With today being a rather slow news day because of the upcoming holiday weekend. I thought this little video clip might tide over some of our readers. Star Wars here we come!

"Researchers at USC have taken another step towards that holiest of sci-fi dreams: the 3D holographic display. Using a spinning mirror covered with a "holographic diffuser," a special DVI implementation, and a high-speed projector, the team's device can project a three-dimensional image that can be viewed from 360 degrees -- regardless of the viewer's height and distance. That's impressive, but that spinning mirror looks pretty dangerous. Check a video of the system in action after the break."

From engadget

CyberData announces the release of its new VoIP Zone Controller, 4-Port Audio-Out. The Zone Controller is a SIP-endpoint that enables access to analog paging speakers through a VoIP phone system. Each of the 4 audio outputs is designed to interface with a standard analog paging amplifier. The zone control function is set up through its web interface and offers up to 15 programmable paging zone groups in addition to page-all.

"The zone controller allows for a cost effective migration from legacy phone systems to VoIP, utilizing existing analog paging systems," said Phillip Lembo, President of CyberData Corporation, "while saving installers and end users time and resources due to its ease of installation and its flexibility when configuring paging zone groups."

Allworx and Cbeyond announce interoperability between Allworx’ award winning line of SIP-phones and IP-PBX systems and Cbeyond’s SIP Trunking service, BeyondVoice with SIPconnect. The combined solution provides the small and medium sized business market with a solution that delivers business-class voice quality, extensive calling features and significant cost savings.

Cbeyond delivers integrated packages of communications and IT services to more than 31,000 small businesses across the United States. Its BeyondVoice with SIPconnect service is an integrated package of local and long-distance voice, high-speed Internet and mobile services. Allworx’ award-winning IP-PBX/Key systems and SIP-phones provide true key system functionality critical to SMBs transitioning to next generation IP phone systems at an industry leading price point.

I just noticed a new Skype press release "Skype and Wal-Mart Partner to Bring Internet Communications to the Masses", floating around that reads nearly the same as the one they put out on May 14th and was reported on here at VoIP Monitor. This isn't new information to avid readers and writers on VoIP related news, but perhaps the masses weren't buying enough Skype minutes at Wal-Mart checkout lane. Perhaps it's a last ditch attempt to get the word out to customers before pulling the plug on this partnership. Share your thoughts or let us know if you've actually purchased Skype minutes or products from a Wal-Mart.

GlobalTouch announces that Greenfield Communications has selected its award-winning VoIP system as the underlying digital voice provider for its Master Planned Residential Communities. Families living in Greenfield communities have had access to GlobalTouch VoIP as of July 2007,

Recognized as the largest privately held Fiber to the Home communications provider in the United States, Greenfield Communications provides turnkey FTTH solutions for developers of new master planned residential communities. The company has currently turned up ten FTTH projects with more than 5,000 customers, is actively designing and constructing eleven additional projects (representing over 75,000 homes), and has secured twenty-two more FTTH projects representing over 200,000 homes.

Pingtel introduced a new line of turn-key SIP IP PBX appliances. The product family combines Pingtel’s award-winning SIPxchange SIP PBX unified communications software for Linux with best-of-breed Intel servers, AudioCodes gateways, and phones from Polycom, LG-Nortel and Snom, for overall VoIP ease of use and scalability.

The new Pingtel products are 100-percent SIP, enterprise-grade and full-featured turnkey appliances that include integrated voice mail, automated call distribution, multiple auto attendants, a built-in presence server, and a Web-based plug & play system configuration and management tool for industry-leading ease of use. Each has a fully-integrated PSTN gateway and caters to a specific enterprise type, as follows:

Digium is making final preparations for AstriCon 2007, the longest running conference of the most widely used open source telephony software, Asterisk. Digium created, owns and is the innovative force behind Asterisk and uses it as the basis for its own voice over IP (VoIP) solutions. Using a dual-licensing model, Digium licenses Asterisk for use by myriad software and telecommunications companies around the world to enable them to deliver their own differentiated solutions. Asterisk’s widespread use and feature set make it one of the most influential open source projects today.

Comcast announced the launch of Comcast Digital Voice in Colorado Springs. Comcast's new IP-enabled voice service offers customers digital-quality phone service with unlimited direct-dial local and domestic long-distance calling, Web access to voicemail, E911 service, and 12 of the most popular calling features such as three-way calling, call waiting, caller ID, speed dial and enhanced voicemail.

"Comcast is excited to offer Colorado Springs residents the reliable and innovative voice services they want, with Comcast Digital Voice," said Bill Mosher, vice president of marketing for Comcast Colorado. "Our privately managed network serves as a strong foundation for voice, television and high-speed Internet products, and now that we're offering Digital Voice in Colorado Springs, residents can choose to have one provider and one integrated bill for all their home entertainment and communication needs."

Raketu announces that the company is realizing over 50 percent increase in the number of consumers subscribing to their VoIP service due to consumer concerns over Skype’s platform stability and security issues as a result of Skype’s use of supernodes. According to one news source, Skype’s outage was due in part to the company’s use of supernodes and its reliance on its users' computers to act as supernodes in routing traffic for other, less well-connected, users. As Skype customers tried to reconnect, many of those supernodes were themselves in the process of rebooting. A bug in Skype’s software did not efficiently allocate the network resources available, and the remaining supernodes were soon overwhelmed resulting in the outage.

I've kept quiet for previous iPhone hacks, but this one's an overdue goodie. iBricker for Windows iPhone users allows them to add custom applications and finally ringtones. You can read more about it at "Installing iPhone hacks made easy with hands-on tutorial - Windows Edition", which is where I get all my iPhone hacking news and updates. Or sit back and simply watch NateTrue show you the way.

This is my last post before packing and leaving for my families river cabin to enjoy a weekend of fun in the sun. There won't be any news posted Friday or this weekend on VoIP Monitor (See ya Monday and have a good weekend).

Yet another reason to steer clear of Sun Rise Phone VoIP service, which appears more and more to be a spin off of old VoIP Provider BlueSky Phone. I'd previously tried to bring this to every one's attention in my "BlueSky Phone Renamed to SunRise Phone STAY Away" post. A comment yesterday by cblankin brought this back to my attention and I'd like to thank him for doing so.

The comment reads: "I went on to sunrisephone.com and was able to use my old login and password. I was able to check my account and it showed they had been charging my credit card for the last 4 months. I called their contact number and got hold of some type answering service and explain I would sue them if the didn't close my account. He seem surprised that somebody and figured out bluesky phone had become sunshine phone.com. (think he meant sunrise phone) Today I am no longer able to log onto their web site and use my old login and password. I recommend you log and check for yourselves."

Some might remember BlueSky phone for simply closing it's doors and leaving it's customers in the dark without notice. It now appears that BlueSky Phone is still charging customers just under a new name! I'm not sure how this would appear on a credit card bill as either being billed from BlueSky Phone or SunRise Phone service. I'd suggest if you were a previous customer of either service to check your bills to make sure you aren't still being taken to the cleaners.

I'd also like to point out that sunrise phone attempted to contact me about possibly advertising here on VoIP Monitor. I never responded to either of their emails because of how they treated customers and I wouldn't want anything to do with promoting a wolf in sheeps clothes.

You can find more user comments here on BlueSky Phone VoIP provider

Friend and fellow blogger Garrett Smith from VoIP Supply has informed me today that they've just been named to the 2007 Inc 500 list of fastest-growing companies in America. VoIP Supply was given the ranked of #359 based on a three year growth rate of 783%.

Great work and congratulations to everyone over at VoIP Supply on this achievement! Have a celebratory beer for me.

Plantronics introduces its Calisto Pro Series offering intuitive design and hands-free capabilities an entirely new way to manage landline, mobile and VoIP conversations.

For anyone who has ever tried to diaper a baby or throw in a load of laundry during a conference call, help is finally here with the Calisto Pro Series. By taking into account direct customer feedback and survey research, Plantronics has designed a compact landline handset with integrated, multi-function Bluetooth headset. Not only can users talk hands-free and multi-task away, they can switch seamlessly between landline, mobile phone and VoIP calls at the touch of a button. It's ideal for busy home pros, occasional telecommuters and multi-tasking parents. Here's a funny video of how the Calisto Pro can help make life simpilar.

PeerMe and Droplet Technology announce the launch of a jointly developed multi-party video conferencing service that promises to accelerate the adoption of video as an important mode of communication and interaction in telecommunications and social networking. The service will initially offer four-person video conferencing, which will be a major differentiator between PeerMe and companies such as Yahoo!, AOL, MSN and Skype that only offer one-to-one video conferencing. This product will be targeted at the consumer with a low monthly subscription fee of $9.99 per month. Users can sign up for the service at www.peerme.com.

The two companies have integrated Droplet’s video platform into PeerMe’s existing VoIP applications, upgrading PeerMe’s global VoIP subscribers to a “many-to-many” real-time voice/video communications service. Droplet Technology's all-software embedded video device clients and server applications enable high quality video capture, playback, sharing, and networking on any PC or cell phone without dedicated and expensive video processors.

Movavi added new tools to Movavi Online, a web-based service that enables users to download and convert video from one format to another -- for sharing, podcasting, cellphones, iPods, and more -- for free. Where the first version of Movavi Online gave users the ability to upload video stored on a PC, the service upgrade now also enables users to download video from YouTube, Google, MySpace, MetaCafe and other video-sharing sites. Also, users are now able to download and watch Flash videos, convert video from the Internet to AVI, MP4, MPG, 3GP and other formats for use with iPod, iPhone, PSP, cellphone and other devices, and merge several videos into one large movie.