Mediaboss Marketing

Envivio Muse Offers Native Support for New iPad and Apple TV; Encoding Leader Envivio to Demonstrate MPEG-DASH at Upcoming Events

South San Francisco (PRWEB) March 12, 2012

Envivio Muse transcoding software, available on the Envivio 4Caster appliance or HP blade servers for IT datacenter implementations, supports native 1080p HD resolution for the recently introduced Apple iPad and Apple TV. Two channels in full 1080p and up to six sub-resolutions in Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS) can be delivered from a single appliance or blade.

As a result, viewers can enjoy a superior viewing experience on the iPads new ultra-high quality Retina display and pristine HDTV using their Apple TV system. Service providers and content providers with existing Envivio systems can easily upgrade their headends to support the new formats with a simple license upgrade, thanks to Envivios software-based architecture.

Envivio has been at the forefront of developing products geared for multi-screen video delivery for more than a decade, said Julien Signs, Envivios president and CEO. We were the first to offer an encoder that supported Apple HTTP Live Streaming, and continue to enable our service provider customers to provide high quality video to the latest devices and integrate new technologies such as MPEG-DASH.

Envivio is a member of the MPEG Standards Committee and MPEG-DASH Promoters Group, and will be presenting a technology demonstration of high quality MPEG-DASH adaptive bitrate technology at two industry events this month. Envivio is participating in the CableLabs Winter Conference, a showcase of advanced technologies for cable operators taking place in Philadelphia on March 12-13, as well as at the IP&TV World Forum in London, March 20-22. In these demonstrations, live video is encoded in an Envivio Genesis multi-bitrate transport stream using Envivio Muse, and packaged in MPEG-DASH format by the Envivio Halo network media processor. An Android tablet with an MPEG-DASH decoder client receives the adaptive bitrate streams, then decodes and displays the video.

Envivio now serves more than 310 customers in more than 50 countries.

More information about Envivio solutions for TV without Boundaries can be found online at http://www.Envivio.com.

About Envivio

Envivio is a leader in solutions for multi-screen video-over-IP delivery. We design our solutions to remove the boundaries of traditional television and make the worlds video content universally enjoyable by all viewers, on any device, across any network, at any time. Now in its second decade of developing market-leading video convergence solutions, Envivio has amassed dozens of patents, pioneered video-over-IP methods, and led in the deployment of emerging standards and new technologies. Envivios customers include global tier-1 service providers, including eight of the top 10 mobile operators, seven of the top 10 broadband providers and three of the top four cable operators. Envivio is headquartered in South San Francisco, California and has offices worldwide including France, England, China, Singapore and Japan.

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Envivio Products Support Advanced Video Technologies including Latest Generation Apple Devices and MPEG-DASH

PARIS (AP) The Arab Spring is changing the face of Internet freedom, according to Reporters Without Borders, which released its latest "Enemies of the Internet" list Monday.

The annual report classifies as "enemies" countries that severely curtail freedom of expression on and access to the Web. It also draws up a list of states "under surveillance."

The group added Bahrain to its enemies list, citing a news blackout and harassment of bloggers in an attempt to quell a yearlong Shiite-led rebellion against the Sunni monarchy.

The country had previously been under surveillance.

"Bahrain offers a perfect example of successful crackdowns, with an information blackout achieved through an impressive arsenal of repressive measures: exclusion of the foreign media, harassment of human rights defenders, arrests of bloggers and netizens (one of whom died behind bars), prosecutions and defamation campaigns against free expression activists, disruption of communications," the Paris-based group's report said.

But the Arab Spring the name given to a cascade of revolts across the Arab world has also led to the opening up of some regimes.

Libya, where the repressive rule of Moammar Gadhafi was thrown off in a violent revolt, was removed from the list of countries under surveillance.

"In Libya, many challenges remain but the overthrow of the Gadhafi regime has ended an era of censorship," the report said.

The group said that the Arab Spring had also highlighted the importance of the Internet and therefore the importance of protecting access to and expression on it.

"The Internet and social networks have been conclusively established as tools for protest, campaigning and circulating information, and as vehicles for freedom," the group said. "More than ever before, online freedom of expression is now a major foreign and domestic policy issue."

Read the rest here:
Global media watchdog names enemies of Internet

Zafar Anjum | March 12, 2012

When the new media moguls start their business, they make big talk. But once they reach the tipping point, they show their true colours.

When the Malaysian authorities handed over a journalist to the Saudi government a couple of weeks ago (12 February), a hue and cry was made about the Malaysian government's scant regard for human rights.

Hamza Kashgari, 23, had fled Saudi Arabia amid a furore over his tweets on the Prophet Mohammad. Once returned, he is likely to face a charge of apostasy, which normally carries the death penalty.

On 8 February, we reported that after pulling the plug on more than a million online porn sites, Indonesia's Communications Minister, Tifatul Sembiring, has now set his sights on Twitter. Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology says it will target and block anonymous and offensive accounts on the popular social networking site.

Just a little before that (27 January), Twitter itself had admitted that it would censor tweets if a government would ask it to. Accordingly, Twitter has refined its technology so it can censor messages on a country-by-country basis. However, the good guys that they are, Twitter will post a censorship notice whenever a tweet is removed.

Ironically, just a year ago, Twitter had published on its blog a commitment to let Twitter flow (Tweets still must flow): "The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact ... almost every country in the world agrees that freedom of expression is a human right. Many countries also agree that freedom of expression carries with it responsibilities and has limits."

This is the same Twitter that had reportedly played a critical role in enabling the Arab Spring in the Middle East last year. Now, it wants to kowtow to powers that be. Why? Clearly, to protect its business interests.

Google, which exited the China market a few years ago, citing its adherence to values of freedom of speech, recently agreed to remove offensive content from its site at the behest of the Indian government. Worse still, the company that had started with the slogan of 'Do No Evil' is fast becoming the Big Brother with a finger in every pie. Facebook and other Internet companies have followed suit in India.

Are you surprised by these changes in the policies of some of the same Internet giants that made a lot of noise about freedom of speech when they started their business?

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BLOG: A season of censorship

A new study has revealed details of how China's internet censorship apparatus blocks and deletes content from the Weibo microblogging service. "The work showed that the social media censor was similar to the system overseeing Chinese web access," the BBC reported.

According toThe New Scientist, scientists from Carnegie Mellon University looked at 57 million short messages posted on Weibo, and then re-examined them three months later to see which ones had been deleted. Its results found that controversial messages "tended" to be deleted, with wide regional disparities: in wealthy eastern cities like Beijing and Shanghai, roughly one in ten messages were axed; in Tibet, half were deleted.

The study found that the service was adaptive, the BBC reported, "It also found that the censorship system could be quite nimble and react quickly when words or phrases start to assume a more political meaning. For instance, the word 'lianghui' became sensitive when it started to be used as a code word for a 'planned protest'." The same was true for a word that means "asking someone to resign" after a high speed train crashed last year.

Criticism of government - especially of Fang Binxing, the brains behind the "Great Firewall" - were mostly deleted, as were other innocent-sounding terms that took on submeanings to describe pro-democracy protests. But not all controversial terms were deleted, suggesting a high level of human involvement, according to a researcher.

At least one instance of censorship was apparently to help users. After the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan, a rumor circulated that said eating large quantities of iodized salt, instead of potassium iodide, would protect from radiation poisoning. Those messages were deleted.

Pdraig Reidy of the London-based pressure group Index On Censorship told New Scientist, "This suggests incredibly close, real-time, manned monitoring of discussions and searches. We know that the Chinese government has thousands of people working on web censorship. This study proves how serious a project that is for the regime."

The full results of the study will be published in the next issue of First Monday.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/china/120312/study-reveals-chinese-censorship-weibo

Read this article:
Study reveals Chinese censorship of Weibo

LENEXA, Kan., March12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --PlattForm, a leading Internet marketing and enrollment solutions provider for the postsecondary education industry and a division of Ad Venture Interactive, announced today that it acquired numerous website properties from Guider Media, an online inquiry generation company based in Stockholm, Sweden.

The company acquired more than 20 websites, including MBA-Online-Program.com, HomeStudyCourses.net and EducationAtlas.com. The websites involved in the acquisition predominantly serve online- and graduate-focused higher learning institutions offering advanced degree programs.

The acquisition continues PlattForm's ongoing efforts to acquire website properties, brands and the commitment to generate high quality inquiries for clients. Additionally, the acquisition allows PlattForm to increase the number of inquiry generation sites that include schools offering degrees at the Master's and doctoral levels.

"Quality has always been our priority. This acquisition allows us to expand our internal network of sites and continue to add more high-quality organic leads that our clients expect and deserve," said John Van Fleet, PlattForm's Chief Interactive Officer.

PlattForm is renowned throughout the education inquiry generation industry for the superior quality of its inquiries. Earlier this month, Leads360, the market-leading consumer sales platform, recognized PlattForm as a 2011 top performer for Lead Qualification in the education agency category. The second annual Leads360 2012 Lead Industry Report is an analysis of the inquiry industry and top inquiry generation firms.

"When it comes to inquiry providers in the education space, PlattForm is a trusted partner for us," said Marcelo Parravicini, Chief Marketing Officer of Post University. "The quality of their inquiries has always been superior. Given the recent struggles with quality in our sector, we're excited to see PlattForm taking the initiative with these website acquisitions to address current trends. They are doing all they can to ensure inquiry quality maintains or exceeds its present level."

For more information, please contact Kevin Kuzma, Director of Communications, at kevink(at)plattformad(dot)com or 913-601-2034.

About PlattForm

PlattForm Advertising (http://www.PlattFormAd.com) is a direct response agency specializing in postsecondary education marketing. With an internal staff of more than 400 industry experts, the Kansas City-based agency provides a range of services, including interactive inquiry generation; website marketing; digital media; search engine marketing; social media; media placement; and creative services, print and video production. In 2011, PlattForm was ranked by the Kansas City Business Journal as the No. 1 agency in total revenue in the Kansas City metropolitan area. PlattForm is a division of Ad Venture Interactive.

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PlattForm Announces Strategic Website Acquisitions to Control and Maintain Quality in the Education Inquiry Generation ...