Customers will be able to purchase the special edition at dtac stores or http://www.dtac.co.th.

The government tasked the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission earlier this year with assessing whether platforms such as Facebook and Google were using their market power in commercial dealings to the detriment of users, news media and advertisers.

Australian media groups, like their peers worldwide, are losing circulation and advertising revenues to digital competitors.

Australian media tycoon Kerry Stokes, the head of major commercial broadcaster Seven, on Monday urged Canberra to take “serious action” against the two online titans.

“The government must act decisively to curtail the frightening power and influence these companies have,” Stokes told The Australian newspaper.

“The duopoly of Facebook and Google now control over 80 percent of the global digital ad market, taking away advertising dollars from local media without any of the controls and rules we must adhere to, creating an uneven playing field.”

The industry body representing commercial free-to-air television networks, Free TV Australia, echoed such views in its submission Friday, saying the two companies were virtual monopolies but had “very little regulatory oversight”.

The inquiry comes at a sensitive time for Facebook, which has come under fire globally after it admitted that the personal data of up to 87 million people worldwide — including more than 300,000 Australians — were improperly shared with a British political consultancy.

Facebook said in its submission to the inquiry on Wednesday, sent to AFP Monday, that rapid technological changes such as media digitalisation “makes them a challenging subject for regulatory intervention”.

The American firm added that “consumers often have the most to gain from market disruptions caused by technological change and the most to lose from interventions that are designed to protect particular business models from the effects of those changes”.

Google, which released its submission to the inquiry Monday, said it was consumers who would determine the future of news and added that it partnered with publishers such Australia’s Fairfax Media to support access to information.

“Changes in consumer and marketing behaviour have profound implications for traditional news business models. But they do not mean the death of journalism,” Google Australia managing director Jason Pellegrino said in a statement.

The competition commission is expected to publish its preliminary report in December, with the final report due in mid-2019.

Facebook says Aleksandr Kogan’s app, This Is Your Digital Life, was downloaded by 270,000 people and also gave Kogan access to their friends.

The data was passed to British communications firm Cambridge Analytica and was used to help elect US President Donald Trump. But the company has blamed Kogan for misusing it, while he claims they and Facebook have used him as a scapegoat.

The University of Cambridge lecturer told CBS’s 60 Minutes he was “sincerely sorry” for the data mining, but insisted there was a widespread belief that users knew their data was being sold and shared.

“Back then we thought it was fine… I think that core idea that we had — that everybody knows and nobody cares — was fundamentally flawed. And for that, I’m sincerely sorry,” he said.

The psychologist also accused Facebook of framing him as a “rogue app” — and insisted that while he was not sure that he read Facebook’s developer policy banning the transfer or sale of users’ data, the social network failed to enforce it in any case.

“I had a terms of service that was up there for a year and a half that said I could transfer and sell the data. Never heard a word,” he said, referencing his app’s user agreement.

“Facebook clearly has never cared,” he added.

“The belief in Silicon Valley and certainly our belief at that point was that the general public must be aware that their data is being sold and shared and used to advertise to them.”

On the issue of harvesting the information of friends of app users without explicit permission, Kogan said that capability was “a core feature” of Facebook for years — and he estimated “tens of thousands” of apps had engaged in similar practices.

“This was not a special permission you had to get. This was just something that was available to anybody who wanted it who was a developer,” he said.

On Tuesday Kogan is set to appear before a British parliamentary committee probing the scandal, where he will discuss his ties with Cambridge Analytica.

Alibaba’s big move in Thailand brings with it benefits and positive impacts. However, it will also disrupt local business and industry, and lead to the China-headquartered company dominating the market not only in Thailand but also the entirety of CLMV.

Business leaders are drawing attention to both sides of the Alibaba equation.

Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, founder and CEO of tarad.com, trumpeted the benefits for Thailand of Alibaba’s investment, particularly in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC). On the other hand, there are many likely impacts that should concern us, he said.

Once Alibaba’s e-commerce park is fully established in the EEC and connects markets in Thailand and China – and other CLMV markets – it would directly impact and disrupt the merchants and traders who have imported products from China by bypassing them.

