Tom Keating : VoIP & Gadgets Blog
Tom Keating
CTO
| VoIP & Gadgets blog - Latest news in VoIP & gadgets, wireless, mobile phones, reviews, & opinions

Skype

Skype P2P VoIP

Skype acquires Qik

January 6, 2011

Some interesting news from Skype - they have acquired Qik, a provider of mobile video software and services that enable individuals to capture and, instantly share mobile video. Qik has 60 employees, and is headquartered in Redwood City, California and has an office in Moscow, Russia. The transaction is expected to close in January 2011. Terms of the acquisition will not be disclosed.

Panasonic Adds Skype Voice & Video Calling to New Panasonic Blu-Ray Players

January 5, 2011

Panasonic and Skype today announced that Skype Voice & Video calling will be added to new 2011 Viera CAST-enabled Panasonic Blu-Ray players. Skype already had a partnership deal with Panasonic to bring video & voice calling to Panasonic HDTVs via an external HD camera. This deal extends the Skype ecosystem a little further.

China Cracks Down on VoIP, including Skype

December 30, 2010

China is cracking down on VoIP applications such as Skype, which is impacting the profits of state-owned carriers.

"We are carrying out with relevant authorities a campaign to crack down on illegal Voice over Internet Protocol phone services", the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a circular posted online earlier this month.

Skype Video For iPhone!

December 30, 2010


Skype Video for iPhone is here! You can now make video calls from your iPhone with the latest update from the Apple App Store. Rich Tehrani and I tested it this morning on his iPhone 4 with my iPhone 3GS (only rear-facing camera).

The video quality was pretty good. I estimate between 5-12 fps over WiFi. After awhile my 3GS started going black for a few seconds and then would turn back on.


Skype Details the Great 2010 Outage

December 29, 2010

Today, Skype CIO Lars Rabbe detailed what caused the Skype outage:

What was the cause for the failure?

On Wednesday, December 22, a cluster of support servers responsible for offline instant messaging became overloaded. As a result of this overload, some Skype clients received delayed responses from the overloaded servers. In a version of the Skype for Windows client (version 5.0.0152), the delayed responses from the overloaded servers were not properly processed, causing Windows clients running the affected version to crash.

Users running either the latest Skype for Windows (version 5.0.0.156), older versions of Skype for Windows (4.0 versions), Skype for Mac, Skype for iPhone, Skype on your TV, and Skype Connect or Skype Manager for enterprises were not affected by this initial problem.

However, around 50% of all Skype users globally were running the 5.0.0.152 version of Skype for Windows, and the crashes caused approximately 40% of those clients to fail.



Skype Down

December 22, 2010


Skype is experiencing a massive worldwide outage today. The last major outage was in 2007, in a story that I broke and it lasted a day. They also had a DNS issue back in 2004. Not exactly good timing with the impending IPO and people wanting to wish each other Merry Christmas in 3 days.

Skype for Android Update - Supports Samsung Galaxy S & SD Card

December 16, 2010

Skype is on an update roll. Last week they released an update for Nokia/Symbian phones. Now they just released an update for Android devices that allows you to move the Skype app to external storage to free up precious local storage on the phone. This release also adds compatibility with the Samsung Galaxy S. Only catch is that you'll need Android 2.2.

Skype may be on an update roll, but there is NO truth to the rumor that they are releasing a video-enabled Skype app for iPhone or Android for some video chat action.

FREETALK Connect Review

December 15, 2010


FREETALK Connect might be an easy to install IP-PBX, but it doesn't skimp on features, packing quite a punch in advanced features, including Skype for Asterisk & Skype Connect support, paging, conference bridges, PSTN failover, custom CallerIDs per user, find me/follow me, and more. I took a FREETALK Connect system for a test drive and was pretty impressed with how easy it was to setup and configure, but was also impressed with its tight integration with Skype.

First, I should mention that FREETALK Connect runs with Asterisk in its core. Currently running Asterisk v1.4, the box relies on a Web portal for all administrative (add users, configure auto-attendant, etc.) and user interaction (voicemail, call forward settings, etc.). You don't get console access to the Linux kernel.


Skype Updates Nokia App

December 8, 2010

Viber - Another VoIP Mobile App Launches on iPhone

December 2, 2010


Viber, a mobile VoIP app for the iPhone launched today. There are plenty of mobile VoIP apps for the iPhone, but each has its weakness, including Skype, which is a battery hog. Viber's claim to fame is that it doesn't use buddy lists or require registration. Instead, your phone number is your username.
Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 ... 59 Next
Featured Events