VoIP & Gadgets Blog

A day after Movable Type announced that Movable Type 4.0 would be GPL open source, Movable Type has stopped their retreat from Wordpress and the battle lines have been redrawn. "Are you ready for a war!!!!"

Wordpress fans have been quick to attack Six Apart"s latest move. Technosailor has a funny post titled Five Things Movable Type Learned from Bilbo Baggins, where he compares Movable Type with characters from the Tolkien Trilogy.

Mark Evans gives a nice synopsis of the history of Movable Type and ponders how MT lost its first-mover/early-mover advantage. Mark says, "In the tech world, all you need is one small, but crucial, mistake to find yourself going from the penthouse to the outhouse. In MT’s case, it was the decision to introduce a paid-version in 2004 that caused a revolt among its large and loyal user-based."

Movable Type/Six Apart did indeed lose its first-mover edge with their change in their licensing model, but is that enough to crown Wordpress the permanent "king blogging platform" in MIddle-Earth? I don"t think so. Publishing 2.0 put it best when it said, "One X factor in this competition is large media companies and other enterprise users, many of whom adopted MT when it was on top and then never switched over to WordPress, i.e. they weren’t anywhere near as nimble (or outraged by licensing fees) as independent bloggers."

That"s exactly what happened with TMCNet"s blogs. Awhile back I considered switching from Movable Type to Wordpress, but TMCNet has over a dozen blogs and Wordpress is not equipped to handle it. Wordpress is better suited for individual blogs not for managing several blogs. Movable Type on the other hand does a pretty decent job managing dozens of blogs in the enterprise.

Publishing 2.0 has an excellent point when the post says, "As for bloggers and other independent publishers, I can say for myself that I have a strong loyalty to WordPress and to the development community that has served me so well. Part of that loyalty is not tied to specific features or benefits, but a more fuzzy brand loyalty."

I would add to that by saying there is just as strong of a loyal following of Movable Type users as there are Wordpress users. In fact, many current Wordpress users are former Movable Type users, so they did switch "loyalties" because Wordpress offered a GPL open sourced model and Movable Type didn"t. Now that this competitive advantage that Wordpress had is gone, the two CMS blogging platforms will compete on features alone. This is great news for bloggers, since competition will drive innovation and more features much more quickly.

Wordpress definitely has more brand "mind share" these days if not a stronger "market share" than Movable Type. However, I honestly don"t see either blogging platform dominating the blogosphere. In fact, since Six Apart is leveraging the open source community and they have paid developers, I wouldn"t be surprised to see Movable Type leapfrog Wordpress in features, functionality, and market share. Only time will tell...

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Tags: blog software, Braveheart, CMS, Movable Type 4.0, MT 4.0, open source, Wordpress
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Bandwidth.com, today announced that CDW, one of my favorite places to order PCs, printers, office supplies, laptops, and much more, is now offering Bandwidth.com"s Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Trunking VoIP solution as a part of its suite of telecommunications products and services.  I should point out that CDW is one of the largest online retailers for purchasing computer technology, so for them to provide SIP trunking is big BIG NEWS!

“Innovation and opportunity to reduce costs are driving VoIP adoption among small and medium-sized businesses,” said Ian Kieninger, general manager of carrier sales at CDW. “We chose to offer Bandwidth.com’s SIP Trunking solution for VoIP because it provides our customers with a powerful way to centralize telecommunications management and reduce costs while adding features and flexibility.”

“CDW is an extremely valuable part of our channel program and it is a huge step forward in our relationship for them to offer our SIP Trunking product along with our other telecom solutions as a part of their comprehensive portfolio of services,” said Henry Kaestner, CEO of Bandwidth.com. “We are uniquely positioned to help any business maximize their existing IP PBX and experience the cost savings and enhanced features offered by a business-class VoIP solution. Over the past year we have seen a tremendous shift of business owners recognizing the benefits of a VoIP solution and seeking a reliable provider. As we continue to respond to this shift by providing superior voice, data and network solutions, CDW remains a vital partner in expanding our reach to customers across the US.”

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Tags: Bandwidth.com, CDW, IP PBX, SIP, SIP trunking, VoIP
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Movable Type just announced Movable Type 4.0 beta. The big news about this announcement is that Movable Type 4.0 will be open-source. TMC"s blogs run on the Movable Type platform, so I am very excited over this news. First, a brief history lesson... A few years ago, Movable Type became the fastest growing and most popular blogging platform, but MT was quickly supplanted by Wordpress, an open source blogging platform, soon after SixApart decided to enforce a licensing scheme. This enraged many MT bloggers, many of whom switched to the open source and 100% free Wordpress CMS / blogging platform. Now we turn to the present... Today, SixApart is a very successful company with several revenue-generating products, including TypePad, Vox and LiveJournal, so SixApart has decided it can offer Movable Type as open source and 100% free to non-commercial entities. This is a major change for a company-for-profit to switch to open source and could have ramifications for the entire software industry.

So what"s new in Movable Type 4.0? Well, it features a completely reinvented user interface with a Dashboard overview of how all of your blogs are doing. It has support for publishing standalone pages and managing file assets and images right within MT. It also has brand-new community features like OpenID, and a built-in user registration system. MT 4.0 has a completely redesigned component architecture that they claim makes MT faster and more scalable than before. I sure hope so since MT 3.33"s search is unbearably slow when using the InnoDB MySQL engine. I should mention that SixApart"s goal is to make MT 4.0 a social media platform.

Here"s the Dashboard:

MT4 includes more than 50 new features  including an installation and upgrade wizard, easier and more powerful template management tools that speed site development, all new default templates and themes to help users create great looking blogs in minutes, and a completely redesigned user interface focused on streamlining common tasks. For the first time, it will feature-built in advanced WYSIWYG composition and editing. Now I won"t have to install a third-party plugin for WYSIWYG blogging in Movable Type. Sweet!

Here"s the MT4 editor in action.



Here"s a rundown of some of the other new features: 

• MT4 is a social media platform that allows users to turn their audiences into communities. Readers can become members of a website through Movable Type’s community management features, with rights to post alongside authors and to add and share rich text and media posts with photos, videos, and audio. MT4 also expands community with a new ratings framework to enable a variety of recommendation features. Look for more information later in the beta period about an optional functionality pack with even more community features, as well as further details about Movable Type’s vastly improved capabilities for fighting blog spam.

• MT4 saves users time by allowing management of many blogs and many users in a central interface. Users can install, manage and publish thousands of blogs with one installation. The Movable Type aggregator pulls multiple blogs into a single blog, while customizable roles and groups enable more effective user management. Look for more information later in the beta period about an optional functionality pack with enterprise capabilities for Movable Type.

• MT4 can power an entire web site – not just a blog. MT4 provides the power and flexibility to build web sites that are easy to manage and easy to update at a fraction of the cost of traditional content management systems. New content and asset management tools make uploading and revising photos, documents, and videos incredibly easy. Users can create standalone web pages that automatically inherit the design of the blog, to ensure the entire site has a consistent look and feel. Easy-to-use template management tools put the focus where it belongs: on content, not on code.

• MT4 scales to meet the needs of growing organizations with the most advanced technology, power and performance. Six Apart runs some of the largest sites on the Internet, and has brought the technology that powers these world class sites into Movable Type. MT4 leverages open technologies developed at Six Apart that help scale and build community in Vox, LiveJournal and TypePad, as well as Web 2.0 sites from AOL, Microsoft, Digg, Wikipedia, Craigslist and Facebook. These technologies include database caching through Memcached and authenticating of users with OpenID. Movable Type can be run in multi-server environments, with broad support for operating systems (Linux, Windows, and Solaris) and databases (MySQL, PosgreSQL, Oracle, and Microsoft SQL Server).

• MT4"s new component-based architecture lets users choose product extensions that enable advanced functionality. MT4 introduces a new architecture for the Movable Type platform that unifies its commercial and enterprise product lines while enabling advanced capabilities with optional functionality packs. Making use of Movable Type’s open plug-in API, Six Apart has architected the platform to accommodate full-featured packs that support enterprise integration, community management and other complete solutions.

You know you want to download Movable Type 4.0 beta to try it out. I know I do. Click here to download it. If you notice any outages in TMC"s blogs, it"s probably me fooling around with the new version.

Related:
Anil Dash"s blog entry on Movable Type 4.0
Check out Read/WriteWeb"s detailed article.

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Tags: blog software, CMS, Movable Type 4.0, MT 4.0, open source, Wordpress
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Packet8 launched some new features today, including Virtual Office Outlook Integration. Virtual Office Outlook Integration lets you call your Microsoft Outlook contacts. The way it works is that when placing a call through Microsoft Outlook, Outlook contacts the Virtual Office server and triggers it to ring the Virtual Office phone on the user"s desk.In addition, incoming calls are displayed with screen pops based on your Outlook Contacts and it culls the contact info from any mailbox and any field (Business/Home/Mobile). Outlook Integration also places a button on your Outlook program so you can place calls directly from your address book.

All Virtual Office customers can download Virtual Office"s Outlook Integration software at no extra charge. This program currently works only with Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Outlook 2003, and .NET Framework 2.0.

Packet8 also announced the availability of Overhead Paging and Toll Free Fax Numbers. Overhead Paging Extension enables simultaneous single or multi-zone voice paging to multiple locations within a single facility, branch office and/or remote locations utilizing a company"s existing Ethernet network. Users pay a one time equipment ($49.99) and activation ($9.99) fee with no recurring monthly service charges. The Overhead Paging adapter is compatible with any type of telephone port and integrates seamlessly with a company"s existing Overhead Zone Paging system to provide service over the Packet8 network.

I should point out that the new Packet8 toolbar isn"t a new idea. Skype has an Outlook toolbar, but a closer comparison would be with Vonage, who also has an Outlook toolbar called Click-2-Call. The funny thing is that I forgot Vonage had an Outlook toolbar. I was standing by Rich Tehrani"s desk talking about the Packet8 Outlook toolbar when he asked if I knew if Vonage has a toolbar. I said I didn"t think so, but as a recovering Vonage customer, I wasn"t absolutely sure.

So we googled it and found that Vonage"s Click-2-Call has this capability. Rich joked "It"s amazing that they have this feature and they haven"t marketed it." Perhaps they do market the Outlook software in the Vonage web-based Dashboard, but since I no longer have Vonage, I can"t say one way or the other. They certainly don"t promote this feature during the Vonage "woo hoo" commercials. Guess they"re too busy showing people doing stupid stuff. All you Vonage users out there - the comment lines are open - does the Vonage Dashboard promote the Click-2-Call software with Outlook integration?

Interestingly, I came across a Novermber post where I briefly mentioned Click-2-Call. Apparently, the software wasn"t that memorable. In fact, then it hit me that I did briefly check out Click-2-Call a long time ago when I was a Vonage customer and was disappointed that it was designed for outbound calling only. It doesn"t integrate with Outlook Contacts to show the contact info for an inbound call. So Packet8 does have one-up on Vonage with their Outlook integration.

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Tags: Microsoft, Outlook toolbar, Packet8, Skype, VoIP, Vonage
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The ink isn"t even dry on my Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 post (22 min ago) and I just read an email from a CommuniGate rep with the Subject line "Communigate and Adobe take the pants off Outlook Exchange".  Hmmm interesting. The email explains that CommuniGate Systems is launching their unified communications platform based on Adobe Flash technology, called Pronto! on Tuesday. Hmmm, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 is in the unified communication space and so is Pronto! -- both making major unified communications announcements today. Greg Galitzine, fellow TMCer just posted an article on CommuniGate that is worth a look.

CommuniGate"s email explains, "They really pushed the limits of Adobe Flash to take the email beyond what’s in your normal email exchange programs. Pronto ties in your traditional email and calendaring features plus voice, video, audio and more – a definite upgrade from MS Exchange and Outlook."

They chose Flash for a number of reasons:
1. Its very secure over other standards like Java or AJAX
2. The multimedia aspects are all in one—no need for the program to call up third-party programs (ie. iTunes, Windows Media Player)
3. The portability of it—you can use it over any OS and any browser with the same look no matter what combo, also portable to mobile devices via Flash Lite

CommuniGate explained that this can be scaled and customized to the SMB and enterprise and on the flip side -- any ISP or broadband provider. They added, "There are a lot of things either available now or coming down the road including voice services (voicemail, VoIP), IPTV, flash based games and more." Gee, sounds almost identical to a lot of the functionality in Live Meeting 2007.

CommuniGate added, "With Flash Lite it can be ported to your mobile phone, integrated into a set top box and deployed over your local cable service in addition to your PC or Mac computer."

