iWorld
Sri Lanka Telecom partners with Hungama Digital, to launch OTT platform
MUMBAI: Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) and its local partner Evoke International (Pvt) Limited has partnered with Hungama Digital Media Entertainment (Pvt) Limited. This partnership will provide SLT broadband customers with high quality video streaming, music downloads and gaming facilities, bringing a cinema experience like never before right into the home in Sri Lanka.
SLT broadband customers will be able to register for Hungama services by visiting www.sltfilmhall.lk. Upon registration, customers can download and view unlimited movie streaming, music streaming as well as gaming for a monthly subscription fee.
Hungama Digital Siddharth Roy said, “We are thrilled about this partnership with SLT the front runner of telecommunications and Evoke the market leader of the local content distribution in digital platforms. We are expecting to launch new entertainment products in Sri Lanka in the near future.”
The company will launch the first of its kind a streaming service via Sri Lanka’s OTT (Over-The-Top) platform to make entertainment options available online to Sri Lankans. Through this agreement, the customers in Sri Lanka can access a vast collection of new Hollywood, Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu and Sinhala movies, songs as well as video games at attractive prices. The value for the services accessed can be paid along with the customer’s telephone bill at the end of the month.
Commenting on this latest partnership, SLT group CEO Dileepa Wijesundera said, “Our customers are already experiencing world class personalized television entertainment through our PEO TV service. Through this important partnership with Hungama, we wish to add more value to our customers and provide them with high quality, world class entertainment content at their fingertips. We are certain that this will totally redefine their entertainment experience.”
The contract with Evoke International for content delivery will ensure that customers are provided access to a large database of the latest releases in songs as well as just premiered foreign and local movies with the highest quality ever experienced for video streaming and music downloading.
SLT Broadband customers will be offered online entertainment options with a subscription fee. The services will be expanded to Mobitel’s mobile customers and PEO TV customers by adding the feature to the PEO Set Top Box (STB) and thereafter, to all other internet users in Sri Lanka phase by phase.
Evoke International CEO Lahiru Wickramasinghe said, “We are excited to partner with Hungama India to provide this service to SLT, the ICT leader in Sri Lanka, as it will enable us to touch the lives of the people in Sri Lanka by providing Entertainment from across the globe to their fingertips.”
SLT also intends to allow its OTT entertainment service subscribers to access content on mobile devices through a mobile app.
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
