It’s been over nine months since the announcement of Skype For Asterisk, but after all that time the open beta program gets underway this week.
For those of you who don’t follow the sometimes heavily trafficked Asterisk Users Mail List here’s the announcement from John Todd, Asterisk Open Source Community Director at Digium.
Yesterday I got the email from Dan Berninger at FWD. My one year paid subscription is coming to an end. They're offering the opportunity to renew if I want, but not signing up any new accounts. I guess that means…
A few days back Skype announced the availability something new. It’s reported to be the result of a super secret new project. It’s…….wait for it…….a cheap headset!
I’m pretty jazzed about the Etymotic Research cell phone headset that I’ve been using the past few months. Most people probably don’t get too excited about cell phone headsets, especially wired models. Let’s just say that I’m not “most people” and leave it at that. This thing rocks!
I have a long history of using noise canceling headsets for listening to music. This because for the last fifteen years my job has involved a lot of travel, and airplanes are noisy places. I started out using Sony MDR-NC10s, which were amongst the first noise canceling headphones offered. To frame this up in time, I used them with a mini-disc player long before the introduction of the iPod.
Earlier this week Andy Abramson posted Rumored New Apple iPod Touch Will Be Huge for VoIP, Multimedia. I gotta say that while the device might be interesting, I don’t see the attraction for VoIP. His assertion is that by providing the basic elements of the mic, earpiece and wifi it’s a significant enabling mechanism. I’m just not so sure it’s compelling.
My own experience with VoWifi has not been good with hand-held devices. I’ve tried a few dedicated SIP handsets and only the Polycom SpectraLink 8002 was reliable for daily use. Even then, that’s more for a fixed installation than roaming around in the wild. To roam the wild world of wifi you really need a web browser to negotiate the logon pages common to many services.
Nothing gets my blood pressure rising like someone passing off bad or misleading information as the real deal. This afternoon I followed a link in someones Twitter stream over to VOIP School where there was a post about HDVoice dating back to mid-June. Go ahead and read it, that way you might come to understand my exasperation.