Archive for August 4th, 2008
Seeing a Windows-less Future …
Hard to image (but many have thought about it, I’m sure), but Microsoft has kicked off a research project to create software that will take over when it retires Windows. Called Midori, the cut-down operating system is radically different from Microsoft’s older programs, being Internet-centric rather than depending on being tied to a single PC. Although Midori has been heard about before now, more details have now been published by Software Development Times after viewing inte...
Chip Growth Proves Wireless and Consumers Rule
This may not come as a surprise to anyone who owns an iPhone or tests set-top boxes, but wireless and consumer technologies are driving the growth of many of the largest chip vendors. According to the latest rankings released for the first half of the year by IC Insights, Intel keeps its top spot, but the most growth came from Qualcomm, which saw its sales increase by 29 percent over the same period in 2007. Wireless chip vendors Broadcom and Infineon also saw their growth increase, while the N...
Well there goes VoIP’s 5 nines (99.999) of reliability!
Check out this alert on the University of Buffalo’s website: UBIT AlertCampus Wide Services ImpactedVoIP System Maintenance Effective: 8/6/2008 Expires: 8/6/2008 Posted: 2008-08-04 On Wednesday, 8/6, between 6:00 - 7:00 AM system maintenance will be performed on the VoIP server infrastructure. Technical staff will be updating web security certificates. During the system maintenance window, users will experience a momentary interruption of approximately 5 minutes during which user configur...
OpenSIPS Forks OpenSER
Came across an announcement that OpenSIPS is forking from the popular open source OpenSER solution. OpenSIPS (Open SIP Server) became active today, with its first release (OpenSIPS 1.4.0). I found it a bit surprising that someone is forking OpenSER, since it’s a very powerful SIP routing platform. I recently mentioned how OpenSER can be used to bridge Asterisk with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. So what is OpenSIPS about? Well, let me include some snippets from the announcem...
Intel’s Larrabee Aims to Take on Nvidia and AMD
Last week, Intel offered up a sneak peak of its Larrabee graphics processor, due out in 2009 or 2010 and guaranteed to raise the competitive pressure on graphics chip makers Nvidia and AMD. Unlike its existing integrated graphics chips, Larrabee will be a standalone processor, but don’t expect that it will be a success. As computing has required faster chips, Intel and other chip makers have added more cores, a tactic that GPU makers have used for years in order to increase parallel proc...
Using Asterisk to Scam Credit Cards
Received a news tip that fraudsters are using Asterisk as a “collection tool” for their credit card scam. While that’s nothing new by itself, since there are plenty of scammers leveraging Asterisk, I found it fascinating to be able to actually call into the scammer’s system. Asterisk has become hacker’s tool of choice because it’s free, flexible, and feature-rich. Just install Asterisk on an inexpensive PC and you have yourslf a powerful PBX that can war dial ...
Introducing Celeste LeCompte
As Om has noted, most recently in relation to the acquisition of jkOnTheRun, our little company gets bigger by the day. Today I am thrilled to announce the very latest addition to our family: Celeste LeCompte. Celeste joins us as Special Projects Editor. She will not only help with the day-to-day editing of stories, but will oversee our Briefings collection and the editorial side of our conferences and events, such as Mobilize and NewTeeVee Live. A cleantech expert whose last gig was as managin...
Hannah Montana Crank Calls: VoIP Mischief
Crank calls have never been so easy. As folks on Reddit have pointed out, Disney’s Hannah Montana Wake-Up Call makes getting up to no good a snap. Just enter your friend’s victim’s phone number and the delightful Miley Cyrus’s voice will wake them up or send them a reminder: “Dear [name], don’t forget that today you have [activity].” Opening a web-to-phone system to the public without authentication or constraints may be fun — but it’s also ...
For Olympics, The Chinese Use Eyes in the Sky
Combine technological advancement, a worldwide stage and fears of terrorism, and what do you get? An Orwellian 2008 Summer Olympic Games. From tickets containing RFID chips aimed at preventing fraud and ticket scalping to surveillance cameras set up on the streets monitoring people with state-of the art software, the games beginning August 8 in Beijing bring the fears of 1984 to life. In China, Big Brother is watching you. IBM announced in December that its Smart Surveillance System, or S3, wou...
