GeneralNew Service Drops Ads into Internet Phone Calls

Start-up service Pudding offers free international calls in exchange for targeted advertisements.

Recommend this story? Yes No Please Wait... A start-up company is launching a new service called The Pudding which will offer free international phone calls to people willing to have targeted advertisements embedded in them.The start-up, Pudding Media Inc., was cofounded by Israeli entrepeneur Ariel Maislos, who recently sold a broadband company, Passave Co., to PMC-Sierra for $300 million.The service works in a similar way to Skype, offering free phone calls over the Internet. But while Internet-based services charge a fee for calls made to land-line telephones, Pudding users will pay for those calls by watching commercials that will be displayed on their computer screens.Voice-recognition software listens to the users' conversations and plays advertisements related to the things they talk about. If the name of a new movie comes up, for example, the service will play an advertisement related to that movie. "Our product will enable smart placement of advertisements for various audio services," Maislos said in an interview with TheMarker IT. "We are already capable of analyzing conversations in English and we can place the relevant commercials. ... Soon we will be able to offer our services to... [ Read more on www.pcworld.com ]

GeneralMicrosoft makes available Windows Server 2008 RC0

Windows Server 2008Release Candidate 0 is now available for customer review.

GeneralLack of third-party apps delays Newham's Vista roll-out

Newham Borough Council has delayed a major desktop roll-out after hitting a barrier in its 10-year strategic relationship with Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard.