VoIPWatch

The Comunicano Communique for Thursday December 31st 2015

The Comunicano Communique

On behalf of all the Comunicano's, our clients, friends, service providers and all whom make what we do possible, may you all have a Happy, Healthy and Fabulous New Year... Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     Studios set phasers to kill off crowdfunded Star Trek fan film An unofficial Star Trek fan film, hailed as one of the most successful crowdfunding exercises of 2015, is facing potential catastrophe after the owners of the long-running space saga moved to sue for copyright.     [continue...]     Soft-skinned, brunette social robot Nadine wants to be your friend It's going to be hard to 'resistor.' A life-like cyborg was unveiled this week by engineers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore- - and is being touted as the first emotionally intelligent humanoid. Nadine has been working as a university receptionist to test her skills -- expressing a range of emotions and changing moods depending on the subject and tone of her conversations, according to UPI.     [continue...]     In Silicon Valley Now, It's Almost Always Winner Takes All - The New Yorker In September, 2014, after investing in a ride-sharing company called Sidecar, Richard Branson declared that it was "early days and, like a lot of other commodity businesses, there is room for innovators on great customer experiences." He added that he was not putting his money into a "winner-takes-all market."     [continue...]     U.S. Broadband Speeds Tripled in 3.5 Years In an effort to keep up with an increasingly data-dependent society, U.S. broadband speeds have tripled over the past 3.5 years. The Federal Communications Commission's fifth Measuring Broadband America report, released Wednesday, said average download speeds increased to nearly 31 megabits per second (Mbps) in September 2014 - up from 10 Mbps in March 2011.     [continue...]     CES 2016: Expect Buzz Around Smart Homes, Smart Cars, Virtual Reality The International Consumer Electronics Show, known universally as CES, will be bigger than ever this year, expanding its Las Vegas footprint to 2.4 million square feet to swallow up 150,000 attendees for a glimpse into the future. But unlike in many prior years, there's no single large overriding theme.     [continue...]     Significant new products in 2015 Here's my take on some of the more interesting and significant products for 2015. Apple Watch - The eagerly-anticipated Apple Watch finally arrived, and once again showed Apple's unrivaled skills in design and integration of software and hardware. While not a must-have, it's a useful tool for helping us do small tasks.     [continue...]     AT&T Confirms It Is Doing Away With Two-Year Phone Pricing for Consumers While cellphones have gone from giant bricks to flip phones to smartphones, consumers in the U.S. have generally bought the things in the same way. They pay a fraction of the true cost of the phone, with carriers subsidizing the difference and making it back on the monthly service fees they charge.     [continue...]     Security Testing Market to Grow to $6.9 Billion by 2020 - ABI Reserach With the ubiquity of web and cloud-based software applications, security hackers are continuously capitalizing on software application security flaws to steal customer information, expose sensitive customer records and, ultimately, hurt a business' reputation. In response to this trend, security testing solutions have been seeing a steady rise in demand.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Communique for Wednesday December 30th 2015

