April 2007 Archives

This is the unboxing of the Nokia N95 mobile phone, one of the hottest phones on the market... The N95 features a cool 2-way slide concept for switching between different viewing modes, integrated GPS functionality, a 5 megapixel camera and support for high-speed mobile networks using 3G/HSDPA. The N95 supports watching and recording videos, song playback, high-speed web browsing and email access.



Since I didn't totally unbox the N95 in the 1st video, figured I'd attach this 2nd video showing the other miscellaneous cables. After all, can't half-ass unbox something.

TMC’s Communications Developer Conference, is just around the corner - May 14-17, 2007, and is well-known as the premier event for developers of IP Communications technologies. The conference was previously known as the VoIP Developer Conference for the first three years, but changed the name this year to reflect the industry’s evolution from just voice applications to all forms of communications, which many have coined "Unfied Communications" (UC). With so many communication methods and devices, the need to organize all this information, including presence has become critical. Certainly, the unified communications market is set to explode. and developers are looking to get in on the action.

Who better to discuss unfied communications than one of the leaders of within the UC space than Microsoft, who has a major launch of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 coming very soon (still in beta) which takes dead aim at the unified communications space integrating presence, VoIP, video, conferencing, and much more. I've actually been testing OCS 2007 recently and I think Microsoft may have finally gotten VoIP right this time.

In any event, Microsoft will be speaking at TMC's Communications Developer Conference to talk about the growth within UC, how developers can leverage UC to enhance enterprise productivity and other UC-related stuff. One of Microsoft's competitors -- and certainly no slouch in the unfied communications space is Skype, who will also be speaking at our conference. Paul Amery, Director of Skype Developers Program, will be one of our keynote speakers. Plenty of other important speakers will be there and certainly TMC's educational conference track is second to none. If you want to learn, TMC's conferences are the best in the industry. This isn't me just blowing smack, TMC has done surveys that have told us this is true. In addition, TMC is the only IP communications conference in the industry that offers a 100% money-back guarantee.

If you're interested in attending, it's not too late. You can register here: http://www.commdeveloper.com.

Back in October I discussed VoIP in Second Life and joked about the need for e911 emergency services within this virtual world. Well, according to CNet, in the next several months, "Second Life avatars may find their long-awaited voice, said Philip Rosedale, CEO of Linden Lab, publisher of the virtual world." Voice has been in "beta" within Second Life for awhile, so I assume this means the "official launch".

In the CNet article, Rosedale states something interesting: "There are a lot of problems with telephony when doing conference calls. You can't tell who's talking if there's more than one person. But in the virtual world, voice solves it," said Rosedale, noting that avatars with three-dimensional voice integration will likely accelerate using Second Life for holding virtual conference meetings.

The 3D voice inside Second Life is interesting. When a person to your left within Second Life speaks something, your speaker's/headphone's Left channel will output the sound. Ditto for someone speaking to your right within this virtual world. If a person is directly ahead of you, both the left and right channel will output the volume equally. Second Life utilizes technology from Diamondware, which isn't "new" news - it was covered by TMC's writers here and here.

The brains behind the technology is Keith Weiner, the founder of DiamondWare. I've met with Keith a few times over the years at TMC's Internet Telephony Conference & Expo and it was quite obvious that  he is an extreme audiophile and expert in audio acoustics. Second Life was smart to use his technology.

I would like to see Second Life integrate lip-synching technology to go along with the voice over IP. I mean who wants to look at an avatar that is speaking but the lips don't move? Probably the coolest lip-synching avatar technology I've used is from Gizmoz. You can pick avatars such as Sanjaya, Saddam, Osama, Hilary Clinton, etc. and add your voice to it and it will be lip-synched. Of course, their technology is post-processing - not real-time processing of your voice, which is needed in Second Life. Still, it can't be hard to come up with some simple lip movements as you speak within Second Life.

Update: (April 30th) Gizmoz DOES indeed support real-time lip synching. I tested Gizmoz with a co-worker back in January and I was never able to get the real-time lip synching to work. A few months passed and I must have forgotten that Gizmoz told me that it does support real-time lip synching. I'll have to find some free time to try it again.

