New York, U.S.A. — VH1′s beloved franchise ” VH1 Divas “ caught dance fever at the L.A. Shrine Auditorium Sunday night for a live, concert event filled with performances, theatrics, and a roster of musicians and actors ready to boogie down to benefit The VH1 Save The Music Foundation. The star-studded affair incorporated performances from today’s biggest hits and dance classics by host Adam Lambert, Ciara, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Kelly Rowland, Jordin Sparks, and was accompanied by House DJ Havana Brown.

The evening included an incredible line-up of performers ready to shake their groove thing for a good cause, including  Natasha Bedingfield, Kelly Clarkson, Ledisi, Melanie Fiona.

VH1 “You Oughta Know” Artist Metric, Paloma Faith, Pitbull, Iggy Azalea, and Bootsy Collins. Special appearances by L.A. Reid, Amber Riley, Ellie Kemper, Elisha Cuthbert, Kat Graham, Kelly Osbourne, NeNe Leakes, Stacy Keibler, Jenna Dewan Tatum, Brandy, Paula Abdul, Sheila E. and La La Anthony rounded out the disco-themed night.

Adam Lambert kicked off the night with a cabaret themed “Let’s Dance,” followed by a special introduction to Kelly Clarkson’s latest single “Catch My Breath.” With a genuinely enthusiastic Kelly Osbourne introducing one of her favorite groups “Blondie,” VH1 You Oughta Know artist Metric brought the house down with their rendition of “Heart of Glass.” Donning a studded jacket and rocker attitude, Miley Cyrus commanded the room with her vivacious delivery of “Rebel Yell” by rock god Billy Idol.

Newly inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, diva legend Donna Summer created some of the biggest dance hits guaranteed to get the crowd going. Kelly Rowland, Adam Lambert, and Keri Hilson paid tribute to one of the greats with a musical medley of “I Feel The Love,” “Bad Girls,” “She Works Hard The Money,” “Love To Love You Baby,” “Hot Stuff,” and “Last Dance.” An emotional Brandy introduced Jordin Sparks, Ledisi and Melanie Fiona for a power-driven tribute to the late Whitney Houston. The trio dazzled with an electric performance of “I’m Every Woman,” “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,”  “It’s Not Right, But It’s Okay,” and “How Will I Know.”

After two hours of non-stop dancing and entertainment, Pitbull closed the show in style with his hit “Don’t Stop The Party,” leaving the night on a high note.

As in previous years, this edition of “VH1 Divas” will benefit the VH1 Save The Music Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping music education alive in American public schools. To date, VH1 Save The Music has provided more than $49.5 million in new musical instruments to 1,850 public schools in more than 128 school districts around the country, impacting the lives of over 2.1 million children.

This year’s sponsors for “VH1 Divas” include: AT&T, Burger King, CoverGirl, Fiat, The Hershey Company and Old Navy.

Image Courtesy : StarblindKing

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Boca Raton, U.S.A — The candidates aren’t the only ones preparing for the October 22 presidential debate. AT&T is beefing up its mobile Internet network for the big event at Lynn University in Boca Raton. A Cell on Wheels, or COW, has been rolled in and an antenna system installed to boost mobile Internet coverage and capacity on the campus. Recognized as a top social media college, Lynn University is anticipating a high volume of mobile Internet usage on campus during the debate.

The AT&T COW, located at the edge of the campus, will help bolster voice connectivity and enhance performance of mobile Internet service. The antenna system, installed at the debate hall, will help accommodate the high volume of network traffic anticipated in the venue during the debate.

AT&T often rolls in mobile cell sites and makes other network upgrades for large events that generate a spike in network traffic in a specific geographic area.

“We realize how important the upcoming debate is, especially for those on the Lynn University campus,” said Marshall Criser, lll, president, AT&T Florida. “The network preparations we’ve made are designed to provide the best possible mobile Internet experience for the event.”

AT&T is driving investment and innovation across Florida to deliver a superior wireless experience. In the first half of 2012, we invested more than $400 million in our Florida wireless and wired networks. Network upgrades completed in South Florida this year include the activation of new cell sites to improve network coverage, deploying faster connections to enable 4G speeds, and adding spectrum capacity to support additional traffic. AT&T also launched 4G LTE in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in July and have since expanded the service in those markets.