The Comunicano Communique

It's Wednesday before New Year's Eve and likely for many the last work day of the year unless you're in the travel, delivery or hospitality industry. Yesterday I spoke with my UPS route manager and he revealed just how busy they are getting. Normally his heavy period ends just after New Years, but UPS is scheduling his helper though March.  That's based on predictive analytics and the volume velocity they are seeing, not only from Amazon but just about every online retailer and products company. To me, we're now at a tipping point of online and bricks and mortar retail where the real money is being made in the middle with logistics, not simply retail. And you wonder why Amazon wants there own planes...But I digress...below are some stories you may want to peruse as you clean up your desk(top) get ready for next year and look back on what has been a great year for many. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     Inside the $1.1 Billion Startup Behind Nearly Every App You Use-Twilio Developers want the customers using their apps to be able to communicate with the businesses that deploy them, whether that's through voice, text, or video. If that seems obvious, it is. And it's one of the reason's that Twilio, the communications development platform, based in San Francisco, California, has been so outrageously successful in recent years.     [continue...]     New Wireless Tech Will Free Us From the Tyranny of Carriers Cell coverage can be fickle. You might get great reception at home but spotty coverage at work or at the gym even though other carriers work fine. And even if your carrier has your entire city pretty well covered, all bets are off when you travel.     [continue...]     Global mobile: why 2016 is the global tipping point for the mobile economy Scientists in Antarctica are downloading mobile games. Parents in Syria worry about kids using too much tech. Islanders in American Samoa connect with 4G, and sherpas in Nepal chat on their smartphones while lugging 75-pound loads. What's happening? The mobile economy is reaching a global tipping point.     [continue...]     Airbnb is becoming a real threat to the hotel business in big US cities Altogether, 2015 was a good year for the US hotel industry. For the month of November, US hotels improved on three key metrics: room occupancy, average daily rates, and revenue per available room, according to STR Global, a hotel industry research firm. Year to date, hotel performance is also up across the board.     [continue...]     How does the Cybersecurity Act of 2015 change the Internet surveillance laws? The Omnibus Appropriations Act that President Obama signed into law last week has a provision called the Cybersecurity Act of 2015. The Cyber Act, as I'll call it, includes sections about Internet monitoring that modify the Internet surveillance laws. This post details those changes, focusing on how the act broadens powers of network operators to conduct surveillance for cybersecurity purposes.     [continue...]     Countries Rush for Upper Hand in Antarctica On a glacier-filled island with fjords and elephant seals, Russia has built Antarctica's first Orthodox church on a hill overlooking its research base, transporting the logs all the way from Siberia.     [continue...]     15 Reasons Why Your Sales(people's) Numbers Might Not Add Up When I write articles like this I sometimes feel that I may have regressed into my former roles as the whining sales manager. While there may be some truth to that, the following also represents me looking into the mirror and not liking what I see since I have personally committed each of these selling sins and, believe me, have done so more than once.     [continue...]     Cyber Security for Family and Teens [Infographic]  The internet is a very vast place where parental boundaries are hard to make. In today's internet culture of cyberbullying, sexting, social media addiction and inappropriate content it has never been so hard to censor what your child is exposed to.     [continue...]     Meet The Winners: The Coolest Israeli Startups And Innovations Of 2015 2015 was a stellar year for Israeli innovation. Over the past year, the Israeli startup ecosystem has made global headlines with a host of new cutting-edge technologies that include breakthrough medical devices, FinTech solutions, cyber-security systems, Internet of Things (IoT) gizmos, and a long list of cool gadgets and apps that have gained immense popularity around the world during 2015.     [continue...]     5 Apps to Help With Your New Year's Resolutions Want to make your New Year's resolution last more than just a few days? While it ultimately comes down to you, there are plenty of apps that can provide the extra motivation you need to stay the course. Whether it's quitting a bad habit or building a healthy new one, check out these five apps to help you reach your goals.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Communique for Monday December 28th 2015

