News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
A true indicator of how difficult it is to end a tax, even one that was supposed to be temporary. Save those phone bills—I’m betting that the standard refund won’t cover the actual tax paid.
(Those not familiar with Skype and VOIP may want to review my previous post on the subject.)
For the rest of the year, SkypeOut (computer-to-phone) calls are free as long as both the computer and the phone are in the US or Canada. I’m not sure how useful this will be, as most cell phones have free long-distance—Skype’s primary selling point is cheap international calls.
Official Skype announcement: http://share.skype.com/…
VoIP is a great way to save a bunch of money on phone services—especially if you make international calls or still pay for long-distance. The simplest way to get started is to install Skype on your computer. To make the process easier, USRobotics has developed an adapter that lets you use your existing land-line phone as a VoIP handset. NETGEAR, going a step further, has announced a wireless Skype phone that can call anyone in the world via Skype (as long as it can make a WiFi connection to the internet).
I can’t say I’m big on text messaging—if I have something to say, I just call or email the person. That said, this site provides an easy and free way to send text messages from your computer. You just send the message as an email to
<phone_number>@teleflip.com
(where “<phone_number>” is a 10-digit phone number without dashes). I tried it with my own number, and it worked fine.
2.5 billion didn’t seem like a huge amount, until I realized it was approximately 35 percent of the world’s population. Pretty amazing, considering cell phones have only been around for a couple decades.
A new type of denial-of-service attack. It’s still conceptual, but probably not for long.
Now this is something even I would shell out bucks to purchase. They don’t allow portable music players at work, but they do allow cell phones. Look for the official announcement on Sep. 7th.
Link: http://www.iht.com/…
Update (09/07/2005): Here it is, the Motorola ROKR. Holds up to 100 songs, costs $250, and is exclusively supported by Cingular.
Remember in the movie Minority Report when the billboards scanned your retina and tailored their advertising to you? Well here’s the first step in that direction.
Link: http://www.newscientist.com/…
Update (08/24/2005): This type of advertising is known as BlueCasting.
