The PhoneBoy Blog » Services

Streaming Movies Should Cost 99 Cents

PhoneBoy — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:36:23 +0000

Seeing as I was planning to go see the new Tron: Legacy movie today (I did–it was pretty good IMO), I figured it’d be a good idea to refresh my memory and watch the orignal. I vaguely remember seeing the movie at the Drive-In when I was a youth, but I probably fell asleep during it and didn’t actually watch much of it.

I tried to find the movie and I stumbled across the complete movie on YouTube–in HD no less. I added the private YouTube channel to my Roku box and fired up the movie, which I watched with my wife and my son. Even though I warned him this movie was released nearly 30 years ago, my son was appalled at the graphics. He was also generally bored by the movie, though he thought Tron: Legacy was a lot better.

In any case, this is the first time I had really had a chance to “show off” the Roku box to my wife. The default Netflix channel was there and I explained how it worked and that, for $8 a month, we could watch as many movies as we wanted whenever we wanted.

Her problem: she rarely has time to watch anything–certainly not enough to make $8/mo worthwhile. She’d rather do a pay-as-you-go.

So I showed her the Amazon channel. I flipped through the movie selection. The movies varied in price, of course, but she balked when she saw it cost $1.99 (or a lot more, in some cases) to rent something.

Her comment: it should only cost $0.99 to rent a movie. At that price point, it’s worth renting a movie once in a while. Anything more than that just isn’t worth it.

I have to say, there’s something magical about that $0.99 price point. I can’t tell you how many applications I’ve purchased on iTunes at that price point. There are a few games I’ve never played that I bought precisely because it dropped down to $0.99 (from a much higher price point).

I would have happily paid $0.99 to watch Tron via Amazon or some other service. I couldn’t even buy the movie on DVD since Disney decided to let the DVD go out of print. Instead, I watched it on YouTube. For free. And the new movie? Can easily be had on Bittorrent. For free.

When will the content rights holders realize free is their true competition? Instead of working against Redbox and Netflix–two companies who clearly understand how people want to consume content and what they’re willing to pay–work with them. You’ll have a lot more people consuming the content and you’ll make a lot more money.

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

Where is this thing going?: The mobility I want

PhoneBoy — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 17:10:02 +0000

From Where is this thing going?: The mobility I want:

Have you ever had a personal assistant? or a “Secretary”, as they used to be called some time ago?

That is exactly what I would like to have in my mobile device (or hosted somewhere and have it associated to it). A “truly personal” Gatekeeper, a Majordomo that would be capable of separating our personal and business lives and that will enable us,broadband addicts, to devote our undivided attention to whatever requires it at the moment. A piece of software capable of learning from instructions issued over time and to derive a set of rules to be used generally.

Even though this post is nearly three years old, you should read this entire piece. It has a lot of ideas that would be compelling to a lot of people. The biggest challenge to fulfilling this vision is getting all of the necessary players on board and cooperating in order to provide it.

Comments

2 November 2010, Ricky Cadden writes: What a great post - I've come close to many of those things with various apps, but unfortunately, never been able to get things to work properly 100% of the time. Hell, I'd just like to have a real assistant, lol.

How Inbound VoIP Calls Could Happen on the iPhone

PhoneBoy — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:29:32 +0000

Imagine if you will, a VoIP service hooked into Apple’s Push Notification Service (APNS). An inbound call comes in on your VoIP service. The notification is pushed to your handset. From that notification, you can launch a VoIP app that essentially connects the incoming call to your iPhone or iPod Touch over WiFi.

While not perfect, this is basically a way around the whole lack of background applications on the iPhone. Any service provider could easily do this.

There are some logistics to work out with this system, such as what happens if APNS is delayed in delivering the message or the caller gets impatient and hangs up, but none of those problems are insurmountable.

So the question is: which service is going to implement this first?