AT&T has the nation’s largest 4G network, covering 275 million people with ultra-fast speeds and a more consistent user experience. AT&T is the only U.S. service provider to deploy two compatible 4G technologies to deliver more speed to more customers. Our 4G LTE networks delivered faster average download speeds than any of our competitors in PCWorld’s most recent 13-market speed tests.

For more information about AT&T’s local network upgrades, visit our focus: South Florida microsite. For updates on the AT&T wireless network, please visit the AT&T network news page.

AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T.

Limited 4G LTE availability in select markets. Deployment ongoing.4G LTE device and data plan required. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. 4G speeds not available everywhere. Learn more about 4G LTE at att.com/network.

Image Courtesy of  Gage Skidmore & mistydawnphoto / Shutterstock.com

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Cincinnati, U.S.A. — From floods to fires, thunderstorms to tornadoes, Ohio is well-accustomed to the unexpected natural and man-made disasters that can wreak havoc on day-to-day life. Recognizing the importance of crisis preparation in this region, AT&T is conducting a Network Disaster Recovery (NDR) exercise in Ohio from July 31 to August 1, 2012.

These exercises are conducted several times a year to simulate the recovery of a network office that failed due to a natural or man-made disaster. They are designed to test, refine and strengthen AT&T’s business continuity and disaster recovery services in order to minimize network downtime when unforeseen disasters strike.

While this exercise typically targets large businesses and organizations, AT&T also recently launched an initiative aimed at highlighting the importance of disaster preparedness for small businesses. The initiative,“Safeguard Your Business,” provides small businesses with a single convenient destination for emergency and disaster preparation and planning, and offers a 10-question emergency readiness quiz.

According to the Ad Council, nearly two-thirds of U.S. small businesses do not have an emergency or disaster preparedness plan in place, despite the fact that about one in four small businesses will experience a “significant” crisis in any given year (Association of Small Business Development Centers).

Meanwhile, the results of a 2012 study from AT&T indicate that business continuity planning is seen as a priority by most (82%) of local IT executives in Ohio. Almost all (87%) of these executive indicate that their companies have a business continuity plan, almost half (47%) of Ohio executives include Facebook in their business continuity plans, and six out of ten (61%) are using or considering using cloud services to augment their business continuity recovery strategy.

“Ohio businesses and organizations recognize the critical importance of ongoing investment in crisis preparation, and we’re hopeful that they will continue in this direction,” said Tom Pelto, AT&T Ohio state president. “AT&T is thrilled to conduct its first NDR exercise in Ohio to help ensure we’re all as prepared as possible in the event of disaster in our area and beyond.”

For more information on the 2012 AT&T Business Continuity Study, including complete research results visit: http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=22863

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Newark, U.S.A. – Today’s Presidential primary election is meaningless for citizens living in New Jersey, California, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota. “This creates an alienated and cynical electorate that is becoming more disenfranchised with every election cycle,” says Jim Lynch, author of “The 2020 Players: A Futuristic View of the 2020 Presidential Election.”

Lynch asks, “Can you blame Americans for tuning out? This is not democracy; in fact, it just may be as bad as the backroom politics back in the old days of bosses and political machines.”

“As a result, millions of Americans had absolutely no voice in the Presidential selection process. Let’s face it; the primary system is broken,” says Lynch.

After today’s vote, which involves some 299 uncontested electoral votes, only Utah has yet to weigh in and they’ll hold off until June 26.

“Voting in America should be cherished as a sacred right, as a meaningful experience to every American. But voting has become totally meaningless for almost a third of the states participating in 2012 Republican primary balloting,” says Lynch.

“This flawed process is a ringing endorsement of the reform proposal to have a National One Day Primary on the same day in all 50 states for all presidential candidates. The single day primary would bring an end to local pandering to voters – like Newt Gingrich telling the people in Cape Canaveral ‘We should build a moon base’ – and to months of negative campaigning on TV and radio, one harmful and nauseating attack after another, without end.  And it would be far easier for both parties to unite behind the winners who emerge from the one day balloting,” says Lynch.

Lynch believes Americans must overhaul the political process and the insidious role that media advocacy plays in this process. “In my novel, The 2020 Players, I also advocate a viable three-party system, a single six-year term for President, and a ban on any political campaigning while in office.”

Jim Lynch is a native New Yorker, married with eight children and four grandchildren. His parents worked for the FBI. He spent eight years as an investigator and was an executive for AT&T. Lynch is a full time novelist.

Image Courtesy of  Jim Lynch

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Thursday, April 26, the House of Representative approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) on a bipartisan vote by a margin of 248 to 168, despite the threat of a possible veto by President Obama.

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act would allow the government to access web users’ private data and to pass on information to commercial companies on suspicion of cyber attacks and hacker threats, and it would allow also the companies to share their users’ information with the government and security agencies to ensure the networks’ security.

The Obama Administration strongly opposes the measure and it says the law repeals “important provisions of electronic surveillance law without instituting corresponding privacy, confidentiality and civil liberties safeguards.”

In a statement on Wednesday, the White House has also threatened to veto the House bill.  “[CISPA] would allow broad sharing of information with governmental entities without establishing requirements for both industry and the government to minimize and protect personally identifiable information,” reads the statement. “The broad liability protection not only removes a strong incentive to improving cybersecurity, it also potentially undermines our Nation’s economic, national security, and public safety interests.”

Instead of putting private information and cybersecurity in the hands of military and intelligence agencies, the White House would prefer a Senate measure to give the “central role” to the Department of Homeland Security, which is a civilian agency.

Despite the opposition of the Administration, the bill passed with some amendments to the original that moderate its effects and limit the government’s use of threat information to specific purposes such as the protection of individuals from death or serious bodily harm investigation and the prosecution of cybersecurity crimes; protection of minors from exploitation; and the protection of national security.

Advocacy groups, CISPA opponent coalitions and lawmakers strongly condemned the passage of the bill, arguing that these amendments are not enough to assure users’ privacy protection.

“CISPA goes too far for little reason,” said ACLU legislative counsel Michelle Richardson. “Cybersecurity does not have to mean abdication of Americans’ online privacy. As we’ve seen repeatedly, once the government gets expansive national security authorities, there’s no going back. We encourage the Senate to let this horrible bill fade into obscurity.”

“In an effort to foster information sharing, this bill would erode the privacy protections of every single American using the Internet. It would create a “Wild West” of information sharing,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

CISPA was introduced by Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in November 2011 and it is supported by more than 800 private companies. Among those include Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, IBM and Verizon.

“We can’t stand by and do nothing as US companies are hemorrhaging from the cyber looting coming from nation states like China and Russia,” said Rep. Mike Rogers. “America will be a little safer and our economy better protected from foreign cyber predators with this legislation.” “There is no government surveillance, none, not any in this bill,” he argued referring to the legislation.

Over the last weeks, activist groups and organizations like Avaaz.org, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, strongly criticized CISPA and launched campaigns to turn the spotlight on the internet privacy right issues tied to it.

In a video released on April 27, titled “Operation Defense. Phase II,” the famous hacker group ‘Anonymous’ called on American CISPA opponents to take the battle to the street and organize local protests at the offices of the companies that support the bill between May and June.

“Remember, you have a right to protest if you care about your freedom of speech, your right to privacy and your government censoring you. This is your time to act now. We will defend our home. Operation Defense phase two engaged. We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Supporters of CISPA, you should have expected us,” the video statement concludes.

After SOPA, CISPA is the new battle for the internet, but what will be the next? 

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As access to skilled workers becomes increasingly vital to the U.S. economy, AT&T is launching a quarter-billion-dollar campaign to help more students graduate from high school ready for careers and college, and to ensure the country is better prepared to meet global competition

AT&T Aspire, already among the most significant U.S. corporate educational initiatives with more than $100 million invested since 2008, will tackle high school success and college/career readiness for students at-risk of dropping out of high school through a much larger, “socially innovative” approach.

Social innovation goes beyond traditional philanthropy – which typically involves only charitable giving – to also engage people and technology to bring different approaches, new solutions and added resources to challenging social problems. The greatly expanded effort centers on a new, $250 million financial commitment planned over 5 years.

To build on this commitment the centre will use technology to connect with students in new and more effective ways, such as with interactive gamification, Web-based content and social media. The company will also tap the innovation engine of the AT&T Foundry to look for fresh or atypical approaches to educational obstacles.

Finally, AT&T Aspire will capitalize on the power of personal connections in the form of mentoring, internships and other voluntary efforts. The Aspire effort already has impacted more than one million U.S. high school students, helping them prepare for success in the workplace and college.

“Working towards an America where every student graduates high school equipped with the knowledge and skills to strengthen the nation’s workforce,” AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said while announcing the extended commitment during a keynote address at the second annual Building a Grad Nation Summit.

The Washington, D.C., event convened by America’s Promise Alliance, Civic Enterprises, The Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University and the Alliance for Excellent Education brings together nearly 1,200 U.S. leaders to discuss progress and challenges in ending the high school dropout crisis.

Lacking a high school degree is a serious issue in the United States, where one in four students – more than 1 million each year – drops out, according to a March 19, 2012, report by Civic Enterprises, the Everyone Graduates Center, America’s Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education.

Education experts believe that the lack of a high school degree significantly worsens job prospects in a rapidly changing, increasingly sophisticated job market. And, if dropouts find jobs, they earn less. On average, a high school dropout earns 25% less during the course of his or her lifetime compared with a high school graduate and 57% less than a college graduate with a bachelor’s degree.

The situation poses a serious risk to American competitiveness as corporations struggle to find talent, especially in the math and sciences fields. The dropout rate, along with inadequate training and education, is keeping many high-paying Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) jobs from being filled. And the situation is expected to worsen as STEM jobs grow a projected 17% by 2018. Workers in these positions typically earn 26% more than those in non-STEM positions.

Although the problem is serious, there are signs of progress according to the report issued on March 19, 2012. According to the report High school graduation rate increased by 3.5% nationally from 2001 to 2009.

“It will take all of us working together and supporting the hard work of the education community to continue to improve graduation rates and preparedness for careers and college,” Stephenson said. “American business has an enormous stake in the success of our students. It’s time to commit more innovation and resources to the task.”

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Businesses and organizations are increasingly turning to AT&T to help them transform into real-time, adaptive enterprises, in which people, processes and assets are always connected. In addition, organizations want greater efficiency for their sales, service and supply chain operations through global location and messaging technology.

AT&T Location Information Services Go Global
AT&T will now offer enhanced global location options for mobile asset management as part of its suite of Location Information Services (LIS). AT&T LIS includes a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for requesting location information from the network.

The newest AT&T LIS feature, Global Cell-ID, can help optimize routes or schedules in real-time based on cell-ID information from devices in more than 100 countries, even without GPS.

• This highly-reliable service can help to improve operational efficiencies, increase customer satisfaction and control costs for global businesses in industries such as field service, fleet management, transportation and manufacturing.
• AT&T LIS Global Cell-ID will make application development easier by giving developers access to cost-effective APIs, rather than having each developer build and maintain their own location databases for managing machine-to-machine solutions.

AT&T LIS is designed with subscriber privacy in mind, including requirements for providing clear notice and obtaining appropriate consents for the collection and use of location information.

AT&T Business-Focused Messaging and Location Services Momentum
AT&T is experiencing strong customer demand with its business-focused messaging and location services - Enterprise Paging, Global Smart Messaging Suite and Location Information Services. These solutions provide an affordable way for businesses to communicate with employees, customers and vendors, create richer application experiences and increase visibility into field operations.

In 2011:

• AT&T Enterprise Paging, a group messaging and notification solution nearly tripled its number of customers.
• AT&T experienced year over year growth of 1,500 percent for AT&T Global Smart Messaging Suite, a web-based application designed for large enterprise messaging and communication (SMS and e-mail).
• AT&T has seen rapid growth in AT&T LIS transaction volume and the customer base since its introduction.

“Global enterprises seek scalable, managed location and messaging solutions that can increase visibility into field operations,” said Chris Hill, Vice President, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business and Home Solutions. “AT&T LIS extends the API platform for enterprise developers, software vendors or systems integrators to obtain real-time network-initiated location information and return it to the business application – to help increase utilization of critical assets in the field.”

