Hasta La Gadget!

It’s hardly a secret anymore that Skype will be making some manner of video-related announcement at CES, but now the company’s stepping up the hype offensive with a series of teasing videos and tweets. The common thread between the vids is that they’re all shot in remote locations or on the move, eliminating the current PC / Mac dependency for video chat and forcing our minds to consider mobile, perhaps smartphone-shaped, devices instead. What Skype’s promising is that we’ll be able to share our favorite moments “as they happen,” which together with all this video recording stuff seems to point to only one thing: video calling on mobiles. Only mystery left now is which platforms will get it when.

Skype teases video recording and sharing ‘as it happens,’ inventing synonyms for ‘video calls’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Dec 2010 09:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So let us set this up for you: Skype has been telling everyone that it’ll be making a “series of video-related announcements” at CES next month… and it’s participating in a panel called “Video Calling Gets Ready for Primetime,” so yeah, needless to say, we’d have to guess that Skype’s finally getting ready to enter the mobile video calling game in a big way. Anyhow, the final piece in the puzzle filtered into our inbox this morning: a help document on Skype’s site detailing making video calls using Skype for iPhone. We don’t know whether there’s a corresponding document out there for Android, Symbian, or other operating systems, but we’re certainly hoping so — because if these guys come to the table at once with versions for all the major phone platforms, we’ve got a feeling they’ll be dominating the mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-PC video calling market in no time.

Oh, and here’s a little trivia fact for you: the Nokia N900 was actually the first device to get official video calling support from Skype, so this isn’t a first for these guys — but it’ll certainly be the first time they’ve taken it to a mass market. Seems like they’ll probably have the MeeGo build ready to go, at least.

[Thanks, Nelson]

Update: …and they’ve pulled the help document. You’ll just have to trust us, it was there. We swear!

Skype finally bringing video calling to iPhone 4, maybe other mobile platforms? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Dec 2010 11:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sick of seeing that little hard disk with an exclamation point popping up on your Android handset? Yeah, us too. Thankfully we can now count Skype among the apps that can be moved to external storage. This new release also adds compatibility with the Samsung Galaxy S — but there’s a catch. Android 2.2 is required, which many Galaxy S owners may or may not actually have yet and, while some are said to be getting a dollop of FroYo this very month, we’ve certainly heard that before.

Android Skype update brings ability to run to SD, Galaxy S compatibility, but with a big catch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you thought Skype was a new idea, you need to catch up on your old school sci-fi movies! Video phone concepts have actually been popping up since the 1870s. Proof? This collection of forward looking photos, illustrations, and ads. More »

Well, finally! That’s right, you no longer have to be jealous of your friends who’ve all been group video calling using Skype 5.0 for Windows for months — Skype’s new Beta 5.0 for Mac finally brings the ability to video chat with up to ten of your Skype contacts to OS X client. Obviously, that’s the premiere feature of the new release, but the software has also been retooled to mesh more with the look and feel of the OS — there’s even a cover flow-like contact window — and a new pop-out call control bar that can be moved anywhere on the screen or be kept open while in another program. We just downloaded the beta and it’s certainly a lot better looking than the previous version, but we also noticed that it integrated our Mac address book right into the contacts pane and when we initiated a call it automatically muted the song we were listening to in iTunes. Naturally, we went searching for that Facebook integration that we just saw rolled out in the Windows version, but it’s nowhere to be found at the moment, and Skype tells us it’s focusing on video and UI tweaks for the Mac version. We could go on and on about the new software, but it’s available for download at the source link below, so run along and throw your own virtual cupcake party!

Continue reading Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac finally available, includes group video calling

Skype 5.0 Beta for Mac finally available, includes group video calling originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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