Every decent sci-fi novel has a videophone. Even Philip K Dick, not a man to mess with gadgets other than robot doctors in suitcases and flapples (flying cars), dropped the occasional vidfone into his stories.

Now, of course, everyone has a videophone, whether it's a 3G mobile or a webcam equipped desktop running Skype. But that hasn't stopped Asus announcing the World's First desktop video Skype phone, which even has a pulp sci-fi name: The AiGuru SV1.

The touch-screen box has everything you need to get connected: ethernet, 802.11 b/g, speaker and mic (plus a jack socket for a headset), a battery and a USB port. But when we look at the performance, we have to wonder why.

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Posted by Dal at 12:12 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Skype

The two companies did not disclose financial terms.

Denver-based Jabber provides open instant messaging technology that supports different devices and applications, and allows users on separate networks, such as Google Talk or Yahoo Messenger, to connect with each other.

"With the acquisition of Jabber, we will be able to extend the reach of our current instant messaging service and expand the capabilities of our collaboration platform," Doug Dennerline, senior vice president of Cisco's Collaboration Software Group, said in a statement.

Cisco said it expects the deal to close by the end of January.

Source: Reuters 

Posted by Dal at 11:03 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Cisco

Ok, time is running out.  If you haven't signed up yet for AstriCon please do so ASAP.  We now have over 500 people signed up.  We have 60 speakers, 30 exhibitors, 5 conference tracks, 3 parties, 2 keynotes and a number of big surprises in store for the Asterisk community. 

Here's a brief run-down of the schedule:

AstriCon 2008 - Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Resort & Spa
Glendale, Arizona USA
Sept. 23 - 25

Tuesday, September 23 - Pre Conference / Tutorial Day
* Asterisk 123 - A primer for those new to Asterisk.
* Developer 101 - An introduction to the Asterisk open source development process and the Asterisk core code
* Asterisk Ecosystem - Product announcements and briefings from Asterisk ecosystem partners
* Asterisk Expo Exhibit Hall - Opens at 5:00 PM - Reception (free drinks and food)
* CodeZone Opening Party - Development lab and lounge opens at 7:00 PM

Wednesday, September 24 - Conference Day 1
* Keynote - Brian Aker, MySQL: The Parallel Evolution of MySQL
* 5 Tracks (Business, Tech-Intro, Carrier/Large Scale, Advanced 1, Advanced 2)
* CodeZone - 9:45 AM - 1:00 AM
* All Conference Party

Thursday, September 25 - Conference Day 2
* Keynote - Stefan Öberg, Skype: VoIP For Business
* 5 Tracks (Business, Tech-Intro, Carrier/Large Scale, Advanced 1, Advanced 2)
* CodeZone - 9:45 AM - 1:00 AM

Register Now: http://www.astricon.net/2008/glendale/web/attendRegister.php

See you in Phoenix.

Posted by Dal at 04:47 PM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk News

Editor's Note:  It is true that technology can be used for good or bad.  The key is to try and not create situations where people are put into position where they fall into the latter.

Technology is like a double- edged sword. While it's being used by the British intelligence to track them down, the Taliban are effectively exploiting the Internet phones to evade detection in war-ravaged Afghanistan. 

The militants are using Skype, a popular piece of consumer software that allows free calls to be made over the web, to communicate with cells strung out across that country, the 'Daily Mail' quoted an intelligence source as saying. 

"The trouble with this technology is that it is easily available but devilishly hard to crack. The technology can now be accessed on mobile Internet devices and the country's cell phone network is expanding rapidly," the unnamed source said.  

In fact, according to him, intelligence agency MI6 is finding it virtually impossible to intercept calls, made via the Internet by the Taliban targeting British and US forces, as they are heavily encrypted.  

Unlike traditional mobile calls, voice calls are broken into millions of pieces of data before being sent down the line and reassembled by the other caller's computer.  

However, both Britain and America are investing considerable resources to crack the codes, and in the United Kingdom, the government is introducing legislation to force Internet service providers to log all web activity.  

Even Sir David Pepper, the head of GCHQ, the British government's top-secret listening post, had told MPs recently that net calls are "seriously undermining" his organisation's ability to monitor Taliban communications.  However, Skype, the company which runs the software on the web, has refused to comment on the issue.

Source: Business Standard 

 

Posted by Dal at 10:25 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to VoIP Security

Note: Another one bites the dust.... With our current economy I believe we will much more replacements of traditional phone systems based on cost and flexibility of the Asterisk Platform.  Long Live the Open Source Revolution!!!!   Viva la Asterisk!!!!

