Nelson Mandela's family fights over funeral broadcast rights

THEY have fought over bodies, burials, trust funds and wine labels. Now Nelson Mandela's squabbling offspring are fighting over the broadcasting rights to his funeral. 

Makaziwe Mandela, the former president's eldest daughter, held talks with the South African Broadcasting Corp and government officials last month demanding "preferential" access for CNN, the American network.

Although details of Mr Mandela's state funeral have not been released - it is deemed inappropriate while he clings to life in hospital - it is expected to be one of the most widely watched send-offs in broadcasting history.

Ms Mandela's insistence on having CNN present comes despite the BBC spending months advising South Africa's state broadcaster on how best to manage a major ceremonial event.

The news is likely to inflame tensions with her nephew Mandla, who was accused by network executives of selling exclusive broadcasting rights to SABC in 2008. He denied the deal but lost control of the funeral arrangements last week after Makaziwe Mandela won a court ruling.

The ruling also forced Mandla to return the bodies of the former president's three dead children from his own village of Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape, to Qunu, where the anti-apartheid hero grew up.

A spokesman for CNN denied paying for special broadcasting rights, but sources inside the company confirmed they had been in touch with Makaziwe Mandela across many years and that discussions included how they could best cover the funeral.

It is understood CNN is hoping to have a camera and a correspondent inside Mr Mandela's house and at the graveside. If the plan goes ahead, it will be the only broadcaster with its own crew inside the Mandela compound. The rest of the world's media will be forced to rely on a live feed from the SABC.

Mr Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison for resisting the racist white government, was admitted to hospital on June 8 with a recurrent lung infection. He is on life support.

iOS 7 beta hints at AirPlay for your car

A setting discovered by a developer poking around the beta for iOS 7 lists "iOS in the Car" using a Wi-Fi connection.

 

Apple's upcoming iOS in the Car feature apparently will work via AirPlay, so you won't have to physically hook up your device.
Scouring through the "Accessory Developer" settings menu in the iOS 7 beta version, developer Hamza Sood uncovered two options -- one called "iOS in the Car over USB" and another called "iOS in the Car over WiFi." Revealing his findings in a tweet, Sood's conclusion was that iOS in the Car will tap into Apple's AirPlay.
Unveiled in June at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, iOS in the Car will integrate your iPhone with your auto's onboard receiver or "infotainment" system. This integration would let you control your phone through your car's dashboard so that you can play music, display maps, and talk to Siri without having to fumble with the device.
Using a Wi-Fi connection via AirPlay would further mean that you can simply leave your iPhone in your pocket or purse and that it will automatically communicate with your car.
So far, Apple has signed up such automakers as Honda, Mercedes, Nissan, Ferrari, Hyundai, Kia, and Infiniti to integrate more iOS features into their cars. At WWDC, Apple VP Eddy Cue said the iOS integration could kick off as soon as 2014, which means the feature itself may start to pop up in a few select 2015 models.

EID MUBARAK

May the Guidance and Blessings of Allah be with You and Your Family.
Happy Eid Mubarak to All.

LONDON OLYMPIC 2012: Executive Producers of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies

The Olympic and Paralympic Opening Ceremonies are being developed by world-class directors Danny Boyle, Bradley Hemmings and Jenny Sealey and their teams.

Executive producers

The Executive Producers overseeing the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games are:

Stephen Daldry CBEExecutive Producer, Creative (Chairman)

Stephen began his career at the Sheffield Crucible where he directed various award winning productions. He has won innumerable awards on Broadway as well as the West End. Daldry made his feature film directorial debut with Billy Elliot. His next film was The Hours followed by The Reader. Stephen has received an Academy Award nomination for all three of his films. His stage musical adaptation of Billy Elliot, with music by Elton John, opened in London in 2005.  The production opened on Broadway in 2007, winning 10 Tony Awards and is the most honoured British production in the history of the American theatre.

Mark FisherExecutive Producer, Production Design

Mark is an architect with an international reputation for creating spectacular live entertainment. He has designed some of the most memorable rock concerts ever staged, including ‘The Wall’ for Pink Floyd, every Rolling Stones show since 1989, and every U2 concert since 1992. He also designed the theatre, scenery and acrobatic effects for Cirque du Soleil’s ‘KÀ’ at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and the opening and closing ceremonies for both the 2006 Turin Winter Games and 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. 

Hamish HamiltonExecutive Producer, Broadcast

Hamish is a Grammy and BAFTA Award nominated British television director, arguable the best live television director in the world.  He is most known for directing concert videos and award shows. He has directed several concert DVDs for U2, Madonna, and Jennifer Lopez, as well as the MTV Video Music Awards, MTV Europe Music Awards, the Super bowl half time show and this year’s Academy awards. Hamish joins the team to ensure that, from the outset, our creative ideas evolve with television in mind.

Catherine UgwuExecutives Producer, Production

Catherine has been involved in some of the world’s largest and most prestigious public events, she was the Senior Producer for the Strategic Phase of the Opening, Closing and Victory Ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Olympics, she produced the Opening Ceremony for the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar in 2006, the Closing Ceremony for the XVII Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002 and a large-scale performance spectacle to mark the opening of the Millennium Dome London in 2000. She has been a consultant and programmed numerous international arts festivals in Mexico City, Adelaide, Antwerp, Accra, Los Angeles and New York.  

London 2012 ceremonies board

The London 2012 Ceremonies Board is responsible for building and managing the huge team of people who will be developing and producing the ceremonies.

The members of the Board are Bill Morris, London 2012 Director of Ceremonies, Education and Live Sites; Martin Green, Head of Ceremonies; Catherine Ugwu, Executive Producer, Production; Scott Givens, Managing Director; Sara Donaldson, Chief Operating Officer; Dion Carter, Finance and Commercial Director; and Non-Executive Directors Frank McCormack and Alan Robertson. 

LONDON OLYMPIC 2012: Young people audition to take part in the Opening Ceremony

The Opening Ceremony is a celebration showcasing the best of the Host Nation. It also features a parade of all competing nations and the highly anticipated entrance of the Olympic Flame, which ignites the Cauldron and signals the start of the Games.

The eyes of the world will be on London for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The Ceremony will provide an opportunity for the world to view the artistic expression of the Artistic Director (Danny Boyle) and his team, and the culture of our Host City and the UK. There are certain elements that must feature in every Ceremony, as outlined in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) charter. The artistic performance of the Ceremony then gets underway and welcomes the world to the London 2012 Games.

The name of the Olympic Opening Ceremony show will be ‘Isles of Wonder’ and the worldwide broadcast will commence at 9pm. The Ceremony will kick off with the sound of the largest harmonically tuned bell in Europe, produced by the Whitechapel Foundry, and the Stadium will be transformed into the British countryside for opening scene ‘Green and Pleasant’, which includes real farmyard animals. The Ceremony will also include a special sequence celebrating the best of British, featuring volunteer performers from the NHS.

Danny Boyle, Artistic Director of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, said: ‘Our Isles of Wonder salutes and celebrates the exuberant creativity of the British genius in an Opening Ceremony that we hope will be as unpredictable and inventive as the British people.’

Creative team

A host of world-class British directors and producers are leading the artistic team to stage the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Performers

A total cast of 15,000 will take part in the London 2012 Opening and Closing Ceremonies, which will be watched by an estimated audience of four billion. 

NASDAQ: Facebook stumbles on 1st trading day as shares

Facebook stumbled on its first trading day on Friday as shares ended barely above the starting price after a glitch-plagued market debut on the Nasdaq that failed to live up to its enormous hype.

The stock, priced at $38 on Thursday in the largest-ever initial public offering (IPO) for a technology firm, eked out a gain of just 0.61% to end at $38.23, amid record volume of more than 575 million shares traded.

Shares in the social network titan saw roller-coaster action in what was one of most keenly awaited stock issues in history. The day began with a 30-minute delay in trade, an incident which regulators are still reviewing.

Shares jumped 12% to $42.55 in opening trade but within minutes fell back to the offering price. A midday rally failed to sustain its momentum and the price tailed off before the close.

"The negativity in the market overall has put a damper on the IPO," said  Darren Hayes, a Pace University professor and former investment banker.

"It's not uncommon in an IPO to see a big rise and then for the price to come back down, but I'm a bit surprised after all the hype to see such a small gain."

A report on the Business Insider financial blog said the price held at $38 because of a large number of standing orders at the offering price. The Wall Street Journal said the underwriting investment banks stepped in to support the price.

"It's hard to know what would have happened if the banks hadn't stepped in," said Lou Kerner of the Social Internet Fund, raising questions about what will happen to Facebook's share price when the Nasdaq reopens on Monday.

James Hughes, chief market analyst at London's Alpari, said "the real value of Facebook is not likely to be known until the hype of the IPO has died away and investors have been able to digest how the company is going evolve to be the money-making machine many expect it to be."

Investors were expected to be hungry to get a piece of Facebook, which has become a global phenomenon since its humble beginnings in 2004 as a project of then-Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and his classmates.

Zuckerberg, 28, wearing his trademark hooded sweatshirt, remotely rang the bell to open the Nasdaq, marking the start of trade.

He told the crowd at the company's new campus in Menlo Park, California, that going public is a "milestone" but added: "Our mission isn't to be a public company. Our mission is to make the world more open and connected."

The market debut was disappointing compared with some recent tech IPOs. LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network, doubled its share price on its first day, and Groupon, a discount deal aggregator, jumped 30%.

Others have not fared so well. Pandora, an Internet radio site, rose a more modest 8.9% and online gaming site Zynga lost five% on its first day.

Trip Chowdhry, who follows Facebook for Global Equities Research, said the "lackluster" opening was because the company had failed to answer crucial questions about how it will boost revenues and adapt to the mobile Internet.

"Management cannot sing and dance around the key issues," he said.
There are concerns about Facebook's long-term ability to generate ad revenues, fueled by General Motors' decision earlier this week to pull its advertising.

GM had been spending about $10 million on paid advertising and $30 million on unpaid marketing on Facebook.

Another shadow hanging over Facebook is privacy.

Some consumer and privacy advocates say Facebook has been too loose with user data and hope that as a publicly traded company it may change its tune.

The IPO gave Facebook a dizzying value of $104 billion at its market debut.

It raised more than $16 billion, making it the richest after that of financial giant Visa in 2008, according to Renaissance Capital. The addition of a possible stock "over-allotment" could boost the total to $18.4 billion.

With its current market value, Facebook is now among the most valuable US companies, ahead of sector giants Amazon ($96 billion) and Cisco ($89 billion), and more than twice the value of Ford Motor Co. ($38 billion).

But it remains behind Google ($196 billion) and Apple ($496 billion).

Under the share plan, Zuckerberg holds 55.8% of the voting power of Facebook shares, and over 18% of the value of the company.

Despite the lingering concerns, some still see huge potential for growth.

"Facebook is a business that can succeed with far fewer employees than the technology behemoths of old," said Victor Basta of London-based Magister Advisors.

"Facebook's IPO filing implies a value per employee for its own business of $33 million. Microsoft, by contrast, has a value per employee of $3 million, reflecting the fundamental structural differences between the businesses."

Facebook posted a profit of $668 million last year as revenue vaulted to $1.06 billion.

 

Samsung Galaxy S III Launching Today

Will It Come to U.S.?

Samsung is expected to announce its Galaxy S III smartphone at 2 pm ET in London today.

The Galaxy S III is the most-anticipated Android smartphone launch of the year so far. It's the follow-up to the two most commercially successful Android phones ever, Samsung's Galaxy S and Galaxy S II. Samsung is now the world's largest phone maker, and according to Horace Dediu of Asymco, it's by far the most profitable maker of Android-powered mobile phones.

Very little is known about the new phone, and rumors have been frantic and contradictory. It may use a quad-core Samsung Exynos processor. It may use a dual-core processor. It might have a large 4.7- or 4.8-inch screen. (Samsung has had success with large screens of late, selling millions of the 5.3-inch Galaxy Note phone.) That screen may be Super AMOLED, Super AMOLED Plus, or an even newer technology. One thing is clear, though: to impress the phone market it's going to have to compete blow-by-blow with HTC's glamorous new One X phone, which we've currently rated the best smartphone on AT&T.

What makes the announcement a little frustrating for Americans hoping to get their hands on the phone, though, is that it's in London. Typically, announcements held in Europe tend not to discuss the U.S. market much, because our market is so carrier-dependent and so different from other countries'.

In previous years, Samsung has released a global version of its Galaxy S that has shown up on T-Mobile (for the original) or AT&T (for the S II), and then each of the other U.S. carriers has gotten a customized version. Sprint's Galaxy S, the Epic 4G, had a QWERTY keyboard, for instance. T-Mobile's Galaxy S II had a larger screen and different processor from the global version. Verizon didn't get a Galaxy S II at all. So we'll be looking to see if there are any clues about the U.S. models, and whether they'll be different from the global device.