2008 May 02 | Alec Saunders

Friday’s always a slow news day, and today was no exception. However, there was one notable story that we discussed on the SquawkBox this morning, and that was the latest VoIP and 911 tragedy. This time a toddler died in Calgary after the family moved, taking their VoIP ATA with them, but failing to update the emergency services address. Some will view this as a matter of personal responsibility, but I don’t subscribe to that logic. Networks do keep track of devices that unattach and reattach elsewhere — DHCP addresses have to be given out, PPOE sessions have to be initiated and so on. Moreover, service providers know the addresses of the people they send their bills to. It’s clear that if there was the will to create a solution, then one would be created. The tragedy is that each time this happens, as Aswath Rao commented on the LiveWall during our call, we all wring our hands, but nothing is done to address the issue.

It’s time something is done. We will return to this issue on the SquawkBox. For now, the best recommendation is to call 911 from a cellular phone, rather than a landline in circumstances where you don’t know for certain whether the land line is a voice over IP line. UPDATE: See David Beckemeyer’s comment below about the speed with which cellular 911 responds. His recommendation is to call the local emergency services — police, fire, etc.

Some of the other stories we discussed:

Adobe making Flash and Flash Light free to mobile device vendors. If true, this could totally change the dynamic for mobile application development.

Microsoft and Yahoo! Ballmer says Yahoo! is a nice to have, not a need to have. So Yahoo is an accessory like cufflinks or earrings? This evening it appears that the companies are at the table and talking.

The reports that Xobni walked away from being acquired by Microsoft. They were worried about becoming just another Outlook feature, and have grander ambitions.

Squawk Box May 2 [ 27:46 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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The Police, with Elvis Costello as the warm-up act last, played Ottawa last night. There will be lots of reviews of the concert, which was fabulous. So, I’m not going to write about that. Instead… well, our seats, 4 rows from center stage, provided the perfect opportunity to play with some advanced telephony products.

So here is a small paean to the versatility of Nokia’s N95 phone, instead. And fellow Canadians, I’ve heard that there’s a press conference happening at Rogers this morning to announce that the N95 will be coming to Canada. This is a taste of what you’ll all be able to do soon.

One of the defining characteristics of the N95 is camera and optics. With its 5 megapixel camera, it can easily produce print quality photographs. Here’s a straight on shot of the band on-stage, unmodified.

Many people have asked me why the 5 megapixel camera in the N95 is necessary. Why not go with 3 megapixels? The simple answer is that with 5 megapixels I have the versatility to edit. This shot of guitarist Andy Summers shows exactly what I mean. Cropped to a square, it still retains enough sharpness and focus to be a good picture.

The N95 also has a digital zoom feature which was used to capture these two close-ups. Note the noticeable loss of definition (even after digitally sharpening the photograph). While these are not print quality, they’re definitely good enough for sharing with friends on a web site or on the phone itself.

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I was also able to stream video from the show last night. These two videos were made with Qik. The first video, of the Police singing Roxanne, was streamed over an open WiFi access point. The second video, of Elvis Costello singing, was streamed over Rogers 3G network. They’re comparable quality, but the Costello video cost me precious data bandwidth, whereas streaming over WiFi didn’t.

Neither video, however, really shows off what the N95 is capable of. For that, you need to record to local storage rather than streaming. Here’s an MP4 file (warning, 109M – QuickTime required to play) created on the phone of Costello singing Peace Love and Understanding. Notice the dramatic improvement in both sound and video quality.