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So how keen are you about Microsoft Vista? Keen enough to be among the first people to embrace the new, much-anticipated and much-delayed operating system? During this week's Talking Tech podcast, Kevin Restivo and I both advise smart computers users to wait on Vista until Microsoft fixes any of the inevitable bugs that will emerge despite years of development and billions of dollars of R&D. After all, we're talking about an operating system with 40 million lines of code.
That said, when I think of Vista, I think of those old Fram oil filter commercial in which a mechanic tells a customer, "you can pay me now or you can pay me later". For computer users, it means you can migrate to Vista now (not recommended) or do it later but at some point, you'll probably have to do it to take advantage of new software and Web services designed specifically for Vista. While everyone is focused on Vista, people and investors shouldn't overlook the launch of Office 2007 given Office accounts for 30% of Microsoft's sales and 50% of profits.
Earlier this week, the Toronto Sun laid off 16 more employees - reflecting the newspaper industry's continued struggles. The question is if you owned a newspaper, what would you do to fix it? USAToday's Kevin Maney had an interesting column exploring the idea earlier this week, while I was inspired to write a blog post with my take.
Finally, Kevin (Restivo) and I looked at BitTorrent's $20-million venture capital deal. We're not sure how BitTorrent is going to spend $20-million given it doesn't have a P2P network to operate. Perhaps it's a sign investors believe the music and movie industries will start to capitalize on P2P rather than fight it like the music industry has insisted on doing. It could also suggests BitTorrent's investors believe consumers may be willing to pay for an online service that provide high-quality downloads at reasonable prices (much like iTunes). Then again, the problem with the P2P world is even if you have a legitimate player emerge, there will always be new ones offering free content...such as DailyMotion.com, which has a library of commercial-free TV shows.
Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Newspapers, P2P, Video
Written by Mark Evans on December 3rd, 2006 with no comments.
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According to TechCrunch, BitTorrent has raised $25 million from Accel Partners and Doll Capital Management. BitTorrent has also signed distribution deals with a variety of major film and TV producers. So, the idea is the money and the licensing deals with MTV, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, etc. is going to make BitTorrent legit - and steer it farther away from its roots as a cool P2P technology used to download free movies, TV shows and music? In theory, that makes sense but it's a bit of a pipe-dream unless some of the $25-million is used to crack down on all those Torrent-crazed pirates out there. Mathew Ingram doesn't think much about the press release given he believes it's going to take a lot more than some PR for BitTorrent to compete against the pirates.
Written by Mark Evans on November 30th, 2006 with no comments.
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So the rumors were true! As reported earlier this week by us, P2P based VPN provider, Hamachi has been snapped up by LogMeIn, a Woburn, Mass.-based remote connectivity company. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Hamachi has about three million beta users, and the company claims it is adding 400,000 computers a month. Wow, those are Skype like numbers. We are pretty sure they did not get Skype-like dollars. Our review should explain why people love the product. User beware, says our good friend, Ken Camp.
…the technical side of this service establishes a VPN tunnal via a gateway server on Cocos Island. If this service were to ever embrace port hopping technology like Skype-uses, you’d have a peer to peer link established from your corporate network to foreign soil. This is problematic for many businesses…
Given that LogMeIn.com is in the business of selling to large corporations, they are going to do the right thing, and make the service corporate-happy.
Written by Om Malik on August 9th, 2006 with no comments.
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Rumors are buzzing that someone is about to snap-up Vancouver, Canada-based Hamachi, a peer-to-peer application we like a lot, and wrote about them over a year ago. We have not been able to bet any more details, and are treating it as a low intensity rumor for now. These days the company describes itself as “Hamachi is a zero-configuration virtual private networking application.” It comes in all three flavors - Linux, OS-X and Windows.
Written by Om Malik on August 6th, 2006 with no comments.
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BitTorrent, a San Francisco-based peer-to-peer networking start-up is working with Cachelogic of Cambridge, UK on a new protocol called the “Cache Discovery Protocol” or CDP, which supposedly will act like DHCP for peer to peer networks.
DHCP assigns IP addresses to devices on a network automatically, without much mucking around on the end user part. Similarly, the new CDP would allows BitTorrent client to auto discover better seeds that have been cached on the network, and allow faster downloads of the files. The new technology is especially helpful in situations where there are only a handful of seed files.
This is not the frist time BitTorrent and Cachelogic have teamed up. The two companies have a history of working together and did a large scale trial for UK-based broadband provider, ntl. Though, not all details are available at this point, my understanding is that the caching of these seeds addresses will address some of the issues around BitTorrent’s performance, especially where there is very limited upstream speed available. (More details to follow!)
The torrent swarms see performance degradation when there are too many leechers, folks who pull down more data than they upload. (If you a more detailed and succinct description of these performance issues, please leave a comment.) Many actually don’t do this intentionally. While the broadband providers have been slowly increasing the downstream speeds, the upstream data transfer speeds have not increased that quickly.
Internet service providers will find this new protocol particularly interesting. It will boost the speed of downloads, but will place limited demands on their system from an upstream data perspective. As I said earlier, more on this when reporting resumes on Monday. It is time to break for the weekend
Written by Om Malik on August 4th, 2006 with no comments.
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Peer-to-peer (P2P) networking is once again catching the imagination of the venture capital community in Silicon Valley. RedSwoosh, BitTorrent, Pando, and dozens of others have come out with different twists on the core concept of peer-to-peer networking, and have raised millions. SkyRider, a Mountain View, Calif.-based start up is the latest to join the party, having raised $8 million from white shoe venture funds, Sequoia Capital and Charles River Ventures.
SkyRider was started by telecom veterans Ori Cohen and Stas Khirman (also co-founders of packet inspection company, Narus and VDOnet) in 2003, and has operated in stealth mode, finessing a new peer to peer networking platform. The company is keeping mum about its technology and strategy, and will offer its first product in Fall 2006.
“We are developing a commercial grade P2P networking platform, which we will offer to other companies,” says Ed Kozel, CEO of SkyRider, who previously had worked for Cisco Systems and Yahoo! He says that the four big P2P networks - Gnutella, Ares, Kazaa and eDonkey – continue to grow in popularity, yet there has been very little innovation around these networks. They are essentially used for swapping either music or video files.
Amongst other issues around these networks is that they still remain silos. SkyRider, has developed amongst other things a technology that will allow it to act almost like a bridge between those networks. By doing so, the company is opening up an opportunity for cross platform search – rather better P2P keyword search. According to some estimates there are 12 million simultaneous P2P users on the P2P networks, and there are nearly half-a-billion queries on these networks. That, according to ComScore data, it close to the number of daily searches on Google and Yahoo.
The big opportunity, Kozel says, is to bring the web-like ease to the P2P networks, and looking beyond video and music file sharing. SkyRider also has plans to apply P2P technology to user-generated content.
Written by Om Malik on August 3rd, 2006 with no comments.
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ThinkSecret, the guys sued for revealing
Apple secrets,
is at it again with a rumored Apple video rental service in the works that will allow you to rent videos for download to a video iPod. Apple CEO
Steve Jobs is rumored to announce the availability of movie rentals on iTunes at next month’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Although carried on the iTunes site, I wonder if this means they'll call it iVideo? According to ThinkSecret, Apple has agreements with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros, with others in the works.
Unfortunately, it appears that Hollywood and the movie studios have gotten their way with a strict rental model that forces the video download to expire using DRM (digital rights management). Whether or not the video expires after a certain date or after a certain number of playbacks remains to be seen. I'm not one for expiring content - unless it is heavily discounted - otherwise I'd rather purchase the content outright even if it costs a little more. I should point out that it doesn't cost the movie studios hardly anything to distribute their copyrighted material over IP, so they should be able to heavily discount video rentals that are downloaded. But don't count on $0.99/movie (ala iTunes music) downloads - that's just wishful thinking. (
Note: iTunes currently offers TV show downloads and other video content, but currently not movies)
MovieLink offers digital downloads/rentals as well as the ability to purchase and own movies.
CinemaNow also offers movie downloads -
even HDTV versions, as does
MovieBeam. So what Apple is doing is nothing new. What they bring to the table though is the ability for users to easily access digital media all from their online iTunes store. They truly bring a rich user experience that makes it easy to purchase music and "soon" movies. Still, I'm betting that Holywood will still place a high premium on movies and TV shows that will force users to get their video content for free on P2P sites such as Bittorrent, eDonkey, etc. Until Hollywood finally gets it and offers movie & TV downloads for a reasonable price, they will suffer the same Napster effect that finally brought about the inexpensive $0.99 music download (and lower).
I wonder how successful Apple has been with their
current video downloads on iTunes.com which offers TV shows for just $1.99? I doubt Hollywood will allow $1.99 for movies - or if they do, you probably only get 30 days to watch the movie.
Also, really Apple should rename iTunes to iMedia or iEntertainment if they're going to expand into video and other content. Hmmm, better go check and see if those domains are taken.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on July 18th, 2006 with no comments.
Read more articles on Uncategorized and Apple and MP3 Players & Digital Audio and iPod and video and p2p and hdtv and download and drm and edonkey and hollywood and movies.
Peer to Peer file sharing start-up, Pando Networks has developed a cool little plugin for Microsoft Outlook, that allows people to send large files right from within Outlook. It makes sharing big files such as Powerpoints, videos and large sized PDFs a breeze.
The best part is that you can attach files you normally would, and if it is up to a specific size, the file would be sent using the email. However, if the file is say bigger than specified 20 MB, then Pando will automatically offer to package them and insert a small .pando file in their place. The recipient(s) open your .pando attachment to start a direct P2P transfer of the large file(s) you attached. You can attach files as large as one gigabyte, and share them using Pando. The plugin is going to be available later, but you can sign-up for a beta right now.
Pando is part of a growing number of P2P start-ups that are developing ways to overcome the short comings of email’s ability to handle large sized files such as video clips. Other start-ups in this space include Hamachi, Perenety, Zapr, Peerfactor, and Wired Reach I have written about this personal P2P trend a few times, here, here and here.
Written by Om Malik on July 12th, 2006 with no comments.
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Siemens Communications Inc. today announced its HiPath BizIP offering, a new peer-to-peer SIP VoIP phone system that negated the need for a complex enterprise network telephone system. Conceptually, this is similar to
Popular Telephony or Nimcat Networks (
now part of Avaya) , but the real news here is the fact that Siemens, a traditional "big iron PBX company" is now offering a P2P phone system that
doesn't require a centralized PBX - instead the intelligence is located on the "peers", i.e. the phones. Now that's
Avaya and
Siemens that have embraced P2P phone systems. Can the death of the big iron centralized PBX be far behind?
Also,
Siemens Communications also announced announced that it would provide development-friendly, business-focused communication applications across a framework of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) standards and associated Web services interfaces. The
Siemens Communications SOA initiative, which began in 2004, will ultimately encompass all key enterprise innovations and services – including past and future communication solutions.
The HiPath BizIP feature overview:
-- Helps enables low-cost calling via the Internet and ISDN.
-- Supports typical enterprise telephone services such as three-way conferencing, speed dialing, caller lists, call diversion and call swapping.
-- Includes integrated personal answering machine capabilities, with all phones working together to ensure voice mails are not lost when a phone is busy or out of order.
-- Scales to allow from two to 16 phones to be connected as a single workgroup.
-- Can be used in branch offices.
-- Provides a flexible Web tool for simple administration.
-- Includes back-up functionality between telephone terminals.
-- Has quality of service equal to a conventional telephone system.
"This solution stands out for its low investment costs, helping a small office or home office to set up a robust VoIP system without having to create a complex communication infrastructure," said Mark Straton, senior vice president of Marketing,
Siemens Communications Inc. "Installation and maintenance costs are also lower because the existing LAN infrastructure is reused and peer-to-peer software helps eliminate the need for complex telephone configurations."
Communication with public voice and broadband data networks is handled by the BizIP Access Device, which helps ensure that a service provider's VoIP phone numbers can be used for Internet telephony, ISDN lines or both. The HiPath BizIP solution is pre-packaged to interoperate with low-cost session initiation protocol (SIP) services offered by operators. In addition, analog phones, fax machines and door intercoms can still be connected.
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on May 1st, 2006 with no comments.
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Two interesting calling promotions being offered by
Raketu. First, their "Try Dialout For Free" promotion allows users to try RakOut (Raketu’s dialout service) to call locations in more than 40 countries for free. This mirrors
Skype's free SkypeOut promotion until the end of 2006, but Skype's promo is only good for 2 countries - the U.S. and Canada vs. 40 countries for Raketu. Secondly, they are offering free unlimited calling to locations in more than 40 countries around the world to pre-paid RakOut customers. I'm not sure exactly what this second promotion means. I think they meant you can call RakIn customers, not RakOut. That would make more sense.
Finally, Raketu claims that their peer-to-peer (p2p) technology allows the highest quality of VoIP calling and the highest call-completion, without the security issues associated with supernodes (i.e.
Skype).
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(Fire on
Oct 17, 2006 11:58 AM)
But you must have funds in your account in order to get these free min.
(Nish Vamadevan on
Oct 17, 2006 10:00 PM)
I dont think its going to work
They only let you talk 1 hour where as VoipCheap.com will let you 5Hrs per week without any strings attached. They do have a cool feature about incorporating all the IMs and making it into an All-In-One, But I doubt they will attract customers that way
Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on January 1st, 1970 with no comments.
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This from the weird & wacky. The Public Safety Broadband Consortium, a group that includes InfiNet Wireless, Lockheed Martin Information Technology, Public Safety Broadband and Wi-Fi Citywide, will be demonstrating the use of live streaming video from law enforcement vehicles traveling in excess of 100 mph during the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Police Vehicle Test Day this Thursday, using a mesh network and peer-to-peer (P2P) technology.
The objective of the Public Safety Broadband Consortium a group that includes InfiNet Wireless, Lockheed Martin Information Technology, Public Safety Broadband and Wi-Fi Citywide is to demonstrate advances in the use of wireless broadband technology for public safety officials. The LASD's Police Vehicle Test Day is an annual event that primarily focuses on vehicles themselves, with a testing process designed to address law enforcement officer's operational requirements.
The live demonstration will feature Lockheed Martin's In-Car Mobile Mesh Digital Video solution, using InfiNet Wireless 4.9 GHz mesh routers in four state of the art police vehicles. The Mobile Mesh Digital Video solution forms an instant mobile mesh network for peer-to peer networking, allowing first responders to spontaneously form an ad-hoc broadband network at the scene of an evolving incident. Once enabled, several incident scene management applications including live, streaming video between mobile vehicles may be instantaneously utilized. During the Test Day demonstration, live video will be streamed to an infield audience of 400 plus attendees while vehicles negotiate the test course at speeds in excess of 100 mph. The streaming video will be displayed on a large screen monitor in a viewing tent. " The test will demonstrate an Integrated public safety mesh network, a Wi-Fi public access network, and a Mesh backhaul network.
My first thought was, well isn't that special? The police get to go >100mph even during a non-emergency - simply to test this newfandangled P2P streaming video solution. My second thought went something like this:
Police Officer 1: Hey wow, this is cool! Now we can stream the accident and homicidal carnage LIVE back to our buddies back at the precinct that couldn't be here to enjoy the spectacle.
Police Officer 2: True. Video streaming will be cool. Wonder if we can also get DirecTV satellite reception in our police vehicles that works at high rates of speed and when turning will keep a satellite lock?
Police Officer 1: Bah! Who needs satellite TV when the tax payers will be footing the bill for this cool P2P adhoc network. You can just download movies to your in-dash computer using Bittorrent and this new adhoc P2P network. Bittorent.com just
announced today some consumer-based Bittorent devices, so should be easy to integrate into our in-dash computers.
Police Officer 2: You speak the truth my brother. Now I can check my GMail too.
Police Officer 1: True. So True. With my working the late shift, I'm usually too tired when I get home to surf the Web. I've been meaning to check out this Myspace thing I've been hearing about. Now I can surf the Web while I'm working my speed traps. Beauty, eh?
Police Officer 2: Amen! Hey, I wonder if we can do VoIP or Skype. My girlfriend is in Spain right now and the international calling is killing me!
Well, in all seriousness, this adhoc P2P network with video capabilities is an interesting use of technology. P2P tends to get a bad rap, so here's a P2P solution that is used to help people in an emergency. Of course, since it's a P2P network, I wonder how long before hackers can break into this network. Perhaps they can add or delete traffic tickets. I know the police still use paperwork to issue tickets, but at some point these tickets are entered into the computer system. Perhaps even at the time of the traffic stop. Wouldn't it be cool to get pulled over for going >140mph, receive a speeding ticket and then when the office goes back to his car, you open up your trusty laptop, hack into the police cruiser's computer and delete the record. I know, I know - not very likely, but as someone who loves to speed I can dream can't I?
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on January 1st, 1970 with no comments.
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Interesting Bittorrent news I came across on
O'Reilly. Here's an excerpt:
One of the key tenants of BitTorrent is that you have to contribute (upload) to receive (download). BitTyrant is a new client that finds a way to be selfish within the BT protocols by selectively uploading to peers based on their upload capacity. It was created by researchers to test the robustness of BT's incentives. From their site:
BitTyrant is a new, protocol compatible BitTorrent client that is optimized for fast download performance. BitTyrant is...
* Fast - During evaluation testing on more than 100 real BitTorrent swarms, BitTyrant provided an average 70% download performance increase when compared to the existing Azureus 2.5 implementation, with some downloads finishing more than three times as quickly.
* Fair - BitTorrent was designed with incentives in mind: if a user is downloading at 30 KBps, they should upload at 30 KBps. However, due to the unique workload properties of many real-world swarms, this is not always enforced. BitTyrant is designed to make efficient use of your scarce upload bandwidth, rewarding those users whose upload allocations are fair and only allocating excess capacity to other users.
* Familiar - BitTyrant is based on modifications to Azureus 2.5, currently the most popular BitTorrent client. All of our changes are under the hood. Youâll find the GUI identical to Azureus, with optional additions to display statistics relevant to BitTyrantâs operation.
If you use this, then you will get a faster download. If someoneelse in a swarm uses this then you will get a slower download. more...
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Written by VoIP & Gadgets Blog on January 1st, 1970 with no comments.
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