Motorola has announced its new range of of MOTOLIVN phones for folks that are still digging the landline action.
White, tall and slim like an Icelandic supermodel, the D8 phone comes with a location-free base so you can position the handset wherever there is a nearby power socket.
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Phone services offering freebie calls over the Internet are still only being used by a niche following according to new research.
A study by Ofcom has discovered that Voice- Over-Internet- Protocol (VoIP) services – like those offered by Skype, BT and Tesco – have failed to fire the public imagination.
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Some Skype users faced a frustrating weekend after a software bug left many unable to log in to the Internet phone service.
The sign on problem surfaced early Thursday afternoon (August 16th), with the company’s blog reporting a software issue. At the same time, Skype temporarily disabled all downloads of Skype.
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With the folks at Skype continuing to ignore the loud pleas from Palm OS users, German firm Shape Services have created a Palm Skype compatible client, IM+ for Skype, which is also available for BlackBerry, Symbian S60 v3, Java powered phones and Windows Mobile Pocket PC platforms, with an iPhone version in beta (see below).
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Skype, clearly never ones to stay still, have released a new version of the PC Skype client – version 3.5.
It comes with four new features
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If you’re a user of Skype-Out, the service that lets you call landlines from Skype, you may have come across a peculiar reaction when you’ve dialed people abroad. Our experience has ranged from puzzlement to down-right bewildered, “Where’s dialing code 0000 from?”
This should change for some lucky Skype-out customers, now they’ve released Caller ID on it.
Once you’ve changed you configuration, the Skype-out number will be set to show your Skype-In number – hurrah.
Not all countries are covered, but the lucky ones are currently the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Japan, Hong Kong, Estonia and Poland. Countries that aren’t covered _may_ come on soon, after Skype’s “legal people continue to be busy working with our partners and governments.”
We put out a NIB (News in Brief) earlier today about Skype offering half price SMS’s.
It struck us that dear old Blighty (UK) _wasn’t_ included in the list of countries that people could half price SMS to.
Jeepers, Creepers, what’s going on, went the cry!
We got in touch with those who know (Skype-types) and after a short pause came the confirmation that, yes, the UK wasn’t included.
The reason?
“We’re looking at all markets and have started with those that we think will take advantage of the promotion the fastest. Everything is evolutionary at Skype – we rely on early adopter/usage feedback to make sure we get it right for other countries yet to benefit from the promotion.”
Doesn’t make a great deal of sense given the UK’s global reputation of madly texting at every opportunity.
Clearly Skype had to say something and while this might be the official reason, we wondered if it was something to do with the famously-inflexible UK mobile companies, and their unwillingness to show love (or enough of a discount) to dear Skype?
Those clever-types at Skype are trying to hook you into the habit of using Skype, not just for your spoken comms and IM, but for SMS to mobiles too.
The feature’s been there for quite a while in the PC version and for slightly less on the Mac, but we guess they think that not enough people know about it yet.
They’re using that old ‘make it cheaper’ ploy to attract your attention.
Until the 8th May, you (any Skype user, anywhere in the world) will be able to send SMSs via Skype for half their normal price to mobile owners in United States, Australia, Poland, Russia, Taiwan, Belgium, Thailand, Ireland, Austria and Italy.
How do you SMS in Skype?
Sending an SMS in Skype is a doddle, simply select a contact that has a mobile number stored in it and select the Send an SMS option.
It couldn’t be easier really, could it? … and it gives the advantage of having a full-sized keyboard.
Skype for Mac 2.6 beta version has hit the downloads.
While they’ve been tightening out various bits and pieces, they’ve launched an important new feature, Call Transfer on the Mac first, going against the other Skype releases that have dragged behind the PC.
In their words, “You can now transfer ongoing calls effortlessly to other friends and family on your Skype contact list.”
This is a strategic advance for Skype, opening the door for businesses to start using Skype as a central point of contact, then letting the receptionist pass the call over to the intended call destination. Perhaps they thought that business users were far less likely to be using Macintosh, hence launching it on there first.
They also claim to have improved the call quality as well as the other bits added to the latest beta below
Join public chats
Chat typing indicator – see when others are writing a message
Call any Skype Prime premium services provider and pay with Skype credit
Automatic Updates – get new features and updates without having to go to Skype’s website to download
DTMF tones for automatic answering services available also during Skype-to-Skype calls
While they’re working on the bigger things, they’ve also been working on the small things like handling birthday reminders or other notifications that are important for Mac users too.
Nokia has officially announced that they have made Skype available to run on the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet.