An interesting map of the leading social network in the world and their dominance in each region, courtesy of Le Monde. While Facebook and MySpace are the major leading social networks getting most of the media exposure, you will find from this map that they are not leading in every region.
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The good old Fring and Truphone is about to get some serious competition from the new players such as Tringme and now Talkonaut. Tringme Mobile VOIP client is almost ready and currently being tested in-house. Today we discuss about Talkonaut native (SIS) Symbian S60 edition.
Now you must be wondering why we should install another Mobile VOIP application when I already have Fring and Truphone? Well the reason being, each mobile voip application has it’s advantages and disadvantages. Largely, I would disqualify Truphone being a Mobile VOIP application developer for the simple reason that their application doesn’t work with other providers. The reality is truphone is a mobile voip provider and heck they are good at it. Fring is a truly mobile voip application developer and now Talkonaut (sounds like a russian name to me) will directly compete with them.
As Ruslan (Founder of Gtalk2voip& Talkonaut)noted down,
“During last 6 months our team had been working on two major improvments to our Talkonaut mobile application:
1. Moving Talkonaut application to native Symbian S60 platform, and
2. implementing real VoIP stack that allows Talkonaut users to make voice calls over most data connections your mobile phone might have, such as: GPRS, EDGE, 3G and WIFI. With this new 4th release of Talkonaut we present our achievments in these directions, we believe all they make Talkonaut more consistant, outstanding and break-through mobile VoIP + Chat application ever available.
Lets look at what features they offer in Talkonaut:
1) Talkonaut 4.0 was entirely rewritten in C/C++ and now runs on Symbian S60 2nd and 3rd edition based Nokia smart-phones. Moving from Java to native platform allowed to reduce memory usage, improved speed and to add some functionalities that were not previously available for Jave applications, like VoIP, access to file local system (improved file transfer) and interaction with other applications (Web Browser for opening URLs right from chat window).
2) Using a set of narrow-band Speex codecs and relying on Jingle Audio extension to XMPP protocol (same as implemented in Google Talk), Talkonaut now brings to the world a very powerful combination of IM chat, Presence and VoIP calls made over data connection. Unlike standard SIP stack, that is available on some Nokia smart-phones, Talkonaut is not bound to WIFI only, and can make calls over GPRS, EDGE, 3G or WIFI. Talkonaut does not require to do any VoIP configuration and overcomes all the hassle with SIP settings.
3) Talkonaut 4.0 allows to make or receive free VoIP calls to Google Talk users, to SIP phones, to MSN, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ voice capable IM clients, as well as to other Talkonaut fellows.
4)*Highly Recommend Feature*: Talkonaut 4.0 allows to define any number of SIP accounts and use them to make free or cheap calls over third-party VoIP/SIP carriers. A flexible Dialing Plan feature is helpful for choosing routes to destinations between different carriers.
5) Talkonaut 4.0 runs on the following sets of Symbian S60 based Nokia smart-phones:
2nd Edition: 3230, 6260, 6600, 6620, 6630, 6670, 6680, 6682, 6682, 7610, N70, N72, N90 3rd Edition: 3250, 5500, 5700, 6110, 6120, 6121, 6290, E50, E51, E60, E61, E61i, E62, E65, E70, E90, N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N91, N92, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB
Besides the standard Mobile VOIP client feature, Talkonaut really impressed me with their Flexible dialing plan feature. I still remember using Gtalk2voip dialing plans to make free or cheap worldwide calls. You don’t have to maintain 10000 SIP accounts and of course you can route your calls via specific provider for specific country. Great feature.
If you are already bounching on your chair to try talkonaut, then give them a shot. Download Talkonaut from Mobile
Download talkonaut from Web
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This is a good video clip produced by Ms Angela Sun dated September 19, 2005 that explains it all in a nutshell. It’s worth watching though you may think its outdated. The situation in China hasnt changed pretty much as counterfeiting is still as rampant as before.
While its a serious problem in China, dont think the authority care too much either even with the big outcry coming from the international brand owners. With Beijing Olympics around the corner, its definitely not good for China PR positioning. The authority may swing into action to clamp down just before the Games and after the Games, i m sure its going to be business as usual for the counterfeit peddlers. As long as there is a demand from the buyers, its going to be hard to stop the counterfeiters unless if the authority comes down hard on it.
Many of you would think that the Chinese goverment are not capable in combatting piracy, in reality, there isnt any thing that the government are not capable of doing. As a proof, if you live in major cities in China, try look around for a counterfeit Olympics merchandises, believe me its hard to find and even if they are people doing them, its really marketed on a very small scale. Olympics is a national project and it will surely hurt their ego and pride if such counterfeit merchandises are found all over the place.
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Tonight jaxtr officially emerged out of beta and graduated to the “1.0″ status! It has been 11 months since the launch of our beta service and the team has been working diligently to make this a reality (by the way, we just recently crossed the 10 million user milestone, so the stars seem to have been aligned around “1″s and “0″s for us these days…).
Things to note in the 1.0 jaxtr service:
These improvements would not have been possible without your suggestions and feedback. So, please don’t hesitate to post your comments below.
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We often gets email from Business VOIP users that we don’t review Small or large business Phone systems. These business users don’t mind paying a right price for the right product, so here is something for them.
Fonality a renowned Business VOIP products company has multiple products under it’s hood. With products such as TrixBox, fonality already has enough eyeballs on them. They also have a Award-Winning VoIP Phone System for Small Business called PBXTra.
PBXTra basically gives you a flexibility to use large business VOIP system at small business price. Means you get more for your buck. During past, we discussed about FREE PBX systems, however these PBX systems might not be suitable for businesses which often has high demands and need unparallel network traffic. This can be achieved with a stable product such as PBXtra.
Lets look at the feature list of PBXtra :
1) Unified Communications.
2) Outlook Integration.
3) Unlimited Extensions: Enjoy unlimited extensions with all editions of PBXtra. Customize each extension with direct phone lines (Direct Inward Dialing or DID), outbound caller-ID, spell-by-name directory listing, voicemail settings, and more.
4) Branch Office Support: If you have a multi-office business, you can easily link satellite locations using low-cost PBXtra servers. With linked servers, you benefit from free office-to-office calling via VoIP, and the ability to forward or transfer calls to any extension across the system.
6) Auto-Attendant.
7) Work from Anywhere
Automated Conference Bridges: Host conference calls with zero setup. PBXtra comes preconfigured with conference bridges that support unlimited internal participants and as many external participants as you have phone lines.
The price of PBXtra starts from $995 onwards. There are 3 editions, Standard, Professional and Call center.
If you run a small business and interested in setting up a PBX based VOIP system, Fonality’s PBXtra is worth each penny. Rather than spending on low quality VOIP systems and handling issues for months together, it’s always better to go for a reliable product. Fonality is known to be a great business VOIP product with award winning products in the market.
Fonality is offering FREE PBX consultation and personal demo. You just need to send basic information for them to contact you. Go request for more information on PBXtra.
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Instant noodles is what i been having frequently whenever i m lazy to cook or i have little time to comprehend cooking. Its so convenient and to some local chinese, its their way of life. The idea of adding hot water and to wait for few minutes for the noodles to be cooked can be so compelling and practical. Such compelling and practical factors had led China to become the largest instant noodles market in the world. Its probably the single most important item that most households in China will carry in their kitchen.
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After being in beta for a extended period of time, almost 6-8 months and during this time getting acquired by Google, put GrandCentral right on top of many other VOIP companies.
Grandcentral is a great way to make free US calls and of course, if used intelligently can serve as a great virtual PBX system. You can also club it with other services such as RingBranch which provided Auto attendant and PBX services for FREE.
GrandCentral is now official open to Public. What that means is you don’t need a invite for GrandCentral anymore. However It’s only available to people in the USA, so if you are not in USA and still want to test the service with Virtual Numbers you should first get a free incoming number and then use a USA proxy to get grandcentral account.
Google’s official PR says,
With GrandCentral, a free service from Google, you can receive phone calls and post voicemails right on your blog. WebCall Button
When you add GrandCentral’s WebCall button to your blog, your readers can easily call your phone or leave voicemails without ever seeing your telephone number.
Honestly, GrandCentral is a great tool. You can get a free incoming number and then just attach your landline/Mobile numbers to the account. You don’t have to give your regular numbers to people anymore. Setup your preferred settings and where you want to be reached. Its all FREE.
Now the way in Free USA calling business is ON and only best things are in store for customers. We are looking forward to the day when GrandCentral will be launched internationally. I however doubt it will ever come to India 
Go try GrandCentral
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A new Google search application for Nokia phones makes getting to the search box and receiving results much faster. The application shortcut is embedded on the phone’s idle homescreen, so you can search without launching a browser.
This application is available now to anyone who has an N-series or an E-series Nokia phone, and can be downloaded by going to mobile.google.com on your phone. Google said the application reduces the average time to complete a search by up to 40 percent. A side-by-side search comparison is provided in this video below.
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I blogged about this technology sometime ago but it was only a prototype. The latest news is that it has just gone into production and soon mobile device will come with a micro projector sometime mid 2008. That would be neat right. In the future we can just fire up over mobile and do our presentation instantly.
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Do you remember the good old times when we posted the “Ultimate Jaduka Hack”? I still remember the wild crowd this blog received during that time. With over 50,000 people and over 130,000 PV within 3 days, Jaduka was a instant hit. Of course our hack was used by over 30000-40000 people around the world to make totally free calls including India. It worked for the entire world actually. Alas, the good times don’t last long. On special request of the company, we took down the post.
However Jaduka kept coming back with innovative products such as Earthcaller which was totally free for over 6-8 months since it’s launch and was also posted FIRST on VOIP Guide. We broke the news to the world. We also released a sneak workaround to make totally free calls anywhere in the world with Earthcaller They fixed that bug later.
Now they launched another product called DukaDial which basically is a free calling service for north america residents. Lets see how you can use DukaDial to make Free Calls.
1) Register at DukaDial
2) Enter the number of the person you wish to call.
3) Click the “Start your call” button.
DukaDial will call you first and then dial your party’s number. All for FREE. You enjoy Phone to Phone calls for free.
You should be able to make calls to all North America numbers ( i guess mobile won’t work?)
Of course, this will only work for people with US numbers.
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