VoIP: Page One news in the Wall Street Journal. The IP Communications space has gone mainstream! Just glancing at today's stories in both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, it is clear that the second wave of IP Communications is already upon us. It will be real... [The Jeff Pulver Blog]

Microsoft readies Web services apps framework. Microsoft at its Professional Developers Conference 2003 event in Los Angeles in two weeks will shed light on "Indigo," which is the company's upcoming Web services applications framework. The company also will discuss the planned "Yukon" release of SQL Server and the upcoming "Whidbey" releases of ASP.Net and Visual Studio. [InfoWorld: Top News]

First Japanese TV phone. We almost missed this: Vodafone says that starting in December it's going to carry NEC's V601N cameraphone with an analog television tuner. You can't record TV shows and save them for later with the V601N, but it can capture still images of whatever you're watching that you can use as wallpaper or email to friends or whatever, and the phone can supposedly even double as remote control for a regular TV. Read [PDF warning. Via Dottocomu]... [Gizmodo]

Send SMS Over Wi-Fi. Comverse demonstrated a product that lets Wi-Fi users send SMS messages to cell phones: This may seem like a no-brainer but SMS isn't an IP-based system—so you can't send an actual SMS from any computer. This blurb, however, makes it sound like wireless operators may be migrating toward IP SMS systems. Here is an actual press release from Comverse on the capability. The idea is to let Wi-Fi-enabled PDA users send and receive SMS with cell phone users. It will be interesting to see if this is the way people will want to message between devices or if instant message clients, which are already becoming available on cell phones, will handle messaging between cell phones and devices like PDAs.... [Wi-Fi Networking News]

Wired 11.11: Open Source Everywhere [Daypop Top 40]

Amperion, Inc Amperion uses ubiquitous medium voltage powerlines (MV PLC) to carry high speed data to residential and business customers, while providing an operational and economic benefit to utilities. Leveraging substantial investment and Intellectualproperty from investors American Electric Power and Cisco, the company is endowed with significant technology, financial, and market advantages. Through the reuse of utility wires and utility rights of way, Amperion reaches into every community and delivers the fastest broadband available over its PowerWiFiTM network.
[from ACG - Resources - Resources/Links]

Amperion, Inc Amperion uses ubiquitous medium voltage powerlines (MV PLC) to carry high speed data to residential and business customers, while providing an operational and economic benefit to utilities. Leveraging substantial investment and Intellectualproperty from investors American Electric Power and Cisco, the company is endowed with significant technology, financial, and market advantages. Through the reuse of utility wires and utility rights of way, Amperion reaches into every community and delivers the fastest broadband available over its PowerWiFiTM network.
[from ACG - Resources - Resources/Links]

Corporate IM's Conundrum. Instant messaging systems may never truly "open up," even as they grow in popularity. [The Motley Fool]

Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL boost business IM wares. Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., and America Online Inc. all announced enhancements to their respective instant messaging (IM) services for businesses on Wednesday, the opening day of the Fall 2003 Instant Messaging Planet Conference and Expo in San Diego.

Where is VoIP Going?.

The official daily newspaper of ITU Telecom World 2003 has an article on the future of VoIP. According to the article, application to consumer markets is the main worry for carriers. Public IP telephony would create a wide open door for new competitors to walk in and take away all the value that the carriers can bring to voice services. In theory, someone having a phone with an Ethernet socket needs only a high-quality IP service and a server to provide IP address to be able to use the phone to place unlimited calls to any other phone. The internet backbones are already in place and, since voice uses very little bandwidth, the industry would move to flat rate pricing: “All the calls you want to make for only US$9.99 a month!”

[ITU Strategy and Policy Unit: VoIP]

Mobile syndication. One of the cool things I'm doing with my new Treo is reading RSS feeds from blogs and other news sites, using a Palm app called Hand/RSS.  News aggregators make even more sense in a mobile context than on a PC, because browsing the Web is much harder on a handheld, low-bandwidth device. 
[Werblog]