Will HTML5 Replace Flash?

How It All Started

For the past several years, Adobe Flash Player has been controlling over the Internet multimedia platform market, being used in various fields such as media players, games, animations, and various other interactive rich contents. Flash-based advertisements flourish everywhere. If bored, anyone can simply launch his or her favorite Internet browser and visit one of dozens of sites that host thousands of Flash-based games. Most of the major websites greet you with fancy Flash animation intro. Popular video hosting sites such as YouTube or Vimeo heavily rely on Flash technology. Even though a number of other competitors like Sun’s Java applet or Microsoft’s Silverlight can imitate some of what Flash can achiever, they weren’t able to bring down the massive popularity of Flash. Naturally, there rose worries about whether we should continue relying on a single Corporation for a large portion of web experience.


The issue has gathered much more attention since Apple’s release of iPad in the early 2010. Just like iPhone, iPad didn’t support Flash for its built-in Safari browser, making a number of major websites hard to browse through. Even during the official demonstration, people could see the blue “missing plug-in” icons in place of the flash contents. In response to the questions about iPad’s not supporting Flash, Steve Jobs publicly confirmed Apple’s position against Flash.

On a recent trip to New York to woo newspaper publishers with demonstrations of the iPad, Steve Jobs met with staff of the Wall Street Journal. During the demo, editors asked about the iPad's lack of Flash support, to which Jobs replied, "We don't spend a lot of energy on old technology." … He reportedly told WSJ staff that Flash is buggy and crashes Macs, is a "CPU hog," and a source of "security holes." He also referred to Flash as dying technology, likening not supporting Flash on the iPad to Apple dropping support for floppy drives, ditching legacy data ports, and replacing CCFL backlighting with LEDs. [1]

On the contrary, Apple demonstrated its strong support for HTML5 and CSS3, the next version of the web standard that is currently under development.

Every new Apple mobile device and every new Mac — along with the latest version of Apple’s Safari web browser — supports web standards including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. These web standards are open, reliable, highly secure, and efficient. They allow web designers and developers to create advanced graphics, typography, animations, and transitions. Standards aren’t add-ons to the web. They are the web. And you can start using them today. [2]

This gathered people’s interest to see whether the upcoming web standard will be capable of replacing Flash in the web application world. One of the biggest advantages of HTML5 over Flash is that it has potential to run more efficiently than Flash does since HTML5 is supported in default by the browsers, instead of being plugin-based like Flash.



What’s So Good About HTML5


Unlike its previous versions, HTML5 comes with very handy media tags [video] and [audio]. These tags let the developers place media contents on their pages in the same way as using the familiar [img] tag, without having to worry about dealing with codec issues, since the browsers will do all the work. Unlike Flash, embedding media contents via HTML5 will be much easier to maintain and customize, since we don’t have to wait until, say, Adobe fixes bugs on its latest Flash plugin for a particular browser, and we also don’t have to completely rewrite our codes to come up with some of Flash’s major upgrades. (e.g. Upgrade from Actionscript 2 to Actionscript 3) Recently, major video hosting sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo have been experimenting to wipe off Flash and port their services to pure HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript. This way, they will attract broader range of audiences, because mobile users, especially iPhone and iPad users, will be able to simply launch built-in browsers to enjoy watching videos, instead of having to wait for Adobe to upgrade or release appropriate plugins for their mobile devices.


In addition to [video] and [audio] tags, HTML5 also provides [canvas] tag, which enables developers to place a 2D area and freely draw in it using Javascript. This is a great tool when it comes to displaying simple dynamic graphic contents because being a browser standard instead of a plugin like Flash or Java, it doesn’t force users to suffer from any start-up delay, waste of memory or CPU usage. Furthermore, since it is a browser standard, the actual performance of [canvas] depends on how a browser implements it. This is a good thing, because it fosters competition among the major browsers such as Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla Firefox, or Opera. Browser developers will keep pushing to implement [canvas] to perform as efficiently and as fast as possible.


Also, a number of other built-in features like drag-and-drop make it much easier to develop rich web applications without additional plug-ins or any complicated code hacks. Finally, since HTML5 is free and open, one can go right away developing HTML5 applications without having to pay any cash, whereas in order to develop in Flash, one needs to purchase Adobe Flash Professional CS5.



The Controversy


So, is HTML5 actually better than Flash or not? Fierce debate on this is still undergoing on the major online forums. Countless hours have been spent gathering benchmark statistics, and in the popular online communities, even the slightest mention of comparison between them has led to a huge controversy. Among those clashes, there are a couple of interesting ones that are worth mentioning here.


