July 25th, 2006
You are currently browsing the articles from the VoIP Digest written on July 25th, 2006.
While Microsoft has been increasingly tip-toeing into open source via SourceForge projects, Shared Source licenses and Linuxlab, getting to this place where Open Source is no longer considered a pejorative by Microsoft has been a slow and deliberate process that must be massaged both internally and externally.At Microsoft, that massaging is an unwritten part of [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and Microsoft and OSCON 2006.
Calling Second Life a "virtual world" is selling their millions of devotees quite short. For so many, Second Life is an extension of this life. You know, the carbon-based- as opposed to the silicon-based- esistence.For Second Life database architect Ian Wilkes, the limitless life-mirroring possibilities of Second Life creates consistent challenges. In his presentation [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and OSCON 2006.
It must be hard being CEO of Craig's List, the online listings service that by several accounts is one of the ten-most trafficked Web property.You've got to fend off curious academics, pushy Realtors and co-location services that think you're being a bandwidth and power hog.Craig's List CEO Jim Buckmaster [...]
Written by Russell Shaw on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on General and OSCON 2006.
If you happen live in Northern California, (and most of you don’t,) then you might have noticed that after a few days of scorching heat, the climes have become a little cooler. More seasonal as they say. Why you can even see some fog on the horizon! That is also the state of the Internet stocks.
Yahoo disappoints, eBay balances (aka spins) and now Amazon’s earnings drop. Google, like daytime temperatures stay hot. Nevertheless, do you think this cold front coming the way of Internet stocks is going to last?
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized and Google and yahoo and ebay.
John Gruber, arguably one of the best writers on all things Mac puts Microsoft’s Zune under the microscope and says …
Is that not the epitome of metastatic corporate bureaucracy? One division within Microsoft spending $100 million or more to launch their own closed media player system; another division charged with lining up “partners” for the PlaysForSure platform that Microsoft’s own media player division deems not good enough. Isn’t that like inviting guests to your home for dinner and serving them hot dogs while you yourself eat a steak?
Michael Wolf of ABI Research recently emailed in response to my Zune post and added that Microsoft shouldn’t have taken the “closed model” approach of Apple. “Think if they were to let Real Networks and the MTV service and Napster sell onto the Zune as well,” he wrote in. “I think it would be a major incentive for the consumer. They can still say ‘we provide choice’ instead of ‘we’re doing what Apple is doing.’”
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Digital Music and Microsoft and Apple and iPod and zune.
Not to pound on the Rocketboom soap again but Amanda Congdon's
newest video blog is not funny and kind of sad. It makes you accept the reality Andrew Baron is Rocketboom's creative muse while Congdon was just the talent who was embraced by love-lorn bloggers.
Written by Mark Evans on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized and Main Page.
Don't know how many of you remember Sony's advertising with "Sony. No Baloney" as the tag line?
Don't know how many of you remember when Sony had it's headquarters in the warehouses of Queens, rather than a swanky building in NYC?
Anyway, while the company has taken hits on many fronts over the past few years, one thing remains intact -- the power of the Sony brand.
According to a recent Harris Poll reported in MarketWatch, the Sony brand was the top brand in the minds of U.S. consumers -- for the seventh consecutive year!
Dell was second, and electronics products (what they really meant were "gadgets") were represented in half of the top 10 positions.
www.marketwatch.com
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Sony Brand Is Tops (No Baloney)
Tags:
branding,
dell,
harris poll,
marketwatch,
sony
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Home Entertainment and sony and dell and branding and harris poll and marketwatch.
Brix Networks, a company who
makes monitoring tools to test VoIP networks, says that data collected
on their TestYourVoIP website indicates that users are rating 20
percent of nearly a million calls tested as being of poor quality. This
data spans 18 months.
My own experience is not substantial, but
I say quality is getting better, at least in newer softVoIP clients.
Over a year ago, I VoIPed a friend using MSN Messenger, which he was
also using. The call quality was terrible. Since then, I've either used
or briefly tested Jajah, Skype, and Talqer, all on the same laptop,
headphones, and cheapo $1 microphone. Talqer had the best call quality. And I'm using a wireless connection. Direct broadband connections would probably offer the best quality.
It
is of course to Brix' advantage to publish such disappointing findings.
And if I've understood the BusinessWire press release correctly, the
TestYourVoIP service is really measuring broadband quality, not actual
calls. So the data might in fact be misleading, considering that there
are a lot of other factors to consider in VoIP call quality testing.
What's your experience? Are you finding better quality? If you want to test your VoIP, try Brix Network's Google Gadget, which requires you to have Google Desktop Version 4 or higher.
Sources: ComputerWorld, BusinessWire [via FierceVoIP]
Written by ewriter on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Software and Networks and Services and Hardware.
It's funny how your never have enough storage on your computer. (It's like always wanting one more room in a house -- or at least one more closet.)
Now storage has become increasingly important for holding all of our new digital media files (music, photos, videos) as well as all of the other stuff on our computers.
It's also become increasingly important to back up all of our precious digital data -- and we all back up regularly, don't we?
(We don't?)
The easiest way to add storage is to add an external drive (much easier than opening up the "box" to poke around inside with slots, cables, static electricity, etc.). WIth that in mind, the NewerTech miniStack v2 features up to 500 gigabytes (GB) of high-speed bootable storage; integrated, powered FireWire and USB 2.0 hubs; intelligent thermal monitoring; and auto power convenience with manual engagement option.
The award-winning box works with any Mac, PC, or Linux computer with an available FireWire or USB port. (Probably best with the Mac Mini -- exact footprint, design engineering and color.)
