A dispatch from Don Albert, GM of Skype North America:

Hollywood, like Oprah, is catching on to Skype. I am sitting in the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival, which is buzzing with a couple hundred film industry execs and film students.

Many of them are using Skype to call home from the Wireless Café. Some of them are new converts to Skype, having been intercepted by our Skype interns as they were about to make expensive international calls on their mobile phones.

The highlight of our first two days was yesterday's panel discussion on the incredible advances in 3D technology in the film industry. James Cameron (Academy Award-winning director of Titanic, Aliens, The Terminator, etc.) (on right in the photo below) and cinematographer Vince Pace (on left) participated in the 90-minute session from their Hollywood studio via a live Skype video call to talk about the stereoscopic camera they developed and are using to film the 3D movie Avatar.

It was amazing to see how naturally they interacted with their fellow panelists and the audience from 6,000 miles away using Skype. Maybe James and Vince, who are apparently new fans of Skype, will help our Tallinn team develop 3D video calling for Skype 5.0.

More Skype calls with industry luminaries are planned for sessions over the coming days, as well as during the American Pavilion's 20th Anniversary party on Monday night. Well, I'd better get back to work.