GigaOM

Sony and British Telecom announced a new joint venture today that allows UK residents the ability to place and receive VoIP and video calls between PSPs and supporting PCs. Initially the service will only work at BT wireless hotspots, but future plans include the expansion to include 100 countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Sadly, American PSP owners won’t be allowed to play, at least not yet.

“There are no plans currently to bring this service to the US,” said Sony’s Dave Karraker in speaking to GigaOM. Bummer for the 7.4 million PSP owners living here. Sony had offered Skype connectivity to the owners of Mylo, a communicator type device, that has vanished liked the Yeti.

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Another ‘white space’ mobile prototype device has landed at the FCC for testing, this time from Philips which submitted a “spectrum sensing device” to the FCC last Friday. Ars Technica points out the details, and we checked out the FCC filing for the device that is similar to the one submitted by Microsoft in March.

White space is a popularly used term to describe idle wireless spectrum currently used by television broadcasters. Many view it as another broadband option in the U.S., where new entrants could potentially offer high-speed services with attractive attributes (like the ability to easily penetrate building walls).

While manufacturing companies are starting to submit these prototypes to the FCC, consumers shouldn’t get too excited about them just yet. These devices are just very basic prototypes. Furthermore, they face opposition from broadcasters, who don’t even want to mess with the potential for interference from the devices.

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Do Rich Internet Applications Matter to You?: Silverlight and Flash aim at the rich internet application space — a perceived gap in what users want and what they are getting from their overly light web apps. The idea is that we need more rich interactivity from our browser apps than they give us. But is this just developer fantasy, or does it represent a real end user need? Continue reading.

Zannel gets Knocked Up: Mobile video is one of those things that will be a massive market, when the right service finally finds the right population — mobile-savvy users, with decent phones and data plans, and a reliable way to monetize the service. Startup Zannel is working on the recipe, and is using — what else — movie promotions to do it.Continue reading.

Powazek’s Progress: Derek Powazek and his wife, Heather Powazek Champ, recently left the digital publishing company they cofounded in 2006, 8020 Media. Founder’s moving ‘Tell All’ of break-up with 8020 Media is filled with lessons. Continue Reading.

Qwest is going to resell Sprint’s EVDO Rev A service, the company announced yesterday. The plans start at $69.99 a month, and the unlimited plan goes for about $80 a month. If you commit for two years, you get a data card for $50. Qwest DSL customers get $20 off their monthly wireless broadband plan.

Unfortunately, it isn’t much of a discount. You can go straight to Sprint, and buy the same type of plans for between $40-and-$60-a-month. Sprint’s deal might be a better bargain since they are also offering a wireless data card for free (with mail in rebate.)

I don’t see why anyone should be paying a Qwest premium - unless Qwest has some magical convergence tricks hidden somewhere.

Dazed and confused is how I felt when I took a look at Technorati this morning. According to all the hub-a-bub, the company has changed focus away from blog search to … something that I can’t figure out. Maybe my neurons are misfiring this morning, but I don’t get it. (Someone apparently does, so check out this alternative viewpoint.)

Dave Sifry, the founder explains that the world has changed and people are now coming to their site to get contextual information from the Live Web (buzzword alert.) Unfortunately, that is the direction Google, the nemesis of blog search is moving in this direction, notes Steve Rubel.

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Derek Powazek recently left the digital publishing company he cofounded with Paul Cloutier in 2006 called 8020 Publishing. Last week Derek wrote a moving and (in his own words) “radically transparent” piece about the pain of leaving the startup, and the frustration of being forced to abandon the “organic community” he helped to build around JPG Magazine after 10 issues and three years of hard work. (Powazek co-founded the magazine in September 2004 with his wife, Heather Powazek Champ. She has also left 8020.)

The whole thing is posted to Derek’s blog under The Real Story of JPG Magazine. We encourage you to read it. Pay special attention to the six lessons Derek calls out at the end — they will be extremely useful to all entrepreneurs.

Also read 8020 Publishing’s response, published a day later, for the other side of the story in this unfortunate startup divorce.

Finally, read Derek’s follow-up piece, where he endeavors to explain why he went public with his humiliating, but learning experience. Derek freely admits it is “the kind of story people don’t usually tell.” We’re glad he chose to share it, and would love to hear what you think about it.

The battle over the valuable 700 MHz wireless spectrum takes an important step forward Wednesday, the day that public comments are due on the FCC’s latest proposal for rules governing the forthcoming airwaves auction. And while an interesting proposal from Google — for ongoing Adsense-like auctions of spectrum — attracted national headlines Tuesday, former FCC chairman Reed Hundt said the lobbying battle won’t really start in earnest until the big dogs, namely Verizon and AT&T, file their comments.

Hundt is one of the principals behind Frontline Wireless, a prospective nationwide wireless-services provider who like Google and other players is seeking a beneficial tweak to the auction rules. But as the politically savvy Hundt notes, “at any given moment, Verizon could have 70 lobbyists at the FCC,” he said. “So the odds are really still against any upstart like us.”

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John McFarlane, is chief executive and founder of the consumer electronics company, Sonos Inc. Contrary to most of his peers, McFarlane believes that his company, and the entire digital music industry, stands to benefit from the DRM free music movement.

Apple and Amazon were the among the first to jump on the DRM free bandwagon. There are some who believe that by end of 2007, nearly 50% of music for sale online will be free of messy DRM software. The “download anywhere – play anywhere” approach, McFarlane argues, will make the notion of “digital music” redundant.

“Music will be music again,” he says.

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