November 2008

Marilyn Borlee, a school secretary, received a Veterans Day surprise when her fellow employees plotted a reunion on Skype Video with her son Luke, an airman in Afghanistan. Fox 11 news captured the emotional reunion :

Entrepreneurs Sam Merrill and Kent Holiday are helping save rural America, at least a piece of Northern Wyoming, which they have transformed into Big Skype country.

Their start-up, Eleutian Technology, has hired 300 people to use Skype, mainly via Video, to teach English as a second language. Their employes, based in call centers in Wyoming with high bandwidth, webcams and Skype, are teaching 15,000 people in South Korea how to speak English. They plan to expand to China and Japan.

Merrill said, "Small towns in America have been shriveling and dying." He said the typical job options have been to work at the gas station, on ranches and to teach school.

He said Eleutian's business model with Skype has opened new high-tech opportunities.

Merrill, Eleutian's chief technology officer, said Koreans and other Asians generally have a good grasp of English grammar. But he said they can struggle with pronunciation.

He said projecting teachers on Skype Video into classrooms helps students get first-hand guidance in overcoming these obstacles. He said some students opt for audio calls, adding that Skype chat is another useful teaching tool.

He shares his thoughts on Skype in this video:

Wałęsa Institute in Poland is celebrating the 25th anniversary of Lech Wałęsa winning the Nobel Prize, holding a conference to remind people of the impact of the Solidarity movement.

Skype is a technology partner for the event, enabling Nobel laureates unable to attend in person to participate using Skype Video calls.

Peter Parkes shares some of the history of Solidarity in Poland along with the plans for the conference on the main Skype blog.

And there's a video in which Wałęsa talks about the importance of communications and demonstrates the use of Skype Video:

Planet Green recommends that families "green" up their Thanksgivings with teleconferences.

Josh Peterson explained:

"In the olden days, it wasn't tradition for people to trot across the globe in order to visit folks for Thanksgiving. It is a modern tradition brought upon by the affordability and safety of air travel. We cannot afford a continuation of this trend due to the growing climate problem. Air travel is very costly in terms of a carbon emissions. There might be a technologically feasible way to meet with your family while remaining carbon neutral."

First, you need a webcam and then to sign up with a service like Skype with free teleconferencing.

Then on Turkey Day, as the family gathers at various lcoations, Peterson said: "My camera would be pointed at my somewhat angelic face. Their camera would be pointed at my somewhat angelic family. Ideally, a place would be set for laptop bearing my face's image. I would eat a meal facing a computer screen filled the shining countenances of my family. I would virtually be home for the holiday."

Smith College's squash team are Pioneers in more than name. They also are pioneers in technology.

When their coach Tim Bacon, was laid up with hip-replacement surgery, he had the team set up a laptop with a Webcam at court-side. He tracked the team's play via Skype, giving them notes in chat as well as on Audio and Video calls.

Team members stopped by the webcam to check with the coach on his recovery.

A decade ago, Bacon pioneered techniques of mental training for athletes using phone and e-mail.

He said Skype takes this idea to the next level, noting that "most kids do Skype" already and the technology is easy to learn and use.

Bacon said squash, unlike tennis, is not a "rich sport." But using Skype on a laptop at courtside would enable squash players to "bring along" their coaches. He noted that the Skype calls are free, whereas a traveling coach would set a player back $5,000 per event.

Bacon said this approach would work with all the racquet sports, bowling and "anything with a bench," including hockey, basketball and soccer.

He said he could even supervise his athlete's strength training and mental training when they're home for Thanksgiving.

"The uses are endless," he said.

Bacon shares his thoughts on remote coaching in this Video:

Tim Bacon is a gung-ho squash coach at Smith College. Even a hip replacement surgery and medical leave couldn't keep him down.

Days after his surgery, he was coaching his squad remotely from his rehab room. His team was 60 miles away at Smith in Northampton in the Connecticut River valley of western Massachusetts.

A Web cam was set up on a laptop on court-side during practice so Bacon could stay in touch with his players. He sent his observations on chat and also can offered pointers on Audio and Video.

He notes the Skype coaching approach can work on the road: "There is nothing to stop a tour athlete from setting up a laptop in the stands."

He tells his story on his video "Skype Coaching for Squash" here: and below:

Montana may be Big Sky country. But nearby Wyoming is turning out to be Big Skype country.

Ten Sleep, Wyo., population 350, is sleepy in name only. Skype and high tech are alive and well there.

Ten Sleep-based Eleutian Technology teaches people in South Korea to speak English via Skype.

Eleutian has hired about 300 teachers from Northern Wyoming to teach more than 15,000 students in Korea, according to Kent Holiday, Eleutian's CEO.

Holiday told Associated Press: "Our plan was never to be a company that had a few thousand subscribers. It's a $100 billion market just between Korea, Japan and China, and so we wanted to be the leader and we wanted to have millions of users."

Kathleen Hampton, a kindergarten teacher in Ten Sleep, teaches English to Korean students several times a week, including college students and business execs and students in after-school programs known as "hakwons."

She said the hakwon students are "always fun because they're always yelling out in the background. You get 14-year-old boys yelling out `I love you!' because they learn these English expressions and try to use them."

Ten Sleep got its name for being the midpoint of a 20-day trek between Indian camps. Holiday picked the town, where his in-laws live, for his business because it upgraded from copper wires to a modern fiber optic system.

Skype has supported the idea of net neutrality

It also is opposed to unreasonable bandwidth caps and believes that unreasonable limits on the use of an internet connections are illegal.

Skype filed its "wireless Carterphone" petition to the Federal Communications Commission
in the US.

So Jonathan Christensen, Skype's general manager for Video and Audio, and Christopher Libertelli, who leads Skype's Government Relations team in the Americas, were encouraged by developments involving the Obama team's transition at the FCC,

Christensen wrote on the main blog:

"Chris and I were excited to hear the news that the FCC transition team includes two honest-to-goodness thought leaders, both of whom have a keen understanding of the innovation that is occurring at the edge of the network: Kevin Werbach, (from the University of Pennsylvania, Supernova and ex Release 2.0 fame) and Susan Crawford (from the University of Michigan, Yale and One Web Day). Both understand how government policy is made. Kevin has been running one of the best internet and public policy conferences in recent memory and Susan, in particular, is one of the clearest and passionate advocates for openness on the Internet.

Christensen added: "The transition to the presidency of Barack Obama can only be a good thing for mobile openness and net neutrality in the US, and we can certainly do better than settling for 'competition' between the likes of Verizon and AT&T. Instead, these folks understand that a 'multi-modal' innovation policy will empower consumers to choose not merely between AT&T and Verizon, but between hundreds of software applications on the internet such as Skype.

"Skype believes that government policy which allows any app to run on any device, and on any network is the right thing for everyone, not just Skype users. Chris and I are hopeful that we are moving from a bankrupt era of deregulation and broadband indifference among legislators in North America to an era where policy is being made by the digital natives. We have a sneaking suspicion that innovation policy changes may be just around the corner..."

Arabic is one of the most common languages on the planet.

Estimates vary. But hundreds of millions of people speak Arabic.

Now Skype has a Web page for Arabic speakers.

Oksana Morina gives the details on the main Skype blog.

She notes: "Skype is all about conversation - and we realize that it's sometimes hard to have a conversation with someone when you don't speak the same language.

"That's why we try to add new languages to our repertoire when we can, and today we've launched an Arabic version of the Skype website. For the hundreds of millions of Arabic speakers across the globe, Skype now speaks the way you do."

Bill Gates has described Xobni as "the next generation of social networking."

Now Xobni, which links Outlook with the Internet, has added a new version of its side with improved Skype integration.

With contacts who are Skype users, you can now:

--Send instant messages

--Send Skype-to-Skype calls

And with all contacts, you can call landlines and mobiles at low Skype rates and send SMSs.
,
The sidebar also displays the online status for Skype contacts, and even if you're not a Skype user yourself, you'll be able to see whether or not your contacts are.

If you're already a Xobni user, you can upgrade to the latest version now;
if you're not, you can download it.
and try it out.

The Skype application has won kudos from WebWorkerDaily and TechCrunch.

Every weekday, around noon, Erin Crispin checks in on Skype Video with her parents, Jim and Karen Cochran, of Mechanicsburg, Pa.

"The kids (Abby, 4; Elijah, 2) love it when I pick them up at preschool to talk to Mimi and Papa," said Crispin, 28, who also has seven-month-old Naomi.

Nothing unusual about this--except Crispin and her parents are separated by more than 5,000 miles and seven time zones.

Erin is the wife of Joe Crispin, 29, a former point guard with the Phoenix Suns, who was part of the 2001 Penn State team that upset the national powerhouse North Carolina Tarheels in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament to advance to the Sweet Sixteen. In recent years, Crispin has been playing abroad.

Erin also is the author of the Married to a Baller: My Life As A Basketball Wife blog, where she tells life as an expat.

The Crispins have spent five seasons in five countries outside the United States over the past five years. Elijah was born in Italy and Naomi was born in Bandirma, Turkey on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara across from Istanbul.

Since last December, Joe has been playing for Banvit--named for a poultry company sponsor--in the Turkish Basketball League.

Erin said Skype has helped the family stay in touch with friends and family:

--When Joe is on the road, he calls in on Skype.

--The Crispins speak to their parents and grandparents on Skype as well as friends in the United States and Europe. "My grandparents' faces just light up at Video," she said.

--The family also has a online number in New Jersey that friends use to call them.

Erin said one of the more difficult times for the Crispins was when they first moved to Turkey and didn't have internet service for almost two months. "I didn't realize how much I had depended on it. I felt out of sorts, I was used to seeing my parents everyday," she said. "With Skype, you don't feel like you're 5,000 miles away."'

Erin shares some thoughts about Skype on Video:

The first Skype-certified computer-free videophone is now available.

