Technology Bytes

Archive for the ‘google’ Category

Sources at Tech Crunch are reporting that Google has acquired Gizmo5. It looks like talks between Skype and Gizmo5 went to a dead end last month due to Skype litigation issues. Google saw the opportunity and snatched up (though unconfirmed at the moment) the peer-to-peer VoIP startup company for $30 million. Gizmo5 is based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and can interoperate with other SIP-based networks directly, including the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Gizmo5 has the service features, CallOut/CallIn, available at a fee. Maybe, when Google integrates Google Voice with Gizmo5, these features will be free. But we all know there is no such thing as free lunch. Google will serve up their ad network in your so-called voice portal like they do with Gmail. Should Skype be worried? I would think so.

Google and Gizmo5 have yet to go public on this news. The news have also brought Gizmo5 website to a crawl as curious internet users wanted to know what Gizmo5 is all about. I’m sure there will be a vast amount of Google Voice users signing up with a Gizmo5 account as well.

Google Acquired Gizmo5

I was setting up wireless access for users at a local site. Access point we used was a Cisco Air-LAP1131. Coverage was good except I wasn’t able to obtain an IP address from the DHCP server. Wireless encryption was set to WPA and I know my laptop supports WPA as I can connect at home with it. I removed the encryption and have it wide open and was able to connect. This tells me wireless is working just not with encryption. After another hour of not able to figure out why, I had a user try and connect to the wireless with encryption on and he was able to connect. Now, I’m scratching my head, what is the difference between his and my laptop. It turns out I had Symantec antivirus (SEP) and he didn’t. So, I disable SEP and voila, I was able to connect. This is not good practice, having to disable antivirus to access the internet. Googling the issue took me to this site. It was the network threat protection that is breaking the WPA/WPA2 negotiations. Looks like all I need to do is update my maintenance release of Symantec end point.

It is now official. Verizon wireless and Google today announced a partnership that will “leverage the Verizon Wireless network and the best of the Android open platform to deliver leading-edge mobile applications, services and devices.” The plans are to develop a few Android-based devices that “will be pre-loaded with innovative applications from both” Verizon and Google. The devices will also support Google Voice. Will this be the beginning of a beautiful partnership? We will soon find out.

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