ScotTip -- Scott's Tips for the IP World

SAR Exposure

I guarantee you will learn a few new pieces of information regarding SAR exposure and the iPad proximity sensor in this Wired article.

Can a $100 iPad Case Improve 3G Data Power? Lab Test!

 

 

 

Grand Tetons

Take a look at this spectacular view of the Grand Tetons captured as a digital moment by Jeff Clow.

 

Square Peg -- 2009 Streamy Award Winner -- Felicia Day (The Guild)

For those moments when your innovation is seen as square peg....never say never and keep moving it forward. Felicia Day sums it up best during the 2009 Stream Awards for her creation of the web series The Guild

 

Karen Sandler - OSCON 2011

Speaking from the heart takes on a whole new meaning when you listen to Karen Sandler at OSCON 2011. She was formerly with the Software Freedom Law Center and is now with the GNOME Foundation.

 

HD Voice -- The Next Big Step?

Andy Abramson write's this week in his VoIP Watch Blog about his experience with HD Conference calls using Skype. You can expect many others to also achieve clear, crisp calls. The HD Communication Summit this week will host an active discussion on the next step for VoIP quality.

How long do you think it will be before HD Voice and HD Communication will reach the mainstream marketplace?

Blackberry Tips and Shortcuts

A nice little list of tips and shortcuts to use with your Blackberry. What's your favorite, can do without tip?

CIO's Blackberry Bible

Ribbit's Killer App Challenge Winner

If you want to literally see where integrated voice applications are headed, take a look at Ribbit's recent winner of their $100K Killer App Challenge for developers. The Lucid Viewer developed by Jason Villmer from Naples, won the Best in Show category and the Media & Entertainment category. The Lucid Viewer is an "immersive" platform that creates a virtual world integrating Google Maps and video. Time based objects are integrated into an immersive video scene with the ability to place and receive calls as well as SMS messages. A very cool application platform that will surely get everyone thinking about how future voice services will become new application experiences.

Zer01's $69.95 per month for Unlimited Wireless Voice and Data?

At the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas this week, Zer01 Communications is unveiling more information on their new wireless VoIP service. Priced at $69.95 per month for unlimited voice and data with no roaming fees, contracts, credit checks or commitment the beta launch will occur at CTIA. Zer01 made their initial announcement for the new service at the CES show this past January. A new price point is emerging in the wireless marketplace. Should your existing wireless carrier worry? Well maybe, the realworld beta testing will tell.

It appears that Zer01 is truly a VoIP mobile carrier. Calls made on your handset are made as wireless data calls and not as cellular minutes of use. As a VoIP service, your voice calls are encoded as IP packets and sent as data over AT&T's  network. Initially released for only the Windows Mobile platform, 3 HTC phones will be slated for the initial launch. Other phones will certainly follow.

We will have to see if AT&T's 3G network has sufficient coverage for an acceptable user experience. The quality of service without latency and jitter issues will be a real threshold point for the mobile market.

Whoa......VoIP Four Years Later

I thought a fun way to kick-off this resurrected blog would be to revisit a posting I made four years ago, back in 2005. At the time, Jeff Pulver's VON conference was the place to be to see the VoIP happenings of the day. Fast forward to today and see how much has changed and also not changed. Paradigm shifts don't happen overnight. The early VoIP adopters crossed Geoffrey Moore's chasm long ago and the next wave is just starting to form, even with the economy slow down.

Where on the technology adoption cycle do you place VoIP today?

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

VON Fall 2005 Highlights

A few weeks have passed since the VON Fall 2005 Conference in Boston. As I was reviewing my notes (over 45 pages) from the sessions and presentations I attended and looking back at the past weeks stories and press releases, I found myself wanting to bring a direct order and simplicity to the deluge of information. When you attend an egaging conference like VON, there is no way to attend all of the simultaneously occurring tracks. So I am going to attempt to distill and paraphrase a sentence from the presenters that made those points which seemed to just hang in the air. Taken out of context and highlighted here from my notes, these paraphrases can seem starker than they really are. If I subscribe anything incorrectly, just let me know and I'll be glad to make the apologies and corrections to the individuals. In no particular order, here are the one liners of the sessions that I attended.

"It's all about multimedia, it always has been, it will always will be..."
-- Eugene Roman, Group President, Systems and Technology, Bell Canada


"...Converged services means value beyond voice..."
--  Joaquin Sufuentes, Computing Director, Mobility Group, Intel


"Wi-Fi and Cell Phones...Fixed Mobile Convergence: The opportunity to recapture minutes ...over 21% Minutes of Use (MOUs) occur indoor at home.....23% of MOUs occur in the office..."
-- David Schwartz, Director, Marketing, Personna Software


"Treating connectivity and applications 'non-vertically' is the 'natural order' of IP."
-- Espen Fjogstad, CEO, Telio


"Wi-Fi SIP is the winner we have chosen...WiMAX is still over 2 years away..."
-- Ross Brennan, CEO, Cicero Networks


"VoIP is accelerating the implemenation of wireless mesh design."
-- Richard Lander, Director, LocustWorld


"We need a Broadband Bill of Rights....Right to connect any device on the network.....Right to transmit and receive data....Right to access anything on the Internet (no blocking)....Right to privacy....Always the right to broadband (at least 1Mbps)"
-- Jeffrey Citron, CEO, Vonage


"...need to move to truly integrated services...move away from bundled services which are inefficient..."
--  Bill Smith, CTO, BellSouth


"Skype is about a community and ecosystem...it is not a fixed-line replacement."
-- Niklas Zennstrom, Founder & CEO Skype


"A new playbook with a new set of rules...graduating to Voice 2.0....where voice becomes a platform...application independence with personalization...."
--  Brad Garlinghouse, VP Communications Products, Yahoo!


"Bells have an opportunity but they have a lot more to lose than gain..."
-- Blair Levin, Managing Director, Legg Mason


"...Enterprises will have 20 to 40% of their workers work remotely..."
-- Mike Cromack, CTO, CrystalVoice Communication


"Voice done correctly does have value...don't believe it will be completely commoditized...some versions may be free but its difference will be very clear...."
-- Steve Craddock, SVP, New Media Development, Comcast


"Applications don't wait for the evolution of the network e.g., WiFi..."
--  David Hofstatter, President and CEO, CallWave


"Scarcity of spectrum is a regulatory phenomena not a physical scarcity...."
-- Brough Turner, SVP and CTO, NMS Communications