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Calling all Ruby telephony developers -> AdhearsionConf 2010 starts this weekend in SF!
Continue Reading: Calling all Ruby telephony developers -> AdhearsionConf 2010 starts this weekend in SF!Just one day left until AdhearsionConf 2010 opens in San Francisco tomorrow. The schedule looks outstanding and I know that the Voxeo Labs team is already on site getting everything ready. I’ve seen via Twitter that some hardcore Ruby telephony developers are already enroute…. should be a great time!
Sadly, my schedule doesn’t allow me to be there, but the good news is that if you are unable to get there in person, you can follow along on the UStream channel:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/adhearsionconf
If you are in the SF area, or can get there, check out more info about the conference at:
http://adhearsionconf.eventbrite.com/
Great to see an event like this happening!
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Voxeo Continues Acquisitions with Cloud Communications Startup Teleku
Continue Reading: Voxeo Continues Acquisitions with Cloud Communications Startup TelekuToday we announced over on the Voxeo blogs and in a news release that Voxeo has acquired Teleku, a startup letting developers quickly create voice, SMS and IM applications using a RESTful API from common web programming languages. Om Malik had a piece up at GigaOm: Voxeo Gobbles Up Teleku. We have a page up linking to articles like that one, a FAQ and providing other info:
blogs.voxeo.com/news/teleku/
I had a chance to sit down with Teleku founder Chris Matthieu and record this video about the news:
I’m admittedly biased, but I’m looking forward to what both Teleku and Chris will bring to Voxeo. It’s a fun time right now!
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Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPO
Continue Reading: Skype, less than a year after eBay sale, files for $100 million IPOBack almost a year ago, I wrote about the sale of Skype to private investors – Onward the disruption – Skype’s sale to private investors is a great step – and wondered how this “new chapter” would work out for Skype. Judging by the news today, it seems to be working out quite well!
Through a SEC filing, blog post and news release today, Skype announced that it is filing for an Initial Public Offering that could raise as much as $100 million USD. Skype’s blog post naturally had none of those numbers but others have dived into the details of Skype’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Some of the articles out already:
- The Next Web US: Skype Going Public With $100 Million IPO
- GigaOm: Skype Files for a $100 Million IPO
- Read Write Web: Skype Files for Initial Public Offering
- TechCrunch: Skype Files For $100 Million IPO With Miniscule Profits
- Business Insider: Skype Files For $100 Million IPO
Longtime readers know that I’m a huge user of Skype and have written here quite a bit about Skype. I’ve certainly had my issues with their direction, but I continue to be one of their paying customers and use…
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Video: The story behind Voxeo’s 16,000 port demo system at SpeechTEK
Continue Reading: Video: The story behind Voxeo’s 16,000 port demo system at SpeechTEKThis week I’ve been down at the SpeechTEK conference in New York and in the Voxeo booth we had a system that was running 16,000 simultaneous phone calls using our new software release, Prophecy 10. While there, I recorded a video interview with Voxeo CEO Jonathan Taylor where he explained what we did and why we did it. I thought I’d post it here, because while I’m obviously biased, I think it’s a fun example of making a demo system for a trade show/conference. Enjoy!
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Cutting the landline cord – and losing family identity….
Continue Reading: Cutting the landline cord – and losing family identity….We are in the midst of a truly fascinating cultural shift right now:We are losing the “family identity” that has been the main characteristic of telephony for the past 100 years.
Think about it… the other day we were at an evening event and met a great couple with whom we would like to stay in touch. We exchanged contact info and they, like so many people these days, have “cut the cord” and do not have a traditional landline but instead have individual mobile phones. The result is this:
I can’t call the “Smiths” and speak to someone.
Instead I can call “John Smith” or “Jane Smith”.
If I have a message I want to get to the family I have no simple way to do that. I can no longer call “the family phone” and leave a message on their answering machine inviting them over to dinner.
Instead I need to call one of the individual phones – and perhaps both to be sure the message gets through, given that cell phones can be lost or need recharging or that sometimes voicemail messages simply don’t get through.