"Pronto! illustrates how Flex 2 and Flash are reshaping the user’s experience on the web,” said Jeff Whatcott, vice president of product marketing, Enterprise and Developer Business Unit at Adobe. “Using Adobe’s latest rich Internet application technology, CommuniGate Systems has been able to take business and personal communications to a whole new level – delivering design-friendly, rich functionality with the flexibility of a Web 2.0 application.”

“The e-mail and collaboration software markets are merging and converging to enhance support for communication, sharing, and teaming behaviors,” said Tom Eid, Vice President, Gartner Technology & Service Provider Research. “The integrated collaboration market is emerging in response to the demand for a coherent and integrated set of technologies, processes and services that support a broad range of collaborative activities.”

The launch of Pronto! provides a Rich Media interface for the CommuniGate Pro Internet Communications platform, a scalable performance-driven platform that combines VoIP, data communications, and collaboration services. As the industry’s most scalable IP communications platform, CommuniGate Pro continues to set record benchmarks for performance and scalability. Pronto! interfaces with CommuniGate Pro via the XIMSS API (XML Interface for Messaging, Scheduling, and Signaling). This revolutionary API enables ISPs and Enterprises to rapidly develop and design UIs, build portals, interface with cable modems, and link to external applications and services — all without any complex coding or protocol requirements.

Pronto! features include:
• Fully featured E-mail Application
• Calendaring
• Contacts management
• Secure Instant Messaging
• Presence
• VoiceMail Management and Calling Preferences
• RSS Feeds and management
• MyPhotos
• MyVideos
• MyMusic
• Portability to any Flash 9 Player on Windows, OSX, Linux
• Highly secure binary that runs in memory space not browser cache

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Tags: CommuniGate, Microsoft, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, Pronto!
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Today, Microsoft announced a "private preview" of Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, which Microsoft deems a "complete event management solution" and they also announced the core feature-set for Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007. This month, a "private preview" of Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 will be available to current customers (Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005).

Microsoft is offering both a hosted model for Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 as well as a CPE (customer premise equipment) solution, namely Office Communications Server 2007. In addition to Microsoft directly hosting Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, hosting partners will also offer Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 as a fee-based service. Whether attendees use the Live Meeting service or the Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) to power their web conference, they will use the same client to deliver a seamless meeting experience. Microsoft espoused the benefits of this release when they stated, "Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 is a major release in development since 2005 with enhancements spanning every aspect of the service. Some of the most notable major investments include: a fully integrated media experience, deeper support for Training & Events, and a more streamlined user interface."

The new Live Meeting client integrates multiple communication channels for a unified experience. These channels include VoIP and PSTN audio, live and recorded video, screen and document sharing, chat, and audience feedback tools. As I have reported before, Microsoft has developed their own adaptive audio and video codec (RTAudio, RTVideo) for the VoIP and video to handle packet loss without losing quality. For whatever reason, Microsoft developing their own adaptive codec hasn"t received nearly the media attention it should. I tried to point this out in my previous post on Office Communications Server 2007. I found it interesting that while Skype, GoogleTalk, and several other VoIP clients use GIPS, Microsoft evaluated GIPS and decided to develop their own.

In any event, check out this chart comparing Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 vs. Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007:
 

Feature	Live Meeting 2007	Live Meeting 2005
Integrated Media
Rich media presentations (incl. Windows Media and Flash)	NEW
Live webcam video XE "Live webcam video"	NEW
Integrated Microsoft® Office PowerPoint viewer XE "Integrated Microsoft® Office PowerPoint viewer"	√	√
Drag and drop upload XE "Drag and drop upload"  to view a wide range of document file types	√	√
Panoramic video XE "Panoramic video"  with Microsoft RoundTable XE "RoundTable"	NEW
Multi-party two-way VoIP audio XE "Multi-party two-way VoIP audio"	NEW
PSTN and VoIP audio integration XE "PSTN and VoIP audio integration"	NEW
Audio conference call controls XE "Audio conference call controls"	√	√
Active speaker indicator XE "Active speaker indicator"	NEW
Training & Events
Polling XE "Polling"	√	√
Shared recordings XE "Shared recordings"	√	√
Microsoft event services XE "Microsoft event services"	√	√
Event and class registration XE "Event and class registration"	IMPROVED	√
APIs for integration with e-Learning systems XE "APIs for integration with e-Learning systems"	IMPROVED	√
Public events page XE "Public events page"	NEW
Advanced testing and grading XE "Advanced testing and grading"	NEW
High fidelity recordings XE "High fidelity recordings"	NEW
Personal recordings XE "Personal recordings"	NEW
Virtual Breakout Rooms XE "Virtual Breakout Rooms"	NEW
Handout XE "Handout"  distribution (File Transfer)	NEW