AT&T has received honors for its enterprise mobility solutions such as AT&T LIS. Recently Frost & Sullivan presented AT&T with the 2011 North American Product Line Strategy Award in Mobile Asset Tracking. AT&T will demo these solutions and more at Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona at booth 8A80.

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With the “Bring Your Own Device” trend in full swing, companies need solutions to better manage and control employees’ use of personal mobile devices on corporate systems, without sacrificing a consistent user experience, productivity or protection.

AT&T is expanding its leading portfolio of mobile security and device management offers with new network-based mobile security capabilities and a new mobile device management offer. AT&T provides device-based and cloud-based options to manage risk and enable control over a variety of connected equipment, including smart phones, tablets, and personal computers. These solutions are built on platforms that service enterprise, government and consumer customers.

AT&T Mobile Security
The AT&T Mobile Security platform is expanding with new network based security controls that complement existing device-level features including anti-virus, anti-malware, and malicious application detection. AT&T Mobile Security now enables enterprise and government customers to:

• Extend security policy to wireless endpoints
• Apply policies to securely route mobile traffic to a corporate VPN, AT&T public or private cloud infrastructure
• Help protect infrastructure and internet connectivity against DDoS attacks
• Identify and stop connection attempts to known Botnets

New Mobile Device Management Solution
MobileIron Connected Cloud from AT&T is the newest AT&T MDM offering which works on multiple operating systems. It provides:

• High visibility and control for IT departments into their mobile device inventory, including real-time insight into how applications and data are being used.
• A highly-secure solution to monitor access, identify threats and enforce policy to better protect enterprise resources.
• Enterprise Application Storefront which allows corporations to deploy in house developed applications or 3rd party applications to end users.
• Compatibility with multiple mobile platforms, including iOS and Android and integration with existing enterprise systems such as Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory.

“MobileIron Connected Cloud from AT&T delivers enterprise-class management and security, and it does it fast – at what I like to call cloud speed,” said Bob Tinker, CEO, MobileIron. “Users can choose the best devices and apps for themselves and IT can focus on delivering a great mobile user experience.”

AT&T is seeing strong momentum helping to manage the myriad mobile devices running on a corporate network.

• AT&T is managing tens of thousands of mobile devices for its business customers including large deployments of more than 5,000 devices.
• AT&T significantly grew its mobile device management (MDM) business with a 30-fold increase in customers in 2011 compared to 2010.
• IDC(1) reports that worldwide shipments of employee-liable, business use devices will grow by 34.6% to reach 182.4 million units shipped by 2015.

“Increasingly, companies are permitting employees to bring their mobile device of choice into the work environment, but are looking for assistance to do this in a highly protected and organized manner,” said Chris Hill, Vice President, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business and Home Solutions.

“Our strategy to help businesses embrace mobility is to offer a range of managed security solutions to help protect customers’ mobile ecosystems through a layered approach of cloud-based and endpoint-based capabilities.”

AT&T provides security consulting services to help organizations assess the risk and mitigate the challenge associated with a mobile business environment.

AT&T Mobility Security Risk Assessment Services helps customers better understand their vulnerabilities and identify actionable recommendations for securing their mobile ecosystem through a thorough security analysis of their existing mobility infrastructure. In addition, businesses can benefit from the deep industry experience of the AT&T Mobility Solutions Services team, which provides solution architecture, development and lifecycle management services.

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This past November, AT&T employees and retirees were recognized during the AT&T Pioneers celebration of its 100th year anniversary in Boston. The Tennessee Pioneers/Greater Nashville Pioneer Council were awarded with the Pioneers Centennial Award during the Pioneers Centennial Celebration and Annual Meeting.

The Tennessee Pioneers/Greater Nashville Pioneer Council were one of six Project Excellence Health and Human Services winners, selected from hundreds of award submissions from Canada and the United States.

“The Nashville community came together in many ways to help those in need,” Mayor Karl Dean said. “I had never seen anything like the volunteer spirit shown during our flood recovery, and I commend the volunteers with AT&T Pioneers for the national recognition they received for their hard work. I am grateful to all involved who helped restore Nashville to the beautiful, thriving city it is.”

