Skype users in the U.K. now have the option to make audio and video calls directly from their Outlook.com Inboxes.
The Microsoft-owned VoIP service provider announced in a blog post on Monday that a preview version of Skype for Outlook.com is now available to all Skype users living in Great Britain. And it will roll out to the U.S. and Germany in the coming weeks.
The new feature will be available to all Outlook.com users within this year, wrote Simon Longbottom, Senior Director of Product …

Advocates of privacy and transparency are pushing Microsoft into hot waters.
Forty-five campaign groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Reporters Without Borders, signed and sent a letter to Microsoft asking the software giant to disclose information on the confidentiality of Skype’s user data.
Below are some of the groups’ requests for information that Microsoft should release.
1. Information on the number of requests from governments worldwide that Microsoft had received …

Orange, France Telecom’s mobile brand, unveils a new app which allows you to call and text for free worldwide. It competes against more well-known services such as Viber, WhatsApp and

Skype immediately dealt with a security issue that rendered its users vulnerable to an unsophisticated attack that takes over accounts.
On Wednesday, Reddit user turisto submitted a post on the social news site that included an English-translated Russian security alert about a working procedure to take over a Skype account with the victim’s email address.
The vulnerability bore on for several months but went into mainstream media after the post on Reddit. All it involved is a couple of simple …

Skype has updated its iOS client app to add support for the 4-inch iPhone 5 touchscreen display.
The Skype 4.1.2 for iOS update expands the app’s graphical interface to remove the black lines at the top and bottom of the screen from previous versions when using an iPhone 5. The iOS version of the popular VoIP and chat service now fills up the entire display screen.
Skype’s latest update apparently leaves out any new feature or major enhancement apart from the usual bug fixes.
The Skype team …

Skype released today the preview version of its VoIP and chat service for Windows Phone 8.
The Windows Phone 8 Preview version of Skype provides basic and new features such as People Hub and the recently integrated list of contacts from Windows Live Messenger.
Skype said the preview receives some call and message notifications even when closed and in the background.
Skype for Windows Phone 8 Preview is now available for download to all supported smartphones from the Windows Phone Store. An …

Skype launched today a new online platform that promotes the products and services of small businesses to new networks and connections worldwide, including potential customers, partners and suppliers.
Dubbed as Skype in the workspace (SITW), the complimentary tool takes advantage of the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and chat service’s huge network. For small businesses, it improves existing connections and creates new ones through instant messages (IMs) and talking to or meeting …

The rumors have come true after Microsoft announced on Tuesday, November 6, the impending retirement of Windows Live Messenger early next year. Skype, the company’s Voice over IP (VoIP) and chat service, will replace it.
The software giant is advising all users of Windows Live Messenger to start migrating to Skype, which recently released version 6.0 with the abilities to log in using a Microsoft account and to import automatically user contacts from Windows Live Messenger.
“We want to …

Skype has revealed its plan to enhance the call quality of its Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service after receiving an Opus specification approval.
The Microsoft subsidiary said that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) ratified the final release of the new Opus specification.
Skype pushed forward the approval of the codec to the IETF in September 2010.
Opus is a free codec for real-time communications with the ability to keep up with all kinds of audio tasks and improve …

The internet has long been viewed as the next best thing after cable TV. Access to plenty of entertainment, information and communication are some of the perks that come with being internet savvy. However, when the same internet poses harm to us and our children, its time to rethink how we use it and the kind of information we enter into our social sites and email communications.

20-yr old predator communicated with his 11-yr old victim online via Skype.
(Nic MacBean, file photo: ABC …