VoIP

Overheard: Location awareness — is it finally here?

GPS brings a whole new level of precision to the mobile experience. Cell phones have been required to be location-aware for several years in order to comply with the needs of emergency response agencies in the U.S. However, the primitive triangulation system that basic phones use isn’t very precise. With GPS, a user’s location could be pinpointed to within a few feet. Paul Gillin, The Promise and Pitfalls of Location-Awareness

If you do a search on Google for location awareness, you’ll find lot of articles written by people who are excited about the possibilities of mobile devices and location awareness. Advertisers, particularly seem excited. If you look at the dates for a lot of those articles, however, you might be surprised to see they were written in 2001. Will the iPhone really be the tipping point for location awareness 3rd party apps? I’m not going to hold my breath.

Video: Intel, HP and Microsoft team up for a TV commercial

- Just wanted to share this one…I love it.

Overheard: Is the set-top box doomed? Not likely.

Less than two weeks after the blogosphere and press erupted with stories that the cable TV set-top faced extinction as a result of Sony signing onto a major interactive TV initiative by cable operators called Tru2Way, folks close to Tru2Way say the first certification test of the technology is a “disaster of spectacular proportions.” Cynthia Brumfield, Terrible Troubles with Cable’s Tru2Way Initiative?

Cynthia got slammed for this blog post, but even James McQuivey (Forrester) has said “So here’s where I stand on tru2way: I’ll believe it when I see it.” As close as I can figure it, here’s what the big deal is:

1. Cable companies would like to get rid of set-top boxes. They cost them money.

2. TV manufacturers are getting extra press by announcing they are getting behind Tru2way as the standard for allowing the TV itself perform the functions of the set-top box. (True2way is open source.)

3. A lot of industry experts don’t see how the business model for this change is going to work — consumers worry that putting the interface in the TV means it’s one more thing that can break on their TV — vendors remember a former effort to get rid of the set-top box (called CableCard) that just confused everyone and went belly up.

Overheard: 3G iPhone might as well be EDGE

I’m not so sure that all the usage won’t bog down the 3G network until it is little more than EDGE, at least for a while. Even with “regular” 3G phones, the system has encountered issues from intense usage, causing slow downs, crashes, and complete shut-downs. teddgcm, 3G iPhone, Will the Network Crash?

Overheard: The iPhone — death by monthly payments

We have had nearly 24 hours to jump out Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field and put common sense behind the announcements made yesterday – especially the company’s iPhone 3G. Christian Zibreg, WWDC 2008: Will the iPhone 3G kill the iPhone?

Christian Zibreg thinks the money iPhone users shell out to AT&T each month is the deal killer. It is for my family.
Just as I was posting this, Verizon called and offered my whole family free phone upgrades and extra minutes. Coincidence? LOL!

Overheard: Social networking? SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Facebook’s real problem isn’t privacy, it’s monetization. Dave McClure, as quoted in Social-networking sites work to turn users into profits

 In many respects, it is the same query that dogged portal companies in the mid-1990s and search engines in the early ’90s. Some were sold. Some went public. Some went belly up.

The ongoing challenge is to concoct a potion — be it through banner ads, premium subscriptions or licensing agreements — that no one has perfected. Facebook, crown jewel of the field, is valued at $15 billion but barely turns a profit.

Video: CERN and the Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is supposed to be turned on sometime this May. (The turn-on date has been delayed many times.)

Video: CERN - from the WWW to the origins of life

Cern in 3 minutes — virtual tour

Overheard: 75% of businesses still block instant messaging

According to a report released at Infosec 2008, nearly three quarters of businesses are blocking the use of free instant messaging (IM) applications. Asavin Wattanajantra, Infosec 08: Businesses clueless on instant messaging

The report says that retail and distribution companies were most likely to block instant messaging, while financial companies were most likely to allow instant messaging ( but they monitor its use).

Ironically, I read the article above the very same day there were blogswarms about Apple adding an instant messaging application to the iPhone — and Microsoft announcing that their Windows Live Messenger campaign has raised $1.3 million so far.

Tom Newton from Smoothwall (they commissioned the report) says that as time goes on, business will have to change. He points out that while today’s network administrators didn’t grow up with instant messaging, today’s kids are skipping right over email and using a combo of instant messaging and MySpace or Facebook to communicate with friends. I can’t argue with that. It’s that way in our house.

So here’s my question: With a whole generation (think consumers) growing up using instant messaging, how come it’s the only major communication service that isn’t interoperable? And might that have something to do with business not “getting it?”

Overheard: Voice is a real-time application

“Unlike email, voice is a real-time application and poor quality voice is equivalent to denial of service.” Sachin Jogleka, VoIP Security must haves- A starting point

The photo is of Martin Cooper demonstrating the first portable cellular telephone on April 3, 1973. Yes, he’s the guy we can all thank for inventing the cell phone.