedented look at how consumers are making television viewing decisions as well as which consumers are more likely to embrace broadband content in the future.”

Nielsen chief research officer Paul Donato says, “Linking television viewing data with Internet usage behavior goes far beyond what traditional survey-based research methods can offer to help content providers best manage the growth of television and broadband video platforms.

“The fusion of these discrete Nielsen data sets into a single, unified analysis provides the most complete benchmark of broadband content viewing behavior to date.”

Kireedam, being presented by Adlabs and produced by Suresh Balaje, is a film revolving around a father-son relationship where Ajith plays the role of a young man who loves his family. Raj Kiran plays Ajith‘s father who wants to see his son become a cop but Shakti wants to avenge his father‘s honor, more than anything else, by killing all the gangsters who laid their hands on him.

Speaking about the association, the writer and director of the film Vijay says, “It is every director‘s dream to have as many extensions to his movie as possible which will keep his creation alive in the minds of the viewers. Hence, we decided to have a game based on it so that the player can experience the thrill and excitement of the movie. As Kireedam is an action flick, we wanted to have a shootout based game and we are excited to have it launched on Zapak.com,”

In the game, the player has to help Shakti kill the gangsters while undergoing Police training using different weapons. The player has to defend himself using different keys and approach the red cross symbol to gain health.While doing this he can not let his father Rajaram catch him or the game is over. The highest scorer gets to win Kireedam premier passes and music CDs.