“Mayor Karl Dean served as an inspiration to us all during those trying times,” said Hands On Nashville Executive Director Brian Williams. “Following his lead, we were all compelled to act and help our fellow community during the historic flood.”

During the May 2010 floods in Nashville, AT&T Pioneers acted quickly and began providing relief even before the rising waters crested. Among the first to respond, Tennessee Pioneers quickly began pitching in to provide emergency shelters with water, food items, blankets, toiletry items, diapers, baby food and other staples.

“It is quite an honor to be recognized as one of six Project Excellence winners at the Pioneers Centennial Celebration,” said Melinda Davis, 2011 AT&T Tennessee Pioneers Chapter President. ”The Pioneers worked tirelessly to help those in need in response to the May floods, and I am proud our team was able to help so many in the Nashville-area and all of Middle Tennessee.”

The Greater Nashville Pioneer Council also lent critical support to its sponsoring company, working with AT&T to create and execute a plan to provide mobile phone access and calling cards to area shelters. Pioneers also staffed satellite mobile phone banks to provide victims a means to contact their families for several weeks until assistance was no longer needed.

AT&T Pioneers, Life Members and Partners reported a total of 1,251 hours for disaster relief in connection with the Nashville floods.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrjkbh/

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AT&T announced on February 07, 2012 that its AT&T U-verse for iPad App, which makes it easy for users to connect their iPad to their TV for an even better viewing experience, is available on the App Store.

Recent studies indicate that the majority of tablet owners use their device simultaneously while watching TV, and with this app users can link their iPad to their choice of any U-verse TV receiver and access several great new features like:

• Extra content and information about the TV show you’re watching, including series overview, episode synopsis, photos, cast and crew information, related TV shows and more.
• A full-featured, intuitive U-verse remote control with channel, guide, DVR, interactive app and on-demand controls, eliminating the need for extra (or lost) remotes throughout the home.
• Advanced search functionality to help you find the content you want.
• Recommendations on what to watch with ratings and reviews.
• Ability to share information about what you are watching with friends on Facebook.

And while you’re on the go, you can:

• Watch hit TV shows and movies over any Wi-Fi connection. Choose from a library of popular content based on your U-verse TV package, including shows and movies from STARZ, ENCORE, TBS, TNT, truTV, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, with more choices added on an ongoing basis.
• Access the U-verse programming guide and DVR scheduling, similar to the functionality available on the U-verse app for iPhone and iPod touch.

You can view a video demo of the app here.

“Today, we are taking our best in class TV experience and taking it to a whole new level by joining two very powerful platforms: your TV and iPad,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer, AT&T Mobility.

“With our new app, AT&T U-verse customers have access to incredible functionality to make the TV experience much richer, from superior search and control functionality, to fresh content that tells you more about what you’re watching, to the ability to share what you’re watching with your friends through social networks. And, when they leave the home, our customers can take the U-verse experience with them.”

Using the U-verse IP platform and in-home U-verse Wi-Fi network, customers can link the app to any U-verse TV receiver in their home. Using a simple one-time set up process for each U-verse receiver, customers just tune to channel 9301 and go through intuitive steps to name their U-verse receivers using a default name like “living room” or “bedroom,” or create a personalized name, to enable the functionality and features.

AT&T U-verse TV was the fastest growing TV service in the country in 2011 and is the only 100 percent Internet Protocol-based television (IPTV) service offered by a national service provider. AT&T U-verse TV ranked “Highest in Residential Television Service Satisfaction in the North Central, South and West Regions,” according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 Residential Television Service Provider Satisfaction Studies(SM).

The AT&T U-verse for iPad App is available for free from the App Store on iPad or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

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AEG, Ryan Seacrest Media, and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) recently announced a joint venture that will rebrand HDNet and HDNet Canada to launch AXS TV (pronounced: access). Scheduled to debut this summer, AXS TV will leverage the global reach and portfolio of content opportunities of its partners to create live entertainment and lifestyle programming.

Capitalizing on AEG’s unrivaled presence in live events and affiliation with more than 100 of the industry’s pre-eminent venues worldwide, AXS TV will provide viewers with exclusive behind-the-scenes access to live concerts and music festivals, red carpet premieres, award shows, parties, pop culture events, and in-depth interviews with the people and artists who make live entertainment so uniquely fascinating.

HDNet’s signature programming including HDNet Fights, Inside MMA, award-winning Dan Rather Reports, Sunday concert series, and select non-scripted series will continue on AXS TV. As part of their agreement with the joint venture, DISH will offer a variety of unique music services to their subscribers.

“I’m incredibly excited to be in business with AEG, Ryan Seacrest, and CAA,” said Mark Cuban, Co-Founder and Chairman, HDNet. ”This is a major step on our way to offering more live programming than any other entertainment and lifestyle network. And our partnership with DISH to offer unique subscriber services will allow AXS TV to change the value proposition between networks, distributors, and subscribers. AXS TV will unquestionably be able to leverage our unique assets to do things no other network will be able to replicate.”

With production facilities at AEG’s owned and operated L.A. LIVE (which includes venues such as STAPLES Center, Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE, Club Nokia and The GRAMMY Museum’s Clive Davis Theater), as well as their access to their worldwide network of the busiest venues of all sizes, AXS TV will have the inside track to programming that will connect audiences with the complete live experience.

From show creation and development to rehearsals, sound-check and performance and right thru the after-party, viewers will get an immersive look into their favorite acts touring today, AXS TV will span the globe to bring viewers the best live entertainment events. AEG is very pleased to be involved with Mark Cuban and HDNet and equally as proud to have partners like Ryan Seacrest Media and CAA,” said Timothy J. Leiweke, President & CEO, AEG.

“The live business continues to grow and expand and the ability to give fans the opportunity to experience live in a different way is something we have been looking for a way to do for years.”

“As part of a point of emanation for content, we are excited to provide the resources of L.A. LIVE, the O2 and our London campus among the many assets we are bringing into the partnership. In addition, we are excited that AXS TV will have a host studio at L.A. LIVE. This is a natural tie-in for our ticketing platform, AXS Ticketing, as well as our facilities around the world.

This is a platform for all agents, all promoters and all managers. It is not the creation of an AEG channel.  It is about the fans and bringing the live experience to them,” Leiweke added.

Representatives of the joint venture also announced that DISH, the nation’s third largest pay-TV provider, has agreed to expand its carriage of the rebranded HDNet by offering it in the America’s Top 120 programming package, bringing millions more DISH customers access to the rebranded channel and resulting in AXS TV reaching well over 35 million North American households.

In addition to the increased distribution of the re-branded network, DISH will begin offering a large selection of AXS-branded Video On Demand concerts starting on March 15, 2012.  Capitalizing on AEG’s unrivaled presence in the promotion of live events and nationwide network of clubs, DISH will work with AEG to offer unique ticketing opportunities for DISH viewers of AXS TV.

Amenities include special ticketing opportunities, premium seating, private viewing areas and food & beverage specials. Starting August 1, 2012, DISH and AXS TV will launch AXS Headliner Club, an online audition site providing local bands and musicians the opportunity to audition to perform at an AEG-affiliated club or theater.

“AXS TV brings DISH subscribers a premier TV destination for concert-goers to watch the most popular concert acts and provide opportunities for unique ticket sales at venues near them,” said Joe Clayton, CEO, DISH. “The new DISH is all about ‘more music, more movies, and more magic.’  So, we’re pleased to provide a majority of our subscribers front row seats to this innovative channel.”

AXS TV will continue to be available on HDNet’s existing distributors including DIRECTV, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Charter, NCTC-member systems, Suddenlink and Shaw (in Canada).

Ryan Seacrest Media holds an ownership stake in AXS TV, and will provide access to multi-media platforms, and celebrity and brand relationships, as well as assist in the corporate brand development for AXS TV. As part of the deal, Ryan Seacrest Productions, an independent entertainment production company, will also develop and produce programming for AXS TV.

“Over the last year, we’ve been diligently working with our partners AEG and CAA to strategize and explore how we could deliver quality live entertainment and lifestyle programming to a large audience. HDNet is the perfect partner to help us translate our vision into a reality, giving us an instant reach into 35 million homes when we rebrand the channel and launch AXS TV,” said Ryan Seacrest.

