Google's public policy blog admits that Google Voice blocks certain numbers. AT&T says this would be illegal were Google treated like any other telecom. But Google claims that if it doesn't engage in blocking, its service will become too expensive to operate for no charge.
The problem, says Google, is the telephone scheme called "traffic pumping" perpetrated by small local phone companies in cahoots with sex chat lines. (Below, FCC headquarters in Washington, D.C.)
Google's blog explains: "... [E]arlier this year, we noticed an extremely high number of calls were being made to an extremely small number of destinations. In fact, the top 10 telephone prefixes--the area code plus the first three digits of a seven digit number, e.g., 555-555-XXXX--generated more than 160 times the expected traffic volumes, and accounted for a whopping 26 percent of our monthly connection costs."
AT&T has argued that the FCC should treat Google like any other telecom, which can't pick and choose which numbers it allows to connect. But since Google Voice is not a telecom provider--in fact, it's not even real VOIP, but instead acts as a switching layer over the traditional phone system--the company argues it's not subject to the same laws as AT&T.
Both parties agree that the problem lies in the antiquated inter-carrier phone laws, which can only be amended and updated by the FCC. In a post called "Sex, conference calls, and outdated FCC rules," Google counsel Richard Whitt argued earlier this month that the FCC shouldn't be looking into Google Voice for rule violations, but should be fixing a broken phone system. With the amount of fury and lobbying at the disposal of Google and AT&T, it may not be long before the FCC is pressed into doing just that.
The last time you ordered a custom PC online, you finished configuring and wondered: what kind of world do I live in where I can't do this with cereal?
The gods of oat and honey have heeded your cry. MojaMix is an online cereal building tool that lets you custom-mix your own grains, fruits, nuts, seeds, and sweet stuff into a 12-ounce bag, which is then mailed to your house. In about five days--less if you live in California, where MojaMix is based--the mail-man will walk past the Obama sign still erect in your yard, skirt past your Volvo and hand you your custom mix, which you're then free to consume with any number of soy or local-organic milks. If you don't like the mix you've concocted, you can send it back for a refund (or a new batch).
So far, about 2,000 crunchy customers have used the service, which went live this summer. For people who have been itching to try FreshDirect but don't have service in their area, this could be a first taste (groan) of Internet-based food-shopping, which has had mixed results over the last two decades. MojaMix smartly assigns each unique mixture an ID number that you can save and re-enter to shortcut subsequent orders.
MojaMix knows its customer base: it's constantly adding new uber-healthy ingredients (most recently, quinoa) and says that most of its ingredients are local and organic. The average bag ends up a little steep at $7-10, but as with most things, you get what you pay for; this is no straw-and-oat Kashi mix. More exotic ingredients range from persimmons (that's a fruit, apparently) to goldenberries to pumpkin seeds.
We reported yesterday that Google may upset the entire GPS market. Hours later, they did. Personal navigation stocks went into freefall yesterday after Google announced it would bring turn-by-turn navigation to its mobile Google Maps apps.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Garmin shares lost 16% of their value, and TomTom dropped 20%. Google's new mobile maps will allow flexible searching for addresses, voice-search, traffic, along-the-route search, satellite view, street view, and even a special car-dock mode for people who feel like mounting their smartphones to a car dash. With all that packed into your phone, there's little reason to throw a few hundred bucks at a PND like Garmin's Nuvi.
Verizon's Droid phone is the first to sport Google Maps Navigation because it runs Android version 2.0, codenamed Eclair.
Ford is planning to open its Sync in-car computing platform to third party app developers, the automaker tells FastCompany.com.
The idea is still nascent and there is no hard-and-fast timeline for release, says Prasad Venkatesh, who leads Vehicle Design & Infotainment at Ford. Just how drivers would use in-car apps is still being researched as well. (Below, a present-day Sync system in a Ford Mustang.)
"The way we're developing the toolkit, you could sit in the comfort of your home and plan a roadtrip," he says. Using a smartphone or computer, you'd then add points of interest or other plans. "At the click of a button, the cloud would make all that available to you in the car, and it would broadcast it to your social networking groups." Future Ford vehicles may include mobile broadband, he says; current Sync systems pair with a driver's mobile phone to download updates.
