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The Sennheiser MKH 416 shotgun microphone celebrates its golden jubilee this year

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Enjoy an anniversary discount on the all-time classic in April

SINGAPORE, April 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — One of Sennheiser’s most revered microphones, the MKH 416 P48 shotgun microphone, celebrates its golden jubilee this year! For 50 years, the MKH 416 has accompanied broadcasters, filmmakers, voice-over artists, and content creators; it has been used in studios and in the field. Mounted onto a boom pole, a stand or a camera, its job has been to stay outside the camera angle while gracefully capturing sound with clarity and impact. To celebrate its golden jubilee, this classic mic is offered at an anniversary discount at Alan Photo, Cathay Photo, City Music, Hung Brothers and Wailian Electronics. 

Time travelling to the 1970s

The name of Manfred Hibbing is firmly linked with this milestone product. When the young engineer joined Sennheiser, his first task was to design the MKH 416 P48 on the basis of the MKH 415 T. The MKH 416 was to be Sennheiser’s first phantom-powered (P48) shotgun microphone, while all previous models were AB-powered. In those days, AB powering was preferred in broadcast situations because of its resistance to ripple voltages, but phantom powering had become established in the studio.

50 years old but always up to date

Hibbing’s involvement was a stroke of luck for the MKH 416 RF condenser microphone, as he possessed ample expertise both in electroacoustics and in RF technology. In an interview in 2023, he said that optimising the interaction between the electroacoustic transducer and the electronic circuit had been his favourite task in designing the 416.

The long lifespan of the MKH 416 P48 fills the engineer with pride: “During all this time, the design of the MKH 416 was only revised in two instances: one was to make it suitable for SMD mounting, and the other to update it for a more advanced transducer technology.”

A standard in the studio and in the field – but why exactly?

One reason is that the MKH 416 operates on the RF condenser principle. In this context, RF (radio frequency) has nothing to do with wireless, but rather refers to the high-frequency voltage at the capsule and the associated electronics in the microphone. The huge advantage of this design is that it makes the condenser microphone resistant to humidity. Unlike “standard” condenser microphones, RF condenser models can be used outdoors, in hot and humid or cold and misty weather. MKH microphones have reliably recorded audio in a wide variety of challenging locations, from deserts, to the Arctic, to rain forests.

Another reason for the success of the MKH 416 is in its excellent directivity, which is the result of the acoustic interference principle on which it operates. The actual microphone capsule is combined with a so-called interference tube in front of it. This tube has regularly arranged slots, which are covered with fabric that has a certain acoustic impedance, and prevents reflections and standing waves inside the tube. If sound arrives directly from the front, the interference tube has no effect at all. But when sound enters the tube from the sides, it passes through different holes. This results in different path lengths to the transducer and thus different time delays. Depending on the angle of sound incidence, the sound components more or less cancel each other out. This effect increases at higher frequencies: Here, the microphone essentially picks up the sound coming from the front. This is particularly important for speech intelligibility as the decisive speech formants are recorded with less lateral interference at high frequencies than with standard microphones.

The longer the shotgun, the more this interference principle extends to lower frequencies. Unfortunately, the longer length also makes the microphone more difficult to handle. The MKH 416 is certainly so popular because, despite its short length, it offers an effective directionality. How this particular length came about is its own story, and that takes us back to its predecessor, the MKH 415 T…

The hacksaw and the microphone

In 1970, the newly designed MKH 415 shotgun microphone was the pride and joy of the Sennheiser development engineers. It was less sensitive to wind and pop noise, had greater resistance to handling noise, and excellent directivity. With the new microphone in his briefcase, an enthusiastic Dr. Griese, technical manager at Sennheiser, went off to visit radio and TV broadcasters.  The customers showed a great deal of interest in the new shotgun microphone – but couldn’t resist picking at it. They complained that the shotgun effect was so strong that you had to keep moving the microphone to follow the speaker around.

Dr. Griese listened to the comments for a while and then asked for a hacksaw. “How much directivity would you like?” he asked the amazed observers. And without batting an eyelid he proceeded to saw off a section of the microphone tube. The customers were stunned. Dr. Griese then tried out the shortened microphone once again and, to everyone’s amazement, it was perfect! From then on, the MKH 415 – and thus also the MKH 416 which followed its design – were highly successful as the preferred microphone for vocalists, film teams and reporters, with the specialist media being equally impressed by the “unusually short length” (Funkschau) of the shotgun mic.

Conclusion

“The MKH 416 remains a star of our shotgun microphones, even though we have launched younger models long since,” concludes product manager Kai Lange. “It’s just great to have such a legend in the portfolio, a versatile, long-life, high-performance microphone. The MKH 416 is a mic where everything was perfect from the start.”

The high-resolution images accompanying this media release can be downloaded here.

 

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SOURCE Sennheiser Electronic Asia Pte Ltd

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Safetyfirst Systems, LLC Provides Notice of Data Security Event

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PARSIPPANY, N.J., July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Safetyfirst Systems, LLC (“SFS”) is providing notice of a data security event that may involve information relating to certain individuals. While SFS is not aware of any misuse of information associated with this event, it is providing notice to potentially affected individuals out of an abundance of caution.

On January 19, 2026, SFS identified suspicious activity involving a limited portion of its server environment. Upon discovering the activity, SFS quickly took steps to secure its systems, notified federal law enforcement, engaged leading third-party forensic specialists, and performed a detailed investigation into the nature, scope, and impact of the activity. The investigation determined that an unauthorized actor accessed and/or acquired certain files from limited SFS systems between January 16, 2026, and January 19, 2026. SFS then conducted a comprehensive review of the affected files to determine what information may have been involved and identify the individuals to whom the information relates. The review has recently concluded, and SFS is providing this notification to potentially impacted individuals out of an abundance of caution. Although the types of information vary by individual, the affected information may include names, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license numbers.

Protecting the privacy and security of the information entrusted to SFS is a responsibility the company takes very seriously. In response to this event, SFS promptly strengthened security measures, continues to enhance its technical safeguards and monitoring capabilities, and is reviewing existing policies and procedures to further protect against similar incidents in the future. SFS is also providing notice to potentially affected individuals and, where required, appropriate regulatory authorities.

Although SFS is unaware of any misuse of personal information impacted by this event, individuals are encouraged to remain vigilant against events of identity theft by reviewing account statements, explanation of benefits, and monitoring free credit reports for suspicious activity and to detect errors. Any suspicious activity should be reported to the appropriate insurance company, health care provider, or financial institution.

Individuals seeking additional information regarding this event can contact SFS’s dedicated assistance line at 1-833-289-5523 between the hours of 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern time, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. Individuals may also write to SFS at PO Box 101, 3299 US Highway 46, Parsippany, NJ 07054-9998.

 

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/safetyfirst-systems-llc-provides-notice-of-data-security-event-302831894.html

SOURCE Safetyfirst Systems, LLC

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Sunrate and Mastercard Release White Paper on Agentic AI and the Future of B2B Global Payments

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SHANGHAI, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Sunrate, the global payment and treasury management platform, and Mastercard, a global technology company in the payments industry, unveiled a joint white paper, Beyond Automation: Defining Agentic Global Payments, at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC).

Among the first reports in the payments industry to examine the impact of Agentic AI on B2B cross-border payments, the white paper provides a comprehensive framework for understanding how AI agents are reshaping enterprise payment operations. It proposes that cross-border payments are evolving beyond digitisation and automation into a new stage: Autonomy—where AI agents with reasoning, planning, and execution capabilities can independently orchestrate and optimise end-to-end payment and treasury workflows within defined governance frameworks.

As businesses expand across borders, B2B cross-border payments continue to be constrained by fragmented workflows, disconnected systems, foreign exchange inefficiencies, rising compliance requirements, and complex reconciliation processes. While traditional automation improves individual tasks, the white paper demonstrates that Agentic AI represents a fundamental shift by enabling intelligent agents to coordinate entire payment journeys across systems, counterparties, and approval workflows.

Drawing on Sunrate’s global payment infrastructure and AI-native product capabilities, together with Mastercard’s expertise in secure payment networks and data intelligence, the white paper defines Agentic Global Payments — a new category of AI-native global payment infrastructure built to automate and manage complex enterprise workflows.

The report identifies 16 major pain points across the B2B payment lifecycle and outlines 13 high-value AI use cases spanning supplier onboarding, accounts payable and receivable, virtual commercial cards, payment routing, foreign exchange management, compliance screening, fraud detection, reconciliation, and conversational operational support. It also demonstrates how AI agents can automate complex workflows—from extracting information across multiple document formats and conducting compliance checks to initiating payments, optimising FX execution, and completing reconciliation—while operating within enterprise governance and control frameworks.

The white paper further highlights that trusted adoption of agentic payments depends on more than technological capability. It identifies governance, transparency, security, and ecosystem collaboration as essential foundations for enterprise deployment, supported by frameworks such as Know Your Agent (KYA), payment tokenisation, auditability, and cross-industry interoperability.

Sunrate.AI portfolio currently includes the Payment Agent, FX Agent, Compliance Agent, Onboarding Agent, and Chat Agent, designed to help enterprises automate and optimise critical payment and treasury processes while maintaining compliance and operational control.

Mastercard has also been actively building the foundations for trusted agentic commerce – combining AI capabilities with verifiable authorisation, clear accountability and proven payments security. Its work in this area, including Agent Pay (alongside Agent Pay for Machines) and Verifiable Intent, are proof points in how Mastercard is enabling AI to participate in commerce safely and transparently. 

“Our mission is to make global payments seamless, compliant, and intelligent,” said Paul Meng, Co-founder and CEO of Sunrate. “As businesses continue expanding internationally, AI agents will fundamentally reshape how enterprises manage global payments—enabling smoother capital flows, reducing operational friction, and embedding real-time intelligence into every payment decision. This white paper represents an important step in helping the industry understand how Agentic AI can be deployed responsibly at enterprise scale.”

“Agentic commerce is changing how businesses make and execute payment decisions, but speed without accountability creates new categories of risk,” said Anouska Ladds, Executive Vice President, Commercial & New Payment Flows, Asia Pacific, Mastercard. “As AI starts to act on behalf of businesses, autonomous payment decisions need a clear, auditable chain of identity, intent and action. That’s what allows organisations to delegate with genuine confidence — and what will determine whether agentic commerce scales past pilots.”

Released under WAIC 2026’s theme, “Intelligent Partners, Co-creating the Future,” the white paper provides business leaders with practical guidance on adopting AI-driven payment capabilities, covering implementation approaches, governance considerations, and real-world enterprise applications.

By combining Sunrate’s expertise in global payments and treasury management with Mastercard’s trusted payment infrastructure and network capabilities, the collaboration reflects a shared commitment to accelerating the next generation of intelligent, secure, and autonomous B2B global payments.

Click here to check the white paper.

About Sunrate

Sunrate is a leading global payment and treasury management platform for businesses worldwide. Founded in 2016, Sunrate has enabled companies to operate and scale both locally and globally in 190+ countries and regions with its cutting-edge infrastructure, global network, and unified solutions.

Sunrate operates through offices across key markets, including Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and London. The company partners with the top global financial institutions, such as Citibank, Standard Chartered, Barclays, J.P. Morgan. Sunrate is also the principal member of Mastercard and Visa. To learn more about Sunrate, visit https://www.sunrate.com/.