As for scalability you can have up to 1,250 participants for connecting to Microsoft"s hosted Live Meeting 2007 service. For the enterprise the maximum meeting size is 250 per server for the enterprise-based solution (Office Communications Server 2007). It"s worth mentioning that SIP is the base protocol for OCS 2007 and SIMPLE is used for the instant messaging.

One key feature in Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 is the ability to have rich media presentations -- letting you share Windows Media video files and Flash content. In some tests I was able to share an 8MB .wmv video file. It took awhile (2 min) for the content to download to the other participant test PC I setup. During my brief tests I determined that the content isn"t sent to the participants until the moderator actually "views" this content. It would be nice if the participants download all the shared content in the background so it is available quickly on demand.

Update: Microsoft emailed me the following explanation on cached & background content. I will have to test the software further to confirm:

You (Tom) might have experienced the situation where the clip was being cached in your own presenter client. This is necessary because we have to setup your own local instance of the media player with the media clip – there is no immediate link between the upload action and caching of the file in presenter’s media player. This is to cover the cases where there are multiple presenters (who might choose to preload the clips before the meeting) when we have to ensure that the active presenter has the right piece of content cached in his client.

After uploading the clip to the meeting room the presenter should activate (“view”) the multimedia clip to initiate the download to all attendees. The download happens in the background, so the presenter can go back to the main Powerpoint deck (“view it”) while waiting for the clip to be downloaded. At the appropriate moment the presenter reselects the clip, presses play and everybody immediately sees the video.

Related to the rich media content, you can record this rich media for future playback. In fact, the recording functionality is probably the "secret sauce", which gives Microsoft a "key" advantage over their competitors. It records the entire multimedia interaction of the meeting, including the PowerPoint presentation, the instant messages, the videoconferencing, and any video files (Flash, .wmv files) that you share during the meeting.

I asked Microsoft whether the solution was unicast or multicast and they said it was unicast, however the server acts as an MCU to aggregate all the video streams, mux the video & audio, and send it out to each of the participants as a unicast stream. The server takes into account the bandwidth of each participant and compresses the data accordingly. If a participant has more bandwidth, it will reduce the compression and have higher fidelity audio quality.

In Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, they improved the registration functionality, including automatically notifying users of any scheduling changes. The previous version Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 also had online web registration, however Windows Live 2007 improved upon this with the addition of a public events page and improvements in the email notifications. Also, the survey feature is a major new feature in Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007. You can query the participants and have the results automatically emailed. Internal reports are available on the survey questions but can also be exported into CSV for use in Microsoft Excel or other reporting packages.

In addition, LM 2007 features Virtual Breakout Rooms and Handout Distribution to increased flexibility and more organized training sessions. Another new feature is virus scanning using Microsoft Forefront technologies to automatically protect meeting documents before they are distributed to meeting attendees.

Live Meeting Web Access (MWA) was redesigned in this release to provide a user experience that is nearly identical to the new Windows-based Live Meeting client. One huge benefit is that Live Meeting Web Access is a Java applet and therefore is available on non-Windows operating systems such as Linux, Macs, etc.

Here"s a sample screenshot of Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 in action:


Although Office Live Meeting 2005 has recording, the new version (Office Live Meeting 2007) adds the ability for "local recordings". The moderator can choose whether to allow participants to select the recording function from their Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 client and have the meeting (audio, video, collaboration screen data) saved locally on their PC. The recordings include everything, including slide transitions, application sharing, images, and audio. Interestingly, even with compression of the of Office PowerPoint slides and other meeting content, the original fidelity/resolution is kept while keeping the size of the recording to a minimum. The frame of the recording is simple HTML and XML-based information. All of the video images are recorded in WMV format. If you use rich-media clips, such as Flash, it preserves the original format.

Importantly, you can also search the content in the presentations. I asked Microsoft, "So can you search the audio to perform word spotting?" and Microsoft responded, "Not yet. We have not yet enabled search in the audio track of a recording, but, who knows? Maybe the next release. Our group is working on a speech server, so who knows what will be coming next?" I could hear the "wink wink. hint hint" in his voice, so if it is in the next release, I guess you heard it here first. He added, "I personally can see it as useful feature. I think at some point we will consider doing that."

