Is JAJAH a Skype Killer?

There's a new “free” VoIP telephone service called JAJAH. It's free like Skype is free. You only have to pay a fee if there's a network fee of some kind involved in the call. With Skype that's the SkypeOut charge that you pay if you ring a handset. JAJAH's differentiating point is the way it works. With JAJAH you don't have to download anything. (You can but you don't have to). You just register on the JAJAH web site and specify your actual phone numbers (both fixed line and mobile) that you want JAJAH to use. When you want to make a call, you just log on and enter the phone number you want to call (or pick it from your list) and JAJAH does the rest. It phones both of you.

So what does that mean?

Well first of all, it means you don't have to have a headset attached to your PC (or Mac). The call goes directly phone to phone, with VoIP happening in between. Secondly it means that you only have to pay the incoming call fees, which are generally low and can be zero. (JAJAH tells you the call rate when you call).

Used in this way, JAJAH doesn't require a broadband connection. It will work fine on a dial-up line, but it claims to work fine over dial-up anyway, even with a PC-to-PC call. Reportedly, JAJAH uses a higher quality codec (a codec is a voice to digital coder/decoder) than Skype, delivering higher quality on lower bandwidth. As it happens it can also use the Skype codec, which means that you can phone Skype users for nothing if it's a PC-to-PC call.

To do PC-to-PC calls, you need to download the JAJAH Webphone. This gives you:

1. Chat, including SMS capability
2. Real-time text message translation. ( English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian and French)
3. Call forwardiing
4. Conference calls
5. Skype search capability
6. Ringtones and skins (give me a break)
7. Voicemail
8. Videophone

Some of this is clearly first release (JAJAH only launched in February) so the software is likely to improve—I've read some negative comments about the video aspects of the interface. The main point of JAJAH, though, is that it integrates well with the phones you already use. This is why it could challenge Skype or at least take a piece of the Skype market.

Incidentally, Vodafone in Germany has suggested that it may refuse to accept calls from some VoIP services (starting mid-2007)—I think Vodafone Germany is targeting Skype, but I guess JAJAH would also qualify for the same treatment. Such strategy would not put Skype, JAJAH, et al out of business. It's too late for that. Too many users. Also the free VoIP companies could respond in kind, which would surely disrupt everything.

A Telco trade war may be brewing out there.

StreamBase/Da Vinci Coder

If you've read the book, seen the movie, watched the TV programs and bought the T-Shirt, then you have probably had enough of Dan Brown's jolly attempts to annoy the Catholic Church while making a small fortune on the side.

But maybe you haven't. If so then StreamBase is giving you the option of achieving critical mass via a rather cute web-based contest called “The Quest for the Da Vinci Coder.” (www.thedavincicoder.com). As part of the contest you get to test drive StreamBase's software, which should be no surprise, and you also get to play games and solve puzzles. There's a $1,000 prize every week and, eventually, a Grand Prize of $10,000—the winner of this gets to be called “The Da Vinci Coder”.

The clever thing about this is that StreamBase has intertwined its product into the contest so that if you choose to play you will learn enough about the product to know, pretty well, what it is and what it does. All in all, it's a neat piece of creative marketing.

If you are thinking of entering this competition there are two things you need to know:

1. The contest began 2 weeks ago so you've missed out on 2 possible prizes.
2. Only US residents are eligible for prizes. That may sound like a bit of a stumbling block if you happen to live in Europe, but don't worry—enter the contest anyway, just pretend to be me and if you win, I'll show StreamBase my green card and we'll split the winnings.

HP and a Grain of Rice

A grain of rice measures roughly 2 by 2 by 4 millimeters, which is roughly the size of a new wireless data chip from Hewlett-Packard, which HP currently calling the Memory Spot chip. The chip, by the way, is intended for commercial use, but because it's new, HP has the task of identifying potential application areas, before it can sell its new chips by the bag-full.

That the chip is described as wireless means that it is has an antenna. That it is described as a data chip means that it's a memory device rather than a processor. Also, by the way, it needs no battery, which is good news because it would look a little clunky if it has to sit on top of an AA battery.

The chip is fully self contained, which means it can do what it can do—i.e. transmit data—without needing to be connected to anything else. The Memory Spot read-write device cleverly induces a current in the chip in order to interact with it. The chip's characteristics are: It has a storage capacity of between 256k bits and 4m bits and a transfer rate of 10 mbit per second. That means it can tell you its whole life story in less than a second.

When I picked up this news story, I could not help but think of a story years ago about someone somewhere inscribing the ten commandments on a grain of rice. Well clearly there's no need for that any more, you could store the whole of the Old Testament on this particular grain of rice and still have space for the beatitudes.

And text publishing will, of course, be what this chip is used for in some way. You could conceivably store a photo or two on the chip or even a very short video sequence (think ‘advert’), but it's clearly no iPod (or iGrain?)—at least not until the capacity grows. HP's researchers are talking in terms of storing medical records on a hospital patient's wrist-band and providing audio-visual supplements to postcards and photos, which indicates to me that it's a technology waiting for an application.

Nevertheless, I have little doubt that there will be many applications for it. The problem is to get users equipped with a reader. HP envisages solving this by equipping every mobile phone with a reader—also every camera and printer. Well, if you get the readers out there then the grains of rice will surely proliferate. FMCG manufacturers should be made to put all their guarantees and product documentation on such a grain of rice and superglue it in place.

Virus Mail #5: Monkey Business

I found it in my Inbox...

Start with a large cage containing five monkeys. Inside the cage, hang a banana on a string and place a set of stairs under it.

Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the other monkeys with ice cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result; all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it.

Now, put away the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. He makes a move. To his surprise and horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.

Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm! Likewise, replace a third original monkey with a new one, then a fourth, then the fifth.

Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs, he is attacked. When all of the original monkeys have been replaced none of them have ever been doused with cold water. Consequently, none of the monkeys know why they are beating the newcomer or why they are not permitted to climb the stairs.

Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs to try for the banana. Why not?

Because that's the way it's always been done around here, and hey, it works. It's a company standard!

IT One-Liners

“No matter how fast your computer system runs, you will eventually come to think of it as slow”. A corollary to Moore's Law
… this is true, but it could as easily be a consequence of bloat-ware (or even spyware) as of Moore's Law. The rule suggests that you should buy the fastest machine possible to postpone the day when you yearn for another.

Another way to postpone the yearning is to buy minimal memory at first and then gradually upgrade the memory over time. The computer goes faster and faster with each upgrade. Gigabytes trump gigahertz.

“There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to use as his telephone. That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to use my telephone”. Bjarne Stroustrup
… that's rich. Complaints about computer usability from the man who invented C++, the world's first write-only language.