Phones

Grain of Salt’s JD has a post up regarding the privacy policy (or lack thereof, if you’re paranoid) of VoIP company Skype. From JD’s post:

Isn’t it a great world that we live in? I watched a “documentary” on Discovery on Friday that showed how Captian Kirk changed the world. It seems that people who watched Star Trek got some cool ideas and set on a life adventure to make them come true. Cell Phones, ION pulse engines, transporters, and warp travel are all things that were inspired by some actors making shit up. Awesome.

A test of using my Cingular 8125 to post to Flickr and my blog.

It’s kind of funny that the big phone companies waited an entire week before attacking the story about their alleged complicity with the NSA in the driftnet to track domestic calling patterns. When USA Today published their report about how the NSA was collecting data related to every phone call inside the United States, alleged co-conspirators BellSouth, Verizon and AT&T were somewhat tightlipped. The first two denied providing the information and the last one declined to “comment on national security matters.”

Seriously, this GPS solutions can be a lifesaver. If you need to make a 911 emergency call, the GPS feature can help emergency personnel locate you. On the lighter side, you can enjoy audible and visual turn-by-turn directions to any address, anywhere on Nextel’s Nationwide Network.

Someone recently drew may attention to this article in the New York Times. It’s a consumer-level survey of mobile broadband devices available in the States; things like the Telecom T3G and Vodafone 3G cards we put in our laptops here.

OS 2006 includes other updates as well, including better memory management, the Jabber/XMPP protocol through Google Talk and SIP support. Nokia hopes to support Skype competitor Gizmo’s VoIP client on the device in the near future as well. Google will also be the default search provider for the device.

Companies like AT&T, Verizon, & Bellsouth are lobbying as strong as they can to remove net neutrality. What is net neutrality you ask, it’s what allows you to visit any site you want and have an equally strong internet signal… you can enjoy google just as easily as your favorite little blog site with the same speed internet.

Launched this month, Skypecasts are live conversations for groups of up to 100, hosted by a moderator. Enabling people with shared interests from around the world to talk to each other, the host/moderator has control of the Skypecast by being able to mute or eject participants if necessary.

ometimes an extremely practical cellphone pops up that blows you away not with its complexity, but with its simplicity. The Motorola PVOT did this. Powered by hand crank, the Motorola PVOT gets a minute of talktime for 25 cranks - charging the internal AA rechargeable batteries.

I wonder what this will do to the other VoIP providers like Vonage, or Packet8?

Verizon Communications warned the financial services industry may not get the secure networks it needs if Congress adopts laws governing high-speed Internet broadband networks, according to a company memo obtained by Reuters on Monday.

Now, the question is whose service you will choose. For me, maybe it is neither. Treo 650 smartphone has absorbed me for a long time, because I have had a palm, Sony CLIE TG50 over two years and have used to the palm operation system. I will not buy a BlackBerry device, although it is very popular in America and somewhere in Europe. Functions of Treo smartphone are more abundant. With some software installed in it, I am also able to receive and send email through GPRS.

Si bien en este sitio nunca se hizo tanto eco al rumor del nuevo Treo 700p, todo indicaba que el WIFI en Palm no lo conocen o no lo usan o para decirlo mas claro no escuchan a los consumidores del producto.

Some of you were kind enough to offer moving suggestions–clever things like using your clothes to pack breakables rather than tediously wrapping newspaper around each champagne glass. Most intriguing, though, was Jul’s suggestion of a Treo 650. I am always on the lookout for some material thing on which I can fixate as the solution to all my problems, and the Treo is perfect–a phone/camera/email/internet/word processor all in one shiny, button-y package. Surely, if I had one of these, I could keep up with my homework, update my blog more often, take a picture of the hateful girl at work who wears the belled peasant skirt (a picture to send to the hit man I will hire via cell phone, of course), and still have time to Google “Metformin ovulate help help.” Alas, I cannot afford such an extravagance until after the move. Currently I am considering taping a phone and a camera to a notebook, in an attempt to craft myself a cheaper facsimile. Wish me luck!

But now we have Juvino, a new Java application which runs on Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones - though more handsets will be supported in due course.

1. The phone calls reported by AT&T, SBC, Southern Bell, etc, are not being listened to. Period. End of story. The technology exists that allows certain 'key words' to be searched for. At that point, the data is mined and the numbers are noted. It's not that these conversations are monitored live.

The first of Motorola’s RAZR phones to support Apple’s iTunes is now shipping in the UK. It is the second phone to support iTunes like the ROKR.

Sorry, but I don’t see why we should be upset about “wet-backs” being upset by a ring-tone. They don’t seem to care that we are upset by their presence here.

Obteniendo luz verde me fui a la segura y escogí al instante un Nokia 6060 que lucía su brillante elegancia desde el mostrador. Era 24 mil pesos más caro que el Motorola, ¡pero qué demonios! Fue amor a primera vista.

From the Customer Directed Share Program page, shares are offered to customers first.

So if Verizon starts offering voice-over-IP (VOIP) service, they could make it so that all Vonage packets moving in their network are slowed so much that they effectively make Vonage service useless. Since all three backbone providers in the U.S. plan to do this (yes, they really do) there isn’t even a competitor to switch to. If your ISP uses AT&T, Verizon, or Bellsouth for it’s backbone connection (or your traffic needs to go through their network) you must subscribe to their VOIP service or you won’t get VOIP at all.

...my mum just bought herself a smart phone. Yup, my mum...who still doesn't know how to log on to a web and what a GPRS is...bought Treo 650.

Skype the leading instant messaging/Free VOIP provider has released version 2.5 for Windows. However, version 2.0 for MAC hasn't been released yet…

Some hacker friends of mine released a new Asterisk-based phone system on May Day. I've just now had a chance to post about it, but it looks fantastic! Highlights include: $145.00 per month for up to 89 extensions and 3 conference bridges -- 2 cents/minute to call most international land lines, free calling anywhere within the global system. Telekommunisten.net is a peak into the future of telecommunications.

I heard a quick review of the Nokia E61 on yesterday’s Buzz Out Loud podcast, and decided to see what all the hooplah is about. On paper, this phone is almost perfect:

Pink phones are all the rage these days, ever since Motorola released a pink RAZR. Such was the popularity of the new pink phone, every other handset manufacturer has since jumped on the bandwagon and come out with its own pimped-up pink version.

ATT Dude: Hi I’m blah blah bah from AT&T which used to be SBC. We’re in charge of the phone lines in your area. Who do you have your phone service through?

Despite the sluggish button response, which could be the Moto RAZR more than anything, I’ll definitely continue to look forward to what Opera’s going to do. I still continue to use this single app more than any others on my phone. What’s next Opera? I’m curious to see further development of the “Browser-to-SMS” feature that they noted in their release. It looks like it requires work on the Content Publisher side to enable special processing for the Opera Mini so that a step in the SMS to purchase flow can be eliminated. Looking forward to it!