September 7th, 2006
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Amazon has beaten Apple to the starting gate when it comes to movie download business, but that doesn’t ensure success. The service is getting mixed reviews. Techdirt calls it as “me too (read: not interesting) as you can get” and many believe that Apple will come-up with a winning package. Others like CinemaNow are not sitting still, and there is the looming specter of Microsoft and its Zune line of offerings. Who will be the ultimate winner? You decide.
Written by Om Malik on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Written by Skype Journal on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Like its devices, network digital music device maker Slim Devices is moving up in the world. The company has just moved to slick new digs in Mountain View, right next to AOL and VeriSign. Though not exactly Fifth Avenue, it’s a definite upgrade from their last office, two miles north in an industrial area tucked under Highway 85.
Last week I spent an afternoon with the company whose Squeezebox devices have attained near cult status amongst music fans with a DIY inclination. Leaning back in one of the company’s two fancy new leather chairs (though there were three of us in the room, so one guy had to stand), I was one of the first outsiders to take in the company’s newest device, the $2000 Transporter, a fully geeked-out network music machine. (The New York Times is running a snippet on it today) Dolly Parton and Beyonce never sounded so good. And no, they were not singing a duet.
Slim Devices is like that: some parts awkward, some parts polished. It’s perhaps too trusting of its self-tuned ear for innovation, but at the same time unusually eager for feedback. If it sounds familiar, you might remember our posts on Slim Devices’ main product, the Squeezebox, a cheaper ($250 to $300) network audio player that Om has raved about a couple times.
The company is not so boring either. Operated almost entirely in the Valley, Slim Devices is profitable on a sliver of seed funding, and set to do $10 million in sales this year. Led by a 27-year-old CEO, Sean Adams, with little-to-no senior management, the company employs only six engineers, and 20 more employees to take care of assembling the product and answering customer calls. It has open-sourced its software, with outside enthusiasts/developers dreaming up plug-ins that are quickly made into core features.
And that is what has made Slim Devices so special - its ability to foster a community, and then harness their enthusiasm. Om had written about them putting the customer in charge for Business 2.0. Slim chief technology officer Dean Blackketter told the magazine, “The more we open up to our community … the more it helps us.” You can see that in the number of people writing hacks for their SlimServer music software.
Squeezebox started as a garage project of Adams in about 2000, right after he sold his first startup, an ISP. He had dropped out of college, lost most of his newfound riches in the stock market, and had to take a day job.
After a Slashdot post (which linked to the above picture of the not-yet-21 Adams soldering one of the devices in the close vicinity of a beer) brought in 30,000 visitors to the company website in two hours, and a good number of pre-orders, Adams quit his coding gig and charged would-be-customers’ credit cards in advance to buy parts to make products for them.
Over the last five years Adams has formed a company around the product, employing a group of his friends and coffee shop buddies. In the last year the company has become higher profile, hiring a pro designer to make Squeezebox pretty, pushing European distribution, and winning praise from David Pogue. Just under 50,000 Squeezeboxes are installed around the world, sold in large part through direct orders off Slim Devices’ web site.
Though the audiophile demo was nice, the coolest part of my visit was a tour around the company. The diversity of tasks — from guys assembling and packing and shipping Squeezeboxes in a back room — to Adams in his lab, highly reminiscent of his underage-drinking self
– to customer service reps wandering around with headsets on — is mighty impressive. “It gives us complete control over the whole experience,†says Adams. The utopia probably can’t last for long – the company knows it needs to go mainstream. (Maybe not Best Buy yet, but possibly Magnolia, says Patrick Cosson, who heads up sales and marketing.)
Back at home in San Francisco, setting up my tester Squeezebox felt more like feeling around in the dark than I might have hoped. The manual seemed to be quite a few versions behind the latest build. But the device has worked smoothly so far, and it sure looks pretty. If you’re going to pick a little guy to root for, Slim Devices would be a good one.
Written by Liz Gannes on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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In an attempt to avoid being an also-ran to Apple’s expected iTunes movie announcement next week, Amazon has launched its video download service, Unbox. Movies — 1355 of them, it seems — are available from Warner Bros., NBC Universal, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, and others. According to the AP story, movies cost $7.99 to $14.99 to buy and $3.99 to rent, but we’re seeing a range all the way from $2.99 to $19.59 for downloads. Television shows are available as well, for $1.99 per episode (with your first TV show free right now). The service required a piece of software and will only work on Windows. Portability is limited to players using Windows Media Player and DVDs played only on the computer that originally received the movie download, as reported previously. Top that, Apple! [Updates to follow.]
Written by Liz Gannes on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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The upcoming Blackberry Pearl looks like a gorgeous smart phone, but it's sure to drive the corporate types crazy -- no wheel, multimedia capabilities, decidedly non-Blackberry look and feel.
I also can't help thinking the name has something to do with Pirates of the Caribbean -- the Black Pearl, you know?
Perhaps there's an upcoming Blackberry/Disney tie-in or maybe Johnny Depp is involved in some way? You know, "This is Captain Jack Sparrow for the Blackberry Pearl ..."
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Finally I received today the August copy of Scientific American. The editors are also talking about net neutrality:
...On balance, those favoring net neutrality make the better case. A system for prioritizing data traffic might well be necessary someday, yet one might hope that it would be based on the needs of the transmissions rather than the deal making and caprices of the cable owners. Moreover, personal blogs and other web pages are increasingly patchworks of media components from various sources. Tiered service would stultify that trend....
...Ending net neutrality might feel safer if the telcos did not often enjoy local monopolies on broadband service. Almost half of all Americans have limited or no choice if they want high-speed connections...
They are also pointing to
SavetheInternet.com (favoring net neutrality) and
HandsOff.org (against it)
Written by VoIP and ENUM on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Q: As my company's director of voice services, I understand the importance of a converged architecture. However, how do I go about gaining CXO sponsorship for my new IP communications project?
Written by VoIP Magazine Featured Stories on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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In a
press release Lucent and KPN announced this week:
Lucent to provide key IMS elements and serve as integrator for multivendor standards-based IMS solution to replace KPN’s public switched telephone network
Going to ETSI TISPAN next week I just wonder what the "multivendor standards-based" part of this annoncement really means ;-)
Written by VoIP and ENUM on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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The plot thickens ...
Very interesting blog today on Macnn about Apple filing a patent application for a multi-functional hand-held device.
Today, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application, entitled "Multi-functional hand-held device," which was originally filed in March.
Interesting (as in very interesting), telephony was covered in that patent.
As I blogged yesterday, in light of Apple's "Showtime" media event next week, does this peel away another layer of intrigue about a possible Apple cell phone? Or does it just add to the intrigue? 
And what exactly will an Apple mobile phone look like? Would be cool if it had "the wheel" like the Nano.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Vonage Needs To Watch Their Back
Vonage may have passed the two million subscriber mark, but apparently cable providers aren't too far behind. Om Malik adds that Vonage has already spent over half a billion dollars to get those 2 mln customers, but needs 3 mln more to make a profit.
New Yahoo Messenger Plugin: Typing East Indian Scripts
For our East Indian readers, you may like to check out the ChitChat plugin from Vishal Monpara for Yahoo! Messenger 8. With it, you can type text in eight different East Indian scripts including Hindi.
Oregon: Wi-Fi Investment Leader
According to a study of all 50 US states, Oregon leads in Wi-Fi investments.
US East Coast VoIP Services
The
areas of Boston, New York, Philly, and D.C. will have new VoIP services
offered to SMBs (Small and Medium Business, aka SMEs) from a
partnership formed by BroadSoft, Inc., and mindSHIFT Technologies.
Broadsoft is a VoIP app software provider and mindSHIFT is a managed
services provider. The VoIP service will work through hosted PBXes.
[via New Telephony]
Written by ewriter on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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CRN Daily News brings up a good point
regarding MP3 players. While most people, especially iPod owners,
wouldn't give up the gadget they have, there are still millions of
people that don't have a device and will probably eventually choose
something. These are the people that companies like Microsoft and Nokia
are going after. Given that the digital music player market is
dominated by iPod (75% in the US, 50% around the world), it's not going
to be easy going for Microsoft and Nokia.
And then don't forget the rumour about the supposed iPod phone and some big Appple press conference in California for Sep 12. Word is, the iPod phone is actually ready for production [via O'Reilly Emerging Telephony]. Though would you pay $600 for it?
Written by ewriter on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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WIP Connector is a website that hooks up business partners focused in the areas of 3G, RFID,
Wi-Fi and WiMax communications. It was launched by the Wireless
Industry Partnership (WIP) and is designed as a social networking site.
[via Silicon]
Full membership costs US$300; a partner membership costs $200 but is
currently limited to MX Alliance, Ottawa Wireless Cluster, and WINBC
(Wireless Innovation Network of BC) - at least two of which are
Canadian. Let's see. A Canadian website (I think) charging US dollars
for membership and being promoted on a British website (Silicon).
That's IP communications for you: enabling the global village.
Written by ewriter on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Note: With all these metro area wifi networks going up this is good news. True get true wireless internet access it will take a combination of improved hardware, technology and software to achieve is online anywhere dream most people think of for the future.
hField Technologies' new high-gain WiFi adapter will dramatically decrease deadspots, multiplying the effectiveness of wireless networks. The company's newly-launched product, Wi-Fire, allows users to connect to a WiFi network from up to 1,000 feet, more than three times the range of standard adapters, at significantly higher speeds, and even in locations where no wireless signal could be detected previously.
Wi-Fire, a fully integrated external Wi-Fi adapter, provides interoperability with any 802.11 b/g system. Patents are pending on the device and its proprietary technology. According to Curtis MacDonald, hField's CTO, "Wi-Fire combines a highly sensitive receiver, a highly-tuned and optimized directional antenna, and unique 'fast-response' connection management software to achieve its extraordinary performance levels." Even in situations where an internal adapter cannot maintain connection with a weak WiFi signal, or even detect it, the Wi-Fire connects at speeds suitable for high bandwidth users.
Wi-Fire, only 3" by 4" with a sleek 3/8" thickness, is small, easy-to-use, and folds up with its mounting device and USB cable for portability. Wi-Fire is currently available for Windows XP only. Other versions are being developed. "Our direct sales efforts target campus and municipal applications," says Tom DiClemente, hField's CEO and Partner of hField investor Gran Sasso Ventures LP. "But, as can be expected, we are also experiencing a high level of interest from home and business users." Blake Kleintop, hField COO, adds, "Our beta tests focused mostly on campus WiFi users. We found that the 'seriously mobile user' in particular always experienced much better performance with the Wi-Fire."
Wi-Fire has growing availability through network equipment resellers and campus bookstores and is also available at: www.hfield.com.
About hField
hField designs and manufactures innovative, high-performance wireless networking products that offer outstanding performance while maintaining total interoperability with existing wireless technology standards. hField is a Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern PA client.
Written by Dal on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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CallPlus, New Zealand's third largest fixed line telecommunications provider, has selected Alvarion's BreezeMAX 3500 platform to offer WiMAX services in southeast New Zealand. Focused in the district of Whangarei in the Northland region, Siemens is the local partner for the WiMAX network and is responsible for systems integration and ongoing local support.
"For some time now, we have been evaluating the best technologies and partners to bring broadband services to New Zealand," said Graham Walmsley of CallPlus. "We selected Alvarion's BreezeMAX for this deployment in Whangarei after extensive evaluation of the market's products, and we feel we chose a robust system that is easily adaptable to our operating environment and offers high performance for our non-line-of-sight customers."
BreezeMAX is Alvarion's award-winning WiMAX platform designed from the ground up according to the IEEE 802.16 standards and uses OFDM technology for advanced non-line-of-sight (NLOS) functionality. Since its launch in mid-2004, BreezeMAX has been successfully deployed in over 180 installations in more than 80 countries around the world.
"CallPlus is an innovative challenger now leveraging the economic and technical advantages of BreezeMAX to compete more effectively in New Zealand's deregulated telecom environment," said Tzvika Friedman, president and CEO of Alvarion. "The selection of our market-leading BreezeMAX product after such a thorough evaluation further confirms its excellent quality-of-service and coverage performance in non-line-of-sight environments. BreezeMAX is the ideal choice for WiMAX deployments in Asia Pacific and will contribute to our growing presence in the region."
Source: Cellular News
Written by Dal on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Editor's Note: There are few companies that are working on this. E911 on VoIP needs to be worked out with a stable solution for VoIP to really go mainstream. Of anything dialing 911 is the one constant we need to have and feel confident that we will get the emergency service needed when dialed. Glad to hear about this progress.
Intrado, a vendor of emergency dialing technology, has conducted a successful trial of using E911 emergency dialing capabilities with mobile voice-over-IP (VoIP) phones, the company said. Intrado’s trial in New York in August was aimed at solving one of the major problems with location-based E911, or enhanced 911, service with VoIP phones, said Stephen Meer, Intrado’s chief technology officer. E911 relays the location of a caller to the emergency dispatch center, but many VoIP phones are not tied to one physical address. Users can connect the phones to any broadband network to make calls.
The Intrado auto-locate trial used back-end 911 system technology from the company in combination with several location-finding technologies, Meer said. Included in the test were GPS technology, which triangulates high-definition television signals, and one that surveys local Wi-Fi access points, he said.
Combined with Intrado technology, the location-finding technologies were able to route VoIP 911 calls to emergency dispatch centers, using the dispatch equipment already installed, Meer said. No location-finding technology works in every situation—GPS, for example, can have problems in densely packed tall buildings—but a combination of location-finding technology can work, he said.
"The real solution here is going to be a bundling of technologies," Meer said.
Many large VoIP providers have been slow to provide E911 service to all their customers, with the mobility of VoIP phones being one of the problems. Because VoIP services route 911 calls through IP networks instead of the traditional telephone network, some VoIP phones have phone numbers that can follow the phone wherever it’s plugged in.
The Intrado test shows this problem has solutions, Meer said, although none of the newer location-finding technologies works as well as a traditional wireline phone tied to one address. The Intrado trial generally provided dispatchers with locations based on latitude and longitude, similar to current wireless phone 911 calls, but not as useful as street addresses, he said.
Although the U.S. Federal Communications Commission has required VoIP providers to offer E911 service, more public discussion is needed about how precise a location the E911 call should provide, Meer said.
"If the national public policy turns out to be, ‘We’re sort of going to tell you within a mile or so where you are,’ there are going to be no little girls calling for help when their mommy’s fallen down the steps," Meer said. "We have to have some interesting discussions about what’s the right level for public safety."
The Intrado trial doesn’t attack a second problem with VoIP phones and E911. Providers such as Vonage Holdings and AT&T have allowed customers to pick phone numbers not normally assigned to their local area. This "nomadic" service allows customers to choose a phone number that would not be a long-distance call to family or friends living halfway across the country, but the nonlocal phone numbers make it difficult to implement E911’s location pinpointing feature, Vonage and other VoIP providers have said.
Source: IDG News Service (Washington Bureau)
Written by Dal on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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RIM's blackberry line gets a camera phone next week. The Blackberry
Pearl has a 1.3 megapixel camera, media player (audio and video), a
microSD card slot, trackball, and fairly largish looking screen. [see Computer Business News for some details, and BBHub for loads of pictures and details about file format capabilities.]
I did not see any indication of its ability to VoIP, but that doesn't mean it can't. Regardless, it's good to see that RIM
has gotten past the lawsuit that NTP had levied on them and moved on to
doing what they do best - making cool mobile communication devices. I'm
guessing this phone is new territory for them. By the way, there's a Google Talk client for Blackberry devices.
Written by ewriter on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Software and Google and Phones.
Seems that Vodaphone, a Palm vendor, mistakenly released details of the new Treo 750v. But if you're still contemplating the 700WX, here are some incentives:
free 1Gb card, rebate for Treo 650 trade-in, free overnight. Thanks,
but I just bought my Treo 650. It works fine, so why would I trade it
for only $125? (Then again, I picked mine up for $199 for a three-year
contract that I would have signed anyway.) But now that I know I can
actually use mobile VoIP on it (sort of), after a few failed attempts, I'm pretty happy with it. And I don't really ant to reinstall all that software.
Written by ewriter on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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This is just a quick note to share that this VON will have the most ASTERISK activities, ever.
This VON is going to show the direct impact of Asterisk in the market. Besides the sessions and activities below we have many companies and groups who are using Asterisk to develop new services. With all these activities we have decided one more part of the program should be highlighted.
This VON is going to show the direct impact of Asterisk in the market. Besides the sessions and activities below we have many companies and groups who are using Asterisk to develop new services. With all these activities we have decided one more part of the program should be highlighted.
We have set up a special user group meeting on Wednesday night for all members of the VON Community in room 211 at 6PM. Anyone who is attending VON in any capacity is welcome to participate. If you want to show what your doing with Asterisk send an email to
carl.ford@pulvermedia.com. It is our belief that this will be the richest participation of the Asterisk community ever, so it is my strong suggestion that you identify your desire to participate now. And come early so you can put in for the Digium / Asterisk raffle.
To Register for free access to the Exhibit Floor including the Digium pavilion and to attend the Asterisk User Group meeting use the priority code ASTERVON, or follow this link to register
https://secure.pulver.com/von/register.htmlBut wait there is more.
On Wednesday at 8:30 until 10:00 in the morning Olle E. Johansson CEO of Edvina will be providing a tutorial called Meet Asterisk - The Open Source IPBX. And on Thursday morning Olle will provide a tutorial on the latest release of Asterisk (v1.4).
To view more details click here
http://www.pulver.com/asterisk/ . You can use the ASTERVON priority code which will save $100 on the individual sessions and more than that for the combined sessions. To register go here:
https://secure.pulver.com/asterisk/register.htmlMonday, September 11, 2006Monday pre conference - the SIP Tutorial now includes hands -on SIP Asterisk implementation training.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006Tuesday VON Theater (near the Digium / Asterisk Pavilion) Joshua Colp speaking and Schuyler Deerman moderating a panel called Next Generation Networking - Literally. This panel of under 20 types are shaping our future with the development and efforts. Asterisk, SIP Foundry and Skype will be part of the discussion.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006Wednesday Asterisk at VON training 8:30 A.M. until 10:00 A.M. Olle E. Johansson CEO of Edvina Tutorial Meet Asterisk - The Open Source IPBX.
VON Conference 4:45 P.M. - 5:15 P.M. Mark Spencer the President of Digium will give an Industry Perspective called "An Open Source Carol; The Ghost of Open Source; Past, Present and Future."
Note:
you must be a conference attendee to attendAsterisk User Group MeetingAfter the exhibit hall closes at 6:00 P.M. an Asterisk User Group meeting will be held in room 211. This will be unstructured and will be a chance for peers to hear each other out.
Thursday, September 14, 2006Thursday Asterisk at VON training 8:30 A.M. until 10:00 A.M. Olle E. Johansson CEO of Edvina Tutorial an in depth look at the latest release of Asterisk (v1.4)
Written by Dal on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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On September 4, 2006 an anonymous poster sent a message to these mailing lists containing a link to a package of source code claiming that it was "Digium's G.729 and G.723 codecs".
Response: As far as we can tell, that statement was not accurate. While the code posted appears to contain some of the same functionality as the G.729 modules we use, it is not the code used to produce our G.729 binary codec modules, and we do not offer a G.723 binary codec module at all.
In addition, we are not certain of the exact origin of the code, and so we are concerned that the package of source code that was posted may contain code from third parties that is not licensed for redistribution, or not licensed under the terms that the posting suggested would apply to it.
We have therefore removed the links to the package from our mailing list archives. We recognize the importance of the integrity of these archives, but we do not wish to facilitate violation of anyone's copyrights or license agreements.
--
Kevin P. Fleming
Senior Software Engineer
Digium, Inc.
Written by Dal on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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After a lot of hype, speculation, leaks, etc., Research in Motion's Blackberry Pearl has finally been released into the wild, highlighted by an ahead-of-the-pack positive view by the Wall St. Journal's Walter Mossberg. For some early thoughts about the Pearl, which features push e-mail, a camera, video and music players, check out Engadget, CrunchGear and Gizmodo.
Written by Mark Evans on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Wireless and Main Page and Research in Motion.
If you ask anyone about their Palm Treo, they either love it or they break into a litany of woes about the device. Since I have given up on the device, it is hard to speak from personal experience. Katie, dropped Treo in favor of a Blackberry and there were at least five other people who did the same. As we have read and reported time and again, Treo has issues. Especially some of the new ones - and those issues have become AN ISSUE for Palm. The company today warned that its sales for the fiscal first quarter will be lower than what it was expecting.
“We will soon address the market dynamics responsible for our first quarter revenue shortfall with two major product launches, one that improves our pricing position and both which extend our carrier relationships to global markets,” said Ed Colligan, Palm president and chief executive officer.
A case of too little, too late? Quality issues leading to customer defection, combined with increase competition from Nokia (E-Series phones), Motorola (Q), Danger (Sidekick 3) and RIM (Pebble) equals trouble! Thoughts?
Written by Om Malik on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Mobile.
As you probably know, I'm not in the news business, and you'll rarely see top-of-the-morning breaking stories here. Lots of other bloggers do that really well, and that's not my thing.
Today's announcement by AOL for their AIM PhoneLine Developer Program is a big story, and may well turn out to be a watershed for Voice 2.0 coming of age among mainstream providers. Everyone is a winner here - AOL, the developer partners, and ultimately subscribers. You can get a good look at this if you're attending Fall VON next week, where three vendors will be showcased by AOL - Iotum, MyNuMo, and mVox Technologies. With AOL's TotalTalk being phased out later this year, this really does look like a transition from Voice 1.0 to Voice 2.0 - something that will be very welcome by the IP community.
In addition to the above parties, Jeff Pulver has got to be pretty happy. Not only is AOL doing this showcase at his show, but these are the kinds of vendors that enable Voice 2.0 services, which are awfully close to the Purple Minutes holy grail Jeff has been searching for from service providers.
I'll segue now to Jeff Pulver's blog for my wrapup. I was privy to this news last night, but was under embargo until this morning. Other commitments (the paying kind!) prevented me from posting until now, and by now, the story has been done to death - and very well. So, if you're hearing about this story for the first time, I'm going to steer you to the multitude of blog posts that cover this story from many angles. My only insight to add is the fact that the blog coverage was so extensive and much of it happened right away - this itself tells you that AOL is on the right track with Phoneline, and that this is the kind of developer program many have been waiting for.
So, I would steer you to Jeff's post first. From there, it won't be hard to pick up the threads that will lead you to many other posts, all of which are worthy of a read, especially if you are wondering what all the fuss is about for Voice 2.0. I may be missing some, but I'd urge you to check out the posts from Alec Saunders, Andy Abramson, Mark Evans, Mathew Ingram, Jim Courtney, Ken Camp, Garrett Smith, Bruce Stewart, and James Enck.
Technorati tags: AIM Phoneline, Jon Arnold, Voice 2.0, Jeff Pulver
Written by Jon Arnold's Blog on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Yesterday, I posted about the basic details of this story, along with my overall take on Toronto Hydro Telecom's WiFi launch. I said it would be a short post, with a longer post to follow once the news was out.
Well, I'm reversing myself - that post was longer than planned, and this one will be short. Catherine McLean's story did not run in today's print edition of the Globe & Mail, but it did turn up in the online edition. There are more details about the launch there, and the only thing I really missed in yesterday's post was the pricing for rentals - it's $10 for a day, and $5 for an hour.
What I really love about online editions of newspapers are the reader comments, and there are some real interesting ones that show the range of viewpoints around this initiative. Of particular note is the comment that Toronto already has a free WiFi initiative, called Wireless Toronto - something I've been meaning to blog about for sometime (better do it quick before somebody else does!). Given my earlier posting about Fredericton's free WiFi service, I just have to mention the comment from someone in Fredericton praising their service - oh, and of course, his posting was made using their WiFi service!
Still, I haven't seen any talk about this story on the blogs - not sure why. Toronto Hydro Telecom now has news and information about the service - officially branded as OneZone on their website, but aside from Catherine's online article, that's about it.
So, for all you muni WiFi guys/gals out there, I hope you find this of interest!
Technorati tags: Toronto Hydro Telecom, Jon Arnold, Municipal WiFi
Written by Jon Arnold's Blog on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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The Wall Street Journal writes about mounting legal woes of Qualcomm, which is being sued by almost everyone in the mobile hardware business, especially chip and handset makers. While that might be an issue, it might not be the only issue, and perhaps not the real challenge facing the company. Qualcomm has an army of attorneys for precisely this kind of situation and have spent million preparing for a legal smack down.
WSJ, should have perhaps focused on other and perhaps the real challenge ahead of Qualcomm: some of its fast growing markets are planning to build GSM overlays on their CDMA networks. Brazil and India are two examples. South Korea wants its wireless future to be Q-Free and well, Sprint has made its WiMAX decision. I think those are the big issues, not those pesky lawsuits by competitors. That’s business as usual in the chip industry.
Some good news for Qualcomm though:
- 3G subscriptions, including CDMA2000, are forecast to hit 285 million by the end of 2006, according to ABI Research’s Asia-Pacific director, Jake Saunders. As we all know 3G is a loosely defined term, so that just might be right.
- Couple of South Asian countries are seeing some hefty CDMA growth and are rolling out new services.
Written by Om Malik on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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Apologies for the Elvis Costello reference...but iotum announced today it is one of three APIs (call personalization, device enablement and call management) to be part of AOL's new Open AIM Phoneline program. The deal with AOL is a huge coup for Ottawa-based iotum, which has been battling away to find a market/customers for its relevance engine that intelligently assesses telephone calls and delivers them to most appropriate device on any network. iotum CEO Alec Saunders said his company is one of the AOL's primary partners in the AIM developers program. "We're in the storefront, and part of their initial announcement," he said. "iotum engineers have also helped with the specification of the AIM Phoneline call control APIs, as we mutually determined the best to integrate iotum, and other products needing call control capabilities with AIM Phoneline. Another Canadian angle to the AIM development program is AOL's engineering team is located in Halifax, N.S. Now, all iotum needs is a little venture capital.
Update: For more on the iotum-AIM deal, check out Mathew Ingram, while Jeff Pulver, who is gearing up for the VON show, writes on the AIM Developer program.
Written by Mark Evans on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
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For all those YouTube followers chomping at the bit for an IPO, venture capitalist Fred Wilson has done some interesting number-crunching based on two assumptions: 10-second pre-roll ads and a $15 CPM rate. His back of the napkin spreadsheet guess-timates YouTube could generate $153.3-million of revenue after making payments to content owners. Now, if the investment bankers on Wall St. weren't chomping at the bit already.....
Update: Jason Calacanis believes YouTube's revenue potential is closer to $20-million based on the idea it will only be able to get CPM rates of $2 to $3, rather than $15, as well as issues about legal issues that could arise by putting advertising in front of content.
Technorati tags: video, YouTube
Written by Mark Evans on September 7th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Web 2.0 and video and Main Page.