More Chinese products will rapidly flow directly to Thai markets, and that also would affect local manufacturers and local importers, eventually leading to employment impacts and long-term changes to the country’s economy. The impact would be less in some areas of the economy, such as the manufacturing and distribution of products already popularly purchased online, including fashion and gadgets.

Next, retail businesses and department stores would be impacted from Alibaba’s arrival, as an increasing number of people would switch to online shopping. That could lead to market domination by the largest and first online retailer – Alibaba.

“That’s especially true, as Alibaba plans to invest in infrastructure and that gives it a large competitive advantage. Of key importance to e-commerce business is warehousing and fulfilment – which Alibaba is hastily developing,” said Pawoot.

Disruption will reach beyond e-commerce and retail to other interlocking businesses, including banking, logistics and other local industries. Since Alibaba has a lot of products and services that go beyond the e-commerce that most people are aware of, it is able to offer financial and insurance services through “big data” monetisation.

However, Pawoot said, Thailand could also expect many good impacts from Alibaba’s investment starting with the direct impacts of the investment itself such as construction. Other positive impacts include encouraging the Thai e-commerce industry, helping Thailand become a hub of product distribution through CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam) markets, a potential increase in Thai products exported to China, and improving the skills and performance of some local entrepreneurs.

On the issue of whether goods are “Made on the Internet” or “Made in China”, Pawoot noted that Jack Ma leans toward “Made on the Internet”. The reality, however, is that products are made in China and then flow through Internet transactions and to the Thai market.

“There are differences between Chinese and Japanese investments,” said Pawoot. “Japanese investors come to invest in building production plants and create jobs and employment in Thailand, and Thailand becomes a manufacturing base to produce products to sell to the global market.

“Meanwhile, Chinese investors come to invest in building infrastructure including logistics, warehouses, and fulfilment with the aim to easily and rapidly bring Chinese products to Thailand and CLVM markets. Thailand gets different impacts based on the difference in investment styles between Japanese and Chinese investors,” said Pawoot.

Therefore, the Thai government should carefully consider all aspects of the impacts from Alibaba’s investments and should give more support to Thai e-commerce, he said. He hopes the government does not favour a Chinese business over local businesses, given that Alibaba aims to help Chinese business to easily tap into Thai and CLMV markets.

Given the sheer number of products manufactured in China, government needs to be concerned about the balance of trade between China and Thailand, said Pawoot.

Alibaba’s investment in the EEC should be seen as both an opportunity and a threat to local business and industry, said Krating Poonpol, the founder of Disrupt University and co-fund manager of 500 TukTuk.

The opportunity is limited to SMEs that export to China’s market, he said, but the threat is for almost all local business. Instantly, the middleman and importers of products from China will be bypassed.

“More Chinese products will fly to the Thai market than Thai products will be exported to the Chinese market. It probably will lead to a trade deficit,” said Krating.

E-commerce, logistics, and payment sectors would be impacted. Once Alibaba has established its logistics infrastructure in Thailand, it would have a lot of data about Thai people through their online shopping activities. It could then monetise that data to give it a competitive advantage over Thai players across all businesses, not only e-commerce and logistics but also payments and ride-sharing, and then financial, banking and insurance.

The Thai government should consider supporting and promoting local e-commerce. They could do that with policies that stimulate creation of Thai e-commerce players as well as the key players in other business areas.

“There is opportunity but a large threat, so we need to understand the game of Alibaba. And use Alibaba to attract other giant players such as Tencent, Amazon, and JD to invest in Thailand to balance out the power of each other,” said Krating.

When asked about the Thai start-up ecosystem, Krating said that only a few start-ups have the opportunity to be acquired into Alibaba’s ecosystem, while the rest who compete with Alibaba would disappear.

Meanwhile, Natavudh Pungcharoen-pong, founder and CEO of Ookbee, noted that Alibaba brought Lazada to Thailand a while back, and this latest investment is their next step as well as their future expansion.

