30 April 2008
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28 April 2008
An attack of unprecedented scale and intensity appears to have been launched against the Internet sites of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty‘s Belarus Service and more than half a dozen other RFE/RL language broadcasting sites.
The cyber warfare started at 8a.m. Prague time, on April 26, and was ongoing as of the afternoon of Monday 28 April.
Known as “Denial of Service,” or DOS, it slows web traffic to a standstill by bombarding the system with bogus requests it has to consider and then deny. The brunt of the attack is aimed at RFE/RL’s Belarus Service and is intensifying.
RFE/RL President Jeff Gedmin compared the situation to the Cold War days when RFE/RL radio broadcasting to Communist countries was jammed. He said: “this is a different weapon to block a technologically advanced information platform, but little else has changed. Dictators are still trying to prevent the kind of unfiltered news and information that RFE/RL provides from reaching their people. They did not succeed in the last century and they will not succeed now.”
RFE/RL said that it has been taking countermeasures to restore service to affected RFE/RL Internet sites in Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Kosovo in Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Croatia, as well as Belarus.
RFE/RL Belarusian Service Director Alexander Lukashuk said he began getting personal e-mails from frustrated web visitors about two hours after the weekend attack began. He said “Saturday was a particularly important day in Minsk – the 22nd anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in neighbouring Ukraine. We have a large Internet audience that was relying on us to report live a rally of thousands of people, protesting the plight of uncompensated Chernobyl victims and a government decision to build a new nuclear power station.”
Lukashuk said a similar attack was launched against the Belarusian website on the 21st anniversary of Chernobyl in 2007 but it lasted only a few hours and did not affect other services. This weekend, other Belarusian websites were also hit, including the Minsk-based nongovernmental organization Charter 97. Lukashuk noted that many local websites in Belarus are coming to RFE/RL’s aid and have offered to carry material and reports of RFE/RL correspondents until the RFE/RL Belarus website is operational again.
24 April 2008
Wohler Technologies Inc., today announced the release of its new WohlerPlus line of modular audio processors, which represent state-of-the-art processing and monitoring tailored to the needs of digital broadcasting, whether for terrestrial broadcasting, video over IP, cable, or satellite. Intended to address the entire audio signal chain within digital broadcast operations, the highly configurable WohlerPlus units give users the specific processing capabilities they need rather than the “all-or-nothing” functionality of dedicated processing systems.
“WohlerPlus products offer a radical approach to audio processing and monitoring, providing a variety of DSP options that can be configured to deliver just the right functionality for a given facility or application,” said Carl J. Dempsey, Wohler president and CEO. “This flexibility extends the life of the product, which can be reconfigured by users as their operational needs evolve. For broadcasters working with WohlerPlus systems, a change in processing requirements no longer requires investment in an entirely new system.”
By offering numerous DSP options, the innovative WohlerPlus line of audio products will help broadcasters to lower operational costs. The modular system features five processor slots with flexible I/O benefiting from 16 channels or eight AES pairs per card five cards per system and includes both monitoring and metering. Other options will include alarms, multiple-channel synchronization, and shuffling of channels for 5.1 or 7.1 signal confidence. Optional inputs will include multirate serial digital embedded audio with Dolby® decoding. The 2-RU WohlerPlus features a high-resolution TFT screen and on-board menu system for control, as well as Ethernet and RS-232.
WohlerPlus units can be operated through an integrated menu interface or, in the near future, via Ethernet and RS-232.
24 April 2008
Vizrt, 3 leading provider of real-time, integrated broadcast graphics software, announces the signature of a heads of agreement to purchase Escenic, a world leader in content management and publishing for the web.
The move expands Vizrts high-end graphics and media asset management systems with Escenics array of Web products that power hundreds of media sites worldwide.
This integration allows journalists to search and add video content to online articles, directly from Escenics content management system interface. The solution can later be expanded to IPTV, TV and multichannel production. Similarly, the Vizrt-Escenic integration proposes a viable solution for broadcasters targeting web publishing without duplicating staff.
The integration offers three unique benefits:
A single interface for the journalist and editor to create and publish professional media content.
The ability to reuse video content for future stories.
New revenue model opportunities. Content can be made available, for a fee, for automatic search and download.
The integration of Escenics Content Studio software with the Viz Content Pilot template-based graphic solution provides users with the ability to generate thousands of high-quality, branded graphics. A journalist can simply fill in a template and associate a branded graphic to a story directly through Escenics Content Studio GUI.
