Skype rolls out Beta 2 version for Windows

More than 45,000 of you spoke in e-mail surveys, blog comments, and so on, and Skype listened, redesigning its interface, introducing some new features and restoring some popular old ones.

Skype today launched its new Version 4 Beta 2 for Windows, which is available for downloads.

Mike Bartlett, director, Windows Product Management, said on the main blog that Beta 2 "includes a number of changes, and most noticeably we've brought back contact groups - although we've renamed it contact categories to avoid confusion with group conversations. We've also done a lot of work on resizing and introduced a view which behaves very much like older versions: compact view."
Bartlett provides a tour of Beta 2:

--You can view it in a full-screen version or a compact size. You can adjust the size of sections to suit yourself.

---Video can be in-your-face big. You feel like you really are speaking to someone face-to-face.

--Your contacts can now have loads of phone numbers. That's very convenient to track your friends' mobile and landline numbers.

--Skype has changed the alerts and notifications so you are less likely to miss them. For example. the taskbar is highlighted in orange to alert you so you won't miss a message.