Features include:
- USB port and FireWire port located on the left side for more convenient connections
- USB 2.0 High-Speed 3-Port Hub
- FireWire 1394A 3-Port Repeater/Hub
- Switch for Firewire or USB hard disk mode
- Smart interactive cooling system with thermal probe automatically regulating fan speed
- Massive passive heat sink to radiate heat away from hard drive
- Smart power switch (powers up and down in tandem with Mac Mini
- Special micro security slot designed to allow it to be anchored to a desk
Pre-configured solutions also include EMC Retrospect Backup and Intech HD Speedtools.
New pricing for the NewerTech miniStack V2 250 GB unit is $189. The miniStack V2 also is available without a hard drive in a 0GB "Add Your Own Hard Drive" enclosure kit for $79.95.
www.NewerTech.com
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: NewerTech miniStack v2 Goes Large
Tags:
external storage,
ministack v2,
newertech
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Computer Hardware and external storage and ministack v2 and newertech.
According to comScore [via TechCrunch
and others], it appears that the Google Talk IM does not have all that
many users. Google Talk is a distant fourth in the list of IM clients.
The top three spots are taken by MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and
AIM. We're not talking total number of downloads, just number of users.
These
numbers indicate that, as of May 2006, there are only just over 339
million IM users of all flavours, out of over 900 million Internet
users worldwide. MSN is at the top with about 60% of the market and
Google Talk has only 1%.
The numbers appear to be for text IMs only. Consider that for Skype, I've been numbers like 250 million (PDF, 1 page) and 280 million downloads, and 100 million
registered users (which was passed in early May 2006). Google is
nowhere close to neither Skype nor the top text IM clients. Note: the
TechCrunch article points out that the comScore numbers do not include
the embedded version of GTalk within GMail. Some GMail users apparently
prefer to use the native IM.
Some of the above IMs (in fact, possibly all - I don't know much about AIM) have direct VoIP (PC-to-PC) capability. Windows Live Messenger and the latest Yahoo! Messenger now have VoIP ability as well.
Regardless, the numbers suggest that Skype has to be able to keep up, especially with the announced IM alliance
between Microsoft and Yahoo! When their respective IM's become
compatible, together they'll have over 83% of the IM market (using
current numbers).
With that kind of market share, don't have to swallow their pride and use the open source Jabber/XMPP,
but it sure would be nice. That's what Google, Trillian, and several
other lesser-known IMs use. Can you imagine an Internet where you can
choose your fave IM/ VoIP soft client and connect to anyone? Skype,
MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk.... Nice.
As for Michael Arrington's suggestion (at TechCrunch) that Google come up with a strategy to grab more market share, I recommend they buy Vozin Communications. Their Talqer soft client turns Google Talk into a true VoIP client.
From
my point of view, once all the technical kinks are worked out of VoIP
services, including e911 and improved call quality, every person on
Earth who uses a phone will be using a straight or hybrid VoIP phone or
soft client. If they were to all become intercompatible, then these
usage numbers might be perceived as meaningless - especially by the
marketing engines of the larger companies. This would be a reason for
them not to work towards compatibility. Too bad, because we could use
more IM/VoIP network intercompatibility.
Aside: If you do a Google Search for "how many Skype users worldwide", you can see how fast Skype downloads increased in 2005. Or you could read Jean Mercier's post at SkypeJournal
(about downloads in the US and Canada), which suggests that the number
of downloads needs to be filtered for previous users who were upgrading
one or more times since they first downloaded Skype.
Written by ewriter on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Software and Standards and Services.
On a day when most normal people would head to the beach, yours truly decided to head down to the sprawling GooglePlex, in Mountain View. This past Friday driving down Highway 101, you could feel that it would be the kind of day when the mercury would rise to record levels. Still, the prospect of getting a five-hour briefing from one of the more interesting technology companies was too alluring to pass up.
Most of the briefings were meant to be on background, but observations are for public consumption. Enduring the heat, and leaving the comfort of my double-screen deluxe digs, the biggest thing that was on my mind was – is there a method to the madness that is Google (GOOG)?
You can read about a company, you can chat with executives, and you can talk as much as you want with the analysts, but in the end it boils down to spending time, experiencing and observing company executives in their natural habitat. Similar visits to Yahoo (YHOO) (and other Silicon Valley giants) have helped form opinions about those companies.
So what mysteries did GooglePlex behold? Would it be a tightly scripted, public relations exercise, where one would have to read between the lines? Or would be it be a candid chat that would answer some of the tougher questions?
The inner cynic inside me screamed – dude, you are going to get lot of spin. As I walked towards Building 43, my initial thoughts focused on the sheer size and scope of the company, and what it must be doing to the chefs who dream up dazzling dishes for the Googlers! Not to mention the links in the chain of command!
Before the daydreaming got out of control, I ran into Chris De Bona, the open source evangelist at Google. A quick hello, a cup of black coffee, and soon I was chatting with Matt Cutts, one of Google’s software gurus
“When we were small, it was helpful to be very secretive, and it got into the corporate culture,” said Cutts, in response to my observation about this newfound openness (not that there is anything wrong with it) at a company he has worked for nearly six years. “I think we are talking more about our products now.”
Cutts explained some of the recent work Google has done in search, and its future plans. Cutts also pointed out that as the web grows in size and scope, Google is growing its infrastructure – both software and hardware – and growing with the web, improving its search results, making the crawl process faster. “In 2003, we used to crawl the web once a month, and now we update everything in two to three days,” he said. Some day, perhaps it will be hours, and then minutes.
(I wonder if we could come up with what could be an equivalent of Moore’s Law of Search, that could quantify the size of the web index, and how it correlates to bandwidth, storage and processing cycles.)
