TELECOM Digest     Wed, 28 Dec 2005 01:00:00 EST    Volume 24 : Issue 584

Inside This Issue:                             Editor: Patrick A. Townson

    Tech Trends in 2006 (Tim Gnatek)
    Shape of Surfing in 2005 (Tim Gnatek)
    Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (jared)
    Re: Cell Phone Extenders? (Scott Dorsey)
    Re: Payphone Surcharges (was: Unanswered Cellphones) (John Levine)
    What Carriers Does Vonage Use to Terminate Calls? (advertising@adtomi.com)
    Re: Obituary: John Diebold, as in, Yes, That Company (Fred Goldstein)
    Re: Obituary: John Diebold, as in, Yes, That Company (stannc@gmail.com)

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From: Tim Gnatek <extremetech@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Tech Trends in 2006
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 23:03:39 -0600


Tech Trends to Watch in 2006

by Tim Gnatek - ExtremeTech

With the growing number of technology-infused products and services
tipping into the mainstream, even hesitant tech adopters are starting
to take advantage of new ways to acquire, share and enjoy
entertainment.

Which items will go from conversation pieces of the digerati to
must-haves for the mass market? Sizing up some of the notable
entertainment technology trends of 2005 gives one perspective on the
emerging status quo and what are likely the breakout technologies in
2006.

Portable Entertainment PCs

Laptops are more popular than ever. According to some sources, the
notebook market will rise 30 percent this year, and overtake homebound
units by 2010. It isn't just the anywhere access: laptops geared for
entertaining make a good case for replacing both the TiVo and the big
old box at home.

Even ordinary laptops are going for movie screen makeovers: Research
firm IDC forecasts widescreen-format displays will outpace standard
screens next year. But entertainment PCs, like the Toshiba Qosmio and
Fujitsu N6010, have more than just a pretty screen; they come packed
with 100GB hard drives, Windows XP Media Center Edition and processors
that can simultaneously record live TV, stream tunes and play movies
on 17-inch letterbox LCDs.

If that's not big enough, the machines also include digital outputs
for connecting to larger displays like plasma screens and high
definition televisions, and remote controls for on-the-couch
computing.

HDTV

High definition televisions have gone mainstream as well. Thanks to
HDTV's convincing improvement in picture quality and a growing number
of available programs, more shoppers are buying into the new picture
format.

All the major networks provide at least some prime time programming in
high definition, and many special cable and satellite channels like
TNT and DiscoveryHD offer the format exclusively.

Cost has always been an obstacle for these sets, which pump out nearly
ten times the pixel count of standard televisions but dropping prices
have caused some insiders to believe that high-definition television
will be the hottest trend of the holiday season.

Units like Sony's entry-level 30 inch set, the KV-30HS420, can be had
for as little as $700, while bigger 45-inch living room sets like the
Sharp Aquos LC-45GXSU come in under $5,000.

Making Digital Video

Capturing moments on film has become a lot more convenient; in
addition to smaller camcorders filling the market, many of today's
other portable gadgets hide miniature movie-makers that record in
computer-friendly formats for sharing online.

Cameras have featured movie modes for some time, and newer versions,
like the pocket-sized Kodak EasyShare V530, give more attention to
video-specific features. It not only records 5 megapixel photographs,
the camera shoots MPEG-4 format movies with an anti-shake mode that
steadies jittery hands.

That even more essential carry-along, the cell phone, also has dozens
of video-recording models to choose from, from Nokia's 7610, a
showpiece imaging phone for early adopters that captures up to 10
minutes of film, to the more affordable Motorola V551 video phone. The
captured movies may not be box office quality, but they certainly
suffice, and are incredibly portable, making them just the answer to
recording impromptu moments.

Sharing Personal Media

With all that video-making wherewithal, more people are faced with the
question of what to do with their new movies. Post them on a blog?
E-mail them to friends? Upload them to a peer-to-peer network?

Unless you're a shameless exhibitionist, you won't want to
indiscriminately share personal moments online (just see the Numa Numa
dance to be reminded how embarrassing this can be). Fortunately, a
spate of new file-sharing tools can help you share video with just who
you want.

