First Take: LoopUp
Ring2 was a conference call tool for mobile devices. It's recently changed its name to LoopUp, and added support for remote meetings as well as conference calls.
Ring2 was a conference call tool for mobile devices. It's recently changed its name to LoopUp, and added support for remote meetings as well as conference calls.
"Video is the next voice", according to Deutsche Telecom, which has recently introduced a cloud-based 'video communication' service called VideoMeet — hence the interest in promoting how easy to use and cost-effective videoconferencing (or rather, communication) is becoming. VideoMeet is a repackaged version of a service introduced last year by California-based startup Blue Jeans Network (BJN), with a few added extras.
Logitech is best known for its high-quality consumer-grade peripherals, but recently formed a business group, Logitech for Business, to market the more business-oriented products in its portfolio to SMEs and larger enterprises. There will also be new products under the 'for business' banner, among the first of which, announced today, is the BCC950 ConferenceCam.
The most predictable thing about wireless networks is that they never quite reach the location you most need them in. The Fritz!
Can we keep the internet open and free, a democratic medium for the rest of us? In studying this question, Becky Hogge's flash-published Barefoot Into Cyberspace joins Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It (2009) and Tim Wu's The Master Switch (and, to some extent, my own 1997 book, net.
The great thing about social media is that they allow a very small number of people to create a potentially very large movement: those overlapping social circles give even just one or two people a surprising amount of leverage. Which is how two guys in a pub in Merseyside managed to launch a worldwide demonstration of the ineffectiveness of homeopathic remedies.
Every decade (which means every two or three years in internet time) has its internet rethinker. This year it's virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier and You Are Not a Gadget.
It's March, so it must be CeBIT, "the world's largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions for home and work environments". Next week, vendors, IT professionals, the public, analysts and the press — a crack squad from ZDNet UK among them — will descend upon Hannover for the annual 26-hall extravaganza that last year accommodated over 6,200 exhibitors and some 430,000 visitors.
A small product with a big name, 3Com’s OfficeConnect Wireless 54Mbps 11G Travel Router sounds a bit like a marketing invention, but it does have practical uses. For example, it can be used to create a private wireless network when tavelling and to share an Internet connection at out-of-office meetings, presentations and conferences. It can also be used to connect fixed Ethernet devices to a wireless LAN or, if you just want to loose the bulk, instead of a standard wireless router on a home or small-business network.
This neat, flexible and well designed wireless router will appeal both to business travellers and to home/small business users.