The biggest U.S. media companies have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rule Aereo Inc., which provides broadcast signals to online viewers, as an illegal operation. Petitioners to the suit include — Walt Disney Co., 21st Century Fox Inc., Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s NBCUniversal, CBS Corp. (CBS), Univision Communications Inc., the Public Broadcasting Service and station WNET, and Tribune Co. owned New York station WPIX — filed the petition on Friday with the court after litigation in lower courts failed to stop Aereo.

ORBCOMM Inc., a provider of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) solutions, and Savi Technology, a provider of sensor-based analytics and radio-frequency identification (RFID) solutions, today announced a strategic relationship to provide advanced location-based monitoring solutions to government and commercial markets.

The number of TV sets connected to the Internet will reach 759 million by 2018 for 40 countries covered in the Connected TV Forecasts report, up from 115 million  at end-2010 and the 307 million expected at end-2013. This translates to 26.8% of 
global TV sets by 2018, up from only 5.1% at end-2010 and 12.4% by end-2013. 

Connected TV is becoming more international. The US will still command a third of  connected TV sets by end-2013, but this proportion will fall to 23.5% by 2018. China will climb from 6.6% of the 2013 total to 16.4% by 2018. 

Canadian video production technology company, Ross Video, has acquired MCP – Mobile Content Providers, a premium full service mobile sports production packager based in South Florida, USA.

Ross said it plans to transform MCP into a national mobile production company to be called Ross MCP.

MCP has served many major Sports Networks, Universities and International organizations, and has successfully delivered premium content at affordable prices.  In addition to providing crew and equipment, MCP also takes on producer responsibilities providing a full service solution.

Comtech Telecommunications Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings fell 35 percent after posting sales declines throughout its operations, most notably in its mobile data communications segment. Comtech said net sales dropped to $84.4 million for the fourth quarter and $319.8 million for full year of fiscal 2013 ended July 31, 2013, compared to $112.8 million and $425.1 million for the same periods in fiscal 2012.

The ability to deliver high quality, high definition video streams across home area networks to devices using multiple formats and multiple screen sizes is crucial to the success of content and service providers. Pay-TV providers, particularly cable providers looking to avoid becoming simply a "dumb" pipe, are increasingly implementing plans to provide content to consumers via multiple types of devices within and outside of the home, according to MRG.

ORBCOMM Inc., a provider of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) solutions, today announced that it has completed the acquisition of Comtech Mobile Datacom Corporation’s (Comtech) Sensor Enabled Notification System (SENS) operation, which includes satellite hardware, network technology and web platforms. SENS is a market leader in providing one-way satellite products and services to more than 20,000 subscribers worldwide.

The Satellite Interference Reduction Group (IRG) will be tackling a number of important issues at its annual conference, which this year takes place in Rio de Janeiro from 16th - 18th October and is being sponsored by Intelsat, Kratos, Newtec, and SatMex.
 

Vivendi and EchoStar Corp. announced today that EchoStar Technologies LLC and Vivendi subsidiary GVT have entered into negotiations to form a joint venture for pay TV services in Brazil.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the specialized agency of the United Nations for information and communication technology (ICT), announced today that the State of Qatar has been selected as host country for ITU Telecom World 2014, following a competitive selection process among bidding ITU Member States.