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VoIP in Google ChromeOS

November 20, 2009 9:24 AM | 0 Comments
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Google released their ChromeOS operating system yesterday. So naturally, as a VoIP fan I was curious if ChromeOS could run VoIP. Since Google's ChromeOS has a Flash Player built-in, in theory it can run a Flash-based VoIP client. The first VoIP solution that came to mind was Flaphone (formerly Flashphone), a Flash-based VoIP app which runs in a browser. I first discovered Flaphone back in 2007 and did a review of it.

Well, it appears that Flaphone works in ChromeOS. It's worth noting that Flaphone can make VoIP calls to PSTN numbers using any SIP provider you want. Just enter the SIP credentials and away you go! You can also make calls to Skype and Flaphone's callme button widgets also work in ChromeOS.

Update: Looks like TringMe is jumping on the Goolge ChromeOS news as well. Just got an email from their CEO claiming they are "first" to have VoIP in ChromeOS. Well, not to burst your bubble, but Flaphone supports it as well. Let's just call it a tie for "first" and call it a day. :

Google has just released the first version of ChromeOS. Give that it is a browser-based OS, one of the key element - that of Voice & Telephony is missing in it. As of now, there is no native VoIP application on it (at least not in the VmWare image which was released).  TringMe's Flash Telephony is the first one to support VoIP calls on ChromeOS seamlessly. TringMe enables true VoIP calls directly from ChromeOS without having to install anything.

Although, TringMe has not done nothing special to support ChromeOS, it is important to note that TringMe's Flash Phone and Widgets work seamlessly in ChromeOS. TringMe enables true VoIP calls directly from ChromeOS without having to install anything. We've tested it and the built-in Flash Player 10 is sufficient for enough for TringMe's Phone and Widgets to work well.

So, we are all excited about ChromeOS and feel extremely happy that our Flash telephony technology is working well for ChromeOS without any special needs.

Best
Yusuf
Founder & CEO, TringMe
Via Flaphone blog
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Truphone is in a giving mood this holiday season, offering free calling on Thanksgiving. Only way to top that offer for Christmas is to pay you to make call on their network on December 25th. Now that would be sweet!

Check out the news:

Truphone to Give Away Free Calling on Thanksgiving
12 hours of free calls to U.S. numbers for Thanksgiving 2009

Truphone, the next generation global mobile operator, today announced that for 12 hours on Thanksgiving 2009 all calls made on Truphone to mobile and landline phones in the United States will be free so that friends and family can call each other to catch up this holiday season.

From noon to midnight UTC, or 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST, on Thursday,  Nov. 26,  all calls made to U.S. landlines and mobiles using the Truphone application will be free from anywhere in the world. More information is available here: www.truphone.com/thanksgiving.

Truphone offers fantastic rates to call the U.S. every day, but to celebrate Thanksgiving this year it is offering its customers the opportunity to catch up with friends and family in the U.S. at no cost at all. The offer is open to existing and new customers anywhere in the world using their Truphone application.

Truphone has applications for the Apple iPhone, Apple iPod touch, BlackBerry, Nokia and Android devices and it is available to download from www.truphone.com and the respective application stores for each device.

"Thanksgiving is a day when family and friends come together to celebrate and catch up across the U.S.", said Geraldine Wilson, CEO of Truphone. "For those people who can't get home for the holidays, often because distance is too much, a telephone call to let them know how they are is the next best thing. With this initiative, we are allowing people who can't be together to catch up on this special day".

For details on Truphone's  everyday low-cost rates for calling U.S. mobiles and landlines, as well as its  great rates for other destinations around the world, visit the Truphone website at: www.truphone.com/applications/pricing.
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MindTouch just launched their popular open source Sharepoint-like software into the collaboration cloud. Called MindTouch Cloud, this hosted SAAS offering will put them in direct competition of the likes of Google Apps, Google Wave, Zoho, and others. MindTouch will deliver their open source collaboration applications in the cloud for a monthly fee that starts at just $7/month for 50 users. They also offer a free 30-day trial.

MindTouch Cloud enables your employees & managers to pull and aggregate business data from data silos like your CRM, ERP, accounts payable, file servers, email, databases, and others to gain visibility through mashups. You can mashup applications, such as Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, and Oracle, and integrate them into documents in team workspaces. MindTouch is targeting Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration platform and Google Apps, though these only offer traditional document and spreadsheet applications without blending in business data. Forrester recently named MindTouch the open source alternative to Microsoft's hot SharePoint product.

Because MindTouch Cloud is open source enterprises will seriously consider this offering. Further, because it is a cloud application, it reduces the requirements to purchase hardware, build redundancy, etc, thus reducing the TCO. In addition, MindTouch Cloud includes instant messaging, video collaboration, status updates, blended business date with charts, graphs, and reports. It also sports sophisticated multilingual capabilities, word blacklist, collaborative video editing and user or IP blocking and banning. Don't beleive it has VoIP, so that would be a nice addition.

MindTouch is targeting Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration platform and Google Apps, which offer classic document and spreadsheet applications without blending in the business data.

fring for Google Android Launches

November 18, 2009 10:10 AM | 2 Comments
fring is finally available for the Google Android. It's about time! One drawback though is that SIP and SkypeOut calls are not yet available on Droid devices. There's always a catch...

In addition to Skype chat and Skype-to-Skype VoIP calling you also get MSN and GoogleTalk support, real-time presence and live chat with  ICQ, Yahoo! and AIM buddies as well. fring even has Twitter support. fring on Android works over 3G, GPRS or Wi-Fi connections. 

So how do you get it?

Two ways:

1) From Android Market
Start the Market application on your phone
Search for fring and install

2) From WAP on your phone
On your Android phone, go to Settings > Applications and check the box to allow 'unknown sources'
Point your phone browser to fring.com and download fring manually

Check out the video:

Via fring blog
gotomeeting-logo.gifCitrix Online today announced they have added integrated Toll-Free audio to GoToMeeting Corporate and GoToWebinar. With this addition, meeting participants now have several audio options to choose from, including integrated toll-free, a toll-based number, or VoIP for audio over the Internet. Each participant in the same online meeting can select their own audio option.

Customers hosting meetings with integrated toll free will have the following benfits: 
•    Seamless one-click recording for all attendees with no additional charges or equipment needed.
•    Affordable and predictable subscription-based pricing that scales to benefit high-volume customers with bundling options to suit any type of use.
•    Simple scheduling and management features with convenient controls for supporting audio sessions. Organizers have the flexibility to decide which meetings to offer toll free.

"Our annual survey of North American users of conferencing services reveals that the overwhelming majority (89.1%) believe there is personal value in an integrated audio and Web conferencing service vs. two independent providers," said Andy Nilssen, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research. "The simplicity of being able to initiate a single conference with audio and Web capabilities combined with the ability to visually present audio control elevates the elegance of the entire virtual meeting experience.  This will no doubt increase the appeal of Citrix Online's portfolio among companies of all sizes."
According to Microsoft, Office Communications Server 2007 R2 can now be deployed onto Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, or onto any virtualization solution that is a certified partner through the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) certified partners. Running OCS 2007 R2 "virtualized" is a hot topic, so knowing exactly how and which components can be virtualized is crucial so you're not banging your head against the wall wondering why it isn't working.

Well, the good news is that it supports the following workloads virtualized:
  • Presence
  • IM (including conferencing, remote access, federation, and Public IM Connectivity)
  • Group Chat
Today, Microsoft released a whitepaper which identifies which server roles are supported in a virtualized environment and it provides guidance for scaling users and workloads in a virtualized environment. Best to let Microsoft spend the time  testing and determining the results rather than you doing all the effort. Well, the good news is that their whitepaper document reveals the results of a series of configurations that were run in a Hyper-V environment to validate that Office Communications Server on Hyper-V provides stable performance and scalability for production use.

So whatcha waitin' for? Go download the whitepaper and then start virtualizing your OCS 2007 R2 topology!
digium-logo-new.jpgSome good internal news at TMC. Technology Marketing Corporation today announced that Digium CEO Danny Windham has accepted its invitation to deliver a Keynote Address at ITEXPO East 2010, taking place Jan. 20-22, 2010 at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, Florida.

Windham's presentation, which takes place Thursday, Jan. 21 9:45 a.m. EST, will address the evolution of Open Source as a mature telephony platform that is experiencing extensive growth in enterprise, government and carrier markets. Open to all ITEXPO attendees, this session will also be a centerpiece of the fourth annual Digium|Asterisk World conference, which is collocated with ITEXPO East 2010.

ITEXPO is the world's largest conference and trade show focused on communications and technology. Launched in 1999, the event is expected to draw as many as 200 exhibiting companies and more than 7,000 attendees to Miami.

"Developers, resellers, IT professionals and executives will benefit from hearing Danny's views on the increasing number of opportunities based on Asterisk, the world's most popular open source telephony software," said Rich Tehrani, CEO and group editor-in-chief of TMC. "ITEXPO and Digium|Asterisk World will expand on this notion, with three days of content, education and training for anyone interested in learning more about open source telephony."

