Archive for September 26th, 2008
FTC Red Flag Rules
As businesses increasingly rely on technology to store and maintain data, including customer records, the risk of identity theft also is increasing. The Federal Trade Commission (”FTC”), together with federal banking regulatory agencies and the National Credit Union Administration, has adopted new regulations intended to combat identity theft. Known as the Red Flag Rules, these new regulations require financial institutions and creditors to develop and implement a written identity ...
Cell Phones Will Take over GPS Market
Cell phones will replace the personal navigation device (PND) as the primary GPS device by 2011, according to the research firm iSuppli. The firm predicted that cell phones will then account for 36% of the GPS market, compared with 30% for PNDs, which today account for 50% of global navigational units sold. The report also predicted that price drops among PNDs will lead to smaller manufacturers selling out to larger hardware companies over the next year or two. (Doesn’t this happen in ...
Firefox 3.0.2 - Evil!
It looks like the latest version of Firefox (3.0.2) may not be ready for prime time. Lots of complaints that extensions that aren’t compatible and disappearing bookmarks. You figure Firefox would be at its best behavior now that Chrome’s on the scene and looking for any chance possible to lure Firefox users over to the dark side. Technorati Tags: firefox ...
Muxtape Back with Indie Focus
Muxtape.com has changed its tune. A month after the NYC-based music site was shut down by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for copyright infringement, founder Justin Ouellette announced that it will re-launch with a new focus. The six-month-old site had allowed users to create playlists or mixtapes of up to 12 songs and share the lists with friends. According to a message on the Muxtape home page, the site will now become a service for bands to promote their music on th...
Why There Won’t Be Broadband Competition Anytime Soon
When it comes to the fixed-line Internet, thanks to an ineffective FCC that has failed to promote broadband competition, here in the U.S. we are stuck with a duopoly. The agency in general, and politician-in-waiting Kevin Martin in particular, would like you to believe that wireless broadband is going to be the answer, perhaps through schemes such as the D Block auction, spectrum grabs by M2Z Networks and white space initiatives. If you believe that, then you also believe that that you can w...
Skype television commercials?
People are all atwitter over Skype television commercials on NBC in the United States. "OMG!! Just saw a skype commercial on NBC11. Didn’t expect that" - Robbie Trencheny "Just saw a Skype ad on NBC during The Office." - Jon Ursenbach "It shouldn’t, but it kinda weirds me out that Skype has TV commercials now." - Ariel Waldman "A Skype commercial on primetime tv? wtf?" - Jon Low Mobile operator 3 ran this commercial for the Skypephone in A...
Are Political Lawn Signs an Anachronism?
As some of your may know, there’s another election happening in North America other than Obama vs. McCain. In Canada, Stephen Harper is looking to turn a minority government into a majority so he can do all kinds of wonderful things to Canada (e.g. new, restricted copyright laws) with far less hassle. In any event, one of the things I noticed riding home yesterday was the appearance of lawn signs for local candidates. There’s lots of different colors, although few for the Green Par...
Nokia’s Touch Phone on Oct 2. Too Little Too Late?
Will Nokia’s TouchPhone Beat iPhone? Better production, distribution and footprint will make them overtake iPhone soon Probably not, for iPhone has gained an iconic status Anything but Nokia or iPhone for me Nokia is going to release a touch-screen phone on Oct. 2nd, Reuters is reporting today. Based on comments the company made earlier this summer, the device, code-named “Tube,” will be cheaper than rival models and be aimed at hot growth ma...
Gizmo5 SIP Trunks available in trixbox CE
Gizmo5 SIP trunks have always been available in trixbox CE, but it was a manual process. The Gizmo5 team has built a module to be part of the trixbox package manager that allows you to purchase your trunks, see your account balance, purchase more minutes, and automatically setup your inbound and outbound routes. The module is now available via the trixbox package manager and will be built into all upcoming ISO builds. Additionally, the calling service for trixbox CE is pre-configured to use the...
