Thursday's Cool new products

VoIP:
Yahoo! will add PC-to-PSTN calling to the Yahoo! Messenger. Phone Out will be 1 c/min and Phone In will cost 30 $/year for a phone number. That beats Skype.
BT also undercuts Skype. Next year will see a hardphone version of BT Communicator, a BT Fusion version of the hot Motorola Razr, as well as WiFi-enabled Fusion handsets and a video phone

IPTV and VoD:
BT adds content from BBC Worldwide, Paramount and Warner Music to its VoD line-up, to be launched next autumn.

BoS:
Inmarsat launches BoS, with audio/video streaming and VoIP.

WiMAX:
The IEEE ratifies 802.16e, formally 802.16-2005. This adds mobility to WiMAX.
Arcor, non-core part of Vodafone, starts a WiMAX field trial in Kaiserslautern. Germany is set to license spectrum (3.4-3.6 GHz band) early 2006.

Local search:
Microsoft expands Windows Live by adding images to Virtual Earth. The images are to be made using low-flying airplanes. Sounds like A9's Blockview, with pictures taken from a truck.

Outdoor advertising:
Nielsen Outdoor first published results from a Chicago trial. A group of 850 traveled the streets for 9 days wearing an Npod. It is supposed to become the currency for the outdoor ads market.

Market research:
ACNielsen completed the size doubling of the US Homescan panel to 125k households, a 2 year process.