“It’s the right move for them. For Thai businesses, I think if you are SMEs, you probably want to use their infrastructure to help expand your business. If you are in retail, or if your business is threatened by them, I think you probably have to start looking into how to adapt to coexist with their business,” said Natavudh.

He added that though Alibaba is the biggest in Thailand now, they are not alone in the e-commerce ecosystem. The adaptability of local businesses will tell who will survive and thrive in the long run.

Siwat Luangsomboon, assistant managing director, Kasikorn Research Centre, said that those Thai SMEs that are able to create more value-addition to their products and tap the China or global market, will benefit from Alibaba’s platform. On the other hand, SMEs that produce simple products will be impacted since they will be unable to compete with Chinese products.

“The middle-man will be immediately and directly impacted, since Chinese products will go directly to Thai consumers,” said Siwat.

It is not only middle-men and e-commerce businesses that will be affected. Financial services will also be impacted given that it is another core business of Alibaba. Once its business is licensed in Thailand, Alibaba’s financial services will affect local non-bank providers. On the other hand, SMEs would benefit.

Thana Thienachariya, senior executive vice president and chief marketing officer of Siam Commercial Bank, said that the impact is that settling for being average “is over”. Alibaba’s presence creates more opportunity for SMEs to sell into China’s market.

Conversely, if they do not make changes, the middle-men will disappear. But overall, the country is likely to end up more competitive and Thailand will be on the world map in an outstanding era, he said.

Under this partnership, agencies of the Thai government and business units of Alibaba will work closely in a number of areas, including e-commerce, digital logistics, tourism and training.

The partnership represents the strengthening of collaboration between the Alibaba Group and the Thai government following the signing of a letter of intent in 2016, a move that kick-started a series of joint efforts to bolster the capacity of Thai entrepreneurs in gaining access to new markets and taking advantage of digital innovations.

Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said that the strategic cooperation with Alibaba would bring benefits to Thai small and medium enterprises and farmers as well as to the tourism industry, while pushing forward digital economic development in Thailand.

Jack Ma, executive chairman and co-founder of Alibaba Group, said that China is on its way to becoming the world’s largest consumer market, driven by rising income and a growing middle class that now numbers 300 million.

There is no better time than now for trade-oriented countries to seize the opportunity to export to China, as the country continues to open its doors wider to global trade, Ma said. Quality Thai agricultural products such as fragrant rice, durian and other tropical fruit are particularly sought after by the Chinese consumer.

Key initiatives:

First, establishment of a Smart Digital Hub in the Easter Economic Corridor (EEC) to support cross-border trade with China and other markets.

Alibaba’s smart digital logistics business, Cainiao Network, will establish a Smart Digital Hub in the EEC. The hub will utilise Alibaba and Cainiao’s data and logistics technologies and processes to optimise the cross-border flow of goods between Thailand and China, as well as with other markets. Cainiao will also work closely with the EEC Office and Thailand Customs to promote the digitisation of customs processes through technologies such as “big data” and artificial intelligence, as well as sharing global best practices. The Smart Digital Hub will be an open platform enabled to provide services to all players in Thailand’s digital economy.

The Smart Digital Hub is expected to be built starting this year, with operations expected to commence in 2019.

Second, equipping SMEs with e-commerce skills.

Alibaba Group said it would continue its efforts to connect Thai SMEs to Alibaba’s 500 million active users in the Chinese e-commerce market. Other global e-commerce opportunities will roll out through a partnership between the Thai Ministry of Industry’s Department of Industrial Promotion (DIP), the Thai Commerce Ministry’s Department of International Trade Promotion (DITP) and the Alibaba Business School – an accredited university founded by Alibaba Group and Hangzhou Normal University.

Under this training collaboration, SMEs across Thailand, including SMEs in rural areas and individual entrepreneurs, would have the opportunity to gain e-commerce knowledge and skills to start e-businesses and leverage the Internet to develop their business online.

Third, training Thai digital talent.

Under the collaboration with DIP and DITP, the Alibaba Group also plans to develop Thai talent for the digital-economy era.

The Alibaba Business School would work with both government departments to develop and update effective strategies for talent development in Thailand, while also providing students and academics from this country with opportunities to take part in various academic exchanges and courses offered by the business school in Hangzhou, China. Resources and expertise from the Alibaba Business School would also be made available to the DIP and DITP for localisation and further use in Thailand.

Fourth, cooperating in developing “smart” and digital tourism.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand will expand cooperation with Alibaba’s online travel business, Fliggy, which is one of China’s leading online travel service providers.

The cooperation will focus on support for smart and digital tourism in Thailand.

As an official strategic partner of TAT, Fliggy will work with the body to offer smart technological experiences at multiple facilities and tourist attractions across Thailand for the convenience of visitors – ranging from online tour guides to electronic ticketing systems.

Fliggy and Ant Financial, Alibaba Group’s affiliate and operator of Alipay, are also in active discussions with various related government agencies to drive a digital transformation of Thai tourism. The holistic change would start from applications for pre-departure visas and “visas on arrival”, through to payment of post-travel digital services and the tourist tax refund via the Alipay system. It is expected that the strong collaboration between Alibaba Group and Thai government will help attract more Chinese travellers to Thailand and increase the nation’s tourism income.

Fifth, creating an official Thai rice flagship store on Tmall.

Alibaba and the Thai Commerce Ministry have together launched the first official Thai rice flagship store on Tmall, the world’s largest third-party platform for brands and retailers.

Alibaba will also help drive the sale of popular Thai fruit, such as durian, into China. Alibaba and the ministry will work together to drive the growth of Thai rice and other agricultural product exports to build an area of strength in the Thai economy and position Thailand globally. Alibaba will also assist Thai agricultural businesses to harness the power of Alibaba’s unique insights into the Chinese consumer market.

We all suspect that robots are taking people’s jobs. They are precise, efficient and they don’t get tired or emotional. Many research studies have found that robots are already replacing human workers at an alarming rate and the labour market is at risk of being mechanised out of existence. Even a high-profile job like financial adviser is at very high risk due to “the rise of robo-advisers”.

In recent years, “robo-advisors” have been getting a lot of media attention and received tremendous interest from investors everywhere, especially from those in the western hemisphere. The business of automated, algorithm-based investment planning and advice is the latest disruption in the wealth management industry – and it has caused a stir in the US as it is deemed to be about to change the face of the industry forever.

The first disruption in the wealth management industry began in 1975 when the US Security and Exchange Commission decided to abolish fixed commission fees on stock trading. Thereafter, retail investment began to flourish with the arrival of discount brokers (eg, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade) offering low-cost trading at the expense of reduced support. Since then, various value-added services (eg, research papers, tools, personalised advice) were offered only to high-net-worth clients of traditional full-service firms (eg, Merrill Lynch), while the remainder of investors were usually left out.

The industry was primed for a second disruption in 2008 with the arrival of robo-advisers, which leverage the efficiency of automation and the convenience of the Internet.

At their core, robo-advisers rely on algorithms – a set of rules that lead to creation of a portfolio or investment strategy with the aim of maximising expected return based on each investor’s financial goal and risk tolerance.

Fees collected on robo-advisory service are significantly lower than from human advisers and even lower than fees on some traditional mutual funds since the service requires very minimal human involvement. The emergence of robo-advisers makes accessible to most investors the high-quality personalised advice that had previously been uneconomical for them using human advisers.

Wealthfront and Betterment were among the early companies paving the way for the growth of robo-advisers in the US. They were built based on Modern Portfolio Theory, which posits that “individual security selection is not as important as proper asset allocation”. Both platforms constructed what they saw as the most suitable investment portfolio based on an initial questionnaire filled in by each customer. It would then allocate the money among different asset classes and rebalance each portfolio periodically. The return from each client’s portfolio would vary depending on each investor’s risk profile and requirements. Inputting a risk-averse investor’s investment, and a risk-savvy investor’s investment, into the same robo-adviser would ultimately yield totally different returns due to a different mix of asset classes.