Peter Parkes announced in the main blog that the Skype Shop is now selling the ASUS AiGuru SV1 for North America and for pre-order in Europe. It'll be available in Asia later this year.

The $299.95 device, which has a seven-inch screen, enables free Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls to friends and family around the world. It works its magic over WiFi networks.

Users simply sign into Skype, see who's available and make their calls.

Dr. Deepak Vidmar built his reputation as a nomad astrologer and psychologist, who would out on his motorcycle, computer in saddlebag, to do readings, from Ibiza, Spain to Pune, India.

Deepak, a native of Louisiana and Texas, decided to settle down in Bali a year ago. "I didn't want to leave and go traveling. I'm getting kind of old for that. I'm almost 66 now," he said in an interview.

But he noted the ex-pat community in Bali was too small to keep his astrology business humming. So he decided to change his business model and do astrology sessions on Skype with clients around the world.

He said: "Skype is basically the only way I can survive here. You move to a tropical paradise in a garden, that's great. But how are you going to make money and support yourself?"

Clients go to his Website to make appointments. They use their credit cards to pay via PayPal.

He encourages his clients to set up their own Skype accounts. He uses Skype Out to reach landlines of those who prefer old-fashioned calls.

His clients so far have come from Germany, United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Malta, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, India, Scandinavia, South America.

Deepak is also a teacher and hopes to use Skype Video to teach classes. He also is planning a hypnosis session over Skype with a client in South Korea.

When I interviewed Deepak, the sound quality between Bali and Chicago was as a clear as a day on Bali. I could hear roosters crowing and a fountain bubbling. I could almost feel the humidity.

Deepak even gave me some personal advice during our Skype conversation.

I have been thinking about visiting Spain or Israel in 2009.

Deepak said: "You will be too restless to settle in one place so plan on doing both. You have a Uranus transit over your Moon (once in a lifetime) April 2010-April 2011. You feel it now and in the summer of 2009 the feeling will get stonger and stronger."

Good to know.

Don Lee was holding up an ashtray made from a "25-pounder," a British artillery shell.

The Normal, Ill. man received the shell from his Dutch friend Chris Vries after World War II. Lee served in the 84th infantry, the first battle group to push out of Holland.

I called Don to wish him a Happy 90th birthday. I had met his daughter Pat Lee at a writer's conference in Chicago. Pat told me that her dad is a Skype fan.

Don was sharing his memories with me via Skype Video. He said being able to do the show-and-tell is one of the "great things" about Skype.

Don, a retired marketing executive from Downstate Illinois, is a "silver surfer," a senior who uses technology to stay in touch with his family, which has spread around the country--from Chicago to Ft. Collins, Colo. and Newport, R.I.

And then there's granddaughter, Allison Gardiner, 20, a junior studying design and landscape architecture at Cornell University, who is spending the year in Europe. To stay in touch with Ally, Don decided to download and use Skype and add a web camera. He talks with Ally once a week on Skype.

At a 90th celebration, about 50 friends and family members gathered at Don's home, where he connected on Skype with Ally, who happened to be in Paris--that's Paris, France, not Paris, Ill.

Pat Lee noted that following her father's example: "Now several family members have it. So far, we've used it a handful of times and have had one family conference call that included several of us. We're thrilled with it."

Don said he remembers hearing years ago about video phones and is excited that he is able to use one to stay in touch.

Chris Vries, who made Don's Jeep combat ready in World War II, died a few years ago. Don noted that Ally is planning to visit Chris' family members in Holland.

Hope they can connect with Don on Skype.

The presidential election of 2008 has been memorable for many reasons, among them were new apps for tech.

The Obama campaign used text messaging to announce the VP choice. Social networking, such as with Facebook, helped recruit, organize and inform the troops. Huffington Post recruited citizen reporters to cover the campaign in new ways. The Obama Girl's crush was a big hit on YouTube.

And Skype was right at the forefront as the technology was used to reach out to voters, from Silicon Valley as well as Europe.

Obama's Silicon Valley crew used Skype early on to reach out to Republican voters in Iowa in January and at the end was using Skype to make 10,000 calls a day to encourage voters to come out for the Nov. 4th Election Day.

Skype's Jennifer Caukin gives her take on this use of Skype on the main blog. Here's a video showing Roger Hu and his crew putting Skype to work to rock the vote.

For those of you reading this in an RSS reader, you can watch the video here.

Rebecca Campbell's adventure in mobility over 33 days this year as the Skype Nomad brought her to 17 countries--including the USA--and into many media outlets, including her own blog, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and a column in the London Telegraph. She showed how handy it is to use Skype on the go.

Now the excellent adventure in mobility has won an award for excellence in the Technology category from the Interactive Marketing Association in the UK.

Peter Parkes blogged: The Interactive Marketing and Advertising award jury rather liked the idea, particularly as it was lots of fun, got lots of attention (760,000 visits to the blog, 140,000 unique page views on Flickr and 300,000 total video views on YouTube during the 33 days) and didn't cost us much at all. A bit like Skype itself, really."

Congrats to all involved.