While even the most basic phones come with a phone number and the ability to send text messages, an increasing number of people are choosing alternatives such as Google Voice and Pinger.

Some do so to avoid a phone and contract entirely, pairing those services with an iPod touch or other device. Others use the alternative services to add a second line to their cellphone or to avoid pricey text message charges.

On Wednesday, Pinger said it is beefing up its iOS service with the addition of voicemail.

As with all Pinger apps, it’s free and ad-supported. Existing users who want to use voicemail will be asked to ditch their old Pinger app and download a new one.

Pinger, which has 15 million users overall, is most popular on iPod touches. But interestingly, 30 percent of Pinger users are on smartphones, according to Pinger co-founder Joe Sipher.

The market for services that replace the traditional ones provided by the carrier is growing, with apps like WhatsApp and Touch quietly becoming some of the most popular downloads in the market.

Voicemail itself has been seen as a potential beachhead for so-called “over-the-top” services. French carrier Orange released an iOS app that replaces the iPhone’s built-in voicemail app with one that allows users to record separate messages depending on who is calling.

AllThingsD’s Ina Fried contributed to this report.

Amazon has not returned calls or emails seeking comment, but we have confirmed independently that Charlotte, N.C.-based Yap has been acquired by Amazon.

Reports of the acquisition surfaced earlier today after CLT, a Charlotte-based blog, connected a couple of obscure dots. First, it tracked down an SEC filing that shows that as of Sept. 8, Yap was acquired by Yarmuth Dion. Then, it discovered that Yarmouth Dion has the same mailing address as Amazon’s Seattle headquarters.

Media reports immediately jumped to the conclusion that Amazon was interested in the company’s speech recognition technology so it could compete with Siri, the voice-controlled assistant found on Apple’s newest iPhone.

And, from what we dug up, that sounds about right.

Most recently, Yap’s servers were being used by Sprint and others to convert voicemails to text. It was being shipped on a majority of Sprint’s Android handsets. Yap also had an iPhone app.

On Oct. 20, Yap voicemail was discontinued.

But the company, founded by brothers Igor and Victor Jablokov, started out in a different direction. Four years ago, the company was eager to build technology that allowed people to interact with Web services using speech recognition. The company, which raised about $10 million, presented at the TechCrunch40 event in 2007.

At the time, the idea was a little far-fetched.

Wireless networks weren’t very fast, not many people owned smartphones and distribution was tough because of the lack of app stores. With many of those problems resolved, we heard the 50-employee company was beginning to return to its roots. Now, it works for Amazon.

We can hear it now:

– “Yap, what are this season’s most popular boots?”

– “Yap, buy me the first Harry Potter novel.”

– “Yap, what’s the new hit song from Justin Bieber?”

The U.K. Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee released written statements from Mr. Murdoch, several former top executives and a law firm that was retained by the media company as it dealt with fallout from the scandal over allegations that the now-closed News of the World illegally intercepted voice-mail messages and bribed police to obtain information.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

This morning, News Corp. CEO and majordomo Rupert Murdoch, his son James (who is also a top company exec) — as well as former employee and full-time lightning rod Rebekah Brooks — march on down to the British Parliament to answer questions from a committee there about the ever-growing PhoneGate scandal.

For those living under a rock, News Corp. is embroiled in ever more serious controversy about who knew what and when (also where, why and how much) in the hacking of phones of a myriad of well-known people in the U.K. by its News of the World tabloid newspaper.

Besides celebrities and politicians, that has included the voicemails of a murdered girl, an appalling act that has galvanized public opinion and the weak spines of legislators into action in this inquiry.

It’s sordid, it’s ugly and it makes for what could be an explosive event, starring the man who brought you “Titanic,” Glenn Beck, “Glee” and, most recently, the sale of Myspace.

There’s no question, getting the 80-year-old Murdoch on the ropes will be the aim of the committee members holding the hearing, and how one of the world’s most famous and legendary media moguls performs — or does not — will be a big deal to both interested observers and News Corp. shareholders.

By way of full disclosure, that’s not me, but this site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned by News Corp. In other words, somewhere up the corporate food chain, Murdoch is my boss.

In any case, that has never stopped me or AllThingsD.com from telling it like it is, so here is the liveblog of what is sure to be a doozy of a media event:

6:36 am PT:: It all starts for the Murdochs, as soon as the former Scotland Yard head John Yates has completed questioning about the police’s obvious bungling of the various investigations over the years.

Rupert Murdoch and his son, James Murdoch, are on, looking grave and dressed in grey.

Sitting behind them are Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi Deng, and his top adviser at News Corp., Joel Klein, who is heading up the phone hacking scandal internally at the company.

The hearing — in a room that looks like a high school debate could take place there — starts off politely enough.

But the first question is directed toward James Murdoch about his clearly incomplete investigation when phone hacking allegations were first made many years ago. He begins with an apology.

“These actions do not live up to the standards of News Corp.,” says the younger Murdoch.

He is interrupted by his father, Rupert Murdoch, who notes rather dramatically: “This is the most humble day of my life.”

The questioner quickly asks the obvious query, after James Murdoch claims News Corp. was not in full possession of the facts when execs had told a previous committee there was no reason to believe there was more widespread hacking.

Were News Corp. execs lying?

James Murdoch continues to insist that the bulk of evidence came out — “real evidence” — in later civil trials. And also, that News Corp. is now investigating the situation fully.

He throws around words like “proactive action” and “transparency,” which is probably cold comfort now to those hacked when things were less clear to News Corp.’s senior management.

Now up, Rupert Murdoch, who is asked quickly about statements he made about not tolerating wrongdoing and who had lied to him at News Corp. about the phone hacking.

Apparently, he “didn’t know” a lot about the hacking that took place, while also defending the non-hacking employees of his company.

But the questioner is still on him about exactly what he did know about the situation, which seems to be — at least according to his testimony — a lot of I-don’t-knows.

6:53 am: It continues about what Rupert Murdoch knew and when he knew it and what he did. Or not.

As Rupert Murdoch keeps up with this tone of not being clued in to what have turned out to be critical events, James Murdoch wants to keep jumping in with the details, which he is eager to impart.

“At what point did you find out criminality was endemic at News of the World?” asks the questioner.

Rupert Murdoch does not like the word endemic, but stresses that he was “shocked, appalled and ashamed” by the case of the murdered girl, Milly Dowler.

The questioner seems frustrated by Rupert Murdoch’s answers, which are, for the typically razor-sharp media mogul, unusually slow.

Like a persistent terrier who wants to perform, James Murdoch is back again offering to serve up the deets.

7:04 am: Now, it is onto the closing down of News of the World: Was the tabloid shut down because of the criminality?

“We had broken our trust with our readers,” says Rupert Murdoch. “We felt ashamed for what had happened.”

A new questioner is on, with a bizarre query about why Rupert Murdoch came in the back door of the Prime Minister’s house at 10 Downing Street on a recent visit there.

It’s a cloddish effort to show him as a powerful puppetmaster to pols, but only serves as a punch line.

Back on track, with questions about whether there was hacking in the U.S., which Rupert Murdoch said he could not believe had happened.

More questions about how badly the company acted, which came down to the questions about whether he was “ultimately” responsible for the hacking.

“Nope,” says Rupert Murdoch, who keeps insisting he relied on others, some of whom apparently “misled” him.

It’s an astonishing admission and, really, excuse, given he has been chairman, CEO and a very strong leader of News Corp. for more than a half-century.

7:16 am: A new questioner, who asks who decided to close down News of the World. It was Murdoch himself, his son and other execs.

Next up, why did News Corp. pay off a victim of hacking, which James Murdoch did without informing his father or the News Corp. board.

James Murdoch essentially points out that it is typical to do this in companies of the global scale of News Corp.

These are apparently very busy, busy, busy people, who do not seem to have time to notice how such juicy and best-selling scoops might have been magically produced by News of the World.

Onto ethical conduct guidelines, which News Corp. has in a pamphlet form, says James Murdoch, but pages which some at the company have obviously never cracked.

Rupert Murdoch is asked again about his culpability in the case, which he continues to maintain he does not shoulder the blame.

James Murdoch does note that the company “will think more forcefully … about our journalism and ethics.”

Given the situation, in which every day brings a new revelation of bad acts by News Corp. employees, this promise of better behavior seems to be a case of much too little and very, very late.

Rupert Murdoch still uses the opportunity to stress the need for a free press, despite its excesses.

7:31 am: More about the payments to settle with phone hacking victims and how soon the company realized the problems were more widespread.

James Murdoch talks about how he might have acted differently had he known more then as he does now.

“If we knew now what we knew then,” says James Murdoch, “we would have taken more action and moved more aggressively.”

But what else is he going to say? It’s a could-have, would-have, should-have line of questioning that is eliciting very little in the way of true information.

Finally, a good point about “willful blindness,” which is a term from the Enron scandal about avoiding knowing about problems you really should have known about.

“Is that a question?,” asks James Murdoch. It is a statement, actually, and a decent enough one.

“We didn’t do that,” says Rupert Murdoch firmly this time.

Still, soon enough, Rupert Murdoch is insisting he was not as involved as people have imagined him to be with the management of his newspapers.

A new questioner is pressing this important point, but Rupert Murdoch is not biting on a query about his legendarily hands-on managing style.

“I’d say, ‘What’s doing?’” he explains about his conversations with editors, but adding he might not have been told about payoffs to phone hacking victims.

The questions are in the deep weeds here, but it’s still interesting that Rupert Murdoch continues to maintain that his life was too busy to wallow in the details, however controversial and important those details might be.

7:55 am: More and more don’t-knows pile up and up in a giant mountain of acts perpetrated by someone somewhere, but not the Murdochs.

“I can tell you I was surprised as you were,” says James Murdoch about certain payments to various hackers and those who were hacked.

Was it Les Hinton, who then ran News International and later Dow Jones, from which he recently resigned?

Could be! Maybe! Mistake were made! Who knows!

Well, someone does!

It moves onto Brooks, the tarnished News International exec and editor whom Rupert Murdoch does note he still trusts. Finally, some certainty!

Brooks is definitely one of the more compelling characters in this drama, although the media focus on her striking red hair color seems odd and vaguely sexist, as if she is some flame-haired she-devil from media hell. She might certainly be guilty in this mess, but her fabulous hair has nothing to do with it.

(Rupert’s mane is grey, by the way, and James’ is brown, if you really need to know.)

Fascinatingly, Murdoch’s backing of Brooks has been strong and consistent, despite intense criticism of her by many in this scandal.

The payment of legal fees of perpetrators and payments to the victims in the hacking seems to obsess one questioner, who wants News Corp. to stop doing it.

Murdoch says he’d like to if contracts did not preclude that, which essentially means News Corp. will keep up forking over the legal fees and payments.

8:12 am: The attention turns to how James Murdoch found out about the various emails that showed there was more evidence of hacking than was first thought about and what he felt about it.

He says very little, noting that the matter is under police investigation. It’s not don’t-know now, but can’t-say.

The hearing is beginning to feel a little rope-a-dope, with the Murdochs apologizing and taking blows, saying very little — either claiming lack of knowledge or lack of ability to comment about the ongoing police inquiry — and tiring out the questioners.

It is a classic tactic of the boxing champion Muhammad Ali and it works in the ring.

Whether that will be the case with PhoneGate remains to be seen, but it certainly has made what could have been a more explosive hearing much less so.

Instead, it seems to have turned into a what didn’t the Murdochs know and when didn’t they know it hearing.

On questioner gets this irony. “That’s frankly unsatisfactory,” he says about the Murdochs continuing shock and surprise at the thorny situation they find themselves in.

Maybe it seems a little hard to believe, but the persistent story from James Murdoch is that they were told by their lawyers, the police and others that nothing was awry once the initial phone hacking investigation was complete and only found out about the larger problem in later civil lawsuits.

But, asks the questioner to Rupert Murdoch, should his editors and managers at News of the World have known about it?

Of course, they should have.

But, once again, the legendary media baron, who made his fortune and fame in disseminating news and information across the world in newspapers, on television, on satellite and on the Web — at least for now — can’t say.

So, was he “kept in the dark” about the situation? Rupert Murdoch acknowledges he might have asked more questions, although he noted his British newspapers were only a small part of his massive empire.

But, he adds, “Anything that is seen as a crisis comes to me.”

Well, not the phone hacking crisis, it seems.

But, they’re sorry. So sorry. And, of course, humbled.

8:54 am: Suddenly, there is a disturbance, in which someone seems to have possibly attempted to accost the Murdochs.

But it is not clear what has happened, as the hearings are suspended for 10 minutes.

James Murdoch leaps up quickly to protect his father, which he has been doing in this hearing verbally already, where the strategy seems to be to let him largely do all the talking.

Even faster on her feet and with arms raised toward a man in a plaid shirt and carrying a pie plate with shaving cream is Rupert Murdoch’s wife, Wendi.

The man seems to have managed to get some of the foam on Rupert Murdoch, but Wendi Deng appears to have partially thwarted her husband from receiving a full pie in the face.

It’s the first striking visual of this hearing, protecting the patriarch and the king of the empire from harm, no matter what.

Here is a video of the incident:

According to Britain’s Channel 4: “As the man was being led away in handcuffs escorted by a single police officer, he refused to give his name, saying: ‘As Mr Murdoch himself said, I’m afraid I cannot comment on an ongoing police investigation.’”

9:09 am: The room is cleared, so it is only the Murdoch crew behind James and Rupert Murdoch, and now the committee is even more solicitous.

Rupert Murdoch is without his jacket and his wife is being commended for her most excellent left hook.

Still, it’s back to business and the questioner does zero in on a major disconnect over how two media execs as famously aggressive and involved as the Murdochs were so passive in this hacking situation.

It “was a terrible shock,” says James Murdoch.

The same is said about what would be even more disturbing and recent allegations of the hacking of the victims of the 9/11 bombings.

Both father and son say there is no evidence of this so far, but they were surely looking into it.

While it certainly did not come through in what have largely been feckless questions from the committee, the final questioner does correctly ask the pair if they might want to pay more attention.

The last question is for Rupert Murdoch and finally gets to the real query everyone wants to ask.

Noting Murdoch is “captain of the ship,” she asks if he has considered resigning.

“No,” answers Murdoch firmly.

“Why not?” she presses.

“People let me down and it’s for them to pay,” says Rupert Murdoch. “But I think, frankly, I am the best person do clean this up.”

He finishes up with a statement about being sorry, how he was also betrayed and how phone hacking and bribery is wrong.

“Saying sorry is not enough, things must be put right,” he says.

Finally, something we do know.

This is the message Mr. Sheeran, a 44-year-old technology executive in the Seattle area, got instead: “Just wanted to know that your punches ordered the done in the Dipper pickup. Ok. Then you can pick up the French abortion.”

Mr. Sheeran was bewildered. “It sounded like a coded message for a drug deal,” he says.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Distracted driving is a big worry for many parents, but one start-up is betting that its technology will help alleviate some of those concerns. California-based Location Labs is selling a tool that detects when the phone is in a moving car and limits the owner’s ability to make calls and texts.

The system locks the driver’s cellphone screen, redirects calls to voicemail, blocks text message alerts and lets parents log on via the Web and see what is happening with the device while the teen is driving. In case of emergencies, parents can set three key contacts who are allowed to get through. And teens can override the system if they’re a passenger rather than a driver, but Location Labs will alert their parents when that happens.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

It’s really convenient for senders. With just a press of a button, they can dictate the equivalent of a text message and know that it will reach the person. It’s like sending a voicemail without having to listen to that annoying message or–heaven forbid–talk to someone. You can even share your thought with various groups of people.

As for the recipients, I’m not sure how they will take to an influx of “thoughts” should their friends or company really start digging the new messaging option.

In any case, Thoughts is a free download due shortly at the App Store, so it won’t cost a thing to try it out. You don’t even need a headset, though it integrates well with Jawbone’s gear and software. However, the goal of the software is to make headsets more versatile.

Plantronics is also trying to expand the device’s utility, in its case expanding from a cellphone-only headset to one that can talk to Skype and enterprise phone systems, in addition to cellphones.

Live Notes

4:15 pm: Aliph/Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman takes the stage with Walt and Kara.

4:16 pm: He starts taking out the Jambox, a wireless speaker system and speakerphone in one.

4:17 pm: Aliph is offering 40 percent off the device to D: Dive attendees.

4:17 pm: They transition to the real demo.

Rahman says they are usually talking about headsets, but today they are here to talk about an app they have developed.

4:18 pm: He says we all live in a distracted life.

“People are constantly bumping into stuff now, with all the touchscreen stuff.”

4:19 pm: He says they love texts because they are asynchronous and you don’t have to get back to people immediately.

He says they love voice because it is the oldest method of communication. “It’s better for expressing emotion,” says Rahman.

4:20 pm: He opens Jawbone Thoughts on his iPhone 4.

The app is a hybrid between texting and voicemail–quickly sending a voice message to an individual or group.

4:21 pm: Rahman sends a message, and now we switch to the receiver’s phone.

The interface is slick, and avatar-driven. Feels like playing song demos in iTunes–just a snippet to get a quick idea.

4:23 pm: The app also has a text-to-speech engine for text messages.

Kara asks, “Can you control it with voice…so no tapping on the screen?”

“Soon. We are waiting on some APIs,” says Rahman.

4:25 pm: The app can also send voice messages or texts to people who don’t have the app. It just sends a text message or email.

The demo ends with a mention of version 2.0 for the app.

Here’s Aliph’s own demo video of the Thoughts app:

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]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101207/jawbone-you-wont-pay-a-penny-for-our-thoughts/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20101007/naked-brett-favre-wont-make-money-for-nick-denton/ http://allthingsd.com/20101007/naked-brett-favre-wont-make-money-for-nick-denton/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:27:02 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=24243 Gawker Media’s Deadspin sports site says it will publish nude photos of Brett Favre today, along with some voicemails it says the quarterback left for a woman who is not his wife.

Which means that corner of Deadspin is going to be very, very popular today.

As well as unprofitable, says Gawker Media owner Nick Denton.

“These things are always money-losers,” Denton says via IM, before referring me to Gawker Media marketing director Erin Pettigrew for more.

But while I wait for her to get back to me, I can make some educated guesses to explain why lots of traffic won’t mean lots of money for Denton today.

• It’s hard to serve ads into traffic spikes. Or at least that’s what Denton always says about his most popular posts, like the iPhone 4 prototype that Gizmodo showed off to Apple’s dismay, or a sorta-sex tape featuring “McSteamy” from “Grey’s Anatomy,” etc.
• In this case, Gawker is very likely to serve up the Favre post without any advertising, anyway. When I interviewed Denton onstage at an Advertising Week event last week, I asked him specifically about how advertisers feel about “athlete dong” photos, which his readers love. His answer, in short, was that advertisers are understandably squeamish about this stuff, and can opt out of posts that contain it in advance. Have to assume this is one of those cases.

Requisite to-be-sure: Denton runs a for-profit business, and he won’t run athlete dong photos or anything else unless he can make money doing it.

So while those individual pageviews that the post generates won’t make him money, those visitors may well end up visiting other, dong-free posts on Gawker sites today, which will have ads.

And of course, the post will give Gawker and Deadspin that much more publicity, as mainstream media outlets that would never stoop to running athlete dong photos find time to talk about the site that did. (Cough.)

UPDATE: Sure enough, both the Favre post and the rest of Deadspin are currently ad-free. Via e-mail, Erin Pettigrew explains why that’s so:

In the case of major ad/edit adjacency issues such as this, we have a cadre of tech tools to handle the display conflict. Usually the decision is made to prevent ads from showing next to NSFW or similarly questionable content and then the tech solution is put into place to effect that immediately after. The tech tools range from removing ads on a per-post basis to scanning post content for particular topics against which we can negatively target ads.

If the adjacency affects takeovers and sponsorships where ad inventory cannot be otherwise rerouted, we communicate the scenario upfront to the client and involve them in the decision-making. The same tech solutions then apply.

It’s the classic airplane ad next to an airliner crash scenario for which publishers need to develop contingencies. For this particular scoop, the decision was indeed to clean the Favre post pages of ads.

I saw your note about spikes — you are correct that we aren’t able to instantly match ad demand to the surge of inventory supply caused by traffic spikes. This is because our inventory is 100% directly sold versus hawked by real time auction marketplaces. More pageviews does not directly equal more dollars! Also, note that our ad bookings close weeks to months before creative hits the websites. So, unless a spike is ‘scheduled,’ it can’t really be sold.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101007/naked-brett-favre-wont-make-money-for-nick-denton/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20100825/liveblog-google-event/ http://allthingsd.com/20100825/liveblog-google-event/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 16:27:30 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=47237 Google announced today it was adding VoIP calling to Gmail for U.S. users. Desktop calls to any phone in the U.S. and Canada will be free at least until the end of the year, and international calls will be billed at rates as low as two cents a minute.

Here’s the liveblog of the announcement:

9:36 am: The event kicks off with Todd Jackson, group manager for Gmail, presiding. He offers a quick overview of the product’s origins and its evolution–the addition of Google Talk and Google Voice. “When you can see and hear the people you’re talking to, it really changes the way you communicate,” he says.

9:36 am: Jackson calls up Vincent Paquet, product manager for Google Voice. He offers yet another overview of the product and Google’s hopes for it. “We wanted to improve the voicemail experience,” he says. “So we took what we learned from Gmail–that people want a lot of storage and an easy way to search and share their messages–and added it to the product.”

9:38 am: Paquet continues, noting the company then evolved the product into a mobile app. More touting of Google Voice features.

9:39 am: To date, Gmail and Google Voice haven’t been able to communicate with one another, but that’s about to change. With that, Paquet calls Craig Walker, product manager for real-time communications, to the stage. And he announces the big news of the day: The ability to make phone calls from Gmail. (Hey Skype! How’s that IPO registration going?)

9:41 am: Walker runs through a usage scenario, noting that if you have a good Internet connection in your home, you no longer need great cell coverage to make a call.

9:43 am: Walker pulls up his Gmail account, pulls up a Googley-looking HTML keypad and calls his travel agent via his Gmail contacts list. He does this without a headset, and the call quality and clarity is surprisingly good.

9:44 am: Interesting. The keypad displays a flag to indicate the country being called. It also displays the rate. With Paquet’s help, Walker calls a hotel in Paris. The rate: two cents a minute. Walker notes that the average rate for such a call is typically well over a dollar a minute.

9:46 am: Well, would you look at that. Walker’s just gotten a voicemail from his travel agent. As he checks it, his travel agent calls him back. She’s not happy that he’s seeking a Paris hotel without her help and begins a little tirade. Walker promptly demonstrates the mute feature and talks for a bit about how he could, if he wanted, pass the call from his computer to his phone.

9:48 am: Missed the details, but evidently, there’s a handy caller ID feature as well.

9:50 am: On to pricing. “We looked at the typical cell phone plan and it just seemed way too high to us,” says Walker. He adds that the same is true of VoIP services. Google’s solution: zero cents a minute for calls in the U.S. and Canada, and two cents a minute for calls to landlines in France, Spain and a host of other countries.

9:51 am: Interesting. Google’s designed some European-style Google phone booths and plans to put them in airports, college campuses, etc.

9:53 am: Walker says, “We’re going to give everyone 10 cents call credit to try the service out.” Afterward, they can buy additional credits through the app.

9:54 am: The rollout of voice calling from GMail to users in the U.S. begins today. No word on countries beyond that, but presumably an international rollout will follow.

9:56 am: Some discussion of Google Talk (chat), Google Voice and Gmail converging into a unified application.

Will there be a soft client? Doesn’t sound like it. Walker says Google prefers to focus its efforts on established Google products. “We don’t want to create another destination for phones; we prefer to keep the ones we have.”

9:58 am: Will credits expire? If you don’t use them, yes–but likely only after a year or so. Pretty standard.

9:59 am: Walker: “We have absolutely no plans to charge for calls in the U.S. or Canada….Our hope is that we’ll make enough margin on international calls to support our low rates.”

10:01 am: Credits will initially be available in $10 blocks.

10:02 am: Any plans for enterprise deployment? No comment, though Paquet seems to suggest this feature is headed for Google Apps someday. “It’s a consumer-level feature only at this point.”

10:04 am: Audio ads? No plans for that, says Walker. Again he notes the margins on international rates and how Google hopes they will be enough to sustain the model it’s described today.

10:05 am: More questions about the product’s future in business.

Paquet: “I think this product requires additional features before it’s ready for enterprise. It’s really just a consumer-level product right now.”

10:06 am: Ah. Google is committing to free calls in the U.S. and Canada through the end of the year. Walker says the company has no plans to raise rates after that, but clearly it’s reserving the right to do so.

10:09 am: Inevitable question about the Apple/Google Voice flap.

Walker dodges, offers nothing.

10:16 am: A few more miscellaneous questions about rates and whatnot and the session wraps up.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100825/liveblog-google-event/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100720/sumner-redstones-new-gig-leak-plugger/ http://allthingsd.com/20100720/sumner-redstones-new-gig-leak-plugger/#comments Tue, 20 Jul 2010 12:22:53 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=21670 Maybe Sumner Redstone has too much time on his hands.

Last month we learned, from the Daily Beast’s Peter Lauria, that the Viacom (VIA) chairman was moonlighting as a talent promoter: Redstone was reportedly trying to get his MTV channel to run an unwatchable reality TV show about the Electric Barbarellas–a “scantily clad new all-girl group” the octogenarian was supposedly “smitten with.”

Now we learn, from Lauria as well, that Redstone is working on a new project: Trying to figure out which Viacom employee leaked last month’s story to Lauria.

Redstone, a lawyer by training, isn’t beating around the bush here–he just called up Lauria and told him to give up the name. “You will be well-rewarded and well-protected,” he promised. Here’s the astounding voicemail he left:

For the record, Lauria isn’t giving up the name of his source.

UPDATE: I’ll admit I’m a bit surprised to hear from Viacom at all on this one. But PR boss Carl Folta wants us to know that Redstone’s call was a freelance affair, and not a reflection of Viacom policy. “There is no investigation under way at Viacom,” he says.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100720/sumner-redstones-new-gig-leak-plugger/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20100226/apple-to-give-next-generation-iphone-the-finger/ http://allthingsd.com/20100226/apple-to-give-next-generation-iphone-the-finger/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:55:19 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=35699 Now that rumors of an Apple tablet have manifested themselves in the iPad, speculation about the next iteration of the iPhone can begin in earnest. In a research note published today, Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Katy Huberty offers a few thoughts on what a successor to the iPhone 3GS might look like.

“We expect Apple to launch new iPhones in June that offer both a lower total cost of ownership and new functionality, potentially including gesture-based technology,” she wrote in a note to clients today. “As we’ve highlighted in the past, the cost of device + service plan is currently the biggest barrier to incremental demand in both mature markets like the US and emerging markets like China.”

Now, when Apple (AAPL) introduced the 3GS in 2009, it dropped the price of the iPhone 3G to $99, so it seems reasonable to expect the company to follow a similar pattern when it introduces a new iPhone. Might the price of the new device itself also be lower than expected? Perhaps. Certainly the fact that Apple was able to bring the iPad to market at $499 suggests it’s possible.

More intriguing than these ruminations on price, however, is Huberty’s mention of new “gesture-based technology.” The analyst doesn’t offer any details on what this might be, but presumably she’s referring to advances disclosed in some recent Apple patent filings.

Among the possibilities here: A touch-sensitive bezel that would turn the outer edges of the device into intelligent “sense lines” that give users quick and easy access to their favorite applications, and some camera-based swipe controls that offer one-handed control over a variety of iPhone functions.

Here’s a description of the latter from Patently Apple, which does a far better job explaining these things than I ever could.

[This] patent reveals yet another innovative concept that is designed to help users control their incoming calls and voicemail by simply swiping their finger over the external camera lens. It will control rewinding and fast forwarding voicemail. In addition, the new methodology will also enhance one handed navigation of Web pages, documents, a contact list or your iTunes library by simply swiping the camera lens in different swiping motion combinations. In the future, the iPad may be able to take advantage of this feature if the camera is positioned correctly. This would theoretically allow a user to simply flick a finger over the camera lens to turn the page of a book or scroll a webpage without ever having to move your hand.

Sounds pretty slick, yeah? Certainly, a feature like this would take smartphone navigation to a new level. Were it to be included in a next-generation iPhone along with a five-megapixel camera, LED flash and video chat support that’s rumored–well, Apple might not need the lower price point as Huberty suggests to juice demand for the device.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100226/apple-to-give-next-generation-iphone-the-finger/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100224/faxing-with-magicjack-windows/ http://allthingsd.com/20100224/faxing-with-magicjack-windows/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:58:00 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://mailbox.allthingsd.com/?p=583 Q:

Can the magicJack Internet phone device you reviewed last week be used for faxing?

A:

The company says: “We do not officially support using faxing with magicJack.” It says it “sometimes” works with fax machines and suggests a number of steps to try this, including turning off error correction on the fax machine and setting the fax speed to the lowest possible, then gradually increasing the speed, testing at each level. However, I would advise thinking of the $40 device, which allows free unlimited domestic calls over the Internet, as a voice-calling product and nothing else.

Q:

You said that, if you buy a magicJack, you need to keep it plugged into a PC that’s constantly on and constantly connected to the Internet, to make and receive calls. But what if a call comes in and your computer is off or disconnected?

A:

Even if the magicJack isn’t plugged into a running, connected computer, the service behind it will still record voicemail you receive. In fact, magicJack’s voicemail includes a feature that sends each message as an audio file via email, which will also keep working. You can also check your magicJack voicemail from other phones. In addition, even if a magicJack is disconnected, its number will continue to be forwarded to other phones, if you have chosen the option to do so.

Q:

Can I use the Windows 7 CD that came with my Dell (DELL) PC for either the Boot Camp or Parallels installation on a Mac?

A:

I have heard of some who say they have done this successfully, and you can certainly try it. But I strongly recommend using a fresh copy of Windows 7. There are two reasons for this. First, Microsoft (MSFT) licensing policies may block your use of copies of Windows already in use on other PCs. Second, Windows disks that come with PCs are sometimes customized for the particular features of that PC, and might not work properly on the Mac.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100224/faxing-with-magicjack-windows/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20100217/magicjack-review/ http://allthingsd.com/20100217/magicjack-review/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 02:06:20 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1183 When I see a high-tech product that’s advertised mainly via frequent hard-sell TV ads, as if it were a diet pill, I tend to assume it can’t be very good, especially if its price is absurdly low. So, I haven’t paid much attention to a product called magicJack, a small $40 adapter for your computer that claims to let you make unlimited domestic phone calls over the Internet with your home telephone free for a whole year—and for just $20 a year thereafter.

But after receiving reader requests to review magicJack, I decided to do so. To my surprise, it worked pretty much as advertised. It has a few drawbacks, and extra fees for added services, such as vanity phone numbers. But I found magicJack easy to set up and easy to use, and it yielded decent, if not pristine, call quality. I even tested customer support—a source of complaints online—and found it friendly, fast and responsive.

MagicJack looks like an oversized USB flash drive. On one end is a standard USB connector for the PC; on the other is a standard phone jack to plug in a phone. It’s compatible with PCs running Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, as well as with all Intel-based Macs. It works with both corded and cordless phones, and comes with software for dialing, though you can also dial directly from a connected phone.

The low annual fee covers calls to and from any phone on any telephone network—landline or cellphone—not just phones connected to computers or to other magicJacks. The only restriction is that the numbers called must be in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands. You can also buy low-cost prepaid international minutes, or take your magicJack abroad to make free calls home. You can move it among different computers and locations.

MagicJack can also be used without a phone handset, via a computer headset or the computer’s built-in microphone and speakers.

YMAX’s magicJack

There’s nothing new about Internet phone calling. Companies like Vonage and Skype have been doing it for years. But magicJack is different. It emphasizes calling to and from phones on regular wired and wireless phone networks, and its prices for calls to and from such non-Internet-connected phones are much lower.

For instance, the lowest plan advertised on Vonage’s (VG) Web site for calling regular phones in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico is $17.99 a month, or about $216 a year, versus magicJack’s $20. And Vonage gives you only 500 minutes a month, while magicJack sets no limit. Skype charges per-minute or monthly fees for calls to regular phones and an added fee to receive incoming calls.

The maker of magicJack says its low prices are possible because the product is produced by a privately held Florida company called YMAX, which is also a phone carrier. The company also runs ads inside its software. You can buy the device at a wide variety of stores, even drugstores and convenience stores.

I tested magicJack on both a PC and a Mac. The software resides inside the magicJack itself and installs each time you connect it.

In my tests, I made and received calls on both computers, using a single landline phone and using a cordless-phone system in my house after plugging its base station into the magicJack. In the latter case, I could make and receive calls from cordless phones all over my house. I exchanged calls with both landline phones and cellphones from the magicJack.

The call quality was good, except for a few times when the connection got scratchy for a second or two. Most of the people I called said they couldn’t tell I wasn’t on a regular call. The system offers voice mail, call forwarding and conference calls, and you can save contacts.

A couple of times I didn’t get an immediate dial tone, and had to hang up and try again.

The biggest downside of the magicJack compared with regular phone service is that you have to be running an Internet-connected computer, with a magicJack installed anytime you want to make or receive calls. Also, as with all Internet phone systems, you have to register your address with 911 emergency systems.

With magicJack, you get a new phone number. The company says it is working on allowing you to port your existing landline number. You can keep your landline number for use on some phones or when you’re not using magicJack.

I found magicJack worked better on Windows than on the Mac. At one point, magicJack customer support had to send me software to patch the Mac version. But the company claims it is fixing that with a new Mac version coming soon.

YMAX also says it plans to roll out this year a Skype-like service that won’t require any magicJack hardware, just a PC or an iPhone. It also plans a new version of magicJack to turn cellphones into wireless magicJack handsets.

I don’t know if those diet pills in the TV ads work. But magicJack does.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100217/magicjack-review/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100208/coming-soon-from-google-hilariously-inaccurate-real-time-translations/ http://allthingsd.com/20100208/coming-soon-from-google-hilariously-inaccurate-real-time-translations/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:43:02 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=34415 Google has built up quite a business scanning the written word for contextual advertising opportunities. Now it hopes to do the same for the spoken word as well. The company is reportedly developing a real-time translation technology for our phones.

“We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time,” Franz Och, Google’s (GOOG) head of translation services, told the New York Times. “Clearly, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that’s what we’re working on.”

A worthy goal, and admirable too, since such a technology, were it to work well, would really herald an end to language barriers. That said, given the hilarious inaccuracy of Google Voice’s visual voicemail transcriptions, I’d say a truly usable speech-to-speech translation service is quite a bit further off than Och claims.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100208/coming-soon-from-google-hilariously-inaccurate-real-time-translations/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090918/quoted-118/ http://allthingsd.com/20090918/quoted-118/#comments Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:47:05 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=25054 Well this is uncomfortable…

Asked by the Federal Communications Commission in August if it had rejected Google’s Voice app from its iTunes App Store, Apple (AAPL) claimed it had not and that the app was still under review.

“Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it,” Apple explained to the FCC. “The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.”

The FCC put the same question to Google (GOOG) and received a very different answer, which was revealed this morning when Google allowed an unredacted version of the document it submitted to the commission to be made public. Here’s how Google responded to the FCC’s question:

Apple’s representative informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone. The Apple representative indicated that the company did not want applications that could potentially replace such functionality.

… In a series of in-person meetings, phone calls and emails between July 5 and July 28, 2009, Apple and Google representative discussed the approval status of the Google Voice application that was submitted on June 2, 2009. The primary points of contact between the two companies were Alan Eustace, Google Senior Vice President of Engineering and Research and Phil Schiller, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing. On July 7, Mr. Eustace and Mr. Schiller spoke over the phone. It was during this call that Mr. Schiller informed Mr. Eustace that Apple was rejecting the Google Voice application for the reasons described above.

Ah, I see. So by “delayed,” Apple apparently meant “rejected.” Interesting. The full document, below.

UPDATE: As I report in a later post on this unfolding story, Apple has denied Google’s assertion to the FCC that it rejected the Google Voice app.

9182009_Google_Filing_iPhone –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090918/quoted-118/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090821/fcc-google-voice/ http://allthingsd.com/20090821/fcc-google-voice/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:26:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=23493

“Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it.”

So begins Apple’s response to the Federal Communication Commission’s inquiry into its rejection of the app and of its App Store approval process. Seems Google Voice was withheld from the App Store not because of any ill feeling toward Google or a nefarious request from AT&T, but because it too closely mimics the iPhone OS, including management of calls, voicemail and text messages. From Apple’s statement:

Question 1. Why did Apple reject the Google Voice application for iPhone and remove related third-party applications from its App Store?

The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail. Apple spent a lot of time and effort developing this distinct and innovative way to seamlessly deliver core functionality of the iPhone. For example, on an iPhone, the “Phone” icon that is always shown at the bottom of the Home Screen launches Apple’s mobile telephone application, providing access to Favorites, Recents, Contacts, a Keypad, and Visual Voicemail. The Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail. Similarly, SMS text messages are managed through the Google hub—replacing the iPhone’s text messaging feature. In addition, the iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.

Question 2. Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications? If the latter, please describe the communications between Apple and AT&T in connection with the decision to reject Google Voice. Are there any contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T that affected Apple’s decision in this matter?

Apple is acting alone and has not consulted with AT&T about whether or not to approve the Google Voice application. No contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T have been a factor in Apple’s decision-making process in this matter.

In a response of its own, AT&T (T) also said this was the case:

1(a). What role, if any, did AT&T play in Apple’s consideration of the Google Voice and related applications?

AT&T had no role in Apple’s consideration of Google Voice or related applications.

1(b). What role, if any, does AT&T play in consideration of iPhone applications generally?

The Apple App Store is owned, operated and controlled by Apple, not AT&T, and Apple makes the decisions regarding the specific applications that are approved for use on the iPhone or included in the Apple App Store. AT&T does not participate in Apple’s day-to-day consideration of specific applications, nor does Apple typically notify AT&T prior to including applications in the App Store. Apple also does not usually advise AT&T after specific applications have been added to the App Store, which reportedly contains more than 65,000 applications. AT&T has had discussions with Apple regarding only a handful of applications that have been submitted to Apple for review where, as described below, there were concerns that the application might create significant network congestion.

And what is Google’s (GOOG) public reply to the whole affair? Nada. The company had more to say to the government, via a response to FCC queries. But in the copy of the document that’s been released for public consumption, the most interesting stuff has been redacted. To wit: “What explanation was given (if any) for Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice application?…Please describe any communications between Google and AT&T or Apple on this topic and a summary of any meetings or discussion.” (Click on text below to enlarge.)

