Paul explains who E.J. Krause is, a trade show conference organizer with offices around the world. They aim to bring buyers and sellers together, to share experiences and do business together.

EXPO COMM is a series of conferences such as EXPO COMM Mexico Broadband for Business Forum, a three conference and exhibition.

Mexico City is technological and business hub of Latin America, making it a great place for the conference. Mr. St. Amour explains that www.b3forum.com.mx is available for exhibiting, sponsoring and participating in many ways.

Paul shares some advice for where to stay, eat, methods of transportation and what to do while in Mexico City. The hotels in the Palanco area is full of nightspots, shopping and the Centro Banamex where EXPO COMM Mexico is taking place.

DIDX has exhibited at EXPO COMM Mexico in 2007. It as well as its sister service Techistan are media partner and press agent respectively.

How do you contact EXPO COMM? http://www.expocomm.com/mexico or call +=13014935500. Register and be ready to capitalize on broadband business opportunities.

GSMA Mobile World Congress Feb. 15-18, 2010 is the happening mobile conference of the month. Head to Barcelona and be immersed in exciting services and solutions. VoIPSWITCH will unveil their new VoIPSWITCH Blackberry Dialer. The world’s first to offer 85Mbps Ericsson will unveil demonstrations at the popular mobile exhibition.

Techistan interviewed Juan Mateau of Solaiemes, whose Solaiemes merges telco with web services,  says it is their first important commercial marketing effort of each of the past few years because of the great opportunities it provides.

Enjoy the listening to the podcast interview with Juan and reading the complete transcription. More research on the topic of RCS solution with Solaiemes shows different uses, advantages and scenarios. Check for example at  http://blog.solaiemes.com/2010/02/unveiling-our-rcs-solution-gateway.html.
Suzanne Bowen:Today we have with us Juan Mateu of Solaiemes, an innovative unified communications solution with the need for mobility in mind. In fact, the Techistan team met Juan at GSMA Mobile World Congress in 2009 in the Innovations hall. He is the founder and CEO of Solaiemes. Juan lives in Madrid, Spain where his company is based. Hello Juan.

Juan Mateu: Hi Suzanne.

Suzanne Bowen:Good to talk with you again after a whole year. I know that you’ll be exhibiting at the conference again this year. Tell us about Solaiemes, how and when it started, what was the original intent and where are you going next?

Juan Mateu: Solaiemes was created three years ago. Our original intent was to create communications infrastructure between service providers and their core infrastructure. We wanted to create IMS, IP mobile systems, push to talk… not so easy to do among carriers.

Then, we wanted to create platforms for mobile usability not only for smart phones. We kept in mind enterprise and personal cases for push to talk different from the person to person communications. We created solutions for video based on carrier services IMS core or IMS video share. We wanted users to be able to install applications to do that. We want to open the eyes of the carriers that we could create our own services for best use case.

Now, the next is to pave the wave for RCS (rich communications suite). RCS is a new initiative for the G domain to create new services for mobile phones… to be in all the carriers, interoperating… you will have a nice messenger with IM, messaging, file sharing, live video sharing, all in one service.

Our next talent is to create a platform to enable people to create services on the top of RCS, translating from web APIs to telco protocols such as SIP, IAX, MSRP ( Message Session Relay Protocol). This is the new platform we will unveil during GSMA Mobile World Congress 2010… IMS & RCS…

Suzanne Bowen: Solaiemes is involved in cutting edge technologies and services, combining a mobile phone book with IM, file sharing, and live video sharing. No wonder you’re in the Innovations area at GSMA with your exhibit.

Juan Mateu: Yes, we always lean to the innovations area. The problem is that it is a well-known fact that carriers tend to be slow in deploying new services, always squeezing their real value, their technology.  We hope RCS will be the real chance to compete with the pure Internet services for mobile-based applications. The applications model is not always easy for most people. They don’t want to spend more money trying to learn how to use very complicated smart phone. Our approach is for all users.

Suzanne Bowen:Why did Solaiemes decide to exhibit at GSMA Mobile World Congress in 2010? It is scheduled Feb. 15-18, 2010.

Juan Mateu: GSMA exhibition is our first really important commercial marketing effort of the year. It’s in Barcelona. This is important. We can get there from Madrid easily. This is our third year to exhibit at GSMA. We are happy with the Innovations Zone where we will be. It is the event where we should go.

We also obviously did and will exhibit at CTIA in Las Vegas in the past April, but  the main one for us is GSMA. It leans to European standards where we are. We are naturally closer right now to European carriers than to American ones. The last tends to deploy older standards.

Suzanne Bowen: GSMA has a huge exhibit floor with many specifically-named sections. I can see why it an ideal location for you to meet up with all types of entities that would be interested in interacting with you about your services. Everyone listening to this podcast will want to know how to get in touch with you, Juan, at Solaiemes.

Juan Mateu: We will be exhibiting at hall 7, booth IZ12. We can be contacted using Twitter at http:/www.twitter.com/solaiemes, our blog at http://blog.solaiemes.com/, our Linkedin group at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1013597&trk=hb_side_g, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/solaiemes and on our website at http://www.solaiemes.com/index. Find us also on SlideShare at http://www.slideshare.com/solaiemes. Contact us at info@solaiemes.com.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly, you and I have stayed in contact and even arranged this interview via discussion on Twitter and via our  Linkedin networks. It is a pleasure to talk with you again. This will be available on iTunes as all our podcasts are at http://www.didx.net/podcast. Anyone listening can subscribe and download to their own iPod, iPhone, mp3 player, etc.

Thank you, Juan, and looking forward to seeing you in person at GSMA Mobile World Congress Feb. 15-18, 2010and again at CTIA in Las Vegas in April.

Juan Mateu: Okay. I hope the same. We meet there. Thanks, Suzanne.

Brough Turner is founder of Ashtonbrooke Corporation. Most recently he was a consultant to Dialogic on corporate strategy and new market development. Brough has more than 25 years of experience in the communications industry. He was the co-founder and CTO of Natural MicroSystems and NMS Communications, which was sold in parts in 2009. Brough blogs at http://blogs.broughturner.com/ on technology, economic and social issues of communications at the intersection of telecom, mobility and the Internet. He holds a BS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a highly sought after speaker for conferences such as eComm, ITEXPO, and World Technology Summit.”

The podcast interview with Brough is in two parts. A complete transcript follows between Suzanne Bowen, VP Marketing of Super Technologies, Inc., DIDX and Techistan with Brough Turner.

Part 1:

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to the DIDX media channel where we bring you the expertise of IP communications industry leaders from around the world. Today we have Brough Turner in part one of two podcasts .

We met at a VON conference in our shared interest in IP communications and a love of dance. Remember Jeff Pulver’s parties?

People may remember Brough Turner as one of the owners of NMS Communications. They sold it in pieces in December 2008, where one of the largest parts (traditional part) was sold to Dialogic. For the next six months, Brough was doing some consulting. Much has changed since then.

Brough Turner: No occasion to go dancing recently but …

Suzanne Bowen: I know. Come on Jeff, come back and give a party.

ITEXPO 2010 speakers received a list of questions to answer. One is about trends and changes in the industry. There is supposedly an economic crisis. Things do look a little bit better right now in December 2009. What do you think might enable new businesses in spawning new business activities?

Brough Turner:  One thing is in the Wi-Fi space… I’m known for lecturing on 3G and 4G wireless technology. For example, take Carl Ford’s 4G Wireless Evolution conference … I’ve spent more time this year on Wi-Fi. I have always used Wi-Fi, have been aware of it, but never participated in IEEE standards activity. Wi-Fi technology has been ahead of the cellular industry. It has been typically been focused on embedding wireless LANs, but the technology and modulation that is used since 802.11a back years ago. It’s the technology the4G guys are just beginning to use with WiMAX and LTE. “4G” technology has been in service within the Wi-Fi community for 8 or 9 years. The thing that is significant for the next 2-5 years is the combination of multiple antennas (MIMO) multiple input multiple output and software beam forming, that is antennas that are highly directional but can be shifted around in software. MIMO is already being shipped in Wi-Fi consumer products costing less than 100 bucks with two separate antennas. Four by four MIMO, that’s four separate antennas will be a consumer product in the first half of 2010. The reason this is interesting is eventual (RF stuff) but basically it makes the 5 gigahertz spectrum as useful or more useful than the 2.4 gigahertz spectrum.

There are so many accepted rules of thumb. Low frequencies are better. TV white spaces are beachfront spectrum. 2.4 GHz is short range, and 5 GHz is very short range, almost worthless. That’s true in terms of the technology for the last 100 years, but it’s not true in terms of electromagnetic… well, it’s true for a technologist, but not true for a physicist. What’s changing now with MIMO and multiple input multiple output antennas is it’s actually possible to send high capacity stuff at 5 gigahertz over distances that are equivalent to what you can do at 2.4 gigahertz. And BTW, there are either 24 separate 20 megahertz channels or 11 separate 30 megahertz channels up at 5 gigahertz. Compare that to only three 20 megahertz channels down to 2.4, so there’s a vast amount of additional spectrum that is available with 5 gigahertz which virtually no one has been using that is about to become very effective.

Early experiments with 11n radios (802.11n) in Wi-Fi products are showing that 5 gigahertz can be just as useful as 2.4 GHz. You can get dramatic performance improvements over anything that’s come before.

The second thing (beamforming is not available at consumer prices yet, but it’s beginning to show up at professional prices … like $10,000 and up and at enterprise prices like $800 – $1000 per access point. It will be a consumer technology within the next 2-3 years. That is directional antennas steered in software.

A typical Wi-Fi base station today broadcasts in all directions. That means when you add one, the next one down the hall is going to interfere with the one you just installed unless you run them in separate frequencies.

If you can make highly directional antennas and steer them in software, then you can dynamically connect to each individual client on a milli-second by milli-second basis. You’re talking to one client which is completely separate from talking to any other client and with a high directional beam, you can go a lot further.

What is about to happen is the performance of Wi-Fi mesh networks is about to go up by a factor of 100 over what was possible last year (2008). That will reach consumer prices over the next 2-4 years. When you see factor of a 100 change in performance,that’s interesting. There has got to be some market problems that this technology can solve.

Suzanne Bowen: So, a business would have the potential to access of a larger WiFi footprint. In the long run, they would save money.

Brough Turner: There are a bunch of companies going after “how can I cover a building with fewer access points?” The question is what else could I use this technology for if I wanted to do something radically different? Some companies have attempted to build mesh networks in order to fill in areas where they cannot run wires. That has not worked very well in the past because Wi-Fi doesn’t go very far.

In the past, if you wanted to build an urban network without running wires everywhere, you could build a mesh network. There are companies doing that. They are lucky if they end up getting 1 or 2 MBs per second delivered after they have gone through 4 or 5 hops. That’s the thing that is about to change. 3 or 4 years from now, you’ll be able to cover a city with consumer-priced stuff in a wireless mesh with very few … obviously the point of the mesh is to minimize the number of wires you need. You need wires to gateway back to the Internet at certain points. It’s an advantage if you don’t have to run wires to every access point, especially in an urban environment, where you do not own the “right of way” …

You’re inside your office building, you lease the whole space. You can run wires anywhere you want. You go outdoors and suddenly you can’t run wires everywhere. So, that’s certainly an area… one of the observations that I’ve made … I was talking to a friend who’s opening a business in downtown.

(There is a moment of silence here where I was in a tunnel and lost my Internet. Really wish we could have heard what his friend wanted to do. I lost my train of thought which did not help me start back where I needed to.

Brough Turner:  I’m looking for applications that fill market gaps; where this technology could be applied. One of them I am investigating (not a slam-dunk) is that, in dense urban areas, the cost for getting Internet connectivity can vary by a factor of 20 or 50 even a block apart.

(Ah, here we go.)

A friend of mine is consulting with investment types on technology issues. It’s actually a practice with 4 or 5 guys who have opened an office in Boston. Their new office is on the 7th floor of an office building one block away from the largest Internet exchange point in New England (at One Summer Street in Boston). There are about 20 different carriers there. If you’re inside that building, you can buy Internet transit service in small quantities for less than $10 per MB per second per month and large quantities for less $4 per month.

Just one block away, it cost twenty times that. Equivalent services have to come via T1 lines. It’s an incredible inflated price. If you look at any other form of Internet connectivity whether it is business DSL and shared access and compare it with the underlying cost of what is happening, there is about a 20X or occasionally 50X gap there. 

If you could literally supply a mesh that involved a bunch of people in office buildings up and down that one city block between One Summer Street and my friend’s office, there’s an opportunity to do something interesting. How do you do it? That’s a whole separate issue. This may be an opportunity for a premium-based business. Offer free services and also offer premium services with guaranteed bandwidth. If you want to participate, you have to buy your own access point and hang it in your window.

Who knows? The point is that there is a very interesting technology revolution that is going to happen. It could be shaped in a number of directions.

Now, the question is where else are there market gaps that this technology can be useful for?

 There is a set of technology issues. There are 8 or 10 companies selling wireless mesh networking nodes today. The market is not very large, and the technology hasn’t been very good. If that improves by 20 times or 100 times, possibly over the next 3 years, it changes where the technology can be applied.

Suzanne Bowen: From what I’ve heard about mesh networking, the technology has been a “save the day” solution. Think hurricanes Ivan and Katrina. I remember our office was destroyed in Pensacola. It was worse in New Orleans. Some companies and individuals got together and set up mesh networking which kept some critical services and businesses alive, so disaster recovery could take place. This is not just to save money, or make money, stop the digital divide but also disaster recovery.

Brough Turner:  The technology is real. The point is if the available speed or throughput goes up two orders of magnitude over a period of just a few years, what does that enable? It’s a viable technology and at least ten companies are playing in this field.

It potentially enables some different business models because you can think of a lot of different organizations coming together with different pieces of equipment and connecting things together. Dare I call it an intranet?

It doesn’t have to be as organized as cellular mobile telephony system which is incredibly complex and centrally administered.

* Meraki, Tropos, Belair Networks, Strix (provided what Jeff Pulver used when first starting up Wi-Fi conference coverage), SkyPilot, Aruba Networks, Mesh Dynamics, FireTide, Packet Hop, and mesh networking nodes available from Motorola, Nortel, and Cisco … There’s an IEEE standard for mesh networking that was just completed in the last year called 802.11S.

How can you get in touch with Brough Turner?

Visit http://www.broughturner.com. On this page, you can find Brough on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. Type “brough,” “3G tutorial,” or “4G tutorial” into Google or your favorite search engine, and you’ll find many links to Brough Turner.

Part 2:

Brough Turner:  Another thing is the one laptop per child, the Negroponte … little green machines. They use the mesh network protocol, a precursor, that became 802.11s.  It is all open sourced and high performance because the radios are the lowest cost possible you can build into these PCs. It’s functional. You can get a bunch of kids in a schoolroom so they can communicate with each other.

Suzanne Bowen: What a great learning experience. Have you heard of Inveneo?

Brough Turner: I don’t know.

Suzanne Bowen: I’m following them on Twitter and have been paying attention to them for quite a while. They do mesh networking and are involved in nonprofit activities. Have you heard of their peddling to power laptops? They are headquartered in San Francisco.

Brough Turner: I’ll check it out. I’m an engineer in origin, but I’m also an entrepreneur. I’m looking for ways to do something on a commercial basis. Even if I want to change the world, I’d like to have it be break even or net positive as opposed to being a community effort. Community efforts are dependent upon a few charismatic people in specific locations.

Suzanne Bowen: Right, like we have people in developer groups who are involved in open source and also evangelists full of zeal. One particular open source software can be like a religion. So an entrepreneur comes along and monetizes it. There can be a “war” between both groups.  Innovation is excellent. Community efforts are, too. But people do have to pay bills and have families to take care of. I have a blog on TMCnet.com called “Monetizing IP Communications,” and I am not ashamed of it.

Brough Turner:  In the first part of the year, I was investigating some other things, like is there a way that I can have a dramatic effect on the US broadband access gap? Like how to bypass the duopoly and getting fiber through the middle mile. But fiber requires right of way, so it remains too political. I’m an entrepreneur, not a politician. I don’t enjoy having to work with legislators to influence public policy.

If I had to pick a model, it would be commercial… look at all the revolutions in recent years such as Google. They stumbled accidentally into this advertising thing. Who would have thought there was room for another search engine?

Suzanne Bowen: Look what was around: Netscape…

Brough Turner: I used to use Altavista.

Suzanne Bowen: Babelfish was my favorite for translation and now that falls under Yahoo!

Brough Turner: Think of things like Craig’s List, a “freemium” business model. It’s free but he charges money for commercial real estate listings in certain cities like New York. He has found a new model that is dramatically less expensive. He has turned what was a multi-billion dollar business into a one hundred million dollar business.

Just like the Google free search, there is something in back of it that is funding. There’s a Wired article about it and with just thirty employees. He’s profitable and reinvests in growth.

Suzanne Bowen: It bypassed red tape.

Brough Turner: And it’s a profitable business. It you have a business that is doing better than break even, then you have a chance of scaling it indefinitely. Just a community network is difficult to scale if they are free. I wouldn’t mind changing the world and being the Craig Newmark of Internet access.

Suzanne Bowen: Makes me think of the relationship of this topic to my own company. When you come up with a new way to do things and change the way things are, this upsets some people. It’s better to get involved and collaborate. They would actually start making money among the changemaking, disruptive idea such as our DIDX. Type in my name and “Asterisk-Biz List.” Look at the earliest mentions of DIDX. It was total “dissing.” Like to them, I was the clone of Rehan, or an alias. There was no such thing as Suzanne.

Brough Turner: I certainly … you have to get out there and try different things for sure.

Suzanne Bowen: If people don’t learn anything else from this podcast, if you have an idea that may change things for the better, and you can make money on it… don’t be afraid. I’ve always said, “Collaborate with your competitor because in the long run, you both win.”

Brough Turner: My money is a result of the computer revolution through the 90s. That was literally a case of changing the way people built voice mail and first round telephony services.  To do that, we had all sorts of industry groups. To do the first digital T1 connected stuff in PCs, I helped creat a multi-vendor protocol that eventually had over 300 different companies  leveraging a digital TDM bus inside PC. That lasted about six years. Everything is completely obsolete now, but recently I was talking with Eric Giler, the founder of Brooktrout, a fax company in the 90s through 2005. We were head to head competitors at that time. We were partners at different points. Friends the whole time.

Suzanne Bowen: Would you share with us the milestones in your life and in the industry? Maybe you started with two cups and a wire connecting them?

Brough Turner: I always said you have to get me intoxicated to tell the phone hacking stories from college as an MIT undergraduate.

Suzanne Bowen: People would forgive you now.

Brough Turner: Then, when I graduated I worked for a little while with analytical instruments, doing Fourier transforms and other mathematical software.  In ‘83, I started a company with a couple other guys that eventually became Natural Microsystems and later NMS Communications. So I jumped into telephony professionally in ‘83. That’s where I’ve been ever since.

We had a consumer products company for the first few years. We raised VC money. Never could get the business beyond 2 million per year. Very disappointing for the investors. We turned into a consulting business to keep alive. Perhaps we should have walked away from it at that point and started over. That might have made the co-founders more money, but we had some responsibility to the investors. We managed to keep 22-25 employees during a lean period. We did large company contracting … anything to keep the doors open. Repositioned into computer-telephony … we went public in 1994 and boomed until Dec, 2000.

When the bubble burst, we scrambled and went into other businesses like within NMS optimizing backhaul from cellular towers. Another guy also within NMS started a business in mobile applications. We turned that into ringback tones in 2004… absolutely you can’t stand still. It’s fun when you are forced into a position where you have to learn a bunch of new things.

Suzanne Bowen: I agree. I was a teacher in my first real career. I accidentally stumbled into IP communications. That was a big mind shift, but I’m learning. I saw as a teacher that the Internet could transform what people are able to do.

Brough Turner: The impact in emerging markets is … I spent a lot of time selling in India and China… the backhaul optimization stuff was being used in Africa. You spend a lot of time in many parts of the world, too, Suzanne. Emerging markets first benefited from the spread of mobile phones and then Internet.

Suzanne Bowen: The infrastructure that we take for granted in the USA is almost not there in some emerging areas. We’ve noticed in our DIDX stats an increase in mobile companies and Asian, African and Middle Eastern providers.

Well, next time I see you we’ll have to have a real or virtual cocktail so we can get some more information out of you.

NTT Mobile scent over Internet

Scent over Internet, smell over Internet, odor over Internet… seems scent over Internet has the best connotations, and the topic is hot in 2010. Listen to software developer Alberto Betella on the podcast interview* Techistan shares. Alberto explains… not such a silly idea.

Sebo Gabor

Part 1 Transcript:

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast channel where we bring you the expertise of  technology leaders around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and today we have Gabor Sebo  from Lico Consulting. He was introduced to us by another editor of Techistan.net named Ali Memon so we do appreciate that. Hello Gabor.

Gabor Sebo: Hello Suzanne.

Suzanne Bowen: Really good to meet you and I appreciate you giving us this time. I know one thing, obviously we were attracted to what you do because Green Technology is very important for many reasons around the world. Your company as Lico Consulting. I was wondering if you could give a little background about it.

Gabor Sebo: It is a small consulting company that was established almost 20 years ago. I met friends from Belgium during an era of change the system of Hungary from the communism to the market economy. There was a huge demand that brought capital investments and knowledge technology investment in Hungary. It was time to make many business consulting services to match-making companies with investors from abroad to Hungary. Some mixtures of capital ventures…

After a certain period ,my Belgian partner withdrew from the business. I stayed on and made several task forces for different type of businesses. I gathered experts from business and from the universities to solve several problems emerging in technical or financial types in joint ventures or privatization process. The green projects I made first time in 2000th year. I met several experts, and I saw the Kyoto agreement and green technologies’ potential of big market, based on the technology needs for enterprises and the environment problem.

This was mostly in the densely urbanization cities in Europe and other parts of the globe … the desertification problem, I thought,  it could be oriented for Green Technologies. Green facades was the first and still is the main project we are doing now.

Suzanne Bowen: I do want to ask you something about that, but let me just summarize what you just said. It shows that you used good timing, good choices, you had mentors, you are quite aware of what’s important to the world taking note of the Kyoto situation and knowing that green technologies could save people money, improve societies, I mean everything you can imagine for that kind of goes right in to the next question that you just brought up. Green Façade, green wall project. Tell us about that please.

Gabor Sebo: The Green Façade project. You know in Hungary, there are plenty of so called block houses made in 60’s and 70’s. There was much need of medium quality for occupied flats for many people. There was some flow from the countryside to the industrialized cities. There were many families without any flat , so a new system was created called pre-fabricated block houses. This in general included 10 floor house with concrete banners and not the best solution from aesthetic, ecological or environment point of view.

There was a social decision by the government to have people living in the cities. But now many cities in Hungary and also much of Eastern Europe were using these type of houses. In Hungary there are 600,000 flats. The idea was this huge volume of flats cannot be destroyed within one year or ten years perspective. We can resolve the problem with some new quality. We give them a more socially and environmentally-friendly lifestyle. That was the idea… to find the best technology and adapt it. These concrete blocks… who can give an environment and condition that must be better.

Suzanne Bowen: Right, I can see the emotional implications, social, physical. There are so many different problems that it solves.

Gabor Sebo: Yes it is a very complicated process, and it is one of the greatest problem in Hungary. Do you know there was some privatization after the social system changed and all these block house are managed by thousands of small proprietors. This makes decision making very slow.

Suzanne Bowen: Oh, I can imagine.

Gabor Sebo: To make an investment. Because it is an investment and these come with decisions and approval by the proprietors.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly and people are afraid to make radical changes. We all know that.

Part 2 transcript:

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of technology leaders around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and today we have Gabor Sebo. He is involved in Green Technologies. You might have heard him in the first session. This is part two. Glad to have you back, Gabor.

Gabor Sebo: Yes. Good to see you again.

Suzanne Bowen: The last thing we were talking about itsthe Green Façade Green Wall project and the quality of life and the quality of place that it will bring to the residents and the change in the physical environment, the improvement in air quality and more. If you want to add more to that please feel free, but we would also like to know does the Hungarian government offer green incentives to tax payers?

Gabor Sebo: There are two types of decisions of methods that government has in this process. First is financial. This is most the important. This seems could be more efficient to make some tax repayment or direct support for investment to resolves some problem of environment. The green project is not and individual project, unfortunately. I think, but we have some chance for energy saving project because our technology’s one aspect is energy saving! It is much more, but we can connect with this energy saving project where the structure of houses can be insulated with a new insulation system, the Green Façade. It can pass over the so-called traditional insulation systems. The tax payer can get at 30% pay back from the state or local government. There is so called common finance method because the European Union is supporting this process. There is a central budget government support. There is local government budget support as well. And all other than 70% the proprietor of the building can invest.

I see. And the second is the regulation. This is the regulatory system of building. There is a law by government or by the ministry of urbanization that gets that the percentage of the plot should be green. Downtown is different as urban areas naturally ,but in every building region or building categories there is a concrete percentage of green surface that should be maintained or re-established. At that calculation, the new regulation system can be calculated as the green roof and green façade as well. That means it is more interesting for investment for the investors to make approval. Green Façade is approved with green roofs and that means that there will be more surfaces to built at the given plot. This makes it where investment return could better or sooner.

Suzanne Bowen: I see. When I realized that I was going to interview you, it pushed me and drove me to do some research. So I researched topics such as green roofs, green façade, green wall, and I discovered that many people around the world are involved in indoor and outdoor greening. I was surprised to see a whole wall in a kitchen covered with a garden of herbs and vegetables.

Gabor Sebo: Why not? The world has plenty of ideas and I think it’s the future and we have to use any source of nature as much as we can. Our technology only has some pieces to help to resolve some technical problems, to help people use the energy of the nature, that means the nature is the sun, the wind, water and  so on.

Suzanne Bowen: Right. So you know I noted the idea for consumers, and then it is going as far as  a project that would help the sub-Saharan reduce its continuous desertification. I don’t think it’s been started yet ,but there is a group of countries that has been involved in planning that so you know it’s really… Do you have any information about that type of thing?

Gabor Sebo: We can do something.. there are limits if there is no rain or no precipitation in a certain area, there is no water and no life. It would be very difficult to give transport of water. Without water, there is no life and, but we can guard or reserve or guard the waters in some technologies. Green technologies could be one solution because the mass, the biomass, is the reserve of water and some other substance as well. If there is some region where there is no rain or very rarely foinds the rain, the gardening and why not in the urban area the green façade and roof gardening should have more reserve in water mass. Keep in mind the the water that comes evaporation of water. There is some temperature regulation effect also. It was in the high temperature areas that the green roofs and facades make it less hot inside. There will be less need for air condition ing and so on and there will be more livable areas in the houses.

Suzanne Bowen: Yeah, I think it’s pretty convincing.

Part 3 transcript:

Ericsson’s CEO is doing some shuffling up the order, which has paved way for a Canadian national Rima Qureshi.

Rima will become the Senior Vice President at the Swedish Ericsson. She will lead the CDMA Mobile Systems, besides joining the Group Management team.

Rima’s association with Ericsson is almost two decades old- precisely, seventeen years. Being at helm she has worked in the TDMA, R&D and Customer Support departments. She also heads the division that contributes telecom equipment to disaster-stricken regions.

Rima is confident about her new responsibility. “I feel that I could work anywhere,” Qureshi says. “More R&D resources have to be put into CDMA. There are over 500 million subscribers and now we are taking CDMA to the next generation mobile system, 4G”.

Rima completed her education from McGill University, Canada in 1996. Before joining Ericsson she worked as a Programmer and Consultant. Rima joined Ericsson as a System Analyst in 1994.

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of technology leaders around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen and we have with us Gabor Sebo for part 3, on green technologies, green façade, green wall, Hungarian involvement, green incentives to tax payers, and different types of greening around the world.

Suzanne Bowen: We have an interesting question for him that is a little bit out of his industry. We’re involved in IP communications that would be Internet protocol based communications. We’re actually using an IP PBX solution right now to talk, and I was just wondering what types of voIP solutions have you used and which are your favorite maybe? Tell us your experience.

Gabor Sebo: Well, Skype I know and use almost every day. But sometimes I use Windows Live Messenger as well. Most of my contacts use Skype, and that’s why it is my favorite channel. I can imagine many others will emerging or actually working on soon. I’m not an IP expert, I’m a user and very happy making technology and making contact around the world.

Suzanne Bowen: Definitely, it made our call and our interview with you much easier to complete. And in fact I was listening to your answers on the last call and I was wondering what is your background? What is your educational background or professional background, I will be really curious to know.

Gabor Sebo: I have a diploma of Macro Economics, and I made the position in the business as well as marketing and as an opinion director of some companies. After some experience I take this position consulting. But I’m not especially trained in technical expertise.

Suzanne Bowen: Yes, so you were discussing your background in education and in your career. Like you say, it’s not so much that you are an important person but that you paid attention to people in your life who you learned from and that’s exactly what I would love to do and this is why we want to deliver this kind of content with people like you because people are learning from you in turn. So I appreciate the comments that you made about yourself because it makes sense, you know all the way around.

Suzanne Bowen: Gabor, Ali my colleague had a couple of questions. We actually wrote them in the chat window. He asked, “What do you foresee as the actual materialization of the green façade, green wall project in the near future.?What needs to happen to see it materialize?”

Gabor Sebo: We have some effort to make to realize our technology and as soon as possible. Unfortunately there were some good projects with big hopes dropped in the past. It is a matter of addressing the new administration centre in Budapest. There was international competition and the plan of who would be the winner with a green plan with green façade and roofs. That was a plan to evolve this project, but all projects were dropped by teams because of financing problem and political as well. We were contacted by several investors and not only Hungary but neighboring countries Romania, Bucharest, and from Ukraine, Kiev. There was another project who was interested in adopting the green façade and green roofs. All these projects are only in preparation phase and all technologies have some details to have to be fine tuned. Mostly in the winter season it will help operate more efficiently and without any technical problems. But I hope in the near future in one or two years, I can show you. Not only in computer graphics but in the reality as well. The second is very difficult to make scientific or measurable effect, that is all positive changes that the bio mass on the whole would make and it is very difficult to modelize it. It would be very difficult to make mathematical model. That means the absorption of seeds to the flying dust on the air in the urban condition. There are several types of poisonous gases which can be absorbed by the leaves of creepers on the wall. If we have to say it should work, that is difficult to make a real act or it could be some experience and nobody wants to make an experience.

Suzanne Bowen: I know. Yeah I know but.

Gabor Sebo: We will start step by step I think. Not a big one project but small show people that works and it has very positive effects.

Suzanne Bowen: Exactly. I see some similarities in Green Technologies with the concept of social media and social networking online. Again it’s kind of a thing where it’s hard to measure mathematically but you know it works.

Gabor Sebo: Yes, of course.

Suzanne Bowen: You know I really wish you the best. I’m hoping that this podcast will drive more interest to you and others like you who are involved in greening, green technologies, green façade, green roof, green wall and bring us back to our roots in history… So how can people contact your company, how can they contact you? What are you looking for in partners, investment, clients? Just let us know because that’s what people are going ask me, and if we can just let you say it on the podcast interview, that will help quite a bit.

Gabor Sebo: Yes. Of course there is Internet. We have a web-page, Lico Art webpage. There are several special professional conferences or seminars I visit and make personal contacts with colleagues or potential investors as well. I am also open with any question, any inquiry, any demand for consultancy or give some idea as well. I think more and more people are looking for Green Technologies and we have future, I am very sure.

I can offer my email address, this is on the web-page as well: sebo@licoart.hu or phone number and fax number as well on the web-page. It’s called www.lico-art.hu

Suzanne Bowen: All right. Well ,thank you very much, Gabor.

Gabor Sebo: Thank you for interviewing me. Goodbye.

The naturally grown plantation designed to spread equally across a structure, improves the efficiency of the walls and roofs, minimizing the heat effect and thereby saving energy consumption, while performing the most eye-catching function of beautification, converting the building to resemble a luscious green mound from the green ages.

Due the improving life conditions, the product has a great potential to facilitate the reversion of the negative trends of social migration into/from high density downtown area and housing estates with large block houses (slum process) while decreasing the overall temperature if deployed on large scale.

Such a project also gives a wonderful opportunity for organizations aiming for a socially responsible and greener image. A great idea for the head office!

Listen to part 1, part 2 and part 3 for the complete story.

Part#1

Part#2

Part#3

The interviewer, Suzanne Bowen, noticed Steven Johnson first when she discovered that he was up early as she was every morning ready to work in the lobby. For Steven, it’s because his boss is in Sweden. For Suzanne, it’s because she runs early and then has the peace of thinking, researching and writing before the swarm of phone calls and instant messages begin. Neither one complains about work. SIP is the place to be in 2010.

Ingate was formed in 2001. They were formed specifically to bring SIP to the enterprise, to solve some particular issues related to SIP that occur at the edge of any company network that is trying to bring SIP into that network.

This year 2010 is the seventh time that Ingate has produced the SIP Trunking Workshop series at ITEXPO. It is scheduled Jan. 20-22, 2010. It will include case studies and demos with participants from Avaya, Digium, Ingate itself, Shoretel, VOIPSA, Bandwidth, Cbeyond, Mitel, The SIP School, and more.

Steven explains how Ingate’s partner programs work also. Ingate offers choices such as strategic partners, resellers, distributors, confirmed SIP trunking interoperability partners.

The complete transcript is at Techistan, a service created to specifically compliment the 12,500 service providers who are a part of the DIDXchange marketplace. Techistan shares with them first and absolutely with the world… innovations, demos, interviews, press releases, and more on important topics such as IP communications, technology trends, technology’s relationship with the environment, philanthropy, and more.

Fring has come a long way since 2008!

  Jake Levant is vice president of marketing for fring. He and Suzanne Bowen of DIDX and Techistan discuss on podcast interview the trend of rich communications expectations, mobilization expertise, fring’s variety of online service aggregation, and what the consumer really wants. Listen to part one and part two, browse the questions and topics submitted by others and read the complete transcript below.

He’s a Canadian from the cold western provinces currently in Tel Aviv where he goes to fun every day at fring headquarters.

All questions for most of DIDX podcasts are posed by individuals, early adopters, developers, SMB owners and team members, and telecom-related or even technology, social media or networking or travel related service providers. A synopsis of the questions and topics posed for this part one podcast:

1. What do you believe is driving the growth, this desire for rich communications on the go?

2. Fring’s mobilization expertise, across leading platforms, optimized for mobile devices, the battery, the screen, the data, the video…

3. Tsahi Levent-Levi of RadVision asks, “How do you manage to run on so large a variety of platforms?”  Another question which was similar is: Tell us about the integration and aggregration of multiple online services that..

4.  Steve Cayona, an Asterisk developer asks, “How is fring different from Truphone?”

5. Syed Murtaza Saleem, a call center project manager asks, “How will SIP expand fring possibilities?”

6.  Another question asked by Tsahi Levent-Levi and a similar one by Luca Filigheddu, “What is your opinion about recent acquisitions such as Jajah, Gizmo5, Jaxtr, and so on?”

7. What do you think about the new Maemo phone platform starting with the N900? The question is from Bernd Wiegmann, a two time Nokia phone competition winner.

Full transcript follows

Fring’s Jake Levant on Mobile Expertise Part 2:

Suzanne Bowen: Welcome to DIDX podcast media channel where we bring you the expertise of IP communications leaders from around the world. I’m your host Suzanne Bowen, and I have with us Jake Levant of fring. He is the vice president of marketing. Nice to meet you, Jake. Tell us about yourself.

Jake Levant: Sure, Suzanne. Thanks so much for having me. As you can hear, I have that famous Canadian twang. Ever since living in the cold western provinces of Canada, I always felt the need to connect with various people. I’ve been big into communications and the Internet. I’ve since moved around a lot in Europe and recently to Tel Aviv. I don’t even call it work. I call it… I go to fun every day… fring. Talk about an innovator in communications and mobile space! Fring is an exciting place for me because I’ve always been into consumer technology. This really epitomizes the forefront of innovation in that sphere. That’s me. I’m a Canadian transplant many times around the world and now having a gay old time here with fring.

Suzanne Bowen: After a discussion with some people yesterday, letting them know I was going to interview you, I received a slew of questions for you as fring is extremely popular. To start with, even to look at the website www.fring.com… it’s just fun looking. You just want to click around and you feel welcome. You feel a part of some kind of cool community. Your web developers are doing a good job.

One question we had is “what do you believe is driving the growth, this desire for rich communications on the go?”

Jake Levant: We’ve seen over the last couple years a couple phenomena. One is plugged in. People are always connected, trend one. The other is that people are on the fly. They live much more of a mobile life, commuting, working remotely. They’re having fun from different places.

It is the right time for mobile telecommunications. What fring has done well is to provide the choice for fringsters to choose how they want to keep in touch with all their friends… how they are going to share those online experiences. Up to now, they’ve been locked to a PC.

You can communicate with someone via chat, calls, and we’ve created some other innovations. If it is one network or two like Skype or MSN or Facebook or Twitter… we’ve brought together all these in one unified contact list. I think that in the over four years that we’ve been here, we’ve been the pioneer in mobile voIP, subsequently adding the social networking and communications. These have been the pillars that have driven our phenomenal growth and you see it continues.

Recently we’ve added new compelling ways where people can enjoy mobile communications. For example, with our launch of video via fring and from Skype. You can call me. I’m not logged in at my PC. I could have taken the discussion in my car. That’s what is driving it. People want to be plugged in. People are on the go and we’ve provided the choice of how you can merge those two worlds we’ve given to the consumer to choose.

Suzanne Bowen: Another topic is fring’s mobilization expertise, across leading platforms, optimized for mobile devices, the battery, the screen, the data, the video we experienced a while ago.

Jake Levant: This is the DNA of the company. We are mobile-based. There are many communications experts. They start from the web and maybe later added a mobile version. What defines fring is that our expertise starts from mobile. We think about how we can optimize Internet and mobile experience to create a thin mobile client, mobile-centric technology, on the most popular devices… 3G, GPRS, WiFi… When you are on a mobile device, you are really thinking this is a mobile computer and you need an expertise that’s focused on this.

Otherwise, we’ve heard from people with experience with other applications. They drain the battery. It causes crashes. This is not the fring way. Fring is first and foremost the mobile experts. We make sure that in everything we do, that reflects.

Suzanne Bowen: This brings me to another question that I’ve seen two times in suggestions to me. Tell us about the integration and aggregration of multiple online services that. Tsahi Levent-Levi of RadVision asks, “How do you manage to run on so large a variety of platforms?”

Jake Levant: We’ll give credit to the team in the back with kudos on that. I think that in that comment you had two points. One was running and aggregating multiple online services and then technologically, how is that done?

When you have a much smaller screen and from a consumer point of view, you need to be an expert as to what information to show, and how to make it easily accessible on the mobile device. This is opposed to a PC where people have much more time, patience, and screen. We have to find the right application. It’s really a core value here that we optimize the mobile device especially because we are bringing in so many different services to the consumer.

So how it is done? The credit goes to our strong development and architect team. In terms of technology behind it, I best not comment. This is the foundational element in our company. We are mobile first. We are doing a server side technology with very light and thin client to optimize the user experience.

Fring’s Jake Levant on Mobile Expertise Part 2

Suzanne Bowen: We’re back live with Jack Levant of fring.com. As you know, I’m Suzanne Bowen with the
DIDX podcast media channel. We have a few more questions for Jack from fring users as well as SMBs, companies in IP communications, and a gentleman who is a two time Nokia phone competition winner. Jake, glad to have you back for part two.

Jake Levant: I missed you, Suzanne.

Suzanne Bowen: Hey, me, too. Would you discuss the ground-breaking IP innovations including the new mobile video solution?

Jake Levant: We are not even four years old yet. We are a very young company. In this short span of lifetime, we’ve done a lot to revolutionize mobile voIP. It’s exciting when you think about how far we’ve come in voice over IP world. Look at household names like Vonage and Skype. Just a short while ago, we were an unknown. Now, you look at the mobile space. A throwback to February 2007, when we pioneered the first voice over IP on Symbian as the operating platform on Nokia, Samsung and others.

Then in April 2008, we had an explosion with our first voice over IP for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Twitter is a household name right now. At first, it incurred an SMS cost. We allowed people to do “tweeting” over IP. In November 2009, we introduced Skype and fring video calls to voice over IP on Symbian devices. Then, the following month, we did the first video calls over IP with iPhone and iPod Touch.

It’s been a chronology in quick succession of ground-breaking IP innovations on mobile devices.

Suzanne Bowen: I never even paid any attention to Twitter until I was able to use a cell phone data/Internet side to pass tweets back and forth. I’m no fool. So fring saves money, and it’s fun.

Steve Cayona, who works for Techistan online magazine, asks, “How is fring different from Truphone?” Both are excellent services.

Jake Levant: Truphone appears to be a virtual operator. It is a very well-packaged SIP provider. Fring is quite different from that, more about mobile communications freedom with chat and video calling. One of the options we provide is the ability to use SIP providers within fring.

We have pre-configured a list of five SIP providers. You are welcome to add your own. Meanwhile, you are welcome to use fring and choose Truphone as your SIP provider. That is the epitome of mobile communications freedom. To sharpen it, fring is very mindful to provide users with communications choices on the fly. Maybe Truphone is one of those choices as a very well put together SIP provider.

Suzanne Bowen: Awesome answer. I have great respect for both companies. A fring user Syed Murtaza Saleem asks, “How will SIP expand fring possibilities?”

Jake Levant: Just as I highlighted before, SIP is already an integral part of the fring offering. It plays to that freedom of choice to enable people to communicate when and how they want. Fring gives people the ability to talk with those others who are already on their existing network: fring, Skype, MSN, Yahoo!, Twitter, Facebook and perhaps within those networks, ICQ, GoogleTalk, or without those networks through SIP providers with SkypeOut or what have you. It’s more about providing freedom of choice for our user base.

Suzanne Bowen: Next question… thanks for being brave. What is your opinion about recent acquisitions such as Jajah, Gizmo5, Jaxtr, and so on? This question came from Tsahi Levent-Levi of Radvision.

Jake Levant: It points to how exciting this base is. It’s about online communications, two about mobility, three about voice over IP. Wrap it together, and more and more consumers are flocking to this because of its tremendous value to them. They can communicate with friends and family no matter where they are. This reflects what we’ve been hearing from users for years. This is where they want to go. It’s exciting to see big Internet players who are starting to take a stronghold into communications.

Suzanne Bowen: Right. It provides more validity to what our industry, in general, offers the world. What do you think about the new Maemo phone platform starting with the N900? The question is from Bernd Wiegmann.

Jake Levant: So many exciting developments in this space. The Maemo is no different. We love that it is open. It further pushes innovation, so visit the site www.fring.com and tell us what you think of it.

Suzanne Bowen: Yes, fring.com. I love saying, “Frrrring!” I appreciate it. Great meeting you. I know the listeners will enjoy listening, learning from you and trying fring out.

Jake Levant: Fring you later!

One World and Joe on the Move with Vocati Communications

   (Grabé este durante el uso de wifi Panera de conveniencia. La calidad de la voz era efectivamente en diversos momentos a pocos.) Andrés Acero, director de operaciones de todo el mundo y es fundador de una de las más respetadas compañías de comunicaciones IP de Comunicaciones Vocati. Escucha el podcast.
Bienvenidos a DIDX Podcasts Media Channel donde les traemos la experiencia de lideres en comunicaciones IP de alrededor del mundo. Su presentadora Suzanne Bowen, tenemos la suerte de tener con nosotros a Mr.Acero de Vocati Comunicaciones. Me siento con suerte de practicar mi segunda lengua Español.

Sr. Acero se especializa en el desarrollo y la consulta sobre los clientes más rentables, pero la calidad de los productos y servicios que la VoIP y servicios de telecomunicaciones que ofrece, además de contribuir también a la comunidad de código abierto a través de asesorar el desarrollo y depuración de software. Además, el Sr. Acero es un importante participante y de guía en Vocati “One World” Programa y organización a un organismo independiente establecido que ofrece llamadas telefónicas gratuitas a los soldados activos en el exterior, JoeOnTheMove.com.

Preguntas: Suzanne Bowen / Respuestas: Mr. Acero

1. ¿Podría hablarnos de la historia de su empresa Vocati Comunicaciones?
Vocati Comunicaciones es una empresa multinacional operando desde USA. Lleva en el mercado aproximadamente 22 anos, comenzamos originalmente como una empresa consultora de sistemas y en los últimos 10 anos como una empresa parte dentro de la comunidad de Voip. Tenemos mas de 5 centros de datos en USA y mundialmente, más de 150 servidores, oficinas internacionales principalmente en Bogota, Colombia y en USA, con servicio técnico al cliente los 7 días de la semana.

2. Describa por favor sus servicios.
Nuestro servicio lo podemos clasificar de A a la Z como instalaciones de servidores, desarrollo e instalaciones de programas, servicio técnico, capacitación técnica, DID que proveemos por parte de DIDX de USA y de otras partes a nuestros clientes mundialmente, programación en base de asterisk y en trickbox. Como mi socio es un genio en instalaciones y capacitación técnica de servidores, nos podemos clasificar como una empresa de servicios de A a la Z.

3. ¿Cuál es su mercado típico y su base de clientes actuales?
Nuestros clientes actuales son multinacionales mundialmente como compañías de Francia, de USA, de Venezuela, Brasil y de Oriente. Lo interesante por decir es que no tenemos un mercado típico, tratamos a cada persona con detalle, mayormente mayoristas, donde a cada cliente y su compañía lo tratamos con un sentido especial tratando de cumplir sus necesidades personales y de la compañía. A diferencia de otras compañías, nuestros ejecutivos tratan de tener contacto directo con los clientes refiriéndolos a la persona asesora indicada del problema específico dentro de la compañía. Por lo cual no tenemos un mercado típico, sino cada persona que le podamos ofrecer un servicio.

4. ¿Quisieran compartir con nosotros algo nuevo acerca de su empresa?
Nuestra empresa esta en un sentido de crecimiento aproximadamente un 80% en los últimos dos anos en las áreas de desarrollo de programas de caridad para el pueblo, tenemos una responsabilidad con la comunidad como una compañía telefónica; por ejemplo en el Caribe y en Colombia.

5. ¿Cuáles son las ventajas de las empresas mayoristas al utilizar DIDXnet?
Una nueva asociación que se ha dado con DIDX, nos permite agrandar nuestro mercado con un servicio de números DID no muy conocido de todas partes del mundo, permitiendo a familias comunicarse, por ejemplo un numero de Hong Kong, a un costo mas bajo.

6. ¿Cómo las personas pueden contactar su compañía?
Por medio del Telf. desde USA 212-9374774, o por nuestra pagina Web ww.vocaticomunications.com, donde pueden conseguir otros números telefónicos o por el correo info@vocaticomunications.com.

