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You probably don’t remember it, but way back in January, at CES, a little company called Ooma unveiled its next-generation phone system, the Telo, which combines DECT 6.0 cordless-phone technology with Internet-based (VoIP) calling. Well, after nearly 10 months of waiting, the Telo is finally landing in stores and is available for $249.99.

Anybody excited by the Telo? Let us know what you think.

Once you shell out the $250 for the Telo, you can make unlimited domestic calls for free, and such features as caller ID and access to online call logs are included at no additional charge. If you want to port your existing number, that will cost you $39.99, but if you want a brand-new number, you don’t have to pay anything.

Ooma’s claim to fame is that it sells VoIP phone systems that let you make free domestic U.S. calls and low-priced international calls. To help drive home the point that you don’t have to pay for phone service, Amazon labeled Ooma’s first product, which remains on sale, the Ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills.

From a design standpoint, the Telo is sexier-looking than its predecessor and more importantly, improves on the feature set, as well as on the call quality. While you can connect a standard cordless phone to the Telo, in November Ooma will also begin offering its own handsets for the system at $49.99 a pop (up to six Ooma handsets can be added to the system). Oooma reps are also highlighting how you can have calls from your cell phone redirected to the Telo.

We’ll be getting a Telo in for review and we’ll let you know how it performs as soon as we put it through its paces. If it’s as good as it seems, it might be time for this blogger to ditch Vonage, which currently charges a base fee of $24.95 a month for unlimited domestic and international calls to 60 countries, so long as you lock into a one-year contract.

The Ooma Telo costs $249.99 for the hub (right) and $49.99 for the handset, which will be available in November.

Enhanced Voicemail: Listen to voice mail through the speaker of the Ooma Telo device or forward voice mail and listen to messages on a mobile phone or a computer.
Call Screening and Intercept: Listen through the speaker as callers leave their voice mail. Pick up at anytime to answer or tap a key to send the call away.
Personal and Community Blacklists: Tap into Ooma’s extensive database of telemarketers and phone spammers and have the option of blocking unwanted callers or sending them straight to voice mail.
Multi-Ring: Configure your Ooma system to simultaneously ring or forward a call to a mobile phone.
Three-way Conferencing: Easily talk to two parties at once with easy three-way conference calling.
Personal Number: Choose a second number anywhere in the U.S. and have it ring distinctively so you know who the call is for.
Instant Second Line: Always have an available dial tone even if someone else is using the phone; users can also make or take a second call without missing a beat. (This feature requires an Ooma Telo Handset, which will be available in November.) Naturally, Ooma encourages you to opt in to the Premium package, and is currently offering a free Ooma Telo Handset or free number porting (a $39.99 value) if you sign up for a year. The company also notes that after the first year of ownership, all Ooma Telo users will be charged an annual regulatory recovery fee of $11.75 to “cover taxes, regulatory recovery fees, and other costs.” So eventually going free is going to cost you about a buck a month, but that’s pretty reasonable.

Now, if you’re wondering how Telo makes money, the company does offer a premium service plan. (You’re looking at a freemium/premium business model.) Ooma’s optional Premier costs $9.99 per month and includes the following features:

(Credit:
Ooma)

(Credit: Yahoo SearchMonkey)
I was just monkeying around with Yahoo’s new SearchMonkey Developer Tool and it seems to be the closest thing to helping users build a “blog-wiki-mashup-with-video-share” application so far. It also has the simplest interface I have seen to create data services and publish them for broad (or narrow) consumption. They even give you the PHP code if you want to run the service on a non-Yahoo site.

Monkey around with Yahoo!

Site owners are responsible for data, while developers are responsible for presentation. Smaller projects might assign the developer and site owner roles to the same person, but larger projects tend to have more specialized roles.

This functionality will likely be glossed over by Yahoo’s ongoing shareholder ordeal, but the innovation here proves that Yahoo has a lot more going on than we generally give them credit for. They also did a really nice job of documenting everything–which is a general engineering nightmare.

SearchMonkey site owners are site owners who are responsible for delivering data about their site’s pages for SearchMonkey developers to build upon.

There are two main audiences for the SearchMonkey Guide:
SearchMonkey developers are front end engineers who build presentation applications, small PHP applications that enhance search results. Most presentation applications are fairly simple and do not necessarily require deep working knowledge of PHP.

David Ko

“Our goal is to become a contributor to Yahoo’s bottom line in 2009,” Boerries said. In other words, to make Yahoo overall more profitable, not less.

The company on Monday named David Ko to be senior vice president of the mobile group, which handles software, advertising, and partnerships in the mobile phone market. He reports to Marco Boerries, executive vice president of the Connected Life division, which is trying to extend Yahoo’s business to mobile phones and Internet-connected TV sets.

(Credit:
Yahoo)

“I am very happy to introduce today Connected Life v3.0, which is designed to take our leadership in mobile to the next level,” Boerries said in a memo about the changes. Version 2.0 was about laying foundations with technology development and distribution deals, but 3.0 will be about money.

Also leaving Yahoo are Geraldine Wilson, who handled Connected Life business operations in Europe–her work included ousting Google to become T-Mobile’s preferred search mobile search provider–and Bruce Stewart, who worked on business development in the United States.

That mobile revenue comes from text and display ads, and partnerships, Ko said in an interview. Though Ko sees competition from Google and others, he’s confident of Yahoo’s position in mobile Internet services: “We are absolutely leading in this.”

And it will be the phone group that’s carries the profit burden, he added: the TV effort is still in an earlier development and distribution stage so far.

Google is aggressively expanding into the mobile market, though, with advertising, software, the Android operating system, and services. And the threat is real: earlier today, Cowen and Co. analysts said Google Maps will help lead it to dominance in mobile search.

The phone group will carry the Connected Life profit burden initially, Ko added: the TV work is still in an earlier development and distribution stage so far.

Yahoo is under financial pressure this year, but it’s shaking up management of its mobile phone group as part of a plan to make its phone and TV division profitable next year.

Ko replaces Steve Boom, who “after 10 years at Yahoo has decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities,” Boerries said. A Yahoo spokeswoman said Boom was leaving voluntarily. Ko was general manager of Yahoo’s mobile work in Asia, a post now held by Matthias Kunze.

Check out the latest Digital Home video where I ask a simple question: is killing avatars OK?

Whatever happened to that chummy Wintel alliance? You know, the Microsoft Windows/Intel chip cartel that has long helped to cement Microsoft’s hold on the industry?

Meanwhile, companies like IBM are actively exploring Windows alternatives like the Mac. Microsoft has competition on its hands for the first time, and it only has itself to blame. If it can’t build a compelling reason to upgrade, it can’t expect to remain absolute controller of the desktop universe.

In a significant snub, Intel has decided not to upgrade its 80,000 desktops from Windows XP to Windows Vista.

Is Intel a sign of things to come for Microsoft? Will the rest of corporate America discover that Microsoft essentially stopped innovating long ago and has failed to deliver a worthwhile upgrade to XP?

This isn’t a matter of dissing Microsoft, but Intel information technology staff just found no compelling case for adopting Vista.

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As an inside source put it:

(Credit: 8Tracks.com)

Team Teamwork produced the mix, which features unique tracks by Spank Rock, Common, Aesop Rock, Clipse, and my personal pick: MF Doom. Most of the songs fit well with the background score; for example, in “Fumbling Over Words,” artist Edan Portnoy’s intensity melds seamlessly into the rumblings of the “Battle” music from OoT, but other tracks, like Common’s classic “I Used to Love H.E.R.,” just sound too silly over the theme from the Hyrule Marketplace.

Team Teamwork presents: The Ocarina of Rhyme

If you enjoyed Eric Franklin’s post on 8-bit NES-style hip-hop, you’ll definitely enjoy Team Teamwork’s “The Ocarina of Rhyme.” It’s a mix tape of mashups that combines hip-hop tracks with the score to the Zelda game Ocarina of Time.

Stream the album above or download it here, and let me know what you think in the comments!

Entitled “Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Could Allow Remote Code Execution (949030),” this bulletin affects users of Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003 Service Pack 3, and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. Not affected are users of Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3, Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer 2003, Microsoft Visio 2002 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Visio 2003 Viewer, Microsoft Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft Project 2000 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Project 2002 Service Pack 2, 2007 Microsoft Office System, 2007 Microsoft Office System Service Pack 1, and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2008-0113 and CVE-2008-0118. Microsoft says, “an attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.”

Entitled “Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Excel Could Allow Remote Code Execution (949029),” this bulletin is critical for users of Microsoft Excel 2000 Service Pack 3, and important for users of Excel 2002 Service Pack 3, Excel 2003 Service Pack 2, Excel 2007, Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003, Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats, Microsoft Office 2004 for
Mac, and Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. Not affected are Microsoft Works 8, 8.5, and 9, or Works suite 2005 and Works suite 2006. The update addresses vulnerabilities detailed in CVE-2008-0111, CVE-2008-0112, CVE-2008-0114, CVE-2008-0115, CVE-2008-0116, CVE-2008-0117, and CVE-2008-0081. Microsoft says, “an attacker who successfully exploited these vulnerabilities could take complete control of an affected system and could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.”

MS08-014: Critical

Microsoft today released its March 2008 security bulletin, which includes four bulletins, all deemed critical by Microsoft.

