Archive for August 15th, 2008
CAPTCHA’s Can Be Useful, Don’tcha Know
To some, a web site like Craigslist asking you to verify that you are indeed a human by retyping distorted, nonsensical words is irritating. But the next time you do it, you could be helping to fill in some historical blanks. NPR ran a story yesterday on Luis von Ahn, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie-Mellon University and one of the guys who helped develop the CAPTCHA technology. The short version: Efforts to digitize (really) old books and newspapers were being hampered by f...
AT&T CallVantage One Step Closer to Oblivion
As I predicted on July 3rd, AT&T would soon be dropping its CallVantage broadband VoIP service since they dropped their affiliate marketing channel. Well, today I learned that AT&T is no longer accepting ANY new orders from ANY source - affiliate or otherwise. The slow death of CallVantage is a bit sad, but it isn’t particularly surprising, not only because they dropped the affiliate channel last month but as I have previously indicated, AT&T is heavily promoting their U-Verse ...
For HTC Google Phone Is a Dream
Now that the iPhone 3G is out, it is time to obsess about the next eagerly awaited device, the Google Phone. Now we know that Google isn’t building a device of its own (that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t), but it is much cooler to call it a Google Phone than say Android, which has a certain dweeb ring to it. Over last few weeks there were reports that the device is delayed till 2009. These reports were followed by more reports saying the device would show up in September, ahead of...
A Jump-Start for Feed-vertising?
For blogs and bloggers, RSS is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s a wonderful tool to expand your blog’s distribution and readership. On the other hand, RSS sucks people away from reading your blog given they can see all your posts within an RSS reader. While this is great for blog readers, it also means all those readers aren’t seeing any of your ads…or your comments, cool widgets, new and improved design, etc. As much as TechCrunch is more than happy to have 907,...
VCs Hope to See Wi-Fi Everywhere
Many people are familiar with the coffee shop’s Wi-Fi, while others even know how to set up a simple home network. Pretty much everyone, however, knows that Wi-Fi is what makes it all possible. That ubiquity is what many venture firms are counting on as they invest in a group of startups putting Wi-Fi into cameras, televisions and even keyboards and mice. The number of Wi-Fi chips sold is expected to top 1 billion this year, up from more than 200 million sold in 2006, according to data fr...
A Quick Om Update
I just want to give you a quick update on why posting might be slow today. I have been researching some big stories, and I need to sit and think about all the information I have gathered and make sense of it all. On top of that, I need to prepare for WordCamp 2008, which is being held in San Francisco this weekend. Typically, Stacey would fill in, but she is taking a well-deserved computer- and connectivity-free rest. Furthermore, after writing furiously for the past couple of days, I am giving...
Service Provider Views - Updates on Jajah, Ribbit and Ifbyphone
My latest Service Provider Views column is running now on TMCnet. I’ve decided to revisit some companies from earlier columns who embody various aspects of the platform play - Ribbit, Jajah and Ifbyphone. They’ve all had important news announcements recently that show how quickly this space is evolving. Actually, the news from Jajah was only announced this morning, so it’s very fresh. I don’t want to divert you from reading my article yet, but for convenience, you can pic...
How About Just Driving?
The sooner the province of Ontario - and other jurisdictions, for that matter - introduce bans on using cell phones and other wireless devices while you drive, the better. This morning, for example, I saw a woman driving an SUV stopped at a stoplight, and banging out a message on her Blackberry. (For some reason, SUV owners are the worst culprits. Maybe it has to do with socio-economics.) It’s beyond me why this person felt the need to not only check her e-mail but send a reply as well. H...
12 Seconds of Sunrise
12 seconds of sunrise on 12seconds.tv I recently discovered 12seconds.tv and Im a fan of their platform and their vision. Tags: sunrise, Miami Beach, 12seconds.tv, Jeff Pulver ...
McCain’s Tech Policy
I was hoping that McCain’s Tech Policy would emphasize and extend the two pro-Internet things he’s done in the past — the McCain Lautenberg Community Broadband Act and Spectrum Re-regulation — but it doesn’t. In the first case, it makes a vague nod in the direction of “market failure and other obstacles.” In the second, it treats spectrum policy as a done deal; now that we can surf the Web in coffee shops, we’re done. I was hoping that McCain̵...
VoIP Subscribers on the Decline
Ofcom reports a drop in VoIP subscribers in 2008. Read More… ...
Why Blogs Need To Be Social
Earlier this week, San Francisco-based web publishing software company Six Apart released the newest version of its flagship product, Moveable Type, and pushed the blogging community into taking the first step toward a very social future. It is not a new concept — since their early days blogs were all about sociability. Late last year, we backed Chris Messina’s wild idea that WordPress, the open-source blogging software that we use to power majority of our network blogs, could be b...
Hello world
Technical stuff interfered with Skype Journal running properly this year. So we’re moving to a new host, upgrading our software, and using Blogger as our interim service. ...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.