Microsoft also pointed out the Microsoft Roundtable product which is a 360 degree video camera optimized to work with Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007. One nice feature is that the Microsoft Office Live Meeting client will automatically switch the larger video window to the actively speaking participant. This auto-switch feature isn"t specific to the Microsoft Roundtable product - it will work with any USB-based camera. The main advantage of Roundtable is its 360 degree camera view, which is great for conference rooms with several participants. With specially designed microphones, Roundtable is able to determine the location of the active speaker and then tell Microsoft Office Live Meeting which camera angle to focus on.

With comprehensive VoIP, video, and collaboration capabilities, Microsoft Office Live Meeting could dramatically shake up the online collaboration space which includes WebEx, Interwise, Raindance, and several other players. Although I did play with the software yesterday (Monday), I"d like to test it some more and do a full-fledged review. But hopefully this is a good overview. At first glance, I will say I"m pretty impressed with Office Live Meeting 2007.

Finally, the final release for general availability is expected in the Fall. When asked about pricing Microsoft stated that pricing information is not currently available, however they disclosed that they will support per-minute and per-client pricing models for the hosted Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007.

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Tags: Microsoft, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007, OCS 2007, VoIP
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Just received word that Skype is temporarily cutting in half the cost of sending SMS messages using Skype. Skype had this promotion going on last month, but this time SMS messages being sent between June 4th and June 10th to recipients in more countries than before are being included in the promotion. Last month, only 10 destination countries were included, but this time around, there are 15 destination countries – including the US and UK. (Click here for the half price campaign page)

Here"s the release Skype sent out:

In deciding to repeat the promotion, the company is building upon the success of a similar week-long promotion last month which led to a significant spike in SMS message volume sent via Skype. In addition, Skype has expanded the list of destination countries to which the ‘half off SMS’ messages can be sent this time around.

Between June 4 and June 10, 2007, Skype users anywhere in the world who send SMS messages to recipients in the following 15 countries – Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Ireland, the Republic of Korea, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States – will be charged half the usual rate. More information about Skype’s half price SMS promotion can be found at skype.com/campaigns/halfprice.

“We had such a great response from our users that we"ve included even more countries in the half-price SMS promotion this month,” said Stefan Öberg, VP & GM of telecoms, Skype. “As Skype’s community grows, users are beginning to take advantage of the full range of communications channels that are available via Skype. We are seeing similar usage patterns in how they take advantage of the ability to send SMS messages quickly and easily to friends, family and colleagues around the world from the comfort of their keyboards.”

More information about Skype SMS rates to all destinations can be found at skype.com/products/skypesms/rates.

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Google has just acquired Feedburner. Financial terms of the acquisition were not immediately available, however rumor has it that it"s north of $100 million.

Feedburner blog was quick to point to this FAQ link which includes some "reassurance" about user privacy. Specifically it says, "Google has a long-standing commitment to protecting the privacy of users" personal information. FeedBurner users can expect the same high standards of privacy protection following this acquisition. We believe that notice and choice are the foundations of privacy. As such, we are committed to transparency for our end users, and to respecting the choices they make with regards to their privacy preferences. The transition to Google’s privacy policy and the opt-out mechanism we are providing for current FeedBurner users will help us achieve these goals."

Considering the controversy surrounding street-level photos on Google Maps and now Google owning the largest hosted RSS feed site, the privacy advocates will be screaming a wee bit louder today. Wonder when the EU or FTC will jump in and try and break up Google or fine them like what happened to Microsoft. Google has largely been immune from any anti-competitive or anti-trust issues. Why is that?

Is a Technorati acquisition far behind?

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Comments on this Entry:

(Andrew on Jun 1, 2007 3:19 PM) Wow - this is huge.

(Ed on Jun 1, 2007 3:30 PM) Why would they acquire Technorati? Google Blog Search seems to be much superior...

(Tom Keating on Jun 1, 2007 3:32 PM) >>Google Blog Search seems to be much superior... That"s probably a matter of personal tastes. But comparisons aside, Google could acquire Technorati simply to block a competitor (Microsoft, Yahoo) from acquiring them.

