Ajax Girl

An ambitious and long awaited new consumer VOIP startup - Ooma - launches on Thursday morning. Much like Vonage and the ill-fated SunRocket, Ooma allows consumers to use their normal phones to make and receive telephone calls, but at drastically reduced prices.

Vonage provides unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada for a flat $25/month. Ooma, however, is using an innovating peer-to-peer architecture to significantly reduce their cost overhead. Because of that cost reduction, they’re charging for hardware only. Calls in the U.S. are free, and will be forever.

That doesn’t mean there’s no cost to the consumer, though. You still have to get your hands on the hardware, which starts at $399, and have a broadband Internet connection. That buys you a base hub. You plug broadband ethernet into one end, and a normal phone into the other, and you’re all set.

If you buy additional units, called Scouts, you can wire your entire house with Ooma. That is another distinct advantage over Vonage, which only allows a single phone to be plugged into the device. Spread the Ooma Scouts around the house, plugging one end into a normal phone jack and connecting it with a normal phone. It’s then part of the Ooma system and all calls will be free.

Instead of using normal exchanges to terminate calls like Vonage does, Ooma routes calls through the phone lines of other users if it can. That saves them the termination fee on the call and eliminates their largest marginal cost. That does mean that if you have a normal phone line (its not required to use Ooma) it will be used by other Ooma users, but it isn’t something you’d ever notice because your inbound and outbound calls are routed around it. And in the event you call 911, any phone call using your line is immediately broken and you are put right through. If there are no Ooma user within twelve miles of where your call is being terminated, Ooma uses the normal phone system. From the caller’s perspective, its all invisible.

The Ooma hardware is both beautiful and functional. Answering machine functionality is built in to the Hub and Scout devices via physical buttons. Every Ooma account also includes two lines, and either can be accessed from either phone. A speaker phone is also built in.

Ooma isn’t just making money on the hardware. They’ll be adding additional for-pay features over time. One of the most interesting is ringtones, allowing people to have customized tones for incoming calls. That’s generally considered a cell-phone only feature. I can imagine other cell-phone type services being added over time as well, and possible Ooma branded handsets.

If you choose to keep your normal phone line, I’d recommend changing your calling plan to the most basic, least cost choice. It’s basically a 911 backup in the event of an emergency.

Ooma has a very deep management team and board of directors, and has raised $27 million over two rounds of financing.

I had the opportunity to interview founder and CEO Andrew Frame and Creative Director Ashton Kutcher (yeah, the actor) a couple of days ago. Kutcher is actively engaged in the business - part of his work will consist of creating a viral video series to promote the product. The podcast is up at TalkCrunch. In addition to Ooma, Ashton and I go on a brief detour and talk about the iPhone (he likes it, mostly) and his upcoming movie with Cameron Diaz.

The product is in private beta currently and we’ll be giving away a few Oooma’s tomorrow. They go on sale in September.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135146791/

With Microsoft getting into the Live P2P television game with Livestation, interest has been growing in the space. We covered a number of leading operators June 13. On that list was the European company Zattoo with a product that is currently only available in a number of European countries, and only then by invite.

The folks at Zattoo were kind enough to offer me a 7-day trial pass to Zattoo and I’ve been playing with in now for 24 hours. My conclusion so far: Zattoo is awesome.

This is how Zattoo describes their offering; every single part of it is accurate:

Before Zattoo, TV on the Internet wasn’t like TV at all. Video streams skipped, stuttered and broke up; image quality was lousy. Zattoo puts real TV on your computer. Our revolutionary technology provides the true TV-quality video delivery and smoothness everyone’s been waiting for.

The trial access I was given was to the Swiss version, so the number of English language channels was limited, yet the total number of channels is strong. There would be at least 30 live channels covering a gauntlet of free-to-air offerings as well as a large number of cable channels including CNN, Al Jazerra, BBC World, Bloomberg, CNBC Europe, France 24 English and MTV.

The client itself is easy to use; channels are listed to the right of the viewing box. The viewing window can be resized as needed or switched to full screen.

