Software and games

While GrandCentral may have been stealing headlines lately, there's another suffix-sharing phone call management service called RingCentral that can make small businesses look and function like larger ones with some pretty neat telephonic tomfoolery. The service has been around since early 2004, and today is introducing a slew of VoIP plans called DigitalLine that give users the option to use VoIP instead of, or on top of their existing landlines.

So what can you do with RingCentral? Small business owners will love it, since you can set up a ridiculously extensive set of rules to handle incoming calls, or reroute them on the fly with a virtual phone call manager called SoftPhone. The idea is to take a single or multiline setup and spread it out intelligently, while putting all the options online for you to manage and tweak while away from your office.

Like GrandCentral, you can set up calls to be routed to different phones or line extensions, there are also handy business-centric settings to tweak the response people get when they call at off-business hours. For fans of GrandCentral's multiphone ring system, RingCentral has also gone the extra step of letting you add three-digit passwords to an incoming phone call to keep unintended pickups from happening. This feature actually stemmed out of users wanting to keep their children from answering a business phone call when they had forgotten to turn off the home forwarding options off, or couldn't get to their own phone in time.

The new VoIP implementation is fairly straightforward. All incoming calls can be set to be received via VoIP, letting you receive and manage phone calls while away from your landline. You can also get various minute packages to use VoIP to make outgoing calls, including an all-you-can-eat plan of outgoing VoIP for around $25/month. In contrast to consumer VoIP services like Vonage, Skype, or Comcast's DigitalVoice, RingCentral isn't aiming at cheap outgoing long distance providers, as much as the multi-line business crowd who's looking for a way to handle several lines without the hardware or staffing.

For a shot of the call log interface, click the read more link below.

… Read more

Ah yes, Facebook, the social community Web site that some cannot survive a day without, while others can't wait to see it go down in history as yet another failed Web 2.0 attempt. It's anything but going away for now. And if the huge database of applications (some utter crap) isn't enough to impress, Mobispine is here to add to your joy, or headache, or both. The mobile media browser allows you to share news with your friends via traditional SMS method or publish it as a feed on your Facebook account from the convenience of … Read more

CHIBA, Japan--Remember convergence? The idea that the TV and conventional technologies would merge? It came out about the same time as that series ER and has aged about as well in North America.

In Japan, it's another story. Watching TV on your PC is actually quite common. A huge number of desktops and notebooks come with TV tuners and people actually use them, according to several residents.

"There are a lot of ads for TV PCs," he said Yasutoshi Magara, managing director of Microsoft Japan. Sharp Electronics, he noted, just came out with a PC-TV combo with … Read more

Millions of people in 15 European and Latin American countries will be searching the Web and getting news and ads on their mobile phones from Yahoo under a deal the search provider inked with Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica.

Under the partnership, Yahoo's OneSearch mobile software will be the exclusive search engine for Telefonica local subsidiaries in the U.K., Ireland, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Panama, Uruguay, Nicaragua and El Salvador. It will be the preferred search choice on Telefonica in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.

Telefonica also will integrate Yahoo's photo site Flickr and Yahoo Mail into its … Read more

MySpace users can now e-mail, add friends, and edit profile information for free from their mobile phone.

MySpace Mobile Web beta became available this week, featuring a WAP browsing experience that's lighter, sparser, and more cost-effective than the downloadable version users purchase from their phone carriers for about $3 per month.

The free WAP version has a much more austere interface, which helps support compatibility across carriers and manufactures. I was able to check and write e-mail, search for contacts, edit my profile, and update my blog quickly and without incident on a Verizon LG flip phone.… Read more

NEW YORK--It seems people like any excuse to play any video game.

While Halo III and Guitar Hero may be drawing a crowd at DigitalLife 2007, so were classics like Ms. Pac-man.

Namco had a large space at DigitalLife to remind gamers that video games of the '80s are now available for their phone.

Namco offers games like Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man, Dig Dug, Mr. Do, Popeye, Snoopy and the Flying Ace, Galaga and even board games like Scene It?.

The games are available, regardless of your carrier, for the Palm OS, Windows Mobile phones, the iPod and the Sidekick, as … Read more

The Walt Disney Co. pulled the plug Thursday on its Disney Mobile phone service.

Disney said the service will no longer be available after December 31, but it might offer some of the specially designed software and applications through another wireless operator.

Disney came on the mobile scene about 18 months ago with a special phone service designed to disseminate its content and create a slew of applications designed for parents and families. Its Family Center allows parents to track their kids and limit how and when they can use their phones. It also allows parents to set spending limits … Read more

In the continuing effort to overcome its inferiority complex and expand its horizons, the lowly mouse has made various attempts to double as a VoIP handset. As odd as it may seem, most of the designs for these combo devices have mimicked flip phones, as seen in models by Sony and Genius.

Chinavasion wants to separate its own phone-mouse from the pack with a slider design, a la the Chocolate, with an LCD on a cover that slides back to reveal the keypad, according to Chip Chick. Not satisfied with just two functions, the Chinese company--which has made a name … Read more

This was the most entertaining idea at DemoFall so far, and probably the most ridiculous: MixGet (site not live yet). It's technology that turns individual cellphones into synchronized music players. So if you have a crowd of people together, one person's phone might play a guitar track, another vocals, another drums.

The presenter tried to justify this product as a potential new kind of ringtone, but I'm not sure I see it. This project is from Redsquare Ventures, which is trying to bring Russian entrepreneurs' ideas to market.

I love this idea. But I don't see … Read more