Alec Saunders SquawkBox

It looks as if FON has hit the jackpot with a distribution deal with Time Warner. Time Warner will let its home broadband users turn their connections into WiFi hotspots.  They hope to provide cost effective WiFi hotspots for consumers who just want to check email, or do a little casual surfing.

FON USA CEO Joanna Rees has been widely quoted as saying that they're going to take a shot at the T-Mobile hotspot service, but it seems unlikely to me.  Business users, especially travellers, use these hotspots in airports and at coffee shops where (a) the franchise is already locked up by T-Mobile and (b) there aren't any residential broadband users waiting to donate their bandwidth.

Jeff Pulver has weighed in on the Vonage / Verizon dispute, asserting that FWD had an implementation that pre-dated the Verizon patent by two years.  Moreover, he also states that it was publicly disclosed in 1996 in a book he published, two months before the Verizon patent was filed.

I could have applied for a patent on the name translation function in October 1995, but I viewed the not inconsequential cost of the FWD project as a contribution to the public domain. I even published a book "The Internet Telephone Toolkit" with a detailed description of FWD written in January 1996, two months before Eric Voit filed the patent application for Verizon. Nothing in the description section of Verizon's patent would surprise members of the IPhone email discussion list I managed, yet the prior art disclosure does not reference FWD or the IPhone mailing list.

The claims that the court found were violated were

15. A method comprising: 

receiving a name translation request at a server coupled to a public packet data network;

executing a conditional analysis in response to the name translation request;

if the conditional analysis produces a first result, translating a name included in the name translation request into a first destination address;

if the conditional analysis produces a second result, translating the name included in the name translation request into a second destination address; and transmitting a response message containing the first or the second destination address to a calling device for use in establishing communication at least partially through the public packet data network.

20. A method as in claim 15; wherein:

the first and second destination address includes a numeric Internet Protocol address; and the second destination address further includes information relating to call routing via a public switched telephone network.

It's hard to understand how the fate of the VOIP industry can hang on a simple if-then-else statement. 

One of the things I discovered while shooting photos yesterday was that I had somehow managed to accumulate some dirt on the CCD of my Nikon camera.  Apparently this is an occupational hazard with Digital SLRs… remove the lens, and there’s a strong likelihood that you will, at some point, get some muck inside the camera.  I took it in to be serviced yesterday afternoon, after having been told not to attempt this myself.  Damaged CCD = ruined camera.

That meant that I was left with the wonderful Nokia N95 smartphone when these two photo opportunities presented themselves yesterday.

Here are two of the four new residents we found hidden in our canoe, which had overwintered outside. Their mother was nearby, and none too happy when we turned the canoe over.  She promptly moved the family elsewhere.

This old barn has the most amazing wooden silo.  It looks as if it’s about to fall over at any moment, but it’s been there for the past six years we’ve lived in Manotick.  The sun happened to be low in the sky, just before sunset, as I was walking by, and it made a pretty nice picture.

My buddy Rick has discovered the virtues of turning notifications on email and BlackBerry off.  In fact, he's manually configuring alerts, now, on a person by person basis so he can be notified when really important calls come in.

It's a great idea, and I've been doing it manually for a while too.  Imagine if you could do that automatically based on criteria like what you were doing, and where you were… Not that I have any opinions about that sort of thing. 

Look for it in an upcoming release of Talk-Now.

It’s amazing how quickly the weather changes around here.  Earlier this week, we had a massive fall of new snow, followed by rain.  By the end of the week, however, the snow had melted, and the temperature soared into the 20s.  Last night we barbecued hamburgers on the back patio!

One of the consequences of a fast melt is that the rivers get very high.  I jumped out of bed this morning, grabbed my camera and shot a few photos of the spring sights in and around Manotick.   Enjoy!

These are crocuses sprouting in A.Y. Jackson Park, on the island.

A shot of Watson’s Mill, from the park. 

Here’s a close up of the dam.  The water is fairly bursting through.

A little downstream from the dam, you can still see the ferocious motion of the water. 

Here’s a red-wing blackbird, heckling me from a tree while I was taking my photos.