Recently in News Category

I was happily surfing the Web reading the Google News Top Stories when I saw a headline that said "No public viewing at Neverland, but Michael Jackson may get laid". Say what? I had to do a double-take. Then I couldn't help but laugh at how funny this headline was.

No public viewing of Michael Jackson getting laid? Bummer, I'm sure that could have been a pay-per-view event. It's The 40 50 Year Old Virgin movie come to life! Course that might be a problem unless it's some sick necrophilia action going on. Then again, Michael Jackson did play the undead / zombie in Thriller.

Ok, we'll let Michael Jackson Rest in Peace, though I'm sure he too would have laughed at this Google News headline.

Check out a screenshot of it below. Click for Full-screen. Look on the right-hand side. I drew an arrow as well as a box around it. The article in question can be read here. The full article headline is "No public viewing at Neverland, but Michael Jackson may get laid out at Staples Center". Obviously, the Googlebot abbreviated in a very bad spot. Perhaps a human editor might be in order, Google?

Lastly, since Google News changes the Top Stories home page often, you too can view this news story (in its funny abbreviated form) by clicking this Google News search link. It's abbreviated there too.

Big Stage today announced that their popular 3D avatars based on pictures of your own face now works on Skype with their new Skype Add-on. It's similar in concept to JibJab, perhaps the most popular site to feature animated avatars based on your own face. However, Big Stage goes one step further with technology that lets you move, change expressions, and more. I downloaded the beta to check it out. Here's their demo video, but I hope to include one of myself soon:

Others trying to make 3D avatars popular include Gizmoz and Kloonies. Gizmoz also uses your own digital photo to create an avatar based on your own face, but according to Big State, it falls short compared to their technology. They use three photos to make a more accurate 3D representation of your face, where as Gizmos only uses one. Kloonies is a different model all together sine they use cartoonist 3D avatars that you pick from a list.

Pretty cool stuff! As I was quoted in the press release they put out:

"Blabber's advanced facial modeling and real-time animation makes voice over IP lots of fun," said Tom Keating, CTO, VP, Founder of TMC Labs. "It's a compelling example of the role the animated digital version of people will play as ever more advanced virtual world capabilities converge with voice and video in the connected online world."

"Through the launch of a Big Stage-enabled Skype plug-in, we're extending our advanced 3-D avatar technology into the realm of real-time expressive communications and further advancing our goal of projecting 'self' into digital life." said Big Stage CEO Phil Ressler. "The estimated 450 million people using Skype can have fun speaking as an ultra cool version of themselves instead of using chat, or substitute Blabber for video when for any reason they aren't ready to face their web-cam or need to conserve bandwidth. Blabber debuts our voice-sync engine, which we intend to leverage as we extend a similar capability into video games, virtual worlds, virtual conferencing, and social networks like Facebook."

You can download the Skype add-on here.

Want your own little UC sandbox where you can learn how to develop speech and UC applications using Unified Communications Managed API (UCMA) without the hassle of setting up your own OCS 2007 R2 & Exchange Server 2010 beta environment?

Well, today Marshall Harrison over at GotUC.net announced a Microsoft UC sandbox for developers to play in, enabling them to develop UC applications quickly and easily.

Well, whatcha waitin' for? Head on over and kick some sand in your very own UC sandbox!

Gartner, a respected research firm located just a stone's throw from TMC said today, "mobile VoIP poses a huge challenge for traditional mobile voice providers." You don't say? Hmm, I would have never guessed such a thing. Ok, other than stating the obvious, the research does have some fascinating points, including claiming that ore than 50% of mobile voice traffic will be carried using end-to-end VoIP by 2019 - or basically 10 years from now.

"Mobile portal voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) offered by third-party application-based providers poses a huge and direct challenge to the $692.6 billion global mobile voice market", according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner predicts that over time traditional network-based mobile carriers face the real prospect of losing a major slice of their voice traffic and revenue to new non-infrastructure players that use VoIP.

But Gartner doesn't paint an entirely rosy picture for VoIP. Gartner said "that despite this significant potential, conditions for the rapid expansion in the use of mobile VoIP are not yet right and are not likely to become right for at least five years and perhaps as long as eight years."

Yeah, well when carriers like AT&T pull crap like forcing Apple to only allow VoIP over WiFi and not over a 3G data connection, it's no wonder why mobile VoIP growth will be stunted by anti-competitive tactics. Then you have countries like Canada which outright block Skype on the iPhone. Fortunately, avid mobile phone users aren't taking this lying down. For instance, you can jailbreak your iPhone and run VoIP over 3G no problem.

Why do we have to put up with this crippleware? I get that AT&T is a business and needs to make money. If they're worried that flat-rate data plans that run VoIP over it will drastically hurt their voice revenue, then change your business model! Keep the flat-rate data plan, but install packet-inspection technology that detects voice packets and charge a few cents for VoIP calls. If the flat-rate data plan's business model is outdated, which it seems to be, then change it.

Yeah, sure customers may not like the idea and certainly it seems that our culture today expects "something for nothing", but hey, it's business folks. I'd rather have the capability of making VoIP calls using a SIP provider or make Skype calls and pay a few pennies than not be able to use VoIP over 3G/4G at all. I'm sure if AT&T did try and charge money for VoIP calls running over a data connection that customer advocate groups, the ACLU, and people who think they should get something for nothing will run to the government and complain that AT&T is charging them money for using VoIP. Perish the thought that a business is charging you money for using their services!

Maybe we should just nationalize all the carriers like most countries have and then petition Congress to pass a law that will force the nationalized carriers to give us free mobile VoIP. Heck, with trillions of dollars being spent on the bailout package, why not free mobile VoIP at the expense of the big bad carriers? Free healthcare for everyone, free mobile VoIP for everyone, it's all free baby! Socialism here we come!

Ok end rant. Back to Gartner...

"Mass-scale adoption of end-to-end mobile VoIP calling will not happen until fourth-generation (4G) networks are fully implemented in 2017," said Tole Hart, research director at Gartner. "Once the basic market conditions are in place, transition to mobile portal VoIP should be fairly rapid because of the inherent convenience and end-user cost savings. In 10 years time we expect that 30 percent of mobile voice traffic will be carried out through third-party mobile portals, such as Google, Facebook, MySpace and Yahoo, which will adopt wireless VoIP service as a voice option to their current communications hub."

A number of third parties, such as Skype, Truphone and fring, which carry VoIP traffic using a mobile phone, have cropped up in the past couple of years, offering access to voice services via Wi-Fi and/or the carriers' wireless voice networks. This has been the most efficient way to offer the service to date because of the inconsistencies of voice services over third-generation (3G) data networks. However, with the advent of 4G networks (WiMAX and Long Term Evolution [LTE]), and increased use of smartphones with open operating systems, it is conceivable, perhaps even inevitable, that wireless voice services will be run completely over VoIP.

"Ten years from now, more than half of mobile voice traffic will be carried end-to-end using VoIP," said Akshay Sharma, research director at Gartner. "Carriers will adopt voice services because of the increased capacity and reduced cost of delivering voice over 4G networks. Third parties will adopt a voice option for their communications hub."

Gartner analysts warned that there will also be a number of factors that will inhibit the adoption of third-party, end-to-end VoIP services, including the delay in rolling out 4G networks because of current economic conditions and also the general plan to put 4G only in the main cities and build out from there. Nevertheless, in five to 10 years time, as 4G networks become common, mobile VoIP services will have a strong impact on the communications market.

Competing with mobile portal VoIP will be wireless carriers that offer circuit and VoIP voice and data services, and resellers and mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) that also offer services off the carrier networks. Gartner expects this opening of the VoIP channels to spawn a number of voice services from companies that offer voice services to communities using voice as a communications link. This means that the biggest competitors to mobile VoIP may be text messaging and e-mail, as people may prefer to use these types of communication because of their non-intrusive, less emotional and less time-consuming nature.

Although the impact of the technology shift will be gradual as 4G networks roll out, Gartner advises carriers to start thinking now about how the transition will occur and how they might cooperate and partner with other types of service providers. Third-party providers, such as Google and Yahoo, should look to offer voice services today using the carriers' networks and Wi-Fi to leverage their portfolio of services. Mobile social communities, such as Facebook and MySpace, which benefit from messaging traffic as it keeps eyeballs on their sites, should also have a voice option.

It just gets better and better - First, there was the legal fight between Joltid (Niklas Zennstrom) and Skype/eBay that I wrote about. Then the NY Times reported that Skype's founders, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, were in talks with several private equity firms to make a bid to buy back Skype. Now, eBay today announced they want to spin off Skype as an IPO. Apparently, they don't like the bid prices offered by Niklas and Janus. eBay probably didn't like the patent threats by Joltid run by Niklas and Janus either.

I'm not sure in this current economic climate that a technology-based IPO is a good idea. Heck, any IPO at this point is very risky. This could be a bluff by eBay to get Zennstrom and Friis to raise their offering price for Skype and to counter the Joltid lawsuit. Can't we all just get along? What's a few billion dollars between friends?

Check out the full announcement below:
eBay Inc. (Nasdaq: EBAY) today announced that it plans to separate Skype from the company, beginning with an initial public offering that is intended to be completed in the first half of 2010. Specific timing of the IPO will be based on market conditions. "Skype is a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum," said eBay Inc.'s President and CEO, John Donahoe. "But it's clear that Skype has limited synergies with eBay and PayPal. We believe operating Skype as a stand-alone publicly traded company is the best path for maximizing its potential. This will give Skype the focus and resources required to continue its growth and effectively compete in online voice and video communications. In addition, separating Skype will allow eBay to focus entirely on our two core growth engines--e-commerce and online payments--and deliver long-term value to our stockholders."

The decision to separate Skype is based on a timeline outlined by Donahoe when he became eBay's CEO in April 2008. At the time, the company said it would spend a year evaluating Skype and its potential synergies within the eBay Inc. portfolio before making any decisions about Skype's future. Donahoe also installed a new management team at Skype led by Josh Silverman, which has driven stronger momentum and improved performance. In 2008, Skype generated revenues of $551 million, up 44 percent from 2007, and segment margins of approximately 21 percent. Registered users reached 405 million by the end of 2008, up 47 percent from 2007, and user metrics improved significantly throughout the year. The company recently announced that it expects Skype to top $1 billion in revenue in 2011, nearly doubling 2008 revenues.

"Under the leadership of Josh Silverman and his management team, Skype has become a stronger business in the past year, and I expect it will be even stronger a year from now," Donahoe said. "Skype has accelerating global user growth and strong fundamentals, diversified revenue streams and is competitively positioned in a large market. We expect Josh and his team to continue delivering results as we prepare Skype for an IPO."

Most recently, the release of the Skype for iPhone application has generated a great response. More than one million people downloaded Skype for iPhone in the first 36 hours after it became available--and Skype immediately became the No. 1 downloaded free iPhone application in more than 40 markets, including the U.S., UK and Japan. In just over a week, downloads passed the two million mark, putting Skype on more than 6 percent of all iPhones and iPod Touch - and adding almost half a million new Skype users.

Twitter has been super slow today, though not a full outage. My tweets and trying to follow people are taking forever. Lots of users are complaining as well.

Why oh why did I join twitter - it's absolutely killing my productivity... Oh yeah, that's why.

Feel free to check out my Twitter profile and follow me. http://twitter.com/tomkeating - just not today. If you click 'Follow' you'll wait and wait and sometimes even summon the fail whale.

Today, Dotcom-Monitor announced a new SIP monitoring tool to add to its portfolio of external monitoring services. It's similar to other web-based Monitoring-as-a-Service (MaaS) services which monitor the uptime of web servers and notify when a problem occurs. In this case, Dotcom-Monitor's SIP Monitoring service monitors on-premise or hosted IP-PBXs.

How's it work? Dotcom-Monitor's SIP monitoring service makes live intermittent SIP-based calls to VoIP devices, providing real-time monitoring, alerts, and performance reports regarding SIP component connectivity. When a problem is detected, the SIP monitoring notification feature sends an alert via phone, pager, email, or SMS. Basically ,it acts as a SIP end client, placing an actual telephone call to a specified number, and checking the results of that call.  The expected result of the call is setup as "Answer", "No Answer", "Busy", or an Error Condition (if there is an unexpected result).

According to their representative, "real-time connectivity status reports are provided via an intuitive online Dashboard interface offering sufficient detail to help pinpoint where the error condition is occurring. This reporting functionality also includes detailed historical reports and charts for managing VoIP systems and components, including Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance issues."

I'm going to talk to then next week to find out more. For now, check out the news release...

Dotcom-Monitor Enhances Unified Suite of Monitoring Services with SIP Monitoring for VoIP Systems
Easy-to-Use, Cost-Effective External Service Monitors and Analyzes SIP Systems or Infrastructure for Uptime and Performance

Minneapolis, Minn. − March 18, 2009 − Dotcom-Monitor, (www.Dotcom-Monitor.com), a leading provider of externally-hosted network monitoring services, today announced the addition of a cost-saving SIP monitoring service to the company's unified suite of monitoring capabilities. Today's announcement adds another critical tool to Dotcom-Monitor's portfolio of external monitoring services, which includes uptime and performance monitoring of websites, web applications, and Internet network infrastructure.

Dotcom-Monitor's new SIP monitoring service makes live periodic SIP-based calls to VoIP devices, providing real-time monitoring, alerts, and performance reports regarding SIP component connectivity. When a problem is detected, the SIP monitoring notification feature sends an alert via phone, pager, email, or SMS. Additionally, real-time connectivity status reports are provided via an intuitive online Dashboard interface offering sufficient detail to help pinpoint where the error condition is occurring. This reporting functionality also includes detailed historical reports and charts for managing VoIP systems and components, including Service Level Agreement (SLA) compliance issues.

"Due to SLA requirements and hybrid VoIP traffic routes, it is important for VoIP monitoring to proactively mimic the end-user's perspective from external locations, rather than only relying on passive internal network analysis systems," said Vadim Mazo, founder and chief technical officer of Dotcom-Monitor. "Many organizations' VoIP monitoring and uptime needs are best addressed by a simple, cost-effective external system, rather than a large, expensive in-house system. Dotcom-Monitor's SIP monitoring service provides customers a unique, easy-to-use, targeted solution for quickly identifying and pinpointing VoIP connectivity error conditions," noted Mazo.

The new SIP monitoring service can be configured and managed with little or no IT expertise, which is ideal for the growing number of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) with on-premise or hosted IP-PBXs. Its proactive monitoring ensures connectivity errors can be addressed before the errors become downtime problems for customers. Dotcom-Monitor's SIP monitoring service ensures SMBs can rely on their VoIP systems, Service Providers can monitor their VoIP infrastructure, VoIP Wholesalers can monitor Service Provider connectivity and reliability, and VoIP VARs and managed service providers can count on client uptime and revenue.

"As the VoIP ecosystem continues to grow in scope and complexity the need for simple and affordable SIP monitoring has never been greater," said Jonathan Fuld, CTO of SIP Print, the only provider of pure, affordable SIP call recording systems for SMBs. "In fact, SMBS and any cost-conscious organization that is dependent on SIP-based communications could benefit by investigating an externally hosted SIP monitoring provider like Dotcom-Monitor."

Dotcom-Monitor's SIP Monitoring is available immediately by visiting: www.dotcom-monitor.com

Hold the phone! Global warming has been canceled! A new study by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could cause President Obama to re-think Cap and Trade legislation that aims to reduce carbon emissions through a new "carbon" tax.

The article about the global warming study states:

The climate is known to be variable and, in recent years, more scientific thought and research has been focused on the global temperature and how humanity might be influencing it.

However, a new study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could turn the climate change world upside down.

Scientists at the university used a math application known as synchronized chaos and applied it to climate data taken over the past 100 years...

"In climate, when this happens, the climate state changes. You go from a cooling regime to a warming regime or a warming regime to a cooling regime. This way we were able to explain all the fluctuations in the global temperature trend in the past century," Tsonis said. "The research team has found the warming trend of the past 30 years has stopped and in fact global temperatures have leveled off since 2001."

More...

Synchronized chaos? Now that's some funky science. Sounds like something from Star Trek if you ask me. Scientists are going to examine the study to see if there is indeed some validity. If proven accurate, then maybe all that talk about humans causing Global Warming is wrong? We can all agree that Global Warming exists, as does Global Cooling. The question is whether it's a natural cycle or if human activity is having an adverse effect on the climate.

As for me, I'm all for less carbon pollution, including less carbon dioxide, a by-product of human breathing. Not sure I agree that a cap and trade tax is the way to do it though. Seems like just another government scam to come up with a new tax. The U.S. electric companies, which burn coal to produce 57% of U.S.'s electricity, will be hammered hard with this tax. But guess who pays for it? You the consumer. The cap and trade "sin" tax might work if it forced the electric companies to build "clean" power from nuclear power, but the U.S. hasn't built a nuclear plant since Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar 1 reactor was built in 1973. The NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) mentality and political wrangling has forestalled any nuclear power plants being built. So we stuck between a rock (cap and trade) and a hard place (no new nuclear plans) for America's future electricity needs. With more people using electricity-guzzling large screen TVs, multiple home PCs/laptops, gadgets, and mobile phones, America's insatiable demand for electricity is only going to get worse.

So for me, this cap and trade is just a smokescreen for the government to raise billions of dollars. Also, when I we start to get taxed for breathing carbon dioxide, then by golly, you will see revolts and protests that will make the Boston Tea Party look like a slumber party. Ok, no political party would be that dumb to "tax" breathing - certainly not if they value their political future. Still, the cap and trade legislation may not target human breathing, but once precedent is set for taxing carbon dioxide, we're one step closer to that end. Just imagine a future 1040 IRS tax form where you have to fill out the number of TVs, PCs, mobile phones, DVD players, gaming consoles so they can calculate your "carbon footprint"? Even George Orwell himself couldn't have imagined such a government intrusion.

"
Holy Two-Face, Batman!" The real Batman was denied a Facebook account!

Batman's got more friends/fans than Superman and Aquaman combined. How could Facebook Founder & CEO Mark Zuckerberg do this?

Do you really want to mess with the Batman? Do you really want to mess with this... Do ya?


Ok, so it's not "the" Batman I'm thinking of. It's even better - it's a female Batman!

OCS 2007 R2 won't replace your PBX just yet. However, their latest R2 version adds the ability to do direct SIP trunking, thus bypassing the need for an IP-PBX.

One drawback however is that Microsoft only supports direct SIP trunking with two providers, namely Global Crossing and Sprint. Well that's pretty lame, considering their are dozens of decent SIP trunking service providers and probably hundreds across the entire world.
Fortunately, Mike Stacy an OCS 2007 guru, over at Evangelyze Communications has some products that enhance OCS 2007 R2 functionality. One such product is SmartSIP which launches tomorrow. According to Mike, the first dot release due next month will add the capability to use standard SIP phones with OCS. Currently, you have limited options namely Tanjay or Snom phones, but with SmartSIP you can use a Polycom IP phone, an Aastra IP phone, or dare I say, a Cisco IP phone connected to OCS 2007 R2. With the Cisco SIP firmware load of course.