Irdeto, a provider of content and business model protection solutions and services, has announced an expanded relationship with Al Jazeera Sport, part of the Al Jazeera Network and a provider of sports TV services in the Middle East and North Africa.

Irdeto will now protect Al Jazeera Sport’s premium content across its entire digital TV network and as part of the agreement, will source more than 500,000 Irdeto Smart Cards.

The expanded agreement between Al Jazeera Sport and Irdeto aligns with a drive in the Gulf to protect content and curb sales of illegal TV set-top boxes that decrypt pay-TV channels.

Irdeto informed its solution provides Al Jazeera Sport with a scalable Conditional Access System (CAS) featuring protection against the theft of content over their networks — including pay-per-view (PPV) and video-on-demand (VOD).

Security company Lockheed Martin has announced that its SkyLine automated air traffic management (ATM) system has gone into full operation at the Aktobe Area Control Centre (ACC) and three remote towers in Kazakhstan.

The system, installed under contract with Kazaeronavigatsia, the air navigation authority for Kazakhstan, is part of a modernisation programme using advanced technologies to achieve improved standards of safety and security in air traffic management for the region.

SkyLine ATM includes flight data processing and surveillance data processing capabilities that can function as a tower, terminal area, procedural or flow monitoring system service. It provides a flexible configuration of features and functions to fit user requirements, Lockheed Martin informed.

At Aktobe, the system provides en route and approach control at the Aktobe ACC, as well as tower control at Aktobe and the airfields at Uralsk, Atyrau, and Aktau.

The contract also includes a Lockheed Martin Omnyx air sovereignty system at the Astana area control centre that provides air surveillance across the country and is understood to be the foundation for an interagency coordination centre in that city.

IBM has announced the availability of, what it claims to be, the industry’s first public desktop cloud service.

Cloud computing can give end-users easy access to the critical information they need remotely, from various devices, virtually anywhere, the company explained.

The new IBM Smart Business Desktop on the IBM Cloud subscription service helps clients virtualise desktop computing resources, and provide a logical, rather than a physical, method of access to data, computing power, storage capacity and other resources.

This service requires no up front capital or one time expense and is designed to provide improved security for virtual desktops. The service offers flexible delivery models, including three standard cloud-based offerings, dedicated infrastructure, and customer premise solutions, while helping to streamline data backup and recovery, and reduce unauthorised access, the company added.

Futurex, a provider of hardware data encryption security solutions, has opened a regional office in Singapore, its first in Asia.

The company informed the decision follows a demand for Host Security Modules (HSM) and Key Management Servers (KMS) in the Asia Pacific marketplace and particularly the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) group of countries.

Futurex’s Excrypt Universal Interface provides a plug-and-play replacement for vendor specific legacy HSMs that use proprietary interfaces. Futurex also provides scalable HSMs with load balancing and disaster recovery capabilities as well as Remote Key Management solutions for ATM and POS devices.

A top company official has noted that having an office in Singapore will allow Futurex to effectively provide regional support and training to both end user customers and partners located in the Asia Pacific region.

Bharti Airtel, an integrated telecom services provider headquartered in India, has launched its m-commerce service – ‘Mchek on Airtel’ on the voice platform. This service enables use of voice (IVR) for m-commerce transactions for all Airtel mobile customers. The customer has to call 543219 to access the service which is toll free.

The new service will enable Airtel customers to pay Airtel mobile and fixed-line bills, recharge the company’s pre-paid and digitalTV accounts, recharge Delhi-Gurgaon expressway toll tags, pay insurance premiums, buy gifts, tickets and shop using their mobile phones.

To avail this service, Airtel customers has to go through a one-time registration that will link the user’s credit card automatically to the Mchek on Airtel service. For all future transactions the user is required to only enter a six-digit MchekPIN on their registered mobile number to authorise the transaction.

The service provides an on-demand solution for mobile payments with a two-step authentication process, the MchekPIN and the Mobile Number.

Family Safeware, a developer of internet filters for mobile devices, has launched iNet SafetyBubble, a parental control and web filtering solution for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.

The company informed the application allows parents to customise which websites they want to block either by category or individual site and also monitor web activity with detailed reports.

Although Apple offers a parental control feature for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it prevents users from accessing the internet at all. iNet SafetyBubble allows users to surf the web using an alternate browser and parents can customise each device’s protection settings and can monitor activity and generate reports from any internet connection in real time, the company noted.

In addition to computerised systems for detecting adult content, iNet SafetyBubble has nearly 100 multilingual human reviewers to protect families from undesirable sites, it was added. These reviewers are understood to work to identify sites ‘stuffed’ with innocent keywords and linked to offensive images and content, as well as, making sure appropriate sites are not over-blocked.

Sharp HealthCare, San Diego County healthcare system, has selected the Anakam Identity Suite to enable access for patients accessing Sharp’s new patient portal.

The Anakam Identity Suite is aimed at providing Sharp the assurance of ‘trusted access’ through a next-generation authentication platform that performs identity ‘proofing’ upon patient registration into the portal, and then delivers multi-channel two-factor authentication, without the burden of tokens or cards.

With the Anakam Identity Suite, Sharp seeks to improve the assurance that the right individual is accessing, viewing, updating, and consenting to information and functionality within the portal; and at the same time help Sharp reduce the risk of medical identity theft and fraud.

Airservices Australia has selected the team of Sensis/NAV Canada to design and deliver an integrated air traffic control (ATC) solution for its National Tower Program (NTP) Technology Project.

The Sensis/NAV Canada solution, the Integrated Tower Automation Suite (INTAS), is designed to provide controllers with fully integrated ‘glass tower’ solution that combines flight data, operational data, surveillance and voice communications into a scalable air traffic management system.

The National Tower Program’s goal is to modernise, and where necessary, refurbish or replace up to 26 ATC towers owned or operated by Airservices Australia.

The programme’s Technology Project addresses the modernisation of the technology systems, installation of solutions and ongoing support of the tower technology.

The Sensis/NAV Canada team will initially install the INTAS solution at three airports, Melbourne, Adelaide and Rockhampton, and Airservices Australia’s Melbourne Air Traffic Centre and Learning Academy.

Anchiva and Commtouch have announced that Anchiva is integrating Commtouch GlobalView URL Filtering into its Secure Web Gateway solutions.

Anchiva’s Secure Web Gateway features anti-malware technology, URL filtering, internet application control, bandwidth management and Web server content protection for companies of all sizes, from small businesses through large enterprises and service providers.

Currently focused on the Chinese market, Anchiva plans to expand to Australia, Europe and the United States

Magic Softworks, has announced Magic Backup, the first in its line of online computer backup products and services.

Magic Backup is aimed at protecting consumers and small businesses against loss of any user-created data files. It is a low-cost backup service that works silently in the background to make secure copies of important data files to the company’s data centre.

The service works automatically to back up user-created files including digital pictures, videos, music, documents, spreadsheets, and e-mail. Magic Backup is available for both Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems.