Recently in Wireless Category

Gadgety mobile phone lovers across the United States can now buy the newest Nokia Nseries device -  the Nokia N78, which hits American store shelves today. Featuring integrated A-GPS, a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and high-speed HSDPA connectivity on North American 850/1900 MHz networks, the Nokia N78 has got all the goods.

Now available through select consumer electronics and wireless retailers, online retailers and at the Nokia Flagship Stores in Chicago and New York, the Nokia N78 can be yours for $560. Course the Apple iPhone is now only $199 through AT&T subsidized pricing.

Performance Technologies today announced they have increased the capacity of its  CompactPCI storage blades to 2 Terabytes. CompactPCI blades are popular in the telecom/VoIP/wireless space for their high availability, hot swappability, small form factor, easy upgradeability, etc. The 2 terabytes (TB) of RAID-ready storage is more than twice their previous amount.

Check out the news after the jump...

Although the CNet blog builds a pretty good case for why the new iPhone will replace RIM's BlackBerry as the mobile phone of choice in the business market, me thinks it boils down to three little letters why not -- AT&T.

For while it may claim reliability, there are more than a few places that get lousy reception from AT&T Wireless. Hence the reason to switch to Verizon (or even Sprint).

So until we have a little more democratic availability -- as in more than one wireless company offering the product, don't see it happening anytime soon.

Not surprising, the new Apple iPhone is all over the media -- both old and new -- today.

And what is it you ask? It's phone, iPod, Internet and more, according to Apple. The iPhone 3G offers fast 3G wireless technology, GPS mapping, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange and the new App Store -- putting even more features at your fingertips.

And like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and a desktop-class web browser.

iPhone 3G redefines what a mobile phone can do, but too bad you have to go to AT&T to get service here. Oh, well.

Here is the official Apple page.

And here's just one link to other blogging-- Engadget.

But you gotta wait until July 11 to get one ...

 

We all love the exclusivity of private lounges at airports or even the comfort of a good lounge chair and now Research in Motion (those BlackBerry folks) have introduced me to the BlackBerry Owners Lounge.

It's the place to get all the latest news and information about my BlackBerry, find new applications and accessories or even download a few games (you know what they say about all work and no play).

Seems like they've taken the "membership has its privileges" line and put in on a new place ...

If you can't get enough of Tony Hawk and outrageous skateboard action, then you will get a kick out of this!

T-Mobile has created a limited edition Sidekick LX and is providing sponsorship support and programming for the Boom Boom HuckJam 2008 North American Tour and events benefiting the Tony Hawk Foundation.

According to the company, Tony puts his personal design on the gadget by giving it a true skateboard look. The bottom cover of the device is outfitted to resemble and feel just like the top of a skateboard, including a texture like grip-tape and eight simulated screws. The limited-edition Sidekick also features a slate-grey shell, accented with blue and white designs and the well-known hawk graphic. A customized Tony Hawk theme will be included on the device featuring an exclusive video of Tony performing tricks, a Tony-inspired background and skate-themed swivel screen open and close sounds.

(Like I said, can there be too much Tony?

In addition, the Sidekick LX Tony Hawk Edition will be the first Sidekick to ship with video record, play and share. It also includes other enhancements such as a more personalized Web browsing experience, stereo Bluetooth support, easier downloads and more options for theme and background personalization.

Check out more at CrunchGear.

While always great on paper, tech mergers (or mergers of any kind) often have a nasty way of not working out for the best.

Now this Verizon deal with Alltel has got me worried. Worried because we just switched the rest of the family to Verizon (from AT&T -- two of us -- and Sprint) and I want to make sure that "America's most reliable wireless network" stays just that way -- or maybe gets even better?

Here's what the big guy at Verizon had to say: “This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services” (per Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer).

Only time will tell (or the number of bars on my phone) ...

If you want all of the gory details, read the official press release here.

Ever want to disguise your voice while making a prank phone call? Sure, if you're one of the Jerky Boys you can pretend to have an Indian accent and all, but if you're just not that talented then what you need is the Asterisk Voice Changer!

It allows you to change the pitch of your voice, or the voice of the called party in realtime, when making phone calls. Ah, the beauty of VoIP with the flexibility of Asterisk. Gotta love it!

The application, VoiceChangeDial, functions as a Dial() replacement except it allows you to change the pitch of your voice. But don't expect this Asterisk application to make a man sound like a woman or vice versa. According to their website, "It will however do a great job of masking your voice by making you sound either like a chimpmunk or Jabba the Hut."

It also explains one bit of a caveat - "Because this application needs to mangle voice data, it will need to pass through Asterisk back-to-back. This means that if you are switching SIP, the RTP will not pass from phone to phone, but will be proxied through Asterisk. Therefore, VoiceChangeDial() will use considerably more CPU and bandwidth than a normal Dial() operation."

But hey, what's a few CPU cycles for some cool Asterisk prankster fun?

The instructions are pretty easy so I'll include them here:

On your functioning Linux machine running Asterisk with the header files installed to /usr/include/asterisk, run the following commands to install the voice changer as well as its two dependencies:

# install SoundTouch 1.3.1
# you can also install it through your package manager
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.surina.net/soundtouch/soundtouch-1.3.1.tar.gz
tar xvzf soundtouch-1.3.1.tar.gz
cd soundtouch-1.3.1/
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install

# install libsoundtouch4c
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.lobstertech.com/code/libsoundtouch4c/releases/libsoundtouch4c-0.4.tar.gz
tar -xzvf libsoundtouch4c-0.4.tar.gz
cd libsoundtouch4c-0.4
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
make install

# install the voice changer
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.lobstertech.com/code/voicechanger/releases/voicechanger-0.6.tar.gz
tar -xzvf voicechanger-0.6.tar.gz
cd voicechanger-0.6
make
make install

# load it in to asterisk
make start

Be sure to check out this link on Lobstertech.com for the full list of options for this application. Now don't go using this voice changing application to do nefarious things, but feel free to have some fun with it.

TMCnet columnist Rick Bye, senior segment marketing manager with Zarlink, has an excellent column today on TMCnet regarding wideband telephony aptly titled "Where Is My Wideband Telephony?".

Rick opines, "While many consumer VoIP services have been phenomenally successful — many service providers are now boasting subscriber counts in the millions — I am still disappointed that virtually no VoIP operators have chosen to differentiate their services by offering wideband telephony. Most VoIP service providers are competing with traditionalPSTN operators, yet very few providers do anything to differentiate their IP-based service from the 100-year-old POTS service, except perhaps to offer a lower price, and/or bundle VoIP with broadband and maybe TV service."

He covers everything from FXS to DECT to Verizon FiOS to DSL IADs and everything in-between -- and how it relates to wideband telephony. Go check it out. It's a good read.

sipgate today announced the a free VoIP application for the iPhone that they claim will allow consumers to use virtually every any VoIP service on the iPhone.

sipgate claims that iPhone users can make and receive VoIP calls from their phones over a Wi-Fi connection using any SIP-based VoIP provider. Unlike Truphone, another iPhone VoIP app, it doesn't appear you need to jailbreak your iPhone to enable SIP-based VoIP support that works with any SIP-based ITSP. In addition it comes with 111 minutes of domestic calling is included if you use sipgate's SIP-based service to test out the service.

Of course, as I have written before, this service will only work over a Wi-Fi connection and not the iPhone's cellular data connection. At the Apple iPhone SDK event, Steve Jobs stated that if someone develops a VoIP program for the iPhone, Apple will allow it if it goes over WiFi and not the cellular network. Apple will in fact BLOCK VoIP applications from running over the cellular data network.

Thilo Simon, CEO, sipgate said, "We love VoIP and we love the iPhone so we are giving people like us who always wanted VoIP on the iPhone the ability to use any SIP-based VoIP service they want. We are thrilled that Apple is opening up the iPhone and we look forward to taking part in future application development."

He added, "As a company we strive to make useful services accessible to everyone. There will be more innovation for businesses and consumers coming from sipgate this year, so keep your eyes open for more news."

In order to use the sipgate iPhone client they recommend that you update your iPhone's firmware to v1.1.4. How do you dial? Simple, with sipgate running you just prefix any number (other than 911) with an asterisk ('*'). When installed on your iPhone, sipgate will then route the call over Wi-Fi.

The sipgate service is currently in an invitation-only beta program.