Volume LII, Issue 2

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In This Issue

New Internet Rules Prompt Cheers and Challenges

Excerpted from NY Times Report by Rebecca Ruiz

For those who have spent more than a decade fighting for stricter regulation of the Internet, the official publication of the rules in the Federal Register, gives reality to their latest victory. For those opposed, it is likely to touch off a flurry of lawsuits.

The rules, approved in February by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after months of heated debate, will forbid Internet service providers (ISPs) to speed up, slow down, or block a consumer’s access to any particular content. Barring any court intervention — some experts think that is unlikely, given the challenge of proving immediate harm — the rules will go into effect 60 days after publication.

“This didn’t happen overnight,” said Maura Corbett, a supporter of the new rules and founder of the Glen Echo Group, an advocacy group focused on technology policy. “It’s been a really long time that we’ve been defending this revolution, and it’s taken a village.”

There was often disagreement in that village, though, about what to call the cause.

For 20 years, Ms. Corbett has fought for the principles that have come to be known as Net Neutrality… Read More

DataCloud South East Asia Wrap-Up

Excerpted from BroadGroup Report by Martin Balfour

Less than an hour from Singapore’s Changi International Airport, the rapidly growing city state of Johor in Iskandar is moving helter-skelter towards a new role as a data center hub.

Likened by Prime Minister Najib Razak as the “New Jersey” to Singapore’s “New York,” Johor demonstrates the strategic intent of the government to create a viable cloud hub that will compete internationally as a location of choice for new data center investment.

Speaking to an audience of more than 400 executives, at the annual Datacloud South East Asia conference organized and researched by international consulting firm BroadGroup, Dato’ Sri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Malaysia, drew attention to the significant progress that had been made in developing a data center strategy. Situated in a geographically advantageous location, free from natural disasters, in the southern portion of Peninsular Malaysia, Johor is proximate to both Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Earmarked for achieving tremendous traction, Johor is being powered and connected to provide the appropriate infrastructure needed for the deployment of new IT assets and is expected to grow significantly over the coming years… Read More

Singapore-Based Cloud Provider Establishes Infrastructure

Excerpted from Benzinga Report

SecureAX has opened an office and new infrastructure in Thailand, its second presence in the South East Asia (SEA) region. The new office in Thailand, to be headed by Nattawoot Leadrutdachakul, will allow the Singapore-based virtualization and cloud computing company to tap the growing cloud computing market in Thailand, as well as the neighboring countries such as Laos and Myanmar.

Also a Managing Director of Covermat, Leadrutdachakul is leading and growing a strong team of sales and technical specialists in Bangkok to support the business growth for SecureAX Thailand.

“Our customers are demonstrating strong interest to explore how they can leverage on the cloud platform to improve their work productivity as well as to drive their capex cost down for IT infrastructure. We are also seeing very strong demand for Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) among our customers who are very concerned with their business continuity here in Thailand. The SecureAX cloud computing offers the perfect solutions to what these enterprise customers are looking for,” said Leadrutdachakul.

Through SecureAX Thailand, a full suite of Infrastructure-as-a-Services (IaaS) are offered to the market in Thailand… Read More

Report from DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty

Click Here for Video

The 2015 NAB Show is now taking place in Las Vegas, NV, from Saturday April 11th through Thursday April 16th.

In the words of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), this show is “the only source to satisfy your appetite for overindulging in hands-on experiences with emerging technologies and the latest innovations, limitless networking and learning opportunities, and the inspiration to take your work to the next level.”

And indeed, the distributed computing industry will be represented there with cloud solutions, content security, data storage, digital media, telecommunications, and many other information technology (IT) providers that are helping advance the next-generation of content.

Fresh attractions at the 2015 NAB Show include Connected Media-IP, focusing on the consumer experience; the Drone Pavilion, featuring a fully-enclosed flying-demo cage; New Media Expo (NMX), hosting celebrity bloggers, podcasters, and digital content creators; SPROCKIT, where market-ready start-ups present their new ideas; and StudioXperience, a live studio using all the latest tools.

