voice

The next round in the ongoing patent infringement saga between Verizon and Vonage will begin on Monday when the companies present their oral arguments to the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C.

Vonage is arguing a few things. First, it believes that it got a bum deal even before the original trial started. Vonage argues that during the markman hearing, or the hearing in which terms of the patents were defined, several of the terms were defined too broadly. This hurt Vonage in the trial because it was this broad definition that the jury used to determine whether or … Read more

No, you're not going crazy (necessarily) if you find yourself imagining that your phone is vibrating in one of your pockets. Or, if you are, you're far from alone.

That's the shorthand conclusion of a recent USA Today article that reports a phenomenon dubbed "phantom vibration syndrome," also known as "vibranxiety." So what causes this irritating ghost ring, anyway?

"You come armed with this template that leads you to be attentive to sensations that represent a cellphone vibrating," Jeffrey Janata, director of the behavioral medicine program at University Hospitals in Cleveland, … Read more

One of the presenters at yesterday's Launch Silicon Valley event yesterday was Fix8, which makes technology that puts animated avatars on top of Webcam videos.

We've seen this before -- Webcam vendors like Logitech, Creative, and Microsoft have similar software that lets you overlay characters on top of your video stream. The stream can then be read by products like Skype and Eyejot (review). Fix8, though, works with any Webcam, and the company is trying to develop a more serious business around this technology. While the software is free and lets you do fun things (see video clip … Read more

A company called Jangl launched a service this week that promises to provide free and low-cost phone calls over the Internet to any phone and from any phone anywhere in the world.

Sound familiar? Well, it should. In the wake of Skype's success everyone and his brother are trying to use the Web to provide cheap phone calls. Jajah, Jaxtr, GrandCentral Communications--they all make similar promises.

Jangl's twist is that it claims all that is needed for its service to work is an e-mail address of the person you want to call. And voila, you'll be … Read more

While cruising around SonyStyle looking for some clue as to whether the NW-A800 might be prepping for a stateside launch, I came across the ICD-U50. What struck me about this device is that it was listed under MP3 players with a 256MB capacity, and I thought "what the...Sony is still selling 256MB MP3 players...and for $99.95!" But then I realized that the ICD-U50 is actually a multifunctional digital voice recorder, and a stylish one at that. I mean, we don't get a lot of standalone voice recorders around here, but I can say with … Read more

Call us killjoys, but we think it's never a good sign when a product description includes a boldfaced FBI warning immediately preceding an age recommendation of "4 and up." ("This device must not be used to make threatening phone calls!")

That's what the product literature says about this "Alien Voice Changer" from Atamaii Anime Toys. The gadget is so named because it makes you sound like extraterrestrial beings, according to Red Ferret--specifically, three aliens from Cartoon Networks' Ben 10: Greymatter, Heatblast and Fourarms. (What, no Stinkfly?)

The changer also comes with stickers … Read more

Vonage may finally be catching a lucky break. A Supreme Court decision handed down on Monday may help save Vonage in its patent infringement appeal against Verizon.

On Tuesday, Vonage asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., to send the patent infringement case back to the lower court to be retried based on the Supreme Court's decision in the KSR International v. Teleflex case.

The court's decision, handed down on Monday, implied that the patent system has tilted too far toward protecting patents that in many cases were filed for … Read more

We've always thought of Philips as something like the Sony of Europe: No matter what you think of their products' performance, it's usually difficult to argue with their aesthetically clean designs. (And if it was able to tame the notorious Swarovski, the Liberace of consumer electronics, then it has provided a public service to the world.)

Philips' latest ID9371 land-line phone is no exception, with a sleek glossy-black design somewhat reminiscent of the Bang & Olufsen "Serene" portable handset. But there's something even more interesting about a sound technology it uses called "ClearVoice HD,&… Read more

Google has a new telephone service in the U.S. called Voice Local Search. It's the equivalent of dialing 411, but free, really fast, and it pulls multiple listings like you'd get from a search in Google local. Mobile phone users can get listings sent to their phone via SMS, including the telephone number and full address. You can also be connected to a business for free, a great feature that got dropped from my previous favorite free 411 service 1-800-Free-411.

The entire service is controlled by computers, and the voice recognition is pretty capable. I tried confusing … Read more