If curious, here are a few examples of Gizmoz in action:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=SaintJaya

http://www.gizmoz.com/video/477878_Paris_Hilton_sanjaya

A new mineral discovered by geologists in Serbia shares virtually the same chemical composition as Kryptonite used by the Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor to weaken him in the film "Superman Returns". Apparently, the scientific name written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns nearly matches the composition of the new mineral discovered.

But don't expect green crystals, the new mineral discovered is actually a white powerdery substance, which leads me to believe they still haven't discovered the real Kryptonite. We Superman fans know better. Who knows was missing element might cause the powerdery substance to become green crystals?

After all, Richard Pryor in Superman III couldn't figure out the "unknown" component in Kryptonite so he added "tar" instead which resulted in Superman becoming a bad guy.

Kryptonite is real and so is Superman. Just tune your TV to the CW Thursday nights at 8pm and you'll see the real kryptonite and Superman. Don't tell me it's fake. Everything on TV is reality TV shows these days -  American Idol, Survivor, Hogan Knows Best, The Real World, etc. so it must be real, right? Of course, many would argue "reality TV" isn't "real" at all. Just don't be telling me Superman doesn't exist. I'm still getting over the whole Santa Claus thing.

Hat tip to Rich, who knows I'm a Superman fan like Seinfeld. I'm a fan of everything from the original B&W Superman series to Christoper Reeves in Superman I, II, and III (IV is too forgettable to mention), to Lois & Clark TV series, to Smallville, and lastly to the Superman Begins movie.

Everyone and their brother/sister has an iPod, right? Sure Apple offers multi-colored iPods, though the white model is still the most popular. So how do you stand out from the crowd from all the other iPod users? What if you want to "bling bling" your iPod with some diamonds or gold just to be different? After all, you can get some blinged out mobile phones, including the gold RAZR V3i phones carried by Dolce & Gabbana boutiques. You can even get some blinged out diamond-encrusted Bluetooth headsets such as the Pama Diamante Bluetooth Headset (left), so why not a blinged out iPod?

Well, look no further than Amosu's line of Apple iPods with 24 Carat Gold!

A 80GB gold-plated Video iPod retails for £399.00, while the 30GB model goes for £299.00 So if you need to get your iPod blinged, go check it out. Just don't be showing it off in while riding any New York subways - you're just asking for trouble.

ooVoo is a new IM/video client launching soon, but I'm not sure if this another softphone client aiming to knock off the king - Skype. Simon from ooVoo emailed me, "To celebrate the launch of ooVoo, a new video communication tool, we're looking for 1000 influential bloggers to participate in a unique event.

We're compiling a video scrapbook called 'Just A Minute' and we'd like you to be involved. You can tell us about your job, your family, your hobbies or interests. Whatever drives you, whatever you'd like to talk about in one minute, we want to see it.

To participate all you need to do is visit www.oovooworld.com, download the software and record your message. We've also compiled an easy-to-follow guide on recording and sending messages complete with an example clip to get you started.

Once you've returned your completed video message to us, we'll include it in the ooVooworld Video Gallery and celebrate the launch of ooVoo by showing each unique minute sent to us..."

They certainly seem to be targetting bloggers and want to make their launch "viral" by offering bloggers to be part of their online video gallery. I checked out their website, but couldn't find any information on this software client. It seems to be similar to Sightspeed since both have a pretty slick interface and both let you record a video message. Actually the sign-in screen looks almost identical to MSN Messenger's (Windows Live Messenger) sign-in screen. Almost looks like a "skin" for MSN Messenger.

But I couldn't find much info on their website. Does it support SIP? XMPP? Does it let you terminate and receive calls? All I have is questions and no answers. Unfortunately, I'm pretty busy today to research, so if you want to check it out feel free and then post a comment. Just figured I'd share the news.

