Christine

Securing VoIP Conversations

Phil Zimmermann (the creator of PGP) gave a great talk on VoIP security at last week's O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference. I unfortunately missed part of the talk, so didn't blog it. Happily, I've just listened to the entirety of Phil's talk courtesy of Dan York, the producer and co-host of Blue Box, the VoIP Security Podcast. But you don't need me to tell you about it...you too can download Zimmermann's talk here. It's very worth the 15 minutes.

Jabber - Is It Really this Good?

Peter Saint-Andre from Jabber gave a very speedy (and I thought I talked fast) talk on Jabber and Jingle. Here's the basics, in case you aren't at O'Reilly eTel and haven't been riding the Jabber bandwagon:

Death to the Carriers from a Thousand Widgets

Was last year the year for mobile content? Will it be this year? Or what about next year? At eTel, Benjamin Keighran from BluePulse offered up an explanation for why mobile content hasn't taken off:

Using Open Source Telephony to Drive Advocacy

Today's speakers at O'Reilly eTel had a solid do-gooder streak. Tad Hirsch from MIT's Media Lab is wholly invested into the intersection of art, activism, and technology. He's currently using open source telephony to promote community development:

Watching CALEA Wiretaps Squash VoIP Innovation

I just love hearing from those passionate EFF guys. Brad Templeton (or was it his evil twin?) came to O'Reilly eTel to talk about why the ILECs should love CALEA. (See my earlier post about how CALEA kills online advocacy.) Here's some implications for emerging telephony:

Owning Your Identity in the New World

The issues around identity extend far beyond the borders of emerging telephony, but it was a recurring theme at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference. Both the hackers and the microsofties had things to say:

Driving VoIP Towards Open Standards

I can barely keep up with all of the great stuff here at O'Reilly eTel. (Carpal tunnel, here I come.) Michael Robertson of Linspire started SIPphone with the vision of an open dialtone that anyone in the world could connect to. What do you need for this?

Yahoo! Mobility Breaks Open the Space-Time Continuum

Yahoo! Research Berkeley is a new research partnership between Yahoo! Inc. and UC Berkeley, looking into the intersection of social media and mobile media technology. Marc Davis came to the eTel conference to talk about some of their projects:

Is Open Source the Panacea for Mobile Application Deployment?

As mobile device variety is increasing, vendors such as Funambol believe that open standards are the best way forward for device manufacturers and carriers. And (un?)fortunately, RIM and Microsoft can't address the bulk of the market. At the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference (eTel), Fabrizio Capobianco of Funambol states that the market disconnect is thus:

Do We Really Need an Open Phone?

Why are people deploying Linux onto cell phones? The number of vendors is starting to add up. There are technical and financial advantages, but Bill Weinberg from the OSDL posited at the O'Reilly eTel Conference that it's really because it is becoming strategic via platform consolidation. In addition, the holy grail of "open phone" would allow hackers to modify its user interface, improve performance, upgrade the kernel, or invent new applications:

Putting Voice (VoIP) onto Muni WiFi Systems

Public safety support, government agency networking, and residential Internet access are all familiar reasons to roll out a municipal wireless system. But what about voice? The mesh network that enables ubiquitous urban coverage could also support a whole host of voice applications:

Community VoIP and Wireless Efforts Face Goliaths

Whether you're miles into the country or thirty stories up in a high-rise, there are advantages to shared access. At eTel, speakers touched upon how communities can share these resources to improve their own access while reducing cost:

Why Consumers Aren't Adopting VoIP

A number of speakers delved into the challenges of VoIP adoption at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference. David Beckemeyer from TelEvolution posited that VoIP 1.0 is offering plenty of provider choices...unfortunately, pretty similar choices. The trouble in this market is that it's difficult to switch vendors. Termination fees, loss of address, etc. are all very similar to how difficult it used to be to switch cell phone providers:

OpenZoep: Open Source VoIP

This morning's eTel presentation on open source VoIP was compelling. Erik van Eykelen from Voipster BV stood up to talk about OpenZoep. OpenZoep (pronounced "open soup") is a neat-looking solution that offers plenty, and you can have this under either a GNU/GPL or a commercial license:

Emerging Telephony in a Yahoo!-Centric World

Versioning has finally been introduced to the world of voice communications. Apparently, we've all been mired in Voice 1.0 for years...and at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference, the community has envisioned not only Voice 2.0, but also Voice 3.0:

Applying Usable Design to Emerging Telephony

This session was a fun next step after the morning dev seminars at eTel. Once you've developed a technology, how do you design a product around it that will tap into how consumers want to use it? These panelists brought their varied expertise to bear on the issue:

O'Reilly Emerging Telephony XX

Environment: The O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference (eTel) in San Francisco, sponsored by O'Reilly Media.

Going from Hacker to VC-Backed Entrepreneur

Although the curriculum doesn't change much, the VC chat was very well-attended at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference (eTel) in San Francisco. By show of hands, the room was predominantly entrepreneurs. (If there were other VCs in the room, they were shy and didn't raise their hands...cowards.) Here's some of the themes explored by Steve Tomlin of Avalon Ventures and a panel that included a business development director from InfoSpace and Rich Levandov from Masthead Venture Partners:

Cool VoIP Hacks Using Asterisk

Jim Van Meggelen from Core Telecom Innovations introduced a number of VoIP hackers to today's audience at eTel in San Francisco. Many coders are out there building front-ends for Asterisk, but they aren't hacks - they're spendy, glossy, and preconfigured. Here's some of the cooler projects discussed at show-and-tell:

Original Online Content Re-emerges

What was fascinating about this DEMXPO session - ostensibly about how online content has re-emerged after the Internet bubble of a few years ago - was that each of the speakers kept coming back to user-generated content...