Category: Software

The Rokr Z6 merges the latest music features and a digital imaging platform with a metallic slider design. Inside the clean lines of the Rokr Z6 is a Linux/JavaTM music platform with Windows MediaTM technologies.

The Rokr Z6 lets consumers plug and play with any personal computer running Windows Media Player 10 or 11Â?. With fast PC direct connectivity via High Speed USB 2.0, the Rokr Z6 lets access to any music. The Rokr Z6‘s integrated music player also supports multiple audio files and features 64 MB of on-board user memory and a removable MicroSD memory card slot for up to 2GB of music, pictures and other media.

The new handset also has a built-in 2 megapixel camera with a 320×240 resolution 262K colour TFT display. The user interface provides rich layouts, ease of use, more options for personalisation, better manageability and improved predictive text input.

Apart from being powered by Music ID for song identification service that enables users to identify the artist and album of songs being played in their vicinity, the Rokr Z6 also features stereo Bluetooth(r) wireless technology3, enabling users to enjoy a wireless mobile stereo experience with compatible Bluetooth-enabled stereo headphones.

The Rokr Z6 is available at all Indian Motostores and participating retailers for Rs 11,999 for the deluxe pack and Rs 15,499 for the premium pack.

MUMBAI: Mobile2win, India‘s VAS enabler, hosted its first mobile Monday forum in Mumbai.The meet was attended by more than 60 professionals and enthusiasts from the Music, Telecom, Media and IT industry.

Mobile Mondays is an open community of mobile professionals and enthusiasts and are arranged city-wise every month.

The key note address was given by Netcore Solutions India Pvt Ltd VP mobile products strategy Veerchand Bothra followed by mobile2win CEO Gopala Krishnan, asserts an official release.

Krishnan explained the concept of Mobile Monday (MoMo) and outlined the agenda for the evening followed by a presentation on the mobile indusry in general and the latest trends in mobile technology.

The theme for the MoMo was ‘The Mobile Music Market in India- Untapped revenue streams in urban and rural India‘. Key speakers were- Soundbuzz GM Mandar Thakur,mobile2win country head Rajiv Hiranandani, Universal Music MD Rajat Kakar, Hutch AVP (VAS) Shailesh Varudkar and ABP head Internet and Telecom Saurav Sen.

Discussions ranged from wireless technologies to piracy in the mobile music industry, entertainment offerings and value added services, adds the release.

Kakar said, “Mobile VAS represents a growing format for sale and promotion of Music. Indian mobile landsacpe is among the largest in the World and interventions early in the product life cycles will, hopefully, ensure a viable eco-system for all players in this domain.”

Hiranandani, “Year 2006 is a landmark year for the Indian Mobile industry.The userbase has touched around 13 crore which is only next to China. Mobile Monday is an industry event and which is driven by the community, whose suggestions and co-operation makes it all possible. The forum give us a platform to discuss concerning issues related to the mobile VAS industry in a more open and informal manner.”

God of War: Betrayal, which features a cutting-edge mobile character animation engine, allows wireless gamers to fight in true God of War combat, including with Blades of Chaos, Blade of Artemis and other proprietary ammunition, from the popular console series.

Sony Pictures Television VP mobile entertainment Eric Burger, “By bringing this popular title to Verizon Wireless customers, we will both expand the franchise to gamers on the mobile platform, and provide a thrilling and satisfying gaming experience to the existing God of War fans.”

The game throws mobile gamers into intense combat action. Players can engage in a wide assortment of battles including combo attacks on the ground or in the air, freezing enemies and summoning the Army of Hades to unleash the fury of the underworld.

Gamers can also attack their enemies while climbing walls or hanging from a rope over deadly chasms. During these battles, players trade in experience orbs to upgrade weapons and magic attacks. The game features animated foreground and background elements, deadly traps like saw blades, bottomless pits, jagging spikes and more.

The point was made during a session of BroadcastAsia by Spectrum Strategy senior manager Joe Colgan. The impact of social media on media markets and players is manifold, he notes. Ad revenues are shifting online causing media companies to evaluate business models.

That is what is happening with the likes of Viacom and Discovery. Also illegal use of content has led to content being made more freely available forcing traditional players to embrace these new avenues.

UGC sites and online communities represent new distribution platforms and content sources changing business models and stimulating merger and acquisition activity. Companies are increasingly turning to the Internet to listen to and engage consumers.

