Archive for October 27th, 2008
Why Computing’s Future Is Graphic
Two almost contradictory pieces of news came out today that prove that the next wave of computing is visual. Good graphics were once a mainstay of heavy industry for 3-D or seismic modeling, but in today’s world of digital everything and the coming 3-D web, rich graphics are becoming a need-to-have capability on every machine. That emphasis on graphics is what’s leading to a rise in the number of GPUs shipped — they achieved a 17.8 percent growth rate for the third quarter of ...
The Other Vote on November 4th
The vote that Federal Communications Commissioners are planning for November 4 is not as important as the voting we’ll do on that day, but it does matter a lot to the future of the United States. Unless the forces opposed to progress manage to postpone FCC action (which they are trying very hard to do), the FCC could decide to set the stage for another generation of innovative products with which the US will strengthen its competitive position in global markets AND to provide long term hel...
Wow! A Quick Boot PC — About Time!
It is the black hole of the digital age — the three minutes it can take for your computer to boot up, when there is nothing to do but wait, and wait, and wait some more before you can log on and begin doing anything at all. Now the computer industry says it wants to give back some of those precious seconds. In coming months, the world’s major PC makers plan to introduce a new generation of quick-start computers, spotting a marketing opportunity in society’s short attention spa...
Skype and the Freemium Rate (free/fee)
So here’s a little chart for you. Billions of Skype minutes served (left axis). Light blue bars are free Skype-to-Skype minutes. Dark blue bars (at the bottom) are SkypeOut minutes, paid for. The curvy line at the top is the ratio between the free and fee. It has been hovering between 7 and 8.5 (right axis) for years. I’m calling it the freemium rate. This is astonishing for being low (a good thing) and for its constancy. Other companies are lucky to get one-in-twenty or one in one hundre...
Are New Video Networks In Trouble?
Liz reports that Revision3, the online video start-up behind such as Kevin Rose’s DiggNation (and the on-hiatus GigaOM Show), has shut down five of its shows and laid off a reported third of its people. The news prompted Kent Nichols, one of the awesome and funny duo behind the Ask a Ninja video show, to write on his blog: Rev3 has some of the best behind the scenes talent in the online space. They have a great sales team and good leadership and a solid flagship show in DiggNation. And ...
Is Amazon Ready For The Enterprise?
With a flurry of announcements in recent weeks, Amazon has extended its cloud computing lead. The beta label’s gone. It can run Windows applications. By investing in firms like Elastra, it’s tackling enterprise deployment. And there’s a 99.95 percent uptime guarantee. Much of this is a pre-emptive strike at Microsoft’s upcoming cloud offering. Microsoft has a huge advantage: It owns the stack from OS and virtual machine through to application. Amazon wants to compete on reli...
Vote, Uninterrupted
If you’re planning to vote in person this election, you’d better get familiar with regulations in your state around bringing camera cell phones and other recording devices into the polling area. Some state election statutes expressly prohibit using cameras or other recording devices within a short distance of the polling place, according to Sam Bayard, assistant director of the grassroots journalism organization Citizen Media Law Project. Kentucky even passed a law in June 2005 th...
Save $200 on Three Great Conferences
contentNext, publishers of paidContent.com, are offering GigaOM readers discount access to three upcoming events: Save $100 on The Future of Business Media: The second annual conference, held on Oct. 28 in New York, will focus on the future of the business and trade media industry, and the changes brought along by consolidation and digital media, as well as the impacts of the economic downturn. Save $50 on EconSports: From major leagues to the half-pipe, sports is a topic that touches everyone...
Bloggers versus Journalists
Got a pretty full week unfolding with new project work and some month-end deliverables. Just got time for a quick post now, and wanted to share this one from Pat Phelan. We follow each other’s blogs as best we can, and his latest post touches on a topic that’s near and dear to my heart. It’s an ongoing item for me, and is a great read on the fine line between bloggers and journalists. So much territory to explore here, and the comment thread brings many of these sub-issues to ...
How About a BlogBook?
There seems to be an awful lot of excitement these days about NetBooks - small (miniaturized?) notebook computers that provide users with enough power and features to surf the Web, check e-mail, do word processing, edit photos, etc. I’m personally not in the market for a new laptop but if a computer maker was looking to seize a market niche, it would be interesting to see someone create a BlogBook - a notebook designed and aimed at bloggers. It would come with Firefox pre-installed with so...
“Licensed-Lite” White Spaces by WISPA
Washington, D.C. - October 27, 2008 - Many Americans, especially those living in rural areas have never had affordable broadband Internet access. In a letter filed with the FCC last week, WISPA, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (www.wispa.org), showed the FCC how it can make valuable TV White Space spectrum available for new services. The FCC is scheduled to vote on November 4 on how this spectrum can be used after the DTV transition occurs in February 2009. WISPA ...
waaaaay better than skype
(ooVoo moves multiparty video through their servers. costly awesomosity) ...