The peer-to-peer service Grouper.com has honed itself to personal
movie distribution, allowing users to control access to films or files
by creating or joining private file-sharing networks. Share self-made
media just among family, post videos to an online club, or release a
movie to the masses. With a new software update, users can edit videos
and add a soundtrack or special effects to movies before posting.

Other services encourage private file sharing too: private
peer-to-peer groups like Qnext turn your computer into the hub of a
private network for only those you invite. The program allows members
to access your hard drive like a folder on their computer, allowing
access to only the files you indicate. Qnext bills their application
as a do-all program; not only can you share clips with others, but
with the built-in instant messaging, internet phone service and
videoconferencing, you can remind friends to check them out.

Video to Go

Thanks to some of this season's most wished-for gifts, we've seen more
ways to carry video clips around with you this year.

Although the category isn't new, it has come a long way; early
portable players like the Archos AV320 suffered in storage and
portability compared to today's slim-lined creations like the iPod
Video, which holds up to 60 gigabytes in roughly half the size. The
latest devices also hide video players within other hot portable
gadgets, like the Sony PSP game system.  Cell phones are becoming
mobile sets as well, as 3G models with video players like the Nokia
6600 rise in popularity.

Already, South Korea's Digital Multimedia Broadcasting company runs a
whole television network for wireless mobile devices. That may not be
so far away for the U.S. -- programming from the likes of Disney,
Warner Brothers and ABC television is already available for download
on-demand to portable devices.

Podcasts

Podcasting has become a more familiar term this year, as commercial
broadcasters and corporate marketers catch on to publishing radio
shows over the Internet . Today, many popular radio programs,
including top AM radio talk shows like "Coast to Coast AM" and "The
Rush Limbaugh Show," offer Podcasts of their daily episodes to
subscribers, as do many newscasts and public radio programs.

Joining them this August, General Motors became the first company to
issue corporate Podcasts about their product line. Podcasting has
grown influential enough to take over the terrestrial airwaves, too.

Adam Curry, MTV video jock and pioneer in Podcasting, now hosts a
Podcast talk show on Sirius radio, while this year in San Francisco,
KYOURADIO (1550 AM) became the first all-Podcast radio station;
Podcasters can upload their shows to the station's Web site for later
airplay.

Entertained by Open Source

Whether for entertainment or productivity, 2005 was another year
marked by the growing popularity of open-source software
programs. Free to use and modify, the community-built programs
continued to challenge the commercial software industry, led by the
most popular of recent adoptions, the Firefox Web browser.

In just a little over a year since its debut, the Mozilla development
team logged over 100 million downloads of their application, and just
released an updated version with improved surfing conveniences.

But it's not just the program that turns heads; since the program
facilitates third-party add-ons, hundreds of developers have released
their own tweaks to the tool, making it an ideal device for frittering
away time.

There are thousands of other open-source projects under way, many of
which are skewed to entertainment and are free to try. For example,
look at: http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php Juice is an
open-source tool for recording Podcasts; Audacity provides a free
sound editor, and Xine allows for playback of DVDs, video files and
streamed multimedia online. Other open-source programs are listed at
SourceForge.net.

It's not just programs; you can listen to open-source audio, too.
Musicians are beginning to take advantage of nontraditional copyright
options like Creative Commons licenses to protect their works while
allowing others to further mash up the music.

Guessing the Future

Will these trends someday be as common as MP3 downloads and DVD
players? There's no way to really tell what the future holds (look no
further than the 1950s textbooks that predicted we'd be riding flying
carpets to Mars). While there are certainly signs that the masses are
adopting new entertainment technologies, picking today's top trends
and guessing tomorrow's is an exercise in the imagination. Yet, it's
one with value; even if the guesses miss the mark, they help clarify
our vision of what's to come -- truly our best guidepost to the future.
Consider this for example:

                  Hot Video Game Console
                Xbox 360 Platinum System Console

The Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system places you at the
center of the experience. Available this holiday season in Europe,
Japan, and North America, Xbox 360 ignites a new era of digital
entertainment that is always connected, always personalized, and
always in high definition more...

Tim Gnateck is a regular contibutor to the New York Times.