Upon witnessing the huge financial success of Wealthfront, Betterment and other independent robos, major banks, asset managers and brokerage firms began to follow suit and offering robo-advisers to their clients. They first developed in-house programmes, then turned to mergers and acquisitions, and partnerships to reduce the time to market. Robo-advisers in the US have experienced amazing growth of 500 per cent from 2014 to 2017.

The robos are now managing over $100 billion (Bt3.13 trillion) worth of assets and it is expected that they will soon be managing as much as 10 per cent of assets by 2025.

In Thailand, the robo-adviser movement has only just begun. There are only a handful of players in the market, with investors only recently becoming aware of the option and trying out some of the products. As it grows in popularity, it will soon enough be a threat to traditional financial advisers. As people’s financial literacy grows, along with the size of the middle class, it seems almost certain that huge demand will emerge for high-quality and highly customised investment advice at a lower cost.

Thanapong Na Ranong is managing director at Beacon VC. Pitchapa Sukavanich is business incubation manager at Beacon VC.

Without much consideration most of us probably opt for Google Translate but it’s capabilities to translate Thai to English can be patchy at best.

But now Microsoft has just announced a massive update to its Translator app on iOS and Android, which could finally bring competent Thai to English translations to your smartphone.

The new update sees Microsoft Translator support a host of new languages, including Thai, as well as improvements to its machine learning algorithm, which the firm says will help to improve the accuracy of translations by 23 percent.

The update also adds an offline mode, meaning no internet or data connection is needed, and which could come in handy if you travel to foreign country or are even somewhere in Thailand without connectivity.

What’s also significant about the update is that Microsoft says it will bring its sophisticated algorithms that power its Translator app to any smartphone.

Previously, the feature had only been available on high end smartphones that have a dedicated AI chip. But now the new neural translation feature, which the firm says provides more human like translations, is available to anyone who uses the latest version of Microsoft Translator [version 3.2.0], regardless of what smartphone you use.

“Microsoft Translator has added new capabilities that allow users and developers to get artificial intelligence-powered translations whether or not they have access to the Internet, Microsoft said in a blog post.

“The new capabilities allow both end-users and third-party app developers to have the benefit of neural translation technology regardless of whether the device is connected to the cloud or offline.

“When using the Microsoft Translator app, end users can now download free AI-powered offline packs.”

Microsoft Translator allows you to download the language packs for 44 languages that can be used in the offline mode.

However, only 11 of these support the neural machine translation, which Microsoft says is more human like and more accurate.

Fortunately, Thai is one of the 11 languages supported along with Arabic, Chinese Simplified, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. The new update is available on Android now and will be on iOS after April 21. Support for Windows Phone will be added soon, Microsoft said.

On Wednesday, the police questioned Facebook Indonesia public policy head Ruben Hattari at the force’s headquarters, in their first attempt to shed light on the case. It remains unclear, however, if the ongoing probe could ever lead to criminal charges against Facebook or its representatives here.

Below is what we know so far about the Facebook scandal in Indonesia:

What is the data-breach scandal about?

The Facebook data-breach scandal refers to the data harvesting by a third party, political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica (CA). CA harvested data and used it for marketing or political campaigning, allegedly helping US President Donald Trump win his presidency. CA was also contracted by one of Indonesia’s major political parties in 1999. While Facebook also harvests its users’ data and monetizes the data to run advertisements on its platform, Facebook does not sell the data to advertisers, as confirmed by founder Mark Zuckerberg during a recent US Congress hearing on the matter.

CA managed to harvest the data through two University of Cambridge academics, Aleksandr Kogan and Michal Kosinski. Kogan initially created “This is Your Digital Life” for research purposes, the personality test app was downloaded by 270,000 people but also collected the data of the downloaders’ friends, boosting this number to 87 million users, 1 million of whom were Indonesians.

This is why the Facebook-CA data breach is scandalous: Kogan’s app collected users’ data without their permission and the data was improperly sold to a third party.

How big is Facebook in Indonesia?

As quoted by Kompas.com, Indonesia has the fourth-highest number of Facebook users in the world. As of January, there were 130 million accounts on the social network, or 6 percent of the total global users. The cities with the most active users in Indonesia are Bekasi in West Java with 18 million accounts and Jakarta with 16 million accounts. This makes Indonesia the country with the most Facebook users in Southeast Asia.