7. ¿Les gustaría compartir con nosotros un mensaje de consejo final?
Por parte de la compañía y de mi persona un consejo para cada persona es que se informe y se eduque en tecnología, donde se convirtió en algo cotidiano, y se asesoren con personas dentro del mercado. Le doy las gracias a Suzanne Bowen por la entrevista, le deseo unas felices fiestas, y para los que desean contactar a DIDX, lo pueden hacer por medio de www.didx.net o por medio de www.vocaticomunications.com.

8. Me puedes comentar sobre las organizaciones de caridad que Vocati esparte de?
One World en ingles o Solo un Mundo en español, donde cada quien tiene una cierta responsabilidad con nuestro prójimo. Como empresa tenemos una responsabilidad en el desarrollo de programas de caridad, por ejemplo en el caribe donde proveemos ropa, comidas, y etc. También nuestro ex vice presidente ejecutivo fue a África para centros de vacunación. Nuestras organizaciones no son tanto caridad sino cívicas, por ejemplo “Joe on The Move”, donde se provee llamadas telefónicas a soldados ubicados en diferentes partes del mundo, y para sus familia poder dejar un mensaje de apoyo, de voz, de orgullo, de amor y de ayuda a cada soldado, todo por medio del enlace www.joeonthemove.com .

Muchas gracias a Alan Pesatty para la transcripción en español. En contacto con él en Facebook o Linkedin para la transcripción Español e Inglés a español y viceversa.

Related websites:
http://www.joeonthemove.com
http://www.vocaticommunications.com
http://www.didx.net
http://www.itexpo.com Meet with Latin American IP communications companies at ITEXPO in Miami Beach, Florida Jan. 20-22, 2009.

Julie Fogg / her Second Life avatar Violet Field

Eavesdrop soon via audio on the discussion between ActivePort.com’s Julie Fogg, a virtual world passionista (also known as evangelist), discuss Avaya’s web.alive and Second Life. For now, read the transcription.

Suzanne Bowen: How could this interview be different if we used Avaya’s web.alive or Second Life as opposed to Skype?

Julie Fogg: I’m glad you asked that. Earlier this morning while I was trying to prepare for this meeting I was having a fit of giggles over thinking about doing this call with you. Gosh, I wish were doing this in a 3D application because I know that I would be instantly calm if we were interacting with both a visual and audio element.

Suzanne Bowen: So visual and audio… I don’t have any experience with either web.alive or Second Life. I have friends who use Second Life. When you mention video and audio, please explain how this would make someone feel calmer?

Julie Fogg: I’m speaking for myself. It’s more like being in a face to face conversation with someone. Imagine you and I are sitting at a conference table in an office for this interview. It is the same thing but in 3D. Did you see the Matrix?

Suzanne Bowen: Yes. I have all the sequels, too.

Julie Fogg: Great! As do I. It reminds me a lot of that because it is a software program written where you can interact with people when you are not in the same physical space together.

Suzanne Bowen: I can see now where it might make you feel more comfortable because you are actually seeing your audience; whereas, straight audio, it may make you wonder… or is there more to it than that?

Julie Webb: I have no idea what you’re doing. You could be microwaving popcorn. There is just something comfortable about being able to interact with all of one’s senses.

Suzanne Bowen: So what I know about Second Life is that everything has a virtual appearance. The people do not actually see each other but instead they see a character of each other like an avatar.

Julie Fogg: I’m glad you brought that up because the movie is opening on December 18. I would encourage you to see it for a sample of something (where if you don’t have time to pop into Second Life) you can get a very good exampleof some of the examples of the software programs.

Suzanne Bowen: I’ve watched all the trailers. It’s look really cool. So what would you say is the difference between web.alive and Second Life? What do you like about each? What’s the good, bad, and ugly?

Julie Fogg: It’s like a closed enterprise system like a PABX versus Skype. With Skype you can get spam. It’s kind of “open source-ish.” Not a good term.

Suzanne Bowen: It’s a little more natural. Anything can happen. More opportunities available. It’s not a walled garden.

Julie Fogg: There is a gal who works on my computer sometimes. My Skype was up. I walked into my office and noticed that Skype showed a women with no shirt on. I immediately closed that. There is just no control of Skype. It has some benefits, but as soon as you click on Youtube, forget it, the microphone doesn’t work.

When you go into web.alive, it is an enterprise 3D chat application. It has presence where you can see when someone is available or not. You have an administrator and all a controlled environment. That is how it is different from Second Life. Web Alive is like a cocktail party. Our digital representations could be standing next to each other. We could be speaking but still hear the people around us like at a cocktail party. That’s how the audio is on web.alive, very interesting.

Suzanne Bowen: It’s pretty easy to pay attention to everything. You would kind of tune out what is not interesting to you and tune in what is just like at a cocktail party.

Julie Fogg: Yes, and you can also go into a private room where people can’t hear. Maybe I want to interview you as a potential employee. The IRS uses Second Life for that.

Suzanne Bowen: IRS uses Second Life. That’s interesting. With Second Life, there are probably all kinds of plugins but what about recording and would we be able to save and upload to QIK, Viddler or Youtube?

Julie Fogg: I’ll tell you what. I’ll find out and I will get back to you on that.

Suzanne Bowen: That is my favorite answer to any customer service request.

Julie Webb: Before I forget, I wanted to mention that web.alive is very eco-friendly. If we were to do this interview in person, you’re in Florida. I’m in California. It would cost a lot of money, the costs to the environment, wear and tear of travel on individuals involved. If we use web.alive instead, it’s hosted, just a call over IP.

Second Life has more of a footprint than web.alive. I can get you the technical information on that if you would like a comparison but the way the engineer explained it was very compelling.

Suzanne Bowen: I hope you will tell us a little bit more about this especially because of the fact many of the listeners on DIDX podcast channel are in business. So what are some of the most important business applications?

Julie Fogg: The technology is an extension of both the PBX and unified communication. Maybe not an extension, but a second version of it because take unified communications, add a visual element. That is 3D chat technology, great for enterprise, especially people who are right-brained thinkers. Left-brained thinkers can appreciate it as well.

Suzanne Bowen: It also “speaks” to what I see is a more visual-oriented global community. I was a teacher for 20 years and I saw through the years a constantly higher percentage of students wishing for visual instruction and projects instead of the traditional “taking notes while listening to a lecture.” These students are among a generation who are adults now. This would make sense.

Julie Fogg: Check out thinkbalm.com. Erica Driver (http://www.linkedin.com/in/ericadriver) is on Twitter. She has done an excellent job of researching this technology. Another site to check is http://www.immersivetech.org/. They are doing an event like TMC event coming on immersive and such.

Suzanne Bowen: Pretty exciting. I just want to thank you. We met on Twitter, just chatting and showing support for each where we think alike or to help each other. I’m looking forward to another talk about ActivePort.

Julie Fogg: Thank you so much.