“Mark Cuban and Tim Leiweke bring a tremendous amount of entrepreneurial experience and spirit to this venture, and I’m confident our collective collaboration will make AXS a success,” he added. CAA will access its extensive experience, expertise, and relationships in entertainment to help create valuable content relationships for the network and provide strategic advisory services in the areas of corporate development, marketing, technology, and brand integration and sponsorship, among others. Seacrest is represented by CAA.

“We have worked closely with AEG and Ryan Seacrest to conceptualize a new network that could benefit from our combined resources and create a new distribution opportunity for artists and content creators and their high-quality entertainment and lifestyle programming,” said David O’Connor, Managing Partner, CAA.

“Mark Cuban and his HDNet make a terrific partner for this venture, and we look forward to joining forces to help build AXS into a premier cable destination for entertainment enthusiasts.” Financial terms of the new venture were not disclosed.

The article HDNet, AEG, Seacrest Media and CAA Rebrand AXS TV appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Apple has officially announced its latest iPhone and it’s not an iPhone 5. The latest upgrade to the iPhone family has been dubbed the iPhone4S. The highly anticipated announcement came on October 4^th from Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, California in front of a packed auditorium full of high level executives and members of the press.

Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, was the first of several Apple executives to address the eager crowd.  Cook’s portion of the presentation was a bit lackluster it focused mainly on the history of Apple since introducing the iPod 10 years ago, public reaction to the launch of Lion OS X, and the integration of iPads in educational and workplace settings.

It was a testament to how far Apple has come in such a brief time span; while truly extraordinary this was not the  story people were interested in. Cook’s presentation was oddly void of anything iPhone related, with the exception of an off the cuff hint that iPhone news would come later in the presentation.

The logical guess would be that Cook in his first keynote address as CEO would deliver news of a new iPhone. However Cook threw a curve ball and deferred to Phil Schiller, Senior Vice President of worldwide product marketing, to usher in the iPhone 4S. Schiller, a regular presenter at Apple keynote addresses, very subtly broke into the new iPhone news after reeling off some updates about the iPod Nano and iPod Touch.

There were several new but otherwise bland features introduced for iPhone 4S they included an 8 megapixel camera, 1080p filming capability, and inclusion of the A5 processing iPad2 chip into the iPhone. Each new feature is a technological step in the right direction, but none are close to being “blow-away”, the term used by Apple presenters several times during the presentation.

There were some more impressive upgrades as well, including a new antenna system which intelligently switches between two built-in transmitters to optimize call quality and data transfer speeds, boasting faster download and upload speeds on par with 4G, and the inclusion of CDMA and GSM chips which allows the 4S to be compatible on all networks across the globe making it a “world” phone.

Even these failed to possesses that familiar Apple wow factor that leaves you wondering how in the world did they do that. With the iPhone 4s presentation coming to a close, Apple had one last chance to blow our collective minds. The job of showstopper was left up to the highly rumored voice recognition feature, Siri.

Siri is being marketed as having your very own interactive intelligent personal assistant in the palm of your hand. Scott Forstall, Senior Vice President of iOS Software, demoed the new feature by saying, “What’s the weather like today?” and Siri spoke the current forecast in Cupertino; this garnered a huge applause from the crowd.

Even more impressive than being able to tell you the weather Siri can compose and dictate email, set timers, look up contacts, create notes, search the web, and search Wikipedia. Siri is definitely an impressive feature, but at the same time it’s not Apple jaw dropping impressive.

It’s destined to be a feature that it is cool for a while, but not one that makes scores of people camp outside of Apple stores the week before launch. The iPhone 4S will be available for pre-order on October 7^th and hit retail stores on October 14^th. It will be available in black and white, 16GB for $199, 32GB for $299, and 64GB for $399. It will also be available on AT&T, Verizon, and for the first time Sprint.

This puts some validation in reports made by the Wall Street Journal that Sprint purchased 30 million iPhones over the next four years. It is interesting to note that Cook shied away from former Apple CEO’s Steve Jobs trademark “One More Thing” statement, a move that is being preemptively being dubbed the “Cook-tease”.

Who knows, maybe this keynote was one big Cook-tease for what we really want, an iPhone 5.

The article iPhone 4S: All Hype and No Flair? appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.