MS08-015: Critical

MS08-016: Critical

The most serious of these affects Microsoft Excel, which alone has six specific “Common Vulnerablities and Exposures” vulnerabilities noted, one of which has been exploited in the wild. The next most serious affects Microsoft Outlook. In that one, a vulnerability in how the software parses “mailto” URIs could lead to remote code execution. A third bulletin affects how various
Microsoft Office apps open maliciously crafted files. The final bulletin concerns how Office interfaces with the Web and includes one vulnerability that has been known but unpatched since September 2006. All Microsoft security patches for both Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

Entitled “Vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook Could Allow Remote Code Execution (949031),” this bulletin affects users of Microsoft Outlook 2000 Service Pack 3, Outlook 2002 Service Pack 3, Outlook 2003 Service Pack 2, Outlook 2003 Service Pack 3, and Outlook 2007. Not affected are users of Outlook 2007 Service Pack 1. The update addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2008-0110. Microsoft says this vulnerability “could allow remote code execution if Outlook is passed a specially crafted mailto URI. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights. This vulnerability is not exploitable by simply viewing an e-mail through the Outlook preview pane.”

Entitled “Vulnerabilities in Microsoft Office Web Components Could Allow Remote Code Execution (933103),” this bulletin affects users of Microsoft Office 2000 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Office XP Service Pack 3, Visual Studio .NET 2002 Service Pack 1, Visual Studio .NET 2003 Service Pack 1, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2000, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002, Microsoft Commerce Server 2000, and Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 Service Pack 2. Not affected are users of Microsoft Works 8, Microsoft Works 9, Microsoft Works Suite 2005, Microsoft Works Suite 2006, Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 2, Microsoft Office 2003 Service Pack 3, 2007 Microsoft Office System, 2007 Microsoft Office System Service Pack 1, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006, Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 Service Pack 1, Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 Service Pack 2, and Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 Service Pack 3, Microsoft Commerce Server 2002, Microsoft Commerce Server 2007, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2004, and Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2006. This update addresses the vulnerability detailed in CVE-2006-4695 and CVE-2007-1201. Microsoft says, “these vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a specially crafted Web page. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.”

MS08-017: Critical

This week CNET’s Robert Vamosi spoke by phone with Roel Schouwenberg, senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky, who happens to be based in the Netherlands, about the Shadow botnet.

What’s unusual here is that the crime unit then asked Kaspersky Lab to provide the identified victims, people who had unknowingly allowed their computers to become compromised, with instructions on how to neutralize the malware on their systems. While antivirus companies and law enforcement work together all the time, rarely has law enforcement been concerned about cleaning up a victim’s machine.

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A few weeks ago, the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit identified and arrested a 19-year-old Dutch man who allegedly was operating a botnet known as Shadow. This botnet, unlike more recent examples, used IRC, meaning its traffic was easier to trace than the Web-based command and control traffic used today by most new botnets. Shadow would infect users via Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger.

Apple is getting set to host its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco the week of June 9, where we might learn more about the yet-unnamed Mac OS X 10.6, assuming they aren’t skipping ahead to Mac OS XI, or Mac OS 11, or whatever naming convention gets chosen.

The newest version of Mac OS X Leopard, 10.5.3, is ready for Mac owners.

Mac OS X 10.5.3 is now available for downloading from Apple’s site or through the Software Update process. Dozens of bugs are fixed with the new release for products like iCal, Mail, Time Machine, and others.

(Credit:
Apple)

Apple has released the latest version of Mac OS X Leopard, just weeks before its annual developers’ conference.

How would YouTube determine the ownership of a small independent film or Ecuadorian soap opera?

Employee data easier to get than users’
The two companies are in the discovery phase of their litigation, when each is supposed to turn over relevant information to the other. On Monday night, the two sides announced they had finally agreed that YouTube would mask YouTube’s user information, such as usernames and IP addresses, before handing it over to Viacom. Now, a new disagreement looms on the horizon.

“This is why the burden of finding (copyright violations) should be on the (copyright owners),” Seltzer said. “We really don’t want to put the service providers in the middle. Viacom and rights holders are in the best position to determine what they own.”

Who can argue that YouTube isn’t home to countless clips from feature films and TV shows?

The two sides have been sparring over whether Google must give up information on which videos YouTube employees watch and upload to the site, two sources told CNET News this weekend. Google will unlikely succeed at blocking Viacom from obtaining at least some of this information, said Wendy Seltzer, a fellow with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

As for the costs of monitoring YouTube, Seltzer said that whatever it is, “it’s just the cost of our intellectual property system…I don’t think that copyright owners should be able to outsource the enforcement burden to service providers.”

As for what kind of damage to YouTube’s case may occur if employees are found to have watched pirated videos, the answer is that it could be very minimal. The judge is likely to look at how much illegal video was viewed by how many employees and ask whether it was bad faith or not, said Seltzer.

Direct copyright infringement could undermine YouTube’s DMCA claims.
–Mark Litvack, attorney

What could prove much more damaging, however, is if Viacom uncovers proof that YouTube’s employees uploaded unauthorized clips as part of their duties. To those copyright holders, who have wondered for years whether YouTube’s workers were violating copyright, this would be a smoking gun.

Google’s YouTube did get some good news this week. Internet auctioneer eBay fended off a trademark infringement lawsuit filed by Tiffany & Co.

“Red-flag knowledge”

Here’s another scenario that could drastically change the color of the case. What if YouTube finds that Philippe Dauman, Viacom’s CEO or Stephen Colbert, host of Viacom’s The Colbert Report uploaded clips to YouTube?

Copyright videos are plentiful on YouTube but is the site responsible?

Could YouTube lose DMCA protection?

But just knowing that the videos exist at YouTube may not qualify as infringement. How can YouTube managers be expected to determine which clips are unauthorized?

From Google’s perspective, what’s at stake here is YouTube’s protection under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA’s Safe Harbor provision shields Internet service providers from being held responsible for illegal acts committed by users. But to qualify for the harbor, a company can’t have knowledge of copyright violations and must quickly remove infringing material when notified by a copyright owner.

According to legal experts, YouTube’s response is likely to go something like this: “How are we supposed to know what’s copyright material and what isn’t?” The site is a promotional tool for scores of TV networks and movie studios, which often post their own videos.

It’s simple to argue that everybody knows The Godfather is owned by Paramount, a Viacom company. But what about the unlimited number of lesser-known works?

Will the courts determine the same for copyright holders?

The case could now become a landmark and answer a major question in online video, said Mark Litvack, an entertainment lawyer with Los Angeles-based Manatt, Phelps & Phillips.

The battle royal began in early 2007 when Viacom accused Google, YouTube’s parent company, of violating copyright law. Soon after, Viacom hit Google with a $1 billion lawsuit.

Viacom will likely argue that YouTube is guilty of contributory copyright infringement if computer records show employees know unauthorized clips from shows, such as Hogan Knows Best or The Hills, are on the site and don’t do anything to remove them.

In April, I tooled around YouTube for a half hour and found clips from the last five Academy Award winners in the best picture category, including Million Dollar Baby, No Country For Old Men and a 10-minute clip from the opening of The Departed. As of Tuesday, the clip still appears on the site.

Direct copyright infringement could undermine YouTube’s DMCA claims, according to Litvack.

“YouTube is going to say that (Viacom’s uploading) was an implied license,” she said. “YouTube might argue that it couldn’t have had red-flag knowledge about (all the other Viacom videos) because it knew to the contrary that the copyright holder wanted some of them posted.”

What will it mean for YouTube if founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have, like many of us, entertained themselves by watching pirated videos found on their site?

Trademark is different from copyright law but the arguments are surprisingly similar. The jeweler accused eBay of profiting from sales of counterfeit Tiffany goods, but the judge in the case found that it’s up to brand owners to police for phony products.

YouTube has always said that big media corporations have split personalities when it comes to YouTube. Their marketing departments might beg YouTube to promote their shows or movies one day and the next day the same company’s lawyers might demand YouTube pull them down.

“It’s arguably more relevant to the litigation (than the user records) because it would be part of what Viacom is trying to prove,” Seltzer said. “If the records show that YouTube had knowledge, or the records fail to show that knowledge, then that would be relevant to Viacom’s case.”

At this point, there’s no telling who has the upper hand in this case. Nobody knows whether the DMCA covers a user-generated video site like YouTube. Is it really a service provider or an entertainment site wrongfully profiting from the work of copyright owners?

“Who has the obligation of monitoring Web sites for copyright violations,” Litvack said. “Is it the copyright owner who must police sites and be required to send takedown notices, or should Web sites be forced to filter for copyright material?”

Viacom has maintained that YouTube’s pirate treasure isn’t buried. The copyright material is impossible to miss, the media conglomerate maintains. The parent company of MTV and Comedy Central will no doubt argue it’s inconceivable that YouTube is unaware of the infringing content on its site.

(Credit:
YouTube)

I don’t think that copyright owners should be able to outsource the enforcement burden to service providers.
–Wendy Seltzer, attorney and Harvard fellow

It should be noted here that employees from neither YouTube nor Viacom have ever been accused of uploading clips to video-sharing sites.

If it’s determined that Viacom employees uploaded videos, then those clips were authorized and there’s no copyright violation, Seltzer said. She added that in such a scenario, YouTube could argue Viacom prevented YouTube from discerning between authorized and unauthorized clips.