AT&T has tapped celebrity actor Mark Wahlberg to tout its products in a new advertising campaign set to launch last month.
According to the carrier, Wahlberg will appear in a series of TV and digital ads “celebrating the ways AT&T lets you take entertainment everywhere you go.” It seems this will include mention of AT&T’s services that let customers watch live channels and DVR programs across their devices, without using their data allowance.
Wahlberg begins production with AT&T this week. Though AT&T didn’t disclose the details of its deal with the actor, Page Six reported the carrier is paying him eight figures, in the realm somewhere above $10 million.
The agreement with Wahlberg comes as the latest celebrity deal for AT&T, building on existing partnerships with musician Taylor Swift and actress Reese Witherspoon.
Vodafone has chosen Nokia’s Nuage Networks to supply software defined networking (SDN) for the datacenter.
The Nuage Networks Virtualized Service Platform (VSP) will be at the heart of the Vodafone deployments, and offers a single framework to provide policy-based automation across both the datacenter and WAN. As part of the partnership, a VPN+ live pilot project with Vodafone is also underway, which Nokia said will demonstrate the benefits of SD-WAN in providing leading-edge NFV and IoT applications.
Nokia noted it first began the the SDN/NFV journey with Vodafone more than three years ago.
“We look forward to working closely with Nokia on the successful rollout of our Vodafone Ocean implementation and our new SD-WAN with our enterprise customers. An open, multi-vendor SDN infrastructure is key for delivering better, faster and smarter services to our customers,” David Amzallag, head of network virtualization for Vodafone Group,commented.
Following news that handset vendor Apple has joined the Wireless Power Consortium, wireless charging company Powermat announced plans to support iPhones with “whatever wireless charging protocol Apple employs.” The company said its decision is based on Apple’s ability to bring wireless charging into the mainstream thanks to the sheer number of iPhones in the market.
“Regardless of which standard Apple will ultimately adopt or whether they’ll develop their own proprietary technology, we believe the category is big enough for everyone to play,” Powermat CEO Elad Dubzinski said. “Powermat was the first wireless charging company to develop the technology and envision a world where wireless power is ubiquitous. We are delighted that Apple will help bring that vision to fruition.”
Powermat currently has 12,000 charging spots for consumers in public venues, and has installed its technology in more than 1 million GM vehicles and 250 million mobile devices in the market. The company is also partnered up with the likes of AT&T and Duracell, among others.
Chip-maker Intel announced it is scooping up Israeli autonomous vehicle company Mobileye for $15.3 billion in a move that will put it firmly in the competition to be at the forefront of driverless technology.
Intel said the acquisition will pair its high-performance computing capabilities and connectivity expertise with Mobileye’s computer vision technology to create cloud-based automated driving solutions. Mobileye’s offerings include sensor chips, roadway mapping, cameras, machine learning, data management, cloud software, and in-car networking, among other things. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in a letter to employees said the acquisition “essentially merges the intelligent eyes of the autonomous car with the intelligent brain that actually drives the car.”
Intel said it estimates vehicle systems, data, and services will be a $70 billion market opportunity by 2030.
“This acquisition is a great step forward for our shareholders, the automotive industry and consumers,” Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said. “Intel provides critical foundational technologies for autonomous driving including plotting the car’s path and making real-time driving decisions. Mobileye brings the industry’s best automotive-grade computer vision and strong momentum with automakers and suppliers. Together, we can accelerate the future of autonomous driving with improved performance in a cloud-to-car solution at a lower cost for automakers.”
