Graves On SOHO Technology

If you read things hereabouts then you will no doubt find this interesting. I certainly did.

Our friends at Gigaset are continuing to promote their wares to a broad audience, this time with a contest offering their DX800A desk phone. The DX800A has been available in Europe for a year or more, but has yet to be released in North America. It’s release is anticipated at the coming CES show in January 2012.

The Gigaset DX800A is a desk phone that incorporates a DECT base, supporting a number of cordless handsets. It’s HDVoice capable supporting G.722 audio over SIP.

It also supports the use of wideband audio over its built-in Bluetooth radio. I tried it using my Plantronics Voyager Pro UC while at CES last year.

Earlier today Doug Mohney of HDVoiceNews issued an interesting tweet;

Briefing with Tier 1 telco on #HDvoice. Product manager started using the useless marketing term #HDaudio. Maybe should use #HDtelephony?

I find myself agreeing with Doug’s assertion that “HD Audio” is not appropriate terminology. “HD Audio” is way too broad a term, and more appropriate used with respect to entertainment than telephony.

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One of the nicer things about Google+ is its integration with mobile platforms. The updates for my Android cell phone have been coming at a regular pace. Certainly more often than most of the other apps I routinely use.

One of the most convenient features is the auto upload of photos taken by the phone. Such a feature is actually so convenient that’s it’s seriously bothersome when, for whatever reason, it doesn’t work as expected. This is what’s happening with my G2 for the past few weeks. It only uploads some of the photos I take.

Now, I should be clear, when I bought the G2, about a year ago, I merely moved the 2GB micro-SD card from my old Blackberry 9700 to the new Android phone. That memory card presently holds just over 800 photos and a handful of video clips. It also holds a few hundred songs & podcasts.

In recent weeks it seems quite random with respect to which pics it will upload to my Google+ profile. If a pic doesn’t get uploaded there seems no way to upload it without also sharing it in a somewhat public fashion. This seems problematic.

It’s not clear if this is an issue with the Android or the Google+ client for Android, but it sure does bug me. It makes me wonder how the combination would handle the storage capacity of a more modern micro-SD card, with as much as 16 GB of space for photos.

Ok, perhaps “Barbarians” is not the correct term, especially since we like both our current Fedex and UPS delivery drivers. This list summarizes the project that added an intercom to our front gate.

• Part 1: Get That Will You Dear? A Phone For The Door Or Gate
• Part 2: An Analog Phone For our Front Gate
• Part 3: An Analog Phone For our Front Gate: Done Deal!

To be able to communicate with the delivery person at the gate has been a tremendous convenience. In fact, in the past few weeks I’ve not made the far-too-familiar trek down to the local Fedex Office location to pickup a missed delivery.

A few weeks ago I finished reading “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires“ by MIT Professor and outspoken network neutrality advocate Tim Wu. Professor Wu starts with a historical examination of various industries that he considers to be “information industries.” This starts with the telegraph, telephone, movies, radio and television before moving onward to consider the internet.

In each case he traces the evolution of the business, key innovations, notable rivalries, competitive pressures, corporate alliances and government involvement. Each little tale is entertaining and informative on its own, revealing something of the great men and companies of an earlier era.

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