The Comunicano Communique

It's Monday, and I have to wonder how many people are really back to work versus being "at work" this week. Well, your trusty curator has been sniffing out the stories and making news myself in CommPro.Biz and realizing how great it is to not be traveling this holiday season.  Today we'll look at the best commercials and ads from 2015--love the Nike spot and the Atlantic spots--, read a piece about celebrity endorsements-good or bad, a rant from pal Dean Bubley and much, much more. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     2016 Predictions from An Early Adoptive Comms Pro - CommPRO.biz Editor's Note: CommPRO is reaching out to our community, asking the c-suite for 2016 predictions. We welcome your commentary. Please email By Andy Abramson, CEO/Founder, Comunicano, Inc. As the year comes to an end, and as our minds wander and look ahead to 2016, one cannot reflect on what's happened in 2015 to envision what the upcoming year may look like.     [continue...]     Zuckerberg compares free internet services to public libraries and hospitals Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has written a forceful defense of the company's plans to offer limited, free internet access in India, comparing Facebook's Free Basics service with libraries and public hospitals.     [continue...]     Amazon Shattered Records with an an Insanely Successful Holiday Season Amazon reports that it had an absolutely massive holiday season, the biggest ever in its 21-year history, hitting numerous milestones. The Seattle-based company added 3 million new Amazon Prime subscribers in the third week of December alone, buoyed by free two-day shipping-only two- hours in some areas.     [continue...]     Amazon Prime adds more than 3M new members in 1 week at peak of shopping season - GeekWire Amazon said tonight that it added more than 3 million new Amazon Prime members globally in just one week at the height of the holiday shopping season this year. It's the latest sign of growth for the company's $99/year free-shipping and video-streaming subscription service.     [continue...]     Mobile internet is now just the internet The Christmas holidays are the time of year when different generations of the family gather around the dinner table. So it's a perfect opportunity for a spot of tech anthropology. Here's how to do it. At some point, insert into the conversation a contemporary topic about which most people have strong opinions but know relatively little.     [continue...]     Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless: New Year Rant: 10 Awful Tech-Industry Terms to Stop Using in 2016     In the spirit of the holiday season and New Year, this is another list about 2016. There's a bunch of words and concepts used in the technology industry that make you look like a fool, or at least lazy and sloppy. They're often meaningless, duplicitously-used to "misframe" an argument, or just generally cringe-worthy.     [continue...]     10 of the Best Ads of 2015 For all the fear surrounding ad blocking, there are still a lot of people watching ads. Consider Geico's Unskippable pre-roll ad: It currently has more than 8.1 million views on YouTube. Or look to Android's ad featuring unlikely animal friends: It became the most shared ad of all time, with more than 6.4 million shares.     [continue...]     2016's Biggest Social Media Trends for Business This year, social media adoption hit a new high. Around the world, there are now more than 2 billion active social media users (growing at a steady pace of 25 percent a year). This means more people now regularly use social media than the entire populations of the United States and China, combined.     [continue...]     Unfortunate Celebrity Endorsements of 2015-They're No Slam Dunk! Many people may think that celebrity sponsorships are the holy grail of marketing, but are they really worth it? While stars can boost a brand's image temporarily, they can also be a horrible match for a company in the long term. As a result, many consumers end up viewing the brand as inauthentic-or worse!     [continue...]     6 Ways to Quit Bullet Points with Style 6 simple yet stylish design alternatives to the hated bullet point - to help you step up your presentation game.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Communique Sunday Edition for December 27th 2015

The Comunicano Communique

The Sunday Edition of The Comunicano Communique is here. The idea behind the "Sunday Edition" is to curate more feature focused articles that can help you grow, think about how your business is run and identify trends in the world of business and technology. While the weekday editions tend to include more "hard news" the Sunday Edition will offer a greater mix of insight, perspective and opinion. I hope you enjoy it and, like the Sunday paper of days gone by, you read leisurely, without the pressures of the workday. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     How To Focus: 5 Research-Backed Secrets To Concentration A question a lot of us are struggling with these days is "how to focus." Concentration seems hard. Why does everyone joke about having ADD? There's a reason... Ed Hallowell, former professor at Harvard Medical School and bestselling author of Driven to Distraction, says we have "culturally generated ADD."     [continue...]     6 Reasons Why Bigger Is Not Better In Your Startup Many passionate entrepreneurs fight to add more features into their new products and services, assuming that more function will make the solution more appealing to more customers. In reality, more features will more likely make the product confusing and less usable to all.     [continue...]     The Freelancer Generation: Why Startups And Enterprises Need To Pay Attention Gone are the days of the 40-hour work week that kept us at work eight hours a day (I find that most startup founders or business owners in Silicon Valley work 50-60 hours a week). Freelancing is becoming the accepted norm of the startup world.     [continue...]     Drone jammers to guard top events The system can detect, track and disrupt the controls of any rogue drones (Christopher Furlong) SOPHISTICATED drone-jamming technology is to be deployed at major public and sporting events in the UK following a successful trial at last month's Remembrance Sunday parade, The Sunday Times can reveal.     [continue...]     Verizon Rumoured to Launch Premium Go90 with Zero-Rated Streaming Video Service Verizon will introduce a paid version of its Go90 video streaming service in the first quarter next year, according to Barclays in its report to its trading clients about Verizon. The new service will be similar to what T-Mobile is offering via its 'Binge On', allowing subscribers to enjoy unlimited video streaming without eating into their monthly data allocation.     [continue...]     2016: The year the freight industry goes online Uber was founded just six years ago. It's come a long way since. In its latest funding round, Uber was valued at $68 billion, more than Netflix and Twitter combined. But industries change slowly. With all the hype, Uber still just has 13% market penetration in New York, with traditional taxi companies responding by also going online.     [continue...]     The WiFi Scam That Could Steal Your Credit Card Info Hotel WiFi is one of the most important amenities these days. But it can also create serious headaches for travelers. Josh Roberts of SmarterTravel.com weighs in on the newest WiFi scam and how you can protect yourself.     [continue...]     Charities target social media influencers Charities are turning to online stars with large YouTube audiences, following an approach increasingly used by big brands to reach new donors and volunteers. The Make-a-Wish Foundation, for children with life-threatening illnesses, DigDeep, the non-p     [continue...]     11 Bitcoin Startups That Went Bust in 2015 This year was a time of further consolidation for the bitcoin industry. After what you might call a 'Wild West' period (when it seemed everyone with the urge was setting up their own bitcoin-based service), the space is now rapidly becoming more dominated by bigger, more professional outfits, often with serious funding to get them off to a solid start.     [continue...]     Top 10 industry highlights of 2015     As we step into 2016, ClickZ presents the most important news in digital marketing over the past year, such as Periscope's debut and Google's "Mobilegeddon." Looking back, 2015 was an exciting time to be in the digital marketing industry, with so many technology advances and product updates, as well as mergers and acquisitions.     [continue...]     The 25 Must-Download Apps of 2015 It's easy to get stuck in a rut using the same ol' apps day in and day out -- or maybe you're hoarding so many random Bejeweled Blitzes and fancy weather widgets you can't see the forest for the trees anymore. Either way, which new apps are actually worth a trip to the iTunes store?     [continue...]     A Holiday Perspective On Technology And Consumerism Holiday shopping, long a staple in American life, has undergone significant change over the past half century. The "Miracle on 34th Street" post-war tradition of heading downtown to Macy's or Bloomingdale's has evolved from quaintly old-fashioned to downright anachronistic.     [continue...]     Columbia House Counting On Vinyl Resurgence For Its Revival Millennials can be forgiven for not knowing about Columbia House because by the time they grew up this company had practically lost all of its importance that it held on to for decades. This mail-order service actually went bankrupt over the summer primarily because nobody wants to buy discs anymore when digital downloads and streaming have made life so much easier.     [continue...]     5 ways developers can exploit geospatial tech in 2016 Since the rise of geospatial technology, applications like Facebook, Uber, and Grindr, have enabled users to engage with their surroundings to connect with friends, book a room, or set up a date. But the application of geospatial technologies is really in its infancy.     [continue...]     Mark Cuban: I Don't Take Risks But I Sure Can Dance I've considered Mark Cuban a friend since September 1997, when I flew from New York to New Orleans to attend a broadcast news industry conference. At the event - the Radio Television News Directors Association convention - I came across a exhibitor then known as AudioNet.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

Automating Tasks Save Time via API Services

As someone who is not a coder I've been a convert to API integration services for a long, long time. Using two services, Zapier and IFTTT, I've automated a lot of my social media as well as my daily routine tasks. I'm now playing with WorkFlow on my iPhone and iPad to do some of the same things while on the go.  

For example, each time I create a GoToMeeting session, an automated calendar routine is run, making it easy for me to send out calendar items to everyone with notes. This Zapier "Zap" leverages access to both the GoToMeeting API and the Google Calendar API. In parallel, and since other members of the Comunicano Team have the ability to set up calls on my conference bridge Zapier also accesses the same GTM API and calls the GMAIL API to send an email to me that a conference session was created. Another option I've "programmed" is to combine GoToMeeting and Twilio's SMS API to be alerted by SMS of the same information. If I wanted to I could also notify others on my team, post to a team calendar or notify someone else who needed to know what was scheduled if I had a real life assistant.

