GigaOm and Engadget are both reporting that Microsoft's MSN Messenger will finally be a thing of the past. While Skype has largely taken its place, it was still running in China. Looking back over history my first Messenger was AOL's AIM and then quickly I was using ICQ. Yahoo Messenger came along about the same time … Read more
While pal Doug Mohney is on hiatus from HD Voice News, I figured I'd fill the gap on the news that broke over the past day of so surrounding Verizon and HD Voice and Video (official announcement) that another pal, Kevin Tofel wrote about at Gigaom. To me, the move by VZW is a catchup play. … Read more
This week my Gramofon arrived. In case you don't know what a Gramofon is, it's the streaming connector and router from the team behind FON that lets you connect a speaker system and send your online audio to them much like AirPlay or Chromecast. But what FON is really doing is creating the connective tissue of … Read more
It's always fun to be interviewed by TMC Publisher Rich Tehrani. Thanks.
A few news items passed my eyes this morning, and it got me thinking about a conversation that Truphone Founder and CTO James Tagg and I had last week during IT Expo in Las Vegas. James, who invented mobile VoIP and the touch screen technology we all use at airports and other kiosks, remarked that … Read more
3 the original 3G carrier with operations in Hong Kong, the UK and elsewhere has once again made a move with Skype, following their efforts in the past to make Skype an integral part of their service offering. In Hong Kong, for $69 HK Dollars a month, or $8.90 USD, under a new collaborative agreement with … Read more
Today I read in re:Code about a new AT&T Foundry experiment, called Cascade. In reading through description I couldn't help but think about it being the second coming of Grand Central, the company started by Crag Walker and Vincent Paquet who now are the team behind UberConference. Cascade is at the core just really find … Read more
Today users of Invoxia were notified that SkypeKit is no more. While a few months ago rumors were that SkypeKit enabled devices would keep working, I was telling others that I wouldn't count on anything that was hardware related that worked with Skype to expect it to keep working. Invoxia's revelation pretty much shows the … Read more
Every day I see Yet Another WebRTC based service come to life. Today its "ROOM" which has a very simple beta list signup going on where if you tweet their existence you get immediate access to the beta. Services like Slack, Hall, HipChat, Vobi and many others are offering what I'm calling Skype Takeaway Service (STS) often for free, often even richer in experience … Read more
There’s another reason for Uber in France and the French government needs to pay attention. It’s customer service with taxi drivers. Just like in San Francisco where Uber was born there’s a pattern of behavior that exists with taxi drivers that causes great frustration with the regular traveler. It’s called being declined a ride because … Read more
