TMCnet

Sporadic Cell phone outages due to 5.9 Earthquake

August 23, 2011

There are reports of sporadic cell phone and perhaps even landline outages after an unusual 5.9 earthquake hit Virginia at 01:51:03 pm, with the epicenter located 41 miles northwest from Richmond and 83 miles southwest of Washington, D.C.

A few co-workers and I were unable to get through to some phone numbers. According some reports the carriers are experiencing peak usage related outages. Could be people checking in on loved ones similar to the 9/11 related phone outages.

I felt the earthquake in my office located in Norwalk, CT and have read friends' reports on Facebook that states as far away as Massachusetts, Michigan and Ohio felt it. There are also unconfirmed reports that the Washington Monument is leaning.

Posted in TMCnet, Wireless

Physicists build first single-photon router - Positronic brain next?

August 23, 2011

Cool - the first photon router! From PhysOrg.com:

By demonstrating that an artificial atom embedded in a transmission line can route a single photon from an input port to one of two output ports, physicists have built the first router working at the single-photon level. The single-photon router could one day serve as a quantum node in a quantum information network, in which it could provide basic processing and routing of data.
...
As the scientists explain, controlling and directing photons is more difficult than controlling and directing electrons, which are used in most of today’s routers.

Well done physicists! This is one more step in the Star Trek timeline when Dr. Noonien Soong will be able to create Data's Positronic brain, which features a storage capacity of 100 Pb (800 quadrillion bits) and a total linear computational speed of 60 THz (60 trillion operations per second)!

Posted in Internet, TMCnet, Technology and Science

Skype (Microsoft) Blows $85 Million on GroupMe

August 22, 2011

Skype was in talks with GroupMe to acquire them before Microsoft's (pending approval) bought Skype. With Microsoft purchasing Skype you would have thought Microsoft would have squashed any pending purchases by Skype or at least approve them. The fact that Microsoft didn't stop Skype means Microsoft must agree with the GroupMe acquisition. I'm honestly not sure why though.

GroupMe is simply a group SMS platform that enables you to create group messages leveraging SMS.

Posted in Microsoft, Mobile Phones, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

Home Surveillance using Dropbox Catches Possible Thief in the Act

August 20, 2011

I've been meaning to test out my home surveillance recipe which combines a standard webcam, Dropbox (hosted backup solution), iPhone & iPad mobile Dropbox app, and the free Yet Another Webcam Software (Yawcam). I went to Cape Cod last week and hired a pet sitter to watch our family's dog (Jessie) and cat (Boaz), which offered a perfect opportunity to test out my "poor man's home surveillance" setup. What I found happening in my house while on my vacation shocked me!

But first, my home surveillance recipe:

Setup and install Dropbox (comes with 2GB free).

Posted in Digital Cameras, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Internet, Personal and Humor, TMCnet, Video Hardware & Software

The Demise of the HP TouchPad Plus "The Value of VoIP"

August 19, 2011

I wrote this morning about HP's surrender to Apple in the PC, laptop, and tablet space. Ironically, I just happened to glance at a CDW catalog sitting on my desk and saw this:

Click for larger view

A now defunct HP TouchPad 16GB model is prominently displayed on the back cover of the CDW catalog. The front and back cover are "prime" positions that in the publishing world command a higher premium in advertising rates. This is also sometimes true of catalogs.

Posted in Computer Hardware, Gadgets, PDAs & Handhelds, TMCnet

The Apple Downgrade Kills HP

August 19, 2011

We all know about the S&P downgrade caused by the rating agency's view of U.S.'s debt and debt ceiling. S&P saw the writing on the wall that U.S. is on the road to insolvency and default on the debt. Well, apparently the Apple iPad tablet has had a similar downgrade affect on HP's PC, laptop, and tablet business.

Posted in Android, Apple, Computer Hardware, Gadgets, Google, News, TMCnet

BT Kills the Rabbit, err Ribbit

August 10, 2011

Ribbit, which was acquired by BT, and which Ribbit claimed was "Silicon Valley's First Phone Company" has been killed. Ribbit was a cloud-based phone system with APIs to integrate voice communications into business applications such as Salesforce.com, CRM systems, call center applications, and social networks. It was a promising concept.

So is cloud-based voice dead? That'd be too bad, since Fonality just released a Cloud VoIP for Dummies book just yesterday. Well, one defunct hosted voice platform doesn't make for an industry trend. We've still got Google Voice, Phono, Twilio, TeleSocial, and others that are going strong.

Posted in Internet, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Bob Metcalfe Keynotes StartupCamp, Communications Edition, collocated with ITEXPO

August 8, 2011

Bob Metcalfe is a living technology legend who invented Ethernet in 1973 while at Xerox PARC and he also founded 3Com. Without Ethernet, where would local area networks, WANs and the Internet be? We owe Bob a great deal of gratitude for his contribution to computer networking. Metcalfe is also known for his 1995 prediction that the internet would suffer a catastrophic collapse the next year and he'd eat his words if it did not. Well, he was wrong on that, but everyone loves or loves to hate an opinionated pundit, whether its someone like David Pogue at the NY Times, Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, or a fiery political pundits like Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olbermann.

So I am ecstatic to announce that Bob Metcalfe will keynote TMC's fourth installment of StartupCamp, Communications Edition, collocated with ITEXPO West, on September 14 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.

Posted in ITEXPO, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP, Wireless

DirecTV Website Outage

August 4, 2011

DirecTV's website is down. Isn't that just the luck? I have a DirecTV installer here today installing my service and they accidentally signed me up for Spanish TV. While I took 3 years of High School Spanish, I think I'll pass on the Spanish TV.

Posted in Home Entertainment, TMCnet, Video Hardware & Software

Number Portability Still Sucking After All these Years...

August 4, 2011

I decided to drop Charter's triple play package because they raised the monthly bill from $166 to $222 per month -- only to find out that the curse of number portability still exists in 2011. Flashback: Back in 2006 I griped that my phone number I owned for 10 years couldn't be ported from Vonage to Charter.

Recently, I decided I would drop Vonage in favor of a triple play offering from Charter, which would give me cable TV, high-speed Internet, and "voice over cable" - all at a very reasonable price. My wife and I encountered too many network or Vonage QoS issues which affected our phone service. It was time to port the number to Charter, which advertised that they could port customer's numbers in a mailer we received.

Posted in SIP, TMCnet, VoIP

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