Things are hotting up in the US VoIP market as Yahoo announces their low cost Messenger with Voice service, letting users make phone calls through the company’s instant messaging software.
The version 7.5 Beta launch comes after successful trials in five other countries since December, with the service letting users make calls from their computers for 2 cents a minute (or less) to the most popular national phone markets, including the United States.
Just like rival Skype, the new service lets users make freebie computer-to-computer calls, with a “Phone Out” and “Phone In” feature allowing users to dial or receive calls from landlines in 180 countries.
The Phone In service – which lets customers to receive calls on their computers from regular and mobile phones – is priced at $2.99 a month, or $29.90 (~£17, ~€25) a year, compared to Skype’s €30 yearly charge.
Keen to elbow Skype off the VoIP table by appealing to consumer’s wallets, Yahoo claim that their service is noticeably cheaper.
They claim Messenger with Voice costs between 20 to 30 percent lower than Skype’s fees to many major markets outside the United States.
Yahoo are upbeat about prospects for their new service after trials in the initial five countries proved more successful than anticipated, especially in France.
Mindful that not everyone wants to bark into their computer, Yahoo have also struck deals with various hardware manufactures including headset makers Plantronics, USB handset manufacturers VTech and cordless phone kings Siemens AG.
With Yahoo Instant Messenger already enjoying a huge market presence, the new voice service could hurt Skype’s prospects – after all, why should a user go through all the hassle of signing up with a third party when they’re already with Yahoo?
WorldMate 2006 Professional Edition v4.1 
Travellers can get real-time information about their flights – including the inevitable delays, gate and terminal information – with global forecasts letting them know whether to pack the Goretex or the suntan lotion. 
Essentially the same program minus the live flight and subscription services, this is an essential Pocket PC installation even for occasional travellers, with the updating weather and currency converters almost worth the price alone. 
These minor quibbles aside, both programs offer a compelling suite of utilities for travel and come highly recommended for perambulating Pocket PC users. 
Microsoft is to release a suite of free parental controls and other safety measures designed to safeguard children on the Internet. 
Kids definitely won’t like this, but the software also lets parents access their activity reports to check what they’ve been up to online. 
Family Safety Settings will be available for any PC running Windows XP with Service Pack 2 as well as the upcoming Windows Vista operating system. 
There may be almost 76 million sites stuffed full of six billion pages of information vying for our attention on the Web, but it seems that most surfers only choose to visit six sites on a regular basis.
Sadly, it seems that the days of random surfing are coming to a close, with the vast majority of Web users (95 per cent) going online with a specific destination in mind. 
Bringing together public services from across eleven Whitehall departments, visitors to Directgov can unearth a mountain of useful information and services, from renewing driving licences, car taxes or passports , locating local services like schools, childminders and recycling and even planning journeys on foot, by car or by public transport.
Almost 60 per cent of Britons rely on the Internet to do their banking, according to new research commissioned by the Alliance and Leicester bank.
Designed to cut down on identity theft and online fraud, the two-factor authentication compels users to provides two means of identification. 
Other banks are also jumping on the security bandwagon, with Barclays running a new chip card reader trial involving 5,000 customers and staff, while Lloyds TSB is close to completing an exhaustive six-month test of a keyring type device.
The site formerly known as Ask Jeeves has retired its long serving butler, rebranded itself as ‘Ask.com’ and served up a new, simplified homepage offering access to new tools like enhanced maps, driving directions, encyclopaedia search and a Web-based desktop search.
Aerial photos can also be overlaid or combined with regular street views, with the option to print aerial shots for a fee.
Here’s an idea Ask.com – how about you include a help file to explain this to users, or, even better, give us the same goodies too?
Old Danny boy’s got his work cut out for him as Ask Jeeves has remained the least used among the largest search engines, way behind market leaders Google who currently hog an estimated 40 per cent of all queries. 
The idea behind buzz-o-phone is simple enough. You call a US freephone (800) number where you’re able to leave a voice message. Your elicitation, wise or otherwise, is the posted to the player section of the buzz-o-phone Web site, where the world can listen.
We’d imagine that two versions of the ‘conversation’ will have to be created; the raw, which would be an unfiltered version; and the clear-feed, dropping off comments that are judged as offensive. This is riddled with difficulties of its own – as with all censorship, you have to make you’re own decision as to if your parameters of acceptability align with the self-appointed censor.
Xara has been around for over a decade now, and although it may not be as well known as expensive rival programs like Illustrator and Freehand, it continues to offer astonishing value for money, providing ample power under the hood and enough tools to satisfy anything from graphic smudgers to arty pros.
Although it isn’t the most modern-looking of programs, Xara’s sheer simplicity and power makes it a far less daunting program to master compared to many high-end vector programs, with new users guided by a set of excellent help files and 80+ short movie tutorials.
Imported images can be resized, have text added and then exported as JPEGs with control over compression settings. 
The verdict
America Online is about to come out of its corner fighting as it gets ready to slug it out with Internet heavyweights such as MySpace, Skype and Google.
Mashing up MySpace
Stalking Skype