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Cisco and Apple extended the cease-fire
2007-02-02 17:23:03
Cisco and Apple work it out. In a joint statement released yesterday, Cisco agreed to extend the time Apple has to respond to Cisco’s iPhone trademark lawsuit filed on January 10. The new deadline is February 15th. For now, Cisco intends to make the Apple iPhone interoperable with its own VoIP Skype phones, whereas Apple might pressure its opponent to drop the case due to the trademark it might loose some times ago. The extension might lead to a settlement instead of a lawsuit.
More About: Tend , Fire , Cisco , Ease

Zune, the ?iPod-killer?, looking to become the iPhone-killer
2007-02-02 17:23:03
Microsoft is working on its own “iPod -cellphone”. The device will be nothing but Zune , the portable media player, that would become another smartphone and should be ready by the 2007 holiday season. “That gives Microsoft about nine months to get everything together, an entirely possible feat,” CrunchGear reports. A rumor? A roadmap? A roadmap, definitively. Microsoft keeps trying to control the cellphone market, and never hides its intention to tweak its audio portable device Zune into a cellphone. At the last CES, Peter Moore, Microsoft?s vice president for Xbox video game business, already confirmed the cellphone move and added the portable platform would first be able to play handheld games. Us: The Zune user interface doesn’t provide any touch pad. We keep thinking the Vista speech recognition engine will land in the upcoming smartphone. It’s supposed to be over 95% accurate. People will dictate their emails, navigate on the web and for pho...
More About: Phone , Iphone , Ipod

Skype 2.5 for Mac and Windows Live Messenger 8.1 officially released
2007-02-01 23:21:06
Two voice calling clients have been updated lately. Skype which officially released the version 2.5 for Mac and Windows Live Messenger which hit the 8.1 milestone. The Skype 2.5 for Mac was already good in its beta version; the final version just enables users to send text messages to any mobile phone in the world, and Mac users can use Skype to hold conference calls with up to nine other people. It requires the power of a Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later. For Windows Live Messenger, the version 8.1 was matched with the launch of the Windows Vista operating system. Why? You guessed it, the instant messenger is now Vista-optimized (thanks to beta testers who had to cope with OS compatibility.) Its new features includes SMS sending and roaming identities, that allows users to hang out on different clients without loosing their display name, picture and personal message. And as always with Microsoft, new version also means new avatars.
More About: Windows Live Messenger

Video calling in Skype and friends should get enhanced soon
2007-02-01 23:21:06
What’s the common point between Skype , AIM, Gizmo Project, Net2Phone or Earthlink? Global Sounds, formerly Global IP Sounds. The company has been providing the audio codecs for many all those VoIP clients. When you know this, you know any improvement of the codecs means Internet telephony will get enhanced. Lately, GIPS has acquired CrystalVoice as well as a video codec technology from Espre Solutions of Plano, Texas. CrystalVoice develops IP security and packet management for the enterprise. The company has been working for Avaya or 3Com, and the acquisition will give more expertise to GIPS to enhance corporate-focused VoIP applications. The video technology, called Espre LSVX, will be incorporated into all GIPS’ client and server engines, enabling service providers, application developers, and hardware manufacturers to develop IP enabled media with better sound and image quality.
More About: Video , Friends , Friend , Alli

Bling: Ajax applications for mobile are coming
2007-02-01 23:21:06
On cellphones, most of VoIP clients are Java-powered. They’re cool, but compared the smoothy Ajax y web-based applications, they are a bit lame, aren’t they? Bling Software banks on this and has been developing a Javascript platform that is cross-platform and small enough to be quickly downloaded onto cellphones. At the Demo 2007, the start-up has launched what they called the first Ajax-based Web client for the mobile handset. That is good news if they release a free or open source version to let developers play with it. Cellphone users would be able to trigger more sophisticated functions which simply download the require data, enhancing the user experience a lot.
More About: Mobile , Applications , Cat , Application

