Archive for July 11th, 2008
Apple activation servers cave as iPhone 3G buyers come out in droves
It happening all over North America. As engadget reports, iTunes activations have once again reached epic proportions and have lead to system-wide shutdown of iPhone Activations. Rogers in Canada is also suffering from the ill effects of a ‘not so well’ thought-out activation system and it would seem this could also be related to iTunes. Although, some are saying different. No matter how you slice it, at least from a sales perspective, this will be remembered as a major success for ...
Early YouTube Engineer Tells All
When we recently heard about the history of YouTube’s growth strategy from CEO Chad Hurley’s point of view, he described it as “hanging onto a rocket.” But an engineer’s take is always going to be a bit less rose-colored and a bit more about the terrifying situations you brained your way out of. So we were particularly interested to tune in to a talk at YouTube’s developer conference Thursday by Cuong Do, an early software engineer who’s now manager of ...
OMG, Women Buy Electronics!
I’m always insulted by the assumption that woman who care about the features (other than color) on their mobile phones or how much memory their hard drives have are geeks. Maybe they simply recognize — much the same way as those with a Y chromosome — that an electronic device has a job to do, and then educate themselves about what a device needs in order to do that job. Of course if those women are also writing code or modding their PC for fun, then I’m going to offer th...
Jeff Pulver Comments on FCC’s Single National Framework for VoIP
Let me first say that Jeff Pulver’s and his FWD network/service (Free World Dialup) was instrumental in contributing to the early growth of Xten (now called Counterpath). FWD provided the platform where the X-Lite SIP softphone flourished. It was a great litmus test for us and created incredible awareness for our product. I don’t think I ever thanked him properly for that. VON might be history, but Jeff is far from done. In his last blog post, Jeff talks about exclusive federal juris...
“Any Day Now”
Just swung by a Fido store in downtown Toronto to get a first-hand look at the iPhone phenomena. The good news: there was a sign on window - “iPhone Sold Out”, which means demand was brisk and/or the store didn’t get a lot of inventory. I suspect the latter. The bad news: When I asked a salesman about when the iPhone would be available, he said “Any day now”. If that doesn’t inspire excitement among your potential customers, nothing will. For what’s wor...
Did You Buy a Mouse Today? Much Cheaper Now!
You’re probably using a mouse today, but you may never buy one again. All the planets are aligning against this humble pointing device. The computer mouse has long been associated with the PC, but in fact it was invented during the John F. Kennedy administration (in 1963) by Silicon Valley engineers Douglas Engelbart and Bill English. The mouse was nothing but a lab rat until the Xerox Star shipped in 1981. Though it was the first time anyone could buy a mouse, few did. The Star wa...
How DreamWorks Puts Multicore Chips to Work
You wouldn’t think that next year’s DreamWorks movie, “Aliens vs. Monsters” and the search for more crude would be connected, but they are — in that they both take advantage of parallel programming for multicore chips. And when it comes to multicore chips, big bucks are on the line as the chip firm or software company that figures out how to write code to take advantage of them stands to make boatloads of money. DreamWorks signed a deal with Intel this week aimed a...
Is Facebook Down?
The best thing that’s happened to Facebook: Apple’s MobileMe outage, the iPhone launch and iPhone activation problems across the board. Why? Because no one seems to be reporting on them being out for most of the morning. I just tried to get in; no luck. There is no update on their blog, either. I got a few responses to my question about Facebook’s status on Twitter, so this is not just a problem for me. Are you having Facebook problems as well? Update: A Facebook spokeswoman ...
Remember today…and make it special!
No matter how busy you are, no matter how much work there is to get done, take out a few moments/minutes and make today special. Do what you can to appreciate today, because tomorrow it will be gone. Tags: Entrepreneurship, leadership, Entrepreneur, Jeff Pulver If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or subscribing to the feed to receive future articles delivered to your feed reader. ...
It’s Here - The New 3G iPhone.
