broadcastprotechsummit – Page 15 – Virtual BroadcastPro Tech Summit | 14 – 15 Jun 2022

Viasat Inc. has announced it will integrate its In-line Network Encryptor (INE) into the new Link 16-capable low earth orbit (LEO) satellite, which Viasat is developing for the US Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles XVI programme.

Viasat’s INE will be the first crypto deployment on a Link 16-capable LEO satellite, and will provide communications security (COMSEC) and additional enhanced cybersecurity capabilities initially associated with mission data transfer, with future evolutions expected to simultaneously secure user data; telemetry, tracking and command (TT&C) management; and inter-satellite communicationsat multiple security levels.

Viasat’s INE, which was designed for a very low Size, Weight and Power (SWaP) constrained system, is expected to provide radiation-tolerant network encryption aligned with the LEO space environment and will be capable of supporting speeds exceeding 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) aggregate throughput, which can secure Link 16-to-LEO communications. The INE will also be able to secure the data flow between an unclassified spacecraft bus and the classified processing domain.

Craig Miller, president, Government Systems, Viasat, said: “In addition to building and testing the first-ever Link 16-capable LEO satellite prototype, Viasat is also focused on delivering the first high assurance, fully-programmable crypto deployed in space. Our focus is on revolutionising space-based cryptographic and cybersecurity solutions by moving away from embedded, fixed single-application ASICs and moving to ‘plug and play,’ fully-programmable, multi-functional and highly-efficient military-grade cryptos that can be rapidly deployed by supporting commercial off the shelf technology enhancements for small satellites.”

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Zain Bahrain has become the first network operator to expand its mobile and broadband network connectivity to Salman City. Comprising more than 15,000 residential units that include almost 10,000 apartments and 5,000+ homes, Salman City aims to provide residents with an integrated lifestyle including facilities such as schools, mosques, healthcare, libraries, and a park right at the heart of the town.

Zain Bahrain’s network expansion in Salman City aims to connect residents and enable better service to its mobile data subscribers in the area. The company has invested in network expansion there, contributing to the country’s 2030 vision and creating a digitally inclusive country.

Commenting on the development, Ali Al-Yaham, Director of Technology at Zain Bahrain said: The network expansion is a key step for Zain Bahrain, and we continue to further strengthen our reach to successfully deliver reliable, high speed and high-quality mobile data and broadband services to newly developed areas in Bahrain. We have invested in the latest solutions that can maximise our coverage and speed and with the network expansion, we hope to address the growing demand for mobile and broadband services amidst a sharp rise in data consumption across Bahrain, especially among the residents in Salman City. At Zain Bahrain, our customers come first, and we have always taken care of their connectivity needs and provide exceptional customer service and plans that aid their mobile experience. We hope with our latest expansion, more and more residents of Salman City get to experience our fast and agile network.

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The Tribeca Film Festival 2021 has selected five Arab movies to screen at the event among hundreds of international films. The festival’s 20th edition will be a celebration of audiences coming back together with comedic, music-centred, and socially-conscious films from diverse storytellers.

The film festival will run from June 9-20 as a hybrid event with both in-person and virtual festivities.

The Arab movies that are set to premiere include Souad, Peace by Chocolate, No Longer Suitable for us, Simple as Water, and The Ballad of a White Cow.

Egyptian film Souad by director Ayten Amin evolves around the lives of two teenage sisters; one of them holds a secret life in the virtual world. Leading a double life, Souad presents different versions of herself to her conservative society and her tradition-flaunting peers. The film speaks volumes about various social dynamics.

The film will be screened within the festival’s International Narrative Competition, competing with five other works, all by directors from European countries.

Based on a true story, Peace by Chocolate is Canadian director Jonathan Keijser’s debut feature and tells the story of a Syrian family who flee their war-torn country after their chocolate factory is bombed, and attempt to make a new start in a rural town in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Peace by Chocolate, which is part of the Tribeca Online Premieres category, is director and actor Hatem Ali’s last role before he died in December 2020 in Egypt due to a heart attack.

Directed by New York-based filmmaker Julian Joslin, No Longer Suitable for us is competing in the shorts category. The 21-minute movie tells the story of Samir, played by British-Syrian actor Laith Nakli, a Syrian FBI informant and a single father who has built a fragile life for himself and his young son in Brooklyn.

Simple as Water, competing in the features category, is a soft-spoken feature on love, displacement, and fracturing familial relations from Academy Award-winner Megan Mylan. Between Turkey, Greece, Germany, and the US, the movie portrays the elemental bonds holding together Syrian families pulled apart by war, searching for a new life.

The Ballad of a White Cow, part of the festival’s Tribeca Critics’ Week category, is a multi-narrative about capital punishment. The main character Mina’s life turns upside down when she learns that her husband was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, so she starts a silent battle against a cynical system for her own and her daughter’s sake.