Social media sites will continue to provide strong competition across platforms. “User-Generated Content (UGC) and Online Communities are forms of social media. It encourages contributions and feedback. It also encourages voting, comments and sharing. Social media is a two-way communication. It allows communities to form quickly and thrives on links. Examples include Youtube, Flickr.”

He stressed on Mofile.com which is a video sharing site based in China that allows users to upload and share videos online. It has six million registered users. The site shows some 4,000 videos a day. Closer home Rediff Connexions is a business networking service for Indians. The site‘s motto is “find success through friends”. It has more than 1.4 million registered users, with a vast majority from India.

“What one is also seeing is that increasingly, social media sites are spread across countries and continents. Last year MySpace entered into a 50-50 joint venture with Softbank to bring MySpace to Asia. MySpace already boosts an increasingly global network, which includes the US, Britain, Germany, Australia and Ireland. Social media use has exploded over the last two years across Asia thanks to technology. There are 588 million net users in Asia this year compared to
308 million in 2004. Advanced mobile services are expected to reach 318 million in 2011 compared with 158 million in 2005. The rise in social media is leading to a migration of ad revenues as well as to illegal use of content,” said Colgan.

Advertising is the main source of revenues for many online communities Mop.com is China‘s most popular social-networking site. Its revenue is advertising and it currently ranks among the top 10 Chinese internet sites in terms of ad revenues.

China‘s online ad market is expected to total just $800 million in 2007 versus $19 billion in the US. TV is expected to lose the most ad share to the Internet followed by newspapers.”

The issue of copyright infringement and illegal use of content have proliferated. He gave the example of Baidu. It is the largest search engine in China with 52 per cent of the market share. In 2005, Baidu was sued by the IFPI for pointing users to illegal copies of music. Although Baidu won the case, IFPI plans to appeal. However, as a result of this some content owners have responded by making content more freely available. Baidu formed a strategic partnership with EMI Music to launch an advertising supported online music streaming service in China. The two companies also agreed to explore advertising supported music download services.

There is an increasing convergence of UGC and professional content. Sites such as MySpace and YouTube are bidding to become distribution arms of traditional media. Companies are putting money behind the idea of people mixing amateur and professional material. Warner, CBS, Sony BMG, Universal are distributing content via YouTube and sharing ad revenues.

In Singapore, national daily The Straits Times launched an online portal, Stomp. Readers can engage in citizen journalism by exchanging views and posting news clips. There is an economic impact in that online currencies are emerging. In Cyworld, Acorns can be used to buy digital items such as furniture and pets and are sold for hard cash in the real world The company makes $300,000 a day in revenue from selling digital products and services.

Consumers are making purchases through social media sites. Mixi is the biggest social networking site in Japan with 5.7 million members. Users can rate and review books, DVDs, electronics and other items. Clicking on a product takes you to the relevant page on Amazon Japan. Online sites also benefit from viral marketing is making a great impact. Without spending any money on advertising, Last.fm has grown virally to attract more than one million users since it was launched in 2003.

“This is prompting companies to use social media as a tool to engage consumers. Coca-Cola launched a UGC site where people can express their opinions about the brand. Chevrolet asked Web users to make their own video spots for the Tahoe. Social media sites in Asia are growing through funding from foreign investors. For instance Mop.com Social-networking site in China got $48 million investment from US-based General Atlantic. MySpace co-founder Brad Greenspan has invested in over 20 Chinese sites and are expected to become stronger players as they leverage on external resources.”

Moreover, Colgan notes that Social media is also moving into the mobile space. A social networking site in China WangYou focuses on promoting UGC. Users can send photos from their Web pages to Handsets. WangYou gets a cut of the call charge from the phone company. A Silicon Valley firm has even said that sites that target PC users may lose out to companies who have worked harder on social networks through the cell phone. Social media is expected to extend into the mobile space over time.

The increase in devices and delivery networks also presents challenges. These points were made at the Mobile TV Forum by Tandberg Television CTO Group, VP of global business development Noel Matthews.

According to Matthews, a content delivery workflow will decrease costs by streamlining operational procedures. It will also reduce the risk of errors being made vis-a-vis content. It allows for more automation which will boost productivity. This will achieve the goal of delivering content on demand, on line and on the move.

The firm helped a cable television service provider who wanted to go into mobile TV while reducing its expenditure. So Tandberg put in a workflow and integrated it with the firm‘s already existing infrastructure. It did an automate conversion of thousands of hours of video and still assets into house format for playout on MPEG 4 set top boxes, MPEG
2 set top boxes and Web enabled PCs. The content source was VoD assets like movies, trailers from traditional distributors.