How influential is Facebook in Indonesian elections?

Social media was largely to blame for polarizing Indonesians during the 2014 presidential election and the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, with Facebook and Twitter being the biggest platforms and therefore most influential. However, this had more to do with hoaxes and hate speech than data harvesting.

Some politicians have admitted to relying on social-media data for their campaigns, but it is unclear how sophisticated and widespread their use of social media data has been.

Conversations regarding the elections dominated the Facebook and Twitter news feed in 2014 and peaked in 2016. Since late 2017, the National Police have caught two syndicates allegedly responsible for creating and spreading hoaxes and inciting hate speech, Saracen and the Muslim Cyber Army.

Both groups, which used fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter in their operations, were critical of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and may have been organized to undermine him ahead of the 2019 presidential election.

Do the police have a strong case against Facebook Indonesia?

At this point, the answer is no. The investigation is still in its preliminary stage.

Ruben confirmed that Wednesday’s questioning by the police revolved around the alleged data breach, but stopped short of confirming whether he was questioned in an investigation of a criminal case built by the police.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Setyo Wasisto declined to disclose details of the questioning, and instead complained about the lack of cooperation on Facebook’s side in combating radical content on the social-media site.

On Thursday, National Police chief detective Comr. Gen. Ari Dono Sumanto made it clear the police were still investigating whether there was a crime in the data-breach scandal. He admitted that they had not found a single person claiming to have suffered losses from the data breach, or even claimed to have had their data stolen.

What are the possible charges against Facebook?

Data privacy is uncharted territory in Indonesia. There is no data protection law in the country, although a bill is expected to be passed this year. The bill has been in the 2015-2019 Prolegnas since 2016, but there has been no progress in the deliberation of the draft law.

The closest thing to data privacy protection is Communications and Information Ministerial Regulation No. 20/2016, but there is only a series of administrative penalties for individuals accused of misusing personal data harvested online. The regulation has no stipulation regarding penalties for corporations accused of stealing personal information.

The 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, which is focused on curbing hate speech and hoaxes, does not specifically cover personal data protection.

A member of staff at the Communications and Information Ministry, however, has claimed that the ITE law could still be used to press charges against Facebook.

Article 26 of the law stipulates that “the use of electronic information on an individual’s personal data should be approved by the said individual.” Article 30 of the law further states that “illegally accessing information belonging to other people” is punishable by eight years’ imprisonment.

Human rights activist Wahyudi Jafar says that Facebook could be charged with interception as stipulated in Article 31 of the amended ITE law. The crime is punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment or a Rp 5 billion (US$362,287) fine.

“But it won’t be easy to prove this,” he says.

 While working towards that goal, the Chinese technology giant expects to post revenue growth of 50 per cent for its smartphones by the end of 2018.

Tossaporn Nisthanon, deputy country director of Huawei Consumer Business Group (Thailand), said that the premium smartphone market – for models from Bt15,000 – still has room for growth.

The company is coming out with two new flagship models: the Huawei P20 at Bt19,990 and the P20 Pro at Bt27,990.

The two smartphones are especially suitable for photography, according to DxOMark standards. The P20 series will officially hit the Thai market today. The P20 will be available in pink, gold, midnight blue and black. The P20 Pro comes in twilight, midnight blue and black.

“I think that the premium smartphone market in the country is still continuing to grow since it able to meet the demands and lifestyle of customers,” said Tossaporn. “The premium market accounts for around 30 per cent of the total smartphone market in Thailand.

“We will also boost the premium smartphone market via online channels with three strategic partners, the Lazada, Shopee and 11Street online e-commerce channels.

“We have also provided mobile application to create promotion campaigns to support mobile customers. We see online channel as being part of a long-term strategy to support our business.”

He said the firm by the end of this year expects to have doubled its sales of premium smartphones. With such growth, it would rank No 2 in the premium market.

As part of its sales growth plans, the firm will set up more than 140 Brand Shops by the end of this year to drive its smartphone business in the country.