Digium is the creator, sponsor and primary developer of Asterisk. Digium offers Asterisk software free to the open source community and offers Asterisk Business Edition and Switchvox IP PBX software to power a broad family of products for small, medium and large businesses. The company's product line includes a wide range of hardware and software to enable resellers and customers to implement turnkey VoIP systems or to design their own custom telephony solutions.

Windham joined Digium in February 2007 as CEO. He is responsible for setting the company's corporate strategy, and executing its day to day business operations. Prior to joining Digium, Windham served as president and chief operating officer of ADTRAN, a global provider of networking and communications equipment. He joined ADTRAN in 1989, following ADTRAN's successful acquisition of Processing Telecom Technologies, a company Windham co-founded in 1986. Windham holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University, where he was named a Distinguished Engineering Fellow in 2001 and he also holds an MBA from the Florida Institute of Technology.

"Whether building a corporate phone system from the ground up, or extending the functionality of a legacy telephony system, organizations of all sizes are increasingly turning to open source VoIP as a flexible and inexpensive solution," said Windham. "I'm honored to be delivering the keynote at ITEXPO East 2010 and sharing some of the great accomplishments of open source in the enterprise with attendees."

Registration for ITEXPO and Digium|Asterisk World remain open. Vendors interested in participating in ITEXPO or Digium|Asterisk World should contact Joe Fabiano at 203-852-6800 x132.
In December, Skype will announce some new features for Skype for SIP (beta), which will make it more business-friendly. Skype for SIP, which is now part of Skype's Business Control Panel (BCP). Skype for SIP will support DID routing by supporting the SIP To field. You will be able to add an extension number to a Skype name you used in the Skype for SIP profile. When a call is routed to the SIP PBX the extension number will be in the To field for direct routing of the call to an extension.

One fascinating feature Skype is working on is "silent keyboard", which will automatically silence your keystrokes from being sent to the remote party. As far as I know you can't decrypt the keystroke sounds into the corresponding keys, so really Skype is doing this for a better user listening experience. Kind of a cool feature, especially if you're half listening to the caller and are Tweeting, checking your Facebook page, and sending emails.

NimbuzzOut Launches

November 9, 2009 11:09 AM | 2 Comments
nimbuzz-iphone-dialpad.jpgNimbuzz, has entered the PSTN termination business with the announcement today of NimbuzzOut. I use Nimbuzz on my iPhone because it's a great aggregator of various VoIP, IM, and social services, including Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk (Orkut), AIM, Facebook, MySpace and more. Nimbuzz had been leveraging other networks such as Skype for voice, but this marks the first time Nimbuzz offers their own termination. Finally, a business revenue-generating model??
 
NimbuzzOut Credits will be available for purchase at www.nimbuzzout.com, and is available on Symbian, iPhone and iPod Touch handsets and rolling out to others later this year.

Nimbuzz claims, "more than 10 million registrations of the application since launch, a current growth rate of more than a million new registrations each month (that's a new Nimbuzz user every 3 seconds!), a daily active user base of over 30% and an international user footprint covering every corner of the globe."
 
Nimbuzz founder & CEO, Evert-Jaap Lugt said of the NimbuzzOut launch: "High value, high quality voice calling is positioned at the heart of our value proposition, making NimbuzzOut the most natural commercial extension of our product.  This offers fantastic value to our users, especially those who wish to communicate regularly with friends and family abroad at the lowest possible prices.  This is all part of our strategy to give Nimbuzz users control of their mobile lives and the freedom they want and deserve."
Skype Journal wrote about one of the coolest mashups I've ever seen. Certainly one of the coolest VoIP mashups. Skype Journal explains PhoneFromHere Tim Panton's demo that he gave at Astricon where Tim mashes up Google Wave, Skype, Asterisk running Skype for Asterisk and Ibook to make Skype calls from within a browser-based Google Wave.


Not only is it sans Skype client, but it has recordings (labeled by person speaking) of individual utterances, so you can quickly playback what a particular person said at a certain point in time.

It's amazing to make a Skype call from a browser without running the Skype client. How do you ask? Well, it uses a browser-based Skype client using a IAX2 Java client to communicate with Asterisk which then communicates with the Skype network cloud. On top of it all you get Google Wave's powerful collaboration capabilities.

Perhaps some IP address geocoding combined with Google Maps to show the speakers' locations might be nice addition to this mashup. Or even pulling down Facebook profile pictures. There is definitely some awesome potential for this. Thumbnail image for startrek-borg.jpgMaybe Google can even stick your Google Wave/Skype/Asterisk collaboration sessions into their newly released, centralized, Borg/hive, data-collecting, privacy-busting Google Dashboard?
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