One day, a Flash developer posted on his blog a fancy, smoothly animating button he made with Flash in 2004, and challenged HTML5 supporters worldwide to make a button purely with HTML5 that looks and behaves exactly the same as the one he posted. He added that if they succeeded, he would eat his old Flash software disks. [3] The blog post got quickly spread throughout the Internet. Several hours later, some HTML5 experts managed to create buttons that behave very similar to the Flash button. It is not yet known whether he actually ate those disks. However, considering that Flash already could create that kind of buttons six years ago, it is a little troublesome to conclude from this whether HTML5 will be able to replace Flash.


Meanwhile, a web programmer was interested in “literally” comparing the performances of Flash with HTML5. He ended up creating a Pong game, where the left half of the board is rendered using Flash and the right half is built with HTML5. [4] He published the game to let the users play it themselves and decide which half runs smoothly and which half doesn’t.


What about the actual performance in general? Contrary to the popular expectations, Flash outperformed HTML5 in most of the recent graphic benchmarks in Windows, Mac OS, and mobile devices. [5] Furthermore, since HTML5 doesn’t support Digital Rights Management, it is hard to prevent protected videos from being available to download with simple “right-click and save.” A post in Hulu blog states its difficulty to fully switching to HTML5:

We continue to monitor developments on HTML5, but as of now it doesn’t yet meet all of our customers’ needs. Our player doesn’t just simply stream video, it must also secure the content, handle reporting for our advertisers, render the video using a high performance codec to ensure premium visual quality, communicate back with the server to determine how long to buffer and what bitrate to stream, and dozens of other things that aren’t necessarily visible to the end user. [6]

Because of this, browsers will have to solve DRM issue in order to fully support HTML5. Another obstacle is that h.264, one of the widely used video codecs supported by HTML5, is proprietary. Irony rises: browsers must pay a huge amount of money to use this codec in order to fully support HTML5, which is free.



Conclusion


Again, however, it is a little too premature to conclude that HTML5 will never be able to beat Flash. HTML5 is still under its beta stage. Browsers are only partially supporting it for now, and optimizations are hardly complete yet. Also, even if such problems as DRM issues become resolved for the major browsers, we can’t say we are fully drawn to the new web standards until most of the people get to upgrade their browsers to those that support HTML5, which won’t be anytime soon, considering that still a large portion of them are using an outdated version of Internet Explorer. No need to hurry; we should just sit back and watch how this web revolution gradually infiltrates into our web, slowly making its way to bring us to the world of rich web applications without having to rely heavily on laggy, crashy external plug-ins.

References:
[1] http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/02/steve-jobs-to-wsj-ditch-dying-flash-technology.ars
[2] http://www.apple.com/html5/
[3] http://dothatin.com/index.html
[4] http://labs.codecomputerlove.com/FlashVsHtml5/
[5] http://www.craftymind.com/guimark2/
[6] http://blog.hulu.com/2010/05/13/pardon-our-dust/

History of Wikipedia- Setup, problems, growth.

Wikipedia is a free multi-lingual online encyclopedia that has grown over the last 9 years into one of the most relied info-website in the world. Its english article database has logged over 3 million articles for free public use. Web usersof all ages have grown so accustomed to wikipedia, it has grown into a global force whether we like it or not. Its popularity is not solely attributed to its strictly advertisement free promise, its seemingly quick, easy access, concise and relatively reliable information, but also that unlike the many other online encyclopedia, the website provides a two way interaction- users can not only seek information but can also submit and edit articles.

History

Wikipedia was originally conceived as a support article “collector” for Nupedia, the original free encyclopedia project attempted by internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales and Lawrence Sanger. However, within the first month of its formal launch in January 2001, it has already surpassed its objective and multiplied globally at such lighting speed that by September of that year, it has expanded its service into 15 other languages including: Catalan, Japanese, French, Chinese, Dutch, Hebrew, Arabic.. etc. each with its own collecting server. Its main distinguishing feature was its implementation and use of the wiki technology, originally created by programmer Ward Cunningham in 1995. This technology, powered by the wiki software and uses simple markup language, to allow users to collaboratively create and edit web pages on web browsers. Thus it uses the simple Php based client, server model, whose code is available for download at the Mediawiki website. Think blogger for blogspot, or wordpress for websites, but tailored with relevant features specific to Wikipedia such as, revision control, discussion, internal linking etc.. Simply put, the Wikipedia is one concentrated global google doc that is practically managed by its global users.

How It Works

There’s two general ways of contributing to Wikipedia, by submitting a brand new article, or to edit an existing one. Unlike otherencyclopedias like Enc. Britannica, anyone and anyone with a web browser can create, edit and monitor articles, which enables Wikipedia to achieve that level of rapid multiplicity and relative accuracy (though many still skeptical) of their articles. The simple design of the website interface itself eases this editing/ submitting process, making the feature accessible to even the most non tech savvy users. The service does not require users to have an account, which in that case Wikipedia will use your IP address, further encouraging participation.