The 2015 show has organized itself into communities, to help attendees connect with like-minded colleagues in the areas of content creation, management, commerce, distribution and delivery, and consumption.

DCIA Member company Verizon is a featured exhibitor, and will be showcasing how it provides end-to-end content solutions to help drive entertainment and media digital-ecosystem growth, technology innovation, customized user experiences, and emerging business models in this space.

More than a dozen other DCIA Members will also be exhibiting at the NAB Show.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), providing secure, reliable, low-cost, easy-to-scale, IT infrastructure services, so businesses can store, process, deliver, and analyze media content in the cloud.

Aspera, the creator of next-generation transport technologies that move the world’s data at maximum speed, regardless of file size, transfer distance, or network conditions.

AT&T, a global leader in communications, with operating subsidiaries providing services under the AT&T brand.

Avid, delivering the industry’s most open, innovative, and comprehensive media platform — connecting content creation with collaboration, asset protection, distribution, and consumption.

Cisco, helping broadcast, media, and service providers transform the consumer experience through innovations in IP, cloud, 4K / high efficiency video coding (HEVC), and multiscreen delivery.

CloudTV, focusing on research and development of cloud computing technologies for broadcasters, producers, and content distributors.

DataDirect Networks (DDN), whose simple, integrated, end-to-end storage platforms represent the future of optimized data life-cycle storage for content-intensive workflows.

Equinix, which will showcase its vision for media and entertainment offerings based on its Cloud Exchange and Programmable Network.

Huawei, a leading global information communications technology (ICT) provider, with extensive capabilities across carrier, enterprise, consumer, and cloud computing industries.

Nimbus, offering wireless encoder/decoder solutions with near zero end-to-end latency over Wi-Fi or Ethernet/IP networks.

Rackspace, which manages your cloud — with specialized engineering skills to architect and operate its complex infrastructure — so you can manage your business.

TVU Networks, helping transform broadcasters’ serial digital interface (SDI) video acquisition, transmission, distribution, and management operations to an IP-based infrastructure.

And Verimatrix, which specializes in securing and enhancing revenue for multi-network, multi-screen digital TV services around the globe.

Don’t miss the 2015 NAB Show. Share wisely, and take care.

Gear Guide for 2015 NAB Show

Excerpted from TV Technology Report by Deborah McAdams

Following is a compilation of around 125 technologies that will be on display at the 2015 NAB Show in Las Vegas this week.

They are fielded from as many as 1,000 press releases and product announcements and are current as of April 7, 2015. Gear presented by category can be found for satellite and remote, editing and graphics, lighting and batteries, transmission, furniture, test and measurement, audio, storage and recording, signal processing, monitors, cable and fiber, camera support gear, switchers and routers, automation, lenses and cameras.

Apantac to Launch 4K/UHD Multiviewer Apantac will launch its new T# (T Sharp) multiviewer series.

Archion to Debut High-Performance Shared Storage Archion will debut two collaborative-shared storage products: the EditStor Omni for 4K, 6K and 8K media workflows, and the Collaborate storage appliance for Adobe Creative Cloud.

Artel to Introduce Media Transport Products Digilink Lite is a line of pre-configured, low-cost, plug-and-play media transport solutions designed for broadcast and professional A/V applications.

ATX to Demo SimplifIPTV System ATX will demonstrate its SimplifIPTV system, part of its end-to-end IPTV platform… Read More

INSIDE Secure Intros DRM at 2015 NAB Show

Excerpted from Design & Reuse Report

INSIDE Secure, a leader in embedded security solutions for mobile and connected devices, today announced it will be introducing DRM Fusion Essential at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show to be held April 11th-16th in Las Vegas, NV.

INSIDE’s DRM Fusion Essential has been developed for premium content owners (Hollywood Studios, TV programmers, etc.) who will benefit from high security provided by INSIDE Secure’s content protection solutions.

