Click here to follow ▸@WebRTCSummit AVer Information, Inc., a leading provider of innovative video conferencing solutions for SMBs and large corporations, and Vidtel, a pioneer in cloud-based any-to-any® video conferencing, today announced a strategic partnership and a joint solution to bring powerful, affordable cloud-based video conferencing to businesses of any size. The joint solution bundles AVer's EVC100 and EVC130 video conferencing endpoints with Vidtel's Connect and MeetMe cloud-based video collaboration services. AVer Information, Inc. website link AVer EVC100 is the industry's first under-$1,000, enterprise-class HD video conferencing endpoint, and is covered by the industry's only three-year warranty. Vidtel Connect provides easy-to-use cloud-based point-to-point video calling. Customers can leverage video calling without any network infrastructure suc... (more)

Samsung Forging Ahead With WiBro Wireless

Samsung demonstrated an assortment of WiBro (wireless broadband) products and technology at the annual Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA) trade show. In the five months since it unveiled the first WiBro demo in November 2004 in Korea, Samsung has been able to reduce the size of the WiBro compartment, shrinking the equipment to a tenth of the size of the original demo. Samsung intends to commercially launch WiBro data access systems and handsets in Korea next year with sector data throughput speeds of up to 30 Mbps. Samsung is to use the experience gained from the Korean WiBro deployment to drive ongoing development of WiMax equipment for the global market. WiBro, based on the 802.16e standard, offers mobility, wide-area services and global standardization for wireless broadband applications. While high data rates can currently be achieved with w... (more)

Google Snaps Up Microblogging Service Jaiku

"Your Jaiku phone, the Web site, IM, SMS, and API will continue to work normally," wrote Jaiku's Finnish co-founder Jyri Engeström as he revealed yesterday that Jaiku had been acquired by Google. Jaiku's technology can hopefully help Google develop new ways to use mobile. The terms of the acquisition are confidential and the deal is officially closed. According to the Jaiku homepage, maintained by Engeström and his co-founder Petteri Koponen: “While it’s too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together. In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have de... (more)

Will the gPhone Make a Difference?

David Weinberger's Blog There's a really interesting (free) article by Amol Sharma in the Wall Street Journal about Google's expected cellphone software, and whether Google will be able to do the necessary deals with the mobile carriers. In addition to providing core Google apps (search, maps, YouTube, etc.), the rumor is that the Google mobile operating system will be open to developers who want to use the phone's services, such as GPS data. The article includes this from Microsoft: Microsoft executives question what impact Google will have. "The idea that there are all these things software developers can't do — it's just not true," said John O'Rourke, general manager of Microsoft's Windows Mobile unit said. "It's hard to imagine what huge breakthroughs [Google] is going to have." If it's true that the Microsoft Mobile OS gives access to the same services as the... (more)

Where to go?

I've got the rest of the month reserved for travel, to see the election up front and close up, with camera, laptop, audio, video and EVDO. I'm trying to figure out if I should go, and where. I want to be in a state that both campaigns see as critical, so I can drive from city to city and be in the crowds at rallies and talk to the people there. Not like this guy who baited them (they seemed like partisans, not the monsters he was making them out to be). Just want to know what they think. And not as a campaign worker for Obama, though I have given money to his campaign. Part of the problem is that McCain isn't going to all the places he should be. He just spent two days in Wisconsin. I could park my kiester there, and be pretty sure at some point I'd see surrogates for both campaigns, but I want to go where the stars are going. Florida may be the best bet. I know the s... (more)

SGN’s iFun Turns iPhone Into PC Game Controller

We’ve had a blast playing SGN’s suite of Wii-like games over the last few months - iGolf, iBowl and iBaseball (basketball, tennis and boxing are coming soon). The apps are being downloaded like crazy on the App store, and no wonder - you get to swing your iPhone all over the place while you play the games. Now SGN is rolling out something a little different. iFun turns the iPhone into a Wii-like controller, but the actual games are played on normal desktop and laptop computers. The first title to launch is golf. If you don’t quite get it, see the video below. SGN says they may license other online games to add to the iFun platform, and will release an API for other developers to launch their games on iFun. Super. Duper. Cool. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. ... (more)

Coming Soon From Sling Media: Watch Cable TV From Your iPhone

Sling Media, the company behind the popular (and very cool) settop boxes that allow you to stream cable from your house to your computer, looks like it has outdone itself. At this week’s Macworld the company will be showing off its upcoming iPhone application, which effectively gives iPhone owners instant access to their Cable TVs and Tivos from anywhere they have a network connection. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait a little longer (the company says that the app will be submitted to Apple some time in Q1), but it looks like it will be well worth the wait. From the announcement: SlingPlayer Mobile gives consumers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via your iPhone using a standard network connection. In addition... (more)

Smule Outdoes Itself Again: Leaf Trombone Is An Instant iPhone Classic

When the iPhone App Store launched last year, a flood of ‘virtual’ music apps, ranging from pianos to drums hit the market. Most of these didn’t fare so well on the iPhone’s small screen, save for one fantastic standout: Smule’s Ocarina, which was perfectly suited for the iPhone and was fairly easy for beginners to pick up. The app became a massive success, and became one of the App Store’s most popular applications ever. Today, Smule has released Leaf Trombone: World Stage, a new virtual musical instrument that is better than Ocarina in nearly every way. One of the biggest issues newbies had with Ocarina was that there was no musical instruction built in - users would have to visit Smule’s website, where they could download ‘tabs’ of their favorite songs. Without the tabs, playing familiar tunes became an exercise in frustration, and I suspect many users never ma... (more)

Citrix Receiver for iPhone Clears 200,000 Downloads

Since its introduction less than six months ago, there have been more than 200,000 downloads of Citrix Receiver for iPhone. Users have ranged from Doctors to Lawyers to Systems Admins, all with a common desire to get their job done whenever and wherever they are. The iPhone's popularity has driven IT departments to look for safe ways to allow employees to access corporate applications without compromising company security policy or driving up support costs. It turns out in many cases that companies already have the infrastructure in place to do this. The Citrix Receiver for iPhone works with existing company applications and most security requirements such as RSA Two factor authentication. Applications hosted on Citrix XenApp can be accessed by IT authorized users whether they are on internal WLANs or roaming on a 3G network and connecting through Citrix Access Gate... (more)

Risks and Enterprise Mobility?

This is the fourth in a series of five initial articles, in which I'm going to put my thoughts and findings on the subject of Enteprise Mobility. For this penultimate article I've decided to raise the subject of Risks to be aware of before and during implementation of an Enterprise Mobility Strategy. It may seems an obvious thing to say, but the major risk at the moment, is NOT having a Enterprise Mobility Strategy. Basically, 'You Snooze, You Lose' ... as your competitors will be planning or implementing a strategy and will reap the rewards! Yes, as I said in the first of this series of articles, the economy is a factor that needs to be watched and yes it is daunting to invest, but there are significant rewards. Another major risk is to have a strategy that is set in stone and homogenous. Mobility is an exciting place, fast moving, also hard to predict and an Ente... (more)

Future Visions of Global Telecoms

Bjarni Thorvardarson is a rare telecom visionary. He thinks on a level of telecoms at an intercontinental level, rather than a national or local level. Hibernia Atlantic is his current project, and with recent news that the submarine and terrestrial cable system is now in the global media distribution business, he is shaking up the telecom community. An Icelandic native, he has brought his knowledge and skills to the United States, basing Hibernia Atlantic in Summit, New Jersey. Pacific-Tier: Bjarni, what's been happening with Hibernia Atlantic in the past few years, since I had my last opportunity to visit with you? Bjarni Thorvardarson: We've actually had a busy couple years – a very busy couple of years. As you may recall, we started this business by buying a submarine asset that was formerly owned by 360 Networks. We've been busy trying to build our terrestria... (more)