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VoIP & Gadget blog with the latest news in the VoIP and gadget space, wireless, mobile phones, product reviews, opinion & analysis.
XConnect Partners with Polycom, BroadSoft and Dialogic to Increase HD Voice Adoption
09/07/2010
XConnect is announcing a four-company initiative to promote HD voice adoption among U.K. service providers. This follows on the news they announced at TMC's ITEXPO where XConnect announced the world's first HD voice peering federation, in the U.S., with the goal of incrasing global HD voice uptake.
In summary, XConnect is announcing that it is joining with Polycom, BroadSoft and Dialogic to launch an educational and marketing campaign to reach U.K. operators. Secondly, XConnect is opening its HD voice peering federation to service providers globally and announcing initial U.K. participants. This expansion will broaden the delivery of HD voice traffic across networks, and continents.
Full news announcement going out tomorrow:
HD Voice Peering Federation Extended to Include U.K. Participants
XConnect, the leader in next-generation interconnection and carrier ENUM-registry services, today announced an initiative with leading technology companies Polycom, BroadSoft and Dialogic to promote the adoption of high-definition (HD) voice by service providers in the United Kingdom.
The initiative was launched in response to U.K. service providers' interest in HD voice services, reflected in discussion during a recent Internet Telephony Service Providers Association (ITSPA) meeting. Through workshops and cooperative communication and marketing, the HD initiative is designed to raise awareness and educate service providers about the benefits of HD voice and help them resolve implementation challenges.
The companies joining XConnect in the initiative are market leaders in their sectors of the HD voice ecosystem. Polycom set an early stake in the ground through its SoundStation®IP conference phones and SoundPoint® desktop phones featuring PolycomHD Voice™ technology. BroadSoft is the leading global provider of IP-based communications services to the telecommunications industry. Dialogic is a prominent provider of multimedia and signaling technologies and platforms.
As part of the initiative, XConnect announced that the XConnect Global HD Voice Federation is now open to HD voice-enabled service providers globally, following its successful launch in the United States. First to join from the U.K. are service providers Simwood, SureVoIP and thevoicefactory.
The federation enables the exchange of HD voice calls among all participants, all interconnecting through XConnect's carrier hub and routing through phone-number lookups via its carrier ENUM registry.
HD voice enables users to experience clearer, higher-quality and more effective voice communication through the use of widebandcodecs on IP networks. However, in most cases, to benefit from improved sound quality, callers must be on the same network. XConnect has established the HD federation to allow cross-network support for HD voice and potentially for multimedia IP-based services, such as presence and video.
"The U.K. is ripe for HD voice due to increasing migration to IP and the quest among service providers to differentiate their offerings and deliver greater value to their customers," said XConnect CEO Eli Katz.
He added, "We are delighted to have facilitated the world's first cross-network international HD voice calls via a federation - a step that paves the way for global mass-market adoption of HD voice."
Explaining why his company has joined the HD federation, thevoicefactory CEO Martin Sims said: "We realise that to compete effectively where broadband is a given, we have to move ahead of the pack. In a business market where many different languages and accents are the norm, high-definition voice will help us add value to our services."
Clash Of The Titans (original) Is One of Favorite Movies of All Time
09/03/2010
Special effects creator Ray Harryhausen poses for photographs with an enlarged model of Medusa from his 1981 film 'Clash Of The Titans' at the The Myths And Legends Exhibition at The London Film Museum on June 29, 2010 in London, England. I can still play back the scene in my head where Perseus has to kill and behead Medusa who is armed with a bow and arrow - and of course her stare that turns men into stone. I was only 11 at the time when it first came out and this was one of my first truly suspense scenes I saw in a movie. Then again, my parents let me see Halloween in 1978 when I was only 8 years only. Though that was horror suspense. Slightly different genre than sci-fi or fantasy suspense. But tell me this isn't scary:
Ray Harryhausen is considered the father of modern day special effects. Clash of the Titans is one of those movies I can watch over and over again. Memorable quotes such as "Release the Kraken!", "A Titan versus a Titan!", "and "Call no man happy who is not dead!" and "Now give us the eye!! We must have it!! Give us the eye!"
In total Ray made sixteen landmark fantasy films including 'Jason And The Argonauts' (1963), 'One Million Years BC' (1966) and his last feature 'Clash Of The Titans' (1981). The exhibition includes original models and artwork from classic movies.
Now that it's the Labor Day weekend I just might have to watch Clash of the Titans (1981) and the remake, which I just got on Bluray (via Netflix).
8x8 sent me a trial account of 8x8 Virtual Office Pro to review. What is Virtual Office Pro? Think of it as your web-based communications portal handling phone calls (auto-attendant, VoIP), internet fax, hosted conferencing and hosted application sharing. The only missing piece from the equation is email, however it does support direct integration with Exchange Server by leveraging Outlook Anywhere to pull in your Outlook Contacts. You can also pull your corporate directory into the online communications portal.
The service gives you one direct inward dial number (DID) for inbound calls and an additional DID for the powerful hosted conferencing service which supports both audio and video conferencing as well as your typical conferencing features (chat, moderator, mute, etc.). It leverages Java and Flash for the user interface, collaboration, and the VoIP and video conferencing features.
Creating an Online Meeting I really liked how I was able to drag-and-drop contacts into my online meeting. Makes it very easy to create meetings. You can also manually type email addresses and they'll receive the invite. I like the auto-complete within the fields which matches with your contacts. You have several options available when creating an online meeting. You can for instance request a response (RSVP) for your scheduled meeting. Other options include choosing the start/end date/time, the time zone, as well as enable/disable: chat, require moderator, mute all participants, audio recording, video, presentation sharing, Remote Desktop Control, and more as seen here:
Joining the Meeting Once you receive the email invite, you can click the link and join the meeting from your PC. For audio you have the choice of using VoIP from your PC or by dialing into the conference and entering the meeting ID - information provided by the invite email.
VoIP / Video Quality The voice quality was very good. Even though I've tested other Adobe Flash VoIP products, still pretty amazing to be talking over a browser using Flash components. The latency was minimal, so no complaints there. I tested two-way video in a meeting and it performed very well.You can do more than a two-way video conference call of course. There is no real limit to the number of video participants. The video participants will scroll to the right in the filmstrip as you continue to add more. Here's a screenshot of 8x8 doing a video conference demo with 3 participants:
As moderator when you mute their audio it mutes/turns off their web video as well. Meeting participants can make a particular participant's video larger or maximize a particular participant. Overall, the video conferencing capabilities were pretty good.
Collaboration Once in the meeting you can chat with other participants. It worked as expected and even includes emoticons. For presentation sharing, it supports two modes of desktop sharing. You can choose Desktop Sharing which allows you to draw a box around an area of your PC's screen that you want to share. You can also move or resize this box at any time. Being able to share a specific section of your screen is a nice feature. Alternatively, you can choose Window Sharing to pick a specific Window application to share. The moderator can also grant application sharing permission to any of the participants so they can share their PC's screen.
The moderator can place participants into a private group and this is announced to them that they've been placed into a private group. This is useful for instance in sales calls when a sales person may need to get his manager's approval for a proposed reduction in price.
One nice feature is that you can have open-ended meetings with no end date. So if you end a meeting, you can quickly restart the meeting with all the various options already pre-configured without having to recreate it. This also holds true for scheduled meetings which do have an end date but hasn't expired yet. So if for whatever reason your PC or browser crashes, you can rejoin the meeting. As long as the option 'Require Moderator' is unchecked, all the other participants can continue to hold the meeting until you rejoin.
I liked the usability of the web interface a lot, especially the way windows would pop into the background (with thumbnail previews) when you view another option or setting. Then you simply click the red X icon and the window you were working on pops back to the foreground. Mind you, this is all within a single browser window/tab! Check out this example where I have 3 windows cascaded into the background:
It's important to mention that Virtual Office Pro supports two modes of recording - prompted or unprompted option. The unprompted option basically records all meetings and prompted requires user action to initiate a recording.
Today, Skype announced that Skype for SIP is changing its name to Skype Connect. Guess the techie name "SIP" isn't exactly business-friendly, hence the name change. Today, they are also announcing that hat Skype Connect (formerly Skype for SIP) is officially out of beta.
By using Skype Connect with an existing PBX, your business can do the following:
Make outbound calls from desktop phones to landlines and mobiles worldwide billed at Skype's standard per-minute calling rates;
Receive inbound calls from Skype connected users worldwide by placing Skype's Click & Call buttons on their Web sites;
Receive calls from landlines or mobile phones in the corporate PBX using Skype's online numbers that have been purchased separately; and
Manage Skype calls using your existing PBX or UC systems' features such as call routing, automatic call distribution, conferencing, auto-attendant, voicemail, call recording and logging.
Since the beta launch of Skype Connect in March 2009, here are some of Skype's milestones:
Skype Connect already has over 2,400 active global customers;
Skype Connect is now certified to work with PBX and UC products from Avaya, Cisco, SIPfoundry, ShoreTel and other OEMs (see supported models here).
Skype Connect also works with older TDM PBXs or Key Systems which can now add Skype calling capabilities through third-party IP gateways from AudioCodes, Grandstream and VoSKY (see supported models here).
Launched Skype Manager, a simple web-based tool to centrally manage and control Skype usage in a company, and which enables a business to set-up Skype Connect;
New dedicated customer support, including real-time chat, is now available for Skype Connect customers and Skype Manager administrators directly through Skype Manager;
In addition, we've been enrolling VARs and system integrators in our new Skype Channel Partner Program and training them to support our business customers. We will share more details on this program soon.
Perhaps the biggest milestone is "dedicated customer support". Lack of access to customer support has been a huge complaint on the consumer side. In any business, having access to technical support is critical. Though I wonder if "phone" support will be available? The milestone listed only mentions "real-time" chat. I have a conference call with Skype in 15 minutes, so I'll ask and update this post then.
Update (12:29pm):
I recorded the call. Below is the podcast recording I had with David Gurlé, the GM of the Skype for Business team and Chaim Haas, Skype's PR representative. It definitely has some interesting "nuggets" about Skype and in particular Skype 5.0. Worth a listen. Some interesting tidbits include:
- David said customers are happy with text-chat, but Voice support will be available if customers request it.
- In the Skype 5.0 beta the limit for multi-party is 5.
- Skype 5.0 will launch in a couple of weeks
Linking traditional telephony systems (IP PBX) with pure-play internet telephony (like Skype) makes sense. I'd argue that the previous name (Skype for SIP) was aimed at IT pros managing the PBX and the service now is aimed at getting end-users at the organizations that use the service to get started. This is a product that extends traditional telephony/UC. In contrast, I think that Google may be doing the same as they enhance the business-targeted Google Apps, but from a Web-user-centric perspective (integrated in email, like already in the consumer GMail) that adds traditional telephony features subsequently. About Me - http://bit.ly/c4BJLX
Netflix for the iPhone and iPod Touch has arrived! You can ditch the Netflix for iPhone & iPod Touch hack I wrote about. You can be legit. It is here my friends! Download it now here. Then sign-in, pick a video, and start watching over Wi-Fi or 3G. One cool feature is Resume. It's a button at the top of the screen that lets you go back to the last video you were watching.
Here's the release of the news: Netflix App Now Available for iPhone and iPod Touch
Free App Enables Netflix Members to Instantly Watch TV Episodes and Movies Streamed from Netflix to iPhone and iPod touch
Netflix, Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX) today announced the availability of its free Netflix App for iPhone and iPod touch, allowing Netflix members on plans starting at just $8.99 a month to instantly watch a vast selection of TV episodes and movies streamed to their iPhone or iPod touch at no additional cost.
The Netflix App is available for free from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.
"Apple has changed the game for mobile devices," said Reed Hastings, Netflix co-founder and chief executive officer. "We're excited that our members can now carry Netflix around in their pockets and instantly watch movies and TV shows streamed from Netflix right to their iPhone or iPod touch."
The Netflix App delivers a high-quality viewing experience, a broad array of movie and TV choices and a clean, intuitive interface. It is available via both Wi-Fi and 3G networks. TV episodes and movies are conveniently organized into a variety of categories based on members' personal preferences, popular genres, new arrivals and members' individual instant Queues. Members can choose a movie or TV episode from any of the lists and just tap the innovative Multi-Touch user interface to watch instantly or to save the title for viewing later.
Additionally, users have the option of fast-forwarding and rewinding the video stream, and stopping at any time. When users want to start watching again, the video stream starts exactly where it was stopped, even on a different device capable of streaming from Netflix.
The Netflix App supports any iPhone or iPod touch device running iOS version 3.13 or later.
