Month: January 2009
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Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, WiFi access, chat features and Twitter-like mood messages
Continue Reading: Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X provides screen sharing, WiFi access, chat features and Twitter-like mood messagesUPDATE: Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X is now available for download.
UPDATE #2: The 2.8 Beta also includes some experimental support for linking Skype mood messages to Twitter.
Tonight out at the “ShowStoppers” event at MacWorld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype’s website. [NOTE: I will update this post with the download link when it becomes available.]
Continuing Skype’s rather fragmented product strategy, they have rolled out some new features in this 2.8 beta release that will at least stop us Mac users from whining about Windows users always getting the good stuff first. Here’s the quick list of what Skype notes is in this release:
- Skype Access
- Screen Sharing
- Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
- Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats
- Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
- Large avatars: 256×256 pixels
- Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests
- Ability to add your own notes to contacts
Courtesy of Skype’s PR team, I’ve had a chance to play with…
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Define “VoIP” – and then we can debate whether it is dead!
Continue Reading: Define “VoIP” – and then we can debate whether it is dead!There is a fundamental problem with the “VoIP is dead” debate continuing to rage across the VoIP/communications part of the blogosphere (see Alec Saunders part 1 and part 2, Jon Arnold, Andy Abramson, Ken Camp, Jeff Pulver part 1 and part 2, Om Malik, Shidan Gouran, Ted Wallingford, Dameon Welch-Abernathy (PhoneBoy), Rich Tehrani and a zillion others…)Aswath Rao and Luca Filigheddu came closest to the mark in their posts. The fundamental problem with this entire debate is simply this:
Define “VoIP”?
As I discussed in an Emerging Tech Talk video podcast I put up this morning, there are a range of definitions you could give to “VoIP”, including, but not limited to, the following:
- The underlying infrastructure, a.k.a. the “plumbing” – the mechanisms, protocols, etc. that are used for the transport of voice/video/etc. over IP. Things like SIP, H.323, RTP, various codecs, etc.
- Consumer “PSTN line replacement” services – Offerings like those of Vonage and so many others where the basic idea is that you can get cheaper telephone charges by going over the Internet and getting rid of your local landline. Also called “pure play” VoIP by some or “VoIP arbitrage” by others.
- Computer-to-computer/softphone offerings, often coming from the…
- The underlying infrastructure, a.k.a. the “plumbing” – the mechanisms, protocols, etc. that are used for the transport of voice/video/etc. over IP. Things like SIP, H.323, RTP, various codecs, etc.