• Demonstrating PayWizard, the powerful payment system that also captures valuable marketing information to help broadcasters and content owners provide a better service
• Launch of the eWallet top-up service to allow consumers to easily purchase digital media from various sources and across multiple platforms
• Example of PayWizard in action – Racing UK
• Partner announcement – KIT digital, Tangerine

NAB 2010, Las Vegas – 12 April 2010 – At NAB 2010 MGt, the leading provider of billing and customer management software, will be demonstrating its enhanced payment and billings service, newly branded as PayWizard, which helps digital media content owners to monetise content and build closer relationships with consumers by simplifying the payment process. At the heart is an eWallet that provides a simple and efficient payment gateway service, allowing consumers to purchase digital media from a variety of sources using a single ‘top-up’ account.

In today’s multiplatform world digital content owners have a wide variety of outlets where they can sell their products, whether online newspapers, music videos or online games, but managing the process while maintaining a good service can be problematic. PayWizard – which currently manages more than 10 million customer transactions and bills more than $400 million annually and is fully PCI compliant – not only deals with payment transactions but also provides the tools to enable content owners to collect valuable marketing data about consumers, provide critical reporting capabilities, and offer a range of customer support services.

Jamie Mackinlay, Commercial Director, MGt, said, “It might seem like the last and most obvious piece of the content monetization puzzle, but the payment system is really important in order to create a simple easy-to-use service and to build a close relationship with the customer. Unlike other payment and billing tools, PayWizard allows the content owner to keep, analyse and use vital marketing data – where the customer has been, what they have bought, what their purchasing habits are – in order to improve their service, personalise the customer viewing experience and provide additional opportunities to sell more content.”

PayWizard’s value-added service allows merchants to quickly set up their online offering by providing technical integration services in order to connect with multiple platforms, and the necessary operational infrastructure and services such as reporting and content tracking, which would require heavy investment in time and money to set up independently.

PayWizard also provides a top-up payment device for digital media consumption. Instead of having to register personal and bank account details on individual sites, the consumer would register with PayWizard for a single ‘eWallet’, nominate payment details and choose how much to top up and how often, and would then be able to use their account quickly and easily on any site that is signed up to the PayWizard service.

“PayWizard is an attractive offer for all sizes digital media companies, allowing them to offer an easy and secure billing service, with the additional benefits of PayWizard, for a relatively small outlay,” Mackinlay said. “We see PayWizard becoming the common currency for digital media transactions.”

In addition to PayWizard, MGt will also be demonstrating its Profile Software Suite, which provides robust support for specific end-to-end applications such as subscriber TV and IPTV. MGt can be found on Booth SU9506R in the Broadband Lifestyles Pavilion.

ABOUT MGt

MGt is a specialist provider of payment and billing services, media consumer software and outsourced solutions for global Telecommunications, Media, Technology, Entertainment and Retail markets.

For over ten years MGt has developed an innovative and unique Tier 1 managed service platform that, along with our staff of over 1,000, annually manages more than 10 million customer contacts, bills more than $400 million and fulfils more than 4 million items.

MGt today provides a unique services package that includes: hosted billing and payment solutions, subscriber management software for digital media platforms, end to end IPTV solutions and a full outsourced customer management capability.

Our client list includes BT Retail, Sony Entertainment, BT Vision, Digital UK, Discovery Networks, Freeview, Move Networks, Orange, Top Up TV and Five.

For more information visit www.mgtplc.com

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Just  a little while ago Apple issued a news release that they have filed a suit against HTC, alleging that the company is infringing on 20 patents, like iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture, and hardware.  We just have to sit back, and wait for more details to unfold!

CUPERTINO, California—March 2, 2010—Apple® today filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

Apple reinvented the mobile phone in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone®, and did it again in 2008 with its pioneering App Store, which now offers more than 150,000 mobile applications in over 90 countries. Over 40 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

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According to the latest press release by Microsoft, you will be able to watch TV on Windows 7 PCs.  The details are not very clear on weather any special hardware like a tuner will be required, but when you upgrade to Mediaroom 2.0, Media Center will have access to all the content like HD and on-demand, which is very nice idea.  

For a complete list of details read the press release below.

Source: Microsoft

LAS VEGAS — Jan. 6, 2010 — With the announcement of Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0 today at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Microsoft Corp. has shown the world the future of TV entertainment.

Subscription TV services, powered by Microsoft Mediaroom 2.0, will take viewers where they haven’t been before by extending TV experiences across multiple screens, including the PC, TV and mobile phone. The Mediaroom software supports whole-home digital video recording, on-demand capabilities, access to both operator-hosted content and Internet TV, and interactive applications. Mediaroom 2.0 combines client software with cloud-based services to provide viewers with access to a world of great content on the big flat screen in their living room, the PC in their office, and even the smartphone in their pocket.

The past few years have seen major innovations in the ways television content is distributed and consumed. Perhaps the biggest change is the widespread availability of mainstream television programming online. A growing number of consumers now use a PC as a secondary screen for watching TV, and in some cases a PC may be their only TV screen. In the process consumers are coming to expect more diverse access to their ever-growing collections of content. The Microsoft vision for the future of TV is taking advantage of this trend.

“Our strategy with Mediaroom is to combine the power of client software and cloud-based services to greatly enhance the way consumers experience digital entertainment,” says Enrique Rodriguez, corporate vice president for the TV, Video and Music Business at Microsoft. “We want to make it easier for consumers to find and discover great content, to watch, listen and engage in new ways, and to do so anywhere and on any screen. Mediaroom 2.0 is a key milestone in our strategy, providing the software platform to power operators’ service clouds to reach more screens, and more people, with more content than ever before.”

While the original version of Mediaroom enabled services to be viewed on TV set-top boxes and on Xbox 360 game consoles, Mediaroom 2.0 alleviates the need for operators to deploy redundant systems, allowing them to expand the reach of their television service to include Windows 7-based PCs via Windows Media Center, Web browsers on both Macs and Windows-based PCs and, in the future, compatible smartphones. Mediaroom 2.0 also gives TV service operators the ability to reach beyond their managed IPTV networks, extending their television services to their unmanaged broadband networks. As a result, operators have the ability to offer content from a vast number of television and Internet sources, and deliver it to more viewers in more places than ever before.

All of this gives people more freedom in where and how they access their entertainment, while also providing a familiar, consistent experience. For example, subscribers could start watching a show on one screen and finish watching it on another. They could also build a video queue on a smartphone and watch the content later on a TV or PC. While traveling they could watch a recorded TV program on a smartphone and later watch an on-demand feature film in HD on a laptop all via Mediaroom 2.0 enabled TV services.

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As a result, it features the same highly acclaimed speed and ease of use that have made wondertouch products so popular with more than 10,000 compositing artists around the world. In addition, pIAE provides access to the thousands of existing wondertouch emitters — downloadable presets designed to allow users to effortlessly create natural, high-quality effects such as smoke, fire, explosions, sparkles, fireworks and countless abstract effects — without ever leaving the After Effects environment.

ParticleIllusion for After Effects features include:

• The same emitter search engine found in wondertouch particleView
• Access to all top-level particle parameters, including size, life, number, velocity, etc. to further customize the particles for each project
• OpenGL-accelerated rendering
• Full support for HD content
• The ability to load most of the more than 2,800 existing particleIllusion emitters in After Effects, including the popular “Pro Emitters”

“particleIllusion for After Effects is the particles solution we’ve been waiting for,” said Ernest Chan, Post Production CG Supervisor at Nickelodeon Animation Studios. “We are huge fans of the incredible ease of use and high-quality output that wondertouch products have delivered for years. Now, we get all those benefits in a more streamlined workflow that maximizes our creativity while minimizing our support costs. particleIllusion for After Effects is the right product at just the right time.”

Artists using particleIllusion for After Effects can gain even greater control by using it in conjunction with particleIllusion 3.0. An excellent companion to pIAE, particleIllusion 3.0 grants access to all emitter settings and lower-level parameters such as color gradients, particle images, initial angle settings, and so on. Artists can also create new emitters and libraries, or move emitters between libraries using particleIllusion 3.0.

“particleIllusion 3.0 as a standalone application has earned its reputation by allowing customers to create stunning, natural effects that they would never have the time or resources to accomplish with other tools,” said Alan Lorence, creator of particleIllusion. “particleIllusion for After Effects further enhances artists’ creativity by offering convenient, intuitive access to our amazing preset library without having to leave the After Effects environment.”

