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Mike Liebhold has a dream -- a dream of a decentralized mobile web consisting of a mesh of distributed ad hoc networks. Realizing this dream could unleash a wave of creativity and new services, but there are powerful business imperatives holding it back. Is there a way out of this dilemma? Mike thinks there could be, and there are some compelling real world precedents that show how it can be done.

Just as Moore's law turned personal computers from a curiosity to a powerful tool over the last 20 years, it is now turning cellular phones into mini computers with many of the same capabilities. Indeed, next year, more smart phones will be sold than personal computers. Smart phones are a huge, attractive platform for application developers, but how are you supposed to develop software for them? Alex Russel, creator of the Dojo web toolkit, shares his thoughts from the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference.

"Practice safe VoIP," is Dan York's appeal to the new entrants in the digital telephony landscape. In a spicy, fictional anecdote, CISSP's Director of Emerging Communication Technology cleverly reveals the possible security vulnerabilities VoIP networks are amenable to. Like all happy tales, in the end, the bad guys lose; VoIP security tools are to the rescue. But in real life, Dan warns, the potential threats are only increasing.

In the last few years, telephony prices have dropped to ridiculously low levels and today, one doesn't need a telephone instrument to receive or make calls. Personal services are disappearing from the landscape while technology rapidly replaces them, albeit with a divide between what a customer wants and what he gets. What change is behind this revolution? Moshe Yudkowsky, President of Disaggregate, offers his theory on why emerging telephony is revolutionary.

At British Telecom, VoIP technology and the Internet are seen to provide some exciting opportunities to grow new business models. Jerry Thompson, Chief of Applications at British Telecom, talks about BT's transition from being a traditional voice-based telecommunications enterprise to a VoIP-based service provider.

From the start, phones have been a point-to-point communication method: pick up the receiver, dial a number, hope for an answer. Jyri Engestrom's microblogging app, Jaiku, changes all that by interfacing your mobile phone with pervasive internet connectivity. What we get is a handset that is used increasingly less for calling and more for sharing what you're doing, where you're going, who you're with, and the photo you just took. These microposts broadcast a river of rich presence information about you: from one-on-one to many-to-many.

The internet has come a long way since its inception. You can now talk to a friend in real time while miles away or share photographs with relatives in the next town over. However, there is a method of interaction that we all use infinitely more every single day: voice. While Web 2.0 content is increasing our interaction over the internet, telephony still has yet to hit a big boom. In this talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference, Trevor Baca explains how recent Web 2.0 innovations can be applied to emerging telecom technologies.

Expensive technological devices can be found just about anywhere today, ranging from the business executive's office to the middle school playground. It is no surprise that gadgets have also become prime targets for thieves operating just about anywhere as well. In this talk Mark Simpkins of the Design Against Crime advisory panel raises the idea of socially responsible design in respect to preventing crime.

Jeff Bonforte was scheduled to talk about the future of VoIP. However, instead of a description of what he calls Telephone 3.0, he delivers an entertaining and typically forthright argument in favor of anger and its power to drive innovation. Bonforte challenges the nerds and dorks of the IT industry to spend less time enjoying problems and to ignite the passion that comes with anger as a way to stimulate innovative ideas and drive the uptake of new technology.

In a deceptively straightforward presentation, TalkPlus CTO John Todd lays bare a vision for a global standards-based numbering system free from bureaucratic control and compatible with almost all existing iPBX or SIP proxy platforms and NAPTR addressable protocols. At the same time, he brings his audience quickly up to speed on the acronyms and terms that form such a large part of telecommunications conversation, including E.164, ITAD, and ISN.