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Web voice chat companies merge Web voice chat companies merge Source: Cnet Web voice chat company HearMe Networks said on March 13th it would acquire AudioTalk Networks, a company with similar technology focused on a different market. The two companies are part of a new wave of firms aimed at giving email and the popular Internet instant text messaging applications a voice component, so that surfers can talk to each other live on the Web. The mostly stock transaction is valued at about $125 million, the HearMe executives said. The merger will give HearMe technology that will allow its subscribers to connect calls to ordinary offline phones, instead of limiting them to the Net. AudioTalk has focused its technology on the corporate market. The Net voice chat business is still in its infancy, with a wide range of companies competing for slightly different slices of a still-fuzzy market. HearMe is one of the largest consumer voice chat companies on the Web.
Net2Phone inks deal with RealNetworks Net2Phone is trying to get more consumers to make online calls, which are cheaper than traditional, wire-based service. RealNetworks is adding features and services to fend off bids by Microsoft and Apple Computer to challenge its leading position in the market for Internet media players. RealPlayer has about 95 million registered users who'll be able to download the new software using a function on their RealPlayer that shows when new software has been released.
VocalTec announces consumer communications
portal VocalTec announced formation of its wholly owned subsidiary TrulyGlobal. TrulyGlobal is a web-based, consumer-driven Internet telephony portal. VocalTec will provide the first round of funding for TrulyGlobal from part of the proceeds it expects to receive from the sale of a portion of its shares of ITXC. VocalTec currently owns 5.5 million shares of ITXC common stock. The vendor is participating as a selling shareholder in ITXC's secondary offering. TrulyGlobal will offer consumers web based Internet telephony services with voice quality and flexibility by enabling subscribers to customize their Internet communications. The service has been designed using the input of millions of Internet Phone users and with help from the creators of Internet Phone. TrulyGlobal is being launched during the fifth anniversary of Internet Phone, internet telephony services software. It will debut during the second quarter.
Mitel teams with RADVision Mitel Semiconductor, a division of Mitel Corporation announced that it is integrating two protocols(H.323 and MGCP) for providing multimedia services from RADVision, into silicon systems that will bring quality voice to IP telephony applications. Integrating RADVision's protocols, according to Mitel is combination of software, telephony and voice technology that's required to accelerate the adoption of VoIP solutions. RADVision's technology will ensure that Mitel's silicon provides interoperability across all of the signaling stack requirements for emerging VoIP applications. Mitel's chipset includes the components required to increase performance of voice and data transfer in emerging IP applications. The company envisions IP enterprise solutions that integrate wireless modules and IP voice gateways, while providing quality voice signals and voice recognition applications. The H.323 core protocol enables the creation of real-time voice calls over IP networks and MGCP building blocks separate the signaling, call control and media internetworking into separate, logical entities.
IBM unveils
new internet appliances According to IBM, it has agree with several leading communication companies and application service providers (ASPs) to begin testing IBM's new Internet appliance. By combining the IBM appliance with an array of service options, including content and hosting from ASPs, and broadband connections from telecommunications partners, the device will, according to IBM, become part of a convenient end-to-end Internet access system requiring little or no end-user PC skills. According to an IBM statement, the new Internet appliance is comprised of two components: a 10-inch color monitor and a keyboard for direct Internet access. However, these specifications are different from IBM's new NetVista All-In-One model as described by IBM in an announcement made today. No one from IBM returned Newsbytes' call regarding this distinction, and it seems that there are to be several models sold under the NetVista brand. SBC and Bell Atlantic plan to try out the IBM appliance with their respective broadband services in hopes of identifying industries and associated end-users in various areas - insurance, finance, healthcare, small to medium sized businesses, travel, and entertainment among them.
U.S. Justice Department
rolls out Cybercrime site The Cybercrime.gov site is also the new home of the controversial report on online activity released by the Clinton Administration last week. Cybercrime.gov visitors can view a copy of the report - "The Electronic Frontier: The Challenge of Unlawful Conduct Involving the Use of the Internet." The report has drawn sharp criticism from civil liberties and privacy groups. A product of the President's Working Group on Unlawful Conduct on the Internet, it contends that law enforcers need new "tools" for combating the rising tide of electronic crime. The Cybercrime.gov page also contains a "Kids Page" that includes some guidance for juveniles thinking about using the Internet. Mindful of the youthful stature of many hackers, the Justice Department includes a link entitled "You Can Get in Real Trouble for Hacking!" on its Kids Page.
PMC-Sierra
to buy AANetcom and Extreme Pack Devices PMC-Sierra Inc., (Burnaby, B.C., Canada) a maker of communications chips, said it would buy AANetcom (Allentown, Pa., and San Jose, Calif.) and Extreme Pack Devices Inc. (Kanata, Ont., Canada) -- both fabless semiconductor companies that design and market their products but contract out the fabrication -- for $1.3 billion. AANetcom's ICs are used in telecom equipment and optical networking switches. Extreme Packet was founded in 1999 as a system-on-a-chip company that develops chipsets to help manage and control network traffic.
