Archive for July 31st, 2008
Intel Friends Facebook to Make x86 Chips Sexy
I have to hand it to Intel. The company that brought us the brilliant marketing of Intel Inside (remember the stuffed guy in a bunny suit?) says Facebook has chosen its Xeon chips to power the social network. But because Intel is aware that server chips are commodities, the chip maker is also working directly with Facebook, tweaking settings to really make those dual- and quad-core chips roar in the hopes that they will continue to power the servers running Web 2.0 sites and compute clouds. Des...
NewTeeVee Startup Watch: Onecast, Zadby, Anvato, GoAnimate
NewTeeVee has been bursting with startup news this week, including news from a bunch of new companies that have barely been mentioned elsewhere, if at all. So for those GigaOM readers looking for a cheat sheet, I’ve pulled together one here: Onecast/1cast: Apparently this is something like RedLasso, but it’s been approved by TV networks instead of sued by them. Founded and funded by telco-turned-wireless guy Craig McCaw. The stealth company has nothing but a landing page for the mo...
Dynolicious for your Apple iPhone or iPod Touch - Coolest Apple App ever!
Dynolicious utilizes the accelerometer built in to your iPhone or iPod Touch to sense the motion of your vehicle to calculate performance statistics including 0-60 acceleration, 1/4 Mile Elapsed Time, Lateral G’s, and Horsepower. Is this not the coolest Apple App ever? I would have headed over to the Apple App Store to buy this app pronto, except I no longer drive a high-performance Dodge Viper - I now drive a pokey Volvo. Here’s a photo of my beloved 2001 Dodge Viper at a Cape Co...
13 Startups Working on Solar-Concentrating PV
We’re all familiar with standard photovoltaic solar panels, and many of us are starting to become acquainted with solar thermal tech that uses the sun’s heat to generate power as well. But there’s also a third option: Over a dozen startups are currently working on ways to use mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight hundreds of times onto tiny, highly efficient solar cells. Known as concentrating photovoltaic technology, the systems are meant to cut back on one of the most expensive pa...
Welcome to Bell Canada Lite
One of the most puzzling aspects of Bell Canada’s announcement earlier this week it was slashing 2,500 management jobs was that some analysts seemed surprised. In the wake of a leveraged buy-out that has left with more than $30-billion of debt, the company needs to be aggressive to boost cash flow. A key part will be lower operating costs, much of it through streamlining operations (aka wide-scale staff reductions). It’s the only way that Bell Canada can support its new financial st...
Alcatel-Lucent: Sign of an Industry-Wide Malaise
Earlier this morning Franco-American telecom giant, Alcatel-Lucent, gave CEO Pat Russo and Chairman Serge Tchuruk the proverbial boot after the company reported a disastrous quarter, missing its earnings and revenue targets. The company says they resigned – which is utter rubbish because in this day and age, no one gives up megamillion-euro pay packages just because they’re feeling pious. Much of the blame was put on macroeconomic factors and the wireless industry’s transition from CD...
Skype 4.0.0.155 Beta 1 for Windows
Skype just released a new beta of 4.0.called Skype 4.0.0.155 Beta 1 for Windows. Just remember there are some caveats to using Skype 4.0 beta. Read here for more. Here’s what’s new / fixes: 30.07.2008 Skype 4.0.0.155 Beta 1 for Windows change: Firefox Skype plugin updated to version 2.2.0.94 bugfix: Video mood and instant messages did not work when user had Flash Player 10 installed Localizations updated Also, here’s what was fixed in the prior version of the Skype beta: 09.0...
Level 3 & Packet8 major outage
BREAKING!A source is telling me that Level 3 Communications and Packet 8 are having a system-wide network outage for the last 30 minutes. Level 3 is a huge provider of VoIP termination and I believe Packet8 uses their network for termination. Other VoIP service providers will also be affected if indeed Level 3 is having an outage. I’m trying to confirm this as I type this. I’m currently on hold (5min so far) for Packet8’s technical support and sent my contacts at 8×8 an e...
SimpleSignal hosted VoIP lets Mobile Workers Listen to Emails and Manage Microsoft Outlook Calendar with Voice Commands
Today, SimpleSignal is announcing that it has successfully married Microsoft Exchange 2007 with its BroadSoft-based Hosted PBX offering to offer a new solution called SimplyMobile. SimplyMobile offers some really cool features, such as the ability to listen to emails from any phone — even a mobile device by leveraging TTS (text-to-speech). Also, it features the ability for users to use voice commands to call the people who emailed them. They espouse the ability to be driving and lis...
