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Skype’s HD Video Quality IS Amazing!
Continue Reading: Skype’s HD Video Quality IS Amazing!As much as I may criticize Skype at times, I continue to be impressed by the technology they create and the powerful ways in which Skype enables us to communicate. Yesterday Jim Courtney called me to test out the “upgraded” Internet connection at his home in Toronto and he used the Logitech C920 webcam he recently reviewed while I used my MacBook Pro laptop.I swear I could probably count every hair in Jim’s mustache!
The video quality was truly amazing (and if you click on the image above, you’ll get a slightly bigger version – I was not viewing it in full-screen when I made the capture). Looking at the technical specs for the call, Jim was sending 1280×720 using the H264 codec. I was apparently also sending that level of quality over to Jim (although using the VP80 codec).
The audio quality was also excellent and we had a great call. Obviously, Jim’s upgraded Internet connection worked perfectly fine! 😉
Kudos to Skype for making this amazing quality of video calling available – for free – to all of us!
For those curious, here is the detailed technical info for our call:
P.S.…
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WebRTC + Phono SDK = Browser Phone Calls WITHOUT A Plugin
Continue Reading: WebRTC + Phono SDK = Browser Phone Calls WITHOUT A PluginCalling people using your browser – but without a Flash or Java plugin? That's been the mission of the WebRTC initiative for some time now with efforts underway in both the IETF and the W3C to standardize the work so that it can be broadly implemented.
I was very pleased to see the team at Voxeo Labs announce that the Phono SDK can now support WebRTC with the developer build of the Google Chrome browser. They outlined their work in a blog post and produced a video demonstrating the technology and also received a very nice writeup on TheNextWeb:
This is very cool as it has the potential once WebRTC is baked into more browsers to provide us with a very solid browser-based platform for building and deploying real-time communication apps. Kudos to the Voxeo Labs team for what they've done so far!
P.S. Some interesting comments about this topic over on Hacker News…
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Congrats to Skype On Hitting 35 Million Online Users!
Continue Reading: Congrats to Skype On Hitting 35 Million Online Users!Congrats to the folks at Skype as they cross over the milestone of having 35 million users online at the same time, just a week after crossing over the 34 million mark! That’s certain a great accomplishment and the recent growth is quite interesting.
It’s not entirely clear to me the source of the growth, but perhaps it is most attributable to the Windows Phone beta version of Skype they released last week. Any Skype users with Windows Phones (and given that they are part of Microsoft now there are probably a good number just within Microsoft) are now going to have a way to stay online more. Perhaps it’s also the new Skype-enabled TVs. Regardless, it’s great to learn of the growth.
Of course, on the Mac 5.5 version of Skype I can’t see the growth myself as there still seems to be no way to see the number of online users in the Mac client.
As I wrote about way back in November 2010, the Skype 2.8 client used to show the number of online users in the lower right corner of the client:
Now that number is nowhere to be seen. As I noted…
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Martin Geddes Must-Read Piece On “Peak Telecoms”
Continue Reading: Martin Geddes Must-Read Piece On “Peak Telecoms”Martin Geddes doesn’t hold back! No longer beholden to corporate overlords (he used to work for BT), he is wonderfully free to say exactly what he believes. And he does….If you are interested in the future of telecommunications / telephony, you really need to go over and read his piece:
Peak Telecoms
A teaser:
The telco voice and messaging business is on the verge of going into meltdown. As this is where the margins come from, the problem is hard to exaggerate. The drip-drip of links about declining voice and messaging volume and revenue is becoming a small stream. Even mobile telephony is losing ground in competition to asynchronous messaging. Twitter and Facebook message volumes are exploding, and SMS is beginning to sink. Termination and roaming are endangered species, hunted by packs of voracious regulators. There is no way back. When I started writing Telepocalypse back in 2003, the only thing I got wrong was the timing.
Cue the song “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It“…
Well done, Martin, well done!
Image credit: gmacorig on Flickr
If you found this post interesting or useful,…
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Are They Crazy? Digium Enters The Phone Game With Asterisk IP Phones
Continue Reading: Are They Crazy? Digium Enters The Phone Game With Asterisk IP PhonesWhen I first saw the news today, my immediate reaction was:Seriously? Digium is coming out with phones???
In a rather fascinating move in an already extremely crowded market, Digium announced today that they will be producing “Digium Phones“, a new line of IP phones specifically targeted at users of Asterisk and Switchvox (both Digium products). They tout among the benefits:- Crystal clear HD Voice
- Simple setup and installation
- Tightest integration with Asterisk
- Built-in & custom applications
- A built-in “app engine” JavaScript API
There will be three models available:
- D40—An entry-level HD IP phone with 2-line keys. Priced at $149.
- D50—A mid-level HD IP phone with 4-line keys and 10 quick dial/BLF keys with paper labels. Priced at $179.
