Context aware telephony

Last week, in a report from Digital ID World, I mentioned Equals. Gabe Gabe Wachob gave me the demo, but kept saying "I wish Ajay were here--he really gives a good demo."

Ajay is Ajay Madhok, the CEO of AmSoft Systems, the company behind Equals. I was disappointed not to meet him, but this morning I got the next best thing: listening to him describe Equals on IT Conversations (he's the second lightening talk--about 8 minutes in).

Ajay talks about context-aware telephony, which promises to give users more choice, privacy, and control over who can contact them, how, and when. He does a great job of describing how being able to resolve an abstract identifier (like an i-name) can be resolved to specific channels based on your context (in a meeting, sleeping, etc.) I can see why Gabe likes his demos just from listening to his explanation.

Ajay's talk inspired me to look for a Vonage API in hopes of at least controlling where my phone was forwarded based on presence. No joy there, but I did find a cool way to link Vonage to my address book, so I was placated.