A nagging question, perhaps a tad too simplistic, I wanted an answer for — the impact of AJAX on search results. AJAX seems just the kind of thing that could outfox the crawlers. Cutts did agree that the AJAX was making life tougher for crawlers, and it was one of the areas Google was devoting a lot of its attention and time. “We are spending a lot of time on doing better analysis of JavaScript,” he said.
Cutts left me pondering about the importance of search to Google, and how it was still the brains behind the entire show. Following him were folks spearheading the Google WiFi division, Google Talk, Google Finance and Google Checkout. Their thoughts would surely find their way into posts on those topics, but it was head of Google Checkout, Benjamin Ling who brought home the real truth about Google – it is all about advertising and always has been.
He explained that if you spend $1,000 on the Google ad network, Google Checkout would process $10,000 worth of transactions for free. The more you spend on ads, the more transaction fee savings you get. “It will hyper accelerate our system,” he said. And with a twinkle in his eye, he said, “We make all our money on advertising.” Just like GMail that creates ad-inventory, and so will other little features that may or may not find mass adoption.
Five hours later, as I walked out of GooglePlex, I am more convinced than ever before - its all about search and advertising. Rest is just that … rest!
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Google and yahoo.
MySpace, the largest social network in the world went dark this past weekend, thanks to a large-scale blackout in downtown Los Angeles, according to company officials. The outage that left nearly 80-million users without access to their pages for a few hours, has galvanized MySpace’s corporate parent, Fox Interactive Media into spending more and building redundancy for the fast growing network.
“The weekend was brutal, and caused some issues,” FIM president Ross Levinsohn said in an interview this morning. (Read, The Sly Fox.) He explained that MySpace has two data centers in the Los Angeles area – one in downtown LA that is operated by InterNAP, and another in El Segundo, that is owned by Equinix.
The problem was in the downtown building. A switch meltdown caused blackouts in downtown and shut down the building, only to be followed by air-conditioning outage. “Suddenly our servers heated up and (nearly) melted,” Levinsohn added. “We are looking to add more data centers, preferably on the East Coast to make the system even more redundant.”
Levinsohn admitted that it was going to take time, since these are complex issues. He did say that the company is sparing no expense to keep MySpace performing at its optimum best. Maybe the blackout served as a wake-up call for News Corp. – the multinational that Murdoch built is no longer just a media giant, it is a technology company and needs to spend like one.
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on MySpace and Social Networks.
Seattle-based real estate information service, Zillow.com raised $25 million, nine months after it raised $26 million. Think about it this way - Zillow has raised $3 million (or about $57 million) for every month of its 19-month existence.
The new cash comes from Boston-based Par Capital Management and others such as Benchmark Capital and Technology Crossover Ventures. The company wants to be the biggest real estate site in the world – we shall see! How long before you figure some of its rivals will get similar, if not bigger, trucks stopping outside their offices and dumping some cash?
Zillow.com is the latest start-up to become part of a late 1990s trend that is making a comeback: return of the big money VC round. Last week, Seattle-based Jobster raised $18 million from Reed Elsevier Ventures and other existing ventures. Earlier in the month, MobiTV raised a whopping $70 million from the likes of Oak Investment Partners. As we had reported earlier, Limelight Networks is in the process of closing a monster round, which would make some of these investments look like chump change.
In the second quarter of 2006, venture capitalists invested $6.3 billion - the highest dollar amount into the most deals since the first quarter of 2002, according to the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association.
“It appears as if the venture capital industry is slowly ratcheting up investment levels for the first time in four years, and these increases seem to be directed in a prudent manner,” Mark Heesen, president of the National Venture Capital Association said in a press release. That might have been true, but the recent trend of big money investments shows that prudence might be giving away to old-fashioned avarice.
You can almost expect this trend to continue, and perhaps accelerate in coming months. Silicon Beat reports that Silicon Valley-based VCs are raising new money from their limited partners – some have already raised billions – and that would have to be deployed soon.
Before they can go out and raise cash for new funds, many of the firms have to invest the remnant money from their circa 2000-2001 funds. Otherwise, Limited Partners might be asking them the difficult question: Why should I give you more cash when you are sitting on a pile already? A good example would be Oak Investment Partners, which raised $2.56 billion to become the largest venture capital fund ever. It also invested $70 million in MobiTV. Coincidence?
Expect more big-ticket fundings!
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Start-Ups and Venture News.
It's
official! Skype has released a new version (1.5.0.47) of Skype for the Mac. Finally, video is available to Mac users, which up till now must have felt like 2nd class citizens since the Windows version has had video for some time. The video preview of Skype for Mac was released today. They also did some UI enhancements. You can
download the video preview.
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Mac users finally get Skype video feature
Tags:
apple,
mac,
skype,
voip
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and VoIP and Apple and mac.
Louis J. D'Ambrosio takes over for Don Peterson who ran the company for 6 years.
Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
Marshall Sponder at WebMetricsGuru talked about a colleague of his,
Bill Tancer, who injured himself in a cycling accident, temporarily
being unable to write for his website. Tancer turned to Dragon Naturally Speaking
software as an alternative, which worked out fine. Now of course, this
isn't VoIP software, but it got me to thinking. If voice recognition
software has come along far enough, it could be harnessed into
VoIP-to-text applications. The same goes for voice translation software
to create text-to-VoIP applications.
For example, Asterisk is offering MailCall, a free email-to-VoIP
application. It reads your email to you over Asterisk-based VoIP phone,
and works POP3 and IMAP accounts for numerous web-based and standalone
email clients. Imagine the fun listening to your spam email.
Psychologists will have a field day studying the effects. On the
positive side, text-to-voice could be coupled with voice-to-text to
build a VoIP system for users who are hearing-impaired. Such a
VoIP-based system would replace the expensive human-generated
voice-to-text systems that piggyback PSTN phones.
So far, these examples are for human-to-human interaction. VoIP applications could be used to control the ubiquitous VoIP-controlled SEDs
(Service Enabled Devices) that'll be appearing any time now. If you in
fact did have a wired home, you could potentially VoIP home to your
private web server and control SED appliances, such as the sprinkler.
I've said that before, but I didn't think about voice recognition
software as part of the bridge for being able to talk to appliances and
control them.
Of course, you'd have to use a fairly limited
grammar, and have a suitable processor. There are already markup
language grammars such as VoiceXML for telephone system menus, but as far as I know, there's nothing for ordering around SEDs. If someone devised a command language wrapped up in XML
and made it open source and extensible, in a few years, we might all be
talking to our appliances with ease. Dare I say, the same language
could be used to ask robot maids to make scrambled eggs in the morning?
Failing a George Jetson existence, if you're interested in building Skype apps, check out the Skype API Intro
page, complete with a video. Be an early adapter and be one of the
first to start building VoIP-controlled web services. I think voiceWeb/
VoIPWeb will form the next wave after web 2.0.
Written by ewriter on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and Software and Services.
Well, we're on a roll adding new tricks to our
TrixBox. In the last month, we've added
Weather Reports for 1,000 U.S. Airports. And last week, we taught our TrixBox system to read email over the telephone with
MailCall for Asterisk. Today, we add another 'Speak-And-Spell' application: an RSS newsreader for your phone. With today's free software and any phone that can connect to your Asterisk system, you get access to all of the
RSS News Feeds from Yahoo.
There are dozens available with more to come. The news feeds include the latest headlines, sports, health, technology, show biz, politics, business news, and many more. NewsClips for Asterisk joins dozens of other RSS newsreaders with a couple of important differences. First, of course, our app is FREE! And second, you can use a Plain Old Telephone to get your one-minute news fix whenever you like. And the feeds are always current. Yahoo!
Click Here for the Full Nerd
Written by Dal on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Asterisk Help.
Amcat, a global leader in customer care & interaction solutions, today announced that is has begun shipping a soft IP-PBX solution that operates with and broadens the capabilities of its Contact Centre Suite TM product.
UroMed, a U.S.-based national provider of healthcare products, recently implemented the Amcat soft IP PBX solution. According to Jim Weatherford, UroMed president, “Our customers are more demanding than ever. Because of tools such as the Internet, our customers have more freedom of choice and consumer information than ever before.
They expect and deserve excellent service. We, at UroMed, believe that empowering our employees to meet the increasing demands of our customers is the way we are going to continue to outperform in our industry. We are already seeing improved levels of service, more motivated employees and better profitability with the Amcat solution.”
Mr. Weatherford continues, “We were initially looking at implementing a traditional PBX, but when we saw the flexibility and value of the Amcat solution providing soft IP PBX capabilities along with powerful customer contact functions, we knew Amcat was the correct decision. The soft IP PBX is the lynch pin of our customer contact operations as it extends customer service to all our employees and leverages the resources of our many knowledgeable people.”
Amcat CEO Mike Rohleder commented, “In the past, companies often relegated customer service to a specific team of people, often in a single location. Historically it’s been difficult or impossible to provide a seamless service experience for the customer because poor processes and expensive, inflexible technology required the customer to call back or needlessly repeat information”.
“Amcat is extending the boundaries of what is possible for businesses today by integrating a software-based IP-PBX into our contact centre solutions. We recognise that the customer experience should not be “handled” by a contact centre silo. Our aim is to turn the entire enterprise into “the contact centre” making it more likely that a customer’s request will be resolved on the first call. The goodwill created by this enterprise-wide capability will drive the customer satisfaction ratings through the roof, create more referral customers and deliver huge bottom line profits.”
He concluded, “Amcat does two things really well. We help improve customer attitudes and increase customer-spend through better service. And, we do it in a way that keeps all constituents (customer, employee, and management) delighted with the process and the result. Amcat’s mission is to deliver enterprise contact centre solutions that ensure the prosperity of your company, one customer at a time.”
The IP-based soft PBX customer contact platform provides a technology environment where each customer contact is intelligent and productive thereby increasing employee moral and customer satisfaction. The Amcat IP customer contact platform ensures that companies focus and align their entire organisation around customer care, providing better service at lower cost. As a result, companies profit from increased customer acquisition and retention metrics, and ultimately, more revenue and profit.
The new functionality will offer the following business and technological benefits:
· Provides a unified face to the customer
· IP-based
· Increases employee satisfaction/well-being & reduced turnover
· Provides infrastructure that supports customer care
· Increases productivity, efficiency and professionalism
· Comprehensive, total capabilities from an All-in-One customer contact platform
· Built-in flexibility to meet any company’s specific contact requirements
· Field configurable for fast implementation and modification
· Supports a distributed environment
· Provides multiple communication channels and media (integrated)
Source: Amcat
Written by Dal on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on PBX / iPBX.
ClearMesh Networks today announced that Wireless Facilities, Inc. (WFI), the largest independent RF network and wireless engineering company, has selected and deployed ClearMesh's next-generation wireless optical mesh solution to build a high capacity, robust, and reliable wireless mesh network for the San Diego Westfield UTC shopping center.