- D70—An executive-level HD IP phone with 6-line keys and 10 quick dial/BLF keys on an additional LCD screen. Priced at $279
The news release indicates they will be available in April and are currently on display at ITEXPO this week down in Miami. A datasheet is available
Application Platform
What is perhaps most interesting to me is the “app engine” included in the phone. From the news release:
Digium phones include an app engine with a simple yet powerful JavaScript API…
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Video: The Day The LOLcats Died … Speak Up Before the Internet Dies…
Continue Reading: Video: The Day The LOLcats Died … Speak Up Before the Internet Dies…Truly awesome… via Techcrunch…Kudos to the LaughPong team for doing this!
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Out at CES In Las Vegas This Week On The Hunt For IPv6-Enabled Consumer Devices…
Continue Reading: Out at CES In Las Vegas This Week On The Hunt For IPv6-Enabled Consumer Devices…As I noted over on the Deploy360 blog today, I’ll be down at the massive International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week. I’m traveling on Wednesday, at the show Thursday through Saturday and then returning home Saturday evening.I’m there with my team from the Internet Society and one of our primary purposes will be to get a sense of the state of IPv6 support – or NOT – among consumer electronics providers. As large carriers look at how they can roll out IPv6 within their networks, having home equipment that supports IPv6 will become more important in the years ahead.
At the show, we will be meeting with some vendors who want to understand more about how to move their products to IPv6 and also talking with media about the launch of our new Deploy360 site to help accelerate the deployment of IPv6 and DNSSEC. We’ll also be part of a presentation on Saturday with a representative from Comcast explaining IPv6 issues to a IEEE conference for consumer electronics vendors.
And, of course, we’ll be walking all over the show floor seeking out vendors who have IPv6 support. We’ll see what we find!
On a personal…
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And Thus Was Born… the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme!
Continue Reading: And Thus Was Born… the Internet Society Deploy360 Programme!How can we accelerate the usage and deployment of IPv6 and DNSSEC? What are the barriers to getting those technologies more widely deployed? How can we “take away the pain” of getting started with IPv6 and DNSSEC?When I joined the staff of the Internet Society back in late September, the project I joined was charged with looking at questions like that and developing a means to promote online resources that would help speed up the usage of IPv6 and DNSSEC.
Yesterday, after a long 3 months of hard work, we formally announced what we are now calling the “Internet Society Deploy360 Programme” located at:
http://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/
On that site, you will find real-world deployment information about how to get started with both technologies. Case studies, how-to documents, links to other sites, and much, much more…
THIS LAUNCH IS JUST THE BEGINNING!
The site is certainly incomplete… we wanted to get the site out there and now my task over the months ahead is to fill the site up with answers to questions and pointers to new information.
We’re not looking to add ALL the information found on the web about IPv6 and DNSSEC, but rather the best information we can…
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Is Skype Now “Boring”?
Continue Reading: Is Skype Now “Boring”?Is Skype now “boring” in 2011? That’s the question Phil Wolff raises over at the Skype Journal in his post “Skype is boring“.
Phil points out, quite correctly, that Skype is no longer the scrappy little startup intent on disrupting the entire global telecommunications industry.
They’ve done that.
Telecom has been disrupted.
As I wrote about back in August 2011, Skype has accomplished a great amount in its eight years of existence… completely destroying the expensive costs of international telephony, bringing video telephony to the masses, introducing people to wideband audio, demonstrating that you can have secure VoIP… and so much more…
But as we enter 2012, Phil offers a number of reasons why Skype is now “boring”. His main points are:
- Skype is a top dog, not an underdog.
- Skype is one-sixtieth of the Microsoft behemoth
- Skype is less unique
- Skype didn’t look innovative in 2011. Or 2010. Or 2009. Or 2008.
- Skype staff don’t talk to the public.
- Skype abandoned its revolutionary People’s Product identity,
(read Phil’s post for his full description)
And he notes the current status of Skype:
Skype should end 2011 with about a thousand employees, about a billion dollars in sales, a portfolio…
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Looking for last-minute tax donations? Why not support the open Internet?
Continue Reading: Looking for last-minute tax donations? Why not support the open Internet?As 2011 draws to a close, are you looking at what donations to make to charitable organizations for tax purposes?Here in the USA, this is something that many of us think about in these final days. It’s a last chance we have to make tax-deductible donations that can then be used to potentially lower the taxes you pay to the US government when we go through all that fun over the next few months.
Now, there are admittedly a zillion great causes and organizations out there to whom you can give donations. Local organizations, global organizations, relief organizations, churches and religious groups, arts organizations, environmental groups, sports groups, school groups, cancer and other research organizations… so, so many…
In the midst of all that, I’d also encourage you to think about possibly making donations to organizations helping in the fight to maintain an “open Internet”.
2012 promises to be a challenging year for the Internet… not just with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and it’s PROTECT-IP cousin here in the US… but with similar legislation cropping up all around the world. With various governments seeking to put restrictions on the Internet in their country. With upcoming global telecommunications…
Disruptive Telephony
Dan York on how Voice over IP is rewriting (almost) everything you thought you understood about telephony…