Russian VC Digital Sky has put $200m into Facebook preference shares valuing the social net at a nominal $10bn, down from the $15bn represented by Microsoft's investment 18 months ago, but, considering market conditions and the fact Facebook won't breakeven until next year at the earliest, still very high. Both sides also claimed that –despite […]
Joanna Shields is leaving her post as head of people networks at AOL 14 months after the group paid – in its own words – 'a generouos' $850m for Bebo, where she was CEO. AOL said Shields will stay on as an advisor to AOL on its acquisitions and new ventures. …
From Colin Mann in Cologne Interactive TV playout systems specialist Strategy & Technology has developed the first applications to be shown to bring streaming video from the Internet to the TV under broadcaster control using the latest MHEG-5 middleware specifications. Working in collaboration with set-top box manufacturer Humax, S&T has enhanced its RedKey 2 technology […]
From Colin Mann in Cologne Spanish TV signal specialist Televes has unveiled the DAT HD, which it claims is the first 'intelligent' antenna developed specifically for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and the future High Definition Television (HDTV). The DAT HD has been developed by taking into account the particular characteristics of the digital signal, in […]
Microsoft has launched Microsoft Mediaroom with virtualisation, making Mediaroom the first IPTV platform to offer virtualisation support. Mediaroom with virtualisation can deliver up to a sixfold reduction in the number of physical servers required to support a full-featured IPTV service, significantly reducing hardware and management costs and speeding time to market for Mediaroom customers by […]
From Colin Mann in Cologne German cable operator Kabel BW has chosen NDS's MediaHighway middleware, XTV integrated digital video recorder (DVR) technology and an NDS video on demand (VOD) solution for the introduction of new entertainment services. The deployments are designed to enable Kabel BW to manage efficiently its entire STB population and seamlessly introduce […]
From Colin Mann in Cologne Digital TV product, service and IP provider S3 revealed at ANGA Cable that its StormTest product has been licensed by UK digital satellite service BSkyB to automate testing of its set-top boxes (STBs). The client/server architecture built into the product design can support remote testing, on-site testing and field testing […]
Harmonic has confirmed that SK Broadband, Korea's leading integrated telecommunications company, has deployed Harmonic's Direct-2-Edge (D2E) solution, encompassing Harmonic's NSG 9000 universal edgeQAMs and D2E control software for the world's largest commercial launch of cable IPTV to date. The landmark deployment enables SK Broadband to provide a uniform broadcast IPTV service across its cable, xDSL, […]
Research from Informa says that digital TV will make significant progress in Latin America over the next five years. Digital TV households will more than treble in that time – from 12.2 million at present to 37.1 million by 2014. Brazil and Mexico now combine to account for half of the region's digital subscribers, but […]
Harmonic has announced that its SUPRALink 1550 nm dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) transport solution has been selected by the province of Salzburg, Austria, for an upgrade to its HFC cable infrastructure. The new deployment, the first of its kind in the region, will be implemented by Normann Engineering . Salzburg is in the process […]