Technically Speaking

As if websites going down around the world due to the iPhone wasn’t a sign for a company that has not learned that they need increased capacity on launch day – then again you could make the argument that the crashing servers might just be a marketing ploy.

But now it seems that the “iPhone 4 Order Security Breach Exposes Private Information”  Even if it is an AT&T issue like the iPad breech last week, Apple picked AT&T, not the iPhone customers.  Apple needs to step up.

Read more here

A really interesting article about VoIP protocols.  SIP beat out established protocols like H.323 & MGCP.

“As an industry grows, it is quite common to find multiple solutions that all attempt to address similar requirements. This evolution dictates that these proposed standards go through a stage of selection—over time, we see some become more dominant than others. Today, the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is clearly one of the dominant VoIP protocols, but that obviously didn’t happen overnight. In this article, the first of a series of in-depth articles exploring SIP and VoIP, we’ll look at the main factors that led to this outcome.”

Read more here

I wonder what NASA will focus on if it isn’t a return trip to the moon.

“Nasa has begun to wind down construction of the rockets and spacecraft that were to have taken astronauts back to the Moon — effectively dismantling the US human spaceflight programme despite a congressional ban on its doing so.

“Cisco Systems Inc. on Friday announced Quad, which integrates voice, video and social networking into one workspace.

San Jose-based Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) said Quad will be available later this year via iPad and iPhone applications.

“You can have your pick of ANY T-Mobile cell phone but the catch is you have to subscribe for the family package”

I can’t help but think that Google’s 5 year plan is to release GoogleOS and mash together all the apps….Gmail, Google Voice, Wave, Reader, Online Docs, Calendar, Picasa, YouTube, etc.  They will make it so you can’t pull one piece out unless you get rid of the entire bunch.  That is until they are sued for being anti-competitive like Microsoft was.

Looks like it has started.

“There is a rumor going around the blogosphere that Google may be working on a VoIP service utilizing Google Voice integration with Gmail. A spokesperson for Google tells WebPronews, “We’re always testing new features and looking for ways to improve our products. We have nothing to announce at this time.”

Read more here

I was hoping that when Microsoft announced the discontinuation of Response Point they would open source the code.  There must be a lot of code that they were licensing that did not allow them to do that.  Response Point had great functionality and was very easy to set up.

“It looks like Response Point is officially kaput.

This morning Aastra telecom announced their first software to take your existing Aastra Response Point phones from their proprietary protocol (that only works with Microsoft Response Point systems) to an open SIP-Standards based platform. This will allow your Aastra RP Phones to communicate with any SIP based platforms such as Broadsoft and Asterisk.

The new firmware applies for all Aastra “RP” phones including the 6751i RP, 6753i RP, and 6757i CT RP models and is available for download here.”

More to the article here

Keeping a nation wide cellular network up and running must be a huge challenge.  Just billing for all the usage must take an enormous amount of computing power.  Looks like AT&T is having an issue in parts of Florida.

“Some AT&T 3G wireless customers in the panhandle, Jacksonville and Gainesville are unable to use data on their devices, but still have voice capabilities. Our techs are working to fix the problem and get to the root cause.”

Read some user reactions here.

Here are some screen shots of OCS version 14.  I think it really looks sharp.  I hope version 14 will drastically reduce the servers needed from 7+ for a full deployment.  Released is scheduled for Q4 2010.

The latest iPhone from Apple, iPhone 4, allows for video conferencing through a front facing camera.

Video conferencing on this iPhone  is not news to anyone that has been paying attention, all the leaks told us about this capability.  Apple is calling the feature, ‘Face Time’, a brilliant name.

What makes me excited is deaf people can use it to sign with someone else.

That really gets me going, drastically improving the quality of life for someone through the application of technology.