20 May 2009
Italy’s public service broadcaster RAI says it will be investing up to Euro 750 million for digital terrestrial television by 2012.
According to RAI director general Mauro Masi, RAI will invest Euro 290 million in the transmission infrastructure, while close to Euro 100 million will be invested in content.
Commercial rival Mediaset is planning to spend an additional Euro 1 billion to complete the analogue switch off in Italy, on top of the Euro 2 billion already spent on the introduction of DTT.
Both RAI and Mediaset, together with Telecom Italia Media, are launching in June the Tivu Sat DTH platform in order to guarantee reception of the Italian DTT channels in those areas where the digital terrestrial signal does not arrive. Viewers will need a special smart-card, which will be sold jointly with the digital box from June. (Report by advanced-television.com)
20 May 2009
The latest version of Twitmatic (www.twitmatic.com), launched this week, lets you search, browse, rate, watch, and skip videos from throughout the Twitter universe – it’s simple.
When you enter a search term, Twitmatic runs it through the Twitter API, looks for links from more than 5,000 domains known to host video and imports them into the system. When other people search for the same term, the system accesses those videos faster than it did the first time, and presents the newer results.
At the same time, in the background, Twitmatic runs searches using an index of search terms, which also helps speed things up, according to ffwd co-founder and senior developer Greg Roberts. (Source: Wired)
20 May 2009
AIB is now among the ranks of the twittering classes! We’ve started a news feed that you can follow titled AIBnews. You’ll find a link below.
We’ll be using twitter to keep AIB members and others in the industry up-to-date with the AIB’s activities and the wider industry.
Follow us…it could be useful!
19 May 2009
As reported in the Tehran Times online, Irans English-language news channel Press TV will establish a non-stop Arabic TV channel to show films and series in the near future.
The primary budget has been prepared and now we are collecting films and TV series in Persian for dubbing into Arabic, Press TV Managing Director Mohammad Sarafraz said. The exact date of the launch has not been set.
The channel will not produce very many films or TV series. We are selecting appropriate programs for dubbing and there will be also film review sessions which will be attended by film experts and critics, he said. Sarafraz went on to say that Press TV tries its best to reveal a true picture of the West by producing well-researched and thought-provoking documentaries about it. No specific budget is dedicated to film production at the Press TV but we are trying to increase it in the near future, he said. He went on to say that sometimes, documentaries have greater impact than feature films and they can more effectively transfer concepts to the audience.
Press TV is an English language international television news channel which is funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) in Tehran in 2007.
18 May 2009
As reported in the GSMA Mobile Business Briefing, India – the world’s fastest-growing mobile market – has seen a lot of contract activity recently, with both state-owned incumbent operators and greenfield players awarding deals. Newcomer Unitech Wireless – soon to be majority-owned by Telenor – confirmed it has awarded five-year deals to Alcatel-Lucent and Huawei. Dow Jones Newswires reports that both deals are valued at US$150 million each, although Alcatel-Lucent’s contract is focused on GSM/EDGE networks in Kerala and Orissa circles whilst Huawei has been awarded a managed network services deal.
Elsewhere, TeleGeography reports that new operator SSTL (Sistema Shyam) has inked a seven-year deal with ZTE for the provision of network equipment and infrastructure. SSTL is aiming to complete its pan-Indian rollout by the third-quarter of 2010. Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent and MTNL today announced the commercial launch of the operator’s first IP-based mobile next generation network (NGN) to offer enhanced services to residential and enterprise customers in Mumbai.
