Lotta recent splashes in the race to dominate net connected phones. Mostly Stateside only, but we’ll have caught up with them (down under), by the time they’ve caught up with the Japanese, 90% of whom have already used email on a phone.
Net Phones
Portable machines have proven immensely popular in recent years – whether we use them to listen to music, talk to friends, or record photos, sounds or video. Juicily, all of these functions are starting to be possible on the one device, the possibilities amplified by the simultaneous growth of wireless net connectivity. Naturally there are plenty wishing to be the monoliths providing us these capacities. Alongside growing rumours of an Apple phone, in recent weeks :
– Myspace.com ( owned by Fox ) – release a branded phone which has built in posting of text and phone camera photos direct to a myspace blog.
– Youtube.com – launched free mobile upload service. Sign up, acquire youtube destination email address, capture video on phone & send. Your video is on the web. ( via unmediated )
– Sony Ericsson Google phones have built in google search and blogger.com ( owned by goggle ) publishing.
-Yahoo & Cingular launch a phone with quick access to yahoo webmail, instant messages and local search.
– Motorola is releasing handsets featuring an integrated Google button, which will automatically take users to their search engine.
VOIP
Must be a tumultous time to be a Telecommunications giant, what with all these internet whipper snappers carving out global media & communication niches, and of course, allowing net-users to bypass the telcos completely by using voice ( & video ) chat online. Which brings us to VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), essentially referring to voice conversations being routed over the Internet or through any other IP-based network ( packet-switched networks rather than traditional circuit-switched telephony transmission lines ). Emblematic of the changes afoot in this arena, Skype who are one of the most popular of the Instant Messenger based VoIP services( 100 million registered users and bought by eBay for $2.4 billion USD in 2005 ), recently announced free calls to traditional phones ( these usually cost, whereas computer to computer calls are free ) for users living in the United States of America, Puerto Rico and Canada until the end of 2006. Skype have also added video ( PC only), a browser toolbar ( which allows one-click connection of phone numbers seen on webpages and a version of skype for pocket pc which allows voice chat whenever you are connected to wifi or 3G. Skype do provide a directory of third-party add-on software, but are criticised for their closed source and proprietary software, and the ways in which their peer to peer use of bandwidth can build up. Alternatives include the open source Open Wengo & Ekiga, the Gizmo Project ( which features built in call recording & much more ), and other instant messenger applications that use voice such as ichat or yahoo messenger.
As more and more devices become net connected though, it it seems inevitable users will be able to shift to cheap/free communication – with the cost being your net connection or data downloads, not the amount of time you are speaking on a phone.
Related:
Fingerphone – ( Use your fingers instead of mouth and ear piece )
Brain Tumour scares under mobile tower at RMIT.
I agree that it is a tumultous time to be a Telecommunications giant. One of the reasons that will slow VOIP down to some is change. There are many middle aged + that simply don’t understand how VOIP works much less, what it is. The industry will be driven from the young up. As quality and acceptance improve, there probably is no way the giants can stop it.