The Not So New World of Infrastructure Apps
Gary Orenstein at Gigaom penned an interesting article about what he calls “The New Worl of Infrastructure Apps.” In it, he points out that:
Deploying applications no longer mandates a soup-to-nuts approach from hardware infrastructure on up. Rather, applications can be created and assembled atop a variety of infrastructure services that, due to the availability of [...]
I Love Ooma (or, How to Make a Great VoIP ATA)
Today marks the end of my third week as an Ooma White Rabbit (that’s Ooma’s euphemistic term for guinea pig). And while I generally avoid commenting on VoIP gadgets or services, I feel compelled to make an exception in this case to give praise where it is due. I don’t know whether Ooma [...]
To Download or Stream… Vudu has a New Twist
To download or stream? That decision has always posed a vexing dilemma for video content providers. Which model works better? Making users download video before viewing ensures that the quality is up to par, but can be inconvenient when movie downloads take 2-4 hours over normal broadband speeds. By [...]
BT Powered Mashups at Web 21C – Wow!
Yesterday I mentioned the UK’s functional separation policy that forced BT to segregate its access network from its services business. Today, I decided to look a little closer at BT and Openreach, the network company it spun-off. I had been aware of BT’s leadership in the next generation networking space through its announced [...]
EU Tackles the Dumb Pipe Dilemma
Viviane Reding, the European Union telecoms commissioner, has a plan to hasten the adoption of next generation networking services. In an interview with the Financial Times, Ms. Reding stated that the Commission will consider the introduction of “functional separation” as a possible remedy for competition problems when it meets in July to review the telecom [...]
FCC Mulls Future of Unfetterred IP Access
Tom Evslin has posted an informative blog about the latest FCC proposal to release a significant swath of radio frequencies for unlicensed use. The FCC proceeding concerns guard bands that will be freed up when television broadcasts convert to a digital format in 2009. If made available, these frequencies could be [...]
Acronym Alert: Lookout for MICE
The recent Spring VON show was the locus for the birth of a new acronym – MICE (a contraction for Media, Internet, Communications and Entertainment). As described by VON Magazine’s Editor-In-Chief, Doug Mohney, the “MICE revolution” is about “taking the individual ingredients of video and voice and mixing them together in new and creative [...]
Norway Takes on Apple for DRM Interoperability
According to a recent article in Ars Technica:
The Consumer Council of Norway filed a complaint with the country’s Consumer Ombudsman, accusing Apple of violating Norway’s Marketing Control Act. At issue was Apple’s FairPlay DRM, which locks consumers into the iPod and iTunes … The Norwegian Ombudsman ordered Apple to change its terms and conditions [...]
Callback Makes a Comeback
For those of you not familiar, a callback user dials a “trigger number”, lets it ring once, and hangs up before it answers. A telephony application then rings back the caller with a U.S. dial tone (an antiquated concept in the era of VoIP), and the caller can then dial any destination they choose [...]
I’m Busy, but Please Call My Avatar
After recently speaking with the folks at Vivox about their voice solutions for online communities, I finally took the time to experience Second Life – the much-hyped 3D virtual world with over 2 million inhabitants. The topic of Second Life came up because Vivox is providing free phone calls to all Second Life residents [...]