Caller ID spoofing (faking your CallerID) is a very easy thing to do, especially if you have an Asterisk IP-PBX (see Nerd Vittles" how-to). While CallerID spoofing can be used for harmless pranks, it can also be used to fool customers into giving confidential information, such as their bank account or credit card info. I came across a new website called The Zero Group (TZG), which claims to offer several "interesting" services, including Caller ID spoofing, telephone "tap" (eavesdropping) detection, "BackSpoof" (*67 killer), and a real time voice changer.

They also have SupaSMS which allows you to sent text message to mobiles through the web - but with a twist. You can configure who the message appears to be from. You can select a sender"s name of any character up to 11 characters long or use an 11 digit phone number. I can think of a few good pranks to try with this feature.

                                             Click for Full Image

The "BackSpoof" feature (screenshot above) is interesting feature. It actually "unblocks" restricted calls, i.e. Private Caller. Thus, you can identify any Private Caller that uses *67 to block their CallerID. Apparently, the way it works is that it forwards the call to a nationally hosted toll-free number hosted by TZG. The call is received by TZG and they claim they trap the origin, ANI, and CLID data. The originating caller"s CallerID is passed onto your mobile or other phone device and the caller is unaware you can see their "private number".. If memory serves me correctly you cannot block (*67) your CallerID when dialing an 800 number. However, I didn"t think if you forwarded your home or cell phone to an 800 number that the ANI and CLID info from the originating caller is passed on.

I thought the ANI and CLID of your phone number was passed. I suppose if you are leveraging the carrier"s "forwarding" feature, it stays on the network and therefore it does forward the originating CallerID and ANI. Yeah, I guess that does make sense to me now. TZG"s BackSpoof feature also lets you know if someone is attemtping to CallerID spoof you. Spoof me??? Spoof you!

You"re probably wondering "Hey, isn"t this stuff illegal?" Well, it is. As of June of last year, Congress passed H.R 5126, a legislation to make it a crime to insert false information into the Caller ID system. And yes, even VoIP is covered in this legislation. So how is TZG getting around this? The answer is they"re not hosted in the U.S. Maybe TZG bought some co-location space on Sealand that The Pirate Bay P2P sharing site planned on buying to avoid various government jurisdictions?

Another service they have is called ZerO-Fone (ZF), which is similar to a regular calling card. ZF is accessed through one of their local telephone numbers where you then enter your PIN, desired Caller ID, and the number you wish to call. They offer 100 min for $10, 230 min for $20, and 350 min for $30, which you pay via Paypal. Interestingly, using ZF you can use their voice changer feature to camouflage your voice.

This certainly seems like the site to go to if you want to do some "black hat" phone stuff or you simply want to know who the hell is callng you and blocking their number. It"s my phone number, I want to know who the hell is calling me. It"s my right! Ah yes, reminds me of a great scene from Braveheart.

Lord Bottoms: [scared] I never did her any harm. It was my right.
Morrison: Your right? Well, I"m here to claim the right of a husband! (kills Lord Bottoms)

Finally, I have to say, I really hate their website since it is 100% Flash with some annoying music in the background.

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The Palm Foleo is a mobile companion for Treos, turns on and off instantly, and runs on Linux. The Foleo has a large screen and full size keyboard to view and edit email and office documents. What"s cool about this "mobile companion" device, which Palm claims is the first of its kind, is that edits made on Foleo automatically are reflected on its paired smartphone and vice-versa (via Bluetooth).



It has a battery life of up to 5 hours and accesses the Internet through a built in WiFi radio or through the smartphone’s radio. Palm also says the device is designed for use with Treo’s that have the Palm OS or Windows Mobile, but most Windows Mobile based smartphones should also work. In fact, Palm is keeping the Foleo open to developers - Palm hopes to repeat the success of the Palm PDA and Treo smartphones - both of which developed huge followings in their respective developer community.

The Foleo weights around 2 lbs and features a 10" screen. U.S. availability for Foleo begins this summer with pricing expected to be $499 after an introductory $100 rebate. Will you buy one to add to your gadget repertoire or will you save your money and buy an Apple iPhone? I wonder since it"s running on Linux if the Foleo will run the Linux Skype client or some other VoIP client?

Hat tip to Evan at ComputerWorld.

Treocentral has more.

Finally, check out the video from the Palm Founder below.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

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