For years, software providers have offered ways to make free calls from cellphones, and most of them even work. The problem is putting the software on your phone. Fring, a start-up based in Israel, has a cellphone app that lets members make free calls to one another. It is not that carriers want to make it hard for subscribers to load Skype, Fring and other free-calling apps onto phones, although the networks obviously bristle at the idea of giving their customers a way to make free calls (also known as “voice over Internet protocol” or telephony). The bigger issue is that until recently, carriers have made it painfully hard to load anything onto your phone, whether it is sophisticated software or a simple ring tone. But since Apple buried its spurs in the backside of the industry by creating an application store that actually works — thereby compelling other companies to follow suit — these free-calling applications are almost within the reach of the average smartphone user. Of the many free-calling applications, Fring, a start-up based in Israel, and Skype, the standard-bearer of the free-calling realm, are among the more user-friendly. But even then, the applications are not yet worth the inconvenience unless you plan to make a fair number of international phone calls and can put up with less-than-perfect call quality (or far worse). Here is how it works: It helps to have a device that has Wi-Fi, because the call quality is best when carried over the Internet, not through the carrier’s pipes. (Skype offers a version that works with a smartphone’s cellular-data connection, but it says it “can’t guarantee voice quality” for those.) Once the application is loaded and started, the software typically displays its own keypad. As long as you are in a Wi-Fi hot spot, you can make free calls directly to other members of the particular service — Fring-to-Fring calls, say, or Skype-to-Skype. Or you can call landlines through Skype at cheap rates once you have a prepaid account. Skype and Fring users are assigned ID numbers or names, and when they are used for dialing, the calls go over the service’s Internet servers. If a telephone number is used, instead of an ID number, the call is partly routed over phone lines, then to Skype’s Internet servers, which hand it off again to a local carrier to connect the call on the other end. That is why users see strange local numbers on their caller ID for incoming calls, rather than the name or number of a friend. There are a few caveats to the service. Skype first offered this software to Windows Mobile users nearly three years ago. Those users can download it by going to Skype.com and following the “mobile” links. PC users can download the Skype mobile software to a computer, sync their handset with the machine and transfer the application to the phone. Mac users cannot download the software to their computer — they have to use their phone’s browser to go to Skype’s download site. Depending on the phone, this can be a breeze or maddeningly difficult. I used an LG Incite, and let’s just say it was not a breeze. For those without a Windows Mobile phone, Skype recently introduced Skype Lite, which runs on dozens of Nokia and Samsung phones with Symbian software, as well as a fewMotorola Razr models. On Skype.com, these users can type in their mobile numbers and Skype will send a message to the phone with a link to download the software. But the real news with Skype Lite is that it also runs on the G1, from T-Mobile, also known as the Google phone, which operates on the Android software platform. If you own the G1, you need only visit the “Market,” Android’s app store. Click on the Skype application, which is free, and a few seconds later you are ready. The company is also working on an iPhone app, but in the meantime, Skype users who have iPhones have another free Internet calling option: Fring. In addition to let It is worth noting that you can also download Fring to the latest versions of the iPodTouch, turning your iPod into a poor man’s iPhone. I left myself a voice mail message using the service, and the audio on the iPod sounded distant and grainy, and was briefly inaudible at times. A far bigger problem was that I couldn’t make outbound calls to landlines or other mobile phones using my Skype account on the iPod Touch or the iPhone, despite the fact that the account was fully funded. I sent an e-mail message to Fring’s customer support, which promised to reply within 48 hours. Sure enough, the next day I received an e-mail message explaining that the company was aware of the problem and was working to fix it. In the meantime, it suggested merely adding a plus sign to the beginning of the number. It worked. I then switched over to the iPhone for a comparison of how Fring might sound without a headset — and on an actual phone — and the quality was significantly better, especially on a Fring-to-Fring call. The audio was still a bit grainy and the call dropped a few times over a matter of 15 minutes, but I could easily see this as an alternative to expensive international calls. And that is really what is important here. If you are in a long-term relationship with someone overseas, say, or on a work assignment and away from your family, these applications can help give you some semblance of connectivity without killing your budget, and without forcing you to haul around a laptop for free VoIP calls. QUICK CALLS Verizon Wireless subscribers who have weak cell signals at home can end that frustration, for a price. This week, the company began selling its Network Extender, which, for $250, creates a miniature cell site. The device plugs into your broadband Internet connection and creates a signal coverage area of about 5,000 square feet. One drawback: the Network Extender does not offer a high-speed, 3G connection to your phone, so services like the VCast media application will not work. … You can now pay a cab fare with a cellphone, thanks to a new application from RideCharge. Register your credit card information with the service and use it to book a cab in about 20 metropolitan areas. In addition to iPhone and BlackBerry apps, the company offers this free service through its Web site (RideCharge.com). RideCharge adds $1.50 to the bill for each ride arranged by the service. … Which has more calories: a yogurt with 78 calories in a tablespoon, or one with 43 calories for every 2 ounces? Apples2Oranges, a new iPhone app ($5), will answer these and other pesky questions about consumer goods. Or you can try another service, KGB. Send any question by text message to KGBKGB/542542, and a researcher will answer it by text message, for 50 cents a pop. 
ting you call other Fring members free, the service also connects you to Skype, which is great if you have a phone that does not work with Skype’s mobile app, and you want to use Skype to call landlines or mobile phones on the cheap. A Skype call to someone within the continental United States is about 2 cents a minute. A call to Japan from the United States costs the same.
Cloud computing may have been one of the biggest “buzzwords” (buzz phrases?) of this past year. From webmail to storage sites to web-based applications, everything online was sold under a new moniker in 2008: they’re all “cloud” services now. Yet even though millions of internet users make use of these online services in some way, it seems that we haven’t been completely sold on the cloud being any more safe or stable than data stored on our own computers. 
In thinking about this issue, 
Getting there won’t be easy. How can single assets – like photos on 
A key factor in the push are new TV sets that have networking connections built directly into them, requiring no additional set-top boxes for getting online. Meanwhile, many consumers are finding more attractive entertainment and information choices on the Internet — and have already set up data networks for their PCs and laptops that can also help move that content to their TV sets.
Netflix
Netflix's online-video service will be available on a new line of high-definition TVs from LG Electronics.
On Monday, Netflix Inc. is expected to announce a deal with Korea's LG Electronics Inc. that will make a Netflix online-video service available on a new line of high-definition TV sets from LG due out this spring. The online service offers 12,000 movie and television titles.
Amid other developments pegged to this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Yahoo Inc. and Intel Corp. plan to announce support from several major consumer-electronics companies to sell TV sets that come with software, dubbed widgets, that make it easier to call up Web content on TV sets using ordinary remote controls rather than computer keyboards.
"You are going to see very broad adoption of this open technology by the best brands in the TV industry — not just for specialty products but deeply penetrated in their product lines," says Patrick Barry, Yahoo's vice president of connected TV.
Of course, similarly optimistic statements have been made by industry executives since the mid-1990s, when efforts to combine Internet technology with TV sets first emerged. The current economic climate could be another stumbling block, deterring consumers from upgrading their existing TV sets.
Still, the topic remains a hot one in high-tech circles because of the potential impact on existing business models in the entertainment industry. Instead of the often expensive packages of video content from cable and satellite providers, the Internet could theoretically deliver a much wider array of entertainment and information choices — many of them free.
Yahoo
The Widget Channel: Yahoo, with the suppor
t of Intel and others, is promotingWeb navigation on TVs using software icons on the bottom of the screen.
Intel, Apple Inc. and others have promoted specially tailored PCs, set-top boxes and other new devices for bringing video from the Internet to living-room TV sets. Few people bought them, but industry executives believe users will be more receptive as Internet connections become a standard feature of more ordinary gadgets — such as TV sets, high-definition movie players and videogame consoles.
Putting such Internet services in TV sets, in theory, could make them even simpler for consumers to access. "The symbolism of being directly in the TV is very high," says Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings.
Netflix, based in Los Gatos, Calif., has cut deals that make its library of online videos available on Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360, TiVo Inc.'s digital video recorders and Blu-ray players from Samsung Electronics Co. and LG.
The technology required to include Internet capabilities in TV sets adds to consumer costs: for example, LG predicts its plasma and LCD Internet TV sets will cost roughly $300 more than comparably-sized sets without online capabilities.
"I think this will be a big, growing sub category in TVs," says Tim Alessi, director of product planning at LG's U.S. division.
Over the past year, Panasonic Corp., Sharp Corp. and Samsung have come out with HD TVs that can access services such as Google Inc.'s YouTube and Picasa photo albums, along with online weather forecasts and stock tickers. Kurt Scherf, an analyst with Parks Associates, estimates the number of Web-enabled TV sets will grow to 14% of the projected 26 million-28 million TV sets to be sold in the U.S. in 2012 from 1% last year.
It isn't clear how strongly consumers will respond. For one thing, many people, especially younger ones, have become comfortable using their PCs as TV sets, watching YouTube or streaming favorite TV shows.
"The number of people who watch an entire TV show on their laptops has tripled," says Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist who is director of the user experience group in Intel's digital-home group. But Ms. Bell says research by the company also suggest
s that many people also have extremely strong bonds to their TV sets. So any effort to add Internet content needs to be just as simple and not interfere with the experiences and behavior patterns the users enjoy. That means, she says, using a conventional remote control — not some kind of computer keyboard, or a PC-style Web browser of the sort that emerged as a TV option in the 1990s.
Those findings are one reason that Intel — which in 2007 abandoned an effort to promote living-room PCs under a brand called Viiv — became a supporter of what Yahoo calls the Widget Channel. The collaboration is designed to create a standard way for Web services to be unobtrusively offered up on TV sets.
The software displays a strip of icons for Web offerings on the bottom of a TV screen, while traditional programming plays above. Click on one of the icons with the remote and content associated with the Web service expands into a larger view on the left side of the screen. Click again and the service can take up the entire screen. A user could pull up an Internet weather report, for example, or photos stored on Yahoo's Flickr service.
Yahoo and its hardware partners initially will act as gatekeepers in overseeing such offerings — a bit like Apple does with its store for iPhone software — but Mr. Barry expects that Web companies will find the process open and non-discriminatory. Intel plans to offer chips that could help manage the widget software in Internet-equipped TV sets and set-top boxes, but its hardware is not required.
