Events

My old friend and colleague Eric Benderoff described is his May 8 Chicago Tribune Tech Buzz column the way things should be for mobile device users.

He told of being at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January and testing out gear from Intel and Motorola that transformed his car into a mobile hot spot using WiMax, an emerging technology that is sort of like WiFi on vitamins, if not steroids.

Among other things, Eric said he called back to the Chicago office on Skype via the car’s navigation system.
I saw a demo of the same WiMax technology aboard the good ship “Summer of George” on a Motorola-sponsored cruise on the Chicago River last summer. It’s amazing stuff and should be available soon.

If WiMax catches on, it would be great if the Federal Communications Commission would encourage phone and cable companies offering phone services open up their networks so everyday Americans, not just tech reporters, can use Skype while cruising like the Skype Nomad in their planes, trains and automobiles.

In the tradition of Phileas Fogg, hero of Jules Verne’s 1872 novel, “Around the World in Eighty Days,” Rebecca Campbell is setting out from London today to go around the world in 33 days.

This isn't a race with Fogg. The 26-year-old London resident, a native of Sydney, Australia, dubbed the "Skype Nomad," isn’t going for a time record.

Rather, Campbell is showing just how mobile Skype is as she covers ground in 15 countries. “It’s all about perpetual motion to show how truly mobile I can be," she said.

She'll be hopping from jet to rickshaw and bumboat in Singapore to a Fogg-esque hot-air balloon over the Alps in Austria, to gondola in Venice, a boat cruising the Yangtze River in China, cable car in San Francisco, dog sled in Alaska, the famed cross-continental Indian Pacific train between Sydney and Perth in her native Australia, and a boat ride across the Baltic from Sweden to Skype’s supreme HQ in Tallinn, Estonia to finish up June 6, “D-Day.”

Continue reading ""Skype Nomad's" excellent adventure in mobility" »

Maybe you, like me, have feasted on the unlimited calling via Skype to non-Skype landlines and cell phones of your friends and family.

My landline bill shrunk when I used Skype Pro for unlimited calling.

Now for the first time this smorgasbord of calling is going international: Skype is introducing a new flat rate for unlimited calling to 34 countries.

Continue reading "Skype takes flat rate calling international" »

A Federal Communications Commission hearing Thursday in Silicon Valley focused on these questions: Should the Internet be a closed entity controlled by the likes of the cables companies and phone companies? Or should it be controlled by the people who use it?

Skype has voted for the latter.

And Christopher Libertelli, senior director of government and regulatory affairs Skype, made the case in an op-ed appearing today in the San Jose Mercury News.

Continue reading "Skype speaks out on FCC hearing on 'net neutrality'" »

Retinal disease blinded Ed Gallagher, 57, of San Francisco, eight years ago.

But now, with a boost from Skype, Gallagher is “seeing” again—and a lot more than that.

With the help of a laptop equipped with a Wi-Fi card, a link to Skype, a webcam mounted on a helmet, and guidance on his headset from a visually able assistant, he is performing amazing feats:

—Sailing on San Francisco Bay, where he is commodore of BAADS, Bay Area Association of Disabled Sailors.

—Walking without a cane or his guide dog Genoa for a first time since he went blind.

—Riding a bike.

—Shooting at a firing range and hitting the target.

Gallagher is the subject of a new documentary, Inner Space, featuring Skype. The movie debuts April 12 at Yuri's Night: The World Space Party, a celebration of art and space.

Continue reading "Blind adventurer uses Skype as his "eyes" in new documentary" »

Scott Davison has details in the Skype for Business blog on new features added to the Skype Business Control Panel.

The Business Control Panel is the easy way to purchase and manage Skype Credit and SkypeIn numbers within your company. And now it also makes it easier for you to help set up the rest of your co-workers on Skype.

Continue reading "TCB (taking care of business) Skype-style" »

Skype has gone Hollywood.

In a new movie, Nim’s Island an 11-year-old Robinson Crusoe stranded on a remote South Pacific island gets a boost from Skype.

Film critic Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer said the lead character, Nim (Abigail Breslin, of Little Miss Sunshine), “flourishes on a remote South Pacific isle with her father, Jack (Gerard Butler), a marine biologist. Lonely? Not Nim, whose menagerie includes a cuddly sea lion, a chatty bearded dragon, and an ESP-gifted pelican. Equipped with satellite dishes, her island has full wireless Internet and Skype capabilities.”

Rickey said during most of the film, “Nim is alone on the island, with her father marooned at sea.” Nim uses technology to stay in touch with the outside world via “agoraphobic adventure novelist Alex Rover (Jodie Foster).”

The critic only gave the movie 2 ½ stars. But maybe Skype still has a shot at a Tinseltown career.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin's April 1 speech opposing Skype's petition to open the wireless networks disappointed commentators in the blogosphere.

Here's what they were saying:

—Over at Public Knowledge, Art Brodsky said: “(B)ased on some announcement or two and on a perceived change of attitude, what Martin calls ‘the industry’s embrace of a more open wireless platform,’ he concluded it would be ‘premature to adopt any other requirements across the industry.’

"I, for one, certainly hope the chairman tries to test this attitude by going to his nearest Verizon store and buying an iPhone.

