Check out this video of GIPS CMO, Joyce Kim presenting on mobile video at eComm in April.

Day 2 of eComm promises to be quite engaging, with a focus on voice and mobile. Perhaps one of the most interesting turn of events has been  how people have dealt with the travel problems that the Icelandic volcano has presented. Quite a few presentations have been cancelled because the speakers were not able to make it to the show. However, a couple have gone forward by presenting remotely via Skype. Martin Geddes is currently discussing cloud communications from his living room in London. The calls have been dropped a couple times, but overall the presentations have been very effective, and provided a good argument for video conferencing in lieu of in person meetings, as well as the value video can bring to a call. Martin’s video dropped out about 5 minutes into his presentation, and it became much less engaging and more difficult to follow the talk with only the audio. But I find it interesting that it took an act of god to get a conference about emerging communication technology to embrace video conferencing as a presentation vehicle.

More after the morning break.

Afternoon Update

The main theme of the late morning/ early afternoon talks was telecom policy, culminating in a panel on the National Broadband Plan. There seemed to be a consensus that it was a good move for the plan to focus on allocating more spectrum (500 MHz worth), as the future of the Internet will be mobile. However, there was quite a bit of disagreement, and spirited discussion, on how to ensure equal access to content, and how that might be regulated. Panelists seemed to be split on if there are adequate tools to measure service, with Richard Bennet from ITIF indicating that websites like Speedtest.net were adequate, while Susan Estrada from FirstMile maintained that there is a lack of standards for service measurement, and that it is difficult to ascertain where in the series of networks which comprise the Internet possible bottlenecks and disruptions of service may occur.

 Perhaps the most contentious issue (no surprise) was net neutrality. There were a lot of great points made, some of which I had never considered. Tracy Rosenberg from Media Alliance was a strong advocate for structural separation and protection for independent voices. Susan countered that the topic of net neutrality is premature and confuses the discussion, which should really focus on internet access, and not content. Richard agreed, pointing out that a third of Americans do not have access to the Internet, and furthermore many Americans do not want to pay for a high speed connection. My first reaction was to also agree with Susan and Richard. It made sense that we should try to get everyone Internet before we worry about regulating it. However, the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why the issues had to be tackled sequentially. If we wait too long to figure out net neutrality, won’t it be harder to enact some sort of reform once we establish an acceptable level of broadband penetration? And aren’t the issues somewhat related anyway? Paul Brigner from Verizon asserted, to no one’s surprise, that Verizon has no interest in blocking service to its subscribers. But, as the panel began to discuss right before they were cut off, access in rural areas is one of the biggest issues in the Broadband Plan. So while Verizon may claim they have no interest in limiting service, they may not have an incentive to provide service to some consumers if the cost of doing so is too high. At that point  there needs to be either regulation to mandate coverage, or a way to subsidize network expansion. Basically, there need to be rules for how service gets provided, and who is responsible for management, which evokes net neutrality in my mind.

There was also a good open discussion around many issues, including the video conferencing ecosystem. From the attendees, it seems like there are still some concerns about quality. But the main issue remains interoperability. I claimed that consumer networks will probably continue to be separate, but enterprises will have to be able to connect. H.264 SVC should hopefully accelerate that. 

 My favorite talk was again something that was a little off the beaten path. Marc Smith evoked my inner social science nerd by introducing us to NodeXL’s analytic abilities for social networks. Really cool stuff.

Time for some coffee.

Late Afternoon Update

The afternoon sessions seem like they are leading up to tomorrow’s sessions pretty nicely. Tomorrow is all about augmented reality, and we have been getting a taste of what is possible with that. For instance, Jason Kolb from Cisco discussed how Google Wave and XMPP can enable social communication apps that help people interact with other folks in their immediate environment, in a very elegant, user-friendly way.

