VOIP

Three great bits of information for you. First, Yahoo is opening (somewhat) its I.M. and voice applications platform based around Yahoo Messenger with Voice to application developers. C++, JavaScript, AJAX, and ActiveX are all supported frameworks for the fruit of your API labor. The extensions you’ll create are known as “plug ins”. However, the “plug ins” that you can apparently develop might bear some resemblance to the following plug ins, available now:In the beta version, a suite of third-party plug-ins will be available for Amazon.com, AmericanGreetings.com, Coupons, Inc., eBay, HedgeStreet, Inc., Jeteye, NewsGator Technologies Inc., Pando Networks Inc., 30Boxes, as well as plug-ins from Yahoo!’s leading Web services including Yahoo! Answers, Calendar, Finance, Music, News, Sports, 360 .This can mean one of two things–either Yahoo Widgets (Konfabulator) has gone full circle in Yahoo’s programming department, OR the failed I.M. robots idea got carried over from AIM (actually AIM I.M. bots are really a carryover from IRC’s heyday, but whatever). Also new is a 1 GIGABYTE file transfer limit (YAY!) and sound effects (YAWN). Still apparently missing from Yahoo’s consciousness is Mac OS X sensibilty. I really don’t believe Yahoo has any desire to deliver on the Mac client they’ve been unofficially promising for the last several years.Here’s Yahoo’s Dev Site.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

Vonage intros portable phone
It looks like Vonage is getting into the portable VoIP phone marketplace with the introduction of their new V-Phone. According to the company, the phone can be activated by being plugged into any PC with a broadband intenet connection The V-Phone is being aimed mostly at business users since it can potentially reduce voice communication costs including cellphone roaming charges. The phone comes loaded with Vonage Talk software and includes 250MB of memory that can be used to store files such as MP3s and digital photos. The device is priced at $39.99.Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments