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2006 VoIP Predictions

December 30, 2005

I promised predictions for 2006 and so here they are. Nothing like waiting till the last minute, eh? Let me first start my analyzing my 2005 VoIP predictions. Some I have abbreviated for brevity sake, so if you wish to read my full thoughts on a particular 2005 prediction, go check out the original article. Within my analysis of my 2005 predictions I couldn't help myself but to intertwine some predictions for 2006 -- as opposed to just separating them all out.

Posted in Avaya, Google, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, Skype, VoIP, Wireless

Audio FX Force Feedback Headphones

December 28, 2005

I don't know about you, but when I'm watching a DVD or playing a video game I want full surround sound with the bass cranked way up so I can "feel" the explosions of a frag grenade or feel the footsteps of the T-Rex as he stomps closer. There's only one problem with enjoying lots of bass and high volume - the people around you; husband, wife, neighbors, etc. might not want to hear it or feel the bass reverberating through the floors, especially late at night which is "prime-time" video gaming time! Sound was meant to be felt, especially when immersed in a video game. So what's an bass addict to do?

Well, no worries, just put on the Audio FX Force Feedback Headphones ($49.95) which will let you "feel" every explosion and every impact due to its unique force feedback characteristics - all without disturbing the neighbors or waking up the kids or "significant other".

Posted in Gadgets, Google, Home Entertainment, Skype, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software, VoIP

Splog away! Splog away! Splog away all!

December 26, 2005

Gee, I can't even take some blogging time off for the Christmas holiday without some major controversy hitting the blogosphere. Apparently, some splogger has been lifting several bloggers full content surrounded by Google Adsense. Andy Abramson, a fellow VoIP blogger included me in an email thread with several other "heavy-hitting" technology-related bloggers, all of which I assume were getting "splogged". Hard to tell if I was splogged since the culprit's website was taken offline after some complaints and strings pulled by someone whose content was stolen.

Andy points out that back in March that Andy, Om, and I were "splogged".

Posted in Google, MovableType, News

AOL & Google deal a nightmare for Microsoft?

December 21, 2005

The ink isn't even dry from Google's 5% $1 billion stake in AOL and yet some are claiming Bill Gates is still wiping his tears from losing the battle for AOL to Microsoft's arch nemesis, namely Google. America Online parent Time Warner and Eric Schmidt's Google announced some intriguing integrations between these two Internet giants late yesterday leaving Microsoft in the lurch.

Rich Tehrani and I were commenting yesterday how AOL's portal generates generates about 10% ($420 million) of Google's overall Adsense/Adwords pay-per-click dollars. This is amazing to me since I never visit AOL.com since I dumped the AOL client browser and its dial-up Internet access so long ago.

Posted in Google, Microsoft, Skype, VoIP

GMail + Google Talk (GTalk) for BlackBerry RIM

December 19, 2005

A friend of mine who runs Computer Collector Newsletter forwarded me a link to a software application that runs on the Blackberry RIM to access GMail. I looked around the rest of the site and came across an even better application that lets you access both Gmail and 'Google Talk' from your Blackberry.

Their brand new software application, called "GMail + GTalk" is a full-featured email and chat application for BlackBerry devices, designed for the popular Google Mail and Google Talk services.

With GMail+ GTalk you can easily review the correspondence in your Google mail box, compose new mail messages and operate with address books currently having an amusing communication with your buddies via Google Talk service. GMai l+ GTalk works on all phones, which are Blackberry RIM allowing you to use the same Google mail accounts which you operate on your desktop PC. Only one caveat though - as far as I can tell it only works with Google Talk's instant messaging capabilities and not Google Talk's VoIP feature. Nevertheless, some will find this application useful. Not sure if the Blackberry really has the processing horsepower to do VoIP anyway.

Posted in Gadgets, Google, Reviews, Wireless

Mandriva Linux to support Skype

December 19, 2005

Skype and Mandriva (publisher of Mandriva Linux operating system) today announced that Skype will come included with the Mandriva Linux distro. According to Candace Locklear over at SparkPR, "Mandriva's Linux 2006 is the first and only Linux operating system to offer out-of-the-box use of Skype's popular application." I guess it's nice to have Skype embedded with the Linux distro, but most Linux users can just as easily go download and install Skype themselves. Besides, there might be a newer version. Nevertheless, one of the reasons Internet Explorer succeeded was that it was pre-installed with every shipping copy of Windows.

Posted in Google, Microsoft, Skype

Google releases GoogleTalk API

December 17, 2005

Google has released their API for GoogleTalk. Wow! Just think of the mashups. Now you can mashup Google search with Google Maps and GoogleTalk. So for instance, one guy mashed up the Best Buy XBox 360 inventory with Google Maps which then displays pins on a map displaying the available Best Buy stores. You can then click the icon to see how many Xbox 360s are for sale.

Posted in Google

Yahoo offers Movable type

December 12, 2005

Yahoo is now offering the popular Movable Type blogging software. This follows this weekend's news of Yahoo's acquisition of Del.icio.us, a popular online bookmarking tool used by bloggers, as well as their recent acquisition of Flickr, which offers a way to annotate and share photos, another popular site amongst bloggers. Yahoo! said it will offer commercial blogs based on Movable Type as part of its existing small business Web-site management service. So now that many of the major blogging tools have been acquired, who's next?

Posted in Google, MovableType

Google Calendar launches

December 5, 2005

Rumor has it that Google Calendar will launch tomorrow. Kudos to Russell Shaw for noticing the Google domain simply by playing a word guessing game. Jeremy has some insightful thoughts and a feature "wish list" for Google Calendar. Personally, I'm not too crazy about online calendars.

Posted in Google

Google integrates Web Search with Google Groups

December 2, 2005

I was searching Google on "Perl for ISAPI rather than perl.exe" and noticed at the bottom of the search results was some strange icons (question mark and exclamation mark in a white ballon) and a different set of search results offset from the regular web search results. I hovered my mouse of the results and realized they were links to Google Groups (newsgroups) related to my keyword search. Ok, that's interesting. Does that mean Google is now integrating all Web searches with Google Groups?

This seemed a bit odd since the average user doesn't use newsgroups, but I suppose since it's at the bottom it's not obtrusive.

Posted in Google

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