Comments

27 September 2009, Ravens writes: iSip, a SIP client running on iPhoneOS has already implemented such a feature. A remote sip client is connected to your sip account and push notifications via APNS when an incoming call arrives. Works fine. Only Problem is, what to do if no WiFi network is available ? I think its need to implement a basic call forwarding to GSM when launching the app...
28 September 2009, Ruben Olsen writes: As Ravens said, iSIP is doing this - another client is Acrobits. You might want to check out my comparative review on such clients at http://bit.ly/adz5x There will be a followup post later today on why using the APNS is a very good idea, but a extremely bad implementation. @RubenOlsen
28 September 2009, Aswath Rao writes: I thought there are many apps that use this method, both in iPhone and Android. But I think this doesn't work in Touch because the wifi radio is turned off when the device goes into idle mode. In other words, there is no Push Notification service.
28 September 2009, Tsahi Levent-Levi writes: While this may work, it is an ugly workaround - a lot worse than what people are doing to plug holes in firewalls...
28 September 2009, PhoneBoy writes: An independent client is one thing, but one integrated with a service provider--or a service provider itself offering it--is quite another. I'd love it if Skype did that :)
29 September 2009, tom writes: you still have the problem on an itouch or an iphone with no SIM or a voice only SIM(such as prepaid). that problem is that the WiFi gets turned off when the screen goes blank. for me as a strictly prepaid type of guy it is very attractive to have an iphone with a voice only SIM but use VOIP most of the time over WiFi. the current solution is to use jailbreaking and apps that force the WiFi to stay on. but this is not at all ideal.
29 September 2009, Corvys writes: I say small companies may win the race to be the first, but Google will buy them all in order to be the first dominant player.

Junction Networks Providing IP Phone Reviews

PhoneBoy — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 07:25:44 +0000

As I was reminded by Rob Wolpov, the CEO of Junction Networks when I chatted with him on Wednesday, the last time I wrote about them, I referred to the press release pairing their OnSIP hosted PBX service and the Fring VoIP client for mobile phones as a “publicity stunt.” I didn’t quite say that, but I wasn’t generally high on the pairing, only because it seemed a bit like a “no duh” to me. I did say it was a good PR move, though.

While Junction Networks provides PBX services using that “new fangled” VoIP technology, they are very “old school voice” when it comes to IP phones–they don’t care what you use so long as it is compatible with the service. Ok, restrictions on handsets are as old as the Bell System, but it’s “old school” for anyone who has had a landline anytime in the past two or three decades.

Meanwhile, as a result of selling their IP-based PBX service to smaller businesses–the 3 to 50 seat crowd–they have had to come up with handset recommendations for potential customers. There are hundreds of IP Phones, analog telephone adapters, and even software phones to choose from. How does the relative VoIP handset newbie choose?

Junction Networks has the answer: OnSIP Team Reviews. They review handsets based on a number of criteria–including compatibility with their own service–and post them for all to see. Currently, they have only 3 handsets reviewed on the site, but the plan is to write up the results of some of their other testing to give you a balanced opinion. The site will also include analog telephone adapters and VoIP client software.

Unlike, say, a company that sells IP phones, Junction Networks isn’t selling phones. The only interest they have is ensuring you choose the method of accessing their service that works best for you. The exceedingly clever part, though, is that while they are giving away free information that essentially anyone can use–even non-customers–they are getting free advertising and a lot of community goodwill. Having built a fairly successful career on that relatively simple concept, I have to say it’s a win-win-win for everyone.

Michael Graves also talked with Rob Wolpov and posted his take on this announcement.

Comments

21 August 2009, LucaFiligheddu.com writes: years, too. Thanks! Related articles by Zemanta Adobe eLearning Suite: Creating engaging eLearning – the Adobe way: Live eSeminar (blogs.adobe.com) Putting the Cable Industry on notice. HD Voice is happening. (pulverblog.pulver.com)Junction Networks Providing IP Phone Reviews(phoneboy.com) SIP Clients For Iphone? (mneylon.com)

What Is The Secret of Social Networking?

PhoneBoy — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:42:49 +0000

If you’ve seen the movie Soylent Green, or even if you haven’t, you know what the punchline to this story is. Even if you do know the punchline, read on.

Humans are undeniably social creatures who crave connections to other humans. Email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, SMS, and many others are services that, at their core, serve one of our most basic needs as humans: to connect with other humans.

As geeks, technologists, marketers, or what-have-you, it’s real easy to lose sight of the people and focus on the technology and what it enables. Or get into endless debates why service X is better than service Y for a specific purpose.

While I was traveling to Israel, in one of the rare moments where I actually had time to peek at Twitter, I saw a comment from Lee Dryburgh, who questioned the popularity of Twitter:

Twitter is just slow public IM coupled with SMS+RSS.I still fail to see the greatness in Twitter as a specific platform or technology.:(

My immediate response, pretty much says it all:

@leedryburgh Why Twitter is popular is like Soylent Green: it’s people. Without people, it’s nothing.

Why Twitter became popular is the subject of some speculation. From my point of view, it doesn’t matter what caused Twitter to become wildly popular. The very fact there is such a mass of people using Twitter makes it matter. Even if there is a superior technology to Twitter, if few people use the technology, it doesn’t really matter.

I have settled on both Twitter and Facebook as the “social networks” I use on a regular basis. I may have started using Twitter for merely technical reasons, and initially left because of them, but I came back for the people. The reason I joined and started using Facebook regularly was the same–the people.

I’ll say it again: Social networking is like Soylent Green: it’s people. Without people, social networking is nothing. Let’s not forget that.

Comments

17 June 2009, Be Kind. Be True. Be Real. Be You. | Stardust Global Ventures - Digital Media Advisors writes: [...] First, my good friend Dameon wrote What Is The Secret of Social Networking? [...]
21 June 2009, Web 2.0 turned the digital divide into a social divide « Fredzimny’s CCCCC Blog writes: [...] What Is The Secret of Social Networking? (phoneboy.com) Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Faculty Summit 2008 Day 1: OpenSocial APIBlog #7Create a Winning Social Media Strategy For Your BrandMorning Xtra: Miley Cyrus Draws Twitterers Ire, iPhone Plan Price Drop [...]
22 June 2009, NumberGarage Matt writes: I, like you, stick mainly with Twitter and Facebook for my personal use. I use both for very different purposes. Since Facebook is a walled garden I keep it to communicate with friends and family. I rarely add someone who I have never met personally. Twitter, for me, is all about sharing and exchanging ideas that cover a broad swath of topics. Most of the topics are tech related and would bore and confuse my facebook friends to death. In fact, I had to disable my twitter from updating my facebook status for that reason.

How Many Arrows are Left in Nokia’s Services Quill?

PhoneBoy — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:37:24 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

One of the phrases I heard when I worked at Nokia right before they announced the divestiture of the Security Appliance Business (where I worked) was “more wood behind fewer arrows.” In other words, Nokia was wanting to focus more of their resources behind fewer initiatives, products, services, whatever. Seems reasonable.

It should, therefore, be no surprise given Nokia’s huge fall in profits and the general state of the economy that Nokia is, once again, putting more wood behind fewer arrows by, according to the press release, “[focusing] investments on fewer initiatives and [increasing] the use of common enablers across certain services.”

The press release gives scant details, as press releases often do. However, they do mention a couple of interesting tidbits:

A variety of third-party partners will be added to the image capture and sharing features on devices. Presumably, only newer devices. Those of us with Nokia devices today likely won’t benefit. And seriously, how long did it take for Nokia to realize there’s a thriving ecosystem of services that they simply don’t participate in?
When Nokia says employees will be impacted by a strategy change, as this press release says, it means only one thing: layoffs. 450 of them, or at least 450 people will have to substantially change their job. At least Nokia gives decent severance packages, but I still feels sorry for those impacted.

Given how long it seems to take for Nokia to make any serious changes, based on having worked for them for 10 years, I have to wonder if these changes can be implemented in time to reverse the downward slide of market share and mind share.

Based on what I saw in Redwood City when I was at the Check Point office last week, I’d say the fight is over and Nokia lost. Many former Nokia employees are now proudly carrying iPhones along with many long-time Check Point employees. Me? I’d love to get an iPhone now, but I can’t justify spending money on a new phone when I’ve got a drawer full of them. Maybe after Apple releases the next generation iPhone

Nokia Asking For Volunteers To Trim The Fat (phoneboy.com)
Nokia cuts a further 1,700 jobs worldwide as demand falls! (ceoworld.biz)
Too many brands – variety stymies smartphone viruses: study (cbc.ca)
Nokia to extend S60 usage, new smartphone defintion (allaboutsymbian.com)
Nokia Targets the U.S. Market (businessweek.com)

Comments

30 April 2009, Kellman writes: PhoneBoy using an iPhone? Isn't that one of the seven signs of the apocalypse? Let's see, had earthquakes, floods, nasty flu brewing. . . . if I see you walking around with an iPhone, I'm moving further north and hiding ;)
1 May 2009, PhoneBoy writes: Don't you already live pretty far north? :)

OpenSky Opens Skype, But Does It Work?

PhoneBoy — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:37:37 +0000

I’m sure you’ve probably read all about Skype for Asterisk and Skype’s newly announced Skype-for-SIP service. Neither of these offerings are available today or geared at individual users. Michael Robertson’s OpenSky, which makes it possible to integrate Skype with any SIP-compliant device or service, is available as part of Gizmo5, is both available today and individual users can sign up.

The folks at Gizmo5 were nice enough to comp me an account so I could give it a try. Here’s how it works. First off, you have to sign up for a Gizmo5 account, which is free. Next, go to your members page and configure OpenSky to forward Skype calls to your Gizmo5 account.

Once that’s setup, you can either use an official Gizmo5 client, Gizmo5 on your mobile, or any SIP device you want to make calls to the SIP URI skypename@opensky.gizmo5.com. Conversely, people calling your SkypeID will get their calls forwarded to your Gizmo5/SIP client.

