Currently, the mockup for the Apple iPhone includes only 11 icons, with a blank spot where number 12 will be. Though some (such as Gizmodo) think that the 12th icon will be YouTube, the only thing we can really glean from the absense of a 12th icon is that it hasn’t been decided yet. –or not when the mockup was released. Surely if Apple had this decided they would have completed the picture for us.

Though YouTube uses the H.264 codec that Apple uses, and both Google and Apple share a common foe: Microsoft, I agree with Russell Shaw, in that it wil most likely be a general featrue icon, suchas ‘Movies’.

Global Crossing has extended its VoIP service to include 6 more European countries and 3 more Latin American countries. Previously, Global Crossing serviced 20 countries Europe, South America, China, the UK and the US.

Global Crossing’s managing director for the UK and Europe, Anthony Christie, says that the UK is a critical growth market for Global Crossing,

As we extend our VoIP footprint deeper into the UK and continental Europe, we’re delivering that functionality — along with the security, reliability and network coverage of Global Crossing’s high-quality, global IP network.

According to Camille Mendler, vice president of enterprise research at Yankee Group, these latest enhancements to Global Crossing VoIP services in the UK stand to provide significant benefits to customers in terms of quality, convenience and feature-rich services.

Researchers at eEye Digital Security have been reporting vulnerabilities in Yahoo Messenger that sllow hackers to remotely execute code. Version 8.x of the messaging client is at risk.

Given a threat level of “high” by eEye, the flaws were reported to Yahoo on June 5th. There is no evidence yet that these vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild.

Though eEye was unwilling to supply details about security holes that have yet to be plugged, Denmark-based Secunia has provided more information. According to Secunia a boundary error within the Yahoo Webcam Upload (ywcupl.dll) ActiveX control can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by assigning an overly long string to the “Server” property and then calling the “Send()” method.

A boundary error associated with Yahoo Webcam Viewer (ywcvwr.dll) ActiveX control, can be used to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by assigning an overly long string to the “Server” property and then calling the “Receive()” method.

IM, like the web or email has become a fully accepted form of communication. As a result, IM has certainly become another threat vector.

A deal has been signed between Centennial de Puerto Rico and Citel, an IP equipment vendor. According to this deal, Portico telephone VoIP adapters will be supplied for Centennial’s Aptus Service, which is geared primarily for business users.

Citel Portico TVA allows businesses to migrate to VoIP, which is aided by the existing infrastructure. Citel has also stated that for host IP telephony, the Aptus network is being connected.

Also, Citel has announced that the Broadworks telephony platform will be supplied to Centennial. This triumverate is expected to assist migration to VoIP for Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Akamai, an internet infrastructure services provider says it delivers around 15-20% of the world’s web traffic on a given day.

Recently, Akamai launched a facinating (and free) fleet of services that let you see real-time traffic patterns about activity and demand for general internet connections, music download facilitation, retail transaction and other features.

This screenshot shows general net traffic just after midnight on Friday:

Though the Apple iPhone does not officially go on sale until June 29, there are quite a few eBay sellers offering pre-order items in anticipation of the upcoming iPhone release.

Currently, some bids are at or just below $1,000, nearly double the iPhone’s price of $499-$599. Take a look for yourself.

I’m not really sure how these sellers have become so confident that they will have the needed units –maybe they have AT&T or Apple sources.

Released this morning, a Google patent application called Social and Interactive Applications for Mass Media stands to instantly trigger communications to user’s social networks based on the type of audio recognition of certain phrases the user encounters in multimedia or broadcast applications they are listening to or watching.

By mapping the path of how a user responds with their messaging program or social network, after wathcing an event on television, for example, Google makes the case for the patent in the backgroudn section of the patent application:

Another social and interactive television application that is lacking with conventional interactive television systems is the ability to dynamically link a viewer with an ad hoc social peer community (e.g., a discussion group, chat room, etc.) in real-time. Imagine that you are watching the latest episode of “Friends” on television and discover that the character “Monica” is pregnant.

You want to chat, comment or read other viewers’ responses to the scene in real-time. One option would be to log on your computer, type in the name of “Friends” or other related terms into a search engine, and perform a search to find a discussion group on “Friends.”

Such required action by the viewer, however, would diminish the passive experience offered by mass media and would not enable the viewer to dynamically interact (e.g., comment, chat, etc.) with other viewers who are watching the program at the same time.

For more information about the new patent and what it means, take a look at this ZDNet article.

According to Gizmodo AT&T is in the middle of undertaking a major upgrade of its EDGE network in anticipation of a demand surge for bandwidth once the iPhone goes on sale.

During the upgrade project (estimated to be ocmpleted on or around June 15) extra attention is being paid to the backend and to the tower configuration for allocation of bandwidth for calls and data.

AT&T wants to drop more T1’s into poorly performing towers. The goal being to get the slow 40kbps performance of these towers up to a minimum of 80kpbs.

Mediatrix Telecom announced on Tuesday that they will have a new set of VoIP Access Devices, called the Mediatrix 4100. The new Mediatrix 4100 Series is suitable for medium sized offices that have varying port users, with the ability to connect 4, 8, 16 or 24 analog phones and/or faxes to a broadband modem or LAN on a single platform.

As the enterprise VoIP market continues to evolve, we have worked diligently to provide VoIP technology that is of the highest levels of performance and voice quality for the SMB. Mediatrix’s experience in manufacturing advanced VoIP solutions has enabled us to rollout a new family of VoIP Access Devices to our customers that has been optimally architected with the features, scalability, and flexibility that meets a wide variety of VoIP requirements.

said Philippe Babin, Director of Product Line Management for Mediatrix.

Features include:
- Auto-provision by getting encrypted configuration from a TFTP/HTTP server
- Web interface, making initial set-up easy
- Intelligent PSTN bypass allows users to make emergency calls and keep their phone service in a power outage or network failure

On June 5th Ccube will announce its new click-to-call feature.

This new feature will be available to al members of MySpace and Facebook. If a member of one of these services has this feature enabled you will be able to initiate a one-click call to them. Look for the logo at the beginning of this article to use this feature on participating sites.

Ccube is offering free 60-minutes-per-month service package to help launch this new calling feature. 250 minutes is $7.00 and 1,000 minutes / month is $20.00.