About Mastercard

Mastercard powers economies and empowers people in 200+ countries and territories worldwide. Together with our customers, we’re building a resilient economy where everyone can prosper. We support a wide range of digital payments choices, making transactions secure, simple, smart and accessible. Our technology and innovation, partnerships and networks combine to deliver a unique set of products and services that help people, businesses and governments realize their greatest potential. 

www.mastercard.com

SOURCE Sunrate

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JAMS Launches AI for Enterprise Job Scheduling: JAX and JAMS MCP

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A new AI agent and an open-standard connector let IT teams query, diagnose, and manage automation in plain language, on the model they choose, with operational data able to stay onshore inside their own network

SYDNEY, July 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — JAMS Software, an orchestration solution for scheduled and event-driven automation, today announced the general availability of two AI capabilities for enterprise job scheduling: JAX, an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client, and JAMS MCP, a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard that brings JAMS into external AI coding tools. Both capabilities ship at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

Automation environments grow faster than the teams that run them. Jobs multiply across SQL Server, Azure Data Factory, Airflow, SAP, JDE, and Banner, and when one fails, finding the root cause often means searching several consoles at once, frequently outside business hours. At the same time, IT leaders carry pressure to adopt AI while staying accountable for where operational data goes. JAX and JAMS MCP close both gaps together.

Full details on how JAX and JAMS MCP work, including the control model behind every action, are available at jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

JAX is an AI agent that runs inside the JAMS Web Client. It finds jobs, troubleshoots failures, and answers how-to questions in plain language, with each response grounded in the JAMS user guide and checked against a built-in glossary. JAX acts only when a user asks it to. Reads flow freely, and every write action pauses for the user’s explicit approval before it runs. JAX does not learn between sessions, and conversations are not retained on the server.

JAMS MCP is a connector, built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, that brings JAMS into the AI tools engineering teams already use, including Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex. Users query jobs, investigate failures, and manage runs in plain language without leaving their tool.

Both capabilities run inside the customer’s own network and act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions. There is no elevated AI account: whatever a user cannot do in the JAMS interface, JAX and JAMS MCP cannot do on that user’s behalf. Every JAX and MCP operation is recorded in its own dedicated log, and changes made through the JAMS API land in the JAMS audit trail like any other change. Customers choose their own AI model, whether a commercial provider such as OpenAI or Anthropic or a model running entirely on their own hardware, and JAMS never trains on customer data. In the current release, neither feature edits or deletes a job, folder, schedule, or agent definition. For teams that need operational data to stay onshore, JAX runs on a local model entirely inside the customer’s own network, so nothing leaves at all.

“Adopting AI usually means giving something up, most often visibility into where your data goes,” said Pete Hegland, Chief Executive Officer of JAMS Software. “We built JAX and JAMS MCP so that trade does not have to happen. Every action runs as the signed-in user, every change waits for approval, and the model can run on the customer’s own hardware, keeping operational data onshore.”

“For teams across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, two things matter: keeping data onshore, and getting answers when a job fails after hours,” said Shayne Cooper, Account Executive for APAC at JAMS Software. “JAX and JAMS MCP address both. The model can run on the customer’s own hardware, and the answer arrives in plain language at the moment it is needed.”

JAX and JAMS MCP are available now to all JAMS Web customers across Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore, with no separate licence, SKU, or additional cost. AI-assisted creation of new jobs and workflows from a plain-language description is on the roadmap for a future release, gated by the same approvals and permissions as every other action.

Learn how JAX and JAMS MCP work at https://jamsscheduler.com/product/ai.

Fast facts

JAX is an AI agent built into the JAMS Web Client for job scheduling and workflow automation.JAMS MCP is a connector built on the open Model Context Protocol standard, for Cursor, VS Code with Copilot, Claude Code, Claude Desktop, and Codex.Both act as the signed-in user, with that user’s exact JAMS permissions, and there is no elevated AI account.Customers choose the AI model, including a local model that runs entirely inside their own network.JAMS never trains on customer data.Both are available now at no additional cost as part of JAMS Web.

About JAMS Software
Founded in 1987, JAMS Software is an orchestration solution that helps IT teams centralize, automate, and manage scheduled and event-driven jobs across complex, hybrid environments. Over 850 customers rely on JAMS to run their automated workloads. JAMS Software, LLC is headquartered at 108 Patriot Drive, Suite A, Middletown, DE 19709.

Media Contact
Bobby Schmidt, Vice President of Marketing
press@jamssoftware.com
800.261.4267

 

 

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View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/jams-launches-ai-for-enterprise-job-scheduling-jax-and-jams-mcp-302833800.html

SOURCE JAMS Software

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