As some of you know, I am a big soccer fan. In fact, I was watching the Spain-U.S. game on the Internet last Wednesday in my office (while doing work!) and I figured I’d check out watching the June 26th final of the FIFA Confederations Cup between the United States and Brazil in various ways.

I wanted to see if I could simultaneously watch the game utilizing three popular methods — HDTV, my computer and my mobile device. There are multiple issues with watching on these three devices. First of all, the screen sizes are all different so if the content is created with one screen size in mind, it will likely, at this point in time, not look good on the other screen sizes. Also, the delivery mechanisms may or may not be mature for all of them at this point. If you want to read more on this, Dialogic has written a white paper called “Finding Success in a Multi-Screen World.”

At any rate, as you would expect, the game looked great on my HDTV. I was able to stream the game to my laptop using the Wi-Fi in my house. There was about a three to four second delay, and the quality was not nearly as good as the TV. I kind of expected this, since I just went to the Internet, found some sites that said they would have the game and tried to watch. On the plus side, I could follow the game and could see some of the controversial plays, such as when Kaka’s goal was ruled a non-goal. Obviously, on TV I could see it pretty well and could make a self determination about what happened. On the Internet on my computer I could see it, but really couldn’t make a judgment on that call one way or another. It just wasn’t clear enough.

Viewing via my Blackberry, however, was a totally different story. I could not view the game at all. I tried to get to the Internet site using my 3G connection and while that was successful, I could not see the game. It was just blank. I turned the 3G connection off and turned Wi-Fi on, and still couldn’t get to the site. I also could not view the streaming video. I went on to the Internet to search for whether this was supposed to work on the Blackberry and it was confusing on there. Some say yes, some say no. I’m guessing I did not have some sort of client installed. I will try to figure this out and report on it, since I’d like to see what the game looked like on my Blackberry.

Oh yes, nice job by the United States! And if anyone said the U.S. would lose by 3-2, most American soccer fans would have seen that as an acceptable result. But when you’re winning 2-0 at halftime, wow you need to close that game out!

Jim Machi is senior vice president of marketing for Dialogic, responsible for product planning, product management and marketing. Dialogic develops open systems-based telephony voice, video and signaling products for both the enterprise and service provider market segments.

I guess the title should be “Winter, Water and VoIP,” but I was trying to get the “w” alliteration going. WoIP does not stand for anything as far as I know.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was in Sao Paulo for a Dialogic Executive Summit. As I commented at the time, the energy and opportunity down there are palpable. The VoIP opportunity there now reminds me of the U.S. a few years ago. And with rolled out 3G networks there, the value added service opportunity and video value added service opportunity are present. We have a lot of partners and customers working on some exciting video applications, so I look forward to some excellent entries to our Innovator Award Contest. Look for some short video clips of this event on the Dialogic YouTube Channel.

Being in the southern hemisphere in June, it’s a bit strange experiencing a winter environment. While the temperatures are fine for me, it’s weird right now seeing the sun go down before 6 p.m. Also, every morning I’ve had the opportunity to observe whether in fact the water goes down the drain in the “other” direction. While I’ve been in the southern hemisphere quite a few times, this is the first time I tried to pay attention to it, probably because my sink was a little clogged. But you know, I just don’t see it — or shall I say, I don’t see anything different. Maybe for my entire life I wasn’t paying attention, but it all looks the same to me. To me, it’s the shape of the sink that seems to make the difference.

I never did get another chance to talk to Rudolph Giuliani, but the Brazilian soccer team mid-fielder Diego was staying at our hotel.

I will try and make up something for WoIP.

Jim Machi is senior vice president of marketing for Dialogic, responsible for product planning, product management and marketing. Dialogic develops open systems-based telephony voice, video and signaling products for both the enterprise and service provider market segments.

As readers of this blog know, I always enjoy my time in Asia, since this is one region where innovative applications keep on coming. Customers and partners are always using our technology in ways I could not have imagined.

One interesting mobile application I got to see firsthand in Asia was a mobile video avatar. Cartoon-type images have always been ubiquitous in Asia — I still distinctly remember getting a KDDI prepaid card in the mid ‘90s embellished with that kind of image. The avatars are not just cartoons though — I also saw some caricature-type avatars in the demo.

The avatars are cool — the face can change into a frown, a smile, etc. I can see this type of technology being utilized in a video SMS or MMS — it’s a way to send a personalized message to someone without actually speaking. It’s not as personal as say, a voice message, but it’s more personal than a text.

Jim Machi is senior vice president of marketing for Dialogic, responsible for product planning, product management and marketing. Dialogic develops open systems-based telephony voice, video and signaling products for both the enterprise and service provider market segments.