Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Google has just bought the telephone service GrandCentral Communications according to the Silicon Valley San Jose Business Journal.
This sounds like a brilliant idea. It’s like Google’s integrating instant messaging directly into their web mail application so you can IM the people you email who are on the service. But do we really want Google having all our [...]

This will be good for Small Office, Home Office, and Small Business Customers…
From the San Antonio Business Journal
AT&T is giving residential and small-business high-speed broadband Internet customers free access to the company’s nationwide Wi-Fi network.
Effective Monday, AT&T wireless broadband customers will be able to access the Internet at nearly 10,000 Wi-Fi “hot spots” throughout the [...]

Dane posted this… If you’re tempted to get an iPhone, it’s well worth reading!
I’ve long been on a record as a strong advocate of smart phones, and the Treo 650 in particular. I’ve had a Treo 650 since mid 2005. This weekend, after an hour’s drive and a short wait at an Apple [...]

The technology available to folks working at home these days is amazing. CallWave is now offering “Voicemail As Text” or VTxt service.
It doesn’t transcribe everything… just enough to give you the gist of the message.
It was just written up in WIRED magazine:
Enter Vtxt, a new service from CallWave that transcribes voicemails and sends them to [...]

The Telework Consortium is a non profit trying to promote telework. They workwith public agencies and private industry in coming up with telework solutions.
Part of that is monitoring broadband availability.
They work mostly with government agencies and here’s the current “state of the art”
One of the things they’re working on is a national web based information [...]

I’ve had a great home office phone these last 2 years… a 2.4 gig Siemens.
It was great for the first 5 or 6 years.
This weekend the batteries finally died.
I went to Wal Mart but then I found… the batteries were Nickel Cadmium.
Not a battery like that in sight!
For that matter, not even a phone like [...]

Microsoft unveiled one of their “secret” new projects today: “Surface”
No mouse or keyboard is required… simply human touch.
The immediate problems I see are
1) People will think it’s  a hard surface scratch it all up and otherwise destroy it in short order.
2) The thing I like about my keyboard is that I don’t see my fingers typing [...]

Here’s an article I wrote on the topic Can Homesourcing Compete With Outsourcing?
My guess is that there are some cost saving measures that can tip the scales. A larger factor in my opinion is whether US call service reps produce higher customer satisfaction scores.

I’m pretty jaded about work at home opportunities, I must admit. It keeps getting worse, so I was suprised how interested this product made me. I barely glance at most “sales pages” anymore, but when I got to this one, I actually printed out the 17 page information page to take it all in.
It makes [...]

DirecTV may be the next company to try broadband on power lines. I’ve reported on this before when other companies entered the field.
Testing could come in a major city as early as next year, though in my opinon the technology holds the most promise for folks not already served by traditional cable or broadband.
The tests [...]