Over on the IFTTT API integration side , I've made it possible with various weather services to receive key information on a daily basis. Using an integration with Yahoo Weather I receive an alert the night before when it's going to rain, as well as the daily weather reports for places I tend to frequent. Yahoo pulls the data from the Weather Channel and IFTTT sends the details every morning into my inbox.  But, because I'm using IFTTT I don't need to know how to code at all to make the API work for me.

Another useful IFTTT integration takes advantage of my iPhone's GPS location data to tell my friends that I'm back in town via a FaceBook status post and in turn when I get back "home" the same type of alert goes out. I've set up individual alerts for places I frequent, thus eliminating the need to post each time on FaceBook.

These two services are not new, but the number of services they are integrating with keeps growing. For me, finding ways to eliminate having to manually do something by assigning it to a BOT is worth the time and effort to learn just what has been made both possible and easy.

The Comunicano Communique for Friday December 25th 2015

The Comunicano Communique

Merry Christmas....While today is a holiday, the start of a three day weekend or the start of a ten day break for many, I'm still reading and curating news articles.  Today's Comunicano Communique features of course a story on Google's Santa Tracker, as well as a few hard news items about Kickstarter, IBM's Watson and Amazon, plus a bunch of lists to keep you well informed over the coming days of some of the best ofs...so have a happy, safe, sane and sincere holiday, wherever you may be. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     The engineering elves building Google's Santa Tracker  SAN FRANCISCO---Google launched the start of its annual summertime I/O developer summit by championing Android's active user base of one billion and counting. It appears Santa Claus might be one of them. One of the internet giant's more charming projects, the Santa Tracker has become somewhat of a digital yuletide tradition over the last decade.     [continue...]     Kickstarter hires journalist to investigate campaign that failed to deliver to backers Failure is a part of crowdfunding. And Kickstarter is making a push to be more transparent about what that failure looks like and why it happens. Science and technology journalist Mark Harris announced this week that he has been hired by the Brooklyn-based crowdfunding platform Kickstarter to investigate and write an expose about why a crowdfunding campaign on its platform failed.     [continue...]     IBM Watson: AI For The Real World IBM Watson, the company's AI cognitive computing platform, has attracted an ecosystem of developers and users who are layering the technology on top of their own to make it even smarter. Here's an update on Watson's evolution and why IBM can confidently assure us it won't ever become HAL.     [continue...]     Amazon Seeks to Ease Ties With UPS As the clock counts down to Christmas, workers at United Parcel Service Inc. are busy hustling packages along loading docks and conveyor belts at its Louisville, Ky., hub-part of a costly, intricate system built in part to cater to Amazon.com Inc., its biggest customer.     [continue...]     35 Cool Social Media Facts Social media seems to have been with us forever. In fact Facebook has turned ten!...that is an eternity in tech. Social media is so old that the fun police have turned up and are threatening to ruin the party. The no rules and the dope smoking, beer swilling social media parties have started moving into the board room.     [continue...]     13 Asian Startups To Watch In 2016 2015 was an eventful year for the tech industry in Asia. Funding started to flow in India, which is expected to become the world's second-largest Internet market soon, while many tech companies in China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia also hit key milestones.     [continue...]     The European Startup Revolution has arrived The following is my (slightly edited version) foreword of a new book that is being released today. Written by one of our co-founders, Croatian entrepreneur / writer Ivo Špigel, and co-published by Tech.eu, we're extremely proud to present you with 'The European Startup Revolution'.     [continue...]     The 50 Best Podcast Episodes of 2015 A year's worth of highlights from an increasingly vibrant genre Please consider disabling it for our site, or supporting our work in one of these ways Subscribe Now > More than 300,000 podcasts exist in the world as of the close of 2015.     [continue...]     12 Travel Apps Worth Keeping in 2016 Recently I deleted dozens of travel apps from my iPhone. Many are great. They allowed me to research unfamiliar places, listen to audio tours and turn my photos into postcards. But travel is about tapping the world, not a screen, so I'm ending the year with an app purge.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Communique for Thursday December 24th 2015

The Comunicano Communique     Happy Holidays....I am spending lots of time going in and out of LAX so the news about Lyft (and Uber) is a wonderful holiday present to me. On demand travel services are amazing. Last night when I went to catch up with a friend over a drink I used Uber. My total cost was $10.00 round trip. If I valeted it would have been that, plus a tip, not to mention concerns about DUI's or simply having to hassle with driving. This holiday season, Uber or Lyft. Today's Comunicano Communique has tips and suggestions and a few tid bits of insight....read on...!! Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     Lyft launches service at LAX: Travel Weekly Ground Transportation Lyft has become the first ride-sharing company to begin licensed service at Los Angeles International Airport. The company began pick-ups and drop-offs at LAX on Wednesday. The move came after an August vote of the Los Angeles City Council that paved the way for Lyft and its main rival, Uber, to apply for licensed operations at LAX.     [continue...]     For Parental Controls, iPhones Beat Androids CHILDREN who were on the "nice" list this year may soon unwrap smartphones as holiday gifts. But parents may be wary of the naughty things that children can do with the gadgets - and with good reason.     [continue...]     Building a Video Conferencing Culture Animation number 2. You have the video conferencing technology in the company, but the staff are not using it. What do you do? Follow our simple guide and make the most of your investment. Read our white paper on office champions and create the correct culture. http://inbound.videocall.co.uk/download-creating-a-video-conferencing-culture     [continue...]     5 misconceptions about shipping refunds     1. If a shipment is delivered late, you will receive the late shipment fee automatically. NO. That is not quite it works. UPS and FedEx advertise and market their on-time delivery guarantee. What they don't tell you is this: they don't wire you the money they owe you when they goof up.     [continue...]     How Do Successful People's Sleep Patterns Compare to the Average American? Are successful people's sleep patterns giving them a leg-up on average people? "Successful" people get more shut-eye than you might expect, with more than 50% of 21 surveyed clocking in at 6-8 hours every night. An infographic put together by a U.K.     [continue...]     20+ Fitness Tools that Track Your Exercise, Meals, Sleep, and More Quick: How many hours of sleep did you get the night before your most recent productive day? What did you eat for breakfast? Did you exercise at all, or meditate when you woke up? We all have days that feel more productive than others, when our brains feel focused, clear...     [continue...]     Logos vs. Brand - Advice for Food & Drink Businesses & Hotels Powered by RebelMouse Entrepreneurs who are in food and drink businesses & hotels should aim at turning their business into a brand. This is the ultimate aim of business owners, as they want to sideline competition in a big way. When customers see your business as a brand, they start believing in it without doubting qu...     [continue...]     Beat Boredom: 21 of the Best Podcasts, Movies, Shows, Books & Apps to Keep You Entertained While Traveling Whether you're driving across town, stuck on a layover, or settling down for an overnight train ride, you're going to have some time to kill the next time you travel. If you're anything like me, spending hours window shopping at the airport or scrolling aimlessly through your Facebook News Feed feels like a total waste of time.     [continue...]   We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Communique for Wednesday December 23rd 2015

