FCC Names Chief Technologist.

Jon M. Peha, Ph.D., has been named Chief Technologist of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Dr. Peha will serve as a senior advisor on communications technology in the FCC’s Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. Currently, Dr. Peha is a Professor in the Departments of Engineering and Public Policy, and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). He also serves as the Associate Director of the Center for Wireless and Broadband Networking at CMU. Prior to joining CMU’s Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Dr. Peha served as the Chief Technical Officer of three high-tech start-ups and as a member of the technical staff at SRI International, AT&T Bell Laboratories and Microsoft. Dr. Peha is a Congressional Fellow of the IEEE and a Diplomacy Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin praised Dr. Peha for his expertise in the area of communications technology, saying, “Jon brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Commission and I am pleased he has agreed to join us as Chief Technologist.  I am confident that Dr. Peha’s expertise will be beneficial to the Commission as it moves forward to address numerous complex, technical issues.”

PBS Gets LIVE with Xbox 360.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has announced that it will launch a broad selection of its full-length television programs for download on Xbox LIVE, the online games and entertainment network for Microsoft's Xbox 360. Although a gaming platform, the Xbox 360 includes a feature that allows downloading of videos, movies and TV programming in HD formats. Microsoft says more than 8,500 hours of premium entertainment content from more than 45 studios and networks is currently available for download. According to PBS, popular titles such as Wired Science", "Carrier", "NOVA", "Ken Burns’ Jazz", "Ken Burns’ America" and "Scientific American Frontiers" are to be included as part of the Xbox LIVE programming. “PBS’s mission is to make our content broadly available to the public, and our commitment is to be wherever consumers are accessing media,” said Andrew Russell, Senior Vice President, PBS Ventures. “Xbox is a leading source for downloadable video, and we are excited to be offering our high-quality programming to its young and vibrant user base.”

Lucas Films / ILM - Movie Maker Magic goes on the Set with Markertek !

San Francisco, CA - Markertek is the leader in supplying the film and digital media arts industry with instant technology solutions. As such, we just provided interface products to the engineering department of Lucasfilm / ILM at its production location in San Francisco, CA. LucasFilm/ILM is one of the largest and most revered film and media creators in Hollywood, best known for producing genre defining fantasy films such as Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Willow and many more. For over 40 years, Lucasfilm has been, and is the industry benchmark in developing new film technology for special effects, sound, and computer animation. Markertek is truly honored to supply instant technology solutions to the blockbuster film industry that keeps developing and defining new media for the world.

Panasonic Runs Global Eco Relay Campaign.

The Panasonic Corporation has announced that it is conducting a group-wide ecology campaign called 'Panasonic Eco Relay' 2008. Born of an idea that won the company's Eco Ideas Contest held last year among Panasonic employees, the Eco Relay event aims at fostering a global corporate environment in which each and every employee voluntarily thinks about how he/she leads the way with Eco Ideas and then puts those ideas into practice. During the key activity period of the program, 342 offices and factories in 39 countries and regions will engage in over 520 various eco-related activities such as environmental education, cleanups and tree planting. Overall, the company aims at reducing its annual CO2 emissions by 500 tons through tree planting activities alone. Panasonic has been actively involved in environmental conservation activities since October 2007, when the company announced its Eco Ideas Declaration consisting of three concepts: Eco Ideas for Products, Eco Ideas for Manufacturing and Eco Ideas for Everybody, Everywhere. The Eco Relay is scheduled to run October 4-16, 2008.

The Volvo Ocean Race goes HD.

What do you get when you take eight high-performance yachts and race them for nine months and 39,000 nautical miles around the world? The Volvo Ocean Race, of course. And this year, for the 2008-2009 competition, all of the action will be broadcast straight from the high seas to your living room, in high-definition. Five specialized Sony HDV waterproof cameras (with roll compensation and night vision), as well as windproof mics, Livewire's Media Desk HD system and Inmarsat's satellite transmission system have been fitted to each of the 70 foot boats. Each craft will have a crew of 10 sailors plus one media crew member for a total of 11 crewmen per yacht. These media crewmen will be responsible for catching all the action via handheld cameras while also managing the content streamed to the Media Desk system from the permanently fixed cameras on-board. The 1080i HD video will be compressed to about 4Mbps, and will take about 18 minutes to transmit from a yacht. Media crew members will also hand off HDV tapes for broadcast when the race stops at each port. The Volvo Ocean Race which is now in its 10th year, takes place every third year and was formerly the Whitbread Round the World Race, founded in England in 1972. The Race begins Oct. 4 in Alicante, Spain and ends June, 2009 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Senate Passes Child Safe Viewing Act.

The United States Senate this week passed legislation that will give parents more control over the content their children view on TV and the Internet. The Child Safe Viewing Act, originally introduced by Senator Mark Pryor in early 2007, requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fulfill its obligation under the 1996 Telecommunications Act to continuously review and implement blocking technology as it is developed. As part of the 1996 Act, Congress required television manufacturers to embed the V-Chip within televisions to allow parents to filter some content according to a rating system. However, Pryor said parents are alarmed at the increasing amount of sexual scenes and violence on TV and the Internet. He cites a 2005 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that reports the number of sexual scenes on television has nearly doubled since 1998. “Today’s technology to protect children from indecency goes above and beyond the capabilities of the V-Chip. It’s time for the FCC to take a fresh look at how the market can empower parents with more tools to choose appropriate programming for their children," siad Pryor. "This bill is a pragmatic, sensible approach where parents, kids and technology can all benefit.” The legislation now must be considered in the U.S. House of Representatives before going to the President to become law.

MPAA and RealNetworks Face Off.

The Motion Picture Association of America and entertainment services company RealNetworks have declared war over Real's latest release, RealDVD. The new software from Real enables users to transfer or 'rip' Content Scramble System (CSS) protected Hollywood titles to their computer hard drive. In the lawsuit filed by the MPAA, the group accuses RealNetworks of allowing its customers to illegally copy DVDs through the RealDVD software. The lawsuit claims RealDVD violates the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by illegally bypassing the copyright protection built into DVDs. The industry group said RealNetworks is improperly making a product that allows users to circumvent CSS protections, and is looking for an injunction against the sale of RealDVD. RealNetworks' suit however, asks the court to rule that RealDVD legally complies with the CSS license. "RealDVD allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers. It does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs. RealDVD not only maintains the DVD's native CSS encryption intact, it also adds another layer of digital rights management encryption that effectively locks the DVD copy to the owner's computer to ensure that the content can not be improperly copied or shared. According to Real, the MPAA previously sued another company over a product similar to RealDVD. In that case, the trial court ruled to allow distribution of the product.

Markertek Welcomes to the Family this Week:

AUTV - US Air Force
Mesa Channel 11
KUAT
Spirit Rock
Skyline College
The Brookings Institution
Kapiolani Community College
Galesburg Broadcasting
WBIR-TV
USS Warrior MCM10
Istream LLC
UK Athletics
Foxtrot Touring
Deep Dish TV
Automatika

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