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NDS Wins Prestigious Vision Free Award from Stevie Wonder and the Wonder Foundation


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The Wonder Foundation and The Sendero Group recognize NDS for its role in enabling the secure delivery of reading services to sight-impaired people via HD Radio™: Award to be given at the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES)


Highlights:

* NDS RadioGuard™, the first conditional access solution created for HD Radio™, provides the secure delivery of reading services for sight-impaired people
* Reading services for the sight-impaired are copyright-exempt in the United States because they can be delivered to a defined audience via RadioGuard security on the HD Radio system
* The Wonder Foundation, founded by Stevie Wonder, and the Sendero Group will recognize NDS and other technology leaders such as Google, Apple and NPR (National Public Radio) at CES
* RadioGuard is the chosen solution of iBiquity Digital Corporation, the developer of HD Radio technology, to enable radio reading services, pay-per-listen, opt-in and public service offerings on the HD Radio platform

For an audio version of this release, please click here


LONDON, UK, LAS VEGAS, USA .- International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Mirage Hotel Suite D50 . – NDS, the leading provider of technology solutions for digital pay-TV, today announced that its RadioGuard conditional access solution has been honored with a Vision Free Award from The Wonder Foundation and the Sendero Group. The award has been given to NDS for its enablement of the secure delivery of reading service content via HD Radio broadcasting for the sight-impaired. RadioGuard is the first conditional access solution for HD Radio™ broadcasting and will be a standard feature of the HD Radio system moving forward.

The Vision Free Awards program recognizes companies that create products and services designed with usability for the visually-impaired in mind. This year’s awards will be presented to recipients at a ceremony hosted by Stevie Wonder on January 9th at CES 2009.

RadioGuard is the conditional access solution in the HD Radio system, encrypting content before it is transmitted over the airwaves, then decrypting it once the radio has received it and verified the entitlement rules.

Reading of print information to blind and partially sighted people via radio is copyright-exempt in the United States. But for the exemption to apply, only authorised individuals are to receive the service. RadioGuard conditional access ensures that the service is delivered only to entitled people. As a result, blind and partially sighted people can receive this important audio content service and benefit from the ‘copyright-free’ exemption.

With RadioGuard integrated into the HD Radio system, broadcasters can offer more choices to their listeners, a broader selection of content and more segmentation and revenue opportunities for advertisers. These offerings include improved radio reading services for the sight-impaired, pay-per-listen options for live concerts and events, private channels for emergency operators and opt-in events sponsored by advertisers.

“We are extremely honored by the recognition of such influential advocates for sight-impaired people as The Wonder Foundation and The Sendero Group,” said Jesper Knutsson, Vice President and General Manager of Sales, NDS Americas. “At NDS we are constantly striving to achieve more for the benefit of all who interact with our technology. We are proud of our work with iBiquity to deliver secure radio reading services to blind and partially sighted people, and we are also very proud of this honor.”

NDS is also researching new technologies that will help sight-impaired people to access Electronic Program Guide information and other digital TV services. One such NDS innovation enables people who are sight-impaired, and others who have difficulty using text-based EPGs, to hear EPG listings and content read aloud in real time in a natural sounding voice. NDS has already deployed audio description support and audible tone EPG signalling in millions of digital TV set-top boxes and Digital Video Recorders.

RadioGuard is based on VideoGuard®, NDS’ proven conditional access solution for pay-TV. Market-leading VideoGuard technology protects over 95.4 million digital TV devices around the globe. The NDS VideoGuard solutions portfolio includes VideoGuard Mobile™ for broadcasting content to mobile devices, VideoGuard PC™ to secure content in personal computers, VideoGuard PMP™ for portable media players, as well as RadioGuard.



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