Ford first hinted they might open up the Sync platform to developers at CES in January 2009, but has been researching the idea since November of 2007, said Venkatesh. The company has been experimenting with building its own apps, like the voice-activated Traffic, Directions and Information (or TDI) app that it made available to 2010 Ford owners in May.
The apps will work on a new a new open-source in-car OS Ford is developing for its Sync system, which has been available in cars since model year 2008. That open-source layer will be built on top of Microsoft's Robotics suite.
Ford is seeding the platform by partnering with universities and other developers. The first collaboration: a competition for student app developers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Students will be encouraged to build cloud-connected apps in almost any computing language they want: Java, C, C++, and so on; Ford hasn't decided what kind of language it will ultimately use for its apps. Winning student ideas will be sent along to the Ford labs, where they'll be looked at for implementation. As a prize, the students will get to present their app at the Maker Faire Convention.
Venkatesh says Ford doesn't know whether they will pursue an app store model ala Apple, and no firm plans have been made about monetization. The potential is there, however; he says he is encouraging the students at UM to pursue their apps with an entrepreneurial mindset.
Layar, the augmented reality app that lets you see where stimulus money is being spent, among other things, has just gotten a fresh $1 million cash infusion from European investors.
The Dutch company, which makes iPhone and Android apps that overlay data on a live camera image, is also expanding to the Symbian OS, according to VentureBeat. Nokia, which owns Symbian, is in the midst of figuring out its own augmented reality strategy.
Layar will likely spend the money building out the system that third-parties will use to serve content inside its apps. Layar is only as useful as the data you can see on it, so its critical that they make it easy for businesses, brands, and content providers to create the "layers" of information that users can choose to view.
Right now, layers can't cross. So if you're inside a subway layer, you won't see flags from a real estate layer, for example. That puts the onus on layer-makers to serve a lot of content as a way of ensuring that users find their layer useful. The result? Crowded layers with superfluous junk. Layar says it's adding layar-crossing in future versions, which should take the heat off individual providers to make their layer a one-man show.
Twitter is great for tracking trending topics, but not so hot for trending places. A new service attempts to change all that by creating standardized #hashtags for businesses, bars, and restaurants.
HashCeratops, as the service is called, is a group effort by a few Web upstarts that aims to standardize how we talk about local joints on Twitter. According to TechCrunch, Buzzd is the ringleader, but other partners include Geodelic, Coovents, Xtreme Labs, Yipit and SocialGreat. The effort will be crowdsourced; you can submit your formal request for a location hashtag here.
Nihal Mehta, co-founder and CEO of Buzzd, told FastCompany.com the point is to make Twitter a more useful local tool. "For Twitter users, information about specific venues would be more easily searchable," he says. "For example, if I want to search tweets from the bar Jack, if I search 'Jack' it gives me a lot of noise. Hashceratops would suggest searching for '#barjack' for example to return actual tweets about the venue and not the person."
Twitter is in the process of getting its geolocation API fully functional, so HashCeratops may yet evolve once it becomes clear how people are using geolocation in their tweets. Still, for small business owners who are looking to keep track of (or generate) buzz, HashCeratops will be the second boon in as many months; just last month, Foursquareannounced a local advertising program for bars and restaurants.
If you're curious about Verizon's new Droid, don't be. Don't even read this post. Just go hibernate, and dream that by spring Verizon will have a better Android option.
It's not that the Droid is a bad phone; it's fine. It just has a slower chip than the Samsung Moment, a clunkier body than the Palm Pre, a more basic UI than HTC's Hero, and... a puzzling alarm-clock stand. The Moment's speed, the Pre's slick design, and the Hero's UI are the only things that put those things on par with Apple's iPhone. The Droid has nothing those phones don't, except of course for this commercial. Which is cool, if you like commercials, but less important if you like smartphones that do stuff well.
There are a couple of cool things; the 3.7-inch screen with 400,000 pixels is huge, it has Android 2.0 before anyone else and also a 5MP camera. If you're a locked-in Verizon customer, this thing isn't half bad. But in the world of smartphones, it's another Android device that doesn't advance the platform. I can't believe I've even found three paragraphs to write about it.
When Barnes and Noble announced it would be selling both its own Nook e-reader and the PlasticLogic Que e-reader, people were confused: PaidContent reported that the Nook would only be available for order in retail stores, not for customers to walk out with. But VentureBeat said the Que e-reader (seen below) will be on shelves. Why wouldn't B&N stores stock their own e-reader?
"I think there may be some misinformation about our retail strategy," Mary Ellen Keating, B&N's SVP of communications told FastCompany.com. "While it's always difficult to predict demand on a new product, and early response from consumers is strong, Barnes & Noble expects to have Nook eBook readers in stock in the majority of its stores by the peak holiday season, and plans to have Nook devices in stock in all of its stores by early next year." That's also when Que will hit B&N shelves. (Below, the Nook.)
Why two e-readers? Well, Amazon has two, and the Que and Nook are different sized devices; the Que has a full 8.5-inch-by-11-inch screen, while the Nook is much smaller at six inches.
Microsoft is talking to MySpace about a music partnership, according toThe Wall Street Journal.
The deal may mean a leap-frog in popularity for MSN's music portal. MySpace's music site is second only to AOL's with 27 million visitors, while Microsoft's current service, MSN Music, hovers around sixth at 7.4 million.
It's all part of MSN's overhaul, says WSJ. This past summer, we learned the portal would begin a "major redo" that will likely play up Bing branding, because of the search engine's success. Microsoft is also trying to streamline Bing data and MSN content, and the MSN overhaul could allow Microsoft to finally create some synchrony out of the Windows Live/MSN/Bing branding mess.
Isn't there someone missing from this party? Oh yeah, Facebook. Just five days ago, Facebook announced it would be selling songs in its Gift Shop. The network reportedly tried to emulate MySpace's music model this summer, but its plans were shot down when Warner Music refused cooperation.
Everyone loves the iPhone--today. It does two things extremely well: calling and email. To date, no other device can top it. But by this time next year, that may not be enough. And Android will be waiting in the wings.
Google and Microsoft are both deeply interested in status updates from Twitter and Facebook, because their users are increasingly reliant on social networking accounts. More and more people are also getting VOIP numbers like 3Jam and Google Voice; even more are excited about getting on the Google Wave bandwagon. Some people have gone ahead and auto-registered themselves for every social network available by using automatic-registration tools. We're drowning in connections and sharing.
That means every person in your address book now conceivably has a half dozen or more profiles, numbers, addresses, and handles. The iPhone can barely handle the onslaught; even if you have MobileMe, as I do, contacts frequently get doubled up in the iPhone, or aren't correctly overwritten (the "my contact" feature seems especially error prone; it keeps trying to update my personal v-card to say "Me Dannen" instead of just "Me.)
To make matters worse, the iPhone OS doesn't auto-update from any of the new services below--I have to manually enter every new Google Wave address, for example, into my contacts.
Android manages all this chaos with aplomb in its "Eclair" 2.0 version, which is replete with smart ways to centrally manage accounts and contacts and make them available to all apps, OS-wide. If the iPhone doesn't hurry up and follow suit, Apple might lose its most Rolodex-reliant customers: business people who are defecting from Blackberry or Windows Mobile.
Android will also have an edge when it comes to searching content made by the people you know. On the iPhone, there's no native Web search that could coalesce contacts' content and Web content; you have to go to Safari to search. Even with aggregator apps, it's still hard to get a handle on the
trends or topics in your social graph. Google, by contrast, lets
Android search system- and Web-wide, which means it can include its new
social search feature.
Android's Eclair version was opened to developers today, and should be available for download soon.
So far, about 2,000 crunchy customers have used the service, which went live this summer. For people who have been itching to try FreshDirect but don't have service in their area, this could be a first taste (groan) of Internet-based food-shopping, which has had mixed results over the last two decades. MojaMix smartly assigns each unique mixture an ID number that you can save and re-enter to shortcut subsequent orders.
The deal may mean a leap-frog in popularity for MSN's music portal. MySpace's music site is second only to AOL's with 27 million visitors, while Microsoft's current service, MSN Music, hovers around sixth at 7.4 million. 
Google, of course, has a parallel strategy; just last week, there were all-but-fact 