Clarifying how Asterisk could possibly be used as a Skype-to-SIP gateway
After my post yesterday about “Skype for Asterisk” (and the update post) and the potential it allows for SIP interoperability via Asterisk, I’ve received a few comments that seemed to interpret what I wrote as somehow indicating that the Skype announcement somehow meant that there was new “Skype to SIP” functionality in the “Skype for Asterisk” announcement. Just to be clear, there isn’t any new “Skype to SIP” functionality in the R...
Motorola Femtocell Picture Frame Combines VoIP, Video, Bluetooth, Touchscreen and more
Check out this cool new converged prototype device from Motorola that combines a picture frame with touch-screen, video camera, Bluetooth headset, VoIP, femtocell, and video streaming. A femtocell is a small cellular base station, typically designed for use in residential or small business environments that allows you to use your mobile phone in your home connecting to your femtocell access point. Femtocells essentially are an alternative way to deliver the benefits of Fixed Mobile Convergence (...
Buffett???s Bailout Blackmail
” From the Wall Street Journal: “If Congress fails to approve the bailout, Mr. Buffett says, all bets are off. His investment in Goldman will “get killed, and so will all our other investments.”" This article and others explain how Buffett stands to make a large profit if his deal to buy Goldman goes through. Fine for Buffett to make a profit; he does that well. Not fine for that profit to be created by an expenditure of government funds. It’s too bad about his ...
Moving Money Online Still Needs Work
Despite the acceptance of credit cards and services like PayPal, the issue of getting money from one person to another online still offers opportunities for innovation. Venture firms are continuing to fund startups that hope to offer better ways to pay online, while the growth of Software as a Service in the enterprise has led to a need for new tools in corporate billing management. Further out, buying items over a mobile phone presents a multi-billion-dollar opportunity — if someone can ...
Toronto Tech Week - Highlights
Toronto Tech Week has been running all week, but yesterday was my only chance to attend. From what I saw, the content was quite good, and there’s certainly no shortage of people here in Toronto who know what’s going on with Web 2.0 and digital media trends. Nothing much here on communications technologies, but that’s to be expected. The closest was the session I moderated - mobile marketing. We had a pretty full room, and an engaged audience, which is my litmus test for a good...
skyping friends while watching television
Clearly these two behaviors go together well. Watching television can be a social activity, something to talk about or to talk over. It’s context or pretext for talking, grooming, bonding. Dancing. Appointment television or event programming, Events like political debates. Ah, there’s a US presidential debate tonight. So, how could you more tightly couple TV+Skype? Watch TV in Skype? Talk (IM/voice/video) in Skype over TV? Is that the sweet spot for Skype integrati...
Video: Skype for Asterisk interview at Astricon08
Voiceroute.org interviews Wilhelm Lundborg (Skype) and Mark Spencer (Digium) from the Astricon08 show floor at the Skype for Business booth. Includes a demo: a call from Skype to Asterisk and back. (5:39) tags: skype, asterisk, digium, astricon08, astricon, s4a, skype for asterisk, skype for business, video, interviews, wilhelmlundborg, markspencer Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype. ...
Skype and Digium Partner For Skype PBX Integration
Skype finally get the idea that there are other VoIP systems out there that require integration. Problem is Skype is an IM client, and this bridge will only do voice. Read More… ...
Five Questions with….SoftShell
My mother is a Luddite with a capital “L”. But the reality is she’s pretty typical of the 60+ demographic that find computers far from user-friendly. What’s interesting is that for all the hype about Web 2.0, meeting the computing and Web needs of a huge population hasn’t received nearly as much love or attention. London, Ont.-based SoftShell is looking to fill the “senior’s void” with software that makes using a computer simple and easy to use. ...
BT Reverses Web21c into Ribbit
Which is the diner and which the meal? Web21c disappears into Silicon Valley’s Ribbit… Read More… ...
