My Afternoon with Nokia Siemens

Yesterday I the benefit of a private briefing with Nokia Siemens and Personeta to showcase all the cool things they're doing around IMS and FMC applications. It turned out I was the only person present during my alloted time, so I had the team all to myself.

This was quite the experience in quite the setting. However, it was a great way to demonstrate a variety of applications, utilizing combinations of broadband, mobility and video. So, for example, you may be using mobile-to-mobile video calling today with the likes of AT&T or Rogers, but they were also able to show some things you're not likely getting today from your carrier. Let's go see.


Welcome to the Nokia Siemens mobile experience (photos courtesy of my Nokia N95 - which they were very happy to see)....



Has the inside of a tractor trailer ever looked so good? Looks like something out of a James Bond movie.




Video calling, mobile-to-mobile - nothing new there...



Mobile-to-PC video calling - that's getting more interesting...




Let's move on to IPTV. This is on a Sony HD screen, and notice how the home page fills out the whole TV screen, as well as the high quality resolution. This particular site is called dotdaily, and it's a customized home page, where the viewer selects the content and news feeds of interest.



Now we move from the big screen to a small screen. Here is live, streaming TV - CNN in fact - running on a Nokia N95 - of course.



And now something even more interesting. How about accessing content stored on your PVR/DVR on your mobile phone? Or control the settings to remotely set up a recording session? Literally, a mobile, remote control. That's pretty neat. The service isn't launched yet, but it's coming. Hence the deliberately murky picture to protect the innocent.




Finally, a quick word about the magic bus itself. This is the first time I've ever had a briefing in a parking lot! While it may sound suspicious, this is one well-equipped rig.

Note the satellite dish mounted on top of the cab in the first picture. The front end of the inside of the trailer was hidden behind a curtain, but I got to see it briefly. Basically, there's enough equipment there to simulate a Central Office environment, which provides a realistic, real time setting to demonstrate all these services.



Note how both sides of the trailer slide out from the middle like wings to create all the space you see inside. Not quite Transformers, but pretty impressive.




Technorati tags: Nokia Siemens, Jon Arnold, Personeta, IMS

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launch Coverage

As the Portal Editor and Community Advocate for IP Convergence TV, I'd just like to share with you some of the nice coverage we've received since our formal launch on October 25.

First is some coverage from the blogs; Marc Robins, Moshe Maeir, Alec Saunders, and Peter Csathy.

Next, Greg Galatzine did a Q&A about the portal with Erik Larsson, Comverse's key driver behind this initiative. It's a good read about the objectives of IP Convergence TV and what you can expect to see going forward.

Finally the portal is getting good support from several of the sponsors, who are promoting it on their websites, namely Comverse, AudioCodes, Blueslice and mine.

As with most web-based initiatives, we rely on both viral and organic support, and hope this will continue to build as we find our audience. By all means, feel free to spread the word, and if you have questions about how to do this, or want to contribute ideas or views to the portal, please drop me a line.


Technorati tags: IP Convergence TV, Jon Arnold

I'm on Facebook Now!

People have been leaning on me to get on Facebook for a while now, and I've finally succcumbed, just before VON.

Well, I'm also doing it now in honor of the founders who have an incredible goldmine, now that Microsoft is investing dot.com kind of dollars for a tiny sliver of this thing. It's an amazing example of the power of a good idea and being in the right place at the right time.

So, with 200,000 people jumping on this train every day, I'd better get on before I start to look like more of a Luddite than I already am. If you do the math, that's 2.3 sign-ups EVERY SECOND of every day. That sure is a nice curve to be riding.

These are Skype-like growth metrics, of course, and it will be interesting to see how Facebook's trajectory unfolds, especially now that Skype and MySpace are hooked up, and Microsoft has skin in the game.

I mention Skype for another reason. It's all about ease of use. Took me about 10 minutes to set up a basic Facebook profile last night, and right away I had friends, and a bunch more in my inbox this morning. As I recall, it took my son Max about the same amount of time to set himself up on Skype. To me, more than anything, it's ease of use and simplicity that make these things successful. From there, it's all about who can build an engaged community, and of course, laying the foundation for the advertising that will inevitably monetize this and make billionaires out of the founders.

So far, I just see one glitch in the ease-of-use department, but I know it's there for a reason. Want to find me on Facebook? Go to the site, and try.

What do you get? 144 Jon Arnolds. Yup - I'm certainly not alone. Good luck finding me, especially if you're not yet a member. The site only lets you search through the first 3 pages of "Jon Arnold", and I'm not there. So, I guess resistance is futile - you will be assimilated. If you really want to find me, you've gotta join up. So, join up, and let's be friends. Or, drop me a line and I'll send you an invite!


Technorati tags: Facebook, Jon Arnold, Skype, MySpace

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launched Today

Just a quick note to say that the press release for IP Convergence TV went out today, and I hope you come by to check it out!

Technorati tags: IP Convergence TV, Jon Arnold

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launching Tomorrow

IP Convergence TV has its full launch tomorrow - October 25. The soft launch was last month, and based on the feedback, it's been improved on a few fronts.

It's a busy week leading up to Fall VON, but I think IP Convergence TV merits some attention of its own. If you're following IP convergence trends - primarily VoIP, FMC and IPTV - I'm sure you'll find something of interest here.

This is a non-profit initiative, so it's not a pay-for-play portal. The sponsors contribute thoughtful content, and in return, the portal provides a platform to share their views. Lots going on here - video interviews, podcasts, opinion pieces by thought leaders like Thomas Howe, white papers, and articles.

I'm in the middle of all this, serving as the Community Advocate and Portal Editor. So, I'm doing my part here to spread the word, and urge you visit the site and sign up for regular updates.






Technorati tags: IP Convergence TV, Jon Arnold, Comverse

IP Convergence TV Portal - Launching Tomorrow

Tomorrow - September 19 - is the beta launch of IP Convergence TV. Chances are this will be news to you, but hopefully not for long.

IP Convergence TV is an industry-based web portal focused on the broad spectrum of IP Convergence, which includes IPTV, Triple Play, FMC and some IMS. The portal has been developed to become a focal point of thought leadership and high quality content to help service providers better understand how they can effectively adopt convergence technologies.

I'm involved in this initiative and serve as the Portal Editor and Community Advocate. It's a pretty engaging role, and my job is keep the content on target, and I'll be making regular contributions of my own. I should point out that this is a non-commercial site. The core content is contributed by a charter group of sponsors, led by Comverse. That said, we are also drawing from a wider pool of thought leaders, so the perspectives will be pretty broad.

I'll leave it at that for now, and would simply encourage you to visit and learn about what the portal is all about and what it has to offer. There's lots to explore, and you can sign up free for regular updates. The portal is definitely going to evolve, but as a beta site, it's quite good, and if you're following IP convergence, I'm sure you find the content and the concept of interest. Hope to see you there.


Technorati tags: IP Convergence TV, Jon Arnold, Comverse

IPTV Middleware Webinar With Espial - Sept 18 - Registration Open

Just wanted to let you know about an upcoming webinar that I'm participating in. It's being sponsored by Espial, and they'll be presenting their position on the cost of ownership - TCO - associated with IPTV middleware, and its role in making for a successful and cost-effective IPTV deployment.

I've been invited to speak during the webinar, and if you're interested in this space, it would be great to have you join us. As with most all webinars, there's no cost to participate, and you can read all about it and register here. Hope you can make it.


Technorati tags: Espial, Jon Arnold, J Arnold & Associates, IPTV middleware

Teen Tech Review - LG's DVD Player

On this week's Teen Tech Review on BlogTV.ca, my son Max reviews the LG DVD player. We're just back from a road trip, so he's had the benefit of using it both at home and in various vacation settings.

If you're based in Canada, you can watch the review directly from the BlogTV.ca site here.

Note - looks like BlogTV.ca has made some changes to the Channel selections. Until now, Teen Tech Reviews was listed under the Technology Channel, which is where it belongs. Well, they've dropped this channel - guess not enough people are watching, and/or there's not enough people contributing relevant content. Now we've been slotted into the "Miscellaneous" channel, which isn't hugely encouraging. I guess it's a bit like being bumped from a Thursday night slot to Monday at 11pm. So, I'd say our reviews are going to be harder to find now, but you'll always be able to see them here.

Remember - BlogTV.ca is basically a social networking experiment. There's no advertising, and very little stuctured, regular content to speak of. Not surprisingly, most of the content is what 20-somethings are into - dating, About Me, lots of guitar playing and silly pet tricks.

If you're outside Canada you probably won't be able to access this link, but the embedded link below should work just fine. Hope you like it!





Technorati tags: LG DVD, Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - Espial and the IPTV Middleware Market

My guest this week was Brian Mahony, VP of Marketing at Ottawa-based Espial Group. Espial is one of the leading indie IPTV middleware vendors, and are very much connnected to the market and technology issues around IPTV. Brian provided a great perspective on the IPTV market and some of the better-known deployments.

Espial also just had a successful IPO, and Brian touched on some of the realities of being a public company, as well as what makes Ottawa such a viable market for tech startups.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Brian.

NOTE - no podcast next week - family vacation...

Technorati tags: Espial, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, IPTV

Max's Nokia N95 Video Review

We're finally back on track with our video reviews on BlogTV.ca. We've had a 2 week hiatus - Max had exams, and then we got a new web cam. This cam is MUCH better, but it took a few days to get things working properly - we'll be doing a separate review on this, actually.

So this week's Teen Tech Review is with the wonderful Nokia N95, and if you can bear with Max for 8 minutes, he'll show and tell you all the cool things this phone has to offer.

And if that's not enough, Max is working on his written review, which will turn up on his blog. Once it's posted, I'll get the word out here - hopefully on Monday.

For those of you based in Canada, you can watch the review here, which is a direct link to the BlogTV.ca website. After watching the review, I hope you poke around to explore what else is going on at BlogTV.ca.

I understand that BlogTV has been launched in the U.S., but Canada was the first country that the Israel-based BlogTV originators expanded to. So, for a change we've got something going here before the Americans, and I'll lay odds I'm the only person you're hearing about this from. If you like what you see, please RSS me, as Teen Tech Reviews is a regular series, and we have lots more reviews coming.

For those of you not based in Canada, you'll need to watch our review via the embedded link below. Regular readers of my blog will know the story behind this, but at least this is a workable solution to share our reviews outside of Canada.

Hope you like it, and all comments are welcome!









Technorati tags: Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews, Nokia N95

Teen Tech Review - LG Fusic Phone

On this week's Teen Tech Review, Max and I discuss the LG Fusic cell phone. Of course, Max does most of the showing and telling, and he draws some nice comparisons to other phones he's been using, mainly from Nokia.

This is supposed to be a weekly series, and we missed last week because Max is studying for exams! Next week I'm away, but after that, we should be back to our weekly schedule.

Now that I've developed a "workaround", anybody reading my blog will be able to view this videocast. As you may know, this series of videocasts is being produced by me, and broadcast on BlogTV.ca.

If you're based in Canada, you can go direct to their site, and view it there. You can find Teen Tech Reviews on the Techno-Gadgets channel. To reiterate from previous posts. BlogTV.ca is a hybrid between TV and videoblogging. It's like TV in the sense that there are channels where you can view content for a variety of topics. It's also like TV because our broadcasts are live, but then archived for future viewing.

At any given time of the day, then, there are several live video feeds, and you can have a lot of fun playing voyeur, and drop in on all these virtual fishbowls that people seem to enjoy living in. I'm way too old for that, but I can certainly see how lots of people are very comfortable doing that.

So, for those of you in Canada, you can view this week's review here. From there it's not hard to access our other reviews, as well as explore the rest of BlogTV.ca.

For those of you outside of Canada, this link will not likely work, since BlogTV.ca can only be accessed domestically. They have their reasons for doing this, and one could view this as a net neutrality issue, I suppose. However, I think I'm the only one producing content for them that has this problem, so I don't see their policy changing any time soon. Pretty much everyone else there is producing content for their own entertainment, and aren't concerned about reaching a global audience. After all, this is really about social networking, and not being on FOX or the CBC.

Anyhow, if you can't open that link, you can watch our review here, via this embedded URL. It runs about 9 minutes - hope you like it!







Technorati tags: LG Fusic, Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews

Canadian IP Thought Leaders Series - New Media, with MyThum Interactive and Deloitte

On this week's podcast, the focus was Canada's New Media community. I've never had 3 guests on together before, but somehow, we made it work. This podcast was a follow up to my coverage of the Canadian New Media Awards held last month in Toronto, and I wanted to do something with the Company of the Year winner. So, one of my guests was Michael Carter, President and CEO of MyThum Interactive, and we talked about what winning this award has meant for the company.

Joining us was Gary Gluckman and Richard Lee, both from the Toronto office of Deloitte, where they are key leaders of their Technology, Media and Telecommunications practice. Deloitte has been on previous podcasts of mine, talking about their Fast 50 and Fast 500 programs, but this was the first time we talked about their involvement in the new media space. Deloitte is a major sponsor of the CNMA, and Gary and Richard shared their views on the new media space in Canada, along with the winning qualities they saw in MyThum.

You can download the podcast here, as well as read more about Gary, Richard and Michael.


Technorati tags: MyThum Interactive, Jon Arnold, VoIP podcasts, Deloitte,
Canadian New Media Awards

Video Calling - Ready for Prime Time - But is Verizon?

