Keeping in touch with family and friends on vacation

When gearing up for a long, arduous vacation, it's nice to know that you'll be able to keep in touch with friends and family from back home. Here's a few different ways of contacting your loved ones while abroad:

• Facebook and MySpace - By using online profile sharing, you can easily update your friends and family on what's going on via status updates, new photos and wall posts.
• Instant Messaging - IMing is a great way to keep in touch without running up the phone bill. This allows for quick conversations online, and you don't even need to download a new program. Many online profile sharing websites, such as Facebook, have incorporated their own IMing system. However, using AIM, MSN and Yahoo messengers allow you to video chat as well.
• Video Chatting - Video chatting is a great use of technology to help relatives and friends contact each other without having to type conversations back and forth. For video chatting, it is recommended to use either AIM, Yahoo messenger, or Skype.
• E-Mailing - Like sending a letter, e-mails are written documents that are sent over the internet. This is a great way to keep in touch with relatives and friends, and provides an easy way to receive important information without waiting for a letter or phone call.
• Buy a phone card - Phone cards come in handy when trying to make local and long distance calls while abroad. You can prepay for a phone card and get a certain number of minutes, so that you're never alone and left without a way to contact others.
• Turn on the global calling option of your cell phone - Most new cell phones nowadays, especially PDAs (iPhones, BlackBerrys, etc), come with the option to turn on global calling or not. This will run-up your cell phone bill very efficiently, but is a good tool to have for emergencies.
• Send a letter - By far the most obsolete and primitive form of contact, sending a letter is almost like sending an e-mail, except much slower. This outdated form of communication may take longer than your trip, so try e-mailing before sending a letter.

Source: Examiner.com

ooVoo Confirms First Air-to-Ground 'Three-Way' Video Chat

ooVoo, the solution of choice for multi-point, high-quality, easy-to-use video communication, conducted the first air-to-ground three-way video conversation on April 3rd 2009 on Virgin America Flight 350 from San Francisco to Boston. This communication milestone marked a first for the airline and video conferencing industries, as ooVoo CEO Philippe Schwartz conversed live at 35,000 feet via video chat with ooVoo owner, Clay Mathile in Florida and ooVoo vice president of marketing, Lisa Abourezk in NYC.

"When I learned about Virgin America's new WiFi service I couldn't wait to put ooVoo to the test. Speaking face-to-face mid-flight with two colleagues on the ground was not only a testament to the quality of the service we've built, but to how far we've come technologically as a society," said Philippe Schwartz, CEO of ooVoo.

Every day, ooVoo connects millions of family members, co-workers, friends and online communities with its remarkably clear and highly superior video quality. ooVoo allows up to six people to video chat at the same time, to record video conversations and to call friends or colleagues that do not have ooVoo installed with a "Web Video Call," letting them easily join a video chat via a web browser. ooVoo's multi-point video was also recently seen on the Dr. Phil Show episode connecting five therapists from around the US into the live show.

Ad Agency's New Live Video Chat Makes Employees Self-Conscious; Better Groomed

Chicago ad agency, Plan B, implements new live streaming video chat to its website's home page. The video chat function at thisisplanb.com lets visitors spy on agency employees live, in real time, as they perform their daily work.

Chicago, IL May 1, 2009 -- Facebook? Fugetaboutit. Twitter? Twhatever. With the launch of its new website featuring live streaming video chat, renegade Chicago ad agency Plan B has relegated text-driven social media to the "so 2008" file, along with David Cook, Bear Stearns and Slumdog Millionaire.

Injecting a hyper-real dose of fishbowl creepiness into the World Wide Web, the video chat function at thisisplanb.com lets visitors spy on agency employees live, in real time, as they perform their daily work.

"Yeah, I don't even have a My Space or anything, so this whole thing is like -- whoa," said Creative Director Bill Anderson. "I had one guy chat me who'd been watching me eat my breakfast. He asked me about my bagel."

Other members of the Plan B team see the video chat function as incentive to redouble their efforts at fastidious personal hygiene. "I walked out of the house without shaving the other morning, and then I remembered the video chat," says Pat Miller, Business Development Director. "I walked five blocks back home and shaved. That's when I noticed the nose hairs."

"I'm seeing an aesthetician this Saturday."

But apart from cruelly exposing the deepest insecurities of Plan B employees, the video chat function is -- astonishingly -- serving its intended purpose admirably.

"We've had several business inquiries through the chat," says Agency Partner Ric Van Sickle. "And we're getting great feedback from everyone who sees it."

"If advertising is all about generating buzz," he says, "We're officially a beehive."

"Plus, one of our art directors was asked out on a date through it. So it's definitely having an impact."

The video chat has proven such a hit, Plan B plans to expand its capabilities in the future. "And we're thinking of putting on some mime shows, maybe something like Blue Man Group. Just to keep things interesting," Miller says.

faceVsion Offers True HD Video Communications to Mass Market

faceVsion Technology Limited (FVT), a market innovator in empowering consumers and SMEs with face- to-face communications experience anytime, anywhere, on any screen, today announced the availability of 720p/HD video chat service on standard broadband network. The company will also showcase in CeBIT its innovative FVfone(TM) solution, the first ever full function DECT phone system that allows users to enjoy HD video chat and multimedia experiences over big TV screen.

Offering netbook/notebook users or even those without PC experience to enjoy true HD video chat experience under standard broadband network is a must to bring HD video chat to the masses. By inserting FVexpress(TM) into any netbook/notebook, and/or getting an innovative FVfone(TM) from faceVsion or its channel partners, consumers and SMEs' can now enjoy true HD chat without any hassles.

FVexpress(TM) and FVfone(TM) are engineered with state-of-the-art technology at consumer price. By embedding mainstream HD encoding and decoding algorithms at chipset level, together with optimized implementations for image quality and noise cancellation under lowest bandwidth requirements, these cutting edge solutions is designed for use with a variety of webcams and interoperates with standards-based third-party video chat applications like Gmail video chat.

"This announcement is our first step in empowering mass market users with true HD communication experiences -- from looking real to feeling real, from exclusive (to corporate users) to affordable (for general public with low upfront investment), and from location-bound (within conference room) to pervasive connectivity," said Alex Huang, faceVsion CEO. "Now, with our FVexpress(TM) and/FVfone(TM), users of Gmail video chat will be able to connect with each other. We are bringing a real mass market solution to empower consumers and SMEs with face-to-face communications."

"We are pleased to see that faceVsion has chosen to interoperate with Gmail video chat, which expands the scope of our respective video products," said Justin Uberti, technical lead for Google Talk. "At Google, we strongly believe in the use of open standards such as XMPP and H.264, which make it easy for partners like faceVsion to communicate and interoperate on the Google Talk network. We look forward to working with all video, voice, and IM providers regarding the opportunity provided by our open communications network."