NewsTakes to Repurpose Associated Press Content;Service Reformats News for Different Wireless...

Business Editors

BURLINGAME, Calif. & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 17, 2000

The Associated Press has reached an agreement with NewsTakes, Inc. that will make AP news content available to the full range of wireless Internet access devices. [pilcrow (paragraph sign)] NewsTakes' service

"repurposes" content from any source - audio, video, text and graphics - analyzing it automatically and in real-time, and optimizing it for the capabilities of the device. For example, a video news feed can be shown on a wireless PDA as a series of intelligently selected slides, with accompanying audio or text. Similarly, a financial chart originally intended for display on a television or computer can be sized automatically to make it readable on a variety of cellular phones.

The Associated Press is the world's leading news agency, with 3,500 employees, including 2,700 journalists and hundreds of contributors in more than 240 bureaus across five continents. Its agreement with NewsTakes will benefit wireless carriers and portals who seek to make news available to their customers as quickly as possible, wherever they are, through whatever wireless device they use to access the Internet.

"News has moved from tickers and teletypes to the Internet, and now to the palms of people's hands," said Ted Mendelsohn, Director of Sales and Licensing of The Associated Press. "With NewsTakes, we're expanding the reach of our coverage to keep pace with a wireless world."

In addition to world-class content companies, NewsTakes has relationships with a number of wireless carriers who seek to offer their customers innovative information services. The company's investors include Orange, the second-largest wireless carrier in Europe, and SingTel, one of Asia's fastest-growing telecommunications companies; both have reached agreements for NewsTakes to repurpose content for their customers.

"News has such immediate impact on people's lives, that they often can't wait for it to show up on their doorsteps or their televisions," said Dr. Gurminder Singh, CEO of NewsTakes. "Our technology maintains the integrity of the information, whatever format and device it must adapt to, and thus gives the user the kind of experience they expect when accessing news from such a highly regarded source as The Associated Press."

About The Associated Press

Founded in 1848, The Associated Press is the world's oldest and largest newsgathering organization, providing content to more than 15,000 news outlets with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world. Its multimedia services are distributed by satellite and the Internet to more than 120 nations. For more information about The Associated Press, please visit www.ap.org.

AP Digital, a division of the AP, offers comprehensive news services with text, photos, audio, graphics and video on a wide variety of topics. For more information on AP Digital, call 800-AP-CALL1.

About NewsTakes

Headquartered in California's Silicon Valley, NewsTakes' helps its partners offer users a wide selection of rich media content that satisfies their diverse information requirements. Its standards-based, proprietary repurposing engine offers a cost-effective method for distributing content in any format - from text to full-motion video, in real time, while maintaining the content's integrity - to any Internet-enabled device. NewsTakes' founders include CEO Dr. Gurminder Singh; Steve Rand, Senior Vice President of Business Development, Marketing and Sales; and Dr. Vinod Vasudevan, Chief Technology Officer. For more, visit http://www.newstakes.com.