I had some difficulty making or receiving Skype calls until I set up the Skype call forwarding on my Gizmo5 account page. Once I did that, I found that making and receiving Skype calls worked. CallerID worked in both directions, meaning whoever was calling me on Skype showed up in CallerID as well as when I make a Skype call through OpenSky, my own SkypeID showed properly.

The one thing I’ve noticed when using OpenSky to forward Skype calls is that my presence indicator is no longer accurate. It always shows me as “online” even when my Skype client is disconnected. Not entirely sure what happens when my I reconnect with my Skype client. Do I get any IMs? Can I set my Skype status? Can I control my Skype presence indicator with OpenSky?

In any case, Gizmo5 works as advertised, though clearly some more work is needed on the Skype presence piece. Gizmo5 allows you to make calls to and from Skype for free for up to 5 minutes. If you want longer calls, it will cost you $20 a year. Less per-account in blocks of 50 or more.

How To Call a Skype User From Any Standard VoIP Device (lucafiligheddu.com)
Gizmo5 Launches OpenSky, Free Service to Call Skype From Any VoIP Phone (gigaom.com)
Call Skype From Any Phone Through OpenSky (mashable.com)
OpenSky – Not For This guy (lockergnome.com)

Comments

24 March 2009, Jason writes: Yeah, since Gizmo5/SIPPhone is running a Skype client. The Skype client with the 'online' status rules the roost. Skype appears to have a cascading precedence for which client state, when running multiple clients, takes charge. I have noticed this behavior with my Netgear WiFi phone and my desktop Skype client. Would be nice if there was a Skype feature to set a client as the 'master' status regardless of how many clients you may have connected.
25 March 2009, spg writes: this is a much better product than what i had though. i tried it after the initial announcement and was only able to make outbound call; an dthey all had 'opensky' caller ID's.
25 March 2009, Gizmo5 Founder: Skype-for-SIP Is Vaporware writes: [...] (Phoneboy) details how to set up two-way Skype SIP Calling here: (link) James Body — 2:26 AM on March 25, 2009 [...]
28 March 2009, Skype on SIP: More Fallout from the Announcement | Voice on the Web writes: [...] OpenSky Opens Skype, But Does It Work? (phoneboy.com) [...]

Debris From the Inbox

PhoneBoy — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:37:16 +0000

I am starting to get more requests for “blog love” at a time when I have less and less desire to write. I am quickly coming to the realization that much of the stuff people are asking me to write about just isn’t that interesting. Quite honestly, I don’t want to simply echo what some PR people crafted into a press release. I’d rather write something that I am interested in, at least

Meanwhile, here’s a few

From the “Do we really need another way to make free calls” department: Calling America is a new site that uses a “browser-based technology” (Flash) along with ads to provide free calling within the U.S.. If you don’t register, you can make a 2 minute call. If you register, you can make a 15 minute call. Are people this hard up for money that they’ll choose this over choosing to pay Skype $3 a month for unlimited US and Canada calls?

Thomas Howe Named CEO of Jaduka: While the folks I’ve talked with at Jaduka in the past are pretty smart and they certainly have the telephony infrastructure to back it up, Thomas Howe is most certainly the right guy to have at the helm. He truly understands how all this stuff will fit together. With Network IP’s infrastructure at his beck and call, who knows what kind of mashups they’ll be able to put together.

Peter Csathy Named CEO of Sorenson Media: I was wondering what was going to happen to Peter Csathy after Logitech acquired the company he was previously CEO of, SightSpeed. Turns out he’s taking his expertise in video over to the leading company behind compressing it for consumption on the Internet: Sorenson Media. Good stuff!

Poke Your Facebook Friends While On A Voice Call: This new technology developed by Ditech Networks called TokTok will let you access, among other things, web applications, social networks, Google calendar and Gmail contacts enabling people to schedule appointments, create new tasks, conference in others, and more – all mid-conversation. If the technology works with today’s craptastic mobile phone service, that would be a feat in itself. However, the thought of something listening in on my calls, even if it’s a computer? Sorry, that just creeps me out.

Skype to be Included in Nokia Handsets: The Nokia N97, when it ships, will include a version of Skype that actually makes calls using voice over IP instead of using the GSM/UMTS voice channel as it does today. This is undoubtedly going to cause some mobile operators some heartburn, but what else is new? I think this is a great idea, but will it change Nokia’s market share numbers? I doubt it.