Writing An Article

Writing into Wikipedia is very simple and idiot proof. While it is rather nondescript, users are guided into their article creation webpage that links to a video tutorial that basically explains the rules and regulations as well as tips on proper formatting and guide on how to incorporate the main services wikipedia offers such as internal linking. Wikipedia also insists on proper reliable citations/ references as well as the sensitivity of the subject topic. Due to past controversial scandals due to biographical defamation on wikipedia prank articles. Wikipedia has been rather stringent and strict about this matter, discouraging people from writing about a selected bunch of topics that include: biographical articles (articles about yourself, your friends, your website, your band, teachers, a word you made up, or a story you wrote), non-notable topics (despite having no space limitation), topics that advertise (no external linking from the article) and Personal essays. The wikipedia “starting an article” webpage further includes a “list of bad article ideas” and “1000 things not to writeyour article about”. Additionally, the webpage also warns writers on avoiding violation of copyrights and writing about controversial matters (politics etc.)

It is rather crucial for writers to understand that since articles submitted does not mean instant creation. New articles are subject to Wikipedia administrators’ approval. and even after it has passed, new articles are labeled such that they are still subject to “speedy deletion”. Nomination of this feature, is applicable to public use as well, where by you can nominate a lousy article for “speedy deletion”. Essentially, this is to highly ensure that the articles on Wikipedia rea kept as reliable and objective as possible. Keeping the common sensical rules and regulation in mind, writing a proper article is very simple and straight forward: 1) Search on wiki--> Articles for Creation webpage that links to the Article Creation Wizard that takes one through the simple step by step process of entering your article, sources, internal links.

Problems: Scandals and Questionable Reliability

All the stringent rules and regulations were developed overtime as the Wikipedia database grew larger and larger and as scandals and issues on reliability arose, the rules and regulations are amongst the other prominent contingency plans (discussed below) Wikipedia has to improve their reliability. Amongst the biographical scandals, the earliest of them all was The Siegenthaler controversy in November 2005, in which an anonymous prank article on the journalist John Siegenthaler, close friend of Attorney General Robert Kennedy, wrote that he was involved in the 1963 Kennedy assassination. The hoax article was left up for 4 months, during whichthe reliability of Wikipedia was highly questioned and criticized. Another significant controversy was another biographical defamation, this time about a turkish historian Taner Akcam in February 2007 in which the article stated that he was a terrorist and as a result he was accused and detained upon arriving at the Montreal- Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport. However, the most recent and detrimental scandal involves a prominent Wikipedia administrator, Ryan Jordan, who claimed and exploited false credentials to cause influencing decisions in Wikipedia’s content disputes. Because he had spent most of this time as an editor, addressing vandalism and resolving editorial disputes, the Wikipedia community had to go back and research each of Jordan’s article edits to check for errors and debate about improvements regarding personal identification. Each of the scandals highlighted were amongst many others that have caused doubts and concerns regarding the reliability of Wikipedia (taking open source content into consideration).

Editing features

The main feature to counter problems for such an open project is directed towards the Wikipedia community. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales believed in the independence and “self-running” policy for the encyclopedia, thus a large extent of editorials must be left open as well, this is in fact, what sets Wikipedia apart from competitor free online encyclopedias such as Citizendium. However, independence, means less control which also means questionable reliability. Thus, inorder to more tightly ensure reliability, Wikipedia has developed 3 general features to constantly improve the reliabilty of articles through the Wikipedia community/ random users: 1) direct editing, 2)Discussion 3) Revision control.

Direct editing involves directly editing the article in question. Under each heading on the article page is a small “edit” link that takes one to an text box insert much like your email composer, where you can make direct edits. In the case where you do not have a Wikipedia account, your IP address will be recorded as the editor. All edits are recorded under their revision control feature under the “view history” tab on the right hand corner of the horizontal navigation barat the top of every article webpage. This feature basically archives past edits and allows anyone to compare past edits amongst each other and to the current one. It is Wikipedia’s insurance in case editing collaboration goes awry by making sure that all changes to the article is properly documented. The last editorial feature Wikipedia has is the “discussion” tab located on the left hand corner of the horizontal navigation bar. It is essentially a forum for registered Wikipedia community to discuss certain questionable facts in an article. Discussions can usually involve justification of previous revisions.