“This year, we will go ahead at full steam to tap deeper into all segments of Thailand’s smartphone market” said Tossaporn.

“We will make smartphones available across all price ranges. This means were are continuing to offer models for the mass market to satisfy the needs of the entry and mid-level markets.”

New Release Accelerates Workflows for Color, Graphics, Animation and Audio with Adobe Sensei

The announcement was made at the 2018 NAB Show and the updates, which are now available, include powerful new capabilities for refining color, creating graphics and crafting audio, along with enhanced VR tools, improved collaboration, integration with Adobe Stock and advanced artificial intelligence powered by Adobe Sensei.

With the growing demand for video, the opportunity for content creators has never been greater, but video professionals are faced with new pressure to deliver more work in less time while ensuring content stands out and meets high audience expectations. In addition, creators must optimize for different platforms, ensure accessibility, meet required broadcast standards and deliver numerous versions of content across languages and regions. This tremendous shift in the way video professionals work requires more refined and streamlined workflows to reduce time to production, giving video creators more time to focus on their craft, Adobe said in a press statement.

“The demands and pace of video content creation are reaching levels we’ve never seen before. The time pressure on video professionals means the need for powerful and efficient creative tools has never been greater,” said Steven Warner, vice president of digital video and audio at Adobe. “Adobe video apps like Premiere Pro and After Effects give them that power which, combined with the services available in Creative Cloud, provides broadcasters, media companies, filmmakers and YouTubers a complete ecosystem to bring their stories to screen faster than ever.”

Ranging from Hollywood to Sundance, feature films to premium television channels, a growing number of industry-leading professional editors are using Adobe Premiere Pro CC to bring their creative visions to life. Projects that premiered this year include The Florida Project, The Square, Only the Brave and 6 Below; indie hits RBG, Clara’s Ghost and Search; and award-winning series MINDHUNTER and Atlanta.

Attendees at this year’s NAB Show can get a closer look at the newly available features and hear from industry experts at the Adobe booth (#SL4610, South Hall in the Las Vegas Convention Center) and at over 140 partner booths from April 9–12

According to the press statement, new feature highlights include:

·         Edit more powerfully with color and light in Premiere Pro CC – Powered by Adobe Sensei, Color Match two shots with one click, applying editable Lumetri adjustments from one clip to another to achieve visual consistency in scenes and across whole projects. Compare shots using the new split-view.

·         Create animation and graphics more quickly in After Effects CC – Stacked behaviors and effects in combination with timeline-based animation now make the creative process more visual and intuitive. Apply changes to individual effects across multiple versions of a composition with a single adjustment using new Master Properties. Also, complex motions can be made to any surface mesh with the new Advanced Puppet tool.

·         Sound even better with Sensei-powered audio workflows – Automatically adjust soundtrack audio around dialog, whether for a single clip or an entire project, with Sensei-enabled autoducking, now available in Adobe Premiere Pro.

·         Bring art to life faster with Character Animator – Animate personas more quickly and efficiently with a library of behaviors and custom triggers.Drag layers from the Puppet panel into the Triggers panel to apply and refine existing behaviors or create new ones with intuitive new drop targets.

·         Add 360 degrees of creativity with improved tools for immersive content – Adobe Immersive Environment is now available in After Effects CC, simplifying the immersive workflow to move more efficiently through clean-up and effects tasks. New support for the Microsoft Windows Mixed Reality platform offers a wider range of headsets to choose the best tools for the job.

·         Collaborate more easily in Team Projects – For the ultimate in project collaboration, real-time presence shows when teammates are online and new badges indicate when a project has been updated.

·         Get content you need with Adobe Stock – With direct access to millions of curated HD and 4K videos, select clips for establishing shots, fill in the final gaps in projects or enrich storytelling with visual variety. Add sophistication and polish to video content with professionally designed Motion Graphics templates, including animated titling and lower thirds graphics with editable effects and text.

·         Learn panel for new users – Premiere Pro beginners now have a place to start with targeted tutorials that guide them through the foundational steps of video editing. The new Learn panel is just a click away whenever it’s needed.