Save yourself a packet on mobile calls (stephenfry.com)
Skype To Give Away New SILK Audio Codec (techcrunch.com)
Skype Extends VoIP To Some Mobile Phones, MIDs (textually.org)
Nokia will ship N97 loaded with Skype VoIP software (infoworld.com)
Skype’s immunity to phone tapping threatened (infoworld.com)

Watching All The Cameras At The Inaguration

PhoneBoy — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:26:50 +0000

I got an email from the National Science Foundation regarding an interesting technology they used to watch all the surveillance cameras at President Obama’s inauguration. According to the press release put out by the NSF, the technology created by VSee allowed law enforcement the ability to look at multiple cameras in real-time–even from police cruisers on a mobile phone network connection!

VSee sells their technology as a videoconferencing/application sharing service for companies, though at $50 per user per month, it’s a bit pricey. However, you can be assured the service will work over low-bandwidth connections, is secured with FIPS 140-2 certified 256-bit AES encryption, and will traverse firewalls.

You can try the service with 3 users for free to see how well it works. Of course, without a Mac version, it’s unlikely I’ll spend a lot of time using it. I will have to see how well it works across the great firewall of Nokia before I become an ex-employee

Google Latitude: Why Can’t Nokia Do This?

PhoneBoy — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:58:25 +0000

If you haven’t seen or heard about this, Google Latitude is something that has been integrated into the latest release of Google Maps for the mobile handset. It’s an opt-in service and you can share your location with your friends. The location can either be manual, based on cell towers, or GPS. Beyond that, privacy controls about your location, and setting a “status message,” there’s not a lot to it.

Nokia Friend View does something similar to this, except you can have threaded conversations as well. I’ve written about Nokia Friend View, and I like it.

The problem with Friend View is threefold:

It’s only on Nokia handsets
It’s a separate application from Nokia’s mapping application

Google Latitude is a good thing because:

It’s available on a wide range of platforms–today!
It’s included in an application that you know how to use already and would use for other reasons (i.e. it’s not separate).

Obviously Google Latitude could benefit from:

Better “default” privacy settings. For example, I would like to be able to auto-update my location, but most of the time, give only city-specific information, not exact location.
Conversation a-la Friend View or Jaiku

This is an excellent example of an integrated services offering that works across multiple platforms. If Nokia wants to truly succeed in the services game, the services have to be launched in a similar fashion. As it is, the services are fragmented and only available for Nokia devices.

Comments

5 February 2009, Markus Göbel's Tech News Comments writes: I thought the same. It's a year now that they bought Plazes.com. Their app was supposed to do what Latitude does and came with a big user community.

A New Hope

PhoneBoy — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:33:04 +0000

Yesterday, like many people around the world, I watched the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Unlike many of my friends, I watched it on a regular television. Sure, the CNN/Facebook integration was a cool idea, and I actually did Tweet and Facebook during the speech, but given the number of people trying to watch this, this is one time where broadcast TV rules and the lack-of-multicast on the Internet sucks!

As there is a changing of the guard at the highest office in the United States, another change of leadership is going on–at work. I am, of course, discussing the pending sale of Nokia’s Security Appliance business to Check Point. In many ways, it affects me a lot more directly than the changes in Washington DC.

Unlike President Obama when was President-Elect, where it seemed like there was daily updates on choices for cabinet positions and the like, nobody can really say much publicly about the transition I and a lot of my present and likely future co-workers are going through. Nobody can until the deal is officially completed.

I think I can safely say that I, personally, am ready to get started at Check Point. I see tremendous opportunities for the business as a whole as well as for my own career. My aspirations in VoIP, mobility, mobile phones, and other things aside, computer and network security has been a constant in my life. Check Point’s a leader in that space, and unlike many vendors, Check Point actually has a comprehensive portfolio of products that enable end-to-end security, including endpoint security.

Back in 1993, Check Point began selling the nework firewall under the name FireWall-1. In 1995, they added VPN capabilities to the firewall. In 1996, we saw the beginnings of what is now called Unified Threat Management. In 1998, they created Provider-1, a management console for use with managed service providers. In 1999, Check Point created a company called SofaWare that provides embedded security software solutions for small business and branch offices. Other solutions like Check Point GX and MASS are geared specifically at mobile network operators.

While, arguably, all of those products are merely extensions to the core Firewall-1 product (now called VPN-1), it does show that Check Point has solutions for just about every place you can think of putting in a network firewall. This is good, of course, but it’s only one part of the end-to-end security equation.

For the endpoitns, Check Point has ZoneAlarm for consumer Windows desktops, Endpoint Security agents for enterprise Windows desktops, Full Disk Encryption (formerly Pointsec) to encrypt the drives of Windows, Mac, Linux machines, and mobile phones, and IPS-1 (formerly Network Flight Recorder) for intrusion detection/prevention.

