Perceived Security Threat Has Indian Government Concerned About RIM, Google, And Skype

With all of the concerns recently expressed by Middle Eastern nations about the Blackberry and it's use by spies and terrorists, India has added Google and Skype to the discussions by asking the companies to set up servers in India and allow access to web data, citing fears that the voip services could be misused by militants. Though Google has said it has not been contacted.

"India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said RIM had begun giving India access to its secure data from Wednesday.

“Discussions for technical solutions for further access are continuing and the matter will be reviewed within 60 days,” Chidambaram said in a statement."

A Google spokeswoman based in India said: “We have not received any communication on this issue from the government. If and when we do, we will review and respond.”

According to The Globe and Mail.

Google Takes On Skype

The Official Google Blog has announced a new service within gmail that will allow you to make free gmail to telephone calls to Canadian and US numbers and low rate calls to other nations. The service is said to be offered only to gmail users in the US, but the CBC reported yesterday that if you are a Canadian with a gmail account and have your language setting tweaked to English (US) then the service will also be available to you. The roll out is happening over the next few days, so don't panic if you don't see the option just yet. You will need to install the video and voice chat add-on to enable the functionality but it's a quick and painless install. According to the blog post the service will remain free at least for the remainder of the year, similar to Skype's roll-out of Skype Out a few years back. I don't make a lot of phone calls, but I'm bound to be making Google my choice of carrier at least until 2011.

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Skype Calls on iPhone Now Permitted By AT&T

On Tuesday AT&T reversed its position on voice over IP (voip) calls via it's cellular data network. Now iPhone users will be able to use their devices along with services such as Skype to make calls over the internet. “IPhone is an innovative device that dramatically changed the game in wireless when it was introduced just two years ago,” Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T’s consumer and wireless unit, said in a statement. “Today’s decision was made after evaluating our customers’ expectations and use of the device compared to dozens of others we offer.” What about Google Voice?

Source: NYTimes

Voip Enable Your iPod Touch

It may not be an iPhone but with the addition of a freeware application called truphone and a clip on microphone you can turn your iPod Touch into a Wi-Fi powered Voip phone. "There are a slew of new features we're rolling out for the iPod Touch that will let users call landlines, Skype users or send instant messages. We're talking weeks, not months, before these go live." said Geraldine Wilson - Truphone's CEO. You won't be able to make calls from anywhere like you can on the iPhone, you'll have to be in range of a Wi-Fi hotspot, but then again you won't be locked into a rediculously high priced cell phone contract either... cool!

BBC Story here.

Plenty of buzz about Ribbit

The RSS feeds are full of stories touting the release of details of Ribbit this morning. The start-up has developed a telephony switch that can connect Web-based phone calls to a variety of phone networks, including VoIP services like Skype. According to CNet's News.com "developers can access those voice services through Flex-based application programming interfaces (APIs) and with Adobe Systems' Flash browser plug-in." The company has recently scored a round B venture capital financing deal worth a reported $10 million, this on top of a $3 million injection in 2006. The Flash based interface is very interesting as many mobile devices support Flash.

Skype pointing finger at Microsoft and me?

While the folks at Skype do admit to finding a previously unknown bug in their software as the result of last weeks outage, the bulk of the blame seems to be pointed directly at Microsoft and Windows users. In their Skype blog post, What happened on August 16, the company states "On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update." Shame on us all for wanting to apply those critical updates!

Skype blackout

ars technica is reporting a major Skype outage that has been acknowledged by Skype in a statement "Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours." Skype has also temporarily suspended the download of the Skype client. They also say that if you leave your client running you will be automatically logged in when the outage is resolved.

That thumb drive speaks volumes!

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) provider Vonage has introduced the V-phone, a bright orange 256 MB thumb drive complete with Vonage Talk Software pre-loaded, a detachable stereo earpiece/microphone, and your own Vonage phone number. The beauty of this little device is that there is no need to install the software on your PC, or restart your machine to use it. Just plug the device into any available USB port, assuming the PC being plugged into has a high speed connection, and start calling! Considering I paid $99 as an upgrade to my Dell PC a couple of years ago for my 64 MB USB drive, the $29.99 (ca) price tag seems reasonable. There is of course a requirement to subscribe to a Vonage service plan, which start at $19.99 (ca). You can compare that to your current phone service and make your own decision whether or not it's worth the expense, and of course there are other VoIP services such as Skype to consider but this little device does have it's merits. If nothing else, there are 250 MB's of free space to store your MP3's on...

Sounds like a great solution for road warriors and students wanting to stay in touch with home, at $20 a month for 500 minutes the return on investment should be decent..."Dad, my marks are good. Can you send money?"