Archive for April, 2008
Jajah, Yahoo, Jahoo, Whoohoo….
I made a conscious decision to take most of yesterday off because of my birthday. I’m the boss, and what I say goes. Invariably, something interesting always seems to happen when I do things like this. So, better late than never, but yesterday’s news with Jajah and Yahoo sure is a goodie. It’s been well covered by now, and for reference I’ll steer you to the mainstream press - Business Week - and some blogs - Andy Abramson, Irv Shapiro, Gary Kim, Garrett Smith, Alec Saun...
Skype’s mobile dilemma
A guest column by Jahangir Raina of iLocus, a research company focused on emerging communications segments. See also JR’s interview today with Mark Jacobstein, CEO, iSkoot. Skype’s recent mobile VoIP announcement is an admission that VoIP over 3G is not practical yet. This is evident from the fact that Skype has chosen to implement iSkoot type architecture for its own mobile VoIP offering that it announced last week. Skype has tried on several occasions before to go direct to consumers...
Skype 3.8 Released to the Public
(Note: Due to recent issues with Skype Journal’s Moveable Type blogging platform where a post has not been automatically going to the Home Page, I had already drafted this post when I found that Phil actually had issued his post on the Skype 3.8 public release. So I put this up for completeness and also with some commentary on the main upgrade features.) Yesterday (while I was on a travel day) Skype released Skype 3.8 for Windows to the public after about four weeks as a beta. While ...
AOL launches OpenView API and gives us half a phone connection…
Does accepting SIP connections at your SIP proxy constitute an “API”? Does providing SIP termination services to the PSTN constitute an “API”? Those were the questions I found myself asking after AOL announced yesterday their “Open Voice API” (also see CNET article). Since I work with voice application platforms, I’m always interested in new voice APIs and naturally had to check it out. WHAT IT IS I have to admit it took some time to figure out what the ...
Service Provider Views - Latest Article
My latest column for Service Provider Views was posted today. It continues my exploration of the service provider-as-platform play idea. Hope you enjoy it, and feel free to continue the dialog. I’ve been writing in a few different places lately, so I’ve been keeping busy on a few fronts. I’ll be updating my blog with these items as the week progresses. Yesterday was a day off from blogging - it was my birthday, and I had other things to do… Technorati tags: Service Pro...
Squawk Box on April 29 discussed Jajah…
As an update to my previous post, the Squawk Box recording is now available of our call with Jajah co-founder Roman Scharf. It was an interesting discussion of what they are doing. On a programming note, it was one of the larger calls we’ve done on Squawk Box and we encountered some technical issues that Alec Saunders had to deal with (hence my jumping in as lead interviewer at one point). All in all both a fun and interesting session. Do give it a listen if you are interested in voice p...
Call Screening Patent
While researching for my VoIP call screening post earlier today, I came across a patent for "call screening". Curious, I decided to check it out the filed patent and found it was filed by Nortel Networks in July 2004. Interestingly, the patent application agrees with me that hosted voicemail needs call screening and goes as far as to say service providers with hosted voicemail systems are at a competitive disadvantage when they don’t have call screening. The patent app reads as f...
VoIP Call Screening
Robert Traphan, a college friend of mine stayed at my house last night and we were talking about the various VoIP products and services. Robert is a former SunRocket customer until the SunRocket implosion. Robert was a huge fan of SunRocket over both Packet8 and Vonage. One of his favorite features was SunRocket Signature Message Screener, a piece of software that runs on your PC and allows you to see who is calling (Caller ID with Name) via a TOAST icon in the System Tray. Even cooler, SunRocke...
Discovering your Life Major
Ever since I started this thread about a Life Major in late November, 2007, I have enjoyed reading the conversations that this topic has generated. I remain amazed how at a young age, just about everyone who attends university in the United States has to pick a major and make it their core focus for the time they spend at university. How does anyone at 18 or 20 know what it is that they really want to do for the rest of their lives? In fact, there are quite a number of people I know who ar...
Twitter’s Success: It’s the Ecosystem
After spending far too many hours last week looking at Wordpress themes and plugins, it got me thinking that what makes Wordpress such a great blogging platform is the ecosystem that has exploded around it. There are 10s of thousands of places where you get information about how to use Wordpress, and 10s of thousands of people happily created themes and plugins - many of them for free, although donations always welcome. So while Wordpress (the platform) is terrific (Note: WP 2.5 needs some twea...
OnState, the Skype Call Center functionality Enabler, Used by B4 Consulting
I always find it fascinating to read about companies that take standard Skype and add additional features that make it a great solution for various business processes beyond just VoIP. One such company is OnState, the creator of OnState ACD for Skype, which adds ACD & call center functionality to Skype. They recently announced support for Zimbra, a popular open source server and client software for messaging and collaboration - email, group calendaring, contacts, and web document manag...
DVD Book Type Setting - Troubleshooting DVD Burning Problems
Codeguys.rpc1.org is a popular website run by C0deKing and Kanalratte that offers crossflashing and overclocking of your DVD±RW drives using "hacked" firmware for your DVD burner. Often the hacked firmware enables missing features such as overclocking the speed of the DVD burn and more importantly, setting the ‘book type’ permanently to "DVD-ROM". (more on that later) RPC1.org also offer "autopatchers", which are are easy do-it-yourself tools with...
Skype 3.8 for Windows
Skype 3.8 for Windows was just released with the main improvements in the audio engine. Skype claims the new version significantly reduced background noise, less delay, fewer call drops, and fewer cut-outs, especially when both sides are using Skype 3.8 for Windows. According to a Skype spokeperson, another improvement is if you change your headset, headphones or microphone, "there’s no need to mess around with sound settings. Skype 3.8 for Windows takes care of it behind the scenes.&...
Vista Misery and Mysteries
Wasn’t planning to install Vista on my new Toughbook CF-30 because it’s been hard to deal with on Mary’s new HP; but I did and now have both some misery and an Internet Explorer protected mode mystery which I’d be glad for nerd help with. I liked the fact that the new Toughbook came with XP installed plus recover DVDs for both Vista Business and XP. That meant, I thought, that I could give Vista a while to stabilize and then install it. Unlike Mary’s preinstalled V...
Skype for Windows 3.8 goes out of Beta
Earlier this month, Skype launched the Skype for Windows 3.8 Beta (April 2, 2008). Jim wrote about his experiences with Skype 3.8 Beta (April 6, 2008), and now 3.8 is out of beta. Download it now for better call quality, amazingly easier hardware configuration (I swapped out headphones yesterday without opening the Options panel), a new privacy feature that hides the images of strangers who befriend you. skype.com/go/download Version 3.8.0.115. File size 21 MB. Change log (updated Extras ...
Rev B of Astfin’s BRI (ISDN) Asterisk Appliance Arrives
Rev B of Astfin’s BRI (ISDN) Appliance has just arrived. The BR4 appliance (or BRI Appliance) is an open hardware BRI Asterisk Appliance running Astfin. I’ve written about this Asterisk-based appliance before. The Astfin.org blog author writes how he used the popular USB jtag (ICEbear) to connect to the new BRI Appliance rev B board. He then gives the blow-by-blow account of his experience, including running dumpreg & flashload. If you love to flash (memory that is - get y...
Junk Economics Wrong on Oil
It is one thing to do basket-of-apples gedanken experiments but the real world is just a weeeeee bit more complicated. Some of my friends deny the peak oil hypothesis, aka Hubbert’s Peak, even though the scientific underpinnings are clear, the confirming evidence gathers and the disconfirming evidence is nowhere in sight. In today’s New York Times, in an article entitled Oil Price Rise Fails to Open Tap, the words “peak” and “oil” are not found together, but ...
Fighting Words for Network Neutrality
By permission of my friend Abell Smith, perpetrator of Fighting Words Comics. Technorati Tags: NetworkNeutrality, Press, savetheinternet, toons ...
What I look for in Startups
During the past ten years, what I look for in a startup has changed. These days I no longer actively look for an opportunity to participate in the A round or B round of a startup, although I still do that from time to time. My recent investments in both Seesmic and twitter are a reflection of this. During the past couple of years, my core focus has shifted from making investments in companies and their mission to making investments in people and their vision. And I focus on what I consi...
Travel Times Across America vs. Europe
Last night I took an evening flight from Miami to Los Angeles. While flying to LA I was thinking about the amount of time it takes for someone in the States to travel across the country vs. the amount of time it takes my friends in Europe to travel across Europe. Friends in Europe who travel by plane within Europe can get to just about any major European city in about 3 hours or less. In fact it takes only a little more than 5 hours to fly from London to Tel Aviv. In the US it takes 3 hours to j...
More media material
You can here me talk at a panel at eComm here answering What Will Drive Wireless Innovation?. For those without an hour to spare, I’m also on the BBC News site here today. UPDATE: My eComm keynote on re-thinking the phone company is here. But you’ve got work to do, no time to waste watching videos on the web, no? Posted by Martin Geddes at 11:55 AM Comments: (post your comment) Enjoy Telepocalypse? Then try Telco 2.0™: Making money in an IP world ...
More media material
You can here me talk at a panel at eComm here answering What Will Drive Wireless Innovation?. For those without an hour to spare, I’m also on the BBC News site here today. UPDATE: My eComm keynote on re-thinking the phone company is here. But you’ve got work to do, no time to waste watching videos on the web, no? Posted by Martin Geddes at 11:55 AM Comments: (post your comment) Enjoy Telepocalypse? Then try Telco 2.0™: Making money in an IP world ...
Jajah to provide PSTN connectivity for Yahoo!Voice!
Yahoo! announced today that they are outsourcing all PSTN connectivity services for Yahoo!Messenger over to the startup Jajah. This is a huge win for Jajah who also announced today that it has hit over 10 million users in two years. Congrats to the Jajah team for the win! Two parts of the release explain a bit about what is going on: The “Phone In” and “Phone Out” service will enable consumers to make high-quality, low-cost PC-to-phone and phone-to-PC voice calls over t...
Jajah to Bring VoIP to Yahoo Messenger
Jajah’s VoIP managed service business has landed a key customer and 97 million new customers with Yahoo Messenger. Read More… ...
JaJah + Yahoo!, GrandCentral / Google
In this announcement JaJah is said to power the Yahoo! Voice offering. I see, so.. what happened to the Dialpad assets? Once coud surmise that running the terminaiton business was not making a great deal of money. At one cent per minute that might likely be the case. While on the topic of Dialpad, Andy mentions that Grandcentral's main guy Craig Walker has recently updated the GC blog with a soft promise of something new. The more things change the more they stay the same. It's so weir...
AOL Launches Open Voice APIs
Today, AOL will launch Open Voice APIs to enable developers to integrate the AIM Call Out Service into softphones and SIP-enabled devices. According to AOL, the APIs will "provide third-party developers and VoIP device manufacturers with open standards protocols that will enable them to easily integrate the AIM Call Out service into softphones, as well as SIP-enabled hardware and cell phones with wi-fi connectivity." The APIs directly integrate with AIM Call Out, which is AOL’s &...
Scott Wharton’s New Venture
I’ve been wanting to post about this for a bit, and it’s a good time now to do this. Scott Wharton was the VP of Marketing at BroadSoft pretty much as long as I’ve been in this space, and he recently made a move to do his own thing. He’s long been instrumental in BroadSoft’s growth, and am sure they’re sad to see him go. BroadSoft has evolved nicely into a strong company that I’ve been close to going back to my time at Frost & Sullivan. I think I ev...
iSkoot Security Resolution — The Follow Up
Yesterday I posted about how a security issue was discovered with iSkoot for Symbian phones only and the response from iSkoot. Today iSkoot CEO Mark Jacobstein reports on the iSkoot blog confirming that the problem only existed on a non-production version of the Symbian client and that a new (secure) version will be out by Wednesday, April 30. Most importantly Mark concludes with: We wish to express our sincere thanks to Phoneboy for identifying the issue. As he notes, “there’s a...
New iMac Specs Are Good To Have …
Thanks to ZDNet for publishing a quick rundown of the specs for the new iMacs launched today. Having moved from PC to the now almost-current iMac and the fabulous new MacBook Pro, you have to tip your hat to Apple for just getting better and better … Tags: Apple, iMac, MacBook Pro, ZDNet Related Entries Zune Marches On! - May 06, 2008 Taking a Slice Out of Apple’s Time Machine - May 02, 2008 JAJAH Mobile VoIP client for the iPhone - Apr 02, 2008 Skype and other VoIP Apps on M...
Is Mother’s Day 2008 Gadget Day?
With Mother’s Day fast approaching, what will be the gadget of choice to give the electric mom? She’s probably already got an iPod, digital camera, GPS — or maybe this is the year of GPS? What do you think? The suggestion box is open … Tags: digital camera, GPS iPod, Mother’s Day Related Entries Delkin Devices 16GB UDMA enabled CompactFlash PRO card - Dec 07, 2007 New Nikon D40 on Its Way? - Nov 06, 2006 How About a 10 Megapixel Camera, er Cell Phone - Oct 1...
Jon Bon Jovi talking to the crowd at the “Bomb Threat” Concert
The Bon Jovi concert on April 26, 2008 in Sunrise, Florida was delayed due to a bomb threat. This is video footage of Jon Bon Jovi talking to the crowd about it. (Sorry for the audio quality) (video taken using Panasonic DMC-TZ5) Tags: Sunrise, Bon Jovi, concert, Jeff Pulver ...
IRS Rebate Checks Crash Major Banks?
Today, I was downloading my financial information from various banks and credit cards and had difficulty loggiing on or downloading information from several of them. On Citibank’s website I was able to logon, but couldn’t successfully download the Quicken Web Connect file containing my ‘recent activity’. This has never happened to me in the 8 years I’ve used Quicken with Citibank. About 15 minutes later I tried again and it worked. However, I then logged onto Bank o...
Why Old Computers Get Slow
My Toughbook CF-29, bought back in 2004 when I left the corporate world and expected to spend many days in physically tough places, has been getting slow. Mouse clicks and resulting actions are increasingly far apart. Windows open blank and don’t fill in for eons. Programs go into non-responding status; sometimes they recover; sometimes they don’t. Rebooting temporarily speeds things up but it takes longer and longer to shut down and restart. Why? You ask. The speed of light hasn...
Skype Go Mobile
Fuelled with success from the 3 Skype phone, Skype have released a mobile client for a range of Java capable handsets. Read More… ...
Event: Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends) in Chicago on May 7th
On May 7th I will be back in Chicago and hosting the second Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and Friends) in Chicago from 8-10AM at Duffys Tavern. Readers of my blog are invited to join me. Im looking forward to catching up with friends from the greater Chicago area joining me for breakfast and great conversations. To RSVP, please visit this event on Facebook. If you are not on Facebook and would like to RSVP, please send email to: jeffp@pulver.com. Everyone attending this breakfast will rec...
Tracking iSkoot’s security issue exposing Skype usernames and passwords
Over on the Voice of VOIPSA weblog, I have been tracking a security issue in the iSkoot program that was transmitting your Skype username and password in the clear. The post, its comments, and the corresponding links off of it make for some interesting reading. It also shows the speed at which the blogosphere can react and potentially help sort things out. In the space of about 48 hours, a problem was found, confirmed, identified by the vendor and apparently will be fixed shortly. I’ll be...
iSkoot Security Bug Resolved
One benefit of the network of bloggers that has built up around IP-based communications is the ability to identfiy, define and resolve issues in time frames not even imaginable prior to the Internet and the blogosphere. Over the past few months uberblogger PhoneBoy (Dameon Welch-Abernathy) along with Disruptive Telephony’s Dan York, who is also involved with the Voice over IP Security Alliance, have become two sources I will often defer to when I need to confirm the integrity of a vendor&#...
Testing Office 2007
Meant to start this series on moving to a new computer (gulp) and upgrading to Office 2007 (gulp, gulp) and Vista Pro (GULP!) in an orderly way with a post on how computers get old and slow. But when I told the new Microsoft Word that comes with Office 2007 that I wanted to create a new document, it asked me if I really meant a document or a blog post. Well, this is meant to be a blog post so… Word asked me, reasonably, who my blog provider is – it’s TypePad – and then for my TypePa...
Bomb Scare at Bon Jovi Concert in Sunrise, Florida
Last night I was in Sunrise, FL to attend a Bon Jovi concert at the BankAtlantic Center. When I arrived at 7 pm, I expected to go thru the doors and to my seat since the doors were supposed to have opened at 6:30 pm. Instead, I joined the growing group of thousands of others people waiting outside of the BankAtlantic Center. Turns out that someone had phoned-in a bomb threat to blow up the BankAtlantic Center at 7:57pm with two bombs. This information was not shared with the thousands of peopl...
PamFax Receives Skype Certification, Grows Usage
Becomes an Extra Premium; implements major server upgrade. While email and VoIP technology have changed our communications patterns, it seems that faxing still has its place as a communications mode. The growth of PamFax as a worldwide fax service using Skype’s underlying Skype Extras infrastructure is demonstrable proof. A key advantage of PamFax is that it works from a Windows-based PC on any Internet connection worldwide and can readily send a fax to any fax terminal worldw...
Pulvermedia News
I’ve been away from the blogs most all week, and am just getting a chance to see a few this afternoon. Here’s a big one, and at this point, I no doubt am late to the party, but it cannot pass without mention. In short, yesterday Jeff Pulver announced his resignation from Pulvermedia, which speaks volumes about the state of things since their investors made some drastic moves just after Spring VON. As far as I know, Jeff still maintains control over Pulver.com, which is a distinct en...
New Orleans - the 2 Hour Tour
It’s impossible to visit New Orleans and not play hooky at some point - that’s why it’s The Big Easy. Way too many diversions for all the senses - there’s just no place like it in the U.S. So, I ducked out for 2 hours yesterday morning to wander about town and make sure I didn’t come home empty-handed. Always nice to start with a Canadian connection! Statue of Jean-Baptiste Bienville, the city’s founder - who was born in Montreal. Learn something every day&#...
Jeff Pulver’s resignation and the apparent demise of Pulvermedia and VON
In a short and direct statement yesterday, Jeff Pulver yesterday confirmed the fears many of us have had for some time: A little while later, notes like this were showing up in his Twitter stream: (Note: I am not PhoneBoy - that’s Dameon Welch-Abernathy.) Jeff’s resignation was not unexpected, given the rumors swirling around since the end of March (chronicled here: Marc Robins blog, GigaOm) when Pulvermedia’s primary investor, TICC, apparently shut all operations down. Regar...
MetaSwitch Forum - Day 2
Just wanted to share a few highlights from today. More good sessions here, and I was a speaker on the “Drumming Up Business’ session, which was fun and well attended. David Axam’s keynote about BT’s 21CN plans… Archie Manning - yes, local hero of NFL fame - gave a great lunch time motivational speech. He’s not in my good books, since his kids have knocked out my Patriots 2 years running, but hey - they’ve also won the last 2 Super Bowls, so you gotta t...
VAPPS Rebrands Its Service: High Definition Conferencing
In previous posts I have reviewed VAPPS, Inc.’s audio conferencing service and its recent relaunch to incorporate high definition (HD) voice. To the user it means that all participants calling into the VAPPS conference bridge from Skype will hear the other participants accessing the call via Skype at the full HD Voice bandwidth. Recently I reported on PhoneBoy’s experience; today Pat Phelan, CEO of Cubic Telecom reports on a six hour conference call where, only after the call, ...
Cisco and Microsoft in Clash of the UC Titans
According to a new study by analyst firm Infonetics Research, Cisco and Microsoft are locked in a "battle of the titans" for the unified communications (UC) market, with both vendors currently favored by buyers as Unified Messaging and Communicator suppliers. As almost an aside, the news release on the study says, "Avaya and Nortel also fare well as current UC suppliers." I’m sure Avaya and Nortel are thinking — and to quote Rodney Dangerfield, "I get no res...
Vermont Files in Support of Using White Space for Mobile Broadband Access
The Vermont Public Service Department and the Vermont Telecommunications Authority have joined in an ex parte filing at the Federal Communications Commission urging that the Commission “move expeditiously to adopt the necessary technical parameters … and help make this promising technology [use of the so-called ‘TV whitespaces’] a reality.” Given that the docket has been open since May of 2004, a little expeditiousness is certainly in order. “TV white spaces” is the term used ...
Ring Voltage, REN, VoIP and a Bolt of Blue
In 1999, I wrote a humorous article for CTI Magazine, the precursor to Internet Telephony Magazine, about my adventures with a power outage at TMC that took out our Dialogic MSI analog cards in our PC-PBX. The MSI cards are responsible for providing ring voltage to the phones, but the quick power outage blew the ring voltage generators on the cards resulting in phones that wouldn’t ring on an incoming call. OUT OF THE BLUE — A BOLT OF BLUE Rather than working on the Dialogic boards...
SPOT Watches R.I.P.
Microsoft is giving up on the SPOT watch which leverages MSN Direct (FM frequency transmission) to send stock quotes, news, and even sync your Outlook calendar with your watch. The only person who I know owns one is Rich Tehrani, who reviewed one here. He will be so upset to hear the news. Well, least his wrist will be 3 pounds lighter so his typing should improve. You know what the problem was? They didn’t have VoIP on the watch. Now if you could talk to your watch - ala Dick Tracey (se...
Zultys & Aastra Telecom Partner
Zultys and Aastra Telecom have reached an OEM pact to delivery the next line of ZIP Phones. As part of the announcement, Zultys and Aastra announced full interoperability between the Aastra 5i Series and the Zultys MX (Media eXchange) line. I’m a huge fan of Aastra SIP-based VoIP phones and they are perhaps my favorite of any brand due to their XML capabilities and extensive customization capabilities. I have one sitting on my desk right now. The 57i CT in fact, which comes with a cool c...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.