It’s easy to get lost in all these products, the number of which will grow somewhat once the acquisition of Nokia’s Security Appliance business closes. The reality is, all these products help enable total end-to-end security in a heterogeneous environment, at least to the extent it is feasible. The integration between these products will only get better over time.

I think Check Point has a great story to tell. My “new hope” is that I will be able to share more of this story with you as I am integrated into Check Point.

Comments

23 January 2009, Dave Michels writes: I was part of the team that selected CheckPoint for my employer in 1997. I did it again at my next employer in 1999. Then again at my next employer in 2001. That last company was a distributor and we sold the Nokia appliance. I really liked the idea, but we didn't need (we had everything on Sun servers). Since then the firewall market really has gone toward Appliances. The Nokia box was way ahead of its time, and that brand just isn't associated well with enterprise security. I think moving the brand back to Checkpoint makes a lot more sense.

Skype, Truphone, and Boingo: It’s All Related

PhoneBoy — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:41:01 +0000

: Image via CrunchBase

Today’s been a relative cornucopia of news related to Skype, Truphone, and Boingo, three services I like quite a bit. They are only related insofar as they all involve Skype in some way.

First off, let’s talk Skype on the Mac. Dan York reports he’s gotten to play with the new Skype 2.8 client for the Mac, which offers some “unique” features:

Screen Sharing with Macs, Windows, and Linux
Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats
Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
Large avatars: 256×256 pixels
Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests
Ability to add your own notes to contacts

You should go read Dan’s post for the blow-by-blow, or go check out the post on Skype Journal. I’m sure I’ll have my own once the client is released (supposedly tomorrow, on the 6th of January, so check here to see if it’s available yet).

The other feature present in this new Skype relates to my friends at Boingo: you can now use Skype Credits to pay for Boingo WiFi hotspots on a per-minute basis, no monthly or daily fees required. It sounds a bit pricey at $0.22 a minute that Dan mentions in his post, considering that Boingo’s monthly rate is now a jaw-dropping $9.95 a month for North America! Might be a better deal abroad. I’ll have to see how this works before I can comment further.

Finally, Truphone announced today that the latest version of their iPhone/iPod Touch calling application, which now includes the ability to both IM and call Skype users! IM is also supported for Gtalk (calling also available), MSN. and Yahoo. Calling is coming for MSN and Yahoo. Twitter support is also in the app as wel. The new Truphone app for iPod Touch/iPhone will be available on the 12th of January.

I talked with newly appointed Truphone CEO Geraldine Wilson about the app this evening. I had to ask some dumb questions about the app, being that I don’t have an iPhone or an iPod Touch to try it on myself. At this point, the app still has to be in the foreground in order to receive calls or receive IM messages. No support for SMS yet, either. It’s also not clear when IM and Skype capabilities will be available on other supported handsets.

I’m wondering, though, if we won’t see Truphone some how join up with Boingo in order to provide a seamless experience in the more than 100,000 Boingo hotspots worldwide? Or how about somehow using Apple’s Push Notification service for IM and inbound calls? It would certainly make it easier to use Truphone anywhere.

Comments

6 January 2009, :: DMY :: writes: Egalement au menu, mais nettement moins excitant : partage d’écran et son/video améliorés C’est dans la béta 2.8 pour mac qui est disponible depuis quelques heures Related articles by Zemanta Skype 2.8 beta in the wildSkype, Truphone, and Boingo: It’s All RelatedSkype 2.8 for Mac coming Tuesday, with screen sharing and WiFi connector Skype 2.8 for Mac to launch Tuesday Skype 2.8 for Mac: Your Online Demo Is Calling Skype for Mac 2.8 Beta Launches Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, Wi-Fi
10 January 2009, Jack Clarke writes: Nice read, hope Skype updates the Linux version one day it's lagging behind Windows and Mac as far as new added features.
29 January 2009, N73 Blog writes: I am still waiting for a true applications from skype for Symbian. I think is the best VOIP app, and it really needs a version for mobiles

And… We’re Back

PhoneBoy — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:41:52 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

You probably didn’t notice because I’ve done these things so many times, I can almost do it in my sleep. I switched webhosts. Really, it’s not the kind of thing you need to tell people about usually, if you do it right.

However, one of my friends on Twitter was telling me about a hosting deal that was too good to be true on Dreamhost. Two years worth of hosting for $21.48! I, of course, signed up right away before the deal expired yesterday. While the experience was a little rocky–their signup page was getting pummeled–I got in. They have a slightly LESS good deal going today (only 20% off instead of 90%), but it may still be worth checking out.

As I write this, I am in DNS purgatory, waiting for the nameserver records to change over. However, I was able to get my two WordPress sites moved over without too much issue. I have a couple of custom sites I will need to spend some time on to get them moved over, but I suspect that won’t take a lot of time, either.

I can’t assume this moved completely without incident, so if you see anything funny on my site, let me know!

Really, Let’s Clear Out The Inbox Now

PhoneBoy — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 09:39:05 +0000

I have been avoiding my Gmail inbox for some time now, trying to get to things that have been sitting there for a month now. I feel like a failure every time I look at it. Time to do something about it, with my changed blogging focus. Makes deleting those emails a bit easier.

Meanwhile, I did run across some juicy tidbits:

Fonolo is in Public Beta: Fonolo, the company that takes the pain out of working your way through the typical, large-company phone tree hell, has opened their doors. Anyone in the U.S. and Canada can sign up and use this service for free. You can scroll through their list of companies, look at the phone tree, and click a button. You’ll be called from that point in the phone tree, so you don’t have to waste time navigating that far down.

Telestial Prepaid SIM Cards: Telestial provides both global roaming SIMs like my friends at MAXroam and SIM4travel, but they also offer local SIMs in many countries, which often give you better rates in the country you’re in. They do offer a couple of U.S. SIMs–one that is basically a T-Mobile SIM, the other is a SIM that allows you to make calls on all 3 major GSM networks in North America: T-Mobile, AT&T, and Rogers. If they could do away with the $0.59 connection charge per call, it’d be a worthwhile SIM for a North American resident to carry full time!

RIAA vs. Joel Tenenbaum: This is a rather interesting case where, of course, the RIAA is suing Joel Tenenbaum for downloading songs off the Internet. He’s countersuing, challenging the constitutionality of the process and statute being wielded against him. The “Digital Theft Deterrence Act of 1999,” which was designed as a civil statute, is essentially a criminal statute, punitively deterrent in its every substantive aspect. Civil courts–where he is being tried–should not be handling criminal cases, which Tenenbaum argues this is. Looks like the case is progressing nicely, will have to keep an eye on this.

Evolution of Mobile Phones: A graphical, albeit U.S.-centric view of how mobile phones evolved. The Nokia 6100 series (which included several models) where the shiznit back in 1999 and 2000, and I’m not just saying that because I worked there then. I recently recycled mine since it’s impossible to use the U.S. models anymore, thanks to 64k SIMs and the discontinuation of TDMA.

Skyfire Goes Worldwide, Open to All: I really like the Skyfire browser available for Nokia S60 devices and Windows Mobile. It was originally restricted to U.S. folks, but now you don’t need to even sign up to use the browser. It does a fantastic job of taking a regular web page–complete with plugins like Flash and Silverlight, and makes it available on your phone. It does do this with some server side magic, so while they claim not to snoop on your private transactions, if you’re paranoid, you might want to wait until you get back to your desktop to check out your bank or PayPal account.

NAVTEQ offers Mobile Traffic: If you don’t feel like loading up Google Maps on your mobile (or can’t), NAVTEQ (which is owned by my employer, Nokia) has http://mobi.traffic.com, which provides a mobile-friendly way of checking on traffic in major cities. Unfortunately, I live just outside of the areas it covers, though Google Maps will give traffic data up to Gig Harbor, but not any farther up the Kitsap Peninsula. Still might be worth a try if you live in a major metro. They also offer traffic alerts via SMS and you can call 1-866-MY-TRAFC to get up-to-the-minute traffic information.

VoIP: OUT for 2009

PhoneBoy — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:33:52 +0000

I guess it’s my turn to get on the bandwagon about whether or not VoIP is dead. It is, and we should get over it already.

I agree with Jeff Pulver, Andy Abramson, and Jon Arnold that there is innovation going on in VoIP. No question about it. However, those innovations are services. Companies like Fonolo, Jajah, Mobivox, iotum (makers of Calliflower), and others are using technology that has existed for years in new and exciting ways. They don’t make voice, say, travel faster or take up less space on the wire. They might change how voice can be used or provide a previously existing service in a new an unique way, but it’s not a fundamental shift in how voice is transmitted.

Ok, there might be some innovations going on with the raw voice transmission as well, but these changes are likely to be incremental at best. The fundamentals have existed for over a decade and I don’t see any major changes on the horizon. It’s plubming, as Ken Camp has said many times.

Normal people don’t care abut VoIP. They just care if it works. Let’s take an example of using Comcast phone service instead of CenturyTel for landline phone service. The main issue for my wife is not that it’s VoIP, but that it doesn’t work exactly the same way as a regular landline. The fact that it is VoIP is almost irrelevant. It boils down to two problems: availability (Comcast goes down more), and emergency services (911 doesn’t exactly work the same way).

It’s not VoIP, it’s the services it provides.

Comments

1 January 2009, Juergen writes: Must be a US thing... in Germany, thanks to the de-facto monopoly of Deutsche Telekom on normal landline phone service, a lot of ISPs offer extremely cheap VoIP services and the hardware to use those services extremely easy, too. Lately people have been enabled to get broadband even without ordering normal phone service, and rely solely on that for phone services via VoIP. Sure, there's no big "Everybody wants to buy VoIP" anymore... but the technology still is there getting more and more users. Then again, people in the US didn't really buy ISDN either - Deutsche Telekom made it a success in Germany ;-)
1 January 2009, spg writes: a fundamental confusion around VOIP in the USA has to do with the early entry of big and expensive carriers like vonage and packet8 and the cable companies like comcast. these companies of little extra value of anyone cares about and are only slightly less expensive than the much more reliable POTS line. in comparison in europe lots of people go for the smaller and much less expensive options most of which allow the use of any sip device. i would never recommend someone drop their POTS for comcast or vonage; it is not near as reliable. however for someone looking to really save a ton of money buying a skype hardware phone and getting an unlimited package and skypein number may make sense since the price difference is so great. all these other services like the ones you mention(JAJAH, MOBIVOX, ETC.) are really just about toll bypass even if they market themselves for the value add features, if the major operators move to unlimited international calling plans they will be out of business really fast. even with services like grandcentral if you read the forums it definatly gives the impression everyone either just wants a free DID number or wants to take advantage of free click to call long distance. the rest is a nuisance that people bear with for the sake of free service.
1 January 2009, PhoneBoy writes: @juergen There are use cases (and locations) where VoIP STILL makes a lot of sense. It's not to say that VoIP as a technology (or a cost savings tool) is dead, it's just that it's like TCP/IP--it's plumbing. @spg The cost difference between CentruyTel and Comcast isn't that substantial, either. Granted I could get a little more with Comcast (like Canada calling and voicemail on the web), but I know exactly what I am getting with the LEC and the service has been rock solid.
1 January 2009, VoIP: Dead or Alive? writes: [...] friend, Daemon sees a lot of hope in the new services that are emerging, but I remain skeptical. Not because I am a [...]
2 January 2009, Stardust Global Ventures » Speaking the Unspeakable - VoIP writes: [...] a couple of my brightest friends chiming in as well. Dameon Welch-Abernathy (aka Phoneboy) says in VoIP: OUT for 2009 that he agrees there’s innovation going on in VoIP (agreeing with Jeff Pulver, Andy Abramson, [...]
2 January 2009, VoIP, Web 2.0 and Mobile from LucaFiligheddu.com writes: going to die very soon? See you in 2010 to check what happened during 2009 Related articles by Zemanta VoIP: “If you hadn’t nailed its feet to the perch, it’d be pushin’ up the daisies!”VoIP: OUT for 20092008: The Year that VoIP died VoIP: Dead or Alive?
5 January 2009, Jeff Pulver: Go To eComm! writes: [...] VoIP: OUT for 2009 [...]
5 January 2009, All we’re talking about is arbitrage — Alec Saunders SquawkBox writes: [...] VoIP: OUT for 2009 [...]
5 January 2009, Disruptive Telephony writes: with the "VoIP is dead" debate continuing to rage across the VoIP/communications part of the blogosphere (see Alec Saunders part 1 and part 2, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Ken Camp, Jeff Pulver part 1 and part 2, Om Malik, Shidan Gouran, Ted Wallingford,Dameon Welch-Abernathy (PhoneBoy), Rich Tehrani and a zillion others...) Aswath Rao and Luca Filigheddu came closest to the mark in their posts. The fundamental problem with this entire debate is simply this:Define "VoIP"? As I discussed in
6 January 2009, Revolutionary Information Infrastructure Systems » Blog Archive » Define "VoIP" - and then we can debate whether it is dead! writes: [...] Andy Abramson, Ken Camp, Jeff Pulver part 1 and part 2, Om Malik, Shidan Gouran, Ted Wallingford, Dameon Welch-Abernathy (PhoneBoy), Rich Tehrani and a zillion [...]
21 January 2009, seamlessenterprise.com » Blog Archive » VoIP is More than Plumbing writes: [...] Those with VoIP’s blood on their hands; Speaking the Unspeakable – VoIP; VoIP is NOT Dead!; VoIP Out for 2009; Jon Arnold Proclaims VoIP is Not Dead; VoIP in 2008 – “I’m not [...]

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