Whisher, WiFi sharing, a la Fon
2007-02-01 11:21:01
Fon now has a rival. The Spanish wireless network, founded and managed by Martin Varsavsky, backed by Google and Skype, and claimed as the largest free WiFi hotspot network, has a rival. The rival? Another Spanish startup. Indeed. Whisher (a name that reminds more shopping lists than WiFi hotspots), backed by Benchmark Capital Europe and Swisscom, mimics the Fon’s business model. The company doesn’t deploy any network, but asks users to set their own access point compatible with the Whisher network. So instead of buying a new router, you just need to download the software that turns your existing WiFi router into a shareable Whisher router — a technique that Fon used to do before providing its own routers Whisher routers don’t need to be flashed, corrected Ferran Moreno. Wisher members would get free access to hotspots of the network. For now, just Windows and Mac users could make the switch (i.e. closed code software). Another difference with Fon is that c...
More About: Wifi , Ring , Sharing , Shari , Hari

Video email renewed by Eyejot
2007-02-01 11:21:01
Broadband access is cheaper, as a result, online video services like YouTube could now be a viable business. But so do video email services. Eyejot is one of them. Showcased at the Demo 2007, the service is a free video email that doesn’t require any software download. Instead, it relies on some Flash technologies to take control of the computer webcam. Users record their messages online, stored them into their account and include the link into emails or instant messengers. Quite traditional functions. But to make it more viral, Eyejot also provides a widget to let members embed a video greeting on their web site and allow visitors to reply to them directly from the addon. For the record, we recently reported about Flikzor which does the same, and SightSpeed has been providing the service more than a year with good image quality. Eyejot’s free version is advertising-supported, messages are limited to 30 seconds each. Not that cool, but the $5 per month paid version tak...
More About: Video , Mail , Email , Rene

Music rehearsals at the Skype era: eJamming
2007-02-01 11:21:01
We have seen many use of VoIP for learning foreign languages, for video editing, but not yet for music rehearsal. The gap is now filled by eJamming, which makes a software enables musicians to practice music together. Previously, the application only supports instruments that ouput in the MIDI format (you know, the not-that-great format used by karaoke machines.) But at the Demo 2007, eJamming is announcing a service available for all instruments, Rafe Needleman reported. The service of course can be used to chat. But conversations would come very neat as the eJamming software takes advantage of some peer-to-peer technologies and a specific audio processor to transmit high quality audio. A huge drawback remains, though. “Even with a fast connection, Glueckman and Kantor [eJamming founders] don’t recommend the service for people separated by more than a few hundred miles.”
More About: Music , Skype , Hear , Ears , Ming

Spyke, the talkative WiFi robot
2007-02-01 11:21:01
Ubiquitous networks lead to pervasive Internet phones. PC World spotted a “WiFi spy robot” named Spyke , and showcased at the recently ended CES by Mecano, the big rival of Lego. Playing with it is like goofing with an electric car at the broadband age. The Starwars-like droid can be controlled via its built-in WiFi connection. And while it’s roaming around the house, not only it acts as a spying eye with its webcam, play music, but also Spyke can also be used as a VoIP client supporting Skype, MSN and Google Talk . With all those technologies available to kids, parents can anticipate some videos of them taking a shower on the Net.
More About: Robot , Wifi , Robo

Art: An enlightening IM display in 3D
2007-02-01 11:21:01
Who knows what the future screen displays would look like. Maybe like this one. The 3D-Messenger is a device made of LEDs and created by Paul Klotz, from the Dutch LED-Art design studio. It embeds its own web server which could receive messages sent from a messaging client over the Internet or from cellphones, and displays them one letter at a time.
More About: Play , Display , Light

Gizmo Call: just fine for a VoIP web-based client
2007-01-31 11:20:02
No post last day. We caught a little cold in the afternoon working in the yard, sunny afternoon with a temperature under zero. 2007 is supposed to be the hottest year in the decade, but shows no sign so far. Although the head was sick, hands were conscious enough to test the new Gizmo Call , the web-based Internet telephony dished up by SIPphone. Two remarks: The plugin shares the same audio quality than the Gizmo Project standalone version, which to us, doesn’t equal the Skype one but is higher than the standard. It seems that the counter of the 10 free minutes given each day doesn’t work. We did a small chat of 12 minutes and weren’t asked to pay for the extra minutes of airtime. So you should use it until SIPphone updates their service. But the site doesn’t work today.
More About: Just , Voip , Fine

Gizmo Project goes web-based
2007-01-31 11:20:02
It’s a bit late compared to Jajah, AIM and others, but Gizmo Project finally goes web-based. SIPphone will announce tomorrow the launch of Gizmo Call, an online service that will enable Internet calls from any browser. “Users get 5 minutes of calling per day to just about any phone number and can double that if they register with an email address,” reports ZDNet. “If they want to make more calls, they can purchase Call Out minutes. Besides PSTN phones they can call for free Google Talk users, Windows Live users, Gizmo Project users and of course any SIP address/device” — which is the regular functions allowed by a SIP-based VoIP client. The service needs a 900Ko (!) flash plugin to start. It’s pretty heavy, but smaller than the standalone IP calling software itself, about 10Mo to 18Mo depending on your platform.
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Virtual world: Habbo Hotel goes mobile
2007-01-31 11:20:02
Finnish company Sulake is well known for their Habbo Hotel platform. It’s not visually as appealing as Second Life, but the pixel-style online community drives some 7 million unique users worldwide as claimed. Recently, Sulake starts pounding into the mobile market with the launch of Mini Friday. For now, the project is a test on virtual worlds on mobile phones, to find out if real-time virtual worlds make sense on mobile devices. Mini Friday works on Nokia cellphones and only shows one small bar compared to the hundreds rooms in Habbo Hotel. The service is also not actively moderated and users may be exposed to mature chat dialog. Us: Mini Friday has many advantages compared to other virtual world. Pictures are fast to download on a cellphone, colorful, and the game functionalities have extensively been adopted by members of the web-based version. It could be used a corridor leading new users to the most stable game.
More About: Mobile , World , Virtual , Mobi

Americans prefer their computer to their wifes
2007-01-31 11:20:02
It’s the picture of the modern couple. The husband, the wife, and the computer with a broadband connexion. A survey called “Cyber Stress” and conducted by industry consultancy Kelton Research found out that 65% of America n consumers are spending more time with a computer than with their significant other. Other stats show that “more than 8 out of 10 American s (84%) say they are more dependent on their home computer now than they were just three years ago.” This addictive behavior indeed impacts on their social life, but should cheer up companies banking on social networks, life sharing services aka Flickr or YouTube. As previously reported on 21talks, more and more people are looking for the perfect date via Skype.
More About: Wife , Computer , Comp

How Verizon turned down the iPhone
2007-01-31 11:20:02
Before the MacWorld conference and the iPhone disclosure, rumors said Apple could partner Cingular or Verizon . In fact, Apple asked Verizon but the No. 2 US cellphone carrier stepped asides due to Apple’s “rich financial terms and other demands.” “Among other things, Apple wanted a percentage of the monthly cellphone fees, say over how and where iPhones could be sold and control of the relationship with iPhone customers, said Jim Gerace, a Verizon Wireless vice president to USA Today.” This would have brought two problems. First: While Apple and Verizon stores would have it, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other Verizon distributors could have been left out. Second: Customer care. If an iPhone went haywire, Apple wanted sole discretion over whether to replace or repair the phone. Did Cingular accept those conditions is another question. According to iSupply, Apple may have a very comfortable 50% margin on each iPhone sale.
More About: Iphone , Down , Turn

Yahoo IM on Indian Reliance mobiles
2007-01-27 17:17:01
As of July 2006, India n telcoms company Reliance Communications claimed a user base of 23.7 million. It’s the second largest telecoms company in the country. So any deals with Indian cellphone carrier Reliance Communications are important, and Yahoo ! closed a deal to make available its instant messenger to Indian cell phone users. Mobile IM will allow Reliance Mobile customers to chat live with other Reliance customers, as well as any Yahoo! IM user in the world using their PC. Customers can send instant messages and chat online with their friends and family, using all of the Yahoo! IM features such as simultaneous multi-chat windows, presence status icon, emoticons. The IM will be available on all BREW, WAP and Nokia color handsets using Java technologies. (Picture: Dhirubhai Ambani, Reliance founder)
More About: Mobiles

Jajah is preparing its own cellphone
2007-01-27 05:16:04
Remember Jajah , the European VoIP start-up that popularizes the callback system for VoIP calls? It’s moving deeper into cellphones by enhancing Jajah Lite, their mobile client for Symbian-powered handsets. Jajah hasn’t fixed a date for the announcement, it just tells the new version will add more features in the user’s contact book, like the one-click to call any phone number contained in it, or the ability to bookmark their favorite ones. It’ll also provide a little refreshed user interface (check the screenshots). We just regret the applet couldn’t make hotkeys to really speed up the top five calling numbers for example. In the same time, just like Skype and other competitors, Jajah is shaping its strategy for the mobile market. According to European business magazine Brand Eins, the VoIP provider is currently negotiating with a consumer electronics manufacturer to create a JaJah enabled handset for users that don’t want to be tied to their PC...
More About: Phone , Cell , Ring , Cellphone

Telegraph no more
2007-01-27 05:16:04
Time to move on. Time for the era of emails, text messages and instant messengers. Western Union announces the end of its telegram 146-year-old service. It was inaugurated in 1861 (twenty years later after the first telegraph message sent by Samuel Morse) and continued without interruption until 2006, until the short ‘telegraph’ posted on the company website: “Effective January 27, 2006, Western Union will discontinue all Tele gram and Commercial Messaging services. We regret any inconvenience this may cause you, and we thank you for your loyal patronage. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact a customer service representative.” Now, the only chance to see people sending telegraphs is in movies. (via wired)
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The Skype lie detector could lead users to jail
2007-01-27 05:16:04
Not any Skype plugin is good. Especially the lie detector that recently entered the Skype extras plugin repository (the one the VoIP company certified). Sue Cullen, a privacy specialist at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law magazine, affirms UK Skype users could face jail and ?7500 fines (around $9800) if they use the lie detecting add-on software. “It would also be unlawful under RIPA [the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act], which is potentially more serious,” said Cullen. “That’s a criminal offence, and it’s engaged if there’s interception of a communication. It is likely that recording what I’m saying, in this case for the purpose of conducting a lie detector test, counts as an interception.” The lie detector has been developed by KishKish, owned by Israeli company BATM, and checks the stress level of the speaker almost in real-time. It was marketed as being able to detect Bill Clinton lying on his Monica Lewinsky te...
More About: User , Jail , Users , Lead

NEC has a new toy to filter junk IP calls
2007-01-27 05:16:04
Internet telephony makes phone calls cheaper. Cheaper as email, cheaper so that advertisers and spammers ring your phone with automated messages, especially this year, dubbed 2007 by security experts as the year of spam, phishing, vishing, hacking over the IP phone. And NEC already has an answer to the anticipated situation: An anti-nuisance calls companion. The VoIP Seal is designed to decorate server computers, but when the IP phone rings, it triggered a Turing test to determine if calls crossing the network are real or are pre-recorded messages that have been generated automatically in much the same way spam email is created. The Turing test is a well-known method created by Alan Turing in the 1950s, and is used to testing whether the caller is a human or a machine by testing a machine’s capability to perform human-like conversation. NEC will showcase the device at the upcoming 3GSM exhibition in Spain. It claims a 99% success rate in filtering out such junk calls, which ...
More About: Toy , Calls , Call , Filter , Junk

Podcasts become searchable
2007-01-25 17:14:01
It could be filed under new journalism, or journalism at the podcasting era. Why? Because podcasts become more searchable. The Pluggd podcast search is a good service that we reviewed earlier. Recently, it scanned the US President George W. Bush’s speech State of the Union and Virginia Democrat Senator James Webb’s answer. People could look for terms and phrases that match their keywords. A ‘heatmap’ indicates the term relevancy, with an accuracy that is quite good for a new technology. The comparison can really tell whom of them really focuses on specific topics as education or environmental issues — even before listening to their speeches. Mojiti is a mashup) video website or a web application hybrid. Users take one of their favorite videos, play and annotate it with captions, subtitles or any other texts. With all those tags, searching through videos become a lot easier. If you combine those two examples, you can pretty boost your productivity as ...
More About: Pod , Podcasts , Podcast , Search , Cast

Adobe developing some voice P2P Flash widgets?
2007-01-25 17:14:01
Ask Mark Cuban what he thinks about peer-to-peer. He’ll answer BitTorrent (and all P2P technologies by extension) are doomed, one of the reasons is that end-users don’t understand how P2P works. Time will tell, but Adobe who now owns the Flash format doesn’t take it for grant and would rather bet on the many advantages of the sharing resources for big chunks of files. “In pursuit of this strategy, the company has acquired Amicima, a privately held start-up founded in 2004 to ‘develop improved Internet protocols for client-server and peer-to-peer networking, and to develop new applications based on these protocols,‘” explains GigaOM. Amicina’s main product is the amiciPhone (pictured), a peer-to-peer VoIP calling and private file-sharing client supporting the Windows XP and Mac platform. Integrating P2P technologies into Flash widgets is like multiplying the P2P power by a thousand factor. Installing widgets could be done by any blogg...
More About: Voice , Widgets , Widget

Boeing, unlucky with wireless in-flight systems
2007-01-25 11:13:01
Boeing drops it again — to fulfill its due date. The airplane maker abandoned the idea of installing a wireless in-flight entertainment system in its new Boeing 787 ‘Dreamliner’. The feature was one of the program risks said the Dreamliner project leader, and would delay the first delivery of the new airplane to All Nippon Airways of Japan in May 2008. Two issues forced Boeing into abandoning its wireless plans: bandwidth limitations and regulatory difficulties in receiving approval with some countries for use of certain wireless frequencies. Ironically, the company will go back to traditional wiring, and said it would even reduce equipment weight by 150 pounds (75kg), plus the configuration will allow carriers to change seat layouts (demoed in picture). Boeing is unlucky with top-notch service. It shut its broadband service since December last year. Too expensive, or maybe too complicated to deploy.
More About: Wireless , System , With , Boeing , Systems

Tellme, the voice-activated mobile search, now available
2007-01-24 17:11:01
Tellme has beta launched its voice-activated search engine, reaching the first public stage of their service that we started covering since August last year. It allows users to find a business by name or category, scroll, browse the search results, view a map, obtain step-by-step directions, call the business — with only the voice. For instance, users could say ?find-metro station-downtown? to request a list of all available metro station in the area. Technically, Tellme is powered by the DialTone platform, written on open standards (Voice XML, CCXML, and VoIP). Mike McCue, the Tellme founder who designed the system was formerly VP for technology of Netscape. Business Week previously unveiled that “Microsoft is looking to Tellme to help accelerate its efforts in mobile search and to leapfrog archrival Google.” For now on, Tellme requires to install a Java applet on your mobile phone. And during the test period, only US business search are available.
More About: Mobile , Search , Mobi , The V

YouTube blocks a mobile video provider
2007-01-24 17:11:01
YouTube would have signed an exclusive deal with Verizon to provide its video on demand to cellphone users. Out-Law magazine hints about this scenario after that YouTube forced content provider TinyTube to shut its YouTube related service. The reason: TinyTube encoding violated the terms and conditions of the video-sharing website. So far, TinyTube has been doing the job of encoding videos in an appropriate format for mobile phones and redistribute them on its site. According to TinyTube’s Allen Day, the shutdown was due to the YouTube-Verizon deal. Allen Day said to the magazine they “were informed by YT their action was largely due to pressure from their new mobile partner, Verizon”. “YouTube’s initial contact with the company suggested that there could be a commercial relationship between the two, but those hopes quickly faded.” Apparently, YouTube, being the partnership of some big entertainment studios, now can’t work with smaller pla...
More About: Video , Youtube , Mobile , Bloc

Streamcast vs Skype lawsuit: 0 - 1 (partial results)
2007-01-24 17:11:01
When StreamCast Networks sued Kazaa/Skype for “racketeer influenced and corrupt organization act”, it was a kind of feud between two spyware-enable P2P file-sharing brothers (StreamCast develops Morpheus, a Kazaa-like platform). When StreamCast extended its list of racketeers to include eBay, that was a kind of bad acquisition case for eBay. Well, a verdict has been reached. “In her ruling Thursday on a motion for dismissal, U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper concluded that StreamCast failed to make its case for relief under federal antitrust laws and dismissed all claims against Skype, eBay and more than a dozen other defendants,” says AP. StreamCast will indeed appeal the ruling. Or go to state court. Or before doing so, maybe they’d like to include Joost, the new peer-to-peer video client based on the same engine that powers Skype and Kazaa.
More About: Lawsuit , Laws , Results

Forecast: In 5 years, $20 will be enough to buy a cellphone
2007-01-23 23:09:02
Making a phone call will be free some days and we’re heading to this realm. A study from ABI Research expects the global market for sub-$20 ultra low cost handsets (UCLH) to grow over 330 million units in 2011. By that time, almost one out of every four handset shipped globally will be an ultra low cost handset, and that India will be the biggest market, inflating from a little over 9 million handsets in 2006 to more than 116 million handsets. The situation has already started with the Motofone, the Motorola Linux-based cellphone, or the Greenphone, developed by Trolltech. But we amend the forecast: Cell phones will become as cheaper as a book, and phone call prices will fall down to null — thanks to wireless hotspots. Revenues of mobile carriers would come from extra services, premium contents, but not anymore from phone calls.
More About: Phone , Cast , Enough , Will

Stoke funded, more mobile/WiFi convergence to come
2007-01-23 23:09:02
Stoke has raised $20 million to expand further. What can we expect? More converged telecommunications. The California start-up develops a product called the Stoke Session Exchange (SSX) that makes your cellphone become a money saver. When you reach your home, it flips to your domestic WiFi network and turns to be a VoIP phone. And it flips back to a cellular network when you go trekking for example. “It doesn?t do that merely for mobile phones, but for any device ? as long as your carrier incorporates Stoke?s technology. The Mountain View company essentially makes fixed line, wireless, DSL and cable networks all one big network,” reports VentureBeat. The infrastructure requires carriers to upgrade their system, which isn’t easy to do.
More About: Fun , Mobile , Wifi , Convergence , Come

The MIT embraces Internet telephony, after six years of observation
2007-01-23 05:07:01
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduate students are creative and brilliant technicians. They created the Kismet perfect emotive automate for example. One may object hosts the campus hosts enough brilliant minds to switch its telephone system to Inter net telephony a long time ago. It thought about it, since 2001, nevertheless, it has just started to be fully effective by 2010. MIT Network Manager Jeff Schiller told ComputerWorld about the situation. “We have 500 people on our voice-over-IP system, so we’ve really moved beyond the pilot stage to the service stage, and we’re ramping up to 1,500 users in the next couple of months, and to be a VoIP campus not too many years from now, MIT plans to switch all 15,000 of its phones to VoIP.” Technically, the phone structure would be SIP-ed and will rely on a Polycom system. “The media gateways to the 5ESS are Cisco high-end voice-over-IP switches, and of course we do everything in pairs in diff...
More About: Telephony , Tele , Internet Telephony

The OLPC might be sold in Western markets
2007-01-22 17:06:02
When asked about its main focus, the OLPC organization, the structure developing the “one laptop per child” XO laptop, asserts its sole focus is on providing a nifty educational tool to children of developing countries. But Michail Bletsas, the Chief Connectivity officer for OLPC, dished up an interesting selling strategy. That the XO colorful Linux-based laptop (in picture) might hit some West ern markets for $100-150 by 2008. The availability of the laptop would come with this clever catch: Customers will have to buy two laptops at once, the second going to the developing world. But according to OLPC News quoting the BBC, Bletsas might have mis-spoken, or appraised a second-hand scenario. Nicholas Negroponte, the project leader, keeps affirming he doesn’t want any XO laptop sold in Western markets. Mainly because of the backlash of computer manufacturers like Dell, Apple and consorts. But although the decision to not sell the XO laptop in countries of the G8, t...
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