Calling toll free numbers for free (the SIP way)

Of course calling a toll free number should be free.  But what if you have to pay to make any call, say, on your cell phone (you're using minutes), in a hotel, or overseas (yes, you can call US toll free numbers from overseas, but you still have to pay the going rate for calls to the US).  There are many companies that offer toll free call origination over SIP, no registration or contract required. 

This can be setup in a corporate PBX, or even straight from a client on your laptop.

Here's an example.  Using SJPhone you can place calls to SIP URIs (Uniform Resource Identifier).  SIP is a peer-to-peer protocol, meaning, your SIP client can send SIP messages to another SIP client without having to register or authenticate if the other side doesn't require such things.  Generally, this is an uncommon situation.  However, in this case, some companies are providing this service for free, there is no need to setup an account.

In this case, we are using Denetron.  In order to place a call, in the address bar of the phone, put the following:
sip:tollfreenumber@sip.denetron.com

The toll free number for this service must be in the 11-digit format (1-800, 1-888, etc).

This is what the client will look like

 
The client should be in the PC to PC (SIP) mode or profile.

This would be useful if you are overseas and trying to reach a US toll free number.  You can now do it for free.  Or, if you are in a place where your cell phone doesn't work, but you have a network connection. 

A few services I've tried so far:

Denetron: sip:1800NXXXXXX@sip.denetron.com
IdeaSIP : sip:800NXXXXXX@proxy.ideasip.com
TollFreeGateway.com: sip:800NXXXXXX@sip.tollfreegateway.com
TollFreeTollFree.com: sip:800NXXXXXX@tollfreetollfree.com


In these examples, '800' is used to represent all NPAs for toll free calls, including 800,888, 866, 877....

Other services I haven't yet tried:
Call with us: sip: 1800NXXXXXX@tf.callwithus.com
 

IBM's brain chip

BBC is reporting that IBM has made a processor that acts like the human brain.  Maybe this can be combined with the Eye Camera

Electronics Shopping in Asia

Two places I would love to visit for browsing and buying electronics:
SEG Electronics Market in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Akihabara in Tokyo

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the Development of Washington, D.C., 1790-2004

Haven't looked through the whole thing yet, but this book looks interesting

Places to Hike: Lions Head, SA

On the list of places to visit, Lions Head in Capetown, South Africa.  Some hike details.

Arduino, even simpler?

Arduino is an open source microcontroller for learning electronics and prototyping projects.  It seems someone has taken it a step further, abstracted some of the complexity of coding, and made learning even simpler.  Teagueduino is still in the beginning stages, but it looks really interesting.

Social Supercomputing?

Not sure what Opani is exactly, but it looks interesting.

Comparing storage price, weight, and size over the years

Comparisons like these never cease to amaze me

Original post via SC-TECH

The future of interactive communications on the Internet

Good interview with Andy Ory, new CEO of Acme Packet concerning the future of interactive communication (think voice and video) on the internet.  Some interesting quotes:

The notion of bandwidth being unlimited is a myth. And the notion of all communications being of equal importance is a myth. Some sessions are just more important than others. The Internet, the Layer 3 network, doesn't think from a session point of view, it thinks from a packet point of view. It isn't able to recognize and make these kinds of deterministic decisions that need to be made for people to really feel comfortable that the network's meeting their global need. So that's another example of what you get out of your telephone network that you don't get out of your Internet.

What I am saying is that applications and services are going to emerge that allow us to federate our economic and social lives in a way where we can control who can reach us, when, how and under what circumstances. That is a major, major change.

You don't want to [call into a contact center] because it takes time and nobody ever hangs up as a customer from a contact center and says, wow, I'm really glad I made that call.