An anonymous source, let's call him/her my "Deep Throat" source emailed me with a couple of interesting links that seem to disprove Verizon's patent claims. One of the most important things in fighting patent claims is demonstrating "prior art" that existed before a subdequent patent was given to someone else. Deep Throat pointed me to a Google Groups (Usenet) post dated way back in September 22, 1995 containing some interesting mentions of VoIP that predate Verizon's patent claims. Deep Throat also pointed to an MIT University link which confirms the accuracy of the Telecom Digest article contained on Google Groups. Not that I doubted Google Groups accuracy for date stamps: http://massis.lcs.mit.edu/archives/back.issues/1995.volume.15/vol15.iss351-400

In this post the author, Jack Decker, says:

I would like to offer up a suggestion for a product, or perhaps I should say a technology. This is an idea that I had that is really an extension of existing products, but I want to go on record as proposing this now so that when someone gets the bright idea in a few months or years, I can point to this as "prior art"

The Sept 1995 article goes on to say:

The idea is this: At some point on the Internet you have a server that connects to the telephone network.  It can detect ringing and seize (answer) the line, or it can pick up the line and initiate outdialing. So far all of this can be done using existing products (modems, for example).  But what I would then propose for this new technology is to take the audio from the phone line and convert it into an audio data stream that can be sent to another location on the Internet.  In a similar manner, this product should be able to accept an audio stream from the Internet and send it out to the phone line.

Audio stream over the internet to a phone line? Sounds like Voice over IP to me.

Further, the article states:

The user could then take some action to "answer the phone" by causing the server to take the phone line offhook and start the audio streams flowing, and the computer user would then be able to hold a conversation with the telephone caller.  Or, if the user wished to make an outgoing call, they could enter a number to be called and then take some action (keypress, mouse click, etc.) that would cause information to be transmitted via the Internet that would cause the server to take the line offhook, dial the requested number using touch tones or dial pulses, and then start the audio data streams flowing, permitting the user to converse with a called party.

Now if this isn't VoIP, I don't know what is! Just as fascinating and in a Nostradamus moment, the author even coins the term "iPhone" before Linksys/Cisco sued Apple over the term iPhone and even before VocalTec's Internet Phone which was nicknamed iPhone. This guy's got prior art for not one but two patents! Though technically iPhone is a trademark not a patent. The section where Jack mentions iPhone is as follows:

In this situation, the telephone line would come into one location that is connected to the Internet, and the user of the line could be almost anywhere else on the Internet.  They'd be able to answer an incoming call, or place an outgoing one, and then talk using an IPhone or similar type interface.

He then tried to protect his ideas when he writes:

The main ideas I want to have on record as "prior art", in case nobody's tried to patent them yet (I hope), are:

1) The idea of taking a unidirectional or bidirectional digital audio stream from the Internet and converting it to analog and sending it to or from a telephone line,

2) The idea of using client software at a user's site on the Internet to remotely control another device on the net that can initiate a call or answer a call (this is prior art anyway, as folks have used remote modems on the internet for over a decade, but this may be the first time this has been proposed in connection with a device that would send real-time audio streams to and from the line).

3) The idea of using authentication with such a system, so that whenever a command is sent that would take the phone line off hook, the command string would include a password or other mechanism that would be verified by the server to insure that the user actually has
authority to remotely control the line.

4) And just to cover all the bases, I'll also suggest that an adapation of this idea would allow someone to call into the Internet using a server, have the call transported some distance over the Internet as digital audio streams, and then sent back out into the public switched telephone system at a distant point. I'm not suggesting this would work well, would be legal, or should be done, but I want to go on record as saying it would be possible with the
right hardware and software.

Note that although I make reference to the Internet at several points above, this technology could work in a similar manner on a private or corporate network.

Not only does he mention the voice over the Internet but he also mentions that this technology could be used in a private/corporate network, i.e. corporate LAN.

I mentioned in a recent post that only Superman could save Vonage now. So Jack Decker, aka Clark Kent, aka Superman, where are you? Where are you Superman! We need you!

Or are you really covert CTI agent Jack Bauer who has really cool wiz-bang mobile phone technology that is light years ahead of today's mobile phones (See Jack's Perfect Mobile Phone). You share the same first name (Jack) - it all makes perfect sense now. Sorry if I outed you man. Hope I don't end up like Scooter Libby. That man got a raw deal.

Well Vonage, hope this info helps in your litigation.

Update: 4/19/07 - 5:17pm :
Ironically, Andy posted a related blog post about 3Com having discussed VoIP in 1996 that could help Voange in it's legal battles with Verizon. Check it out.

On the heels of the Verizon vs. Vonage patent lawsuit, and warning it could file for bankruptcy, Vonage customers today are experiencing outages across the country. This isn't the first Vonage outage, nor will it be the last - unless of course the court shuts down Vonage permanently. Within the Vonage Dashboard a message states:

Service Announcements

Vonage continues providing you with quality, reliable phone service and world class customer service. For the latest information on the Verizon litigation please check out http://pr.vonage.com/press.cfm

At this time some customers may be experiencing difficulty receiving a dial tone or placing outbound calls. Our engineers are aware of this issue and working to resolve it as quickly as possible. We appreciate your patience and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Anyone catch the irony between "continues providing you with quality, reliable phone service and world class customer service" and the fact they are experiencing an outage?

Remote Desktop 6.0, the latest version of Microsoft Remote Desktop client, which comes pre-installed with Vista was slower than molasses when I tried connecting to some Windows 2003 servers. In particular, I was trying to manage a Windows 2003 R2 64-bit Server running Exchange 2007 with 4GB of RAM and a fast 1.83Ghz dual-core processor. I'd click on something and wait and wait for my click to register. Moving a Window would also be painfully slow. It didn't seem related to network connectivity since the screen redraw was fairly fast, but it just took a long time for the server to respond to keystrokes, mouse-clicks, etc. It had all the earmarks of a server's CPU being overwhelmed.

But surely, this brand-spankin' new server will all this horsepower couldn't possibly be overloaded unless it had spyware or a virus. That wasn't likely either since I'm pretty diligent about protecting my servers. I logged on locally to the server and the server's performance was normal. Thus, only when I used Remote Desktop was it slow. Further, when I tried Remote Desktop from a Windows XP Professional PC, the server was also fast. It was only when I used Remote Desktop from my brand new Windows Vista Ultimate Edition PC that the performance was terrible. It was very odd, because from my Vista PC I could connect to many other machines with no problems. I was aware that Vista comes with a new RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) client called Remote Desktop 6.0, which has more security and networking features, so perhaps there was some sort of network security conflict.



After doing some more research I discovered that Remote Desktop 6.0 leverages a new feature called auto-tuning for the TCP/IP receive window that could be causing the trouble. What is auto-tuning for the TCP/IP receive window? Well, the new Microsoft TCP/IP stack supports Receive Window Auto-Tuning. Receive Window Auto-Tuning continually determines the optimal receive window size by measuring the bandwidth-delay product and the application retrieve rate, and adjusts the maximum receive window size based on changing network conditions.

Rich Tehrani has an interesting scoop on his blog about the trixbox Buyers Club, part of Fonality's marketing angle to promote trixbox, an Astrerisk-based IP-PBX. Essentially, the trixbox Buyers Club offers discounts on 1,200 products,  including VoIP phones and even technical support, which will reside on the online trixStore. The trixStore provides competitive pricing on a wide selection of VoIP hardware and the additional Buyers Club discount is available to all registered trixbox users and resellers.

A portion of each sale is reinvested in the company’s ongoing support of the trixbox community.  Let's see, buy VoIP phones from Fonality's trixStore and Fonality uses a portion of those funds to reinvest in trixbox's community and development.  I'm confused - doesn't Fonality do that already? Seems a bit gimmicky to me to drive customers to their VoIP store. Nevertheless, my wallet sure could use a really cool neon green trixbox Buyer's Club card to match the trixbox appliance.

According to the Asbury Park Press, Vonage warned that patent fights could lead to bankruptcy and the company's liquidation. Vonage lost its patent lawsuit with Verizon and as I have stated before, if this is upheld on appeal, Vonage will have to pay $58 million in damages and 5.5% of revenue. According to the article, Citigroup Inc., a manager of Vonage's IPO, said last week that the risk Vonage will file for bankruptcy by 2009 has "increased materially."

Who will be Vonage's savior? I already explained that news reports were wrong and that VoIP, Inc. was not Vonage's savior. Could it be a Sprint buyout that will save Vonage? Not according to today's Sprint: Bon Voyage Vonage article, which explains : its customer base of 2.2 million is expected to shrink at a rate of more than 27% a year. "It's a bad deal for Sprint," says Michael Mahoney, managing director at EGM Capital hedge funds in San Francisco. "I'd look at it as a distraction from [Sprint's] primary challenges." .

Perhaps Vonage's knight in shining armor could be Rates Technology, an owner of several VoIP patents? Rates Technologies was able to extort acquire royalty fees for their VoiP patents from such heavyweights as Alcatel, GN Netcom (now Jabra), and even Google (See Rich Tehrani's excellent article on Rates Technology and their VoIP patents).

Who will save Vonage from Lex Luthor, CEO of Verizon, trying to dominant the corporate VoIP world through any means necessary including a seemingly obvious patent extortion.

"Superman, save us!"

Google has been on a buying spree, recently picking up DoubleClick, YouTube, and Trendalyzer. They've also acquired in the past Picasa, Keyhole, Tonic Systems (a new Powerpoint competitor), and a plethora of other companies. Google is just about the most loved Internet company, used by millions of Internet users, and is far and away the predominant search engine. In fact, simply saying "Just Google it" has become part of our vernacular. Indeed, "Googlemania" as I like to call it, is an affliction that many of us suffer from. The affliction being that  I can't not visit Google at least 10 times per day or I feel like my day is unfulfilled or that something is missing. Some have Internet porn addictions - I have a Google addiction.

So why hasn't Google suffered the same backlash that comes with prosperity that Microsoft has? Sure, there are your Google-haters out there, but for the most part Google has been immune from the backlash that Microsoft has suffered. One could argue that Microsoft used predatory practices to lock competitors out of the market, which resulted in Microsoft paying hefty anti-trust fines. But is Google getting too big for its britches? With the latest acquisition of Double Click, privacy and anti-trust advocates are displeased with this acquisition. In fact, Microsoft, AT&T., Time Warner Inc. and several other large Internet and media companies are encouraging antitrust regulators to closely scrutinize Google $3.1 billion planned purchase of DoubleClick.

I'm guessing that Google probably has about 70-80% of the search engine market sewn up and now they plan to acquire one of the largest Internet advertising companies. Between Internet search and advertising, Google could own a lot of "eye balls" on the Internet. Could or should this merit a future break-up of Google since it will have a virtual monopoly of "eyeballs" on the Internet? Ok, maybe not a monopoly of all eyeballs since the Internet is way too vast, but certainly a very dominant position on both Internet search & Internet advertising.

I'm not advocating a break-up of Google, since I think that overall they're a good company. I do wish they didn't have such a dominant position in Internet search, since I think competition helps drive more innovation. Of course, one could argue that MSN, Yahoo, Ask.com, and a motley of other Internet search competitors exist. In fact, many of these search companies have just as good search technology as Google, if not better in some ways, yet people continue to use Google. Part of it is just sheer momentum and branding by Google. If you start drinking Pepsi as a kid, you're less likely to switch to Coke, even if Coke tastes better. Google was first to offer a search engine that displayed the most valid results (based on inbound links) and helped build a loyal following. Others soon followed Google's lead on this important algorithm method but by then it may have been too late - Google had branded itself as the best search engine. So why should Google be faulted for its superior branding or be faulted if their competitors can't catch up?

Users are free to choose whichever search engine they want to use. Google doesn't use predatory tactics to prevent you from using other search engines. If they for example tracked your web surfing habits (via Google Toolbar) and used that information to hurt your website rankings if you visit Yahoo, a competitor, then that would be an example of a predatory, anti-competitive tactic.

In the past, users chose Google for the best search results, but now the search engines are pretty much on par with each other for accurate search results, so Google's dominant market share today has much more to do with branding. In my opinion, the free market should reign and the government should keep their hands off of Google, even if I'm a little wary of the DoubleClick acquisition. What do you think?

According to an eWeek article, the FCC is not pleased with the rate at which broadband is being deployed in the U.S. According to eWeek, the FCC has started a Notice of Inquiry into whether broadband services are being provided to all Americans in a timely and reasonable fashion. They also have a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on methods of collecting information needed to set broadband policy in the future. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, agreeing with Martin, asked, "Can we finally agree that something drastic needs to be done?" Copps noted that the United States is 15th in the world in broadband penetration.

While it true the U.S. lags behind countries such as Japan, South Korea, and many European nations, part of the problem is the sheer size of this country. While Japan, South Korea, and most European nations have very dense population centers and few rural or small town areas. The U.S. on the other hand while it has large metro areas, it also has many rural areas (i.e. "Fly over country", many rural area in large states, including upstate New York, Montana, etc.) that makes it cost prohibitive for the carriers or cable companies (MSOs) to easily and cost-effectively provide broadband service.

Of course, the FCC's USF (Universal Service Fund) subsidy tax was supposed to help with deploying phone service to rural areas, so by proxy the USF should be able to subsidize DSL broadband over those subsidized copper phone lines. So why isn't this happening? That's a damn good question. It's possible some rural areas are just too far from the CO (Central Office) for high-speed DSL to work. While DSL standards are getting better all the time and squeezing more bandwidth at further distances, I'm sure there are still many rural population areas in the U.S. that are out of reach of DSL. That leaves cable broadband which uses shielded coax, which can travel further distances. Unfortunately, cable companies don't receive nearly the same amount of federal government subsidies to deploy cable to rural areas. That's why you often see satellite dishes on rural rooftops because no cable is available. Heck, when I go skiing to rural Vermont, I've noticed many more satellite dishes than other areas I've visited.

I'm glad to hear the FCC is taking a strong stance on increasing U.S. broadband penetration. This can only help the broadband VoIP industry grow, since customers will be able to use Packet8, SunRocket, and Vonage (assuming they still exist after the Verizon court case). Of course, the FCC may be taking a very pro-broadband stance right now and may look to increase USF taxes to fund broadband penetration. The FCC has discussed taxing VoIP to fund the USF, which I discussed last June. Specifically, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin proposing that VoIP service providers such as Vonage, Skype and others begin paying 10.9 percent of 65 percent of their revenues into the USF.  The USF was expected to lose as much as $350 million starting in August 2006 when DSL and other broadband Internet access services became exempt from having to contribute to the fund. So the FCC's pro-broadband stance could be at the expense of VoIP service providers via a USF tax, which would be very bad news for the VoIP industry.

Scobleizer talks about Microsoft throwing down the multi-media gauntlet with a new software called Silverlight that aims to take on Adobe Flash, the predominant video media format on YouTube and other websites due to its better cross-platform support. Microsoft's Silverlight faces an uphill battle against Adobe Flash since the Adobe Flash Player is installed on more than 700 million computers and content developers are used to Adobe's media creation tools. Not to be outdone, Adobe introduced Adobe Media Player, a standalone media player that can play content "offline", as opposed to streamed "online" like the current Adobe Flash player does. This is in direct competition to the popular Windows Media Player bundled with most Windows PCs. This brings back the glory days of the Microsoft vs. Real media player battles.

Scobleizer discusses 5 interesting reasons why Microsoft's foray into this space is important. He mentions Microsoft's huge lead over Adobe in HDTV. This is a valid point and considering Microsoft's strong relationship with cable companies and some carriers (AT&T, T-Mobile) with their set top boxes and IPTV platform called Microsoft IPTV Edition, Microsoft is positioned to offer a "converged" solution that has some interesting possibilities. For instance, you could download a movie to your PC, your cellphone, or your set-top box. In any scenario, Microsoft could allow you to play this downloaded content anywhere on any device. The media player wars just got interesting... Microsoft defeated Real quite handily (in my opinion), but Adobe has legions of fans that will make it a much tougher battle.

Joanna Stern, a staff writer over at LAPTOP, forwarded me a story she wrote on a Skype (SMC) WiFi phone and FON router bundle being offered by Skype, which is similar to the SMC/Skype bundle I recalled seeing on Skype's blog a few months ago - but the added addition of FON support. If you're not familiar with the FON router, it allows you to securely share your wireless signal with others that are part of FON's very large WiFi community to enjoy free WiFi wherever you find another FON router. This opens up a huge opportunity for SMC Skype phone users since the phone doesn't have a web browser to authenticate onto "fee-based" WiFi networks. Stephen Pinches on the Skype blog discusses this in detail today. Joanna from LAPTOP makes this bundle even more enticing when she tells me, "Even better we are giving away10 free bundles to our readers." The 10 free bundles include a SMC WiFi phone, FON router, 500 SkypeOut minutes and a year's worth of free Skype voicemail for $159. 

You'll have to fill out a brief survey to enter the drawing. You'll have to to answer "Just let us know the craziest place you want to setup Wi-Fi, and make Skype calls from." It's unclear if it's a random drawing or if LAPTOP will pick the survey winners based on the wackiest answers. So my Skype brothers and sisters, go fill out the survey with your wackiest WiFi locations And no lying/cheating!