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

Media Center: Press Release

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

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 – 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Mirage Hotel Suite D50 - January 8, 2009 – 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.

To arrange a meeting with NDS executives at CES, and to see demonstrations of NDS’ leading edge technology, please contact Katy Flores on 714 460 3367 or email kflores@nds.com.

For more information and for a complete list of Vision Free Award winners visit: http://www.senderogroup.com/VisionFree

About NDS
NDS Group plc (NASDAQ: NNDS), a majority owned subsidiary of News Corporation, supplies open end-to-end digital technology and services to digital pay-television platform operators and content providers. See www.nds.com for more information about NDS.

Read about the latest developments at NDS and in the pay-TV industry in World Vision

Click here for the NDS RSS feed

###

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-looking Statements
This document may contain certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management’s views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance as of the time the statements are made. Actual results may differ materially from these expectations due to changes in global economic, business, competitive market, regulatory and other factors. More detailed information about these and other factors that could affect future results is contained in our filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Any “forward-looking statements” included in this document are made only as of the date of this document and we do not have any obligation, nor do we undertake, to publicly update any “forward-looking statements” to reflect subsequent events or circumstances, except as required by law.

For further information:

NDS
Cynthia Ritchie	T: +44 20 8476 8378
Director, Corporate Communications	critchie@nds.com

Breakaway Communications for NDS	T: +1 212 616 6006
Kelly Fitzgerald, Managing Partner	kfitz@breakawaycom.com