Amphibian
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I’ve blogged about a couple of things before, when I’ve actually said wow and it has made me think, “man, I need that!”.
Well today is another one of those days, and funnily enough, it is not npower who is doing this to me 
It is ‘Silicon Valley’s First Phone Company”, Ribbit, which has just been bought by our very own BT. Techcrunch have a good post here on the acquisition which has cost BT a cool $105 Million, but I honestly think it is money well spent.
So what is Ribbit?
Our platform enables developers to bring together the richness of voice calling and Web 2.0 experiences. With Ribbit, voice can become a rich feature that can be added to any application, on any device. Free from a traditional handset or the latest mobile phone, voice can now be delivered and received on multiple devices in multiple locations, across any network. It can be integrated, monetized and personalized using the Ribbit platform.
The best way to understand how powerful Ribbit is, is to check out the first application which is called amphibian.
amphibian looks amazing! I’m pretty staggered with how useful and intelligent it is. You know that feeling when you think, whoa! How an earth do they do that? It feeds my fascination with all things web!
With amphibian you can finally:
Manage your mobile voicemail like email on your computer and on your mobile phone.
Turn your voicemail into text to make voice messages sharable, searchable, and most importantly actionable.
Take and make mobile calls from any browser or web page - such as iGoogle, Facebook, and many more.
Experience Caller ID 2.0 - dip into the social web and know not just who is calling but what the caller has been doing.
I urge you to check out the amphibian page here and watch the demo movie - it shows how your mobile phone becomes completely integrated with the amphibian web app. What really impressed me is the fact that when someone calls (get this), it show up their caller details but will also show their latest flickr photos, blog posts, movies etc. Now THAT is impressive.
I’ve registered my interest and am now really looking forward to getting going with this. One of the coolest webapps I ever seen - I hope it launches soon, and well done BT!
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Is Karoo going to invest in fibre optic technology?!
I’m worried. Really worried.
There has been some amazing news for the UK today - well done BT!
BT today announced plans to spend £1.5bn building a super-fast broadband network across the UK over the next four years.
The plan would connect 10m homes, around 40% of the UK, to a new fibre-optic based network and replace the copper wires that link most homes today.
This could, rather will, completely transform people’s internet experience, and finally give the UK the internet infrastructure it really needs to be on par with other areas of the world (Japan / Korea).
BT’s plan for faster broadband will involve laying fibre directly to new homes as they are built, called fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP). At other sites, it will lay fibre most of the way to the home, called fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC).
FTTP will provide the highest speeds, up to 100 megabits per second. FTTC, which is slower because of the copper wire link between cabinet and home, will initially offer up to 40Mbps.
100mb per second! Now we’re talking 
Can you imagine that sort of speed? Nope, neither can I, but I sure would like to experience it!
All good news then? This is why I am worried.
Well, erm, no. Not for us poor souls living in and around Hull. For those of you who don’t know our misery, just imagine this…… you can only have one broadband provider. Yep, one ISP. No choice. No competition. Well that my friends is what we suffer from here in Hull. Shocking, yes. Illegal? Personally, I think it is, and many thousands of people agree.
Karoo is the ISP of Kingston Communications, and not only are they our ONLY choice, they are also VERY expensive. Try a supposed 8mb line for £29.95 a month. Not exactly cutting edge value is it when many providers give all manner of other services for that amount.
So, a challenge to Karoo / KC…. what are you doing in regard to matching BTs investment? I really would like fibre optics coming to Hull, so then we could perhaps attract some bigger businesses - ok, it’s not the be all and end all but it wold sure help.
I’m going to try and speak to a Karoo spokes person in the next couple of days and will post my findings. I may try for a video too.
UPDATE - Rory Cellan-Jones on the BBC Tech blog has a good post and some interesting comments.
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BBC News- You may like to read this...
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