The End of VoIP?

By | November 23, 2011
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A provocative (or is it prophetic?) piece  from The Register’s Andrew Orlowski who sees the end of Skype and VoIP:

It’s small, it’s boring and won’t turn any heads – but it probably spells the end of the road for Skype, Vonage and any other hopeful independent VoIP companies. It’s Nokia’s 6136 phone, which allows you to make calls over your home or office Wi-Fi network, as well as on a regular cellular network. UMA, or unlicensed mobile access, is the mobile operators’ answer to the threat of VoIP – and now it’s reality.

UMA, he says, has the edge because in one phone you will be able “to keep one phone number, one handset, and receive one bill at the end of every month.” In the future phone calls at home — whether you’re on your mobile, landline or online — will be free. This is a neat fit because where quality was worst — inside — you will be able to use WiFi.


Got a signal yet?

This is not good news of course, for those of us who saw the interesting lunatics taking over the asylum. Disruptive technology, it turns out, means just that it disrupts the monsters out of their slumber and they finally get it. As Orlowski concludes: “So long then VoIP, and thanks for the free calls.”

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The New News

By | November 23, 2011
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Another very cool kind of newsmap (via the excellent and addictive information aesthetics). This one, reverbiage, uses the NPR feed to generate a map over which a fast moving zoom moves to the places where stories are breaking:

Reverb

There’s also another neat way of viewing stories — select a topic, or tag, from a list on the left and a scrollable timeline appears, each blob representing a story. Not only a great way to see the latest story on a particular subject, but also the extent of coverage of that issue. In this case, it’s the hapless Dick Cheney:

Reverb2

I love this kind of thing, because it is not only visually exciting, but it introduces new dimensions for perceiving and receiving news. A map gives the geographical context as well as perspective — it’s not just about the U.S., stupid! — as well as spread, particularly on issues like the cartoons, or bird ‘flu. The timeline, meanwhile, gives a sense of how big the issue is, how heavily it’s being covered, and where, in the arc of the story’s history, the stories you’re looking at are appearing. Not only that: You can quickly figure out the history itself, and bring yourself up to speed without trawling through new stories hoping for background.

Two points. All these approaches are miles better than the last raft of such inventions from 1999. I’d love to see this kind of thing being adopted by the major news organisations.

China’s Facial Recognition System

By | November 23, 2011
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China is about to launch a new facial recognition system “which will be used in public places, such as airports, post offices, customs entrances and even residential communities”, according to today’s China Daily (no URL available yet.)

The invention, developed by Su Guangda, an Electronic Engineering Department professor with Beijing-based Tsinghua University, has been approved by a panel of experts from the Ministry of Public Security, the paper says. The system “excels at capturing moving facial images and features a multi-camera technology to lower the error for mismatching.”

Of course this is a sensitive area, particularly in China. The paper says the technology is already in place, but “limited to police use. The technology has helped the police in Beijing solve a few criminal cases involving child abduction and supermarket blackmail in the past few years.” But its creator is quoted as pushing for broader use, saying residential communities, airports and banks could use it. Since China has no fingerprint database for the general public, instead the photo on the national ID card “might help establish a facial database easily.”

Su said one feature of the system is the use of multiple cameras to limit errors, although it’s not clear from the report whether we’re talking multple cameras at an entry point to capture different profiles of the face, or millions of cameras all over the place to capture everyone everywhere.

The professor does acknowledge privacy concerns. His solution: “As long as you don’t save the picture in the computer and just scan individual faces quickly, the privacy violation is not an issue,” Su said. “And we could realize that by avoiding adding a picture saving function to the technology,” he said.

I’m no expert, but I don’t really see how that is a solution. Surely that could easily be circumvented by an over-eager security team, and in any case, it doesn’t really address the underlying concerns about use of facial recognition, although maybe that horse has already bolted. An earlier piece in the China Daily said the database already has 2.56 million faces and can make a face match within a second and has been in use for a year to catch suspects on the run.

Cash With a Human Face

By | November 23, 2011
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Here’s a useful innovation for foiling scammers stealing money from ATMs with their heads covered to avoid identification: a system which “can distinguish between someone whose face is covered or uncovered, and only grant access to those who bare their faces.”

No face, no dosh

No face, no dosh

According to Taiwan’s Central News Agency (no story URL available; first paragraph here), the system was developed by a research team headed by Lin Chin-teng, dean of the College of Computer Science, National Chiao Tung University in Hsinchu, “and can deny ATM access to users who have their faces covered”:

The system’s developers said they hoped the device would assist law enforcers in stopping a common crime involving ATMs: thieves disguise their face with motorcycle helmets or masks, even while their images are being captured by ATM surveillance cameras.

Markets May Be Conversations, But Weird Ones

By | November 23, 2011
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My conversations with some quite senior PR people are often somewhat bizarre: stilted, me trying not to sound like I’m the ghost in their machine, the castle-wall destroyer, them so defensive about their product and brand they could easily be replaced by robots. Cluetrain Manifesto should be required reading for these guys. Or at least Micropersuasion.

Recently, inspired by Kate Fox’s observations about the role of SMS in her book Watching the English and recalling Motorola’s sponsorship of research a few years back of Sadie Plant (PDF only) I approached a major handset manufacturer to see whether they had anything similar on how people used SMS and whether it differed from country to country.
– No, that sort of thing would be kept secret.
– So there is research but I can’t see it?
– I’m not sure. But this kind of thing would be important marketing information. Commercially sensitive.
– (Audible sigh admitted by columnist). I see. (Thinks: There goes their chance to seem like a company bigger than merely the next dollar.)

Actually I knew I was in trouble when I complained earlier to this PR person about their company’s desktop software, which I’d found almost impossible to install on three different computers. I found myself being talked to as if I were a small child (which I am, but I was upset at being found out) and told that “focus groups and users have actually found it very easy to install. Maybe you’re doing something wrong.” Yes, believing that the 104th version of your software was going to be easier to work with that all the previous versions, I thought to myself, but didn’t say out loud. At least I don’t think I did.

Now I know we journalists have thin skin, but I’m not sure this is the best way to go about engaging in a meaningful dialog with someone who is about to review your product.