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Yak Launches Free Video and Voice Service
Jamie Garson writes to tell us Yahoo is reporting that Yak Communications has launched their new voice and video calling service, yakForFree. From the article: "In a crowded and competitive VoIP marketplace, yakForFree is distinguished by its free video capabilities and ease-of-use. By downloading the free Virtual VideoPhone, which takes less than a minute, users can make free calls over the Internet using a high-speed connection."
I remember getting Teamspeak to contact my family and friends. We would set up a server and contact each other via IM to set up a session. Now Teamspeak charges for their service. I'm sure that was their intention all along, but it was sad to see it go subscription only.
I wonder how long yakForFree will remain *free*? I suppose their free plan is a give away for getting people to sign up for the enhanced services. But I can envision a time in the near future when the free will giveway to *cheap*. I guess that if the price is right, that isn't a bad prospect either.
I guess I'd better use it while the free offer is still good!
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
So, this is a poorly disguised advert, right? Because neither "free video capabilities" nor "ease-of-use" are at all distinguishing features these days. iChat AV probably does both of these things better, actually, and there's a ton of similar apps available. Even for Windows. ;)
Linking to the Yahoo news story is a bit odd, too. Here's "Yak's" actual site.
I, for one, welcome our new slashvertisement overlords.
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Or, maybe I am. I decided "Hm - let's check it out."
Fill out the form - done.
Click the link to download - OK.
They state "Mac/PC compatible"! That's good - I can do this on my Powerbook while I'm working on this code.
Except - the only link takes you to a Windows executable. Um - I think they're missing something.
That, and the site looks like it was designed by people who are REALLY HAPPY! WE'RE AWAKE, AND DAMN IT, WE'RE HAPPY TO SEE YOU. Wagh.
Calm down. Take the lesson from Google: Simple. Easy. Not 20 different links and no clue which one to look for. So, too weird - forget it.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I had a discussion about this a while ago:
Me: I want 10 year old netmeeting technology to go with my VOIP.
My friend Masood Khan: Just Wait!
Me: Wow that worked.
Khan: It's an age-old diplomatic trick.
so I clicked download, to see if there is a linux version. But I'm not giving them my email address even before I know if there is a linux version. What the hell they think?
,,sacrificed his privacy'' to check, please tell if there is a linux version.
it's not free, the price is your privacy.
PS: if anyone
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
They are blocked by router filters that kill the connections.
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Luckily there's also one free software "skype-like" VoIP in development - http://www.openwengo.com/ (GPL). For video features, there's always GnomeMeeting, though it's more for businesses than for the average Joe because there's no centralized "address book" except for Seconix. And Gaim 2.0 should support Google Talk protocol, together with some webcam support for various protocols.
If you want a free video phone that works great try SightSpeed. They have been consitantly ranked the best by PC Magazine and PC World.
An employee of a company called Yak (jgarson@yak.ca) writes to tell us Yahoo is kindly storing a press release from same company. The press release has the usual glowing praise that offers no objectivity due to the obvious financial interests of the writer. The company has launched their new voice and video calling service, yakForFree, but has no marketing team, nor money, to promote it, and has decided to try to get it in front of people through fooling slashdot editors into believing the press release is a news report. From the press release: "In a crowded and competitive VoIP marketplace, yakForFree is just another soon-to-be burned-out shell of a car along the side of the dot com highway. What truly distinguishes it from other offerings is that it offers both video and voice services, which have only been available in most free chat clients for half a decade now. By downloading the free Virtual VideoPhone, which takes less than a minute, users are locked into a proprietary system which is likely to riddle their machine with spyware."
What the world needs is something that lets anyone talk to anyone else.
Video, no -- but check out BitWise [www.bitwisechat.com] which offers whiteboard and voip, and is for Windows, OS X, and Linux. I've tried it on my Linux box -- it's a very polished app and it works great.
Yahoo is reporting that Yak Communications has launched their new voice and video calling service, yakForFree. From the article: [...]
This isn't an article written by a reporter. This is a corporate press release, evidently written by the owners of the product.
Advertising? Yep. News? No.
Seriously, This requires a high-speed conection for one-on-one? Camfrog only requires a 56 k modem and is so good that deaf people can "speak" over video near-flawlessly over 56k. Plus it's loaded with more features, offers actual chat rooms you can go to and see loads of other people (up to 100 cams if you pay a one-time $50 for the pro version of Camfrog Client) in the room, PLUS stream music, PLUS type. Oh, not to mention IRC-style options like giving others ops, half-ops, make users have voice (friend of the room,) and on top of that all it comes with IM built-in. Yak doesn't compare, YET.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This is clearly a free (and branded) version of eyeBeam from Xten (link) now known as CounterPath. Therefore my guess is that it's a service pretty similar to Free World Dialup (link) but with video (not sure if FWD support video).
In the way you are thinking. If you are thinking that you can download this and call your buddy on his cell, you would be incorrect. You want that service, you gatta pay to use their yakToAnyone service.
This is an instant messenger-like application that does voice and video, a la [every other IM service here].
-Valiss
Yes, it's called Gizmo Project. www.gizmoproject.com
Use hamachi and run VoIP over it.
Hallo?
..all was so freaking good using gopher..
All I just need is one any-interface, GPL, multiplatform piece of software that roughly:
-supports RSA asymmetric encryption with gpg keys to avoid being listened by the kid next door
-uses any decent combination of patent-free protocols to get just acceptable voice over broadband
-I give it a kindly f'g IP ADDRESS and PORT , I AUTHENTICATE then TALK to whoever is at the other side.
say: a multiplatform slightly improved netmeeting with single-port support to jump through isp portfilters/ proxies/ automatic firewalls with just one port forwarding
Everything is out there: technology, code, codecs, IPv4, broadband connections.
Any clue, ANYONE?
I want not a community to join, no centralized servers to track me anytime I want to say hi to mum, no search capabilities, no calls to fixed or mobile phone numbers, not a PSTN phone replacement, no emergency number reachability, no fixed-location or registration of any sort, no other people's p2p calls killing my 256k upstream, -nothing as such-
Or if that's so hard to grasp just a client-server linux voice bundle I can setup for my own use?
I found hundreds of fancy clients, each with its own server network, community, subscription, "gimme your email or die", "It's free(for now, you s*r)", "I swear I have no spyware" disclaimer and "Best rated" claims all in in 25165824 colors.
AllRight.
`vi myTalk.c`
[..]