Skype Gear News Roundup

Here are some recent stories about Skype gear in the news:

Video: in the classroom, at the conference, and at the Cannes Film Festival
3 Skypephone: reviews and commentary
Skype at work, anywhere

It's all after the jump...

Video: in the classroom, at the conference, and at the Cannes Film Festival

I alway love stories about people using video calls on Skype in interesting ways. In Ohio, two married teachers are using Skype in their classrooms to allow their students to ask each other questions about Ohio and ancient history. Also in Ohio, Ohio University has been using Skype to allow panelists to participate in conferences from far away, including having someone on the ground in Sudan lead a discussion on the crisis in Darfur. And in France, video calls on Skype have allowed people in the film industry (including director James Cameron) to participate in panel discussions at the American Pavillion at the Cannes Film Festival. Skype Journal has more info here.

3 Skypephone: reviews and commentary

Reviews of the 3 Skypephone keep coming in--Gadget Speak put up a review here and ITProPortal.com also put up a thorough review this week. They concluded that they liked the phone, saying "it is certainly the cheapest way to access Skype and MSN messenger on the move; and does it in style." They also included a bit of information I didn't know: you can check which firmware version you have by typing *789#. It's also possible to update the 3 Skypephone's firmware using your USB cable, though an update hasn't come out yet (but I'm told there's one in the works). I also caught this piece on SMS Text News about whether Skype on mobiles can really take off with the masses. The unidentified author doesn't quite get all his facts right (making calls on the 3 Skypephone neither uses tons of data nor incurs additional data charges), but I agree that the 3 Skypephone's big Skype button does make making Skype calls easier on the go.

Skype at work, anywhere

The Washington Post gave some suggestions on how to use Skype as part of a virtual office, in the Guardian there was a piece on how to stay connected with far flung loved ones using Skype, and in the Financial Post, there's an interesting story about two business partners who hadn't met in person until their new business had been running for months.

Comments

I bought a Freetalk Stereo Wireless Headset from Skype and I've been back and forth with Skype help to little avail. My main problem is that the sound quality that people hear varies from none to too loud to distorted. I was looking through the ad for the heaset in Skype's on line store and under "What's in the box:" it lists a "CD-ROM." Skype says it's not their problem even though their name is on all six sides of the box. They told me to contack the manufacturer and it took then ten miniutes to find out who that might be and then they said it was Plantronics. So I called Plantroics and they had never heard of the Headset. Did anyone get a CD-ROM with their Headset? Does anyone know who actually manufactures the Headset? I made no progress trying to find a company called Freetalk. Any other suggestions to fix this problem would be appreciated. Thank you.