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SynProNize, a Dubai-based content distribution and production company, led by Nitin Michael and Hasnaa Descuns, has announced that it has licensed ATV’s historical drama series, The Ottoman (Kuruluş Osman) to Geo TV in Pakistan. With this deal, the series is now available in more than 35 countries. Previously, SynProNize brought another ATV’s Turkish drama series Hercai to TVOne in Pakistan.

The company is also finalising additional ATV programme deals for Turkey.

Starring internationally renowned actor Burak Ozcivit, the 185+ episode season is now broadcast in over 36 countries. The programme was chosen by The Wit at MIPCOM 2019, as one of its “fresh” dramas, and the series reached a 30% share average for its entire first season in Turkey.

Produced by Bozdag Film, The Ottoman (Kuruluş Osman) reveals Osman Gazi’s internal and external struggles to establish and control the mighty Ottoman Empire, encountering enemies, traitors, and romance along his journey.

Speaking about the deal, Nitin Michael said: “SynProNize is proud to represent ATV’s award-winning drama series The Ottoman and be a part of the global reach of this fantastic historical programme. We found the perfect partner in Pakistan – GEO TV – to give the show its proper attention. SynProNize continues to connect great content to great platforms.”

Müge Akar, Content Sales Deputy Manager of ATV, added: “We are thrilled that our partner SynProNize was able to pair ATV’s The Ottoman with Pakistani viewers. The series is now airing in over 36 countries and is our most popular programme to-date. GEO TV is a wonderful platform for The Ottoman, and we are confident that their audiences will enjoy the series as so many others have done around the world.”

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Instagram has announced that the platform will be making changes to the way it displays content after receiving accusations of censoring Palestine-related content during the latest wave of violence in Gaza.

The company, which has denied ever targeting Palestinian activists, has said the new algorithm no longer differentiates between original content and re-shared posts that users choose for its “stories” feature.

The “stories” feature on Instagram was built according to an algorithm that favours original content as opposed to existing and re-shared posts. Therefore, any Palestine-related content that was shared from other accounts was pushed lower in the Instagram feed.

A company spokeswoman said the logic for prioritising original posts was that most Instagram users had more stories to follow than time to check them – and the company believed people were “more interested in original stories from their closest friends”.

“It’s also caused people to believe we were suppressing stories about particular topics or points of view. We want to be really clear – this isn’t the case,” she said.

“This applied to any post that’s re-shared in stories, no matter what it’s about.”

Instagram said that according to the old algorithm, posts about certain viewpoints appeared to be suppressed but that this was an unintended side-effect of the way the algorithm was established rather than an intentional attempt to censor this particular content.

This comes after thousands of Palestine-related posts were deleted from the platform and much pro-Palestinian content on social media was found to carry warnings.

Under the new scheme, which Instagram said it would introduce gradually, all posts and stories will be treated equally. This means that the app will not favour original content over re-shared posts.

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The upcoming Bafta TV Awards will welcome stars in hologram form if they’re unable to attend the ceremony in person. Nominees who cannot make the event on June 6 due to Covid-19 restrictions will still be able to reunite with their co-stars on the red carpet using the new technology.

Images of TV stars will be beamed on to the show’s red carpet, with viewers also offered the chance to virtually appear at the star-studded ceremony. They can sign up for the chance to ask a question directly to their chosen celebrity live on the red carpet, after choosing from a selection of digital red carpet outfits.

Presenters Stacey Dooley and Vick Hope will introduce the hologram guests to those actually at the socially distanced ceremony.

The TV-focused ceremony honours the best of the small screen, with series such as Steve McQueen’s Small Axe, Netflix drama The Crown and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You up for awards.

Palestinian-American actor Waleed Zuaiter has also received a nod for Leading Actor for his performance in Baghdad Central.

The star will go up against John Boyega (Small Axe), Josh O’Connor (The Crown), Paapa Essiedu (I May Destroy You), Paul Mescal (Normal People) and Shaun Parkes (Small Axe) for the prize.

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Simon Cowell has pulled out of judging duties for the upcoming season of X Factor Israel.

The British producer and reality TV personality, who is currently appearing as a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, was set to also assess contestants for the Israeli version of The X Factor. But over the weekend, Reshet, the Israeli company that produces X Factor locally, confirmed Cowell cancelled without elaborating on the reasons for his decision.

The reality television mogul signed a contract in 2020 to appear as a judge on the upcoming season of the Israeli talent show, which is set to begin filming this summer. At the time, Cowell said he could “barely wait to see what the Israelis have to offer.”