And if a young child wants to call a young…
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Video parody: What happens when you install iOS 4.0 on a iPhone 3G
Continue Reading: Video parody: What happens when you install iOS 4.0 on a iPhone 3GAs readers know, I recently wrote about how upgrading my iPhone 3G to iOS 4.0 was one of the dumbest things I’ve done and also recently linked to Lifehacker’s post about downgrading your iPhone 3G. So naturally you can expect that I’d be amused by this recent parody of Apple’s commercial:Sadly, it’s far too true… (although I haven’t yet personally experienced the issue with not being able to accept a call)
Kudos to “adamburtle” for putting the video together.
P.S. I learned of this video through the ZDNet article, Apple should advise against upgrading iPhone 3G to iOS4… and yes, Apple should make it clear that you will severely degrade the performance of your iPhone 3G by “upgrading” it.
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LifeHacker: How to Downgrade Your iPhone 3G From iOS 4.0 to iOS 3.1.3
Continue Reading: LifeHacker: How to Downgrade Your iPhone 3G From iOS 4.0 to iOS 3.1.3As I wrote before, I made a serious mistake in upgrading my iPhone 3G to the new iOS 4.0. Now, courtesy of LifeHacker, we who made that mistake now have a path backwards:How to Downgrade Your iPhone 3G[S] from iOS 4 to iOS 3.1.3
The process looks a little bit involved, but not terribly difficult.
I haven’t decided whether I’ll go through the process myself, but I think I’ll at least download the relevant files so that I can go through the process if I want to.
Thanks, LifeHacker, for giving us a path back to a better performing iPhone!
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Joining the Voxeo presence at SpeechTEK in NYC, August 2-4
Continue Reading: Joining the Voxeo presence at SpeechTEK in NYC, August 2-4Will you be at the SpeechTEK conference in New York August 2-4? If so, I’ll be down there as part of the Voxeo team staffing our booth and speaking on Monday about unified communications security (related to my book). Details can be found on the Voxeo Event page for SpeechTEK 2010, including a discount code.SpeechTEK was honestly a show I’d not attended prior to joining Voxeo some 2.5 years ago. It’s a smaller show, focused on the speech and voice/IVR industry, which is obviously where Voxeo started and continues to have an incredibly strong presence. Excellent community of people and a great agenda of sessions, case studies, technology deep-dives and much more.
SpeechTEK is also the show we use at Voxeo as an annual organizing event to make major announcements… and so naturally we have a number of great announcements in the works. 😉
Will be fun… and I’m looking forward to seeing folks down there.
P.S. If you are in the media or a blogger and want to get advance briefing on our announcements, please email me. Thanks.
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Want to learn about OpenID? Try the “OpenID Explained” site…
Continue Reading: Want to learn about OpenID? Try the “OpenID Explained” site…Would you like to learn more about OpenID and how it can help with your online identity? Last night in the midst of a intense discussion about OpenID in a Skype chat room, I discovered this site- OpenID Explained:
It’s a well-done site that clearly and simply lays out the problem OpenID is trying to solve, discusses how you can get an OpenID (and has a great discussion about what to look for in an OpenID provider and things to think about in choosing one), and shows you typically go through the OpenID login process.
It’s not a new site.. it seems to have been around for a while… it’s just one I hadn’t come across in my various writing about OpenID and identity issues (scroll down a bit to get to the OpenID posts).
I particularly liked this graphic, as it so nicely captures the intent of using OpenID to reduce the number of user account info you have to remember (click on the image to go to the page with the full-size version):
The site does need a couple of very minor updates… for instance, the link on the text “over 27,000 OpenID-enabled sites” takes you…
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Skype vs. Fring: Is Fring not telling the whole truth?
Continue Reading: Skype vs. Fring: Is Fring not telling the whole truth?Today mobile startup Fring is in the news for their claim that Skype is blocking access for video calls to and from Skype users. Fring issued a news release and wrote a rather inflammatory blog post which has garnered them coverage on TechCrunch and many other sites. With typical David vs. Goliath fervor, much of the reporting so far seems to have favored the small startup Fring fighting for connectivity with big company Skype.It seems the situation isn’t so clear. Skype’s legal chiefVP of Legal, Robert Miller, fired back with his own blog post which included these lines (to which I added emphasis):
An hour or so ago, Fring reported on their blog that we had blocked their access to Skype. I want to make one thing absolutely clear: this is untrue.
Disruptive Telephony
Dan York on how Voice over IP is rewriting (almost) everything you thought you understood about telephony…