Now, before yesterday, I had no idea what augmented reality was. But over the last 24 hours I have been able to get a bit of a handle on it. Similar to virtual reality, augmented reality uses information from outside one’s current physical environment to enhance their experience. When I first heard this, I thought of people running around with clunky helmets in a lame sci-fi version of the future. But the more I learn about it, the more I can see a practical purpose for AR apps.                                                                                     

One of the most promising areas is mobile communications. If you are already using GPS or navigation services on your phone, wouldn’t you also like to hold the phone up to get even more information in real time about your surroundings, such as when landmarks were founded, or sales at stores in the neighborhood? AR apps give you that by overlaying additional information on top of a more traditional cell phone or camera view.

I am sure I am just scratching the surface, but John G. should be able to dive a little deeper tomorrow.

Hey folks. Many of us from the GIPS team are at the lovely San Francisco Airport Marriot this week for the Emerging Communication Conference (eComm). eComm is a great show not only because it brings together so many people from the communications industry, but also because the format allows speakers to present a variety of topics, and encourages dialog among participants. We are in a break between speakers, so I thought I would take this chance to give a brief overview from the morning.

I missed the first couple speakers because I arrived a little late due to Google Maps giving me an incorrect address for the hotel. I usually trust Google with my life, but this is the second time in 3 days that the company has messed up in a pretty major way for me (the previous being not being able to read an email after I replied to it on my phone. Shouldn’t Gmail run like butter on Android?). Anywho, the two talks I managed to see were pretty interesting. Carlos Kirjner from the FCC gave an overview of the National Broadband Plan. For me the takeaway was that, though broadband access is crucial for increased connectivity, it is meaningless without proper resource allocation and regulation which ensures competition and consumer choice. After that, JP Rangaswami from BT/ Ribbit spoke about the rise of the open network, and the need for cross platform and network openness in the face of vertical integration and control. He made two very interesting points. One is that sometimes technological followers are just as, if not more, important than followers, but obviously could not exist without the innovative companies first breaking into the market. He illustrated this point by claiming that Android couldn’t exist without iPhone, but that the open model Android espouses could prove to be more revolutionary in the long run. The second point he made was that, though people think of content as king, a lot of content is highly commoditized. For instance, the price of music indicates that people aren’t necessarily paying for content, but rather the convenience of being able to purchase and access music from anywhere.

The strange Pink Floyd/ reggae mashup that has been playing during intermission is dimming, which means we are about to start again. It’s been a fun morning. Expect another update shortly.

Early Afternoon Update

Ok, back at it.

Jonathan Rosenberg from Skype spoke about publishing and ecommerce. Though this seems like a surprising topic for them to discuss, his point was very relevant. He believed that the kind of rich interaction that real-time communication enables can drive more involvement with publishing and commerce. He displayed a slide which showed a correlation between call quality and call duration. Skype asked participants to rate the quality of their calls, and found that calls using HD voice lasted 50% longer than those using G.729. The same principle should apply throughout the Internet. If people can interact in a meaningful way, they should be more likely to stay longer on social networking sites and would be more likely to buy more content from an online publisher. 

Cullen Jennings from Cisco followed by introducing ViPR, which utilizes the PSTN, SIP and distributed hash tables to validated phone numbers in order to connect islands of similar technology. So, instead of relying on the PSTN for a phone call, users in different companies can now call each other over IP networks and get the benefits of HD voice and video.

Dawn Nafus from Intel then brought an anthropologist’s point of view to claim that the paradigm of emerging vs. emerged countries is no longer relevant, and that there are plenty of countries who are ready for new technology, but are not being targeted as consumers by technology producers.

Michael Zirngibl from Ringio announced the launch of Ringio’s rich calling service, which integrates CRM functionality with telephony. The idea is that by including social information with a call, the service will improve customer service and sales performance. I can definitely see this going a long way.

Counterpath also launched their Nomadic PBX which connects users through their mobile numbers to provide UC and FMC functionality across platforms.

Great morning, but I am hungry, so it is off to lunch.

Early Afternoon Update

With a full belly, here are some of the afternoon highlights:

Since I am a map geek, Assaf Binderman’s talk has to be my favorite so far. He showed how data can be used to make cities more efficient and deliver better service. For instance, he showed a map of Florence during rush hour, with an overlay of cell phone activity and bus routes. From the map, it became clear that there were hotbeds of pedestrian activity that were not adequately serviced by the bus system. His group at MIT has also worked on the super cool Copenhagen Wheel project, which not only provides regenerative braking power to a bike, but also collects and emits data based on a the activity of a city’s users. So users have a clean, fast mode of transportation, as well as receive maps and directions, and cities can get information about traffic patterns and pollution.

After the keynote from Ge Wang, which included many musical demos of apps from Smule, our very own Joyce Kim gave a kick ass presentation on the future of mobile video calling, and the differences between the Android and iPhone platforms. In short, H.264 SVC is going to open up a lot of possibilities, but it is still unclear how much demand there is for real time video on small devices, though tablets may change that. The iPhone has some advantages for developers (predictable hardware) but users may prefer the openness and variety that comes with Android. I think you can probably expect a more technical follow up post from one of our engineers on that topic.

Overall, it has been a very entertaining and informative day. Now off to the reception for a cocktail.

Last week I attended the eComm Emerging Communications conference in Amsterdam. It was very interesting, thanks to Lee Dryburgh and team for putting it together. The format was very nice with no parallel session and a mix of talks and panels. If I found a talk interesting I would listen otherwise tune it out and do work such as email until the next talk.  The topics were quite broad which triggered thinking about new stuff.

Out of the content, I found RebelVox to have a very interesting technology and demo. It was basically introducing buffering into real time voice which facilities a number of interesting features and application in IP communication. One is that you can listen in on a call being left as voicemail and then decide to pick it up.

The Google Wave team was there and did talks and demos. Very interesting and it explained better to me what Google Wave can be used for. All participants in the conference got wave accounts (and no I don’t have any invites) and Google Wave was used as a backchannel forum for the conference. If you have wave search for “tag:eComm with:public” and you will see this. Quite nice illustration of how wave can be used as a collaborative tool.

On the social networking front, we went to a wine tasting conducted over Skype. It was performed by the brother of an attendee that has a wine company in England – Elwood Wines. A Macbook was used for a video call with the tasting guide and it worked just fine – another example of what IP communication tools can be used for.

Talking about wine, Andy Abramson (a big wine expert which showed at the tasting) and Comunicano (where GIPS is a client) won an award at the show for his service to the community, congratulations Andy.

GIPS is a platinum sponsor at the upcoming eComm conference in Amsterdam this month. Want to know why? Well you can hear or read directly from GIPS vice president of engineering Jan Linden and Chief Marketing Officer, Joyce Kim and learn more about H.264 SVC.

On another note, it was nice to see that the Seattle Times ran with the Yahoo video chat story syndicated from the San Jose Mercury.

Once again GIPS is sponsoring eComm but this time it’s in Amsterdam. If you didn’t have the opportunity to attend the conference in California earlier this year, here’s a little more information about the show.

It’s not a tradeshow, it’s not a sales pitch stage and it’s definitely not boring. If you’re a thinker, an innovator or entrepreneur it’s a great place to meet people wearing the same hat – it’s bubbling with ideas, products and futurists  and gathering all these people in one room is no small feat.

While shows like DEMO are great – it’s like trying to get into a nightclub, when you’re underage, don’t have the right attire or if your names not down you’re just not coming in….unless you want to pay nearly $20K. eComm is different; it’s that afterschool gathering of the Mensa Science club with brilliant minds from across the globe in one large conference room discussing emerging communications.

This year, Jan Linden GIPS vice president of engineering will talk about video conferencing with a focus on H.264 SVC. (Above is Jan’s presentation earlier this year on the iPhone.) So if you want to learn more you should seriously think about attending. Our CTO, Roar Hagen will also be at the show too.

It’ll be the best conference you attend this year.

While it’s a little further away, I just wanted to alert you to a conference that GIPS is sponsoring in the autumn. eComm Amsterdam will take place October 28-30. It’s a conference that was designed to promote and accelerate communications innovation, which is why GIPS is taking part in the event again.

Lee Dryburgh, the founder of the event has done a good job of styling the event to echo the style of the TED events. Similarly, the conference is broad-reaching and has the right people in the room to discuss the telecom industry and the opportunities that are growing as drastic changes further impact the multi-billion dollar a year industry.

The show also got me thinking about connecting and communicating. My computer and mobile phone are the devices I rely most upon – in fact too much sometimes. Having the ability to send email via a phone saves me lugging around my laptop and I can respond far quicker. The downside of course as many of us know, is that we’re never off those damn devices – like a child playing with their favorite toy.

However, all these devices are rendered less-capable if the bandwidth to support them is not there.  A study released yesterday of real-time internet connection speeds shows the United States still lags behind other advanced nations. According to Communications Workers of America, the average download internet speed is 5.1 mbps in 2009.

I’m pretty lucky though as you can see in the image below, my speed is above average but still below average speeds in Sweden, South Korea and Japan.

Try it out and find out what is your upload and download speed here.

There were many great presentations ranging from very technical and geeky to refreshing high level thoughts on communications. Even though there were many more really good ones I would like to single out a few that I found especially interesting.

Ge Wang of Smule/Stanford had an exciting keynote on “Creating New Expressive Social Mediums on the iPhone” where he presented a number of really cool applications for the iPhone including an application called Ocarina that turns the iPhone into a flute (you blow into the microphone).

Ge Wang playing the Ocarina on the iPhone at eComm2009. Copyright 2009 by James Duncan Davidson

In terms of new applications/services I really liked Matt Ranney’s presentation on  RebelVox‘ technology that in a great way combines live and  asynchronous voice communications. This can be viewed as an integration of Voice SMS/IM, text IM, and live voice calls. This is definitely a type of service I would be prepared to pay for.

A nice perspective on today’s communication style was presented by Stefan Agamanolis with Distance Lab. He likened today’s mobile communication with fast food and proposed “Slow Communication” as corresponding to the current trend of Slow Food. Very rarely do we pay full attention to a phone conversation anymore. Either we are on the computer at the same time or because we are no longer tethered to a fixed phone we are easily being distracted by things around us.

The trend towards enabling web developers (rather than just voice developers) with simple enough tools to allow them to build voice applications into their web offerings is continuing to evolve. A recent example is Voxeo’s launch of Tropo.com.

As a speech coding person it would be surprising if I didn’t comment on Skype’s SILK codec announcement. The codec, which can be run in narrowband, wideband, or even “superwideband” mode seems to be a very well designed codec with good quality at many bitrates. Binaries can be obtained without any licensing fees and there is no obvious restriction for usage. I.e., it can be used for applications that do not involve Skype at all. As practically all free codecs, and most standard codecs for that matter, it doesn’t come with indemnification against patent infringements. That is only to be expected, and quite natural since there is no licensing fee associated with the usage of the codec. Indemnification is of course one of the benefits you get from buying a solution from a vendor like GIPS. In addition to making binaries available to everybody it was announced that Skype is planning to release source code to select partners for optimization on certain platforms.

Regarding the technical specifications of SILK my only concern is regarding complexity and memory usage. Not that any of those numbers are worse than comparable codecs; they are actually in the same ballpark as most and complexity is better than e.g. AMR-WB. However, this level of complexity is high for many mobile and embedded solutions and there is a need for lower complexity wideband codecs.

A very nice gesture by Lee was to donate 10 % of the proceeds to a local charity. The money went to Shelter Network that “…is committed to providing housing and support services that create opportunities for homeless families and individuals to re-establish self-sufficiency and to return to permanent homes of their own”

Myself talking about VoIP on the iPhone at eComm 2009. Copyright 2009 by James Duncan Davidson