Continue reading "The blogosphere sounds off on FCC Commish Chair Martin's April 1 call against Skype's petition" »

Back in the 1980s, to put a fresh angle on new reproductive technologies, I wrote a front-page story that was headlined: “Will men bear children?”

The story caused quite a stir at the time. But the science was solid. It was only a matter of time before it happened.

It finally did. And on April 3rd—not April 1st—Oprah featured a story about a pregnant couple, Tom and Nancy, from Bend, Ore.

You guessed it: Tom is the mom.

Continue reading "Tom's the mom: More Skype Oprah-style" »

Skype today launched the beta version of Skype 3.8 for Windows.

The new version has an improved and optimized audio library.

This means you’ll get:

— Significantly reduced background noise
— Less delay
— Fewer call drops
— Fewer cut-outs
— Change your headset, headphones or microphone without having to fiddle with settings

Continue reading "Sounds improved: Skype 3.8 for Windows now in beta" »

It was April Fool’s Day in Vegas. But Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin wasn’t fooling around.

Martin told the CTIA Wireless meeting in Las Vegas he would try to shoot down Skype’s application to require wireless operators to permit any device on their networks.

Skype filed a petition with the FCC a year ago to apply the 1968 Carterfone decision to wireless networks. In that decision, the FCC gave telephone customers the right to connect their own gear to the public phone network so long as the customer’s equipment did no harm to the network.

The landmark decision made it possible for devices such as modems to be connected to phone network. Without Carterfone, you wouldn’t be reading these words.

Continue reading "FCC Commish Chair Martin's April 1 message: Leave the market to its own devices" »

Skype blogmaster Villu Arak’s entry on the AT&T Picturephone brought back memories for me.

Back in 1964, I trekked with my family from Chicago to the World’s Fair in New York. As a sarcastic teen, not much captured my imagination. But the Picturephone did. It's one of the few things, along with General Electric's "Progressland," I remember seeing while out at the Meadowlands.

Continue reading "Back to the future: “Crossing a telephone with a TV set”" »

There are only days left to vote. (Only until March 31.) Pressure is mounting. And “our guy” needs your help.

We’re not talking the Pennsylvania primary or Obama or Hillary or McCain. We’re talking CNET’s 2008 Webware 100 Awards on Web 2.0 products.

Skype did well in the voting last year.

And Skype has been doing more than kissing babies since then, launching High Quality Video, the 3 Skypephone, and appearing in the new Sony Mylo and the Sony PSP Slim & Lite.

This year, Skype is a finalist again.

Continue reading "Stuffing the ballot box for Skype" »

Everybody and his mother have a mobile device. Now the market appears to be moving toward providing them with Skype on their devices.

Jonathan Christensen, head of audio/visual at Skype in San Jose, CA., says the next leap forward for the mobile world will be “unfettered mobile IP access on open devices. There is now a chance this will happen.”

Christensen, whose team develops software for Skype calls and video calls, was the opening speaker Wednesday at the emerging Communications (eComm) show at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

He says that economic forces, including Federal Communciations Commission auctions of spectrum and flat mobile phone plans, “are pushing the market in this direction.”

He says this will mean people using Skype on mobile devices will be able to do “many of the cool things they can do on their computers with Skype now.” This includes video calling as well as sharing files, pictures, moods and presence, the ability to see if your network buddies are available or unavailable for your call.

“It’s happening now and Skype is excited to be innovating at the edge,” says Christensen.

Meanwhile, let’s contemplate our mobile future on Skype. Better put on our sunglasses. As the band Timbuk 3 said: “The Future’s So Bright Gotta Wear Shades."

Continue reading ""Unfettered mobile" Internet access will open bright new possibilities: Skype engineering leader" »

Last week, Oprah Winfrey’s foray into the New Age with spiritual teacher and best-selling author Eckhart Tolle went off the rails.

It was too much of a good thing. More than 500,000 seekers showed up to sit at Oprah’s and Eckhart’s feet. The plan was for class members to share their views via Skype video calls on the “A New Earth” event.

But there was trouble. The show crashed. A disappointed Oprah conceded there were “technical difficulties."

Don’t worry. It wasn’t Skype.

Despite the glitches, nearly two million people, from Afghanistan to Zanzibar, eventually watched or downloaded the first show at oprah.com or itunes.com.

Continue reading "Oprah goes silent again—but that's OK" »

I was looking forward to watching my fellow Chicagoan Oprah Winfrey using Skype for communications on her ambitious Webcast. I signed up at Oprah.com. I was good to go.

Oprah's project features spiritual teacher and best-selling author Eckhart Tolle on an interactive classroom Oprah.com. The 10-week program discusses Tolle’s "A New Earth: Get Ready To Be Awakened." I was ready to be reawakened.

Skype, along with GM's Chevrolet division and Post-It Notes, is sponsoring the Webcast. With over 750,000 registrants, and about a half million who showed up, this well could be, to quote Oprah, the world's largest classroom.

Oprah explains it all at Skype Campaigns.

Oprah's star power attracted 750,000 registrants from 139 countries, from Albania to Zimbabwe, and all 50 states.

Continue reading "Oprah goes Skype" »