The Free-to-Air (FtA) video service providers will also enjoy the essential flavor of this latest INSIDE’s Fusion member that offers the best HD experience supported by most of the adaptive streaming and static file protocols (Apple HTTP Live Streaming, Microsoft Smooth Streaming, MPEG-DASH, PFF, CFF) and a rich set of extra features including download-and-play, subtitles, and immersive audio.

The FtA distribution of content allows consumers to access various and rich TV programs without requiring any subscription. Thus, advertising and sponsorship help broadcasters to reach a much larger audience. This business model requires very cost effective content protection solutions based on subsets of the solutions that traditional Digital Rights Management (DRM) providers offer… Read More

The State of MPEG-DASH 2015

Excerpted from Streaming Media Report by Nicolas Weil

As it is the first vendor-independent streaming standard, MPEG-DASH is a revolution. It’s a quiet but powerful one, and it’s transforming the digital video landscape the way MPEG-TS did during the past 20 years. How was it forged? What is the maturity level of the standard and its main differentiators? What are its main announced evolutions and innovations?

Let’s rewind to the last quarter of 2010, the year when Microsoft, Apple, and Adobe finally concluded a sort of Yalta agreement that applied to the technologies of adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming over HTTP.

Each of them provided a reference technology to reach a specific family of devices respectively through Smooth Streaming (HSS or MSS), HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), and HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS). HDS then benefited from the strong traction of Flash Player but suffered from being the latest entrant, whereas Smooth Streaming was strongly established in the premium video world.

While Smooth Streaming and HDS relied on the MP4 container variants, HLS was built upon the foundations of the radically different MPEG-TS container.

There was no real sign of convergence between the MP4-based ABR flavors… Read More

Akamai Buys OTT & IPTV Technology Firm Octoshape

Excerpted from Digital TV Europe Report

Akamai has bought cloud over-the-top (OTT) and Internet protocol television (IPTV) service provider Octoshape, in a move that gives Akamai access to streaming video optimization technology.

Octoshape’s services are designed to optimize the quality of video streams for OTT content and to enable IPTV solutions.

“With the addition of Octoshape, Akamai intends to provide customers with the most comprehensive suite of video delivery and optimization technologies,” said Akamai CEO Tom Leighton.

“We believe this acquisition will bolster our strategy to further the deployment of Akamai software into devices, carrier networks, enterprises, and homes, and to fulfil the promise of an Internet that is fast, reliable, and secure on any device, anywhere.

“As more video gets consumed over the Internet, and on devices that can display higher-quality resolution, it is important for us to develop new ways to acquire, transform and distribute the highest-quality media for broadcast-size audiences.”

“We are working to continue to extend our platform to accommodate video throughput increases… Read More

Microsoft at 40: Pursue Mobile, Cloud-Based Products

Excerpted from HNGN Report by Christopher Hutton

It’s hard to imagine a world without Microsoft managing and controlling our computers.

And yet, it’s only been 40 years since the company came into being.

But what does the current Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, want to do with the software giant in the near future?

Nadella told The Australian Financial Review (AFR) all about his plans for the company.

“As Microsoft celebrates its 40th birthday on April 4th, its executives and shareholders will be looking back wistfully to their company’s lost youth. Born in the year that Captain & Tennille topped the American charts with ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’, by its 20s it had leapt ahead of the stumbling behemoth of information technology, IBM, only to slow in its 30s and be overtaken by its eternal arch-rival, Apple, a company barely a year younger than itself,” AFR reported.

But Microsoft isn’t going to let that history limit the company’s potential.

Nadella plans on having the company “move as quickly and as far as possible away from being a Windows-only company to be a global network of giant data centers that provide a broad range of online services for companies and individuals… Read More

BitTorrent Promotes Averill to VP of Global Communications

Excerpted from PRWeek Report by Diana Bradley

Software company BitTorrent has upped Christian Averill to VP of Global Communications and Brand, the company said Wednesday.

BitTorrent promoted Averill into the newly created position at the start of April, and he reports to CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff. He has seven direct reports.

He will continue to manage brand awareness and education campaigns focused on BitTorrent technology and the company’s mission. Averill will also oversee product interactions, based on BitTorrent’s core values of distributed technology, user control, and an open Internet, the company said in a statement.

“My efforts will be focused on having our brands such as Bundle and Sync stand on their own and have a strong mind share in the market,” he said.

BitTorrent creates technologies and software based on distributed technology. The peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing protocol is used to send and receive large quantities of data over the Internet.

Averill has worked at BitTorrent since November 2012 as Director of Communications… Read More

BBC Releases “Doctor Who” Boxset on BitTorrent

Excerpted from Kasterborous Report by Christian Cawley

BBC Worldwide has confirmed a collaboration with content distribution service BitTorrent to celebrate a decade of “Doctor Who” with a new release!

Developers of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer (P2P) software will be offering a ten story box set featuring specially selected highlights from the modern era of “Doctor Who” for just $12 globally.

The package will also include exclusive video content from incumbent Doctor Peter Capaldi who gives his insight into some of his favorite “Doctor Who” episodes as well as “Doctor Who: Earth Conquest” — the documentary about the 2014 global tour which saw Capaldi and companion Jenna Coleman travel the world to meet their fans.

This is made possible through BitTorrent Bundle, a direct-to-fan publishing platform that creators can use Bundle to share their stories, in any media format, and set their own pricing — keeping 90% of all sales revenue, with access to rich audience analytics.

Home to over 30,000 content publishers, and reaching an audience of more than 170 million passionate film and music fans around the world, BitTorrent Bundle seeks to empower creators and artists, and in 2013… Read More

Radware: Poised for Growth

Excerpted from Seeking Alpha Report

Radware is a leading provider of application delivery and security for virtual/cloud data centers. With the growing popularity of virtual/cloud services, performance optimization and cybersecurity in this arena is becoming more important than ever.

Radware has carved out a sizable niche for itself in this arena, with its products/services growing in popularity over the past few years.

With society’s rapidly accelerating digitization, companies like Radware will become more relevant than ever. In fact, Radware’s valuation grew multiple times over the past few years alone, highlighting the growth nature of the company.

Radware not only maximizes IT efficiency for customers but also provides industry-leading IT security in an increasingly dangerous cyber environment. With IT efficiency and security increasing in importance for business enterprises in particular, Radware’s application delivery/load balancing solutions and DDoS protection have proven to be invaluable for many customers.

The rise of virtual/cloud-based services and the unprecedented increase in the number of DDoS attacks have provided Radware with a huge growth opportunity. The company should see additional upside moving forward… Read More

Enterprises Rapidly Moving to Cloud: Amazon

Excerpted from Indian Times Report by Anand J and Sujit John

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is regarded as among the pioneers of cloud computing. In India, it is a big hit particularly with start-ups because of the ease with which it allows them to access computing resources.

Adam Selipsky, VP for Sales, Marketing and Support at AWS, was in Bengaluru recently where he talked to Indian Times about enterprise adoption of cloud and AWS’ expansion in India.

How do you see enterprise movement to the cloud in India compared to that elsewhere?

There’s rapid movement of enterprises to the cloud everywhere.

US got on to the cloud a little bit earlier. Australia too moved pretty quickly and many large banks there are deeply deployed on AWS. India is very much mainstream now in terms of enterprises understanding the process, the value addition of cloud, mapping up migration strategies.

The conversation about cloud has now shifted remarkably from why, to how and what.

Tata Motors has moved its web portals, and its FleetMan application — that helps truck owners to manage their fleet — to AWS… Read More

How Has The Cloud Changed Gaming?

Excerpted from B2C Report by Will Hayles

I remember a time when videogames were something you played in an arcade — or not at all. I remember a time when, in order to get your hands on the latest, greatest game, you had to stand in line at a store.

I remember a time when you had to bring your games with you to play them at a friend’s house. I remember a time when gaming was something done mostly in isolation.

Today, those times seem almost quaint.

These days, most everyone is a gamer in one way or another, whether they play “Angry Birds” on their phone or “League of Legends” on their desktop — as of January last year, 58% of Americans play videogames. That number is only likely to increase as time goes on.

In short, videogames have gone from a basement hobby to one of our culture’s most prominent pastimes.

Although there were many different factors that contributed to gaming’s newfound popularity — the proliferation of mobile devices, for example — few had as large an impact as cloud computing… Read More

The Cloud Could Be Your Best Security Bet

Excerpted from TechCrunch Report by Ron Miller

Conventional IT wisdom says that you’re safer and more secure when you control your own on-premises data center. Yet if you think about every major data breach over the last two years, whether Anthem, Sony, JPMorgan or Target, all involved on-premises datacenters, not the cloud.

In fact, if a cloud service has proper controls, it could be safer than running your own data center. Amazon, Google, Salesforce and Box to a company have much more at stake when it comes to security. A breach could prove devastating to their businesses.

That could be why it’s hard to come up with a major security snafu involving a cloud provider. Other than the Jennifer Lawrence photo breach and the subsequent celebrity leaks, it’s hard to think of anything on the magnitude of those high-profile on-prem hacks involving the cloud.

It could simply come down to a feeling of control. When you run your data center on-premises, you feel like you’re safer, but are you?

First of all, aside from a few exceptions, most companies simply don’t put the resources into security that a cloud company does… Read More

Net Neutrality Fight Goes On… And On

Excerpted from TelecomTV Report by Ian Scales

Opponents of Net Neutrality in the US appear to be ramping up their campaign to keep the issue alive after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decided to classify Internet service provision under Title 2.

If the lawsuits already filed by USTelecom (a group representing several telcos) and Alamo Broadband don’t have much of an impact – and FCC boss, Tom Wheeler, has gone out of his way to appear totally relaxed about their chances of success – then it seems inevitable that conservative Republican Presidential candidates will soon be taking the issue into their campaigns.

Stand by for more years of increasingly tedious and irrelevant point-scoring in an attempt to grab headlines.

A foretaste of how down and dirty it’s all going to get surfaced recently when a conservative advocacy group, American Commitment, said it had collected more than 540,000 signatures on a petition asking Congress to overturn the new Net Neutrality rules and that it had thereby assisted concerned citizens to send more than 1.5 million messages to lawmakers urging them to oppose the FCC’s action.

Sources say American Commitment is at least part funded by Republican billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch…. Read More

Coming Events of Interest

Internet of Things Conference — April 15th-17th in San Diego, CA. The IoT Con will focus on how companies are using a variety of technologies, including ZigBee radios, Wi-Fi, and machine-to-machine (M2M)software, to connect things to the Internet, and how they are achieving real business benefits from doing so.

All That Matters — May 20th-23rd in Singapore. Packed with influencers, content creators, platforms and marketers, ATM drives business and global collaboration for decision makers in the entertainment, media, and marketing industries.

CES Asia — May 25th-27th in Shanghai, China. The success of the 2015 International CES builds strong momentum for CES Asia. With strong exhibitor demand for CEA’s inaugural event, the show will be curated with select qualifying companies permitted to exhibit.

Data Center and Cloud Awards — June 2nd in Monaco. Europe’s most prestigious awards for data center and cloud achievements will be announced at an evening ceremony prior to the opening of Europe’s ‘must-attend’ Datacloud Europe conference and exhibition.

DataCloud Europe — June 3rd-4th in Monaco. This is eighth annual European Congress & Exhibition focusing on data center and cloud computing, and is co-located with the DataCloud 2015 Awards.

Freescale Technology Forum — June 22nd-25th in Austin, TX. FTF, this year focusing on the Internet of Things (IoT), is the heart of discovery, imagination and innovation. Together we will strategize and design the next market-shifting products.

Cloud World Forum — June 24th-25th in London England. This marquee event is presented by Informa Telecoms & Media. Co-located with the seventh annual major international conference will be Enterprise Apps World.

Internet of Things World Forum (IoTWF) — October (2015 Dates TBD) in Dubai, UAE. IoTWF is an exclusive event that brings together the best and brightest thinkers, practitioners, and innovators from business, government, and academia to accelerate the market adoption of the Internet of Things.

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