Alec Saunders SquawkBox

One of the more lurid stories of the VoIP business has come to a close, as U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper has dismissed the $4.1 billion antitrust lawsuit filed by StreamCast Networks against VoIP service provider Skype, eBay and more than a dozen defendants.  It certainly made for great reading with allegations of racketeering, antitrust and all the imagery that goes along with.  It even had an intrepid sleuth in Andy Abramson, digging through court filings to grab a copy of the suit before the news broke.

The story broke at the end of March last year.  Later in May, StreamCast amended their complaint, adding eBay to the suit, and demanding $4.1 billlon in damages. The core of StreamCast’s complaint was a claim that they had right of first first refusal in the event that the Skype technology was sold elsewhere. In effect, they were asking the court to undo the Skype sale to eBay.

It had us all asking how much due diligence eBay had done on their purchase.  After all, these were pretty heavy duty allegations!

Is the story over now? The judge rejected all the claims, but StreamCast’s attorneys have said they may appeal.  Andy Abramson, who broke the story originally, certainly doesn’t see this as the end, but it seems an up-hill battle from this point forward.  

My friend Aswath Rao continues to push forward the idea of using OpenID to assert identity in voice networks.  Many others, including myself, believe that the ability to assert identity is an important step in the evolution of communications networks.  If you have an interest in this, check out what Aswath has written.

UPDATE: Minutes after posting this, I stumbled upon Lee Dryburgh’s latest posting which includes quite a bit of material on Digital Identity in mobile networks, including the fact that there will be a workshop on mobilizing identity happening tomorrow in San Francisco.

From this morning’s paper, a new study suggested that long term cell phone use increases the chance of developing gliomas (central nervous system tumors) by up to 40%.  The study spanned five european countries, and focused on individuals who had used cell phones for 10 years or more.  The study suggests an increased tumor risk, on the side of the head where the phone is held.  The paper on these findings is set to be published in the International Journal of Cancer. 

This is an issue that seems as if it just won’t die.  Current science has debunked the idea that cell phones cause tumors, but new research continues to surface suggesting that there might be more to it than we currently understand. 

Incidence of glioma seems to be very small, in any case.  In this Japanese study of elderly patients,  the incidence of “intracranial tumors” was 18.1 cases per 100,000, of which malignant gliomas accounted for 13.3% — 2.4 per 100,000.  An increase of 40% brings that figure to 3.36 per 100,000.  In this country, you’re more likely to be killed in a car accident.  Canadian deaths due to motor vehicle collisions are 8.9 per 100,000.

More from Google.

A couple of folks mistakenly reported that I was at the Internet Telephony show yesterday.  I’m not, although I would like to be.  The reason they made this assumption was because I wrote (in Digium full court press) that Digium made announcements at Internet Telephony, and that I had “caught up” with Bill Miller before them.  In fact, I did the interview with Bill over the past weekend. 

My apologies for any confusion.