One more quick entry for today. SightSpeed CEO/fellow blogger Peter Csathy has brought this story to my attention. It may not be news to many of you, but it's still worth noting. Peter cites a WSJ story about a new service launched yesterday from AT&T called VideoShare. While not the first to do this, it's a huge validation for person-to-person mobile video calling, and as Peter notes on his blog, it opens up huge opportunities for creative applications.

Peter and his company, SightSpeed, are major advocates of video, and this is great news for companies like his. Video calling has always been slow to take root for all kinds of reasons, but people seem to be far less inhibited on their cell phones, and in some ways, video is really a natural extension of a voice call for mobile users. As Peter suggests, it won't take long for businesses come up with all kinds of applications that will totally make sense. An example he cites is for real estate agents, who can show their clients listings in real time when they're somewhere else. Couldn't agree more!

Peter also brings up the inevitable iPhone question. They won't be supporting video calling in the initial launch, but if uptake is slower than expected - and there are all kinds of reasons for this to happen - you can bet that would change. Video calling will sure have a cool factor for a large segment of the market, and it could turn out to be a great value-add to compete against Verizon, who will be doing whatever they can to retain subscribers lured by the allure of the iPhone. I suspect we'll find out how cool video calling will be when the iPhone era officially kicks off.




Technorati tags: iPhone, Jon Arnold, Peter Csathy, AT&T, SightSpeed

Microsoft Canada Expression Launch

Last night, I attended the Canadian launch of Microsoft Expression Suite. This is their soup-to-nuts Web design software solution. As you can see from their website, it's a full suite of various tools for designers, web developers, graphic artists, etc.

This isn't exactly my crowd, but it was very interesting to mingle with this community and see how Microsoft engages them. I'd say they did a pretty good job, and it's a very important audience to be cool with. I'm pretty sure that Adobe is the tool of choice for many in the room, and Expression certainly seemed to hold their interest. I'm also pretty sure that I was the only analyst in attendance, and in my circles, this may be the first and possibly only place you'll hear about Expression.

Aside from the demos and requisite Microsoft presenters, the star of the show was GK VanPatter, a renowned designer - which was new to me. You can learn more about him via Humantific, as well as the NextDesign Leadership Institute. Pretty interesting stuff.

I love learning from people like this, and he gave some interesting perspectives about the design process. From this, it became clear to me that what Expression brings to this community is a complete platform that facilitates collaboration, which is critical to good design. GK spoke about the importance of cross-disciplinary work teams, and platforms like Expression make it possible for people in different spheres, speaking different working languages, and probably using different computer technologies, to collaborate during the process of creating good design. He also talked about Design 1.0/2.0/3.0 - and it's the same paradigm we use in the IP world, whether it be striving for Voice 2.0 or Web 2.0. Same problems - same principles - and same types of solutions. That clicked for me.




David Crow, Microsoft Canada







GK Van Patter, NextD






Technorati tags: David Crow, Jon Arnold, GK VanPatter, Microsoft Expression Studio

BlogTV.ca Broadcast - Update - Sony PSP Review

This is the third in my series of updates on my videocasts on BlogTV.ca. I now have a way to make Teen Tech Reviews accessible to anyone on the Net, and this post gets us up to date on all our videocasts so far.

Below is the embedded link to our most recent videocast, which is Max's review of the Sony PSP. Here's my original post about the videocast, at which point I realized people outside of Canada couldn't access the BlogTV.ca website.

In case you were wondering - we didn't do a review last week - Max is studying for exams!





Technorati tags: Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews

BlogTV.ca Broadcast - Update - Fireman 3.0 Review

Well, it looks like my workaround solution works. Earlier today, I did a test for our first Teen Tech Review with some people in the U.S., and they were able to view the review. So, I now have a way to share our BlogTV.ca reviews with anyone who cares to watch them.

If you're wondering what this is about, I'll quickly explain. A few weeks back, I launched a weekly videocast series called Teen Tech Reviews on BlogTV.ca. This is the vehicle to make my son, Max, famous --- but also to draw attention to this interesting experiment called BlogTV.ca. As I soon discovered, you can only access the BlogTV.ca website from Canada. This means that a lot of people reading my blog are not able to view our videocasts.

As of this morning, that has been fixed, so from now on, when we do our segments, I'll include an embedded link to the videocast on my blog post. For those of you outside Canada, at least you'll be able to see our reviews. However, you won't be able to visit the BlogTV.ca site to see what else is going on there - and I don't have a fix for that. Which is too bad, especially if you're into new media and social networking. It's pretty unique, although I haven't compared it yet to the BlogTV edition that's coming to the U.S.

So, for this post, I'm providing an embedded link for our second podcast, which was for the Fireman 3.0 DVD burner software. I'll put up another post shortly for the Sony PSP review, and then we'll be up to date. Enjoy - and please, your comments are welcome!











Technorati tags: Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews

BlogTV.ca Broadcasts - Plan B - Nokia N800 Review

I recently started a weekly series of video posts with my son, Max, to do tech reviews. We're doing these on BlogTV.ca, which is based here in Toronto. It was recently been brought to my attention that that our video segments cannot be viewed outside of Canada. BlogTV.ca can only be viewed in Canada, so many people who follow my blog can't see what we're doing.

That situation isn't about to change soon, so I'm resorting to Plan B as way to make our video posts accessible to anyone. I'm embedding our first segment below - which was a review of the Nokia N800 - and if you can view this, then I think I have a workaround.

So, if you're outside of Canada, and can view this, please let me know! I need the confirmation, and then we'll be fine.




Technorati tags: Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews

Microsoft Office RoundTable Demo

It's been a busy week on a few fronts, and I got to attend a cool event last night. Microsoft Canada held a demo event for Office RoundTable, which is part of their unified communications thrust. RoundTable is an IP-based videoconferencing solution - more features and flexibility than traditional systems, but not as high-end as telepresence. It's a pretty neat concept, and the part I like the best is its portability. The unit is quite small - the size of a table lamp - and looks like an inverted Starship Enterprise. So, you don't have to dedicate a room to it, or have specialized furniture and lighting.

Not too many analysts in attendance - I may have been the only one, in fact, so I got a good look at it. The demo shows the 360 experience, as the cameras take in all views of the room, and you get to see them all at once across various windows on your PC screen. We're told it will scale very well, so potentially, you could do a lot of interesting things with a large room full of people - if that's your cup of tea.

Not much else to say, really, other than kudos to High Road Communications, who did a great job pulling this together. I'll let my Nokia 93 take over from here, with a few photos, and a 4 minute video clip of Bryan Rusche leading the demo.










Bryan Rusche, Microsoft Canada







with Sean Seaton (Microsoft Canada) and my "Microsoft Blue" Mojito




And the best for last - with Katie Cook (Microsoft Canada) and Michel Burger (Microsoft CTO) - and the door prize, which I happened to win - whoo hoo!




Take it away, Bryan....





Technorati tags: Microsoft Canada, Jon Arnold, Office RoundTable, videoconferencing

Espial Goes Public

Espial is a company I've been following for some time, and they had some great news today. This morning was the official announcement of their IPO on the Toronto exchange - the TSX - and their trading symbol will be ESP. How cool is that for a symbol?!?!

This may well be the first you've heard of the news, as the press release has not been made available yet over the U.S. PR wires. I suspect it will hit the wires first thing Monday, but you're reading about it here today.

In short, as reported in the release, the stock will list at $7.00, and if all goes well, Espial will raise $25 - $30 million, which will go a long way to fuel their growth plans. They have a good story to tell in the IPTV middleware space, which is going through its own consolidation phase. With this IPO, Espial should be in a great spot to emerge as one of the leading independent middleware vendors.

IPOs of Canadian vendors in the IP communications space are pretty hard to come by, and I expect Espial will be well received. So, congrats to Espial, and being Ottawa-based, this is probably the best feel-good story out there, since the Senators went out quietly this week!

If you're interested in Espial, I'll be doing a podcast with them soon about the IPO, and if you can't wait for that, I also did one with them about a year ago.



Technorati tags: Espial, Jon Arnold, IPTV

Teen Tech Review - Sony PSP

On this week's Teen Tech Review, my son Max reviews the Sony PSP. This may not be of much interest if you're wearing your VoIP hat, but this is a very popular and well designed device, and Max has a pretty good idea why.

CAVEAT - and this seems to be a big one! I just discovered tonight that readers located outside of Canada cannot access Blogtv.ca. I'm not sure if that applies across the board, or somehow varies by broadband provider, but I suspect it's the former. After all, bandwidth costs can get very expensive if you make these video feeds accessible to the whole world.

I'm looking into this now with Blogtv.ca, but if you've not been able to watch our video reviews, that will explain why. If that's the case, I have a problem on my hands, and I'm open to suggestions. This sounds like a Vonage scenario, I know - if they can come up with a workaround for me, we'll be fine. But if not, I'll have to look at another way of doing these so everyone can see them. You're probably nodding your head right now, as this looks to me like a net neutrality or even a net freedoms issue. I'll keep you posted.

Oh - if you can't access our video reviews, and really want to see them, please drop me a line, and I'll see what I can do.


Technorati tags: Sony PSP, Jon Arnold, Max Arnold, BlogTV.ca, Teen Tech Reviews