According to a New York Times article on Monday, Wal-Mart has agreed to buy Vudu, a movie service Silicon Valley start-up.
Vudu competes directly with the video-on-demand services of the cable companies, but they Vudu has tried to stand out from competitors with its large selection of HD movies, user friendly interface and social media integration via Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Pandora.
For the full article, click here.
At Mobile World Congress 2010, Microsoft Corp. unveiled the next generation of Windows Phones, Windows Phone 7 Series.
With this new platform and the for the first time ever, Microsoft will bring together Xbox LIVE games and the Zune music and video experience on a mobile phone.
Windows Phone 7 Series includes six hubs built on specific themes reflecting activities that matter most to people:
People. This hub delivers an engaging social experience by bringing together relevant content based on the person, including his or her live feeds from social networks and photos.
Pictures. This hub makes it easy to share pictures and video to a social network in one step.
Games. This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone.
Music + Video. This hub creates an incredible media experience that brings the best of Zune, including content from a user’s PC, online music services and even a built-in FM radio into one simple place that is all about music and video.
Marketplace. This hub allows the user to easily discover and load the phone with certified applications and games.
Office. This hub brings the familiar experience of the world’s leading productivity software to the Windows Phone. With access to Office, OneNote and SharePoint Workspace all in one place, users can easily read, edit and share documents.Verizon and HBO announced that Verizon's FiOS TV customers will be the first to gain access to HBOGO.com, HBO's online video destination featuring over 600 hours of HBO programming.
HBO Go is part of the cable industry's TV Everywhere strategy to make TV content available online to paying subscribers.
Starting tomorrow, FiOS customers who subscribe to HBO will automatically receive free, unlimited online access to HBO programming at any time, from any U.S. location with a broadband connection. Customers must subscribe to both FiOS TV and FiOS Internet.
With HBO GO, FiOS TV customers who subscribe to HBO can instantly watch their favorite programs from a PC or MAC computer via a browser-based application. HBO GO will support Verizon subaccounts and allow up to three simultaneous users from the same household. Users have the ability to customize their experience through multiple browsing and viewing options, as well as the ability to restrict content with easy to use parental controls.
For more information, click here.
Panasonic Corporation, the Official Worldwide Olympic Partner in the Audio and Visual Equipment category for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, opened the doors of its Olympic Pavilion "Panasonic FULL HD 3D THEATRE" featuring two 103-inch full HD 3D theatres at LiveCity Yaletown, official celebration site of the 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
Panasonic's Full HD 3D Theatre at the 2010 Winter Games offers the public the first opportunity to experience a new era of immersive visual entertainment that will soon be available for consumers to enjoy at home. It is a 3D experience that easily rivals the best that can be seen in cinemas.
With Panasonic's frame sequential technology, images are alternately reproduced at 60 frames per second for each eye for a total of 120 frames per second. These images are viewed alternately through high-precision 3D eyewear with shutters driven in synchronization with the video. As a result, each eye views a separate 1920 x 1080 full-HD image for beautiful, clear 3D images with no degradation in quality.
Highlight videos of 2010 Winter Games screened in the full HD 3D theatre are sourced from the International Olympic Committee.
Telcordia announced its Service Delivery & Charging Suite, currently deployed by more than 35 mobile operators worldwide, is a nominee for the Global Mobile Awards in the Best Billing or Customer Care Solution category.
The Telcordia Service Delivery & Charging Suite includes products, solutions and hosted services that enable Communication Service Providers (CSPs) to quickly differentiate themselves in hyper-competitive and hyper-growth markets with innovative service offerings. The suite has been widely adopted across the globe, by CSPs such as Tata Teleservices India, Uninor India, Aircel India, Oi Brazil, Orange UK, Chunghwa and Swisscom. The suite includes the Telcordia® Real-Time Charging solution.
The Telcordia Service Delivery & Charging Suite provides a service-creation environment that enables innovative service differentiation for mobile, fixed, cable and convergent networks; a telecom application server to run next generation prepaid and converged charging; pre-built services including bandwidth management , personalized advertising and mobile business applications; a carrier-proven SIP server designed for convergent networks; and a large scale in-memory subscriber database that holds customer accounts and policies with a proven architecture that scales to hundreds of millions of subscribers.
For more information about Telcordia, visit www.telcordia.com.
CONNECTIONS™ Europe is the leading executive summit featuring European and international consumer research, top executives, and innovative companies in the digital living markets. The summit will examine business models and challenges related to digital media, including the potential of 3D video in the home, the role of value-added services in building ARPU, monetization of over-the-top content, and the challenge of pushing content to multiple connected CE, including smartphones and other mobile devices.
Early sponsors for CONNECTIONS™ Europe, also members of Parks Associates’ Premier Program, include ActiveVideo Networks and PacketVideo. Visit www.parkspremier.com for more information on the Premier Program.
Visit www.connectionseurope.com for more information about CONNECTIONS™ Europe. The deadline for speaker submissions is March 1, 2010.
Mozes, the leader in mobile engagement, announced the industry-first integration of mobile promotions and social media. Marketers can now easily create mobile campaigns, like sweepstakes, that will spread virally using the new integrated social media features of Mozes Connect.
Fans can also participate in a variety of other exciting mobile promotions granting them VIP fan access to meet Grammy-award winning stars, attend amazing shows all over the country, and even get signed memorabilia.
Marketers can boost participation rates and encourage sharing of their mobile campaigns by logging in to the Mozes Connect platform and entering their Facebook and Twitter credentials to post customized messages to their pages. Marketers can also increase participation in their campaigns by promoting them to an existing mobile fan list, as well as through the Mozes iPhone application. You can download the free Mozes application for the iPhone or iPod touch here.
Rovi Corporation (NASDAQ: ROVI) and Austar United Communications Limited announced that they have entered into a multi-year license agreement for interactive program guide (IPG) patents owned by Rovi.
The agreement provides AUSTAR with a license to Rovi’s IPG patents for AUSTAR’s pay television services in Australia. AUSTAR is an affiliate of UPC Broadband in Europe, via parent company Liberty Global, Inc. UPC recently negotiated a similar agreement with Rovi.
To read more, click here.
Cheetah Cables, an innovation leader in high technology consumer accessories for the gaming, portables and home/office computing markets, announced a technology partnership with PNY Technologies, a global leader in flash memory, USB flash drives, solid state drives, computer memory upgrade modules, as well as consumer and professional graphics cards. Under the strategic partnership, Cheetah Cables and PNY will jointly manufacture and market a line of ultra thin, high performance active HDMI cables under the PNY Technologies brand.
These active HDMI cables have a patented semiconductor technology from RedMere embedded in the cable which minimizes the data errors that usually occur when very high speed signals are transmitted over copper using signal conditioning techniques. The engineering team at Cheetah Cables has delivered a consumer electronics product with significant innovation and market leading performance.