Some organizations consider taking the plunge off of big iron PBX platforms into IP telephony as being pretty daring, but that's nothing compared to what Sam Houston State University (SHSU) is doing. The south Texas school is boldly moving thousands of users off a Cisco VoIP platform to an open-source VoIP network based on Asterisk.

SHSU is in the process of moving its 6,000 students, faculty and staff off of Cisco CallManager IP PBXs and a legacy Nortel Meridian PBX over to Linux servers running Asterisk, which includes call processing, voicemail and PSTN gateway functionality. The driver for this project was cost, says Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst at Sam Houston State University.

Aaron Daniel, senior voice analyst, Sam Houston State University.

"We thought that it will be more cost effective in the long run to go with an open source solution, because of the massive amounts of licensing fees required to keep the Cisco CallManager network up and running," says Daniel, who this week gave a presentation on his migration project at the VON show in Boston.

In the Cisco model, each phone attached to the CallManager required a separate licensing fee to operate, Daniel says. In SHSU's Asterisk/Cisco model, where it will keep its existing Cisco phones but attach them to Asterisk servers on the back end, the phone licensing costs are eliminated.

Click Here to Continue Reading 

Posted by Dal at 10:46 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Case Studies

=== dahdi-linux-complete-2.0.0-rc3+2.0.0-rc2 ===

This release combines dahdi-linux-2.0.0-rc4 and dahdi-tools-2.0.0-rc2 into a single download, one-package installation process, so that users who are installing DAHDI for the first time don't have to download and
install the dahdi-linux and dahdi-tools packages separately.

=== dahdi-linux-2.0.0-rc4 ===

This is a release candidate of the DAHDI Linux kernel modules package, which replaces the kernel modules components of Zaptel. It contains all the functionality of Zaptel 1.4 plus many improvements, but
also has some old (generally unsupported) functionality from Zaptel removed, including (but not limited to):

  - Support for Linux 2.4.x kernels
  - Support for devfs dynamic device filesystems
  - The 'torisa' and 'wcusb' drivers

Information on upgrading from Zaptel to DAHDI can be found in the included UPGRADE.txt file, which can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/dahdi/linux/tags/2.0.0-rc4/UPGRADE.txt?view=co

The change log for this release is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/dahdi-linux/releases/ChangeLog-2.0.0-rc4

=== asterisk-1.4.22-rc4 ===

This release candidate includes a large number of bug fixes and also is the first release of Asterisk 1.4 that includes support for DAHDI, the package that is replacing Zaptel. This version of Asterisk can be built
against *either* Zaptel or DAHDI, but since Zaptel 1.4.12 is the last release of Zaptel 1.4, users are encouraged to transition to DAHDI as soon as they can, so that they will be able to continue to receive bug
fixes and other improvements.

Information on how the transition from Zaptel to DAHDI affects this Asterisk release can be found in the included Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt file, which can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.4.22-rc4/Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt?view=co

The change log for this release is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/ChangeLog-1.4.22-rc4

=== asterisk-1.6.0-rc5 ===

This version of Asterisk contains a large number of enhancements and improvements over Asterisk 1.4, which can be found in the included CHANGES file, and read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.6.0-rc5/CHANGES?view=co

*All* users who install this version of Asterisk are strongly encouraged to read the UPGRADE.txt file to learn about changes that affect compatibility with previous versions of Asterisk; this file can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.6.0-rc5/UPGRADE.txt?view=co

Information on how the transition from Zaptel to DAHDI affects this Asterisk release can be found in the included Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt file, which can also be read here:

http://svn.digium.com/view/asterisk/tags/1.6.0-rc5/Zaptel-to-DAHDI.txt?view=co

The change log for this release is here:

http://downloads.digium.com/pub/telephony/asterisk/releases/ChangeLog-1.6.0-rc5

=== ===

Thank you for your continued support of the Asterisk project!

Posted by Dal at 10:23 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to Asterisk Releases

Of course one has to take the report with a pinch of salt since it has been released by Florida-based Satellite Users Interference Reduction Group (SUIRG), which has conflicts up the wazoo.

They conducted tests to “measure interference levels generated by fixed WiMAX transmissions into an FSS satellite receiving station.” The tests found that the “WiMAX transmit signal could cause significant problems to a satellite digital signal well in excess of 12 km distance.”

Click Here to Continue Reading the Article and Comments

Posted by Dal at 09:48 AM | Direct Link | TrackBacks (0) Posted to WiMax