THAILAND: The Shin Satellite Public Company Limited is deploying iPSTAR Service in China with Shanghai VSAT Network Systems Co, with the first iPSTAR Gateway to be setup in Shanghai, China.

The company will give a service demonstration will be given at the China Satellite 2002 Exhibition on 28 August in Shanghai. SVC is iPSTAR‘s National Service Provider (NSP) in China and will use the company‘s First Generation iPSTAR broadband technology to provide broadband services to customers throughout China starting from the third quarter of 2002. SVC expects to deploy more than 5,000 iPSTAR user terminals by 2003. When launched at end 2003, iPSTAR-1 will cover the entire Asia-Pacific region and will be capable of providing broadband access service to millions of users competitively to other terrestrial solutions such as DSL and cable modem.

Shanghai VSAT Network Systems Co., Ltd. (SVC) is one of the largest VSAT service provider companies licensed by China‘s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications to supply domestic VSAT services, according to a company release. The iPSTAR satellite broadband project is one of the first satellite broadband systems to have a full funding closure, and to commence its first generation commercial service deployment.

BELGIUM: Barco, the image processing company, today signed a contract with TAN Projektionstechnologie GmbH & Co.KG and TAN AG, based in D?sseldorf, Germany and Marin, Switzerland. The contract will enable BARCO to incorporate the existing customer base of TAN ( a pioneer in the virtual and augmented reality segment), its current orders and projects, besides technological and market know how and an experienced team of system engineers, system integrators, sales and support people. With the domain of virtual and augmented reality showing a lot of potential, Barco hopes to reinforce its commitment and contribution to the Virtual & Augmented Reality market.

Kortrijk, Belgium headquartered Barco‘s three key activities are active in image processing, with BarcoProjection active in various markets of large screen visualization, BarcoView developing and manufacturing display systems for life critical applications, while BarcoVision develops systems for visual inspection and quality control.

MUMBAI: Eternal Dreams, a media company promoted by Sapna Chaturvedi, is seeking to honour bards.
And it is doing it in memory of India‘s greatest singer ever, the eternal Kishore Kumar. The company, which has been slowly but surely working on turning around the Rathikant Basu promoted Tara Marathi and Bengali, has initiated the Kishore Kumar Award - which will honour two singing talents each year: one for established singers and the other for a new voice who can recreate the magic of the Maestro, Kishore Kumar.

Some permanent members of the jury who will judge the entries include: Amit Kumar, Kishan Kumar of T Series, Ratan Jain of Venus, Kumar S Taurani of Tips, Ekta Kapoor of Balaji Telefilms, Praveen Shah of Time and music directors Dabboo Malik and Himesh Reshammiya. Apart from these, there will be other members who will be decided each year prior to the selections.

Chaturvedi says Eternal Dreams will handle the winners‘ careers for six months. "We hope to present the Indian music industry with some exceptional talents in the coming years,"she adds. The award was unveiled by film star Jeetendra at a musical extravaganza based on the songs of Kishoreda last weekend. Among the singers who turned up and crooned at no cost included Kumar Sanu, Vinod Rathod, Babul Supriyo, Shaan and Dabboo Malik. Making his debut on stage was Kishore Kumar‘s youngest son Sumeet Kumar, who enthralled the audience with his promising performance.

Balaji Telefilms chairman Jeetendra Kappor (extreme left) and Eternal Dreams MD Sapna Chaturvedi (extreme right) at the musical extravaganza last weekend

The surprise discovery of the evening, however, was Pankaj Chaturvedi, a singer who wears two hats with the ease of a magician. Pankaj who evoked nostalgic memories of Kishoreda with the best of his memorable numbers is also the CEO of Baskin Robbins (South Asia), the largest international ice cream chain in India.

The show, a tribute to Kishore Kumar, is to be aired on DD Metro and has the backing of Tide detergent, Dabur and Win 94.6 with Regent Hotels being the hospitality partner.