Tech Trends

The Flip Side of Voip

by Adrienne Markovic

By now everyone has seen those silly commercials on TV for Vonage phone service and their 'unlimited' long-distance calling feature. They display the proverbial shiny red bicycle that us kids just want to buy instantly. But what is behind this immaculate exterior? When something looks to good to be true, is it? To answer these questions and make an intelligent decision we must look into the advantages, disadvantages, and the dirty little details surrounding voip.

Voip is short for voice over internet protocol. In plain English this means making a phone call through the internet using a phone adaptor or voip telephone. This datacom meets telecom technology began coalescing in 1996 and has grown into the voip service industry headed up by such giants as Vonage and Verizon. With the emergence of a whole new genre of communication, there are many advantages. The number one selling point is the cost advantage. It is cheap in comparison to telephone utilities' hefty costs for long-distance calls. The business model is based on the fact that voip is inexpensive. With voip you can get rid of your landline, thus eliminating the cost of having a traditional phoneline in your home or business. With certain software you can also talk to many people at once, swap documents and video back and forth. The web cam capability is also a plus, uniting people and business from any location globally. If you need another impetus to buy in then you can follow along in Ford's footsteps because they have just converted to voip service for its cost effectiveness.

So you save a bunch of cash. In some ways you pay for what you get. So what does your discount deprive you of? There are a plethora of disadvantages of voip. First, to use your new 'phone' the computer and software must be on. Forget the old days of just picking up the phone, now you have to boot up. That spells trouble if you have a seroius emergency. The service provider (ie. Vonage) provides you with the actual phone service, leaving you with the task of providing the broadband internet access. After that you get to install the telephone adaptor which is often problematic. If you opt out of doing this you can buy an expensive voip phone. Once you get your voip going you are confronted with a whole new set of problems. The sound quality is what most people complain about off-hand. There are 3 elements to this; the clarity (fidelity), delay (overlapping of voices), and echo (the Grand Canyon effect). Perhaps the most disturbing disadvantage is the IP address problem. Some emergency services such as 911 do not have the technology to trace an IP address to its originating neighborhood address. In other words, if you have an emergency emergency services will not be able to locate where you are calling from. Also, when you call people, their caller ID will not know what to say either. For instance, when someone calls from a Vonage phone the ID on the other end says 'Vonage'.

The latest gripe is about privacy. Voip is still highly unregulated by the government.. There are not many industry standards put into place yet. CALEA (Communications Assistance for Law Enforcements Act) and the 1964 Wiretap Laws keep the government in control of all communications period. So any new kind of communication would be under government scrutiny by default. Because of the IP address isue the FBI would have a hard time tracing calls. They have a general umbrella solution for this. Instead of monitoring one phone line for a police investigation, they can and will, monitor thousands of calls. If they are monitoring thousands of calls they cannnot trace, it is almost random selection and could be you! As far as privacy goes, there have been other recent activities by service providers which has also been questionable. Pudding Media's voip service is free. It is paid for by the advertisers. These advertisers work much like google's gmail ads, finding keywords in the content to match the ads to. So if you are talking about visiting Fiji, travel options to Fiji would pop up as you talk.

You knew that there would be a catch to that pretty shiny exterior. Still though, a savings is a savings. So what is the smart alternative to voip? You could get a free software program like Skype, which allows you to call people that have it for free. Other than that you will have to pick the lesser of two evils, problematic service versus expenive long-distance calling.

http://www.fcc.gov/voip/

http://www.pcworld.com

http://www.voiplobby.com

http://www.technewsworld.com

Tech Trends

You. Robot.

by Adrienne Markovic

September 19, 2007

The phrase life imitates art comes to mind when I am confronted with the latest in robotics. Although it is still a mighty leap to the popular apocalyptic Hollywood versions, we are a lot closer to that level of robot sophistication than most people know. Pop culture is fascinated by the possibility of creating technology that will eventually overpower us. Hal 9000, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the super-computer, even outsmarts the Protagonist, Dr. Floyd, until Hal's higher capabilities are disabled. In other words, they have to kill the computer. Will Smith's I Robot is another film that has a dark vision of the robot-centric world in mankind's future. Even Mike Myers is in on the theme with his upcoming, appropriately titled, movie How to Survive a Robot Uprising. These movies serve as some kind of warning to a impending future downfall caused by man's hubris. As we look so far in the future we sometimes we do not see what is right before us. The missing component of robotics that scientists currently have not overcome is organic emotion and free will. That makes the smartest robot at the present time just a tool and aid for humans. We may ask though, how much help do we really need as, robots systematically replace human action until people and pets are included.

This is the current breakdown of possible replacements.

• Instead of a Rescue Worker try Enryu! This giant robot moves around in all-terrain, including snow, with a hand that looks like the jaws of life. It has far more tools and strength to aid in rescue than man.
• Instead of your girlfriend try Repilee Q1. Looks like a woman, talks like a woman, moves like a woman, and has long hair. Good enough.
• Instead of your best friend try Robocco Asahi. This little R2-D2-esque bot is all about the beer. It stores chilled beer until the red button is pushed. This activates the process of opening a beer can and pouring it into a mug better than your favorite bartender, less foam and no spillage.
• Instead of your cat try Yume Neko Smile. This little guy rsponds to human touch, as well as human abuse. Petting it will make him pur. Rubbing the belly gives it an even deeper pur. You can grab it by the back of the neck and its little body goes limp. Beware of the tail though. If you pull it the cat lets out a banshee hiss and makes a nasty face. When just sitting around, the eyes blink automatically and its little bitty mouth makes a suckling motion just to make it 'cute' in general.
• Instead of your shrink try Domo. Domo's schtick is that it has eyes that closely replicate human's. Domo has voice recognition and responds to touch. When you speak, Domo looks at you as if it was listening. without the human hassle of talking back. Domo is your go-to guy for smiling and nodding.

Do not think that you yourself are exluded! Within your home, even you can be eliminated. Instead of you try the Honda Asimo. Asimo looks and moves like a real man in a big space suit. This sturdy guy can go forward, backward, up stairs, down stairs, and even run at 4 mph. Asimo aslo can recognize gestures, moving objects, environment, sounds, and faces. He takes direction from people. The point is to help in the home so he has been built to the specifications of doorknobs, electrical outlets, etc. to better perform household duties.

Combine all Asimo's features with a new home-grown innovation in robotics and we have the potential of some I-Robot type robots. At USC they have a robot that exists in a computer with some startling advances in robotech. This humanoid robot looks human-ish with different muscular features accentuated making him look like a bad samurai caricature. Its eyes are cameras. This robot has the ability to learn face movement of people and over time watches what it finds 'interesting'. That sounds like some qualitative thought processes going on. This can be defined as 'will', although not quite 'free will'.

This is the scorecard of bio-life versus man-made robot capabilities at the current time. However, keep your head up for future technologies. Although we would all like help, we are still all on the fence on how far we want those 'helping' capabilities to go. Fret not though because by the time human capabilities are performed by robots, we will have already lost control and become part of Earth's own history, alongside the dinosaurs.

http://www.enryu.jp

http://asimo.honda.com

http://www.youtube.com