Quality is where Zattoo is the stand out offering in the space. It’s not 1080p HD viewing, and at full screen on a 22″ monitor the quality isn’t brilliant, but it was watchable. From a window though the picture quality is clear and easy to watch. Better still, the picture doesn’t stutter nor pixelate; it just simply works. I tried everything to make it break, downloading a large file, Twittering, downloading email and surfing the web all over a 2mb cable internet connection; the picture never once skipped a beat. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they have, and not even services such as Joost have managed to get this totally right so far.

The service is currently free whilst in beta, with plans to eventually offer a free basic service whilst charging for premium channels. Advertising consists of pre-rolls that appear for no more than a couple of seconds while the channel buffers; there is a delay in each channel appearing but it’s no more noticeable than a similar wait on Joost.

There was only one thing that annoyed me with Zattoo: they only gave me a 7-day trial. If the price were right I’d pay for more. Zattoo is the future of live television on the internet and on what I’ve seen so far I can’t recommend it enough. And yes: they also offer a Mac version.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135147081/

Google has announced the expansion of Google Print Ads. From today Google has expanded their newspaper advertising base from 50 papers to 225 newspapers representing 32 of the top 35 DMAs with a combined circulation of 30million readers.

The lineup of newspaper companies participating is impressive; companies include E.W. Scripps, Freedom Communications, Hearst Newspapers, GateHouse Media, Gannett, MediaNews Group, The New York Times, The Seattle Times Company, Tribune Publishing, and The Washington Post.

Google Print Ads is also now available to all United States-based advertisers who currently have a Google AdWords account.

The emphasis is mine. I logged into my Adwords account to see how the new feature worked from an advertisers perspective to find that it’s not available to me, or the billions of other people living outside of the United States. The thing I can’t work out is why? Why is print any different to online in terms of placing ads targeted at American consumers? It would take less than 5 minutes to place an ad directly with most of the newspapers in the Google Print Ads program from just about anywhere in the world; anyone with an Adwords account worldwide can already target American consumers through online ads, so why can’t the rest of us place print ads as well?

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135130855/

eBay’s online marketplace raked in nearly $6 billion last year helping people sell nearly anything they’ve got, including a hocking a few iPhones. Savvy consumers often flock to the service, sniping for hard to get items or some deeper discounts than retail stores. Common sense says that markets prices goods appropriately, based on supply and demand. However some economists found otherwise.

A study from some UC Berkeley economists found that consumers didn’t always buy goods at the best deal. Here are some of the insights:

• Some buyers outbid the “Buy it now” price for a good, finding 45 to 50 percent of eBay auctions for a sample of iPods exceeded the “buy it now” price.
• The percentage of daily bids is highest at 8pm. The percentage of closing auctions is also highest at 8pm. The study says this may be counterproductive since it creates greater competition for bidders attention at that time.
• Buyers seem to favor auctions with more bidders.
• A comparison of CD auctions with equal total costs (price + shipping), found the low-cost, high-shipping auction attracted more bids, more bidders, and 25 percent more money.
• Secret reserves turn off buyers.
• Research on auction websites shows eBay attracted almost 60 percent more bidders and 30 percent higher prices than the same items on Yahoo Auctions. Maybe that’s why they shut down.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135127611/

It didn’t take long for Scholastic, the U.S. publisher of the Harry Potter books, to send us a takedown notice for our post “The Latest Harry Potter Book Hits BitTorrent.”

In an email yesterday, Mark S. Seidenfeld, an attorney for Scholastic, demanded that we “act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material or items claimed to be infringing” and referred to the post. The full text of the notice is below. A print article in USA Today says that they are contacting every site that has mentioned this story and demanding it be taken down.

There is a vague possibility that we could be found liable of contributory infringement, our attorney says. As could USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and CNN who, among many others, mentioned that the book was available on The Pirate Bay (but without linking).

But really this is just a bullying (albeit very polite bullying) tactic by the publisher to try to stop word spreading that the book, like almost all popular media today, is available free on BitTorrent for those who choose to steal it. They’re trying to shoot the messenger, and this kind of stuff has a chilling effect on free speech. If they want to bring legal action against us, ok. But we’ll fight back, and the entire drama will be posted for everyone to follow.

(more…)

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135115829/

Plaxo recently launched a new 3.0 version that was more than just an AJAX face lift. Plaxo, once a notorious spammer, has grown beyond their core service of being the web’s address book. The new version not only synchronizes contact information, but also your information feeds, like Flickr, calendars, and adding new feeds every day through Plaxo Pulse. Today Plaxo is joining a host of other sites supporting the OpenID platform as their larger vision takes form, and it is becoming a hub instead of a directory.

Facebook has talked repeatedly about their “social graph” (computer science jargon for the data structure behind a social network). It’s the core of their platform, providing the context that makes their applications relevant to users. The only problem is that it’s still relatively closed off. Applications can exist within Facebook or outside through their API. Either way, Facebook still owns the users.

Plaxo is not a “social network” like Facebook, but cuts to the core of what makes a “social graph.” Plaxo has access to the contact information their 15 million users. This not only includes phone numbers and emails, but the connections between users that make up the links on the social graph.

Plaxo is not making this “social graph” a walled garden. They’re becoming the Switzerland of contact information and have been focusing on inter-operating with new services (Yahoo, MSN, AOL). The addition of OpenID lowers the friction of getting on the graph.

While not as exciting as Facebook, Plaxo is edging in their direction. Plaxo Pulse ties together disparate services from across the web unlike the news feed, which ties together only Facebook’s content. While Plaxo hasn’t launched a platform to a crowded hall of over-eager developers, they have quietly focused on linking to existing applications on the web. Currently the provide a single interface for syncing with the social feeds, email, contact, and calendaring applications business people care about. It’s no long stretch to see this developing into even deeper integration with more web applications.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135082605/

Apple is holding a “confidential” and invite-only one day iPhone Tech Day Workshop, July 23, 2007 on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, California for web developers, widget developers, web designers, and software engineers. The purpose of the workshop seems to be a sort of “iPhone 101″ for developers, and to help them optimize web applications for the iPhone.

The event is free, but you have to be an Apple Developer Connection member. The email (copied below) says its invite only but also shows how seemingly anyone can attend.

(more…)

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/135074046/

Page Dividers are one of the useful new features coming soon to the new Backpack.

Divider, not a uniter

Dividers are literal: They divide the page into distinct chunks. A dividers draws a grey line across the page. You can label the dividers anything you’d like. You can have as many separators on a page as you’d like and you can put them anywhere you want.

Here’s what they look like

You’ll see I’ve created dividers for each city I’ll be visiting on the trip. “Portland” “Seattle” and “San Francisco.” I also included the dates I’ll be in each city for reference.

Really flexible

Simple dividers give you a lot of power. Things you may have stored on multiple pages can now be put together on a single page. They are also great ways to set up time periods on a page. “January” “February” “March” etc. Or, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, etc. The options are plenty.

Coming soon

The new Backpack is coming soon. Thanks again for your patience and stay tuned for more previews and the launch announcement.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/519-backpack-preview-2-page-dividers

Do you find dealing with email boring? Would your day be brighter if your email was rendered as characters in a SecondLife style universe, complete with spam eating sharks? Were you dropped on your head as a child? Introducing 3D Mailbox.

We get to see a lot of new products and services at TechCrunch, many of them bad; usually it’s a case that they won’t get a run. Then there are those that are so bad they a worthy of mention. Crunchgear’s John Biggs summed it up well in an email to me (see their very brief coverage here): “I was so disgusted that I couldn’t write anymore”. 3D Mailbox has also received attention from the press; Michael Parsons at The Times Online described 3D Mailbox as “The worst software application I have ever seen…a waste of valuable processing power,” Richard Bartle in the Guardian notes “When I first saw the trailer, I thought it was a parody.” Sadly Richard, it’s not.

By all means, judge it for yourself. The 3D Mailbox client is Windows only with no plans for a Mac version.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/134942320/

An open letter to people who wear those Bluetooth headsets that blink:

In case you haven’t noticed, your eyes are actually located in front of your ears.

So that blue light that blinks incessantly can’t actually be seen by you. The rest of us, however, do see it. And it annoys us. Stop.

“But how else will I impress the ladies?” you ask. I suggest purchasing some of those rims that keep on spinning after you stop.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/516-blinking-bluetooth-headsets