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Vonage iPhone App Approved

Vonage’s iPhone app has now been approved by Apple for inclusion in the App Store. At this time the app is not yet available to the public, but Vonage is asking for potential beta testers to send a direct message to their official Twitter account, Vonage_Voice.

Not much is known about the actual function of the app at this point, but if it assists users in making a call from their Vonage phone number, it would be an odd decision by Apple to approve it, as it has previously removed all Google Voice apps from the App Store. MobileCrunch mentions that the app may instead simply provide a way to access voicemail sent to a Vonage number from the iPhone or provide other basic features. We will not know until the app is released to the public at a later time.

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By Antoniu – September 2, 2009

Dick Costolo to Become Twitter COO

The former CEO of Feedburner, Dick Costolo, is to become Twitter’s new COO, according to TechCrunch. Feedburner was sold to Google for $100 million in 2007 and Costolo left Google in July 2009.

Costolo was an early investor in Twitter and has experience in infrastructure, something that Twitter needs as it still suffers from a higher amount of downtime than its competitors. Costolo may also help Twitter develop new features, something that it has not done in quite some time.

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By Antoniu – September 2, 2009

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Launches YouTube Channel

kremlinyoutube.pngRussian President Dmitry Medvedev has now launched his own YouTube channel, joining the growing number of heads of state that have YouTube channels, which includes Barack Obama, Pope Benedict XVI, Nicolas Sarkozy and Queen Elizabeth. The purpose of the channel is to reach out to youth, according to Yahoo! Tech.

The launch of the channel, located at http://youtube.com/kremlin, has come at the beginning of a new school year in Russia and in the first video Medvedev talks to schoolchildren about the importance of neighborly ties.

While before politicians focused on television and print media, they can now also communicate with their constituents using the Web. They are now discovering the power of sites such as YouTube and Twitter to communicate with their nation, especially the youth, and in the future it will likely become an even more more important way to garner support.

[Image from http://youtube.com/kremlin]

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By Antoniu – September 2, 2009

Google Comments on Gmail Downtime

Google has written a blog post explaining the cause of Gmail’s downtime yesterday and has assured users that they are taking steps to prevent it from happening again.

The post explains that in the morning some of the servers running Gmail were taken offline for routine maintenance. Normally this would not be a problem, as request routers, servers that direct queries to the correct Gmail servers, would just direct traffic to the other servers that were still online. The problem was due to some recent tweaks that were made to the request servers which put a greater load on them than expected. Not long after 12.30PM PDT, all of the routers had become overloaded. Because of this, queries were not correctly routed to a Gmail server and the service was down. After being alerted to the problem, Google brought up additional request routers to handle the traffic and was able to bring the service back online. IMAP and POP access was not affected because those protocols do not rely on the same routers.

Google has said that they will be increasing request router capacity and making additional tweaks to ensure better uptime in the future.

My advice to people for whom access to their Gmail account is very important is to have an IMAP account set up in an e-mail client to use if the website were to go down again in the future. Windows XP (Outlook Express), Windows Vista (Windows Mail) and Mac OS X (Mail) all come with e-mail clients installed and setting up an IMAP account is a quick process that is well worth it if having access to your Gmail account at all times is important to you.

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By Antoniu – September 2, 2009

Apple Event on September 9

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CrunchGear reports that Apple will host an event on September 9 themed after a Rolling Stones song. It is expected that Apple will be announcing the release of new iPods in time for the holiday season.

Predictions have been made about Apple dropping the iPod Classic, the last iPod to use a hard drive with moving parts. Many are also hoping for a new version of the iPod Touch that has a video camera.

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By Antoniu – September 1, 2009

Google Begins to Add Street View to South Africa

Google has announced that they are beginning to add street view in South Africa using a fleet of Priuses with their usual cameras mounted on top. Google cites an increase in interest about South Africa due the country hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup as the reason for it working on street view there. Street view will initially be supported in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

As with other places where Google supports street view, face and license plate blurring will be applied and people will be able to report images that they think require additional blurring or removal.

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By Antoniu – September 1, 2009

Gmail is Down

It looks like the Gmail website is down at the moment, although IMAP and POP3 still work if you’re using an e-mail client to access your Gmail account. According to Google, they are aware of the problem, which is affecting a majority of users, and are currently working to resolve the problem for all users.

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Update: Google has stated that they will release more information before 1.53PM PDT (4.53PM EDT).

Update 2: Google has announced that they are continuing to investigate the problem and that they will issue another update by 3.13PM PDT (6.13PM EDT).

Update 3: The problem has been resolved and Gmail is back up.

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By Antoniu – September 1, 2009

iPhone App is Not Approved, Developer goes to Cydia

umonitor.pngTorrentFreak reports that the iPhone app µMonitor has moved to the Cydia app store after Apple rejected it from its App Store. µMonitor allows the user to remotely monitor and control the popular BitTorrent program µTorrent.

While the app does not itself use the BitTorrent protocol, instead it only interacts remotely with the client which is running on the user’s PC, it is Apple’s policy not to approve applications that may somehow, even if indirectly, be used to infringe upon copyrights. While it is probably no surprise to any one that Apple would choose to ban all BitTorrent apps, rather than simply giving up on the project and moving on, the app’s developer, Claudio, decided to release it on Cydia, an alternative app store that can only be accessed on a jailbroken iPhone, where it continues to actively develop the app.

While the ban on BitTorrent applications comes as no surprise, Apple’s strict policies have also led to the removal of many other apps, such as all Google Voice apps. As more apps are turned down by Apple, it will be interesting to see if other developers begin to take their apps to Cydia and if Cydia will be able to mature into a viable alternative app store, competing with Apple’s own App Store. Like the App Store, Cydia supports both free and paid applications, but applications on Cydia do not have to pass the same strict rules that Apple enforces on its app store. The biggest impediment for users in accessing Cydia is that they must jailbreak their iPhones to do so. While the process is quite simple and quick, it may seem complicated for non-power users and Apple discourages it as well. But if Apple continues to deny users access to the apps they want, it is likely that more people will be turning to alternative app stores, such as Cydia, that do not screen apps so rigorously.

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By Antoniu – September 1, 2009

eBay Sells 65% of Skype to Investor Group

Last night it was reported that eBay would likely announce that Skype was to be sold today and it has now done so [PDF]. In a deal that values Skype at $2.75 billion, a group of investors led by Silver Lake and including Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, bought a 65 percent stake in the company for $1.9 billion in cash. The deal is expected to close sometime in the fourth quarter of 2009.

While Skype has been profitable for eBay, generating revenues of $551 million in 2008 and seeing continuous growth, it did not fit in well with eBay’s e-comerce business or with PayPal. Citing this, eBay announced in April that it wanted to launch Skype as a separate company and was planning an IPO for the company in 2010. However, eBay was also considering bids for Skype with “an attractive valuation”. eBay has now accepted the deal put forth by this investor group, which values the company at a greater price than the $2 billion that eBay was looking for.

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By Antoniu – September 1, 2009

eBay to Sell Skype

eBay is likely to announce that they will be selling Skype on Tuesday, 1 September 2009, reports The New York Times [registration required]. eBay is looking to get $2 billion for Skype and the investment group that is going to purchase it is rumored to include Index Ventures, Silver Lake Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, which includes the co-founder of Netscape, Marc Andreessen, who is on the board of directors at eBay.

Although eBay was considering an IPO for Skype next year, it is also shopping the company around to investment firms.

Update: The deal is now official.

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By Antoniu – August 31, 2009