Wikipedia's umbrella group, Wikimedia Foundation Inc is a non-profit charitable organization, formulated 2 years following Wikipedia's launch. Since then, it has developed a substantial list other non-profit sister sites under the wiki brand, which includes: Wiktionary- free online dictionary, Wikimedia Commons- free images bank, Wikiversity- free tutorials and courses, Wikinews- free content news source, and many other Wiki-sites that provides a variety of systematic information in a non encyclopedic format. The foundation headed by founder Jimmy Wales, (Lawrence Sanger left Wikipedia in 2002 to establish his own online encyclopedia, Citizendium) strictly relies on private donations and fund raisings, which lets them to adhere to their no-advertisements policy. Time Magazine estimates the cost of running Wikipedia alone to be around $6 million per year.

Today, Wikipedia has logged a total of over 17million articles over its multi-lingual versions, of which 3.4 million (majority) of it is in english. It has grown to become the largest and most popular highly reference work on the internet and has a following of over 365 million readers clocking over 100 million page views annually. With this kind of statistics, even a single text advertisement would general millions of dollars. However, I believe the reliability of Wikipedia is shown explicitly in their reliable promise to never sell out. And this has been true throughout its growth.

Video Conferencing

In the early 1990s, many people answered that the greatest invention in the history was telephone. The idea of one’s voice dispersing here and refocusing somewhere else in just seconds was a wonder. And with the advance of cellular telephones, ideas and information began riding around the world more easily. Soon, Internet became commonplace, and the greatest invention in the history was overthrown.

As the time necessary to reach the other side of the globe reduced, globalization became more than a phenomena. People started to share ideas and news, economy and culture of distant countries integrated, and technology started to spread more rapidly. Globalization demanded faster and realistic communication, and as the cost of display and high speed Internet reduced, video conferencing became a faithful channel of groupware.

History

The very first Video Conference was established with the invention of the television.Analog Video Conference used two separate closed-circuittelevision systems connected with cables for news reporting andon satellites.However, this technology could not become the standard form of communication because of the high cost, big machines, and low quality of the video. When digital telephony transmission networks became available in 1980s, the first commercial Video Conferencing system from PictureTel Corp. was sold to companies. It was early 1990s when a better video compression technology was developed with the

foundation of the IP (Internet Protocol). With the new video compression technology, laptop-based and desktop-based Video Conferencing came into the market. Finally, in 2000, video calling started to gain a public face using free Internet-based softwares such as Skype, iChat, and MSN.

Impact of Video Conferencing

Reasonable cost of high speed Internet, development of high resolution and small displays, and improvement of video camera and speaker qualities have made video calling and conference more available to the public. Engineers and Designers’ streamline models of cellular phones, webcams, and laptops gave the public an alternative. For friends and family who are far apart, video calling is a great alternative that is used to ease their longing for each other. Video calling has also proved its convenience in commuting visual information to others.Apple’s release of iPhone 4 this summer has been an issue from a year ago when the information about its new features slipped. One of the features that brought the most attention was video calling, which makes phone calls more interactive and fun. Video calling let us have conversations with people in distant like in person and share what we see. Apple released iPhone 4 with a very effective slogan, “This changes everything. Again” and “Phone calls like you’ve never seen before”. True to its slogan, video calling using cellular phone has once again changed everything.

Visual information is especially useful for differently abled persons. People who have difficulty hearing and speaking rely on sign language to communicate with others. As such, video conferencing has been a special interest to them. Video Conferencing, with the fluidity of information, has enabled differently abled persons to communicate more easily than previously offered Video-Relay Services. Multilingual Sign Language Interpreters can also converse in distant with mute and deaf parties when there are no on-site translators.

Video conferencing brings more effective education over the Internet. Over 1 billion Internet users around the world connect to the web for information. Internet surfing became a part of our daily routine, and abrupt disconnection must be profoundly unsettling. Wikipedia and other online scholarly paper search engines are usually helpful, but video conferencing offers something more, as clearly articulated explanation is easier to comprehend than a long passage full of information. Using video conferencing, home schooling students or underprivileged students can benefit by enrolling in free online tutoring services that are offered by most universities. Video conferencing allows educators and students in different locations to connect to each other. Two-way communication is essential in education, and video conferencing solves all ambiguousness caused by stacks of written information.

Video conferencing also connects health and medication providers, like doctors and nurses, with the patients. This technology is also called telemedicine. With the help of video conferencing, patients can receive diagnosis, consulting from doctors local and abroad. Whether it is a routine checkup or an emergency, it has become easier for the patients to receive help.

Business partners use video conferencing to share ideas and make presentations of their progress. Business partners doing short term and long term project have to share information about how the project is being progressed through meetings. When business partners are in different countries, it is easier to do so through video conferencing instead of travelling abroad each time.

For the past few years UCC (User Created Content) has been a big trend in Korea. UCC is easy to create using digital cameras, webcams, and video cameras installed in cellular phones. UCC makers do not have a specific age range, and there are no specific subjects. UCC websites are similar to YouTube. Now, with the help of Video Conferencing technology, broadcasting in real time is made easy. People can broadcast what they are doing, where they are, and what is happening in real time. And this is one of the most attractive aspects of Video Calling. You can share important moments with your family or share what you see with friends far away.

Problems

Video Conferencing is one of those miracles that have more room to grow. The current technology of Video Conferencing is limited. Although the Multipoint Control Unit allows people at more than two remote points to connect, Video Conferencing only provides audio and video data to the users. All presentation material must be sent to each person beforehand so that everyone can have it open on his or her own computer. One other misleading thing about Video Conferencing is eye contact. Most video cameras attached or installed on a computer or a phone is above the screen. Consequently, the users naturally look at the screen to see the other party or themselves. Sometimes lack of eye contact can give a very misleading impression that the other person is not paying attention. Furthermore, Video Conferencing makes most people become appearance sensitive. Although Video Conferencing is easily available to the public, the psychological pressure of being video streamed has prevented Video Conferencing from becoming more commonly used.

Future of Video Conferencing

The future of Video Conferencing is still bright. With the development of Smart TV, the problem with launching and annotating on presentation materials in real time will be solved. Moreover, engineers are researching and developing a virtual world, and video conferencing will be a part of it. Sooner or later, all surfaces will become a display surface with small cameras installed. We will be able to talk to people in 3D and real size in just a tap. When Haptics technology further develops, we will be able to see, hear, touch, and maybe even smell the other side of the world.

Conclusion

The exponential growth of technology seems to make everything thought as magical in the past possible, with exception of time travelling. We are no longer amazed by the spectacle of our voice dispersing to others on the other side of the globe. Now, our figure dematerializes in this room and reappears in another room. Portable phones and computers have become daily necessities, and using internal cameras and microphones, regular phone calls using just audio can be replaced with phone calls using both audio and video. Integration of high speed Internet and video camera brought us a whole new dimension: dissolution of distance and warping of time.

Reference

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videoconferencing

2.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_telecommunication_services_and_product_brands

Google Voice - one number to all your phones

By Kyung Rock Park

Introduction

Since the recent smartphone boom has come the integration of the Internet and e-mail with traditional voice communication, the smartphone devices, such as Apple's iPhone, Rim BlackBerry and Android-based phones on the market give people more chances to stay in touch and informed. As demands for organizations and communication systems management evolve, Google entered into the phone management service market with the platform called 'Google Voice' with innovative features 'giving you a single number'.

What is Google Voice?

Google Voice is a telecommunications service by Google launched on March 11, 2009. Simply it gives you one single number for all your phones, voice-mail that is easy as email, and many enhanced calling features like call blocking and screening, voice-mail transcripts, call conferencing, international calls, and more. In other words, Google Voice gives you a separate phone number which you can give out as if it is your regular phone number. A report says that there are 1.4 million users, 570,000 of which used the service 7 days a week. It's now available to everyone, for free.[1]

Origin of Google Voice

Main page of GrandCentral, an original service which reborn as Google Voice nowadays

Google acquired the service when it bought startup Grand Central in 2007 for US $95 million. The goal of Grand Central service was to make your phone life as simple as possible. The core to this goal was to give you a single number which can then reach you everywhere, on all of your phones. In 2009, Google revealed that the team had been working on the new version of Grand Central which was rebranded 'Google Voice' which kept the most of the functionality originally offered in Grand Central and add new features. On March 2009, Google voice was launched, based on GrandCentral, with new features, including voicemail transcriptions and SMS managing. Also, Google transitioned former GrandCentral accounts to Google Voice. After a few months, GranCentral services were shut down. On November 12, 2009, Google acquired Gizmo5 for a reported U.S. $30 million.[2]

How Google Voice works?

Google Voice is not primarily a VoIP service like Skype. However, it does take advantage of VoIP technology over the internet to allow users to make calls for lower prices. Google Voice works as the following way: any call initiated through Google Voice necessarily has to pass through the PSTN, the traditional phone system. But the PSTN doesn’t do all the work.[3] The call is then handed to the Google space on internet which is where the numbers are pooled. For example, suppose that the call is directed to another Google Voice number, that number is identified within Google’s numbers, and from there, the call is sent to its final destination. Again, the main aim of Google Voice is to unify the telephone communication channels, more so than saving on cost. As a result, you can easily switch carrier without having to change phone number, as one number can ring any phone through any carrier. Cost-wise, this also implies that you still have to pay your phone or wireless carrier since Google Voice is not a complete alternative to the services of these carriers, unlike Skype and the like.

