Among the communications vehicles closed off today are the Internet, SMS, mobile phone systems, Al Jazeera news network and even the country's train system.

Schools, universities and the court system have also been shuttered.

Gas stations have been closed.

Information is a watermelon seed and Mubarak's hands are wet.

It seems clear that all the bans on every imaginable way that people can exchange information in Egypt is in hopes of stopping the protests, which are huge, inclusive and getting bigger. It's not just the tech types in Egypt who have been - apparently - hamstrung. It's also students, the pesky judiciary, and the everyday folks hoping to drive into cities or take the trains to various protests.

Given that the Egyptians have proven extraordinarily resourceful, printing fliers to avoid electronic surveillance, plugging into dialup connections when the Internet was shut off, it seems a little incredible that the government believes the latest shutdowns will result in shutting up the people involved.

I am not being facetious when I say I anticipate people in donkey carts and on camels will resort to using semaphore if all else fails.

Update: Several sources have indicated that the last remaining ISP to remain up in Egypt, Noor, is now down.

Train photo by ömer erülke

At present, the feature is only available on Nokia devices, but the company says iPhone and Android support is on the way "soon." As for the prices, calls start at only 1c/minute in many locations, making it often a low-cost alternative to Skype, whose SkypeOut rates start at 2.3c/minute, according to its "pay per minute" pricing page.

Like competitor Skype, the new FringOut option doesn't exist as a separate, downloadable application, but rather as a feature within the Fring app already available - it's only a matter of updating the application to the latest version, if you already have it installed. Once up-and-running, you can sign up for FringOut from within the app itself or from the regular website here.

To use the feature, you simply select your contact from Fring's buddy list and dial.

At present, only Nokia S60 (Symbian) devices are supported, but iPhone and Android support is in the works, although no exact dates have been announced.

Fring vs. The Rest

According to the company's CEO, Avi Shechter, Fring has "tens of millions" of users, which makes it a small-time competitor to Skype, which touts up to 23 million people online at peak times using its software, but has a total of 124 million registered users as of June 30, 2010.

Fring also competes with Google's Voice service, which was added as a new feature within Gmail just last month, with calls to the U.S. and Canada starting at 0.2c/minute.

The interesting thing about Fring's "how low can you go" rates for its new FringOut service is the timing of its launch. Only weeks ago, Skype announced it had filed for its first Initial Public Offering (IPO) with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, to compete with Fring, Skype may be forced to lower its rates in return, which could quickly cut into what is, for now, its main revenue stream. Skype, however, is aware that SkypeOut can't be its only source of income going forward. In its IPO filing, the company noted that it would develop new monetization models, including advertising, gaming and virtual gifts.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/fring_launches_fringout_takes_on_skype_with_cheap_calls.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/fring_launches_fringout_takes_on_skype_with_cheap_calls.php Mobile Mon, 20 Sep 2010 08:30:51 -0800 Sarah Perez Future, we are here. With today's launch of the Sprint HTC EVO 4G, the hotly anticipated smartphone running Google's Android OS, video chatting moves off the desktop and into the palm of your hand.

Using the popular Qik mobile application, EVO owners will be able to chat with other EVO owners and, eventually, with any smartphone user whose phone sports a forward-facing camera.

Are we on the precipice of a whole new form of communication? Or is mobile video chat going to be just for fun?

Qik is not the first company to launch video chat, neither here in the U.S. nor overseas, where similar services have been available for some time. On Windows Mobile, for example, niche solutions like iVisit and camfrog are available now, but don't kick yourself for not knowing they existed. In the U.S. at least, no large video chat brand has ever attempted to do what Qik is doing now - launch a consumer-friendly video chat service on this scale.

Oh, and it's free, too.

Pre-launch, there was some confusion as to whether Qik would be yet another nickel-and-dimed upgrade from Sprint, when leaked news seemed to point to a $5/month upgrade for its use, but now that the service has officially arrived, we at last have full details on what's free and what's not.

The $5/month upgrade plan brings EVO users additional, premium features, but most can get by with the basic, free service without any issues.

A comparison chart on Qik's website highlights all the differences between the two plans, but the most notable valued-added features include video conferencing at higher video resolutions, unlimited video archiving, specialized video access permissions and "priority" support. In other words, this package is aimed squarely at business users whose needs will be greater than the everyday consumer.

The premium features will be offered to all new users until July 15th, at which point the upcharge will kick in if you want to keep the premium service.

Another interesting feature available in the new Qik for EVO application is its "video mail" capabilities. If you want to send a video to a non-Qik user, you can send it out as an SMS message. This isn't just a useful feature for unshackling video communications from being limited just to EVO handsets, but it also has the benefit of raising awareness about mobile video chatting services in general. Every SMS video message sent is like an ad for Qik...or maybe for EVO itself.

Beyond Qik: Skype, Fring, More?

Video chatting won't be limited to Qik/EVO pairings, though. If the stolen iPhone prototype is any indication, the upcoming iPhone 4G will include a front-facing camera as well and likely a mobile version of Apple's iChat to take advantage of the feature.

Fring is another up-and-coming company which began offering mobile video calls late last year on various Nokia devices. They're now doing the same on all capable Android phones - in fact, they even beat Qik to the punch by a matter of days.

And of course, there's Skype, the grand-daddy of video chat solutions, who is launching an Android app later this year. Although Skype won't officially say whether a mobile video calling feature will be included, an accidental blurb released from Skype PR seemed to confirm the company's plans in that area. ("We intend to set the bar on mobile video calling, and it's something we're going to do this year," a spokesperson had said before they took it back.)

Are we on the verge of a mobile video chat revolution? It appears so. How useful will these types of service be? Time will tell, but our guess is: very. Video chatting is already popular on the desktop and laptop, both for business and personal use. Remote workers, virtual teams, work-from-home staff, helpdesk professionals and others take advantage of video chat capabilities while at work and individuals use it to connect with families and friends when far from home, too.

Now with mobile video chat, the opportunity to reach another segment of the market - those whose primary "computer" is their mobile phone - is ripe. Not everyone slaves away behind a keyboard where traditional video chat programs reside. Now they don't have to - mobile video chat brings this new avenue of communications to all owners of modern-day phones.

Now if we could just get it on our wristwatch, we'd be all set.

We had always heard, anecdotally, that the only reason teens today would even bother signing up for an email account was so they could register with social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. However, 36% of those surveyed said they use email alerts to stay on top of what's happening on the social networks. In other words, they don't just create emails to sign up - the emails actually become a part of how they interact with the networks they join.

When it came time to pick their email provider, Gmail was the clear favorite. Nearly one-third (32%) of college students choose Gmail, while 19% use Yahoo, 18% use MSN/Hotmail and about 17% use their school email.

How Often They Check the Inbox

Students also regularly check their email inboxes. More than two-thirds of students say they check email at least once per day, and 55% of those check more than 3 times per day. This is especially interesting when you compare this data to that that came out of the Pew Internet Project (PDF) only a few months ago. In that study, Pew found that half of corporate employees checked their email constantly, while only 32% of those who work in small businesses did.

Comparing those numbers with the data on the students seems to imply that the only people who become email-obsessed are those for whom email is the major, and sometimes only, form of communication. That's definitely the case in big corporations where the people you need to speak to are buildings, cities, states, or even half a world away. For everyone else, there are other alternatives. In small businesses, for example, there are probably more chances to have face-to-face time. For the students there are social networks and, of course, text messaging.

Mobile Communications

Only 12% of students currently check email on their mobile, but eROI predicts that number will increase quickly, especially given the recent explosion of smartphones on the market. In the meantime, though, it's text messaging that remains supreme with 37% selecting that as their preferred method of communication. Email is second at 26% followed by social networking IM (15%) , IM (11%), and social networking email (11%). We're also surprised to see social networking networking email rated last - we always imagined students using social networks more for communication purposes. Then again, it appears that the survey neglected to ask about Wall posts and profile comments - those are also important ways to communicate. We wonder where they would have fit in.

In the end, the survey finds that students do use email - perhaps even more than we realized - but if you really want to reach them, you should do it via text or IM. For marketers, this means that the easy method of sending out newsletters and coupons to mass email lists may become a thing of the past - only 16% of students read marketing email. Companies will have to come up with new ways to to advertise to this demographic. May we suggest social media? 

Last month, a post by Marissa Mayer on the Google Blog pointed out the necessity of machine translation for the future of search, saying that the idea of machine-assisted translation is "an incredibly empowering idea" that could "change the way users experience the web and communicate with each other."

That same concept of empowering communications has been incorporated into the new SDL Automated Translations tool, too. The difference with SDL's tool is that instead of just focusing on translations for the web, it also translates documents, emails, chats, company intranet sites, and even internal business applications. Thanks to the tool's open nature, it can be incorporated into anything from customer-facing content on the web to an internal wiki or blog.

The quality of translations can be adjusted to fit your needs, too. For example, you may want your homepage to offer perfect translations of your text, but would rather have on-the-fly, instant translations for use in IM and email. For those quick translations, the tool simply gives users an approximate understanding of sentences and phrases by using something the company calls 'gist' translations.

Why This Is Big

According to Gilbane Group analyst Leonor Ciarlone, technology advancements and pure computing power have made machine translation not only viable, but also potentially game-changing. A global economy, the volume and velocity of content required to run a global business, and customer expectations is steadily shifting enterprise postures from "not an option" to "help me understand where MT fits."

In their group's Multilingual Communications as a Business Imperative report, they discovered that participants in the study, content management practitioners in multinational organizations, identified machine translation as one of the top three most valuable technologies for the future. Also of note is global communications company Language Weaver's prediction of a potential $67.5 billion market for digital translation, fueled by machine translation. That predication takes into account how new technologies now provide translation at dramatically lowered costs than before. This opens up new, untapped markets, asserts Language Weaver CEO Mark Tapling.

Markets and making money are obviously the focus for the companies involved in these ventures, but we're excited to see machine translation going beyond Google Translate and opening up the business world, too.