Insights For Success

Strategy, Innovation, Leadership and Security

VOIP

LinkNYC is the ultimate phonebooth replacement for modern cities and I want it

GeneralEdward Kiledjian

Image byEdward Blak used under creative commons license

See that sleek advertising billboard? It's actually a modern day replacement for the 1960's telephone booth. Meet LinkNYC

Each big beautiful device delivers 1 gigabit of glorious WIFI(serving hundreds of WIFI users simultaneously). To deliver this much high speed goodness, CityBridge is laying thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable).

 Since it is replacing the old style phone-booth's it's only fitting that the LinkNYC station also allow anyone to make free unlimited calls to anywhere in the US thanks to a deal with Vonage. Call's can be made via the built in speaker and mic or via your own headset (plugged in) . 

What if your device is dead? Are you out of luck? Not you're not. Each device has a power only USB plug which means you can use the station to charge your power-hungry smartphone or tablet. 

And each device has a touch screen tablet that can be used to browser the internet or lookup city services. 

There are over 200 LinkNYC stations currently deployed and more are on the way. I know some readers are freaking out. How can a city force tax-payers to subsidize something like this? Well they aren't. These kiosks are self funded through advertising and may even generate a little extra income for the city. The revenue is from advertising shown on both sides of the kiosks.

The solution is packaged by SideWalk Labs which is a wholy owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. 

And that my friends is how a modern tech savvy city does it. Democratizing technology while being cost neutral to the city. 

Whatsapp to add voice Services

technologyEdward Kiledjian
Image by  abulhussain under Creative Commons License

Image by  abulhussain under Creative Commons License

Read up about Telegram Messenger, a solid Whatsapp alternative (link)

Whatsapp was swallowed by Facebook in exchange for a cool $19B. To keep it exciting and in the news, the CEO, Jan Koum, announced that they will be bringing voice services to market. Sure you can send voice notes today but they want to bring actual voice calling functionality to their users. 

Is this something that excites you? Do you really need another VOIP client? It is a platform with more than 400M users so adoption will be incredible. It is important to note that this functionality (along with video chatting) already exists in the current Blackberry BBM client (IOS, Android and Blackberrry 10).

Related Articles:

Fongo working on a VOIP client for Blackberry 10

technologyEdward Kiledjian
BfcL2liIUAEFvrs.jpg-large.jpeg

I first started using Fongo when it was powering a free VOIP service for Dell Canada called Dell Voice (link). The premise was simple. It offered a free IOS and Android app that provided free calling to most Canadian locations with free calledID and free voicemail. 

The Dell deal ended but I continued using it when travelling or when selling something on kijiji (when I don't want to give out my personal number). Now we learn that Fongo is working on a Blackberry (BB) 10 client. 

The Fongo website still says "Fongo for Blackberry is not currently available" but now we know they are working on it. 

It's still too early to know if this will ever be converted to a real distributed client but thousands of Canadian Blackberry users would love to get their hands on this free VOIP service. Now we have to wait and see.

Silent Circle enables secure VOIP calling from Android

InfoSecEdward Kiledjian

I wrote about Silent Circle in October and was excited to learn that they recently released an Android app and enabled Out of Circle calling. Silent Circle will enable secure voice, text, email and video chatting from any Silent Circle client to another (Android -> Android or Android -> iPhone).

The app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Using their service is simple and straightforward. You download the app, create an account and then pay the $20 monthly service fee. As soon as this is done, you will be able to call Silent Circle to Silent Circle securely regardless of where in the world you are (over WIFI, 3G or 4G).  

They also added an "Out-Circle Access" which will enable Silent Circle users to call regular phone lines. You link is encrypted from the device until the Silent Circle boundary (which is a nice feature for people working in some questionable countries). This feature costs an additional $29 a month but includes unlimited calling to Canada, US and Puerto Rico.

Here is the full Press Release

 

Silent Circle Releases Silent Phone For Android And Out-Circle Access (via PR Newswire)

Private encryption service developed by PGP inventor Phil Zimmermann protects voice and video calls on both Android and iOS devices across cellular and Wi-Fi networks Download image WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Silent Circle, a global private encrypted communications firm revolutionizing…


 

 

 

Skype is spying on your instant messages

SecurityEdward Kiledjian

A couple of weeks ago, a group of hackers accused Skype (now owned by Microsoft) of changing its underlying architecture to make eavesdropping easier.

It is still unknown if Skype/Microsoft can intercept your voice calls but reading their privacy policy, it is clearly written that they can and do comb through instant messages (which is stores for 30 or more when permitted by law) sent via the Skype service.

The reason voice interception is unknown is the use of a common legal term called “includes but is not limited to” which means they list some services they monitor but reserve the right to monitor others. We also know that Skype “co-operates with law enforcement agencies as is legally required and technically feasible,” so assume anything you IM via Skype may be used by them or handed over to law enforcement.

ZDNet’s Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols goes on to say “There is no reason to believe that they can’t record our  Skype voice calls as well,” “Therefore, any person or business who is concerned with their communication privacy should stop using Skype and look for an alternative.”

Interesting when these types of privacy concerns surface and get confirmed. User beware.

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