Major features of Google Voice

Video about Google Voice's features on YouTube

One Number: The ability to use one phone number in place of all your existing ones is the defining feature of Google Voice. Google Voice gives you a separate phone number which you can give out as if it is your regular phone number. Whenever somebody dialed your unified google number, all of your phones rang at once. You can then change your settings to have calls forward to any of your phones. For example, you can forward to one group of phones during the day and another at night or you can have calls from certain numbers forward differently than calls to other numbers. all of this is done through the Google Voice management site on the Internet.[3]

Free calls and SMS text in the US and Canada: Google Voice currently provides free PC to Phone calls available into North America. Inbound calls to this number are forwarded to other phone numbers of the subscriber. And you can use the Google Voice website or download the Google Voice app to your smartphones and text using your cell phone and Google Voice number. If someone sends you a message at your Google number, it will forward the message to any mobile phone you have set up in your account. When you reply, it will appear to come from your Google Voice phone number.

Voice mail transcriptions: Google Voice converts the voice mail recordings into typed text and they are shown up as e-mail messages or text messages on your cellphone. This means that you can search, sort, save, forward, copy or paste voice mail messages.

Low rates of international phone calls: If users dial their own Google Voice numbers from one of your phones, they are offered an option to call overseas. the international rates are competitive with other services such as Skype's ; for example, 2 cents a minute to most European countries in the middle of the day. [4]

Other features :

• Call screening
• Call recording and online achieving
• Viewing the web inbox from a mobile device/phone
• Mobile phone application
• Integration into Gmail - importing contacts from most other sources call screening

Advantages - reasons to use it over other services

Routing power - route calls to certain type you want'One number' system eliminates the problem of having multiple numbers for multiple purposes. The true power comes with routing options when you specify the routing options for all of your phones. Even certain callers can be routed directly into your voicemail.

Screening power - many ways to answer callsUnlike other services, Google Voice offers several options once a call comes through; answer the call, send it to voicemail, send it to voicemail and listen in live, or answer it and record the call. Also, if the caller is not in your contacts list, Google voice can ask for their name and play it back when you pick up.

Voicemail power - free control on voicemailSince Google Voice's voicemail system allows you to listen while they are recording voice messages. Most importantly, the voicemail recorded by Google Voice system can be fully accessible over the internet, thus enabling users to listen to them online, forward them to other users, and even embed them on other web sites. The text transcription service via e-mail or text message can be used effectively.

SMS power - control it as if e-mailSMS is fully integrated into Google Voice. If someone sends a message to your Google number, the service will route it to any mobile phones you connect. the reply can be executed from any of your phones or via online as well. And Google Voice has the storage system for all of your SMS texts which means every text can be filed, searched or kept forever as if it were e-mail.

Midcall power - freely switch phonesIn the middle of a call, you can start recording calls with a touch of a single button or switch phones without having to interrupt the call. You can press the start key while talking, an your other connected phones will begin to ring. Simply, you can pick any of other calls up, hang the original phone up as if nothing had happened.

Drawbacks - Google voice is not for you

Privacy issue - Evil Google: As well as the case with many other Google products, privacy is a significant issue within discussion of Google Voice. By using Google Voice to control all of your phones, you expose a vast amount of personal information to Google. Everything, from the call history to every voice message recorded, is stored on Google's servers. Thus, Google are able to create a portfolio of you. Even though Google voice is governed by a privacy policy that explains what can and can't happen with your data, it could be used for certain purposes outside of your own personal perusal. Some people are concerned that Google Voice may lead to increased profiling and tracking of users without safeguards.

Advertisement -Google uses your data for advertisement: As of now, Google Voice is cost-free and ad-free. However, it is expected that Google would use the system to help accelerate its mobile penetration by creating a larger mobile ecosystem against which Google can sell, target and monetize advertisement. The monetization plan could play a key role; Google Voice could use data about your calling habits or the content from your texts and voicemails to customize ads within the service.

Technical reliability - it's imperfect: In fact, Google voice technology could be fallible. The world has seen plenty of Google-related service outages over the years and in Google Voice, technical errors could be more risky in that you would not be able to receive any calls or text messages. And a few problems using the services, including failed call recordings and other similar issues, have been raised up. Among many issues, the transcription service can give you some less than-literal translations. Voicemails may or may not come throughout perfectly when transcribed to text. For example, "I hope to see you soon" may come through as "I love your friend June". [5]

Number-changing hassle: Since you get a new Google Voice number, you might have to reprint business cards or stationery, and you would have to have the time to update your information anywhere you have an account or I.D.
It kills wireless service providersAT&T petitioned the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that Google should be required to allow calls to high-cost destinations. Google responded that it is not obliged to allow these calls.Also, In 2009, Apple Inc rejected a Google Voice app, stating that the reason for the rejection and removals is that Google Voice replaced certain iPhone functions and features. In November 2010, the official iPhone application became available in the App store.