Pricing and Availability:

• Regular pricing for particleIllusion for After Effects is $299
• Existing particleIllusion 3.0 users can purchase particleIllusion for After Effects for $179
• particleIllusion for After Effects BUNDLED with particleIllusion 3.0 can be purchased for $579
• particleIllusion for After Effects BUNDLED with all 12 Pro Emitter libraries can be purchased for $499
• particleIllusion for After Effects BUNDLED with particleIllusion 3.0 AND all 12 Pro Emitter libraries can be purchased for $799

particleIllusion for After Effects is available immediately for Windows users, and will be available in Q1 2010 for Macintosh users. Visit http://www.wondertouch.com to order online or to find a reseller.

About wondertouch by GenArts:
wondertouch by GenArts is an award-winning software developer specializing in particle effects for the visual effects industry. The company’s flagship product particleIllusion, a sprite-based particle effects application, is designed to provide the most comprehensive effects creation tool and efficient workflow. Considered one of the most popular solutions for effects creation, particleIllusion is now used worldwide by creative professionals working in film post-production and pre-visualization, standard and HD video, commercial broadcast, motion graphics and game content creation.

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It seems to be a little faster than Firefox.  You can apply different themes from the galery or leave it completely stock 9just like I preffer it). 

Ont big thing to get used to with Chrome is the absence of the toolbar.  no buttons, links, etc.   Similar idea as Safari, and IE8 is that when you click on a new tab, it shows you a gallery of recent sites you’ve visited.  This can be desabled if you do not like that. 

If you own a MAC and like to try things out, give Google Chrome a whirl.

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AT&T has released a new iPhone app that will allow their customers to report any problems that they experience with their service.

If you have just experienced a dropped call, or poor service, no data service or static, you can just launch an application and report your problem directly to AT&T.

I don’t know about you, but I have been waiting for something like this for a long time, because every day I experience dropped calls in specific areas to the point where it is unacceptable.  This is a great app, but the big question is, how soon will AT&T will get to fixing the problems from the feedback that they receive from their customers?

You can get your app here App Store.

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Boris FX, the leading developer of integrated effects technology for video and film, announced that a new Boris Continuum Unit, Image Restoration, is now available.

The Boris Continuum Image Restoration Unit includes the Smooth Tone, Pixel Fixer, and DV Fixer filters from Boris Continuum Complete 6:

• BCC Smooth Tone – an “electronic makeup” tool for saving shots with skin blemishes or substandard makeup while preserving sharpness and full image detail. A great tool for working with “talking heads” and on-camera interview footage.
• BCC Pixel Fixer – removes bad pixels resulting from a faulty digital camera sensor or dust on a camera lens. Up to 10 bad spots can be repaired with a single filter application – without any degradation of image quality or sharpness.
• BCC DV Fixer – remove jaggies and DV compression artifacts from footage originated on consumer DV cameras.

Boris Continuum Image Restoration supports Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Final Cut Express, Apple Motion, Adobe After Effects, and Adobe Premiere Pro.

The Image Restoration Unit is the latest addition to previously-released Boris Continuum Units: Chroma Key, Pan and Zoom, UpRez, Motion Key, Lens Flare, Film Look, Glitters, Optical Stabilizer, Light Rays, 3D Objects, Cartoon Look, and Motion Tracker.

Pricing and Availability
Boris Continuum Image Restoration is immediately available through the Boris FX worldwide reseller channel and direct from the Boris FX web site at http://www.borisfx.com for an MSRP of $99 USD. Customers who purchase the Boris Continuum Image Restoration Unit or any other Boris Continuum Unit may credit the price of the Unit towards the full Boris Continuum Complete plug-in suite. For more information, please visit the Boris FX web site at http://www.borisfx.com.

About Boris FX
Founded in 1995, Boris FX is the leading developer of integrated graphics and effects technology, delivering 3D compositing and vector graphic products for broadcast, post-production, film, and multimedia. Boris products have grown to serve millions of artists worldwide. The company’s success lies in its ability to integrate and leverage technologies through strong partnerships with industry-leading developers such as Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Grass Valley, and Sony.

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In the mean time, here are the highlights from Palm’s about the changes made:

• Yahoo! now appears as a Calendar/Contacts/instant messaging synchronization account.
• You can forward a text or multimedia message by tapping the message > Forward.
• A new option is available for restarting the phone: press and hold power > Power > Restart. The prior restart method (Device Info > Reset Options > Restart) is still available.
• Widescreen videos (including YouTube) now display in widescreen mode on the phone by default, instead of being cropped.
• If you tap to play a YouTube video embedded on a web page, the YouTube application launches and the video plays in the app.
• You can select a unique ringtone for new message alerts: Open Messaging > application menu > Preferences & Accounts > Sound > Ringtone.
• While listening to a song with album art displayed, you can tap the screen below the art to display a playback slider. Dragging the slider jumps forward or backward in the song.

 Source: Palm

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The guest account bug is triggered by logging in and out of a guest account.  Once a user logs back in to their regular account, a user can find that all the data has been wiped out.

The operating system upgrade also features native support for the new multi-touch Magic Mouse. 

The 10.6.2 combo update, Mac OS X Server 10.6.2, Server combo update, and Security Update 2009-006 Client can be downloaded from these links.

The complete list of fixes that are included in Mac OS X 10.6.2 release are as follows:

Operating system fixes:

• an issue that caused data to be deleted when using a guest account
• an issue that might cause your system to logout unexpectedly
• Spotlight search results not showing Exchange contacts
• the reliability of menu extras
• an issue in Dictionary when using Hebrew as the primary language
• shutter-click sound effect when taking a screenshot
• an issue with the four-finger swipe gesture
• an issue adding images to contacts in Address Book
• an issue in Front Row that could cause sluggish or slow frame rates while watching videos
• creation of mobile accounts for Active Directory users
• reliability and duration of VPN connections
• general reliability improvements for iWork, iLife, Aperture, Final Cut Studio, MobileMe, and iDisk
• overall improvements to VoiceOver performance
• this update addresses video playback and performance issues for iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2009) and iMac (27-inch, Late 2009) computers that may occur in some situations while AirPort is turned on

Fonts fixes:

• an issue with font spacing
• an issue in which some Fonts are missing
• font duplication issues
• an issue with some PostScript Type 1 fonts not working properly

Graphics fixes:

• an issue when connecting monitors to DVI and Mini DisplayPort adapters
• an issue in which the brightness setting may not be remembered on restart
• addresses functionality with specific display models
• general reliability and performance improvements when using some applications

Mail fixes:

• a situation in which Mail’s unread count may not update properly as messages are read on another computer
• an issue in which deleted RSS feeds may return
• an issue in which Mail cannot preview or Quick Look attachments when composing a new message
• an issue that can cause Address Book and/or Mail to stop responding when opened
• an issue in which email messages received from an Exchange Server are not formatted correctly
• an issue in which Mail reports “Account exceeded bandwidth limits” for some Gmail accounts

MobileMe fixes:

• performance when accessing files from iDisk via the Finder and syncing iDisk files
• an issue in which syncing iDisk files does not proceed beyond “checking items”
• reliability and performance when syncing contacts, calendars, and bookmarks with MobileMe (syncing with iTunes and iSync are also improved)
• an issue that prevents some users from logging into MobileMe via the MobileMe System Preference pane

Network file systems fixes:

• compatibility with third-party AFP servers
• file synchronization for portable home directories

Printing and faxing fixes:

• automatic printer updates improvements
• Print dialog allowing you to enter and send to more than one fax recipient

Safari fixes:

• a graphics distortion issue in Safari Top Sites
• Safari plug-in reliability

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Knocking, is a new photo-sharing app that you can pretty much instantaneously share up to 100 photos at once between two iPhones.  This works by establishing a connection between the two phones, during which one user selects another user with the app and “knocks” the pictures over to them.

For this to work, both people must have the Knocking application.  The app is free for the first 50,000 downloads.  With this app you are also able to control the photo viewing experience on another phone.  For example, if I want to send some pictures to someone, you can select and control which pictures a person can see. 

iPhone MMS allows you to send multiple images but the sending process is slow, and the selection process is not the best, but with Knocking, you can easily share complete albums.  MMS limits you to sending 5 pictures, but Knocking’s limits you to 100.  It takes only a couple of minutes to sync 100 pictures between the two phones.

There is also Facebook Connect integration to allow users to share their “knocks.” And Knocking works over both 3G and WiFi.

Give it a try, but remember only first 50,000 downloads are free.

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