Trend Micro and Symantec Exhibiting at MSPWorld / ITEXPO
08/26/2010
Both Trend Micro and Symantec have announced they are exhibiting at MSPWorld co-located with TMC's ITEXPO in Los Angeles. I'm a huge fan of both Symantec and Trend Micro. They both make very good antivirus, anti-Spam and Internet security software. Symantec also makes backup software in hosted and customer premise versions. I've used several of their products in the past. Can't wait to check them out when I attend ITEXPO / MSPWorld in early October. As I already recently mentioned, ITEXPO is beating estimates and MSPWorld is doing quite nicely as well. Hope to see you at the show in Los Angeles.
Gmail is already many user's centralized communications portal - an always-open browser window. It offers access to our email, chat, contacts, calendar, documents, and soon it might add browser-based VoIP.
According to CNET, Google has started testing Gmail-integrated VoIP, which would enable users to make phone calls directly from your browser.
Google already offers several voice offerings, including Google Voice, Google Talk, and the recently acquired SIP-based Gizmo5 softphone client. To be honest, Google Talk and Gizmo5 are sort of redundant. Google should consolidate the two clients. It'll be interesting to see if users embrace browser-based telephony or if they'll stick with tried-and-true softphone clients like Skype.
Thats great. I think the old giants like vonage etc. would not be happy with this news. My advice to the old players will be to follow the foot steps of some smar voip phone service providers. Think of excellence instead of sales because excellence always sells itself.
(Paul on
Aug 26, 2010 4:14 PM)
I think the impact will be far beyond the consumer VoIP players. What users will do with Google Voice/Google Talk and how it will be integrated into web pages, device apps, etc., will move Unified Communications technologies from what was enterprise-centric to something more pervasive. And free domestic calling (to actual phone numbers) is a differentiator in the near term. About Me - http://bit.ly/c4BJLX
Interactive Intelligence Interaction SIP Station Review
08/24/2010
Interactive Intelligence sent me their new Interaction SIP Station to check out and review. It's an interesting little product that aims to replace big bulky desktop SIP phones with a simple little SIP-based Power over Ethernet (PoE) box that has a headset jack for connecting any standard headset. The obvious market is call centers where agents often take calls using a headset and a softphone application and have no need for a desktop phone with a full touch-tone keypad, speakerphone, handset, etc. In fact, often the handset stays cradled and the agent simply answers the call with the headset, which essentially means the desktop phone is a glorified PBX-to-headset converter. Why waste valuable desk space and money on a phone when all you really need is a headset that can connect to your IP-PBX over the LAN?
Enter Interactive Intelligence's SIP Station. It's very small - only 4.5"x4.5" and 1.5" high, it's as simple and as basic as you can get, sporting only 5 buttons, including answer/hang-up, emergency speed dial button, volume up, volume down, and mute/unmute. For ports it has a headset jack, PoE LAN port, and PC port. Lastly, it has a LED on top for various status indicators used for troubleshooting, i.e. blinking, orange, blue, or red. The SIP Station comes with a desk-mounting plate and a headset hanger for docking your headset.
Installing the SIP Station was a snap. Because the SIP Station only works with Interactive Intelligence's IP-PBXs (CIC and EIC), I had two methods of testing this. I could have Interactive Intelligence send me a CIC or EIC IP-PBX and register the SIP Station locally or I could simply VPN to their corporate demo IP-PBX. Since I wasn't testing the IP-PBX itself, it made the most sense to simply VPN into their IP-PBX using a Cisco ASA 5505 router.
Interactive Intelligence sent me two SIP Stations pre-configured with the SIP credentials to register to their demo IP-PBX. I connected each to the ASA 5505, which supports Power over Ethernet so it could power the SIP Stations directly. The units went through their bootup process, flashing orange periodically, until they registered and the LED stayed solid blue. Like many IP phones, the SIP Stations leverage a TFTP server to acquire their settings and firmware. For the headsets I simply used the VXI 10V, a relatively inexpensive headset that supports a quick disconnect cord.
Next, I installed the Interaction Client software on two PCs to perform some of the call control functionality, such as entering a phone number to dial. Once installed, I dialed from 8001 (SIP Station 1) to 8002 (SIP Station 2). SIP Station 2 rang and I saw a Toast popup window from the Interaction Client in the lower-right corner. I had the choice to answer the call via the Interaction Client or simply pressing the handset icon on the SIP Station to answer the call. After answering the call I has one of my co-workers take one of the headsets and we had a one minute conversation to check out the audio quality. Both of us felt the audio was excellent
I should point out that since their is no dialpad on the SIP Station, to ensure safety (i.e. PC crashes so no dialing software) there is an emergency button on the SIP Station which will speed dial a pre-configured emergency number set by the administrator, i.e. 911.
