The Technophilez

Vonage and AT&T finalized the settlement of a lawsuit AT&T filed in October, which alleged the VoIP provider infringed AT&T patents. AT&T claimed Vonage used proprietary technology that allowed Vonage to make VoIP calls possible using traditional telephones hooked up to a Vonage-branded router. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

On November 7, Vonage agreed to settle with AT&T, announcing it might pay the company up to $39 million. The deal was agreed upon with relative expediency, as a finalized deal emerged less than three months after AT&T filed the suit on October 17.

Vonage has been no stranger to settlements in the past, agreeing in October 2007 to pay Sprint Nextel $80 million for infringement on voice over packet technology after a lawsuit filed in October 2005. The terms of that settlement also included Vonage's agreement to license Sprint's technology.

That same October, Vonage also agreed to settle with Verizon Communications after the company was sued for patent infringement, with the settlement costs falling between $80 million and $120 million, depending on appeal results regarding two patents.

Earlier this month, Vonage was hit with another patent infringement lawsuit, this time from Nortel Networks, a telecommunications equipment manufacturer. The company charges the beleaguered VoIP company violated nine patents related to Nortel's Internet phone service.

AT&T declined to disclose the terms of the settlement and would not comment further. Vonage confirmed the settlement and declined to comment further on details.

A few days after Google announced the release of its GOOG-411 service, Microsoft has announced its very own free directory assistance service, Live Search 411.

Live Search 411 has very similar functionality to GOOG-411. It is a voice-navigated free information service, powered by the recently acquired Tellme, that you can get to by dialing 800-CALL-411 on any phone.

Much like GOOG-411, you can find any business in a city and state of your choosing, then get its information and a map sent directly to your cell phone via a text message. You can also search by business category and connect directly to the business that you select.

The number is not yet active, and right now, you will get a coming-soon message if you try to call, so I cannot yet evaluate the service's ease of use or quality.

While Google was first to launch its 411 service and has already begun a billboard-advertising campaign in San Francisco, this is still an important launch for Microsoft. To compete with Google, the software giant needs to keep pace.

This is just one more Microsoft service that matches Google's offering. With the release of its much-improved Live Search 2.0 a few weeks ago, along with this release today, it's clear that Microsoft wants to take a real shot at dethroning the search giant.

Web-site buttons from Internet telephony startup Jajah Inc. that allowed eBay Inc. buyers and sellers to initiate phone calls have been banned by eBay, a move that Jajah charges is unjustified.

This week, Jajah released a set of buttons that people can embed on a variety of Web sites to allow others to contact them by phone using the company's Internet telephony platform.

Among the benefits Jajah touts is its ability to drastically reduce the cost of calls thanks to its use of Internet technology and to its agreements with carriers.

Jajah developed a button for eBay, figuring that the ability for buyers and sellers to chat on the phone about potential purchases would be convenient, said Jajah CEO Trevor Healy on Thursday.

Moreover, eBay already provides a similar functionality via its Skype service for some product categories, so there is a precedent for this on the marketplace, he said.

But eBay didn't think so highly of the Jajah plan, ruling that sellers who embed the Jajah button are violating an eBay policy related to the inclusion of links in listings.

The reasoning for the ban is that eBay requires that all interactions between its buyers and sellers occur within its marketplace platform, said Catherine England, an eBay spokeswoman, on Thursday.

This is safer for buyers and sellers and lets eBay keep a record of the activities related to a listing, in case one of the parties puts in a claim against the other and a dispute has to be resolved, England said.

The eBay objection doesn't make total sense to Healy, who counters that Jajah users also have a log of their calls, but he's asking people to stop embedding Jajah buttons on eBay until further notice.

"We don't want to upset eBay, nor do we want our users to get their listings deleted," he said.

Jajah will poll its users to see how many of them are also eBay sellers and would like to have the Jajah functionality on their eBay listings, Healy said.

Based on the findings, Jajah will decide whether to approach eBay to seek a solution. Jajah didn't consult with eBay before making the buttons for the marketplace.

For Jajah, the eBay decision is a setback in its push to make its service available to consumers beyond its regular and mobile Web sites, he said. However, none of the other 30 or 40 other Web sites for which Jajah created buttons -- including Craigslist.com, Bebo.com, LinkedIn.com and MySpace.com -- have objected, he said.

The Jajah buttons violate eBay's Links Policy, England said. In the listings where eBay allows Skype buttons, it requires the buttons be placed in the section devoted to asking sellers a question about the item on sale. This section also includes a mechanism for buyers to type and send a message to sellers.

People can embed the Jajah buttons on their Web pages and social networking profiles by copying and pasting into them a snippet of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) code. Jajah has an explanation of how the buttons work in a blog posting, as well as a writeup specifically about the eBay button in another other blog posting.

EBay doesn't have a way to block the Jajah buttons from being embedded on its listings, but it will remove listings that contain them, England said.

Wouldn't it be nice to pick up the phone on your desk and, without dialing any numbers, say "Joe in accounting," and have your phone not only dial Joe, but bring up the information you have stored for him in Outlook?
That's the idea behind Response Point, Microsoft's answer to the antiquated phone systems that populate the offices of small businesses everywhere.

Redmond announced today that Response Point has been released to manufacturing, and by the end of the year systems will "definitely be available" for purchase, according to Jeff Smith, a senior product manager for Response Point.

Response Point is one of Microsoft's few hardware products, and is available only through OEMs. Thus far, Microsoft has three companies producing Response Point systems: D-Link Corp., Quanta Computer Inc., and Aastra Technologies. Since the OEMs are responsible for producing the systems, Microsoft couldn't give a commercial availability date.

Response Point is the latest entry into the voice over IP (VoIP) market, and Microsoft's proprietary technology powers the system, which includes a base unit with built-in analog telephone adapter (ATA), secure gateway and phones. Response Point fills an urgent need in the small business space, according to Smith.

"We found in the small business environment that two-thirds of all U.S. small businesses don't have a phone system installed at all," Smith said. They generally have a "cobbled together" mishmash of various off-the-shelf products that don't work together well.

That leads to frustration, Smith said. "We saw that the user experience was broken." Even simple tasks, like transferring a call, can leave users shaking their heads. Large enterprises normally have a dedicated phone expert on staff, but small businesses, of course, usually can't afford such a luxury.

VOIP (voice over IP) company's security team as of Sept. 11 was working with domain owners to shut down malicious sites that are infecting Skype for Windows users with a virus being spread via cleverly composed instant messages.

Initially, Skype was calling the virus w32/Ramex.A, but Finnish security firm FSecure is calling it W32/Skipi.A, whereas Symantec, in Cupertino, Calif., is referring to the worm as W32.Pykspa.D—a new variant in the family of worms called Pykspa.

Infected systems are sending chat messages to other Skype users asking them to click on a link that appears as a harmless .jpeg file. If clicked, the worm then transmits the infection anew.

The worm is camouflaging itself with a bitmap file of soap bubbles—namely, a default bitmap graphic contained in the Windows installation directory. If Skype users see the bubbles image after clicking on a link in a Skype message, Symantec said chances are they've been infected.