Make Your Site “Stickier” With Click-to-Call
A recent post at the CSS-Edge Web development blog highlights how interactivity like click-to-call can help make your website “stickier.” In a strategy to go beyond simply matching consultants with projects, the freelance job site Elance has incorporated click-to-call to allow prospective providers and buyers to communicate without giving out a phone number. Not only does this facilitate communication, it also increases the value of the Elance site for its community — turning...
goldfish-eating skype dweeb
"I knew it. you turned into a goldfish-eating Skype dweeb." - Cameron Kaiser ...
Coming Next Spring: A Cheaper Way to Watch Wireless HD
I’ve written alot about watching HD video without wires, but most of the time it was in response to the latest company trying to push a whole-room wireless video network, either through Wi-Fi or through a newly developed standard called WHDI. In the last few months televisions and devices that allow you to wirelessly transmit video to those televisions have started hitting the market, which had me wondering what was happening with WirelessHD, the standard that uses 60 GHz spectrum to do...
Skype and Federal Elections…
While the whole world knows that there is a U.S.federal election on November 4, little international notice has been given to Canada’s upcoming federal election, October 14. But both are providing significant opportunities to make use of the Internet. Emails, text messaging, candidate websites. Twitter feeds all are coming into play. In a post on Forbes.com this morning, Elizabeth Woyke talks about “Skyping the Election”, where Skype is being used to connect campaign volunteers...
The Skype for Asterisk Story — Significant Details
Phil has already pointed out the Skype for Asterisk news announced at Stefan Oberg’s AstriCon keynote this morning along with links to several blog postings and the news release. This afternoon I spent fifteen minutes talking with Stefan, Skype’s Vice-President and General Manager of Telecom, and Digium CEO Danny Windham to get more details. First I asked who would benefit from the Skype for Asterisk announcement? Danny and Stefan responded that the primary beneficiary would be the e...
defenestration
"Argh. If Skype was a physical, solid thing, I would have chucked it through the window half an hour ago. :(" - Walker Moore ...
NuTsie Streaming iTunes to Your Phone
Regional mobile carrier Alltel has launched NuTsie, a service that allows users of almost a dozen of the company’s handsets to stream certain titles from their PC’s iTunes collection to their cell phones. This makes the operator the first U.S. carrier to offer such a service, which will cost $4.99 a month, or $19.99 a year. To stream the protected and unprotected songs in a user’s iTunes library, NuTsie does not actually place-shift songs from a user’s PC. Instead, the ...
Keynoting for ADTRAN & XO
I’ll be in Ft. Lauderdale on Oct. 21 Oct. 23 to keynote a partner luncheon for ADTRAN and XO. The content is based on where the indirect channel is heading in the next couple of years and what the value proposition is for both kinds of resellers - telecom agents and hardware VAR’s. How many times will I say Converged? XO is giving every attendee a copy of my book, SELLECOM. Tags: keynote Related Entries TrackBacks | Comments | Tag with del.icio.us | On Rad’s Radar? Home | ...
Asus Going 3.75G for Eee
Asus has announced that it will be adding 3.75G connectivity to its hugely popular series of Eee PC netbooks, enabling convenient and high-speed access to the Internet anytime, anywhere. The inclusion of 3.75G is a perfect addition to the Eee PC’s existing set of travel-friendly features such as its high portability, shockproof data storage and all-day battery life — strengthening its reputation as the solution for computing on the go. Frequent travelers will particularly w...
Dialogic Partner event
Jeff Dworkin, Enterprise Segment Manager at Dialogic, sat down with me at IT Expo West to talk about Dialogic’s re-focus on the channel. There are two groups that Dialogic is reaching out to: the system integrators and the development community. Dialogic is launching a new Reseller Program in January 2009, which they will build a community around (in the social media sense with blogs). I guess you could say that the partner event on Oct. 20-21, 2008 at The Hotel Coronado near San ...
ISPs Tell Congress They Don’t Need Privacy Laws
Earlier today the second of two governmental hearings related to online privacy got underway. This particular hearing focused on deep packet inspection and how Internet service providers want to mine your data. The hearing kicked off with new data from Consumer Reports that said 72 percent of Americans are worried about their actions being tracked online. But apparently 61 percent are confident that what they do online is private and isn’t shared without their permission. After the hullab...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.