Conclusion - future of Google Voice

In terms of the market of VoIP service providers, Skype has dominated the world by its free calls, chat or video calls, providing service over 170 countires The Skype software application garnered hundreds of millions of users because of its ability to make clear audio and video calls to both phones and computers. It has been the standard on voice over Internet protocol technology. However, with Google Voice, google has turned into a legitimate Skype competitor. Google Voice takes a different approach by providing each user with one personal number that can call any phones, along with innovative features, such as voicemail transcription and call screening. Even though Google Voice entered the market relatively late, I think that Google Voice could be a solid competitor against Skype in some aspects. The core idea of Google Voice that makes it different from other service providers will be the key for its success. 'Giving you one number' is not a huge paradigm shift from what standard VoIP systems are today, but it could allow you to have more flexibility in using phones. In the future, I expect that this will become the standard way of having a phone and it will simply listen for calls from the centralized system. In my case of e-mail service, I didn't want to check both my personal e-mail account(G-mail) and school account(Andrew), so I imported Andrew email to my G-mail service so that I just have to check one account to track all of my emails. This idea also makes sense in phone service since we really don't want to have to keep track of multiple numbers and try multiple places to reach someone. In addition, tremendous number of G-mail users will help Google Voice in that it can be integrated in G-mail and G-mail users can easily track and control over your phones. However, its issue of privacy that your personal data stored by Google can be used for advertisement and imperfect technology, such as voicemail transcription would be possible threats and withdraws to its success.

Reference

[1]http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/business-week-14-million-google-voice-users-global-push-in-the-works/2681
[2]https://www.gizmocall.com/gc/app?class=GizmoCall&proc=gcStart
[3]http://voip.about.com/od/unifiedcommunications/f/HowGoogleVoiceWorks.htm
[4]https://www.google.com/voice/rates#C
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Voice

Smartphone: Web-based Applications in Seoul, Korea

Name: Chang-Hyun Ryu (changhyr)

Smartphones hit Seoul, Korea
Smartphones became an essential device for many people in Korea. Walking around the street and working in office, the smartphones are being used everywhere and provide enormous advantages to users. The smartphones were not popular in Korea until Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy S came out because there were not many smartphone devices available and there were not many incentives to use the smartphones. However, after several innovative smartphones hit Korea, mobile phone market in Korea was dominated by the smartphones. The smartphone users are estimated 500,000 in 2009, 4,000,000 in 2010 and 10,000,000 by 2011. It means that every one person out of five uses the smartphones in Korea by 2011. Samsung and LG Electronics constantly provide new smartphones in the market, and application developers also endlessly develop new applications to make the smartphones more useful.

Applications for distinctive characteristics of Korean culture
Although there are tons of smartphone applications developed in worldwide, there are some unique web-based smartphone applications that almost all smartphone users in Korea make a use of. These unique applications are perhaps only available or popular for Korean smartphone users because of distinctive characteristics of Korean culture or the way of living lives in a particular Korean environment. To explain a little about Korean culture, Korea is widely known as “bbalibbali” (hurry-hurry) culture. People from Korea walk fast, drive fast, eat fast and almost every processes are done in very fast manner. If a car in front of you drive really slow even though it is following traffic rules, the car behind will blow vehicle horn to give notice of “drive faster” to the driver in front of. These characteristics of Korean culture prove to have some unique and useful smartphone web applications.

"Bus and Subway"
One of the mobile web-based applications which are very necessary to Korean is a “Bus and subway” application. This application controls all public transportation in Seoul and it gives the smartphone users an opportunity to save time greatly. This application contains every single buses’ and subways’ information that is currently running in service. Not only this application gives detailed information about bus and subway routes, the greatest function about this application is that it notifies users with information about whereabouts the certain bus or subway is at current time and its estimated time of arrival at the each stops. The traffic is always a disaster in Seoul and this mobile application gives an idea of when to come out to bus or subway stop to avoid waiting time.

"Banking"
The second useful application that most Korean uses is a browser-based smartphone banking application because Koreans do not want to visit and wait in lines in banks. The mobile banking applications are widely available in many countries; however, the users of smartphone banking dramatically increased as most of banks and investment firms offer mobile banking systems in Korea. [There are two types of mobile banking, one of which is browser-based and the other is WIPI (Wireless Internet Platform for interoperability) based applications. A study shows that browser-based mobile banking is more widely used in Korea.] People do not have to visit banks to view their balances, transfer funds or to do any other transactions. They are also easily able to make sells and purchases funds and stocks. Because of smartphones conveniently comparable with mobile banking, a lot of people in Korea use the mobile banking with their smartphones not only in transportations but also at home.

"Discount incentives"
Smartphones are much widely used by younger generations in Korea including students and age ranged from 20s~35s because of high functionalities. Since students and working people tend to eat outside a lot, there is a very useful web and location based application for them. This application verifies your location and introduces restaurants and other quick eating places with usable coupons for those specific restaurants. For example, if you are walking on 4500 Forbes Avenue, the application will provide you restaurants near you with their locations, menus with prices and coupons that can be used in the restaurant. This application is very useful because it can save time to look for restaurants near you, and also the users can choose to go to restaurants which offer coupons. Another similar application exists in Korea relating to credit card usage. In Korea, many franchise restaurants, amusement parks, hair salons and department stores give discount incentives by using certain credit cards when making purchases. The deals are made by credit card companies and those stores. But it is tough to know which of these stores are eligible for discounts with which credit cards. Therefore, this web-based application provides a list of all credit cards existing in Korea with eligible stores’ and discount information. For example, if I choose to view “Amex purple credit card” it will show a list of stores where I can use this credit card and get discounts.

"Chauffeur Service"
The Korean drinking culture is well known as Korea has the highest per capital alcohol consumption in the world. And because of the drinking culture, the government has launched a campaign to encourage safe and responsible drinking due to the increase in alcohol related deaths. It is against the law to drive after drinking; however, people just ignore the warning and keep driving although they are drunk. In Korea, there is a popular part-time job called “Daeree Unjeon” (chauffeur service), in which chauffeur drive a car instead of intoxicated person to desired destinations. The current procedure to get a chauffeur is to call “Daeree Unjeon” company to ask for a driver who is located nearest from intoxicated person. This gets very annoyed during the busy time at night and it is too time consuming to wait for an operator to speak with to ask for a driver. The web-based smartphone application was invented to avoid calling and waiting time. The intoxicated person, who needs a chauffeur to drive his car, can simply use the application to input current location and it will find a chauffeur who is located nearest to requester. Then the chauffeur nearest is notified of requester’s information and assigned to provide a chauffeur service for the requester. This new application is widely used in Korea now because of its quick and free way to ask for a chauffeur service.

"Amusement Park Tour Guide"
Have you ever had an experience when you visited an amusement park and waited for a roller coaster ride for more than 2 hours? The biggest amusement park operated by Samsung called “Everland” offers a smartphone web-based application called “Everland Guide”. This application provides “ride and show time information”, “map service”, “waiting time”, “recommendation activities” and “my page”. Particularly, “waiting time for a ride” which is a real-time service gives visitors to effectively enjoy the huge amusement park without wasting time for waiting in lines. This application also provides navigation service within the park, so the visitors can easily find restaurants, bathrooms or rides with estimated distances and times to get there from current location. Also to avoid of getting lost in a huge parking lot, users can save their parked location in smartphones and it will give directions to the location when looking for a car.

"For travelers"
Often, non-Korean speaking people visit Korea and discover that sometimes they have hard time when traveling around Seoul. The old way of guiding a city tour is to hand out translated pamphlets. The city of Seoul now provides a web-based smartphone application called “i Tour Seoul” in Korean, English, Japanese, Mandarin and Cantonese. This application was introduced in April 2010, and it became very popular among travelers. The application includes information about tourist attractions, famous restaurants, accommodations and cultural events. The travelers may choose each one of these locations or multiple locations, and the application will give what routes to go and what transportations to take. If travelers want to watch shows or participate in activities in Korea, they can easily access to the web application via smartphones to reserve seats by themselves. It is ok not to have smart phones because Seoul will rent out smartphones to foreigners.

"Check your health"
Last but not least, the health information application becomes popular in Korea recently. This application is provided by National Health Service of Korea. With this application, a user can choose from a list of symptoms and by submitting, the application will give the user with possible diseases. For example, if you have a stomachache and perhaps a headache at the same time and submit to the application, the system gives results such as appendicitis. The results might not be a correct disease; however, it can give a better idea for users to suspect possible diseases and encourage them to visit hospitals. This is not yet most popular smartphone application yet; however, it will become a very essential application as more and more health issues being analyzed digitally.

The smartphone’s web-based application markets are developing so fast. As Korea is one of the strongest technology based country, there are many smartphone applications developed every day. Many of Korean application developers may develop games and other useful applications to serve worldwide smartphone users, but they also develop applications to satisfy people with distinctive characteristics of Korean culture. One day, I hope some of these useful applications serve all around the world for smartphone users.

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