Skype Journal and our editorial independence
It’s been a while since I’ve mentioned Skype Journal’s editorial policies. They’ve been in effect since we started and all contributions to Skype Journal are subject to them. Accuracy. Anything that purports to be non-fiction should be true. Which means it should be accurate in fact and in context. Labeling and Sourcing. If we are not certain that something is accurate, we should either not publish it, or should make that uncertainty plain by clearly stating the sou...
Qualcomm Loses Jha to Motorola
Dr. Sanjay Jha has left his position as COO of Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies (QCT) to become the Co-CEO of Motorola Inc. and the CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices, the new handset division. The handset division, which has struggled for the last few years, will formally spin out of Motorola in the third quarter of 2009. Props to Jha , who has a vision for the future of mobile computing, and who is well respected by many in the industry for his work with engineers and designer...
Heading out to ClueCon 2008, Telephony Developer Conference, this week..
This afternoon I’ll be heading to the airport to fly out to Chicago to be part of ClueCon this week. Haven’t heard of ClueCon before? Here’s the quick summary: ClueCon - is an annual 3-Day Telephony User and Developer Conference bringing together the entire spectrum of Telephony from TDM circuits to VoIP and everything in between. The presentations and discussions will cover several open source telephony applications such as Asterisk/Callweaver, Kamailio (formerly OpenSER), B...
Social.FM, Formerly Mercora, Shuts Down
Mercora, an early entrant into the social music and music search space that recently rebranded itself as Social.FM, has shut down and suspended operations. After being tipped off by a source, I tried reaching the company’s executives, but haven’t heard from them. The site has gone black. “The Company is unfortunately no longer in business and therefore cannot continue its service to you. Regards,. Mercora, Inc.” Over on the Social.FM home page, the company said “To...
Focus on the things YOU can control
There comes a time during our lives where we will learn two simple facts: There are things that will happen which I have no control over. There are things that happen which are totally under my control. This isnt meant to be a philosophical discussion about making our own realities or a discussion about our destiny. Just a statement there are some things in our lives we really have no control over and if we were to spend our time focusing on the things under our control and stop complainin...
The IP-PBX Energy Wars…
So today I get a new report from the Tolly Group stating that the ShoreTel Unified Communications system is significantly more energy efficient than the Cisco Unified Communications Manager. ShoreTel apparently topped Cisco in using less energy to drive VoIP communications in specific large, medium and small enterprise-class scenarios. This energy usage comparison reminded me of Nortel’s The Nortel Tax Relief Plan which aims to “stop paying the ‘Cisco Energy Tax’ and sav...
Thoof Goes Poof!
This past weekend, Michael Arrington reported, Thoof, an Austin-based social news site took a dirt nap. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to our readers. Stacey had the scoop way back in January that the company started by Ian Clarke (one of the founders of Revver) was up for sale, slip sliding away into oblivion. Thoof wanted to create a Digg like service by observing people’s click stream and the after The company had raised some seed funding from Austin Ventures and others. It had ...
Too Many Gadgets, Too Little Space
With little to no desire to do any real writing this weekend, I decided to clean my work space. Once the papers were filed and the books were shifted to the right corner, a clear picture emerged, one of too many gadgets — and too little desk space. Thankfully, some of those gadgets are review units, soon to be shipped back. But the amount of space they’ll leave behind is still limited. I’m wondering if it’s time to bring home a desktop. Mac Pro is a tad too expensive b...
Keith Benjamin, Internet Analyst & VC, RIP
Keith Benjamin, a veteran Internet analyst and more recently a general partner at Levensohn Venture Partners, a San Francisco-based venture fund passed away earlier this week because of subdural hematoma. A memorial service was held for him in Sausalito, CA today. Benjamin, 49, was one of the early entrants to the world of Internet stocks, and as a reporter for Forbes.com, I got to know him well, chatting with him often to get his thoughts on where the Internet madness was headed.He worked for...
The GigaOM Interview: Kevin Lynch, CTO, Adobe Systems
Sitting across from me in the lounge of a posh Half Moon Bay, Calif., resort recently, Kevin Lynch, chief technology officer of Adobe Systems, a software company based in nearby San Jose, outlined his vision of the technology world at large. In particular, Lynch, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Harry Porter (picture the impish wizard as a grown-up) talked about how the confluence of cloud computing, web-centric applications and the emergence of the mobile Internet was going to impact our co...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.