Overall, the SIP Stations performed quite well in my tests. I contacted Interactive Intelligence to discuss why they developed this product.
Here's my interview: Q: Why did Interactive Intelligence feel the need to develop this product? Cost savings by eliminating the desktop phone since many agents/users use a headset + Interaction Client any way? Any other reasons? Because it's small / portable / pocketable?
A: Our customers were expressing a need for a more cost-effective and reliable alternative to the IP desk phone. The IP desk phones, while typically offering sufficient functionality, were getting increasingly pricey. When our customers tried to use USB headsets in conjunction with a softphone, many experienced reliability and voice quality issues. Finally, many of our contact center customers - especially those who would staff up and down frequently - expressed the need for a more compact device to make better use of limited desktop and storage space. The Interaction SIP Station also gives us an opportunity to put our name and logo on the agent's desk.
Q: What is the price of the Interaction SIP Station? The Interaction SIP Station™ list price is $49. This is compared to IP phones today that commonly run between $110 and $350 apiece.
Q: How long has this been in development The Interaction SIP Station™ became generally available March 2010. The company began working on developing the product in August of 2008 and the idea with graphics started a year prior to that. Q: Why not allow other IP-PBXs to use the SIP Station? I guess one difficulty is you would need a softphone similar to the Interaction Client to integrate with it since there is no dialpad to make outbound calls. Still, many call centers only RECEIVE phone calls and aren't allowed to make outbound calls, so in theory this product could have a market niche for 3rd party IP-PBXs not made by Interactive Intelligence.
We wanted an affordable, reliable, and simple device that would highlight and promote our software - in particular, the Interaction Client. However, the main reason we are not supporting or selling the Interaction SIP Station for use with other IP-PBXs is because our PBX is specifically designed to simplify the setup and configuration through our provisioning interface.
[end interview]
I think it's fine that Interactive Intelligence wants to target the SIP Station strictly for users of their IP-PBX products. However, it got me thinking. They're leveraging all industry standard stuff - TFTP and DHCP options for provisioning and the SIP protocol. I don't see why this wouldn't work with other IP-PBX manufacturers so they can take advantage of this very inexpensive ($49) PoE phone device. Curious, I decided to logon to the SIP Station's web interface to see if I could get it to work on trixbox Pro, an Asterisk-based IP-PBX.
From the web interface I went to the Quick Setup, entered the SIP Registrar settings, the port number (5060) and the line settings (SIP credentials - username / password) as seen here:
Next I changed the SIP transport protocol from TCP to UDP, which is used by most Asterisk distros, including trixbox Pro:
Lastly, I rebooted the SIP Station and it went blue (registered). With no dialpad and no softphone integration between trixbox Pro and the SIP Station all I could do is make inbound calls to the SIP Station. I dialed from my Aastra 67i to the SIP Station by dialing extension 143 and the SIP Station rang. I answered the call using the button on the SIP Station and was able to transmit audio both ways. Success! I now had a $49 inbound calling station. Well, they may not support 3rd party IP-PBXs, but it works.
Conclusion: All in all, this is an impressive little box featuring Power Over Ethernet, virtually plug and play operation, full SIP support, and excellent audio quality. The fact that it works with any standard RJ9 headset is a plus. I think Interactive Intelligence, who has a large community of call center customers will do quite well with this product. Now that I let the cat out of the bag that it works with any SIP-based IP-PBX for inbound calls, they may even get some interest from other users.
We're an Interactive Intelligence customer with about 140 seats, of which several dozen are customer reps who would benefit from this lower cost solution, but the choice they made to not offer a gigabit switch in the device really stopped us from considering this unit. It would have suited us perfectly but we've moved up to gigabit to the desktop years ago, our CSRs love the improved performance, and taking the super cheap route on these made them a no-go. Too bad, it would have been worth a 20-30 dollar premium versus going with a Polycom.
Microsoft just announced they are exhibiting at MSPWorld co-located with TMC's ITEXPO in Los Angeles. ITEXPO is already beating estimates and MSPWorld is doing quite nicely as well.
So why should you attend MSPWorld?
Here's an overview:
MSPWorld Conference and Expo is a high level multi day networking and educational event, formulated to address the issues facing the service provider community as a whole, in the US market and abroad. With a heavy emphasis on business and market development, new customer acquisition and retention, building value in your managed services practice and accreditation's and certifications.
For the last 10 years the International Association of Managed Service Providers (MSPAlliance) has been serving the global MSP community.
Developing professional standards, bringing MSPs around the world together, helping to make the name managed services a common phrase amongst businesses of all sizes, these are but a few of the things the MSPAlliance has done on behalf of its membership and all MSPs.
Philadelphia Demands $300 Business License From Bloggers
08/23/2010
Philadelphia, the home of the Liberty Bell wants bloggers to pay up or shut up. The crack in the Liberty Bell just grew wider. That's right, forget your free speech rights, because according to Philadelphia it isn't free. It'll cost you $300 if you run a blog with any ads that creates even 1 cent of income.
For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she's made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it's a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut.
In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.
So she earned $50 and has to pay out $300? Like most people, she didn't think placing ads on her blog classified her blog as a "business". Of course, the city only knows about the ads you're placing on your blog if you report that income on your taxes. So it's the honest bloggers who are being screwed. I'm not advocating being a tax cheat, but if ever there was a reason to not report taxes, this would be it. Maybe she'll join the Taxed Enough Already (TEA) Party?
Another blogger, Sean Barry on his blog Circle of Fits, hosted on the free Blogspot earned just $11 in profit over two years and also received a letter from the city.
Circle of Fits is a labor of love for the most part. I re-launched it in Sept. 2008 as therapy...as a project that could allow me to reconnect to a long dormant creative writing/ side of my life trapped under years of doubt, loss and laziness...and inspired into fruition by the snapshots of the last year of my late sister's life. ... ... I never expected Circle of Fits to "make money" or be deemed a "business"... I put ads on it as an experiment, and I don't ever expect anyone to click on them..I don't even know how to put the time in to learn how to control which ones are being presented.
I for one have never heard of a "license" to blog.
Fine, if they want to play it that way and consider hobbyist blogging in the basement as a "business", then two can play that game. Since you are a "business", you can now safely deduct your Internet costs (~$400/year) and computer on your federal income tax return. You can also deduct your home office and a percentage of your electricity, mortgage, heating, etc. Also, you can deduct losses for 5 years, which should more than offset the $300. Of course, these deductions really only work if you don't take the standard deduction on your federal income tax. And if the IRS agent comes knocking, just say "Hey, my stupid city says I'm running a business. Take it up with them."
Teevox + iPhone = Remote Control for Netflix & Hulu
08/20/2010
Teevox, founded by former MIT students is an iPhone app that allows you to remotely control watching Hulu and Netflix on your computer. According to Techcrunch, Hulu and Netflix are just the beginning. I use Orb and PlayOn for remote media access, which are similar - especially PlayOn which supports Hulu and Netflix. Speaking of PlayOn, I just noticed last night that when I went to http://m.mobile.tv within Safari on my iPhone it forced me to add PlayOn to my Home Screen. I could no longer use PlayOn from within Safari. Of course, that may have something to do with Appledelaying the approval of the PlayOn native app and finally PlayOn decided to just go with their HTML5 workaround and add a home screen icon to circumvent the Apple application process. Still, I wish PlayOn didn't remove the access from within Safari. I may not want to switch out of Safari to launch and use PlayOn. Before I was able to switch Safari tabs between PlayOn and other websites I was viewing.
In any event, check out the cool video demo of Teevox below:
Google has finally announced the long-awaited voice and video chat for Linux. Head on over to gmail.com/videochat to download the plug-in and start chatting with your buds. No install via RPM is available yet. Though RPM installs are for wusses. Real Linux gurus compile from source, baby!
Kung Fu Hustle meets 2010 Space Odyssey Video - Make a Custom iPhone Case
08/19/2010
In a cool video titled 2010: A "Case" Odyssey, you can see how Case-mate lets you customize your iPhone. Available now for iPhone 3GS and soon for iPhone 4, www.imakemycase.com lets you bring your cellular accessory dreams to life.
Scitable - Social Network Changes Face of Scientific Learning
08/19/2010
Scitable is an offshoot of Nature Publishing Group, which is the publisher of Nature, Scientific American and about 70 other magazines. I interviewed Vikram Savkar, Scitable's SVP of publishing to learn more about Scitable and how this online social network is changing the face of learning in the scientific community.
Vikram, "We're one of the leading publishers in science research in the world. What we've never done until recently is publish something for the scientific education community. We always published research for researchers, but we came to feel that there was a real possibility that there aren't going to be enough researchers in the next generation to do the important scientific work that needs to be done."
He added, "40% of students that start their college years in the U.S. drop out by their second year. That's an enormous loss and it suggests that there is an alienation between this young generation and the way science is being taught. So we decided to jump into the game and invest a lot of our thought and time in creating a new approach to teaching science - and the fruit of that is Scitable."
Vikram went on to explain exactly what Scitable is. "Scitable is an online learning space for science and what that means is that it has a library of very high quality content that we have created." He continued, "It's not crowd-sourced Wiki(pedia) content. It's content that editorially we've commissioned and reviewed and vetted in all the life sciences."
Pre-Registration for ITEXPO Trending 70 Percent Ahead of 2009
08/18/2010
Some great news from TMC that I thought I'd share. Internet Telephony Conference and Expo (ITEXPO) pre-registration is trending ahead of last year by 70%! I'm obviously going to be there to check out and write about the latest happenings in VoIP, 4G, smart grid, cloud communications, and more. I get some of my best news scoops there and obviously get to do some social networking with some leading industry insiders. Check out TMC's news:
TMC Announces Pre-Registration for ITEXPO Trending 70 Percent Ahead of 2009 Expanded Content, New Collocated Events, and Increased Sponsor and Exhibitor Participation Set to Make the 22nd Edition of ITEXPO the Best Ever Norwalk, CT, August 18, 2010-- TMC today announced that pre-registration for their upcoming ITEXPO West 2010, taking place October 4-6 in the Los Angeles Convention Center, has increased by 70 percent over last year's show.
Through organic growth, substantial vendor support, and the addition of several collocated conferences, the 22nd edition of ITEXPO is on track to be the largest in terms of attendance and participating vendors since the show's inception in 1999.
"We've invested significant resources to make ITEXPO the world's leading communications and technology event, and we're thrilled with the response we're seeing for the upcoming October show," commented Rich Tehrani, CEO and group editor-in-chief of TMC."Anyone and everyone involved in the communications and technology industries can find interesting and valuable content at ITEXPO, and we're looking forward to hosting a record number of attendees, speakers, media, and exhibitors at our upcoming show."
ITEXPO delivers unrivaled educational programs that teach service providers, resellers, enterprises, SMBs, and government agencies how to select IP-based voice, video, fax, and unified communications solutions to purchase or resell. The show also provides the industry's most active forum for buyers, sellers and manufacturers to forge relationships, create partnerships, and close deals.
The 22nd iteration of ITEXPO features a new level of content, with more industry experts, more sessions, and more companies showcasing their latest technologies - many at these collocated events that have now become a central part of ITEXPO:
TMC invites past attendees, and first time evaluators to examine the event Web sites, to see how ITEXPO has evolved. Each aspect of the global communications spectrum is represented, to provide attendees with a unique opportunity to examine the issues, discuss the trends, and learn more about new technology that enhances the way we work, live, and communicate.
The current lineup of ITEXPO Keynote Addresses is also available online. This year's lineup includes Alcatel-Lucent, CA Technologies, BT Ribbit, ShoreTel, Fonality, and Salesforce.com.
Registration for ITEXPO conference programs is open on the event Web site. For exhibit and sponsorship information, please contact Joe Fabiano. Members of the media can reserve press credentials by contacting Todd Keefe at todd@firpr.com.
About TMC: Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) is a global, integrated media company helping clients build communities in print, in person and online.TMC publishes Customer Interaction Solutions, INTERNET TELEPHONY, Unified Communications, and NGN magazines.TMCnet, TMC's Web site, is the leading source of news and articles for the communications and technology industries. TMCnet is read by two million unique visitors each month on average worldwide, according to Webtrends.TMCnet has ranked within the top 3,500 in Quantcast's Top U.S. sites, placing TMCnet in the nation's top .03% most visited Web sites. In addition, TMC produces ITEXPO; 4GWE Conference and M2M Evolution (in conjunction with Crossfire Media); Digium|Asterisk World (in conjunction with Digium); and Smart Grid Summit (in conjunction with Intelligent Communication Partners). TMC serves other communications market segments with the Cloud Communications Summit (in conjunction with Light and Electric); CVx ChannelVision Expo (in conjunction with Beka Publishing); and MSPWorld™ (in conjunction with the MSP Alliance).
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