The Comunicano Communique

It's Wednesday before Christmas. In looking for the news I found a few tidbits for travelers, an acquisition by former client Truphone in the IoT space, moves being made by Google, a spat between T-Mobile and YouTube, the fact that the Beatles are giving us all a long lasting holiday present, insights about the changing face of in store retail marketing, how Uber manages to win and more. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     Google Accuses T-Mobile of Throttling YouTube Traffic Google Accuses T-Mobile of Throttling YouTube Traffic Google has accused T-Mobile of throttling YouTube traffic, even when customers are opted out of the company's Binge On service. As we noted last month, T-Mobile's new Binge On service exempts video services from the company's data caps, but throttles that content back to 480p.     [continue...]     Google Plans New, Smarter Messaging App News Corp is a network of leading companies in the worlds of diversified media, news, education, and information services. Users will be able to text friends or a chatbot that will scour the Web and other sources to answer a question Google is building a new mobile-messaging service that taps its artificial intelligence know-how and so-called chatbot technology to try to catch rivals including Facebook Inc.     [continue...]     Genius for Android Detects the Song You're Playing, Provides Lyrics If you ever needed an Android app that could not only recognise the song playing on your phone, but also display its lyrics, you will want to check Genius. The app added the latter feature in a recent update. The feature is not available on Genius' iOS app.     [continue...]     The Beatles Are Coming to Apple Music, Spotify and Everywhere Else on Christmas Eve You can spend Christmas streaming the Beatles. The world's most famous band will finally be available on streaming music services, starting this Thursday, Christmas Eve. And they'll be available very, very widely: Industry sources say that the Fab Four's music will be on all of the obvious music services, including Spotify, Apple Music, Google Play and Tidal, as well as some you might not expect, including Amazon's Prime Music.     [continue...]     New NBA Store Has an 'Endless Aisle' Thanks to E-Commerce Partner E-commerce is increasingly invading physical retail, and the National Basketball Association is jumping on board. The league's new capabilities were on display on Monday - the grand opening day for the new NBA flagship store at 5th Avenue and 45th Street in New York City.     [continue...]     Five Trends Ready to Disrupt In-Store Retail in 2016 | Xconomy With 2015 coming to a close, retailers are looking ahead for the next wave of technology that will impact in-store innovation. While we're still waiting for some popular 2015 predictions to take off, including the merging of online recommendation engines with in-store visits, other trends such as e-commerce sites opening more brick and mortar locations and the increased focus on mobile continue to flourish.     [continue...]     Data guru who changed baseball to help scientists Economist Paul DePodesta, whose pioneering methods for evaluating baseball players were lionized in the movie "Moneyball," has been hired by the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla to find new ways to analyze medical data.     [continue...]     Comcast installs DOCSIS 3.1 Gigabit class modem on live network in Philadelphia Comcast, the largest broadband provider by subscribers in the United States, has announced what it claims is the installation of the world's first live DOCSIS 3.1 modem on a customer-facing network. Having deployed the equipment in a property in Philadelphia late last month, the cableco said this represented 'the next important step forward in delivering Gigabit speed broadband over [its] hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) network'.     [continue...]     UK Start-up Truphone Acquires IoT Connectivity Management Platform From CoSwitched UK based global mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Truphone announced the acquisition of the Internet of Things)(IoT) Connectivity Management Platform from CoSwitched, an IoT start-up providing management platform for connected machines, such as connected cars, asset trackers or smart meters.     [continue...]     Uber backed by competition watchdog in TfL regulation battle Uber has been given a boost in its attempts to stave off proposed changes to regulating the taxi trade in London, after the competition authority said the reforms would not serve the public interest.     [continue...]     12 Best Long-Haul Airline Seats in the Sky to Fly in 2016 Long-haul flight can be excruciating, but it doesn't need to be. Aeronautics engineers, aircraft manufacturers, designers, and airlines have collaborated to improve the choices available, introducing cabins which could make flying long distances bearable again.     [continue...]     The Best Restaurant in America's 40 Biggest Airports Because no one likes having to settle for the Spear O Mint Life Savers in the baggage-claim vending machines, we've painstakingly sought out the best restaurant and its precise location in each of the 40 largest American airports. Please adjust your travel plans accordingly.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Comunicano Comnunique for Tuesday December 22nd 2015

The Comunicano Communique

It's Tuesday and the news is S L O W !!!! But yesterday Skype Microsoft made an acquisition of sorts, snapping up Talko. I played around with the HyperVoice based Talko when it first was released and understand the premise. For Skype think of this as an acquihire that includes some forward looking technology that they need to keep up with Cisco. Have a view on the news today? Please let me know what you think....Andy Abramson     Talko comes to Skype I am pleased to announce today that Microsoft has acquired technology from Talko, maker of an innovative mobile app for on-the-go business communications. As part of the agreement, Talko employees will join the Skype team. Together, the new technology and talent will help us deliver great new features and capabilities in both Skype and Skype for Business.     [continue...]     If you like Stephen Colbert's sense of humor or are a StarWars fan you have to watch his "Plot Summary" riff. It's too funny to miss.     Stephen Explains "Star Wars" To China When the first "Star Wars" came out in 1977, western media was suppressed in China. So to get his Chinese viewers excited about the new film, Stephen sums up what they missed.     [continue...]     How APIs are Disrupting Business Changing the world, one API Enterprise at a time. In today's installment of #BigIdeas2016, I'd like to take a quick minute to talk about how APIs are disrupting not just the tech industry, but all of business. Application programming interfaces or APIs, are one of the driving forces behind a lot of digital disruption out there.     [continue...]     Zapier soothes BYOA woes, connecting APIs from enterprise apps The story of how Zapier got its start is not dissimilar to that of many other startups. The company, which offers app integration and automation services, began when its founders started noticing a distinct trend in their previous work.     [continue...]     The 10 Biggest Tech Trends for 2016 If you already feel like you are living in a sci-fi futuristic fantasy, just wait. Technology is getting exponentially faster, more immersive and intuitive. And as technology changes, so does the way we live.     [continue...]     Hospitality Net - Are Virtual Reality Concierges Coming? In the next several years, virtual reality is expected to see massive adoption. According to Digi-Capital, VR is predicted to grow into a $30 billion industry by 2020. Already, a number of large and small hospitality brands are utilizing this new technology to reach and engage guests. But what does this look like?     [continue...]     Fact-Checking the Debate on Encryption As politicians and counter-terrorism officials search for lessons from the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, senior officials have called for limits on technology that sends encrypted messages. It's a debate that has repeatedly recurred for more than a decade.In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration directed technology companies to store copies of their encryption keys with the government.     [continue...]     CES 2016: What Not to Miss for Marketing and Media Professionals An informed look into the must-see brands, startups and events from PSFK's conference guide Virtual media environments, connected home ecosystems and emotion-controlled entertainment have shaped the media and marketing landscapes of today. The integration of such future-focused technologies into brand experience has presented ever more opportunities to reach an audience, allowing brands to design for more immersive and hyper-targeted conversations.     [continue...]

We hope you are enjoying The Comunicano Daily. If you want to share it with friends, colleagues and co-workers, or even your wife, child or even someone you don't like, please do. They can join by visiting The Comunicano Daily signup page: http://eepurl.com/BFXkD

The Delivery Economy Redux

Of late I've been living in Los Angeles, enjoying Gigabit Ethernet Broadband from Race Communications, and now mostly seeing speeds in the 800 megabit range. Their tech support is exquisite and their people first rate. By living in the nation's second biggest metropolitan area I've also been exposed to what I'm referring to as the delivery economy. Literally whatever you want can be delivered, and between Amazon Fresh, Now, Pantry plus Google Express I've experienced the good and the bad sides of it.

The good and great comes from Google Express. What you order is to you in about 4 hours or the next day. You place your order from say Costco, get your. Costco membership points, avoid the lines at Costco (and are they always packed) and the Express team brings them to your door. Amazon is a whole different story. As an Amazon Prime member delivery is really like playing Russian Roulette. It may come via UPS and my super switched on UPS driver Darren, who after the first package he delivered knew me and my name on sight when he saw me at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Don't dare call him a delivery man. He's a route manager and his polish and professionalism is to be recognized. But the packages that come via the US Postal Service, well, you'll get lies of attempted delivery when your home with the mailman (not our regular carrier-she's awesome) on the team that handles the Amazon packages, reporting business closed when the UPS Store is open, or deliveries to the flat never being dropped off because the mail carrier doesn't know how to wait for the property office to open or worse, just leaving the Amazon Fresh totes in the unattended lobby where the Velcro sealed bag can easily be taken, touched or tampered with.

Then there's Uber Eats. For $10.00 you can get lunch in ten minutes from some of L.A.'s finest eateries. Then there's Postmates-order from anywhere, get anything and someone will drive, pay, pick up and deliver. The experience has been hit or miss, but my last experience with awesome Korean food was worth giving them thumbs up on an angle.

And lastly there's Task Rabbit. My two taskers were awesome. Between household organization and putting furniture together from Ikea, the experience was nothing short of delightful. What's more, they show up on time, provide really good conversation and made my move in really, really smooth.

That's the delivery economy in action, and I can safely say, other than Amazon Fresh, they have all really DELIVERED!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad