The U.S. Government and industry are attempting to prototype a new type of mobile computing and wireless mesh, where vehicles all communicate with each other about a whole variety of parameters. They are currently planning to use the 5.9GHz band for DSRC (5.8GHz in Europe) for their Vehicle Infrastructure Integration initiative. Whether they incorporate WAVE or not is another matter, but it does mark the entrance to another generation of mobile devices. Continue Reading »
I have a Siemens C460IP phone at home, and so far I’m very happy with it. Very easy to use, lovely integration with Asterisk, and ideal for general usage around the flat. However, one thing bugs me, and that’s the lack of alphanumeric addressing capability in the phone book or dialing screen. Siemens have been rather good with issuing firmware updates to the system (all done through the handset - how neat!), so it shouldn’t be that hard to get the system updated. This is all to do with what I described in my previous posts about SIP addressing and the future of VoIP
So, in an attempt to get this functionality, and in good tradition, I submitted a feature request to them. Here it is for posterity, and I’ll see if we get any mileage out of it…
Hi,
I would like to submit a feature request to your engineering team
for the C460IP phone (which I have and so far am very happy with). It
would be a simple addition to allow alphanumeric entries into the
phonebook or dialling screen. At the moment it only allows numerical
addresses and IP addresses. Allowing alphabetic characters
would allow the user to call SIP addresses anywhere in the world
without having to rely on a number lookup system. It would allow
similar functionality to your Gigaset.net system, but be global
and open, just like the SIP support in the phone.
Please see http://lodge.glasgownet.com/blog/2007/05/12/more-voip/ for more reasoning behind this request.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kyle
***update***
Siemens have gotten back to me already, rather quickly. Along with the standard blurb about customer service centers, I get this…
We forwarded your feedback and your request to our product manager. Thank you very much for your feedback.
Unfortunately at the moment the phone will not allow alphanumeric entries in to the phone as you pointed out. We have not received any information about this changing in the future with this phone but we will send you an answer when we hear back from the product manager.
In my daily trawl of the Internet, I discovered Twittervision and Flickrvision. Both present a map of the world, take a live geo-enabled feed of data from Twitter and Flickr and overlay it onto the map. Scrolling smoothly where necessary. It’s very hypnotic, and a lovely demo of the integration of web technologies to the average layperson.
To follow on from my previous post, I’ve gone about setting up SIP addressing like this for a very good reason. Other than the eventual demise of telephone numbers, I believe that larger VoIP networks will increasingly grow in size, whilst marginalizing the smaller networks. This is what happened to free email provides many years ago, and it’ll happen again to VoIP providers. Continue Reading »
Lately I’ve been poking around Asterisk and related VoIP stuff, and generally trying to make it work. I’ve (not) read my fair share of documentation, and it still seems pretty patchy. I’ve signed up for a free 0141 number from Sipgate and it seems mostly good. However, SIP addressing is a big itch that I’ve recently scratched… Continue Reading »
Got back from Croft Circuit yesterday evening, after a long drive and a busy weekend. A Beetle race each day, each one 3 hour long with pit stops and driver changes every half hour made for some interesting work. The transponder loop doesn’t extend as far as the pit, so cars had to be entered manually each time they went through the pit lane.
We went down to Croft on Friday night, as we had been booked into the lovely Chequers Inn that night and next. It’s been almost a year since we’ve been there, but it was as exemplary as ever
Photos will be, as always, uploaded whenever I get around to it.
David Heron has a particularly good example of binaural audio, where two microphones are used to record a stereo track at just the location where your ears are. Only heard with headphones, it’s an incredibly spooky effect that has been around for over a hundred years.
