Time Warner to pluck off channel

Come January, Time Warner Cable customers may find themselves one channel short, writes the Portland Press Herald.

Time Warner and Sinclair Broadcast, parent company of Portland's local CBS affiliate, WGME, have been unable to reach a new business contract governing fees that Time Warner pays to Sinclair.

If no contract is signed by 31 December, when the old contract expires, Time Warner may have to drop WGME from its line-up, leaving Portland-area cable customers unable to watch CBS shows such as '60 Minutes,' 'CSI Miami,' 'How I Met Your Mother,' even New England Patriots football games.

Chip makers IPWireless and ST-Ericsson have joined forces to develop a platform designed to lower the cost of building Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB) technology into smartphones, notes PC World.

IPWireless is one of the companies that pioneered the development of IMB. ST-Ericsson is now joining the push to allow operators to deliver TV to smartphones, laptops and tablets using IMB and frequency spectrum they already have, but so far haven't been able to take advantage of.

By integrating IPWireless' IMB technology with ST-Ericsson's 3G chipset, overall costs can be lowered, according to Bill Jones, CEO at IPWireless. As a first step, IPWireless and ST-Ericsson will develop a demonstration platform that will allow vendors to start developing IMB-capable products, according to a statement.

The Zimbabwean government has no intention of issuing broadcasting licences to private players in the near future as required by the Global Political Agreement (GPA) until it has developed the capacity to monitor and regulate the activities of the new players, reports the Zimbabwe Independent.

Permanent secretary in the ministry of media, information and publicity, George Charamba, revealed this when he appeared before the Media, Information and Communication Technology parliamentary portfolio committee.

Charamba, who also doubles up as president Robert Mugabe's spokesperson, said: “The current levels of investment in broadcasting infrastructure in the country create no room for new entries as espoused by the GPA. One can make as much noise but until and unless there is the technical wherewithal, then we are building pie in the sky.”