Katrina

Inveneo

by alec on September 25, 2005

One of the neatest companies at VON was a tiny non-profit in the Asterisk booth called Inveneo. Inveneo is bringing modern communications technology to the third world. For environments where electricity isn’t available, they’ve designed a low-powered computer system (10 watt, with a 10 watt display), powered from a battery source, which is in turn charged by either a bicycle powered generator, or a solar panel. One hour of cycling is enough to charge the battery for four hours of use. It can be used for all kinds of purposes, including communications using VoIP, and, of course, Asterisk.

I chatted with Kristin Peterson, one of the co-founders. It was inspirational. They’ve packaged these systems as products to sell to NGO’s for deployment in Africa and other impoverished parts of the world. Right now, one of their deployments is in the southern USA, where they’re helping to establish communication again in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Rich Tehrani has a more information on Inveneo on his blog.

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802.16 GMRS Radios

by alec on September 22, 2005

One of my favorite blogs is www.shouldexist.org. For a good 4 years, these guys have just been tossing off wacky ideas, one after another, for everything from pineapple jerky, to … WiMax enabled GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service) radios for use in emergency situations, like the recent one in New Orleans. The idea is simple – drop some IPv6 enabled mesh repeaters into an emergency site, and you’ve now got unlimited channels for communications amongst emergency responders. Given Jeff Pulver’s new efforts to enroll the Ham Radio Operators of America in VoIP emergency services, I thought this idea was particularly interesting.

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A little catch-up

September 22, 2005

It’s 6:35 in the morning here in Boston, and I’m doing a little catch-up on the last couple of days of stuff accumulating in RSS feed. First, Richard Stastny published an excellent summary of some of the Day 2 talks. I read his material on Brad Garlinghouse’s speech with particular interest because I got caught [...]

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VON Day 1 Wrap

September 19, 2005

It’s been a busy day here at the VON show. I managed to run into fellow bloggers Richard Stasny, Phil Wolff (Skype Journal), and my old friend Bob Frankston. Following the three industry insight sessions by Jeffrey Citron, Tom Evslin, and Maddog Hall, we headed over the main exhibit hall. I don’t know whether the [...]

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Katrina Relief: Microsoft Employees Chip In

September 14, 2005

One of the things I’ve always admired about Microsoft, both during my time as an employee there, and after, is the incredible sense of civic duty the company has. Annually the employees give 10′s of millions of dollars to their favorite causes and charities. Corporately, the annual United Way campaign used to raise in excess [...]

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ViaTalk Offers Free Gas Cards

September 6, 2005

VoIP provider ViaTalk is offering $20 in free gas to anyone who signs up for a two year term. The company is also contributing 5% of revenue for Hurricane Katrina relief. The press release also mentions that CEO Brendon Brader drives a Hummer H2 licensed as ’1 MPG’. Apparently Mr. Brader lives in an irony [...]

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