Save Titan!
From a NASA press release: NASA Confirms Liquid Lake on Saturn Moon “PASADENA, Calif. — NASA scientists have concluded that at least one of the large lakes observed on Saturn’s moon Titan contains liquid hydrocarbons, and have positively identified the presence of ethane… “”Detection of liquid ethane confirms a long-held idea that lakes and seas filled with methane and ethane exist on Titan,” said Larry Soderblom, a Cassini interdisciplinary scientist w...
3CX Free SIP Softphone
3CX has announced the release of a totally free new VoIP softphone called 3CX VoIP Phone that allows users to make and receive calls from their computer using SIP-based VoIP providers or SIP-based IP-PBXs. This free SIP softphone client isn’t the first “free” softphone on the market. That distinction belongs to Counterpath’s popular X-lite SIP softphone. However, I’m glad to see more free SIP softphones on the market. In fact, I’d like to see free SIP softph...
Google Eyeing A VC Arm?
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google may be trying to build out a corporate venture capital arm similar to other strategic venture groups at companies ranging from Intel to Motorola. The Journal reports that Google SVP David Drummond will be in charge, and that the search giant has hired 33-year-old former entrepreneur and investor William Maris to help. Since Google already invests in plenty of companies from Current Communications to 23&Me, the genetic information company run by S...
Who do YOU want to be today?
A friend of mine starts his days by asking the question: Who do I want to be today? And by doing so, he is able to reset his perspective on life on a regular basis. When you can empower yourself with the ability to see the world through the eyes of whomever you want to be, you can gain some pretty amazing insights and perspectives. And with such insights, you can also get a sense of enlightenment. So I ask, who do YOU want to be today? Tags: Entrepreneurship, leadership, Entrepreneur, Jef...
Yo FCC! Are You Doing Anything About Metered Broadband?
In an effort to burnish his public image, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin has take up a populist and politically lucrative crusade against the evil cable company, Comcast and its nefarious efforts to block certain kinds of traffic. Given that we all love to hate our cable companies, especially the big ones, it is a calculated bet by Martin, who is rumored to be contemplating running for US House of Representatives after he leaves FCC. Now wonder, he has been campaigning ...
In Good Times and Bad, Direct Response Advertising Delivers the Goods
If you watched TV during the 1960s - or AMC’s hot new show about the 1960s advertising universe, Mad Men - “David Oglivy” is a name to be conjured with. A YouTube video of the Master at Gavin Heaton’s Servant Of Chaos blog is a Schweppervescent trip down memory lane. It’s also a timeless reminder for marketing folks that direct response - not general - advertising is the real gold standard. Why? Because direct response advertisers know “to the dollar...
Phweet - Ruthlessly Simplified Disintermediation
When I received this Twitter message earlier this afternoon: clicked on the embedded URL and immediately was listening in on a conversation involving not only Stuart Henshall but also David Beckemeyer of Televolution (producer of PhoneGnome - now known as the PhweetGeek), I found I was in for a most interesting conversation experience. Within minutes we had a multi-party call involving as many as eight participants from India, Italy, Ireland (actually, Pat was calling in while on va...
Android Co-Founder, Cisco CTO to Keynote at Mobilize
Every day the promise of the mobile web moves closer to being realized, and every day we move one step closer to Mobilize, our one-day conference dedicated to examining the implications — and identifying the opportunities — in this coming revolution. We are thrilled to report that we have confirmed two of the industry’s best and brightest as our keynote speakers: Rich Miner, co-founder of Google’s Android, and Padmasree Warrior, chief technology officer at Cisco Systems...
Phweet public alpha - from tweet to talk in one click
Mode shifting from twitter (great for metatalk: "can we phweet in 5 minutes?") to live, multi-party, p2p, in-browser, flash-only party lines. "A Phweet is a shortURL that makes conversations and conference calls possible between Twitter friends and across other social networks. Let your friends know you are talking. Invite them to join in. No numbers, no new profiles. Simple, just start Phweet talking!" - the Phweet blog Notes: A pilot project by Stuart Henshall (co-found...
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News, opinions and announcements about fast changing communication tools and technologies, from various blogs and ezine.