The result was that the broadcaster was able to increase the amount of on-demand content offered each month to 7000 hours from 2500 hours. The content was able to be delivered to multiple platforms. Only seven people were needed to work the system. The content distribution workflow co-ordinates all activities from contract signing to content delivery. The workflow also offers the flexibility to add new technologies going forward. It synchronises process tasks through simple integration with third party technologies.

In terms of the potential for mobile TV, he notes that it can beyond just having the TV experience on the mobile. In the future one will see mobisodes, narrowcast services, interactivity, PVR, regionalisation. This provides both a challenge and an opportunity for content providers. At the moment the problem being faced is that while technology implementation is in place business proceses are not completed. Also more complex services have to be delivered more quickly. There is also a ned for the business to have visibility of complete content processes.

Another challenge is that while technology choices have been made in different silos, no system is in place to enable business processes to be coordinated across them. There is also limited business intelligence available across content silos.

The factors that will be responsible for success are not clear to the senior management.

There was also a panel discussion at the forum. Sony Pictures Television International, executive VP, MD Todd Miller offered a broadcasters perspective on mobile TV. Sony is looking to have all its catalogue available for the platform. However it has gone beyond that. It has a mobile service for AXN and Animax. It is also producing content for the mobile. This has started in Korea and the US. He notes that operators are now starting to understand that quality content is a discipline and that they must invest in it.

A recent study done in Korea and the Philippines shows that many people are willing to switch operators in favour of those offering mobile TV. So while an operator might make good money through voice, taking a light approach to mobile TV might open the door for a competitor to offer differentiation. What is also interesting is that the number of broadcasters rolling out DVB-H like DD is more than the number of telecom operators doing it. One difficulty for mobile operators is that often TV channels do not own the right to sell content for that platform. Sony is an exception to this. As a result an operator has to start from scratch. Another challenge for operators is that Asia is a pre-paid market. So they do not own their subscribers. It is also easier for a broadcaster to get into mobile as you have one spectrum going out to everyone.

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) is a partner of the initiative. They are now talking to different players including governments to come on-board. The aim is to serve as a central place for information on protection of digital content. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) director, Technology Initiatives for the Asia Pacific Isa Seow made this announcement at a morning’s session at BroadcastAsia which looked at how content can be protected in a digital era.

One way to achieve the first goal is to set up a Broadcast Flag for free TV. This is a solution that America is looking at to stop free TV from going online in an unauthorised manner which is what is happening with sites like Youtube. This will help preserve the value of the content both for the owner and for the advertiser.

“The Broadcast Flag implements protection upon reception. It allows for clear transmission of digital TV signals and then invokes protection at the point where it is first received. The Broadcast Flag uses a combination of technology measures or regulatory obligation,” said Seow.

Another challenge that the center faces is to plug the Analogue Hole. This refers to digital content being transferred to an analogue format and then being reconverted back to digital. Digital hardware devices have analog output capabilities which allows for compatibility with older analogue devices. This allows for the conversion and represents a huge hole in measures being taken for content protection. In fact it nullifies attempts at content protections.

This results in an inconsistent consumer experience, said Seow. It allows and creates an un-level playing field between makers of analogue and digital products. So the center together with the various stakeholders will have to come up with effective laws and implement security measures. The center will also organise seminars and training sessions on content protection. It will have mailing lists through which it will build up a repository of information. It will also provide small grants for the development of content technology solutions. One of the benefits for stakeholders who become a member of the center is that they will participate in R&D and drafting guidelines.

Seow also dwelt on the different content protection measures available for different devices. For instance for the DVD you have the 40 bit scrambling encryption system. There is also the digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) system. This allows for content to be transferred from one device in the home to another.

There is the Open Mobile Alliance which works on things like fingerprinting applications to ensure security of content on the mobile. Of course, for Pay TV you have Cas. Casbaa provides guidelines on how content should be protected and what upgrades are available.

Governments across Asia need to be more proactive which will help self regulation come from within the industry, said Seow. For instance hardware makers should ensure that their devices do not play pirated products.

There was also a session on digital watermarking.
Cinea president Rob Schumann noted that forensic watermarking is at the heart of a DRM solution. It puts identifiers in place so that anonymous distribution and use can be tracked. Companies like The Academy of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences in the US use this for their screeners, which are mailed to members. Forensic watermarking also lets you know when one’s DRM system is broken.

The technology of Running Marks, Cinea‘s patented watermarking technology, was designed specifically to place forensic data in copyrighted material from the source, through the distribution network and across a broad range of consumer playback devices; from PCs to set-top boxes to portable media player. It looks to counter the most sophisticated piracy techniques while totally preserving image quality.

