Digitalage Enters Controlled Production Deployment as Live Creator Broadcasting Begins and Newsroom OS Activates in TestFlight

TEMECULA, Calif., March 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hop-on, Inc. (OTC: HPNN), through its subsidiary Digitalage, today announced that its live streaming platform and Newsroom OS journalism intelligence system have entered controlled production deployment — with live creator broadcasting underway, enterprise newsroom access active in TestFlight, and the company’s full public platform launch approaching.

The announcement marks the conclusion of an intensive development phase spanning more than 100 platform iterations — a deliberate, disciplined build process that the company says distinguishes Digitalage from the wave of media technology platforms that have launched prematurely and retreated.

The infrastructure is production-grade. The software has been stress-tested. The economics are locked.

What remains is the controlled expansion of creator and newsroom access ahead of full public launch.

For investors tracking Hop-on, Inc. (OTC: HPNN), the significance of this milestone is precise: this is not a development update. It is the operational confirmation that both platforms are built, running, and entering the market on a defined timeline.

“We made a deliberate decision to build this right before we built it fast. More than 100 iterations means we know exactly what this platform does under real conditions — because we’ve tested it under real conditions. What we’re entering now isn’t a soft launch. It’s a controlled opening of something that was engineered to scale.”

— Peter Michaels, Co-Founder & CEO, Digitalage / Hop-on, Inc.

WHAT CONTROLLED PRODUCTION DEPLOYMENT MEANS

Controlled production deployment is the stage between completed development and full public launch — and it is the stage that separates technology companies that ship durable products from those that do not. During this phase, the platform operates under real conditions with a defined initial creator cohort, live broadcasting active, and real-time monitoring of every system under production load.

At Digitalage, that phase looks like this: the core infrastructure is running in production. Live creator broadcasting is active with the platform’s initial testing cohort. Newsroom OS is operating in Apple TestFlight with enterprise newsroom access underway. Every component has been validated across more than 100 development iterations — covering the live broadcast architecture, creator monetization systems, content certificate issuance, and the AI intelligence pipeline that powers Newsroom OS.

The controlled deployment phase serves a specific function: it ensures that when Digitalage opens access to the full creator and newsroom market, the platform performs at the standard the company has built toward — not the standard of whatever was ready on a given launch date. That discipline is intentional. It is also, in the company’s view, the primary reason the platform will hold its creator and institutional relationships once they are established.

LIVE CREATOR BROADCASTING: THE ECONOMICS THAT DRIVE IT

Creator broadcasting is active on the platform’s initial cohort, with programming running across independent news and civic commentary, financial and market coverage, sports discussion, and creator-hosted live broadcast formats. The programming environment reflects the platform’s core architectural premise: creators operate persistent live channels and structured programming schedules on their own terms, without algorithmic intermediation controlling visibility or distribution.

The economic model that makes this possible has no equivalent in live streaming. Creators on Digitalage retain 70 to 85 percent of revenue generated on the platform. The industry standard across major incumbents is approximately 45 to 55 percent. That difference is not a launch promotion. It is the permanent structural design of the platform — built into the architecture from the first line of code, not added afterward as a competitive response.

The live streaming market is projected to exceed $250 billion by 2029. The creator economy has already surpassed $500 billion in annual economic activity.

But the companies that capture the greatest enterprise value will not be those producing content. They will be the companies controlling the infrastructure layer beneath it.

That is the position Digitalage has been engineering toward through more than 100 development iterations.

NEWSROOM OS: TESTFLIGHT PRODUCTION ACTIVE

Newsroom OS, Digitalage’s enterprise journalism intelligence platform, is operating in Apple TestFlight production with initial enterprise media access underway. The platform provides journalists and newsrooms with a structured knowledge graph built from public records and municipal data, a real-time story intelligence engine that surfaces emerging civic stories ahead of general awareness, and an AI-assisted brief generation system that delivers verified, source-grounded reporting starting points without replacing the editorial judgment that gives reporting its credibility.

Every piece of content processed through Newsroom OS receives a cryptographic Content Certificate at publication — a W3C Verifiable Credential anchored to a public blockchain, recording the content fingerprint, reporter identity, publication timestamp, geographic anchor, and sourcing attestation level. The certificate cannot be retroactively altered. Any reader, editor, or regulator can verify it independently. That is what content provenance infrastructure means at the technical level — and it is why the system matters increasingly as AI-generated media accelerates questions about authenticity and origin.

More than 2,500 local newspapers have closed in the United States since 2005. The newsrooms that remain are operating with reduced staff, compressed timelines, and limited access to the research and verification infrastructure that serious journalism requires. Newsroom OS was built specifically for those organizations — and the TestFlight deployment currently underway is the final validation step before enterprise onboarding opens at scale.

THE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMING: INFRASTRUCTURE, NOT DESTINATION

Digitalage is being built as infrastructure, not a media destination. The company’s long-term strategy is to operate the technology layer that powers live creator broadcasting, newsroom intelligence, and verifiable content provenance across multiple markets. In this model, the platform itself becomes the operating system beneath digital media — enabling creators, journalists, and media organizations to publish, verify, and monetize content. Digitalage provides the infrastructure, the economic framework, and the IP foundation that powers the system.

THE IP FOUNDATION: BUILT TO LICENSE

Both platforms are supported by a growing portfolio of patent-pending technologies covering the live broadcast architecture, identity-verified publishing, content provenance systems, and the creator monetization framework. These are not defensive filings. They are the commercial core of a licensing strategy built by a team that has executed IP commercialization at this level before.

Hop-on, Inc. has completed IP licensing transactions totaling more than $100 million with Nokia, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Motorola, and other Fortune 500 companies. The patents now in prosecution for Digitalage’s platforms are being designed with the same commercialization architecture — built from the first claim draft to be licensable, defensible, and deployable at enterprise scale.

In a technology and media environment where content authenticity is contested, creator economics are a competitive battleground, and the infrastructure layer of live media remains unclaimed by any dominant platform — this IP portfolio is the long-term moat. The more than 100 iterations of platform development have produced not just production-ready software, but a documented technical record that strengthens every patent in the portfolio.

“The collapse of local journalism and the rise of the creator economy are not separate trends. They are two sides of the same transformation in how media is produced and distributed. We built the infrastructure for both — and we built it to last.”

— Peter Michaels, Co-Founder & CEO, Digitalage / Hop-on, Inc.

LOOKING AHEAD: WHAT FULL LAUNCH BRINGS

With controlled production deployment confirmed and both platforms validated under real operating conditions, Digitalage expects to announce expanded creator access, full public platform launch, and initial enterprise newsroom client agreements in the near term. The company also expects to schedule its first public live broadcast demonstration as the creator cohort expands beyond the current deployment phase.

Each of those announcements represents a discrete, documented milestone in the platform’s commercial buildout — and each will be reported as it occurs. For investors who have been watching this company build, the controlled deployment phase now underway is the last milestone before the market sees what Digitalage actually does at scale.

This is not a roadmap. It is an operational status report from a platform that is built, running, and opening.

ABOUT HOP-ON, INC. (OTC: HPNN)

Hop-on, Inc. (OTC: HPNN) is a U.S.-based technology holding company with a multi-decade record of innovation in electronics, distributed software, and telecommunications. Hop-on is the developer of the world’s first CDMA disposable cell phone — named TIME Magazine’s Invention of the Year — and holds secured essential license agreements across mobile and computing technologies. Through its subsidiary Digitalage, Hop-on is building live-first media infrastructure, content protection systems, newsroom intelligence technology, and creator economic infrastructure for the next generation of digital media.

ABOUT DIGITALAGE

Digitalage is a media technology company building infrastructure for the next generation of journalism and digital publishing. The company develops AI-powered tools and live-first platform systems designed to support creators, journalists, newsrooms, and independent media organizations with the verification, intelligence, and distribution infrastructure they need to operate with editorial credibility and financial sustainability. Both the Digitalage live streaming platform and Newsroom OS are patent-pending and currently in controlled production deployment.

Media & Investor Contact:

Peter Michaels, Chairman & CEO

Hop-on, Inc. / Digitalage

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this news release contain forward-looking information within the meaning of Rule 175 under the Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3B-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and are subject to the safe harbor created by those rules. All statements other than statements of fact, including statements regarding potential future plans and objectives of the company, are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-Looking Statements: -on.com/forward-looking-statements | SOURCE: Hop-on, Inc.