Cox Unveils Wireless Plans to Keeps Telcos on the Offensive
Cable company Cox Communications said today it plans to launch a nationwide wireless network to offer voice and data in the second half of 2009, and it will evaluate using the LTE fourth generation wireless standard for future network buildouts. Cox will use the 700 MHz spectrum it purchased at the last spectrum auction, as well as some AWS spectrum, to build its CDMA network. While it builds out the network, it will rely on the Sprint wireless network to augment service. The triple play of voi...
“Discover Best Practices for Secure Unified Communications” - a webinar I’ll be giving tomorrow
Cross-posted from Voice of VoIPSA: What are you doing tomorrow, Tuesday, October 28, 2008, at 1pm US Eastern time? If you are around, you are welcome to join a free webinar I’ll be giving on “Best Practices for Secure Unified Communications“. From time-to-time, you’ll notice that those of us working with VOIPSA will take part in seminars/webinars offered by members of VOIPSA and we definitely enjoy doing so. For instance, as readers of the blog know, I’ve been sp...
New Blackfin BF51x Processor Launches
Analog Devices unveiled the new Blackfin BF51x series, the newest members of their convergent-processor family. Blackfin processors are very popular when building Asterisk-based appliances, including the Digium Asterisk Appliance AA50 and Astfin. The Blackfin convergent-processor architecture offers reduced cost, power consumption, and software complexity. Although the processor is popular in creating Asterisk appliances, it can be used for a variety of low-cost, low-power consumption required a...
Talking with David Usher
It’s not every day that you get to sit down and talk to a rock star when you write about technology and work for an online travel planning site. So, I’m really excited about doing a “fireside chat” with David Usher in Montreal this Wednesday at an Infopresse conference. David and I are going to talk about how he’s using technology and the Web to create, market, distribute and sell his music. I met David during the mesh conference last year where he provided excelle...
Finally Truphone for Blackberry Is Ready
Truphone, the service that allows you to make cheap long distance phone calls using VoIP technology on a mobile phone, is now available to users of BlackBerry devices as a beta offering. This product is called Truphone Anywhere for Blackberry. London-based Truphone’s service, which typically uses Wi-Fi connections for VoIP calls, has so far been available on the Symbian OS-based Nokia devices and Apple’s iPhone. The service doesn’t support Windows Mobile for now. I downloaded ...
CenturyTel’s Embarq Buy May Set off Consolidation
Times are tough in the landline business, and when times get tough, the tough go shopping. After a few weeks of seeking a suitor, Embarq, the landline unit spun off from Sprint in 2006, has enticed CenturyTel into paying $5.8 billion in stock, and assuming $5.8 billion in debt for the nation’s fourth largest local exchange carrier. CenturyTel is the seventh largest US local exchange carrier in United States based on 2.1 access lines in service and over 600,000 high-speed Internet connect...
Tech Facing The Tight Cash Crisis
The credit crisis is resulting in slowdown in technology sales, according to the Wall Street Journal. This credit crunch is a much bigger problem than most people in technology realize. Technology financing is estimated to top $88 billion or about 14 percent of the total amount spent on computer hardware and software in 2008, according to IDC. Baytree Leasing Co., a company that provides some of this financing, says it has seen the default rate jump from 0.5 percent to 1-1.5 percent. Nearly 20...
Crispy Gamer Launches With $8.25M Funding, 1M Uniques
Watch out, CBS Interactive and News Corp: Your game news sites, Gamespot and IGN, respectively, have ruled the web for over a decade, but as of today, you’ve got competition. In development over the last several months with $8.25 million in funding from Constellation Ventures, the editorial/community site Crispy Gamer, which already boasts a million unique monthly visitors, is coming out of beta. According to President Chris Heldman, who visited the GigaOM office last week with Co-found...
Self-Sufficient Wi-Fi Promises Energy-Efficient Devices
In the quest for a truly mobile device, we’ve managed to cut the phone cord and the Ethernet cable, but the power cord? Well, that’s still a problem. While some innovators are working on better batteries and alternative power sources, such as methanol fuel cells and motion, investing in expensive power sources without paying attention to device efficiency is sort of like buying a closet full of new suits just before going on a diet. Earlier this year, we looked at a few of the reaso...
College Basketball Voice-Mashup
See this promotion for the Gonzaga Bulldogs. Funny, intimate, surprising for the Spokane, Washington, university’s women’s basketball team. You’ll need a US/Canadian phone number. tags: voip, mashup, basketball, marketing, education, sports Follow Phil Wolff on Twitter or FriendFeed or on Skype. Follow Skype Journal on twitter ...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.