WFI chose ClearMesh Networks because it provided the most cost-effective fiber-grade wireless solution with enough capacity to handle multiple applications. These include sensitive point-of-sale transaction traffic, a Wi-Fi "hot zone," and high bandwidth video streams from more than 70 surveillance cameras mall-wide. With ClearMesh, WFI can now offer a scalable network capable of aggregating large amounts of video traffic, while maintaining business-grade LAN communication services for mission critical applications.
"ClearMesh offered the most cost effective wireless solution combining fiber-grade service quality and necessary capacity, with integrated mesh switching capability," said Desmond Wheatley, President of WFI's Enterprise Services Division. "Additionally, the powerful centralized management capabilities allow us to manage Westfield UTC and other project deployments from one centralized NOC. This is an essential capability for our managed solution business."
The ClearMesh Management System (CMS) provides WFI with a hands-on tool to perform element management, mesh topology routing, and other ongoing maintenance tasks. End-to-end mesh visibility, monitoring and reporting tools provide a unified view of any WFI deployment that is utilizing the Metro Grid solution.
The Metro Grid wireless optical mesh is based on interference-free wireless technology and operates in a license-free spectrum, making it an ideal replacement for costly fiber access distribution. The Metro Grid solution enables service providers to deliver business-class services ranging from 5 to 100 Mbps in a matter of days and at a fraction of the cost of trenching fiber.
The Metro Grid architecture can be comprised of many distributed property mesh deployments, tying together tenants in hundreds of buildings accross several metro areas, business parks or campus deployments. These are securely managed across the Internet from one central NOC, using the carrier-grade ClearMesh Management System.
"The success of this project reinforces that the ClearMesh Metro Grid delivers high capacity, secure, and robust network solutions at an affordable price," said Suresh Nihalani, President & CEO for ClearMesh Networks. "The Metro Grid is a highly scaleable, true pay-as-you-grow solution, which allows carriers, system integrators, and property managers to easily extend the physical reach of high-capacity broadband networks."
Source: ClearMesh
Written by Dal on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on WiFi / Wireless.
The creators of the KaZaA file-sharing phenomenon, who went on to co-found the Skype peer-to-peer phone service, subsequently acquired by eBay, are working on a new network for online video distribution, codenamed The Venice Project.
Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis are apparently setting out to create a new distribution channel for television and video over the web.
Their first venture, the file-sharing system KaZaA, was hampered by legal threats from the recording and motion picture industries. Now they are negotiating with networks in a bid to become a dominant distributor of programming.
They join other companies currently using peer-to-peer distribution methods, including BitTorrent and Veoh Networks, as well as other online platforms such as Maven and Brightcove, not to mention the celebrated You Tube.
With the possible backing of eBay, they could even take on Google and Yahoo, which have yet to establish the same dominance in video as they have achieved in other online domains.
The Scandinavian duo are mainly contributing to business strategy, according to an article in Business Week, with others working on developing the operation.
Their second start-up, Skype, founded in 2003, offers free or low-cost telephone voice and now video calls over the internet and has attracted an estimated 100 million users worldwide.
Skype was acquired by eBay for $1.3 billion in cash and an equivalent in eBay stock in October 2005, and the co-founders still stand to earn a share of up to a staggering $1.5 billion performance bonus from eBay over the next three years.
Details of The Venice Project are understandably limited at this stage, but an announcement could be expected in the autumn.
Source: Skype
Written by Dal on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype.
New York Motorola joined the growing ranks of cordless phone manufacturers to court PC VoIP users with the release of its T31 series for use with Windows Live Messenger service.
The T3151 feature a base station that can connect to a PC for placing calls over Windows Live Messenger service, and to a phone jack for placing standard PSTN calls. It will retail for a suggested $99.99 and will include one handset.
The phone uses the DECT frequency to provide up to 10 hours of talktime and is expandable up to six handsets the T3101, for a suggested $69.99. The handset features a speakerphone, alarm clock, support caller ID with visual call waiting and is capable of displaying online Messenger contacts on a color LCD, along with a choice of four wallpapers.
The T3151 offers a private phone book that can store up to 80 names with three numbers per name, handset-to-handset intercom, 16 ringtones, and voicemail indicator.
Motorola is the third vendor to offer a cordless solution for Windows Live Messenger; Uniden and Philips announced similar products earlier in the year. According to Microsoft, Live Messenger has 240 million registered users worldwide.
Source: AP
Written by Dal on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP Hardware.
mBlox, which claims to be the world's largest mobile transaction network, has revealed that is service is being used to support the recently launched Skype SMS service that enable users of the Skype softphone to send text messages to mobile phones anywhere in the world.
Skype SMS was a new feature on version 2.5 of its Windows Softphone released in May, and version 1.4 of the Mac OS X softphone, also released in May. Message delivery is available in nearly 200 countries worldwide.
According to Michael Jackson, director, paid products, Skype: "mBlox's network reaches out to our customers worldwide and their DirectPlus MT SMS product set ticked all the boxes for us. Load tests and measurements showed that it could meet the demanding needs of our users. Being able to measure message-delivery successes and failures is also essential and mBlox's service gives us visibility into the status of our mobile transaction. At this point online Skype users can send SMS messages to mobile, but we are looking to extend this feature."
Written by Dal on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype.
For someone who doesn’t drive, I am not the one who should be talking about live traffic information on the mobiles. But still, given the time I am riding shotgun giving directions, live traffic data makes perfect sense for mobile phones. In recent past I have used Google Maps to find my way - first on a Blackberry and more recently on a Nokia E61.
Now Google has launched a new service that allows you to get traffic information in more than 30 major metropolitan areas including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and New York City.
The app works on a handful of phones. Nextel users are out of luck and so are those of you using Palm and Brew-based phones. Okay this is what I don’t understand: why not Treo. Have they not noticed that Treo is the favorite device of most sales people, especially on the road. Insurance agents and other reps like Treo as well. Anyway GMM is not the only option for traffic data. My dear friend Gary Price has this awesome post where he has put together a full list of services that offer traffic data over mobiles.
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Google and Cellular.
Is the open Internet not prepared to handle an increasing subscriber base?
Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
Is the open Internet not prepared to handle an increasing subscriber base?
Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized.
Veeker, a San Francisco-based stealth mode company is working on a mobile video sharing offering that combines two of the hottest Silicon Valley start-up themes: user generated video and wireless. The company has just started showing off its alpha offering to potential investors.
A dinner companion tipped us off about the company, “which focuses on mobile and Internet videos, based around social interactions.” I phoned up the co-founder Marcus Yoder, (you know a company is small when the founder answers the corporate line) and he refered me to Veeker’s chief marketing officer Rodger Raderman.
Rodger says the 15-person San Francisco-based company is “creating a mobile and Internet-based experience surrounding the behavior patterns that will emerge as mobile video cameras become ubiquitous.” That’s a lot of buzz words in one sentence, but it is also indicative of the current thinking in Silicon Valley.
Investors have already stuffed online video sites with cash, and are now turning their attention to mobile video. A truly mobile YouTube - with little or no copyright hassles can be alluring to the VC community. Today IDC released a report that says 24 million US mobile users will pay for video/TV over mobile by 2010.
Veeker didn’t give me a chance to check out the service, but it sounds similar to what French vPod.tv is building for 3G networks. VPod.tv raised $5.1 million last May. Some Internet-based user-generated video sites are starting to eye mobile given cell phones with video cameras are starting to become common. YouTube already enables users to upload video with camera phones, and it would be natural to start building a better mobile access portion. Photobucket, which concentrates on photos and recently expanded into video hosting, is working hard on mobile.
The hard part is that the mobile component for user-generated videos is tricky to do and expensive to do well. I surveyed several user-generated Internet video sites over the past few weeks and most like Blip.tv and Google Video are staying away from investing in mobile for now.
Maybe Veeker will have something that will wipe out the competition, but the service will have to be pretty compelling. Rodger says Veeker’s engineers come from MobiTV, Digital Chocolate, Hands-On-Mobile, Amp’d and Kodak Mobile, and that the company is both building and buying technology that ranges from mobile video upload and download, to mobile presence, to mobile/online networking and collaboration.
PS: If you know of any startups pushing mobile social networks around video, add your list below!
Written by Katie Fehrenbacher on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Start-Ups.
Brix Networks, a company that develops monitoring tools for service providers, analyzed data it gathered from a Web site it created a couple of years ago called
TestYourVoIP.com. The site does a bandwidth test and allows consumers to test the quality of their VoIP services. In its study, published Monday, the company stated that call quality has declined by about 5 percent in the past 18 months. Further, nearly 20% (1 in 5) VoIP calls have unacceptable quality.
This seems overly inflated to me. Surely, 20% of calls can't be that bad or customers would switch from VoIP back to landlines. Me thinks this study is skewed to help build some publicity for Brix Networks. In fact, several bloggers and
newsites have covered this study already.
Also, part of the About Brix Networks states, "to offer reliable and high-quality experiences in voice, video, data, and mobile services". So obviously, it behooves them to say that QoS monitoring is necessary - that's the service they sell.
Or perhaps Brix Networks in in cahoots with strong net neutrality proponents to try and prove that net neutrality is needed to prevent the cable MSOs, and broadband carriers from "squeezing" out VoIP players by throttling their bandwidth.
Or it could simply be all those
MySpace blogs and
YouTube videos clogging the damn Net! You make the call.
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (1) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: VoIP Quality from bad to worse
Tags:
cable,
call quality,
carrier,
myspace,
net neutrality,
qos,
video,
voip,
youtube
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP and MySpace and video and cable and qos and net neutrality and YouTube and call quality and carrier.
Recently, I received an email from a pizza delivery solutions provider seeking my assistance in an interesting application that involves VoIP, GPS coordinates, Bluetooth, and of course pizza. This is not the first time I have linked pizza with VoIP. No siree bob! In fact, my
Vonage VoIP line resulted in me getting a cold pizza. Almost
sued Vonage over my damn cold pizza too.
I know what you're thinking. What kind of VoIP application does a pizza delivery company need, right? Well, the best way to explain the application that ties VoIP, pizza, Bluetooth, and GPS together is to include the request they sent to me.
We sell software services to pizza chains. Our system tracks drivers as they drive around town. Since we know where they are and where they are going, when they are about 4 minutes from the customers’ door, we want our computer to initiate a telephone call to the customer to say the driver will arrive momentarily. We imagine some kind of a softphone application running on the PC connected to a VoIP access point to the phone system. Our software already has the .wav files prepared to “speak” to the customers.
Any suggestions on how to configure this or who we should be talking to that might sell the necessary hardware software? Is open source stuff available?
PS Our system is written in C#, so is pretty flexible.
Pizza Pilot recently announced the completion of a multi-store test in Boston-area Domino's Pizza Franchises. Pizza Pilot was successful in reducing labor, mileage theft and lost drivers. New tools for measuring each driver's "Smart Hustle" factor as well as data mining techniques to identify and prioritize target customers with Platinum, Gold or Silver service levels were also introduced.
Pizza Pilot is a software-based product that works with any POS-including Pulse and TMS/National Systems. In combination with Bluetooth and GPS-enabled cell phones, it tracks the location of each delivery driver every 60 seconds. Pizza Pilot mapping software determines the optimal dispatching and automatically assigns orders to drivers-allowing managers to focus on inside operations.
Due to its ability to track each driver's progress on their way to each destination, Pizza Pilot can determine the moment actual deliveries are made and to update drivers' estimated return times as they return to the shop-making subsequent dispatches more accurate. Maps or on-board navigation is also available which reduce lost drivers, while real-time tracking identifies and discourages unauthorized stops.
I'm most impressed with the fact that they want to call you when the pizza is 4 minutes away. Imagine that -- a pizza company that is courteous enough to call you when they are about to arrive. How many times have you been told the pizza will take 30 minutes only to see 90 minutes roll by; then when you call to check on your pizza they simply tell you the pizza guy is on the way. Really they have
no idea where he is and they're simply patronizing you. Well, with this pizza delivery company, they track all their vehicles so they can tell you exactly where the vehicle is and on top of that they plan to call you using an automated dialer using a VoIP line.
Now if that isn't a
hot application for VoIP, I don't know what is. Mmmm.
hot pizza... Ahhhh. GPS & Bluetooth gadgetry... Ooooo... VoIP coolness... Ahhhhh... All I need now is some cold beer &
ESPN -- and I'll be in heaven. Maybe I'll launch
SightSpeed 5.0 and watch some ESPN from work.
I suggested to Pizza Pilot that there is C# code out there to initiate SIP calls and they he may want to consider looking at Asterisk, the open-source IP-PBX. I also referred him to
Erik Lagerway and Ward Mundy over @
Nerd Vittles, an Asterisk blog. Erik suggested that since he was using C#, that something in
Microsoft LCS might do the trick - or paid kits like those offered by
Counterpath. Ward Mundy said he could code something for him and asked for more details on the size and scope of the project.
I'll keep you posted if the pizza/GPS/Bluetooth/VoIP application ever goes live.
GPS VoIP pizza delivery just might be coming to a neighborhood near you!
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: I'd like a pizza with pepperoni and a sprinkle of VoIP and some GPS too
Tags:
asterisk,
bluetooth,
c#,
gps,
open source,
pizza,
sip,
voip
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP and GPS and Asterisk and SIP and bluetooth and pizza and open source and c#.
Google announced an update to
Google Maps for mobile that will enable consumers in the U.S. to view detailed information on traffic conditions in more than 30 major metropolitan areas, as well as partial information in other area from a mobile device.
Google also announced that users now have the ability to customize the content that appears on the mobile version of their Personalized Homepage.
TrackBack (0)
| Comments (0) | Tag with del.icio.us | VoIP & Gadget Blog | Permalink: Google Maps adds Traffic Info to mobile phones
Tags:
google,
gps,
maps,
mobile phone,
traffic
Copyright
VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on GPS and Google and mobile phone and maps and traffic.
Nothing like a good summer mystery, right?
Zeugma Systems has raised another $2.25-million to close its first financing round at a sweet $15.75-million. So what's the Vancouver-based start-up going to do with the cash? Well, they're not telling. In fact, they're not even disclosing what they're working on other than a system, which won't be ready for at least another year, for "next-generation broadband networks" that will be used to TV, video and VoIP. The latest cash injection came from BDC Ventures (aka the Canadian government), Zeugma executives and staff. Existing investors include Granite Ventures, Ventures West, Yaletown Venture Partners and GrowthWorks Capital. Zeugma expects to raise another round of private equity later this year.
Written by Mark Evans on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Main Page and Venture Capital and Telecom Equipment Makers.
The growing importance of ensuring quality on core networks is becoming evident day-by-day. Recently, ntl:Telewest selected Brix Networks' Converged Service Assurance Solutions to ensure the quality of its MPLS core network. It is a big leap for Brixnet to have won an account of ntl:Telewest, which is United Kingdom's largest cable operator and a leading supplier of broadband, digital television, telephony, content, and communications services to homes, businesses, and public sector organizations. It chose Brix System to verify performance of its next-generation, IP services foundation.
Brix Networks being the leading provider of most widely deployed converged service assurance solutions will monitor the quality of ntl:Telewest's Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) core network. MPLS delivers quality of service (QoS) for support delay-sensitive services over a data network like real-time voice and video, as well as service level agreements (SLAs) that guarantee bandwidth. MPLS also unites routing and switching and provides a high-speed switched connection for IP traffic aggregated at a service provider's point-of-presence.
ntl:Telewest has an eye over building a strong foundation for its next-generation IP-based services, including the recently rolled out Metnet managed Ethernet service. This can be enabled only through successful deployments of quality IP services and applications for which Brix System will play a crucial role. Brix Networks has been known for its deeper understanding and expertise in IP services and MPLS infrastructure. Integrating solution like automated collection of real-time data, active testing, passive monitoring, and critical service-quality reporting metrics will be beneficial for ntl:Telewest but greater visibility into service quality parameters and optimization of network would linger on, as the network base increase is ever-increasing and is a demanded target for companies. Is Brix up to the task, ntl:Telewest needs to question itself.
Written by Peter Poffenberger on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Networks.
News
flash: Internet rebels Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are apparently moving into
the video business after wrecking havoc on the music and voice
businesses. According to
BusinessWeek, the dynamic duo are using some
of their eBay dollars to develop video distribution technology
code-named "The Venice Project" (which sounds like a film that Matt
Damon would star in). I realize this is the year of video but is anyone
doing anything other than video these days? Then again, it's hard to
look at YouTube's 100-million video deliveries a day and not believe
there's gold in them thar fields - especially when the company has apparently targeted
$1-billion as its take-out price.
The challenge facing most (all?)
video start-ups, including YouTube, is turning all those downloads and streams into
revenue. Sure, this is a theme I've hammered on before but you can't
turn cool Web-based technology into a business without revenue. If you
examine Zennstrom and Friis' entrepreneurial track record, Kazaa was
not a business but a way to download music and video for free while driving the music industry crazy. Skype
was on its way to becoming an interesting telecom business before eBay
stepped in with a $4.1-billion takeover. As for "The Venice Project",
your guess is as good as mine about its prospects. There's
plenty of competition but Zennstrom and Friis has three major weapons
in their arsenal: lots of personal cash, plenty of VCs likely chomping
at the bit for a piece of the action, and the relationship with eBay. The big question facing Zennstrom, Friis and the boys over YouTube is whether they can attract another Skype-like mega-offer.
Update: Other signs of the video-craze include the launch of
Dabble and
Gotuit.
Written by Mark Evans on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Skype and Web 2.0 and tv and Main Page.
A leading global provider of voice solutions, Envox Worldwide has 6 VoiceXML Studio - a graphical development environment that accelerates the creation of VoiceXML-based voice solutions by 50% or more – which has been selected as a 2005 Product of the Year by Technology Marketing Corporation's (TMC) Communications Solutions The annual award from TMC is bestowed on a product that scores on demonstrated excellence in technological advancement and application refinements. Envox Worldwide is a leading global provider of voice solutions. With its Envox 6 VoiceXML Studio product Envox Worldwide has achieved a different platform. According to it their product has been far ahead of any competition toward improving on the customer experience and simultaneously decreasing product development time.
Envox 6 VoiceXML Studio features a library of pre-built user interface components, or dialog blocks promoting user interface design. It includes dialog blocks for collecting credit card numbers, addresses, account numbers and much more. Further, sophisticated database integration capabilities, which provide a high-degree of access and control of information sources is also present. The debugging, flexibility for wide range of voice solutions has been included. And there is VoiceXML 2.0 compatibility with broad platform support.
Envox Worldwide product’s recognition will be an assurance to its customers that products are good and services too are in place. Now the pricing issue will come to forefront. With the ‘best’ tag we come across a price tag heavy on pockets. Envox Worldwide although remains focused on delivering innovative products and related services that satisfy the ongoing needs of our customers but it has to show with competitive product price. The award should be shown off but not at the cost of logical reasoning.
Written by Peter Poffenberger on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Software.
Brix Networks, a company that develops monitoring tools for VoIP says that the quality of VoIP calls is getting worse. The company maintains a website called, TestYourVoIP.com, and in a study published today the company said that nearly 20% of VoIP calls have unacceptable quality. That is up from 15% of all test calls a year ago.
I think the problem actually might be bigger. A lot of my friends who call me on Vonage for instance sound as if they are calling from a different planet. A lot of these problems are due to bandwidth constraints on the networks. Trying watching You Tube videos and talking over a VoIP phone and you experience the downshift in quality first hand. This alone should be a reason to a pipe with faster connection, and carriers could easily up sell premium services to their customers.
“The network is ready for VoIP. But now that there are more services running over the same pipe, carriers need to differentiate packets and prioritize service,” Kaynam Hedayat, chief technology officer for Brix tells C/Net News.com. (Okay that made me wonder who paid for the service!) It is not just the VoIP calls to the consumer home which are sounding bad. If you have ever made international long distance calls, you can experience the degraded quality first hand. Those calls, many of them originating from incumbent phone systems, also travel over an IP network.
Written by Om Malik on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on VoIP.
Nintendo just boosted their profit estimates for the coming year by $150 million from over half a billion dollars, indicating that the company might be one of the unlikely winners in the console wars.
I would have laughed at that thought even a year ago, but the numbers speak for themselves. The Kyoto-based company is on a seemingly unstoppable path to winning the Japanese side of the next generation console war.
For the longest time, Sony and its Playstation series appeared unbeatable, with Microsoft’s Xbox system a distant second, and Nintendo’s Gamecube making up the rear. Its’ cutesy branding (think Mario) had relegated it to be a player for the pre-teen set.
But Sony’s appearance at the Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow last May was generally considered a disappointment, with a collective balking at the nosebleed-high $499 pricetag ($599 for the full-featured version) attached to the Playstation 3, when it hits the US market this November.
Game industry analyst DFC Intelligence goes so far to predict the pricey PS3 will drag down industry sales in general, and without course corrections, wind up in third place behind Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s upcoming Wii console. The company predicts they’ll sell 6 million units of Wiii next fiscal year.
All three next-gen consoles come integrated with broadband support, it’s worth pointing out here, while both the DS and PSP come with Wi-Fi functionality and Web browsers– making the console wars a battle for the broadband platform of the living room, and for the dominant PDA of the gamer generation.
Nintendo’s fortunes have been boosted in large part by robust sales of its DS handheld gaming console (21 million sold — and in my view, by innovating more than its rivals. With its action-predominant games and movies, Sony’s PSP handheld (17 million sold) is aimed squarely at the dude demographic of 18-34 males.
Nintendo, by contrast, has consciously cast its net wider with the DS, which comes with an intuitive, easy-to-use stylus control, and a library of unique, risk-taking games with far broader appeal, including Nintendogs, in which you care for a puppy (worldwide sales 4.5 million units), and Brain Age, an educational game, for God’s sake (worldwide sales approaching 3 miilion units.)
It’s too soon to write off Sony, of course, and you have to believe they’ll make some drastic moves to stay competitive. Then again, the president of their game division recently suggested that if consumers think the PS3 is too expensive, they should just work harder. So even that’s hard to say.
Written by Wagner James Au on July 25th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on nintendo and sony and online games.