#photo-gallery .photo { width: 150px !important; height: 99px !important; } For once, the FedEx guy showed up right on time. Here it is — the unboxed pics of the new iPhone 3G. More thoughts to follow later. I guess I am lucky in a way because I didn’t have to deal with lines or deal with the activation process. The activation servers are down, thanks to an incredible rush to buy this phone. Apparently it is getting sold out across the world. If you ar...
Packet8 MobileTalk on iPhone Adds VoIP Calling
8×8, Inc. the provider of the Packet8 VoIP broadband service today announed it has added the Apple iPhone to the list of over 450 mobile handset devices now supported by the Packet8 MobileTalk international calling service. Launched back in November 2007, MobileTalk adds inexpensive calling to the iPhone 2.0 which launched today. Unlike the truphone iPhone application I blogged earlier today, the Packet8 MobileTalk is web-based interface, so unlike truphone there is no dialer application to...
High-tech leaders in the United States Support Single National Framework for VoIP
Yesterday six major high-tech associations collectively representing the growth engines of the economy (generating billions of economic activity every year, employing millions of workers, and representing thousands of companies) filed a friend of the court brief in support of the FCCs decision to provide a single national policy framework for VoIP. Because of the significance of the issue and the importance to the economy, the groups came together to support exclusive federal jurisdiction for ...
An Afternoon in Jackson Hole, WY
Tags: Jackson Hole, ICUC, ICUC08, Jeff Pulver ...
Leslie Conway Joins Digium
Just two days ago I highlighted the connections between Adtran and Digium. They’re both located in Huntsville, Alabama, Mark Spencer worked at Adtran, their current CEO Danny Windham came from Adtran, etc. Well, today Rich writes about Leslie Conway, who also comes from Adtran, joining the Digium team, thus adding to the Adtran/Digium connection. Rich writes: Over the years, Mark Spencer, the founder of the company transitioned from CEO to CTO and during the transition Digium tapped Adt...
What’s Your Favorite Widget?
We’ve got widgets for the Mac and widgets for the PC. These little apps can be very helpful! I’ve got these widgets — calendar, gas price finder, calculator, my local weather, iTunes, Stickies, clock and the very cool GuitarChords. Some days I use some of these a lot, others not, but good to know they are there. Do you use widgets? What’s your favorite? Tags: guitarchords, mac, pc, widgets Related Entries Is Virtual for You? - May 19, 2008 CNET’s Tech Tips ...
Truphone on iPhone Apple Store enables VoIP
Want Truphone on your iPhone? Truphone enables you to make VoIP calls on your iPhone over the internet using your WiFi connection (sorry - won’t work over your cellular 3G connection) Truphone’s native VoIP client for the iPhone was developed with Apple’s own SDK and is available at the online iPhone App Store. Still, I wished it worked over the 3G connection. Wonder how long it will be before someone jailbreaks iPhone 2.0 and allows a truly native VoIP app that works ove...
Apple Web service outages during iPhone launch
As the Apple iPhone ver 2 launches today, Apple had some outage issues with their website. Late yesterday/last night, Apple users could not access to their accounts. Additionally, the TUAW reported today (6:20am Friday) that The Apple Store US is down, though it’s up now. The outage last night was a planned outage that was part of the Apple’s transition to MobileMe. Essentially, their .Mac accounts’ data was being moved to MobileMe, a $99/year service lets people view, up...
Why Guardian Media Bought paidContent for $30M
Rafat Ali, founder of ContentNext Media, an L.A.-based new media startup and publisher of the blog paidContent, puts the blame for his inability to sleep last night squarely on Kara Swisher’s shoulders for breaking the story of his company being gobbled up -– for a rumored $30 million — by Guardian Media Group (GMG). He admits on his blog to being steamed over being scooped on the biggest story of his life – and as a lifelong reporter, I know how that feels. In a very early mor...
Comcast Caught, Denies Blocking Traffic
Comcast has been accused of blocking traffic several times in its history and may have even admitted to more than the straight up P2P blocking we all knew about. But late yesterday, Comcast finally got it’s comeuppance. Sort of. Kevin Martin, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and close personal friend to the cable competitors, the telecom industry, could take no more. So this morning he’s circulating an enforcement order that says that Comcast blocked network...
Let the iPhone Sales Begin!
Well, do you know what time it is and where your children are? And friends and family, too? Maybe they’re online waiting to pick up the iPhone 3G. Oh, you didn’t know that it went on sale this morning? Really? (Where have you been???) Tags: iphone Related Entries Apple iPhone 2.0: Twice as Much for Half as Much - Jun 09, 2008 The Dead Zone: AT&T’s iPhone 3G Coverage Woes - Jul 10, 2008 Asian Lines Already Formed for iPhone Launch - Jul 09, 2008 What&...
So, You Gonna Get an iPhone?
Happy, July 11! For Apple disciples, it’s like July 4 a week later given the excitement about the 3G iPhone. Even Canadians may be excited after Rogers reluctantly decided at the last minute to “listen to its customers”, and offer a generous 6GB of data for $30/month. So I gotta ask the question…and if you are going to pony up $199 or $299 for a shiny new iPhone, leave a comment on why you want/need one. Will You Buy a 3G iPhone? ( polls) For what it’s worth, V...
iPhone Fever Comes to Truphone
Truphone have their own iPhone launch-day, allowing VoIP over WiFi on the iPhone Read More… ...
Ribbit Sells for $55 Million
Rumour has it that BT has bought Silicon Valley-based Ribbit. But could BT have just jumped on a train instead of a plane? Read More… ...
I Can’t Find MobileMe
At $99 a year, I expect my online service to function all the time. So perhaps that is why I am a little upset that Apple hasn’t been able to launch their MobileMe service properly and are experiencing outages. The fact that the service was supposed to launch at a time of Apple’s choosing, leaves no room for excuses on today’s problems. It is doubly disappointing because this is a for-pay and not some free service, where you get what you pay for. Many free services occassional...
How Do You Catch a Photoshopped Fake?
Iran’s missile project may need more rocket scientists to help gets its projectiles off the ground, but its marketing team desperately needs some talented photo retouchers to better cover up its ballistic shortcomings. The duping of numerous newspapers by a digitally altered picture of Iran’s missile test is just the latest case of a Photoshopped picture being taken at face value. But while the sophistication of forgery detection software is way behind that of photo manipulation, wi...
Viacom Denies It Wants YouTube Data
On a day when iPhone app madness has swept the planet (or planet blog at least), there is a bunch of news involving YouTube. First - Viacom today issued a statement about recent court ruling that ordered YouTube to hand over its user data to the media giant. Except they are lying and so wanted the data. In other YouTube news, Liz Gannes reports that YouTube is going to allow geosearching its videos which should help with local search. On the bad news front, looks like they will be able to monet...
Consumers Speak - Rogers Listens
Wow - chalk one up for free speech and the power of the Internet! Just before the official launch of the iPhone in Canada, Rogers has caved to the mounting consumer backlash and revamped their price plans. I think it’s a great story showing how well people can rally about something they really care about. The iPhone is such a must-have gadget, especially here in Canada where we’ve been watching our U.S. neighbors lap it up in no time. Clearly Rogers realized it has mis-judged market ...
Open Thread: Which iPhone Apps Are For You?
We’re drowning in emails related to iPhone apps here at GigaOM, but since the store opens today and we already did a list of iPhone apps, we’re turning the tables and asking, what would GigaOM readers do? You guys obviously want the 3G iPhone, so now tell us what you want on it? Mainstream apps like streaming radio from Pandora, Tetris or Scrabble, or opinions from Yelp? Apps that take advantage of the new GPS features like Where or Limbo? We want to hear about it. If t...
Telerupted: An Internet for Devices
A growing number of people expect mobile phones to emerge as the dominant means of Internet access for the 6.6 billion people on Earth; as proof, they point to the 10 percent of the 2.5 billion handsets in circulation that already include such access. But there exists a flaw in the mobile phone-as-path-to-Internet-ubiquity theory in that telcos generate the majority of their revenues from voice services that the Internet threatens to make obsolete — like a power company that makes most of...
Subscribes
Sipy...
-
News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.