(Credit: Jajah)

Internet phone company Jajah can turn the iPod Touch into an iPhone. (Download from CNET Download.com.)

The company, which competes with other low-cost Internet calling applications such as Skype, announced Thursday a new application that will allow Touch users to call and text messages using a voice over IP network instead of a carrier’s cellular network.

All that is needed to start making calls is the Jajah application, the latest version of the iPod Touch, a microphone headset, and a Wi-Fi connection. While the Jajah service can reduce calling costs up to 98 percent, the fact that it must be connected via a Wi-Fi network limits where it can be used. For this reason, it’s unlikely that the Jajah-enabled Touch would really steal business away from the iPhone, which is a full-fledged mobile phone that operates over a traditional cellular network.

Jajah plans to sell the application as a “white label” service. This means that it will license the application to wireless operators and non-wireless operators who offer it under their own brand instead of a standalone Jajah application. It’s unlikely the service will be offered for free. Instead, service providers might offer the application for $10 a month.

The application could be very useful for iPhone users too, especially those wanting to make low-cost international calls from their iPhones. But it’s not clear yet whether Apple would allow the application on its App Store, since it essentially bypasses the carrier network. Skype, which also provides free and cheap Internet calling, is not available on the App Store. That said, iPhone users can access Skype functions and users through other applications such as Fring and Truphone.

Jajah adds calling and texting to iPod Touch | Crave – CNET.

In Bad Times, Free Resources Are a Hot Commodity

Hannah Lee, 4, grabs a book during a visit to the Germantown library with her dad, Samson Lee, and sleeping 1-year-old sister, Jenna. (By Nikki Kahn — The Washington Post)

Nearly every study table is full with patrons sipping lattes and surfing the Web. Teens are curled up in easy chairs. In a worried knot by the doorway, job seekers gather around a sign-up station for the Internet, waiting for their turn.

Before the Germantown library opened in 2007, there was hardly any “downtown” to speak of in the Montgomery County community, where houses and strip malls grew before anything else. Now it’s an important civic anchor, a main street where none existed, and the busiest library in the county.

In the past few months, it has become even busier. The library, like most in the Washington area, has had a rising tide of users as patrons look for free computer access, DVD loans and activities for children during the recession. Circulation in the last six months of the year rose as much as 23 percent in libraries around the region, records show.

The influx comes just as county managers are preparing budgets for the coming fiscal year in a time of huge shortfalls. Libraries, like other services, face drastic cuts that could mean reducing staff and hours or even shuttering branches.

“It’s a cruel irony that use is going up and budget cuts are occurring simultaneously,” said Jim Rettig, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at the University of Richmond. “What I think doesn’t get enough recognition is the role libraries play in the economic vitality and development of a community.”

Cultural soothsayers once thought libraries would become obsolete in the Internet age. Not so. They have modernized, digitized, virtualized.

Patrons can bring their own beverages; Arlington County hopes to add a cafe in one of its branches. They can access databases, read Chinese newspapers or the latest graphic teen novel. Users have more and more access from home; they can text in reference questions to a Fairfax County librarian, for example, or listen to podcasts. Fairfax card holders can read an e-book online. Librarians are trying to tailor services to community needs, hoping to add more babysitting certification classes in Silver Spring or résumé-writing workshops in Prince George’s County.

More than 68 percent of American adults now have a library card, the highest number since the ALA began tracking the numbers in 1990.

“One thing I hear quite frequently is ‘Gee, it’s cheaper to come here than Borders,’ ” said Nancy Savas, the library manager at Germantown. “It makes me laugh, because we’ve always been here.”

Business Brisk at Area Libraries – washingtonpost.com.

As technology evolved over the past few decades, power has passed from the hands of the creators or delivery channels of information to its users — you. (AFP/Getty Images)

Media Is Changing, But Some Things Endure, Jeff Greenfield On The Evolution Of The Media, And How Some Timeless Qualities Withstand Change – CBS News.

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