Posted on

VOIP

I’ve been thinking about switching our home phone number over to one of the VOIP services… We received a Direct Mail piece today from AT&T which is selling a discounted rate of $19.99/mo for 6 months but then switches back to the regular rate of $39.99/mo. Vonage lowered their unlimited package today to $29.99 which is pretty nice including the hardware.

Our current provider is Verizon and their unlimited package is $59.99 for traditional service, though each month after the tariffs and fees is more like $85. Saving money is a good thing, but I am actually more drawn to the tech aspects of the service more than the price. I like the idea of being able to listening to voicemail online, getting them either in my email (ATT) or links to the website (Vonage).

They both seem good as far as features and options with the service, though the possibility of also using a software SIP phone on my laptop is drawing me more to Vonage. ATT does have a cool privacy feature which I can’t find on Vonage, which would let you set your phone to silent, except for urgent or desired calls. This would be great for when Hannah is taking a nap…

I also wonder what we might miss if we switch… when we had ATT before Verizon, their voicemail notification did not work without their caller-ID box which was annoying and was no where as simple as the tone you hear when you pick up the phone with the local guys. Our apartment building uses the phone line for front desk to apartment intercom, so we can be notified of deliveries and visitors — it is unlikely if at possible that VOIP would work with this since it is not on the phone lines.

I’m still torn on which to choose at the moment… have to think more about this before just jumping in.

Posted on

Verizon: Take That, Cable

Your call is important to us… please hold for the next available operator.

I’ll be very surprised if this happens before cable is offering a completely revamped, much more adavnced and higher speed service. There are 6MB trials happening today, not planned for the future like in the Verizon marketing plan… we’ll see I guess but doubtful this will compete in any real time.

Good thing Verizons marketing announcements don’t stump advancing technology like in the old Microsoft vaporware days.

More intense and more expensive. Verizon expects to spend about $1 billion on the first phase of its rollout, making fiber lines available to 1 million homes by this fall. The Texas markets will include Keller, a suburb of Dallas. Although the identities of the other eight states could not be learned, one is likely to be California, a person familiar with the strategy says. Verizon plans to offer the service to 1 million more homes next year and a total of 12 million by 2008. Over the next 15 years, Verizon expects to spend $20 billion to $30 billion to extend service to nearly all 35 million customers.

Television is only part of the strategy. The new fiber-optic lines also will allow Verizon to offer the most advanced consumer broadband service the U.S. has ever seen. Internet connections of up to 30 megabits per second, more than 10 times faster than a state-of-the-art cable modem or digital subscriber line (DSL), will be possible, Verizon executives say. Five- and 15-megabit versions will be available for customers who don’t require all that juice. Although specific pricing hasn’t been decided, the 5-meg version will be competitive with cable modem service, which typically costs $40 to $45 a month. Eventually, if there’s demand for it, Verizon intends to offer consumers Net connections of 100 megs or more.

Cable rivals in Texas insist they’re not quaking in their cowboy boots. For one thing, Verizon has tried this before. Its corporate predecessor, Bell Atlantic Corp., unveiled grand plans to offer pay TV to its customers on the East Coast during the 1990s, but the project failed because of high costs and technological problems. Even if Verizon can make the economics work this time, it has no experience in entertainment, where it will have to face off against Time Warner Inc. (TWX ), Comcast Corp. (CMCSK ), and other powerful rivals. “We are already in a highly competitive marketplace. We face satellite in every market we are in,” says David Mack, a spokesman for Charter Communications Inc. (CHTR ), which provides cable service in Keller. “We believe we will do just fine because we offer superior choice, price, and quality of customer care.”

[BW Online]

Posted on

The ultimate MP3 player for athletes?

A bluetooth pedometer sends info back to the player so you can find out how far you’ve run…

In the coming weeks, you’ll be seeing and hearing a lot about a new MP3 player that isn’t an iPod. In late July, Philips and Nike will begin selling the MP3Run, a 256MB flash-based player that retails for $299 and comes with a separate Bluetooth module that attaches to your shoe. Despite some early speculation, the Bluetooth element doesn’t interface with wireless headphones. Rather, it’s there to wirelessly transmit to the player how far you’ve run–an exciting concept if you do any sort of jogging with your MP3 player. [ZDNet AnchorDesk]

Posted on

Qualcomm can do six megapixel camera phones

Not until 2006, but still cool stuff coming…

Qualcomm today introduced its series 7000 Mobile Station Modem chipsets that would enable six megapixel camera phones, according to a report from Reuters.

The chipset also offers 30 frames per second for video recording and playback. In addition, the chipset offers enhanced features for location based services using Qualcomm’s gpsOne technology. Stereo sound and four million triangles per second for 3D graphics acceleration are among the capabilities of the chipset. [Reiter’s Camera Phone Report]

Posted on

Crisis inside Chipzilla?

Om Malik pores over the details of the latest announcements and departures at Intel…

Kumar slams a fist in the solar plexus when he writes: Intel is losing its ability to develop and deliver market-leading products? In just a few months, Intel has terminated development of its most advanced x86 architecture and marginalized the Itanium family, which was once the anointed successor to x86.

Don’t expect to see a dual-core desktop processor from Intel until mid-2005, and this first effort will probably fall short of Intel’s traditional performance roadmap for the same timeframe, Kumar writes. The Pentium 4, in fact, has improved only marginally since the 3.06GHz version arrived at the end of 2002. It is ironic that Intel which has always made fun of Apple’s approach to higher performance – that multiprocessing – and now is resorting to the same approach. [Om Malik on Broadband]

Posted on

Trouble in Tablet Land?

I guess Steve Jobs was right on about not pushing quickly into the Tablet space. I’d still love to a convertible Powerbook with handwriting recognition though if I had to choose where Apple was going to push things I’d much rather see a PDA/mini-computer device.

At WinHEC, Microsoft execs almost went so far as to admit that the company is now resigned to positioning Tablet functionality as just another notebook computer feature. (Or, if you prefer the Microsoft spin on this, for the Tablet PC to “assimilate” the mobile PC segment. [Microsoft-Watch]

Scoble responds on his blog…

Posted on

FireWireless

Aside from wondering when this is coming, I am thinking about how lame current batteries are and that we need to get come fuel cell action cooking (hopefully not literally). Without new types of power, this will be great for plugged-in data transfer only… no way you can sync without burning some bars.

Get ready for FireWireless: the 1394 Trade Association, the shadowy organization in charge of FireWire (hey, someone%u2019s got to be in charge!), has just laid down a specification for taking the connection standard wireless. Besides being able to sync your iPod wirelessly, there also plans to use this to connect together TVs, set top boxes, A/V receivers, etc. [Engadget]

Posted on

Tivo Will Eventually (not) Deliver Video via RSS

While I want to belive that TiVO will support this and even become a leader in enabling such a technological breakthrough for consumers, I doubt it will ever happen. It’s clear that there is no way they want the wrath of the MPAA — just look at what happened to ReplayTV. They were leading edge, but got smacked when they launched sharing between users… if TiVO or any DVR was to stream out feeds from recordings it would have to be completely covered by some horrific DRM that would make using it near impossible. TiVO2Go which is rumored to potentially exist will use a hardware key to send the files around… but to one system only. Discs you burn, will only play on that one system… unlikely that this will be allowed to freely stream over RSS or Atom or any other syndication format without the hacker community getting involved.

I believe Tivo will eventually develop the capability to send entire recorded video clips to subscribers through RSS feeds. This will enable a consumer to truly time shift their TV habits beyond just when they have time to sit on the comfy couch. Tivo will eventually stream video clips – or even entire shows – via RSS or Atom or some other variant to TVs, PCs, PDAs or cell phones. [Micro Persuasion]

Posted on

On-Demand Games

This is a pretty interesting looking game service with a sexy box that while based on a PC, connects to your TV. Just hook it up to your broadband connection and you’ll be all set. Launches in the fall…

The Phantom Gaming Service starts with a specialized PC in the form of a set-top box attached to a broadband connection. The device taps into a library of PC video games that customers can buy or rent. Customers can get the hardware free if they sign up for a two-year subscription at $30 a month, or they can get the device for $200 without the commitment. A basic subscription will give access to relatively older games, while premium plans will provide access to the latest first-tier titles. [Wired news]

Posted on

Universal Remotes

Om Malik has a great post today on the future of remote controls and their role in our smart homes. I like the idea of a knowledgeable device — one that can be easily configure itself based on what you have, across a variety of connection options (wifi, ir and bluetooth) and can of course is smart enough to go beyond the basic scene management of today’s higher end pieces.

You probably know about Crestron and AMX which are used in high end custom installations for home theaters and conference rooms as well as homes with advanced Lutron lighting scenes and room based music and video.

Om points to the Harmony Remote, whose parent Intrigue was just acquired by Logitech . I’ve been admiring the Harmony system as a possible contender to replace my aging Philips Pronto. The nice thing about the Harmony as Om points out is that it can be easily programmed through USB and your computer. You download the devices you have into the remote and it can take care of the work from there. Want to watch a movie, press movie and the TV changes to Video, your electroncs shift inputs and the DVD player starts up as the lights dim. This is also possible with the AMX and Crestron systems, but not without an expert to program them for you.

Once we have a system that can discover what you have at home, connect itself to the net via your home network and download the device options and auto-configure itself for some standard scenes we’ll be really happening.

I think this is a ways off for many reasons. First, we are still waiting on a standard connect option for AV equipment. HDMI vs DVI… once things settle on how they are connected perhaps we’ll be able to get these devices to communicate who they are to our networks. Plug and Play Home Theater is a critical step to achieve in the development of smarter, yet simpler homes that can all be maintained and controlled with the Smart Remote we all crave.

Posted on

Indeed no free lunch…

Unfortunately it seems the answer to this question might actually be yes. Not all the time, but certainly when it might be convenient for either political or competitive reasons…

A free 802.11G router really might just be too good to be true…

Could Comcast use that new combination cable modem/802.11g wireless access point they’re carrying from Linksys to snoop around on their subscribers’ home networks? [Engadget]

Posted on

Time Warner HD DVR Delayed

I just got off the phone with Time Warner and they have pushed the release of the HD DVR back to at least the third quarter. It’s not actively in the system — at least according to the lovely customer service rep I spoke to. I doubt this means they are considering the Moxi box for now, but hey you never know. It most likely means there are some software issues on their network that still need to get sorted out.

Posted on

Semacode

I think the jury is still way out on this… Remember the cue cat? Not sure once you pass the gimmick phase that there is any staying power here… I’d love to be wrong, but only time will tell.

Semacode is about as cool an app as I’ve come across and a confirmation of my ongoing belief that the handset is so much more than a telephone–the underlying assumption of MobileWhack itself–and is better thought of as an interface between the online and offline worlds right in your back pocket. [MobileWhack]

Operation gadget comes to a very similar conclusion