Now that’s a little odd, isn’t it? Why would Google ask the FCC to redact portions of its statement? Says Google: “[Because the redacted] information relates specifically to private business discussions between Apple and Google and, as such, it constitutes commercial data ‘which would customarily be guarded from competitors.’”

That satisfy your curiosity? Doesn’t satisfy mine, either.

(Peter Kafka contributed to this post.)

UPDATE: AT&T may not participate in “Apple’s day-to-day consideration of specific applications,” but its presence is still felt during the approval process. From Apple’s (AAPL) response:

There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) session without obtaining AT&T’s permission. Apple honors this obligation, in addition to respecting AT&T’s customer terms of service, which, for example, prohibit an AT&T customer from using AT&T’s cellular service to redirect a TV signal to an iPhone. From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration.

UPDATE: An interesting nugget from AT&T’s statement:

It is widely recognized by economists and jurists that parties to strategic alliances in competitive markets may enter into contracts to promote and protect their respective business interests and to refrain from taking actions adverse to those interests.12 Consistent with such lawful, economically efficient practices common among parties to strategic alliances, including participants in the mobile wireless marketplace,13 AT&T and Apple agreed that Apple would not take affirmative steps to enable an iPhone to use AT&T’s wireless service (including 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi) to make VoIP calls without first obtaining AT&T’s consent. AT&T and Apple also agreed, however, that if a third party enables an iPhone to make VoIP calls using AT&T’s wireless service, Apple would have no obligation to take action against that third party….AT&T indicated to Apple that it does not object to Apple enabling VoIP applications for the iPhone that use Wi-Fi connectivity (including connectivity at more than 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots operated by AT&T that may be used by iPhone customers for no additional charge) rather than AT&T’s 2G or 3G wireless data services….we plan to take a fresh look at possibly authorizing VoIP capabilities on the iPhone for use on AT&T’s 3G network.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090821/fcc-google-voice/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090821/fcc-google-voice-3/ http://allthingsd.com/20090821/fcc-google-voice-3/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 23:26:56 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=23493

“Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it.”

So begins Apple’s response to the Federal Communication Commission’s inquiry into its rejection of the app and of its App Store approval process. Seems Google Voice was withheld from the App Store not because of any ill feeling toward Google or a nefarious request from AT&T, but because it too closely mimics the iPhone OS, including management of calls, voicemail and text messages. From Apple’s statement:

Question 1. Why did Apple reject the Google Voice application for iPhone and remove related third-party applications from its App Store?

The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail. Apple spent a lot of time and effort developing this distinct and innovative way to seamlessly deliver core functionality of the iPhone. For example, on an iPhone, the “Phone” icon that is always shown at the bottom of the Home Screen launches Apple’s mobile telephone application, providing access to Favorites, Recents, Contacts, a Keypad, and Visual Voicemail. The Google Voice application replaces Apple’s Visual Voicemail by routing calls through a separate Google Voice telephone number that stores any voicemail, preventing voicemail from being stored on the iPhone, i.e., disabling Apple’s Visual Voicemail. Similarly, SMS text messages are managed through the Google hub—replacing the iPhone’s text messaging feature. In addition, the iPhone user’s entire Contacts database is transferred to Google’s servers, and we have yet to obtain any assurances from Google that this data will only be used in appropriate ways. These factors present several new issues and questions to us that we are still pondering at this time.

Question 2. Did Apple act alone, or in consultation with AT&T, in deciding to reject the Google Voice application and related applications? If the latter, please describe the communications between Apple and AT&T in connection with the decision to reject Google Voice. Are there any contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T that affected Apple’s decision in this matter?

Apple is acting alone and has not consulted with AT&T about whether or not to approve the Google Voice application. No contractual conditions or non-contractual understandings with AT&T have been a factor in Apple’s decision-making process in this matter.

In a response of its own, AT&T (T) also said this was the case:

1(a). What role, if any, did AT&T play in Apple’s consideration of the Google Voice and related applications?

AT&T had no role in Apple’s consideration of Google Voice or related applications.

1(b). What role, if any, does AT&T play in consideration of iPhone applications generally?

The Apple App Store is owned, operated and controlled by Apple, not AT&T, and Apple makes the decisions regarding the specific applications that are approved for use on the iPhone or included in the Apple App Store. AT&T does not participate in Apple’s day-to-day consideration of specific applications, nor does Apple typically notify AT&T prior to including applications in the App Store. Apple also does not usually advise AT&T after specific applications have been added to the App Store, which reportedly contains more than 65,000 applications. AT&T has had discussions with Apple regarding only a handful of applications that have been submitted to Apple for review where, as described below, there were concerns that the application might create significant network congestion.

And what is Google’s (GOOG) public reply to the whole affair? Nada. The company had more to say to the government, via a response to FCC queries. But in the copy of the document that’s been released for public consumption, the most interesting stuff has been redacted. To wit: “What explanation was given (if any) for Apple’s rejection of the Google Voice application?…Please describe any communications between Google and AT&T or Apple on this topic and a summary of any meetings or discussion.” (Click on text below to enlarge.)

Now that’s a little odd, isn’t it? Why would Google ask the FCC to redact portions of its statement? Says Google: “[Because the redacted] information relates specifically to private business discussions between Apple and Google and, as such, it constitutes commercial data ‘which would customarily be guarded from competitors.’”

That satisfy your curiosity? Doesn’t satisfy mine, either.

(Peter Kafka contributed to this post.)

UPDATE: AT&T may not participate in “Apple’s day-to-day consideration of specific applications,” but its presence is still felt during the approval process. From Apple’s (AAPL) response:

There is a provision in Apple’s agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality in any Apple phone that enables a customer to use AT&T’s cellular network service to originate or terminate a VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) session without obtaining AT&T’s permission. Apple honors this obligation, in addition to respecting AT&T’s customer terms of service, which, for example, prohibit an AT&T customer from using AT&T’s cellular service to redirect a TV signal to an iPhone. From time to time, AT&T has expressed concerns regarding network efficiency and potential network congestion associated with certain applications, and Apple takes such concerns into consideration.

UPDATE: An interesting nugget from AT&T’s statement:

It is widely recognized by economists and jurists that parties to strategic alliances in competitive markets may enter into contracts to promote and protect their respective business interests and to refrain from taking actions adverse to those interests.12 Consistent with such lawful, economically efficient practices common among parties to strategic alliances, including participants in the mobile wireless marketplace,13 AT&T and Apple agreed that Apple would not take affirmative steps to enable an iPhone to use AT&T’s wireless service (including 2G, 3G and Wi-Fi) to make VoIP calls without first obtaining AT&T’s consent. AT&T and Apple also agreed, however, that if a third party enables an iPhone to make VoIP calls using AT&T’s wireless service, Apple would have no obligation to take action against that third party….AT&T indicated to Apple that it does not object to Apple enabling VoIP applications for the iPhone that use Wi-Fi connectivity (including connectivity at more than 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots operated by AT&T that may be used by iPhone customers for no additional charge) rather than AT&T’s 2G or 3G wireless data services….we plan to take a fresh look at possibly authorizing VoIP capabilities on the iPhone for use on AT&T’s 3G network.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090821/fcc-google-voice-3/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090724/spinvox-responds-to-voicemail-privacy-accusations/ http://allthingsd.com/20090724/spinvox-responds-to-voicemail-privacy-accusations/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 21:31:13 +0000 Marisa Taylor http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=13781 SpinVox criticized reports that its voicemail-transcription service is done by humans, saying that workers don’t touch messages unless the technology can’t recognize a word.

“This information is wrong and dated,” said Christina Domecq, SpinVox’s chief executive, of the BBC’s article. The report, which was published Thursday, accuses the British firm of using call-center employees–not the speech-recognition technology that it markets–to transcribe voicemail recordings.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090724/spinvox-responds-to-voicemail-privacy-accusations/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090724/a-voicemail-transcription-scandal-in-britain/ http://allthingsd.com/20090724/a-voicemail-transcription-scandal-in-britain/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:33:05 +0000 Marisa Taylor http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=13769 SpinVox, a British company that converts voicemails into text with speech recognition technology, has been accused by the BBC of using humans at call centers to manually conduct the majority of the translations.

The U.K.-based company, which boasts 30 million users across five continents, says that voicemails are translated into text via conversion technology known as “D2,” or “the Brain.” Customers can read the messages and post them on blogs, social networking sites, or send them to their email inboxes.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090724/a-voicemail-transcription-scandal-in-britain/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090428/ipod-to-reach-out-and-touch-someone/ http://allthingsd.com/20090428/ipod-to-reach-out-and-touch-someone/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 01:02:03 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://solution.allthingsd.com/20090428/ipod-to-reach-out-and-touch-someone/ Apple’s iPhone has changed the game since its debut almost two years ago — building a powerful platform for on-the-go Web browsing and applications, in addition to making cellphone calls. Just a few months after the iPhone appeared, Apple (AAPL) introduced the very similar iPod Touch, which didn’t get as much attention, perhaps because its name understates the scope of its features.

The Touch resembles the iPhone, only thinner, with the same multitouch screen, fast Web browser, iPod media player and ability to run almost all of the 35,000 apps in Apple’s App Store. It doesn’t have a camera, or a few other iPhone features, and it can’t connect to cellphone networks, relying instead on Wi-Fi for its Internet connection.

The Touch has caught on: Apple recently indicated that it has sold 16 million of them. One reason for the popularity is that its freedom from a phone company eliminates pricey monthly bills. But the Touch can’t easily make voice calls right out of the box. So this week, I tested ways to make the Touch even more like the iPhone: apps that use the Internet to make phone calls.

Three Apps to Test

I successfully tested three apps that can be downloaded free of charge from Apple’s App store — Skype, Fring and Truphone. Skype gave me the best connection, and my friends wouldn’t have known I was using it unless I told them. (Skype’s app is popular, with 2.8 million downloads in just four weeks.) Fring and Truphone let users make calls using Skype’s service within their apps, and they also run other programs like AIM and MSN Messenger. But Fring’s phone calls didn’t sound as clear, and I had technical difficulties with Truphone.

The downside to using these apps on an iPod Touch is that you must be connected to a Wi-Fi network. For a lot of people who work and live in areas surrounded by wireless networks, this won’t be a problem most of the time. But in those moments when mobility comes into play — like driving in a car — you’ll miss having a steady line through a phone carrier. You also can’t use these apps to make 911 emergency calls.

Another negative is that third-party applications can’t run in the background on the iPhone and iPod Touch. This means you can’t use a Touch for browsing the Web or reading email while waiting for a call from a friend via Skype or Fring. Fring offers an option that emails you when friends call or message, so you can sign on and call them back. Truphone has built-in voicemail. Skype doesn’t currently offer a notification feature.

(The next version of the iPhone OS is supposed to include notifications, which could improve the usability of these apps.)

The Touch comes in three models: an eight-gigabyte version for $229; a 16-gigabyte for $299; and a 32-gigabyte for $399. Because the Touch doesn’t have a built-in microphone, you must use something like the iPhone Stereo Headset, which costs $29 and has a microphone in its cord.

Skype Plans

Free Skype accounts, which can be used for making calls with all three apps, take just a few minutes to set up. And calls from one Skype user to another are free. Skype calls to landlines or cellphones are relatively cheap. Skype Credit, a pay-as-you-go plan, charges 2.1 cents a minute in the U.S.; Skype Subscription is a flat monthly fee that costs $2.95 when used for calls made to and from the U.S. A monthly fee of $5.95 gets you unlimited calling to one country, and $12.95 a month pays for unlimited calls to 42 countries.

The Skype, Fring, and Truphone apps let you easily import contact names and numbers from your iPod Touch. They also enable instant messaging between you and your friends. Delightful sounds indicate incoming messages and calls, and these can be heard even when the headset isn’t plugged in — as long as you put the Touch down without closing the app.

I had the most success with the Skype app. My Skype-to-landline calls sounded perfect to my boss on the other end. Skype-to-cell and Skype-to-Skype calls sounded good, but weren’t always as clear; I used my Skype account to call a friend in New Orleans on her Skype account, and I heard echoing a couple times during our 30-minute chat. Skype says this could be attributed to the fact she was on a laptop.

Fring calls made using Skype — to landlines, cellphones, and other Skype contacts — weren’t as good as the Skype app. Friends’ voices sounded slightly shaky and muffled. This kind of thing isn’t the end of the world in a quick chat, but could be a real burden during an important call. Fring offers a long list of add-ons, letting you sign in to various accounts all within the same app. These include Skype, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Google (GOOG) Talk, Twitter, Yahoo (YHOO), and AIM.

Technical Difficulties

Truphone calls to landlines and cellphones sounded a bit fuzzy. Truphone is a service unto itself, like Skype, with free calls between Truphone users, pay-as-you-go plans and monthly plans. Like Fring, Truphone enables use of other programs within its app, like AIM and Yahoo Messenger. And it includes free voicemail. But the app didn’t always work for me.

A feature in all three apps lets you call an automated voice test line so you can hear how you sound before calling others.

These iPod Touch apps aren’t perfect, and the next version of the iPhone OS may let them can run more productively in the background. But making calls from the iPod Touch is a pretty cool experience when it works well, and free or low-price plans are an attractive alternative to cellphone carriers.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090428/ipod-to-reach-out-and-touch-someone/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090312/incoming-iphone-os-30/ http://allthingsd.com/20090312/incoming-iphone-os-30/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:34:46 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=14815

[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090312/incoming-iphone-os-30/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090312/ma-google/ http://allthingsd.com/20090312/ma-google/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:13:01 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=14754 Google’s finally gone and done something with GrandCentral, the voice communications start-up the company acquired some 21 months ago. After migrating it over to its infrastructure and enhancing it with some new features, Google (GOOG) relaunched it this morning as Google Voice. And at first glance, the service is impressive.

Originally, as GrandCentral, the service gave users a single number that, when called, would ring their home phone, work phone or cellphones, or a combination of phones. Re-envisioned by Google, it adds to this call recording, automated voicemail transcripts that can be viewed online, SMS messaging, conference call support and a means of forwarding problem callers to a “this number has been disconnected” message. Beyond these options, Google Voice offers a means of placing calls within the states for free. And international calls aren’t all that more expensive, two cents a minute to France or China.

A compelling set of features and one that will undoubtedly make Google Voice a formidable rival to Skype. Whether the service is disruptive enough to cause trouble for traditional telecoms remains to be seen. Certainly, reliability and call quality are potential issues. That said, there can be little doubt that the telephone companies are looking askance at the service today.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090312/ma-google/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20071004/voice-mail-gets-a-lot-more-fun-with-free-services/ http://allthingsd.com/20071004/voice-mail-gets-a-lot-more-fun-with-free-services/#comments Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:01:00 +0000 Sarmad Ali http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20071004/voice-mail-gets-a-lot-more-fun-with-free-services/ The days of “leave a message after the beep” could soon be a thing of the past. New Web services are giving cellphone voice mail a fresh sound with features that let users personalize outgoing messages for individual callers and eschew unwanted calls. I’ve been testing two such free services, YouMail and GrandCentral, that let you customize phone-mail features through wireless Internet communication. They’re like your voice-mail service on steroids.

Overall, I found the services fun and easy to use. There is no limit to how many personalized voice mails you can record, so everyone on your contact list can hear a greeting just for them. It’s labor-intensive to set up, but online forms are easy to navigate. The services make money by selling ads on their sites.

In addition to tailored greetings, YouMail lets you save your voice-mail messages, email your saved messages via audio files, share messages using a URL link, retrieve deleted messages, and see who called you and when and whether they listened to your message. You can do all this online, or from your phone — if it has Internet service.

You check your voice mail by phone or over the Internet. As with your carrier’s voice-mail service, you can simply dial an access number and listen to messages. I logged into my account at youmail.com and clicked on “My Voicemail.” The sound quality was superb, as it was when I listened to the audio files that were sent to my Yahoo inbox. (I gave my email address when I signed up.)

I also checked messages from other phones by dialing the access number. The service doesn’t interfere with voice mails already saved on your regular carrier’s system.

YouMail gives you the option of keeping your voice mails indefinitely. Messages are stored in your online account and offer you an email audio file as backup.

One fun feature in YouMail is DitchMail, which blocks messages from certain callers. They don’t even get a chance to leave a message. You ditch a caller by double-clicking on their names in your online phonebook and checking the DitchMail option, or by pressing 86 on your phone after hearing a message from a person you don’t want to hear from again. When dumpees call your number, they’ll hear either a standard message — “This number has been disconnected” — or one you record.

Users can record special greetings or upload ones online if their computers have microphones; otherwise, they just press 0 on their phone keypad to record.

Signing up on YouMail.com is simple. You just register your mobile number and email address, and receive a confirmation code via text message on your cellphone. Switching from your main carrier’s voice mail to YouMail takes a few minutes and switching back is just as simple. Instructions are available on the site.

YouMail has its drawbacks. The access number you use to retrieve messages is long distance, so it can get costly with some plans. And depending on your text-messaging plan, you’ll likely be charged for the alerts you get whenever someone leaves a message. But you can turn off the text-message option.

GrandCentral is even easier to use when it comes to recording multiple greetings and dumping unwanted callers. One caveat: GrandCentral is in a beta, or testing, phase. You must be invited by a member to sign up.

The service gives users another phone number, based on their ZIP Code, to which they can link their cellphone, office and home numbers. You can hand out GrandCentral’s one unified number and check just one mailbox.

I like GrandCentral’s Web interface better than You Mail’s. The features are very simple to use. You start by adding contact numbers online and recording greetings for individuals. When people call your unified number, all the phones you linked ring so you can pick up any of them. When you answer, you hear a recorded message telling who is calling and giving you options of how to handle that call. Meanwhile, the caller hears only the phone ringing.

The service recognizes each caller in your address book; new callers have to say their names the first time they call, and from then on, the service recognizes them, too.

I like the feature that lets you screen calls. When someone calls your GrandCentral number, your phone displays Caller ID information. When you pick up, a recorded message states the caller’s name and offers fours ways to handle the call: 1 to answer, 2 to send the caller to voice mail, 3 to listen in while a message is being recorded, or 4 to accept and record the call. If you press 3 and then decide you want to answer a call, you can press the star key to pick up.

Blocking a caller is similar to that YouMail feature. The callers can’t leave a message, and they hear a prerecorded message that your number is no longer in service. But unlike with YouMail, your phone won’t ring and you can’t leave the blocked caller a customized message.

Both services spice up your voice mail. And considering they’re free, they’re worth a try.

Walt Mossberg is on vacation. Find all of his columns and videos online free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Email me at Sarmad.Ali@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20071004/voice-mail-gets-a-lot-more-fun-with-free-services/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20070524/hate-voice-mail-new-services-turn-recordings-into-text/ http://allthingsd.com/20070524/hate-voice-mail-new-services-turn-recordings-into-text/#comments Thu, 24 May 2007 00:01:00 +0000 Sarmad Ali http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20070524/hate-voice-mail-new-services-turn-recordings-into-text/ Punching in a password and listening to voice mails on hand-held devices is inconvenient — or rude if you’re in a meeting, at a party or in a restaurant.

A slew of new services using voice-recognition technology aim to eliminate the hassle of checking voice messages on wireless devices. These services transcribe recorded messages into text, which then is sent as email to email-equipped devices such as personal digital assistants and BlackBerrys, or as a short text message to phones that don’t have the email function. If in doubt about transcripts’ accuracy, you can always click on the attached audio files or dial in to hear the original voice mail.

To see how efficient these services are at transcription, I tested two voice-recognition applications: one from start-up SimulScribe, based in New York, and another from Atlanta-based SpinVox, a subsidiary of SpinVox Ltd. of the U.K.

Overall, both services work pretty well and are easy to use. I was able to read transcribed texts in a fraction of the time I would have spent dialing in to hear them. I was also able to sift through my messages and go directly to the ones I wanted to check, as opposed to having to listen to every single one sequentially. And the transcripts end the hassle of having to jot down names, numbers or addresses.

Another advantage is that the transcribed messages are sent immediately after the voice mails. When I was on a train and passing in and out of reception areas, I got my written messages faster than if I had tried voice mail only. Users can forward the messages to others or reply by calling back, sending an email or text messaging.

Signing up with SimulScribe.com took just minutes. After setting up an online account naming a cellphone carrier, I got a confirmation email with instructions on how to activate the service on my phone. SimulScribe, launched this past September, costs $9.95 a month for 40 transcribed messages plus 25 cents for each additional message. The service is compatible with all wireless carriers.

Currently, SimulScribe transcribes English voice mails only. A voice mail left on my phone in Spanish wasn’t transcribed at all. The company says it’s testing a Spanish system to add to the service in a couple of weeks.

Activating SpinVox’s Spin-my-Vmail on the phone was easy, too. After signing up on spinvox.com, the company sends subscribers a guide to using the service on the phone. I was able to activate “call forwarding busy/no answer” to divert messages to my SpinVox voice mail just by changing a setting in my T-Mobile’s cellphone settings menu.

I received an email in my mailbox whenever someone left me a voice mail. Each had the number of the caller, the transcript, date and time the message was received, plus a message code I could type into the keypad after accessing my voice mail to hear the original audio.

U.S. customers can get a free one-year trial by sending an email to gamma@spinvox.com, during which time the company expects to launch the service in the U.S. first through Cincinnati Bell and later through other carriers. Bloggers can also test Spin-my-Blog, which lets users speak a posting to their blogs from any phone. Sign-up for that is also at spinvox.com.

SpinVox, first launched in the U.K. in May 2005, transcribes in English, French, Spanish and German. Unlike SimulScribe, messages left to me in Spanish were successfully transcribed.

One friend who left me a voice mail on both services said she was pleased to be reminded by SimulScribe that her message would be transcribed so she should speak slowly and clearly.

Users of SimulScribe get unlimited inbox storage so they don’t have to delete old mail. Both services work better with hand-held email devices such as Treos or BlackBerrys than with the cellphones that don’t have the email capability. The number of characters that can be transcribed into SMS text is limited.

With SimulScribe, long messages delivered by SMS are parsed over multiple text messages. The same happens when customers use SpinVox on CDMA cellphones. Customers using SpinVox on GSM phones like those from Cingular or T-Mobile fit three-minute calls on one text.

Sometimes, the transcriptions contain misspellings, missing words or unnecessary punctuation marks. A friend left me a voice mail on my cellphone with SpinVox’s Spin-my-Vmail service. She ended it by asking me if I was sick of Thai food, but the transcribed note, amusingly, turned it into: “Hi Sarmad, it’s Kain(?). I’m calling at 4:09(?). I just wanted to see what the plans were for tonight. Are you interest in dinner, are you up for Lasagna(?).”

Words — mostly names — spelled phonetically, some numbers and undecipherable words are usually followed by a question mark.

Aside from sporadic imprecision, I liked SimulScribe more, mostly because it eliminates the need to dial in any passwords to get a voice version of transcribed messages. But it’s hard to beat the free trial of SpinVox and its multiple-language transcription capability. Both services are a nice addition to hand-held devices if you can overlook a few nuisances.

• Email me at sarmad.ali@wsj.com. Walt Mossberg is on vacation.

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