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June 2013

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Logitech H650e Headset Review

June 28, 2013

The Logitech USB Headset 650e "corded" stereo headset is the sister to the H820e "wireless" headset I recently reviewed. Both models target unified communications (UC) with some call control functions like mute and answer call. Like the H820e, the H650e sports a call indicator LED to let co-workers know you're on the phone, as well as wideband audio. Curious how the H650e compared to the H820e I took the H650e for a spin.

One of my observations when testing the H820e was that the bass response - low frequencies was missing from the speakers when playing music.

New China-based Asterisk Player Coming to Town

June 26, 2013


HK Houyuan Technology Co. Ltd, a 3-year old company based in China has a line of Asterisk IP-PBXs with the super creative name of, wait for it... wait for it -- "IP PBX". Their IP PBX series include the IP PBX-01, IP PBX-02, IP PBX-04, and IP PBX-08, where the number denotes the number of FXO/FXS ports. They run uClinux and Asterisk on a 400MHz Blackfin 532 chip.

Logitech Sets Sights on Unified Communications

June 14, 2013

Logitech said in their February corporate report that "Some of our other peripherals product categories are experiencing significant market challenges. As the quality of PC-embedded webcams improves, we expect future sales of our PC-connected webcams in mature consumer markets to continue declining. We intend to address this market decline by enhancing our webcam product line-up to enable experiences that cannot be easily achieved with an embedded webcam and by targeting webcam applications on non-PC platforms."

Indeed standalone webcams have been declining because desktops have been replaced with laptops that usually have an embedded webcam that is "good enough" for the consumers needs. So how does Logitech diversify or differentiate from embedded webcams?

One answer is unified communications (UC) which targets businesses and not consumers.



telyHD Review

June 14, 2013


The telyHD appliance brings powerful, affordable HD video conferencing to SMBs and larger enterprises, rivaling high-end telepresence platforms from Cisco, LifeSize, and Polycom. Further, TelyHD sports Skype integration, granting it access to perhaps the largest videoconferencing user base, which includes Skype clients running on desktops, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. The Enterprise Edition enables the telyHD appliance to also join a BlueJeans meeting. I was an early beta reviewer for BlueJean's videoconferencing and HD content sharing service back in 2011 and was impressed with their service.

WebRTC Conference Sold Out!

June 7, 2013

TMC, Systemwide Media and PKE Consulting announced an expanded expo showcase at WebRTC Conference & Expo has sold out. The event, to be held June 25-27, 2013, at Cobb Galleria in Atlanta, Ga., is focused on exploring Web-based real-time communications (WebRTC), how WebRTC is enabling true browser-to-browser communications and what that means for the technology industry. WebRTC Conference & Expo will host over 40 industry-leading exhibitors that are helping to shape this evolving market.

Although the exhibit space has sold out, attendees are welcome to come learn all about WebRTC. Companies such as Google, Tokbox, Ericsson, Mozilla, Oracle, Digium, Avaya, and others will be there.

Just click here and receive a special 50% discount using discount code WRTCTom.

Related:
Google & Facebook - But Not WebRTC" href="http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/voip/nsa-can-wiretap-skype-google-facebook---but-not-webrtc.asp">NSA Can Wiretap Skype, Google & Facebook - But Not WebRTC






NSA Can Wiretap Skype, Google & Facebook - But Not WebRTC

June 7, 2013


                                             Image Courtesy of the Guardian

According to the Guardian, the NSA has the capability of tap in to user data of Google, Skype, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and more. This is disturbing on so many levels, especially after revelation that Verizon gave the government access to over 100 million Americans' phone records. A friend suggested.

So now that P2P Skype is not as "secure" as many were led to believe, what sort of secure P2P VoIP is available? Well, there is Phil Zimmerman's Zfone Project, which Zfone uses a proprietary protocol called ZRTP.




CertainSafe, the Virtual Safety Deposit Box, Drives Secure Collaboration

June 3, 2013

I reviewed CertainSafe for TMC Labs to be published in TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine. Check out an early sneak peek here...

TMC Labs learned about a new product launching by TransCertain called CertainSafe that could be a game changer when it comes to cloud-based collaboration. Fortune 1000 companies and indeed even smaller companies are reluctant to put their most sensitive and confidential data in the cloud to be shared with their partners and customers. But what if you could encrypt the data in the cloud using AES256 encryption or any encryption algorithm of your choice, and combine that with “Tokenization”?

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