Cowell has not commented on the move through a report in Jewish News, citing an unnamed source close to the media mogul that claimed Cowell could not take part in the show for “a number of reasons” and was “bitterly disappointed.”

Israeli singers Aviv Geffen, Ran Danker, Miri Mesika and Margalit Tzanani will serve as judges on the show, alongside 2018 Eurovision winner Netta Barzilai.

For the first time this year, the winner of X Factor Israel will represent the country in the 2022 Eurovision Song Contest. The new season is set to air on Israeli TV channel Reshet 13 later this year.

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Australian writer Roderick MacKay’s directorial debut The Furnace is now available on Netflix.

Starring Egyptian actor Ahmed Malek, David Wenham, Jay Ryan, Erik Thomson and Baykali Ganambarr among others, the film landed its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, and Arab premiere at El Gouna Film Festival, where it gained international critical acclaim.

The Furnace, set in the 1890s gold rush of Western Australia, is an unlikely hero’s tale, navigating greed and the search for identity in a new land. This feature film illuminates the forgotten history of Australia’s ‘Ghan’ cameleers, who were predominantly Muslim and Sikh men from India, Afghanistan and Persia, who traversed the nation’s vast desert interior, forming unique bonds with local Aboriginal people.

To escape a harsh existence and return home, a young Afghan cameleer partners with a mysterious bushman on the run with two 400oz Crown-marked gold bars. Together the unlikely pair must outwit a zealous police sergeant and his troopers in a race to reach a secret furnace – the one place where they can safely reset the bars to remove the mark of the Crown.

The film received production support from several institutes, including Screen Australia, in association with Screenwest, Lotterywest and the Western Australian Regional Film Fund. MAD Solutions handles the film’s distribution and marketing in the Arab World.

Malek has been recently selected to play one of the leading roles in the new TV series Tahqeeq (Investigation).

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Documentary Expedition Deep Ocean is set to air on Tuesday, June 8 at 10:40 PM KSA on Discovery Channel in the MENA region.

Five Deeps Expedition has successfully dived to the bottom of one of the world’s five oceans. The team completed a mission to reach what is commonly known as the deepest point on planet Earth: Challenger Deep within the Mariana Trench.

Expedition Deep Ocean is the record-breaking mission of explorer and entrepreneur, Victor Vescovo, and his Five Deeps Expedition team made up of scientists and explorers as they set off on the first descent to the bottom of all five of the world’s oceans. With Vescovo at the helm of his purpose-built Triton submarine, they take on the ground-breaking and at times dangerous mission to reach the bottom of the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic, and the Southern Oceans, descending up to a record depth of 10,928 meters. The ship’s team of scientists also discover over 40 extraordinary new species and scan areas of the oceans which are less well known than the surface of Mars. They brave seismic fault zones, as well as icebergs and tropical storms, in order to gather brand-new information from the bottom of the world. These are world-first missions that create a new era of exploration into the deep ocean. It is produced by Atlantic Productions.

“It is almost indescribable how excited all of us are about achieving what we just did,” said Vescovo after arriving in Guam following the completion of the dives. “This submarine and its mother ship, along with its extraordinarily talented expedition team, took marine technology to an unprecedented new level by diving – rapidly and repeatedly – into the deepest, harshest area of the ocean. We feel like we have just created, validated, and opened a powerful door to discover and visit any place, any time, in the ocean – which is 90% unexplored.”

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Shahid VIP – the premium, subscription-based service of Shahid is set to stream an original series Hell’s Gate – the first Arab sci-fi drama of its kind – featuring a stellar cast and crew from the Middle East and beyond.

Directed by Lebanese visual artist and International Emmy Award winner Amin Dora, Hell’s Gate unites a host of talent from the region, including Palestinian actor Adam Bakri, alongside Lebanon’s Cynthia Samuel, Fadi Abi Samra, Hassan Farhat, Yara Zakhour, Said Serhan, Yumna Marwan, Tarek Yaacoub, Mounir Maasri, Elie Njeim, and more.

The series lead writers are Elie Kayrouz, Fouad Arsanios, and David Lteif, alongside script consultants, Bassem Briesh and Said Serhan. Leading production design is Hussein Baydoun, while camera operation is fronted by Dale Rodkin (South Africa), with the director of production, Eugenio Galli (Italy). Zeina Saab de Melero (Lebanon) is at the helm of the show’s costume design.

Hell’s Gate is produced by Cedars Art Production (Sabbah Brothers).

The drama is set in Beirut 2052; Lebanon’s existing system (as we know it today) collapsed years ago following numerous conflicts and deadly pandemics. Now, running the country is a group of private investors/businesses – known as the “Union State” – and they’re not using the country for good. On the other side is “Tawara”, a revolutionary group aiming to defeat the baddies.

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