A forensic video watermarking (serialisation watermarking) process marks video with the intent to later recover those marks. The objective is to deter piracy by enabling content owners to track pirated content back to its source. The three steps to adding a forensic watermark are:

Determine where to place the mark (Image Analysis). Determine what information will be in the mark Actually insert the mark

Most forensic watermark solutions treat these steps as one operation, which leads to several problems. First, processing the image to determine where to insert the mark is very computer intensive, requiring a trade off between cost and quality.

Second, such monolithic solutions typically rely on a global secret that, if exposed, renders the mark vulnerable to counter measures. Third, it may be problematic to renew the marking method after compromise because doing so would require updating all fielded devices.

Cinea‘s technology differs from other solutions on the market in a number of critical ways, Seow said.

An ultra-lite inserter enables serialsation watermarks to be embedded in nearly any consumer video device. As a result, Running Marks can apply device-specific marking to individual video copies during playback, enabling piracy tracking back to the source.

A fully renewable system provides for security algorithms to be renewed on the back-end, with no need for field upgrades, affording cost savings when millions of devices have already been deployed.

The blind watermark recovery system of Running Marks requires no information about the original source content, channel of content distribution, or player. This simplifies the recovery operation for system operators and content owners.

It allows for compressed domain watermarking that affords an additional level of security by allowing the technology to reside within the secure envelope of the digital rights management or conditional access (DRM/CA) provider.

Running Marks has multiple insertion capabilities that allow watermarks to be embedded across the entire distribution and playback chain, helping content owners to identify sources of leakage or points of vulnerability

How does the system work? The original content is analysed to locate suitable video regions as place holders for message insertion. Locations are chosen so that messages will be undetectable to the human eye. For each location, two alternate content representations, “mark images,” are created and stored for later use.

Image Analysis can be done in any number of locations.
In a video distribution system the image analysis can be done at the head-end; done once and stored for VOD content and done in real-time for broadcast content. In a fixed media or electronic delivery application, the image analysis can be done in a post production environment thus preserving creative control and optimizing the marks to the content.

Although mark placement image analysis is the most CPU-intensive function, it only needs to be done once in order to support multiple message creations and insertions as content moves through its normal distribution cycle.

Message Creation: User messages can be 64-bits long containing, for example, playback device id, playback date and time, and more according to the specific application requirements. This message data is then encoded to create a robust and redundant message stream.

Insertion: The ultra-light inserter can be integrated at any stage of a multi-node content delivery network, for example: at the head-end, at an interim point, or in the final consumer playback device such as a set-top box, portable media player, PC, or mobile phone. The run-time encoded user message is generated and used to determine which data is placed in each message location.

The insertion process requires only a simple data copy operation and can be implemented with virtually no time or compute overhead. This is critical because it enables insertion in consumer devices with limited computer resources. The marks are inserted into the compressed stream, while the content is still within the security envelope of the DRM/CA, before the content is decoded for playback.

Interestingly, these groups watch less TV – especially the biggest traditional channels. Those with internet are more likely to have broadband and to use and depend on a mobile phone than the rest of the population.

This report looks at a sample of the largest ethnic minority groups in the UK including Indians, Pakistanis, Black Caribbeans and Black Africans – as well as EMGs as a whole. The report assesses how these groups are served by the communications industry, and explores the differences between the EMG population and the general population. The research looked at three communications services: television, telecoms (fixed line and mobile) and internet.

The survey conducted among adults from a range of different EMGs found that, when asked, 83 per cent said that communications technology is important to them. This compares to the UK average of 69 per cent. In addition some 72per cent of people from EMGs said that they keep up with technology compared to the UK average of 59 per centand 63per cent said they could not happily live without a mobile phone (50 per cent UK).

The fingings also suggest that EMG individuals watch less television per day (3 hrs 16 min) than the average person in the UK (3 hrs 37 min). Of the television they do watch they have a stronger preference for films (13.5 per cent of total EMG viewing compared to a 9.6 per cent UK average) and children‘s programming (3.9 per cent of EMG viewing, 2.3 per cent UK average) than the wider UK population.

The data indicates, of all internet users in the UK, a higher proportion of people from EMGs have broadband (80%) than the UK average (74per cent). Some 86 per cent of EMG households have a fixed-line telephone (89 per cent UK) and mobile take-up was higher among EMGs (83 per cent vs. 80 per cent UK average).

Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said, “This latest research from Ofcom shows encouraging take-up of digital communications services among ethnic minority groups. However, the evidence suggests that Britain‘s most watched broadcasters need to reflect on whether they are connecting sufficiently with minority ethnic groups”.

The distribution of Yahoo! oneSearch by ICL makes it easier for people to search for and find results on their mobile devices. It will provide consumers access to news, web images, financial information, weather conditions, Flickr™ and other web sites, as well as make it easy to navigate to other web sites.

For example, if one wants to look for the latest information on a city, they just need to type it into the search box to receive relevant results based on their search queries such as weather, Flickr photos, web images, latest news articles and more.

“Yahoo! oneSearch provides Idea with a competitive advantage by offering a reliable and easy-to-use mobile search offer to consumers in India,” said ICL chief marketing officer Pradeep Shrivastava.

“Our subscribers are increasingly looking for the quickest way to access services on the open internet and the mobile device has now become a tool to get instant answers,” he added.

According to an official release, the strategic partnership with Idea demonstrates Yahoo!’s commitment to become number one in mobile services and establishes a strong early leadership position in mobile audience reach, mobile search services and mobile monetization.

“Our partnership with Idea Cellular is helping to extend Yahoo!’s clear leadership in search for mobile users in India,” said Yahoo! president and general manager, Connected Life Asia, David Ko. He added, “Yahoo! is committed to innovation that provides value to operators and consumers and our mobile partnership strategy will continue to evolve and add value to our respective customers.”

Yahoo! oneSearch is now available in 14 countries including India. Yahoo! oneSearch first launched in the United States in January 2007.

The website will currently expand into Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. This will be followed by more local versions.

Users from these countries will be allowed to share and create videos in their native language, search the most popular and relevant videos in their markets and connect with other local users.

YouTube has already signed content deal with international content partners including broadcasters such as the BBC, France 24, the Spanish Antena 3 and Cuatro TV.

YouTube co-founder and CEO Chad Hurley said, “Video is universal and allows people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas. YouTube will now be more accessible and interesting to a worldwide audience, and we look forward to rolling out in other countries in the months to come.”

Co-founder and chief technology officer Steve Chen said, “From the beginning, we have been totally focused on creating an incredible YouTube user experience and service,” said Chen. “We‘re really excited to now offer that same great service to a global community, by bringing them local sites that not only promote their communities but speak their language.”

Sponsored Spaces is a new ad platform that allows advertisers to immerse themselves in the social networking scene and communicate and engage directly with consumers.

Sony Ericsson launched www.sharethereallife.spaces.live.com for community-based advertising on 4 June as a core element of an integrated marketing campaign to launch its new K810i handset. The site has advertisers keeping information and content fresh so that consumers can get regular updates.

“The blogosphere is exploding in popularity in Asia and advertisers are eager to reach out to this group of opinion leaders and influencer customers” commented Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions head of multinational sales, Asia Karen Chia. “With the introduction of Sponsored Spaces, advertisers will now be able to quickly set up a social networking platform, maximize interaction with their customers, and tap into the large community of people on the Windows Live network.”

Designed with the easy-to-buy, easy-to-sell approach that Microsoft brings to its advertising solutions, Sponsored Spaces is also integrated with Windows Live Messenger, making it much more effective for advertisers to promote their campaigns.

Advertisers can also allow Spaces users to add the Sponsored Site to their friends list, extending the impact of a campaign. With Sponsored Spaces, advertisers can use popular Windows Live Spaces features, such as photo albums, gadgets, video players, and update alerts, to bring a high degree of customization and creativity to their site while matching it with campaign themes.

The broad introduction of the new ad platform follows in-depth consultation by Microsoft with marketers and advertisers to create a solution that converges with social networking elements.

Sony Ericsson‘s Share the Real Me Sponsored Space, which ran in March this year, attracted close to 52,000 visits over a month and more than 191 comments, says an official release.

Share the Real Life, authored by Hong Kong celebrity Jan Lamb, encourages visitors to express themselves and share their real-life stories with others. Visitors to the new site are also invited to submit their blog in a competition. The winners, as judged by their online peers, receive a new Sony Ericsson K810i handset.

“With blogging in India emerging as vibrant as the rest of Asia and more Indians using the internet, advertisers will need to build successful campaigns around their brands in the Indian blogosphere,” said MSN and Windows Live India head of digital marketing Revenue and Strategic Business Rajnish. “Different segments of consumers interact with each other through specific interest communities online. Social networking therefore enables advertisers to interact with not just the consumer but members of his community as well.”