Øyvind Ørbæk, CEO of Escenic, said his company has recognized the need for more professional video and graphic tools for online editors: Escenics customers are increasingly developing their video and TV presence for online and mobile applications. Many of our newspaper customers are planning to set up TV studios to create their own TV and video content. By integrating their media asset management system, video editing, and dynamic graphics creation tool into the Escenic workflow, Escenic can continue to provide media customers with leading solutions for online editors, journalists, and television producers. They will have access to a single interface to create and publish professional media content.
From the Viz Content Pilots interface, Escenic users can now access a complete digital video workflow. Users can easily search, edit and store any size of video clip.
24 April 2008
WORLDSPACE Satellite Radio, one of the world leaders in satellite based digital radio service, today announced its wholly owned subsidiary, WORLDSPACE Europe, received approval from Germanys Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, to use 12.5 MHz of spectrum in the L-band (1479.5 – 1492 MHz) on a nation-wide basis for the operation of a terrestrial repeater network in Germany. The repeaters will work in conjunction with WORLDSPACEs existing satellite network to provide German consumers with a subscription-based satellite radio service in automobiles.
This authorization from the Bundesnetzagentur, makes Germany the third European nation to enable satellite radio in automobiles. WORLDSPACE expects to secure licenses in additional countries before the end of the year. The Company continues to build solid momentum toward a pan-European mobile satellite radio service and has a plan to deliver its service to Germany, Italy and Switzerland with its existing in-orbit satellite network.
Germany has the largest automobile market in Western Europe, with an average of 3.4 million cars sold ever year over the past 16 years. Annual commercial vehicle sales exceed 200,000 units. In addition, it is the most populous nation in Western Europe with over 82 million people. This affluent, technologically advanced nation has the fifth largest economy world-wide, the largest GDP in Europe and has the largest revenue-generating European radio market as well.
This is a significant development for WORLDSPACE, said Noah A. Samara, Chairman and CEO, WORLDSPACE Satellite Radio. We are very happy to receive authorization for our mobile satellite radio services in Germany. This achievement confirms the remarkable recent trajectory of our business in Europe, and supports our current discussions with potential partners who have large commitments in these markets.
The German market is a critical market for us. Not only is Germany the largest country in Western Europe with the largest economy, it is home to a number of the worlds leading automobile manufacturers who are very familiar with satellite radio, having already integrated satellite receivers into their vehicle lines for the American market. We are working to extend that experience to their home base.
WORLDSPACE expects to launch its German satellite radio service shortly after its 2009 service introduction in Italy. The Company expects the funding required to launch its German service to be substantially reduced because of its new plan to use existing in-orbit satellite capacity to serve the Italian, Swiss and German markets. WORLDSPACE is currently in discussions with a number of potential strategic partners who have a strong interest in the German market.
Upon service launch, subscribers throughout Germany will have access to a wide range of exclusive content including commercial-free music as well as news, sports, talk and other entertainment content. WORLDSPACE also expects to provide other services beyond radio including traffic, navigation and personalized content such as music downloads directly from the satellite.
WORLDSPACE expects to obtain similar terrestrial repeater authorizations in other markets in Europe during the course of 2008 and 2009. It recently announced receipt of a repeater license in Switzerland, where approximately 65% of the population speaks German and about 10% speak Italian. In France, the European Telecommunications Standards Institutes (ETSI) satellite digital radio (SDR) standard, upon which WORLDSPACEs technology is based, was approved for deployment in the L-band in January 2008, and its licensing process is targeted for later this year. Other European countries are expected to address their licensing processes within a similar timeframe.
WORLDSPACE continues to execute against its business plan for Europe, with numerous milestones achieved. The Company recently selected Delphi to design the first WORLDSPACE satellite radio mobile receivers (aftermarket and OEM) for Europe; Fiat Group Automobiles has signed on as the first manufacturer to install and distribute WORLDSPACE satellite radio in Italy; Telecom Italia has designed and is installing the terrestrial repeater network for Italy; Sodielec has developed and is producing the terrestrial repeaters that comply with the European standard for satellite radio; Fraunhofer IIS is developing the receiver reference design for the radio; and Certicoms conditional access system has been selected for security of the Companys broadcast services. WORLDSPACE also participated in the development of the standard for satellite digital radio (SDR) adopted by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in December 2006.
