General

They may still be voting in Pennsylvania.

But that's only for Obama and Clinton.

The results are in at Webware 100, honoring the best web 2.0 sites, services and products. Nearly 2 million people voted.

And Skype won in the communications category for the second year in a row.

Skype has announced a new flat rate calling plan to 34 countries.

Here's where you can call for $9.95 a month:

Continue reading "Skype's unlimited calling to 34 countries" »

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" »

Skype is for lovers.

Ask Rafael Nunez Sá Freire, 26, an adman in Shanghai, China, and Sara Stultz, 26, a graphics design student in Nice, France.

The couple were married in a civil ceremony in Brazil via a Skype video call.

Sara and Rafael met as teens in Brazil and kept up over the years as they moved around the globe.

As to the ceremony. “We saw everything and we saw parents and godparents sign the certificate. It was very exciting and funny at the same time,” Rafael told FOLHA Online.

The judge had performed weddings via proxy before—but said the Skype wedding was a first.

The couple plans a religious ceremony later in Brazil. Maybe they could have their friends in France and China attend via a Skype video call?

Anyone in the US have a similar tale? Wy not share it?

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" »

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" »

A couple years ago I wrote an article for the Chicago Sun-Times about a couple with a long-distance relationship that they kept going with Skype-to-Skype calls, coast-to-coast. He was in Seattle (Pacific coast); she in Chicago ("the third coast").

They would put on their wireless headsets and stay connected via Skype throughout the evening. They talked while preparing dinner. They watched the same TV shows and rented the same DVDs, commenting back and forth. They shared the silent moments. Together.

Continue reading "Ambient Skype: the next best thing to being there" »