Copyright 2005 Tech Tuesday

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For more tech news, also see:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/technews.html

------------------------------

From: Tim Gnatek <extremetech@telecom-digest.org> 
Subject: Shape of Surfing in 2005
Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 23:04:48 -0600


by Tim Gnatek - ExtremeTech

With all the time we spend online, the Internet seems to be becoming
America's favorite pastime. Recent reports record more hours spent
surfing the Web than watching television, among other leisurely
pursuits. So taking a look at where America travels on the information
highway can provide some reasonable way to scope out our most recent
pop-culture habits. 

Which Web sites are the most popular? According to a recent study
released by Emarketer Inc., we're most often turning to Web portals,
shopping sites and information pages. Yahoo! was at the top of the
list for home and office surfers, with 101.3 million visitors in the
month of August alone. Rounding out the top 10 sites was Microsoft's
corporate site, MSN.com, Google, America Online, eBay, MapQuest,
Amazon.com, RealNetworks and the Weather Channel, which helps prove
that our social instinct to discuss the weather holds true in the
online world, too.

But most often people are going online to search for information. A
new paper from the Pew Internet & American Life Project Online
reported that nearly 60 million people use search engines every day,
and Nielsen/NetRatings counted 5.1 billion searches just in October,
bringing Internet search just behind e-mail as the second-most-popular
online activity.

Which have been the most popular? It is little surprise that Google,
the company whose name has become synonymous with searching, would
lead the list. In the Nielsen study, Google consumed 2.4 billion
queries; that's nearly half of all searches. Yahoo, MSN search and AOL
filled out the top four, conducting a respective 20 percent, 10
percent and 7 percent of search traffic. Ask Jeeves, which ranked
fifth, charted the most dramatic rise in usage, with a 77 percent rise
in traffic, which might equate with new search services, like "direct
answers from search," that answers natural-language questions by
culling information from the Web.

Even more telling than where we've gone online is what we've been
looking for. Many search engines have released their most popular
search terms of the year, and the resulting lists form a snapshot of
the concerns of the online world. As the lists show, the year's tragic
natural disasters played a large role, but politics and entertainment
piqued Web searchers' interests as well.

      Yahoo's top news searches of 2005:

      1. Tsunami
      2. Iraq
      3. Michael Jackson trial
      4. Natalee Holloway
      5. Afghanistan
      6. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
      7. Hurricane Katrina
      8. Cindy Sheehan
      9. President Bush
      10. Tom Cruise

      Ask Jeeves' top news searches of 2005:

      1. President Bush
      2. Iraq
      3. Hurricane Katrina
      4. Tsunami
      5. Michael Jackson
      6. Britney Spears
      7. Natalee Holloway
      8. American Idol
      9. Xbox 360
      10. Angelina Jolie

      Google News' top searches of 2005:

      1. Janet Jackson
      2. Hurricane Katrina
      3. Tsunami
      4. xbox 360
      5. Brad Pitt
      6. Michael Jackson
      7. American Idol
      8. Britney Spears
      9. Angelina Jolie
      10. Harry Potter

For an updated list of top searches, including most popular terms in
categories like entertainment and sports, check out Yahoo!'s Buzz
Index, or Google's Zeitgeist for more information.

Copyright 2005 Tech Tuesday

NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html

For other news headlines of interest, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/newstoday.html   (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/internet-news.html

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 18:34:32 -0700
From: jared@netspacenospamnet.au (jared)
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders?


As compared to the company who claim more bars? Though that company is
unsure of their name, sometimes the phone comes up with the name of
company they bought more than a year ago.

Even GSM in the USA doesn't compare with GSM overseas in terms of how
far one can be from a tower ( and over a hill, too).

> That's the Verizon who spends more money advertising how good their
> network is than on making their network good?

> The one that once gave me "no signal" in the middle of Times Square?

> The one that about 50% of the time switched me to "roaming" in the
> middle of downtown Minneapolis?

------------------------------

From: kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
Subject: Re: Cell Phone Extenders?
Date: 27 Dec 2005 20:49:37 -0500
Organization: Former users of Netcom shell (1989-2000)


These devices are very illegal.  They are also very poorly built and
freqently sources of bizarre interference to 800 MHz trunked radio
systems as well as to various military UHF comm systems.

When I find them, I smash them in front of the owner, and discourage
him from installing any more of them.  It helps to have an MP along.

In addition to being illegal interference sources and occasionally
locking up cells, they also aren't very effective.  You'd do much
better with an analogue bag phone with a yagi on it (which is pretty
much the standard home telephone in some places around here).  The
analogue systems have considerably better intelligibility as well.

--scott

"C'est un Nagra.  C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."


[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I do not see what would be so illegal
about hooking up an external antenna at a somewhat higher line of
sight. Many phones (Nokia models for example) have a plug on the back
side for just that reason.   PAT]

------------------------------

Date: 28 Dec 2005 01:33:34 -0000
From: John Levine <johnl@iecc.com>
Subject: Re: Payphone Surcharges (was: Unanswered Cellphones)
Organization: I.E.C.C., Trumansburg NY USA


> It IS extortion at the rates they charge. While I have a cellphone,
> not everyone has one, and payphones with calling cards are still the
> way they need to place calls while not at home.

> The surcharge rates are *NOT* regulated!

The amount the payphone owner charges the calling card company is
regulated, but you are correct that they can mark it up as much as
they want.  I would think that the obvious solution would be to find a
calling card that doesn't.  It's not like there is a shortage of
options.

> The Long Distance carriers, card issuers, etc. usually have some kind
> of card surcharge that would apply when you are calling from either a
> payphone, hotel phone, or regular business (PBX or otherwise) or
> residential line, ...

I get the impression you haven't used a calling card in a while.  The
ones I use have a flat per minute charge from normal phones, and about
a 55 cent per call surcharge from payphones.

> Payphone service used to be a good convenient public service when
> telco really did own the phones. But when the non-telco owners came
> in, like a cancer, payphone service went to hell

You're utterly confusing causes and effects.  Three things happened at
about the same time that were bad news for traditional pay phone
service.  The first was the plummeting long distance rates due to IXC
competition.  When long distance cost 30 cents/minute and local
payphone calls were a dime, there was plenty to share with the telco
to compensate the payphone owner.  The second was cell phones, which
now carry a whole lot of calls that used to be made on pay phones.
And the third, which I presume you are referring to, is COCOTs.

It's true, COCOT providers have sometimes competed on the basis of how
much customer revenue they can kick back to the owner of the location
where the COCOT is located.  But I don't see that any more -- now I
typically see COCOTs that charge about the same or maybe even less
than telco payphones.  I see plenty of COCOTs that offer flat rates as
low as 10 cpm for some international calls, something that Ma never
gave us.

R's,

John

------------------------------

From: advertising@adtomi.com
Subject: What Carriers Does Vonage Use to Terminate Calls?
Date: 27 Dec 2005 20:54:13 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


I'm just currious what companies Vonage users to terminate calls across
the country since they do not have their own true infrastructure.  Any
ideas?

Gabriel

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 27 Dec 2005 22:23:16 -0500
From: Fred Goldstein <SeeSigForEmail@wn6.wn.net>
Subject: Re: Obituary: John Diebold, as in, Yes, That Company 


John Diebold was an important computer pioneer, but the notorious
company that bears the Diebold name was founded in 1859, and has been
manufacturing safes, vaults, and other "physical security" products
since then.  They're probably the largest manufacturer of ATMs, based
on the ones I see around Boston.

John Diebold was born in New Jersey and later lived in New York.
Diebold Inc. is based in Ohio.  Perhaps he was related to the founder.

  Fred Goldstein    k1io  fgoldstein "at" ionary.com
  ionary Consulting       http://www.ionary.com/

------------------------------

From: stannc@gmail.com
Subject: Re: Obituary:) John Diebold, as in, Yes, That Company
Date: 27 Dec 2005 20:09:45 -0800
Organization: http://groups.google.com


Danny Burstein wrote:

> " John Diebold, a Visionary of the Computer Age, Is Dead at 79"
>  	By JENNIFER BAYOT December 27, 2005

Nope, it's not THAT company:

Over the next half-century, his firm, which had no connection to
electronic equipment company Diebold Inc., provided advice to AT&T,
IBM, Boeing and Xerox, along with the cities of Chicago and New York
and the countries of Venezuela and Jordan.

The same wire story is at:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/1700AP_Obit_Diebold.html

------------------------------


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