If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I didn’t meet Scott Wharton of Vidtel in person, but I just watched his face on the Vidtel DSL video telephone they were showcasing at the Plug and Play Expo last week.

Vidtel’s big challenge is becoming the world’s first DSL video telephony service. For a very cheap monthly fee (can’t remember the details, but in the range of $30-$50) you get unlimited video calls and landline calls worldwide (almost) plus the device. Moreover, the service will not be limited to a certain country only, but will be available everywhere.

During the P&P Expo they were using a Grandstream video telephone which was working really well. Unlike mobile video calls, which wide adoption is prevented by some usability issues as the difficulty to be involved in a video call while on the go as well as for privacy issues, I think video calls at home might potentially become a major trend in the future.

All that said, my only concern is about the lack of match between their potential users’ demographic and the “normal” people. Advanced users would rather choose Skype or Sightspeed (both free) over a solution like Vidtel (BTW, Asus just announced the first Skype video phone ever). On the other hand, a grandpa who wants to see how cute is becoming his new grandson is likely not willing to use a service like that because of the lack of DSL connection in their home, probably (or a router…).

Anyway, the service is now in closed beta and should be available in December through selected channel partners (undisclosed at the moment). BestBuy?

In conclusion, aside from some reasonable concerns I have, it’s definitely a great service and, at first sight, a very challenging goal. Good luck to Scott and Mariette (his wife, VP of Marketing) for this new adventure (prestigious analysts wrote about them already).

Technorati Tags: Add new tag, luca filigheddu, scott wharton, sightspeed, skype, Videophone, vidtel, VoIP

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

I just finished moderating a panel session at ITExpo about the Advantages of Open Source VoIP.

We got a great contribution from Kerry Garrison from Fonality, Ming Yong from Druid and Jonathan Christensen from Skype. One of the panelists, the president of Intuitive Voice, unfortunately didn’t show up.

It’s been a very interesting discussion and one of the most interesting things I learnt is that Skype is using Open Source servers to terminate calls to the PSTN. Can you believe in it? Skype is using Open Source inside their infrastructure.

The problem is about interconnection with international providers offering them PSTN termination. The choice to use open source solutions doesn’t surprise me at all, Skype is not surely going to be tight to big vendors for this. Moreover, some of their PSTN provders are using Open Source themselves, like Telio for instance.

That said, the discussion has been really interesting and I’m happy I asked for Skype to join the panel, it’s definitely been more “spicy“. Thank you to everyone who attended this panel.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Swapping Vonage for Skype: One man’s search for VoIP that actually works
• Dork talk: Stephen Fry discusses the Skype-hype

Technorati Tags: druid, fonality, luca filigheddu, Open source, skype

Image via Wikipedia

Jim Courtney at Skype Journal promptly posted three alternatives to the demised Skypecast service.

I recommend to take a look at his post, Calliflower, HiDef Conferencing and Skype itself are all great alternatives.

Check it out:

Skype Journal: Alternatives to Skypecasts.

Technorati Tags: Business, community, jim courtney, luca filigheddu, skype, Skype Journal, Skypecast

Image via Wikipedia

I don’t know about you, but I don’t use the Facebook Chat so often. I don’t find it that usable, reason why I usually ignore it.

Fortunately there is a remedy for this issue: yesterday the popular IM client for Mac OSX, Adium, released version 1.3 adding Facebook to the list of available accounts.

I now have all my online Facebook contacts inside my Adium interface and I can also see their status message updates through Growl. What to say? Wonderful!

Unfortunately a useful plugin I’ve been using so far has not been updated or Adium 1.3 yet. I’m referring to Skype, a great way to see all your Skype contacts on Adium too. I look forward to seeing its update soon as well.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Adium releases version 1.3 of its unified instant messaging tool, adds social media tools
• Adium update adds Facebook chat
• Adium 1.3 Provides Facebook Chat, Many Bug Fixes
• Adium 1.3 released

Technorati Tags: Adium, Adium 1.3, facebook, Facebook Chat, Instant messaging & messengers, InstantMessaging, luca filigheddu, Mac OS X, skype

Image via Wikipedia

Lucky owners of the new PSP 3000 coming in October will find a useful addition: a built in microphone. This way they can easily use Skype without having to plug in headphones.

Skype for Sony PSP works on the PSP 2000 and the upcoming PSP 3000. If you want to download it, check this link out.

Technorati Tags: luca filigheddu, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Portable Slim and Lite, PSP, PSP 3000, skype, Sony, Sony PSP, Technology

After about ten months from the launch of the first version, the 3G mobile operator Three announced the availability of the new Skypephone S2 which brings some new interesting features to the previous version.

Among the others, the ability to quickly access to Facebook or Windows Live Messenger as well as an improved camera (3.2 Mpx), a much better screen and a more usable interface. It can also be used as an HDSPA modem when connected to your PC through the USB port.

The new Skypephone is available in UK already (for about $160) and will be available in Italy too starting from the end of August. Teenagers will be very happy about that since they found an almost free way to send messages to each other without having to send expensive SMSs.

Technorati Tags: luca filigheddu, Mobile, skype, skypephone s2, three, Voice 2.0, VoIP

Andy Abramson wrote an interesting blog post about Aircell, the new WiFi broadband internet service provided by American Airlines.

The point is that not all the applications over internet are allowed on that service and VoIP is one of them. Andy tried SightSpeed but the call was dropped after 10 seconds only, same story with Skype. I bet all other SIP-based services are blocked as well.

Andy then tried to use a service based on flash and… it worked perfectly. The service mentioned by Andy is Phweet, the TringMe-based VoIP service for any Twitter user (I already posted about Phweet last month) designed by Stuart Henshall and David Beckemeyer.

Andy points out that the interesting story here is about “thinking different”:

…all the attention was given to Skype. Skype and SIP based communications applications. There’s more to VoIP and real time communications out there, and we have to think about the best application for the situation. That’s called reasoning. Logic. Creative thinking. In my world that’s the start of Asymmetrical thinking. Look at a problem differently, and see different solutions that are already there.

In this specific case, Phweet was the solution to this problem. As an engineer, I can’t agree more. While at the University, I’ve been taught to think different if I wanted to quickly get to a solution of a problem and during my working experience I learnt that this is even more true than what I thought.

Good points Andy.

p.s. sometimes things work but you cannot really understand why. Flash VOIP is, actually, SIP based. In this perspective, it should have been blocked as well… I bet the reason is another one, that is how the call is setup on Phweet.

Technorati Tags: Aircell, andy abramson, David Beckemeyer, luca filigheddu, phweet, skype, stuart henshall, Untitled