Centra
seeks to cut cost of web conferencing Centra Software Inc. (Lexington, Mass.) is stoking its interactive capabilities by updating its Web conferencing product, the company said. The software, due to ship in April, will let attendees view online conferences and talk via voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) so they don't have to be on the phone and on their computers simultaneously. In the company's current product, users can listen to the conference, but not talk, via VoIP. Centra Conference version 3.0 also supports more than one presenter, with the conference leader assigning privileges that enable attendees to lead or moderate an event. Conference leaders can now also turn off text chats during the session if needed. Other perks include instant polling of attendees, bulked-up whiteboarding tools and a resizeable application sharing window. Centra Conference competes with such products as Conference from PlaceWare Inc. (Mountain View, Calif.) and Learningspace from Lotus Development Corp. (Cambridge, Mass.). As the expense of training and retaining employees increases across industries, the need for less costly training is likewise soaring, analysts said. Centra hopes to attract customers that don't want to foot big long-distance phone bills in addition to the cost of the Web conferencing software. Centra customers include such companies as Kraft Foods Inc. (Northfield, Ill.), Compaq Computer Corp. (Houston), Sony Corp. (Tokyo) and Viacom Inc. (New York). Partners include such large consultancies as PricewaterhouseCoopers (New York), Deloitte & Touche (New York) and KPMG International (London). Centra Conference 3.0 will cost $25,000 for server software plus 50 concurrent licenses. Move over Amazon.com Source: Wired For the month of February, by PC Data's count, CDnow logged more than a million unique buyers compared to 984,000 for second place finisher and erstwhile e-tail king Amazon.com. Amazon had held the top spot in the PC Data rankings since mid-1999. Web ratings firms Media Metrix and NetRatings have not yet released their February data. "In February, home Internet users shopped at Amazon.com but actually bought from CDnow.com," said PC Data analyst Cameron Meierhoefer, noting that Amazon logged 13.2 million unique visitors compared to 8.2 million at CDnow. "CDnow.com is one of the strongest retail brands on the Web, and it appears that recent promotions have successfully leveraged this strength." The strength was not immediately evident on the stock market, where CDnow's shares slumped 10 percent on the news that the company had terminated a previous merger agreement with Columbia House music club. In early afternoon trading, shares of CDnow (CDNW) were $8.50 a share, giving it a $258 million market capitalization -- a tad more than a hundredth of Amazon.com's $22.6 billion market value.
Internet
access over power lines nears reality Nortel was once involved in powerline technology but the strategy did not make sense financially. Currently, download speeds over power lines are a little faster than the speediest dial-up modems. The companies say hardware designed just for powerline networks will bring improvements. At least one of the large long-distance companies in the U.S. is interested in partnering with Oneline.
Can
fiber make it down the last mile? In particular, BellSouth is making strides. The company deploys fiber to the curb at about 50,000 to 100,000 lines annually, according to Dan Spears, director of research for BellSouth Science and Technology. Bringing fiber closer to the customer could enable BellSouth to provide DSL service at speeds as high as 6 Mbps. However, PONs may be the key to high-bandwidth access this year. Quantum Bridge is one of the main suppliers of the technology, which enables several users to share one fiber strand. A new range of users could get access to optical networking via PONs, said Rosemary Cochran of Vertical Systems. PONs may be attractive to CLECs because of the need for bandwidth in the market, Cochran said. In addition, the PON's scalability makes it favorable for the small and midsized markets. DSL access multiplexers also work for last-mile fiber. But a CLEC must have access to dark fiber to take advantage of such systems.
Uncle Sam patrolling the Net Next month, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is set for implementation, and online companies catering to kids are gearing up to comply. Satisfying the 1998 law won't be easy. The law calls for "parental consent" for any information collected about children under 13. Some companies are having difficulties figuring out how to get parental consent. "Companies are acting slowly because they are unsure as to what they can and cannot do, and how to get the parents involved," said Ben Isaacson, executive director of the Association for Interactive Media, a trade organization for Internet companies. "In terms of what the Federal Trade Commission has prescribed, it's left to interpretation -- and loosely described." The rule has two levels. If the Web site does not share any information it collects from children with other companies or organizations, then it can ask parents for consent via e-mail. If information is collected and sold or distributed, Web sites must find other ways to grant consent. So companies can try to install digital authentication systems, they can set up toll-free numbers where operators are trained to understand the difference between the voice of a 12-year-old and that of an adult, or they can provide a way for parents to give consent via snail mail. The site has 570,000 registered users, and as many as 160,000 of them are under 13. To register, children must have their parents fill out a form offline, then fax or mail it to the company.
i2 Technologies buys Aspect Development
in $9.3 billion deal Tom Harwick, an analyst with Giga Information Group, said today's news is no surprise. This is the natural evolution of the companies' relationship, which includes an equity investment by i2 in Aspect, collaboration on projects during the last six months, and joint marketing deals, said Harwick.
FCC to promote trading system for airwaves Government officials worry that demand for airwaves is outstripping supply because of the proliferation of cellular telephones, pagers, satellite services and other wireless devices. The volume of traffic on the Internet, the FCC says, doubles every 100 days, increasingly through wireless connections such as cell phones and handheld computers. "What a tragedy it would be if, right as we're on the verge of the Internet migrating to inexpensive handheld devices and offering real hopes of truly democratizing the technology, the movement would be stymied by overloading the spectrum," FCC chairman William Kennard told the Times. In deregulating the spectrum to create the new market, the FCC
would be enabling licensees who own the rights to a slice of the airwaves to
profit from any surplus, such as parts not in use 24 hours a day. |
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