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Sony Announces Skype For PSP, Homebrewers Respond
Croakyvoice writes "Sony has finally officially
announced that Skype is coming soon to the PSP. The VoIP service is slated to hit the company's handheld at the end of January. The application will be available via a firmware update and is
only compatible with PSP Slim & Lite Consoles. After the announcement
the PSP homebrew scene released a new application called Furikup which will allow you to make phone calls with your PSP and is compatible with the original phat PSPs."
Sony: An idea you say? Internet phone on a PSP? Why I do say old chap, that is a good idea! Let us put it in testing and quality assurance and then announce it's release a little before we put it out. Let us also make it available only on our latest devices, to encourage purchasing.
Hackers: Internet phone on a PSP? Good Idea! I'll have a quick-build later tonight, should be able to get this done in a couple of days...hey look, the original's compatible too! That'll save a few bucks...
There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
No it is called the PSP slim and light not 2 separate consoles.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
So where does one get a PSP microphone? Or is it built in?
Just like MSN, AIM, ICQ etc.. they all lock you and your friends into using the software. Skype is no different, it's not interoperable with anything else.
How many times have you reluctantly had to sign up for some proprietary messaging system, then got forced into using a advert laden badly made piece of software, or less than optimal alternative (hear that Microsoft MSN Messanger and Gaim?) when there are tried, tested and IMO superior alternatives.
Me? I use SIP and have a number of hardware & software phones that work with it at home and in the office... for messaging I use IRC and always have done.
If only Sony would adopt homebrew applications like Furikup instead of tying themselfs in with Skype or some other proprietary vendor.
Now that both PSP homebrew and DS homebrew have SIP, PSP homebrew users will be able to talk to DS homebrew users over the Internet. What other gaming systems have cross-platform voice chat?
As I've told many people the PSP isn't really worth owning unless you load custom firmware and your own applications on it. The functionality is immense, for instance I can read books, stream video from my PC to my PSP, play homebrew games, backup my games to SD, rip my PS games and play them, SSH, and quite a bit more. I actually think that I would hate the device if I couldn't load custom software on it. Anyway, back to actually working.
"Some books contain the machinery required to create and sustain universes."-Tycho
Furikup is a beta quality SIP client for the PSP. It's always nice to see the increasing number of devices supporting SIP. Without the luxury of having a PSP to play with Furikup, but having another SIP device (Nokia E61) I can give some recommendations to new users Voice-over-IP (VoIP).
There are a number of free incoming number DID providers. A few examples:
SipNumber provides Iowa State numbers.
IPKall provides Washington State Numbers.
OrbTalk provides London geographic numbers.
Google's Recent acquisition of GrandCentral is a very tempting prospect even though it is not a true SIP provider. You can get a phone number in almost any locale with GrandCentral and forward the number to the above two US-based providers. You may almost register for a Gizmo account and forward directly to it through GrandCentral. Once the Gizmo SIP account is registered to your device it'll ring when called from a regular landline.
The problem with having this many accounts is finding a service which can aggregate your numbers in one place so you don't have dozens of SIP accounts to register in your device. Voxalot is a nice service but they charge $15/year. Another one is PBXES.org but I would stay away from them. They have a notorious reputation of locking accounts and demanding a 50 Euro ransom to regain access. My personal favorite is MySipSwitch. It's free, does SIP aggregation, and allows simple dial-plans to maximize cheap calling over SIP. It's also an open-source project and the developers directly answer questions from the community in the forums.
Coupling this with services like PhoneGnome, it's possible receive calls from all over the world with some very simple guides (link #1, link #2) out there. Go ahead and give it a try. A big congrats to the coders that are bringing SIP functionality to the PSP.
It exists. SvSIP allows to to send and receive calls with SIP on your Nintendo DS. You can download it at http://svsip.free.fr/spip.php?rubrique9. There are also a couple free places you can use with it to make free calls on your DS that you can find by looking at the accompanying gbadev forum thread at http://forum.gbadev.org/viewtopic.php?t=14121.
It's pretty cool, though, the out-going quality is sort of bad (it could just be the free service I was using), while the incoming sound to your DS sound just fine.
So, take that PSP :-P
Skype even runs on the older Nokia 770 with a slight bit of hacking. It's apparently not a hardware limit. :-)
See here for more info:
http://maemogeek.blogspot.com/2007/12/skype-on-n770-using-os2007-he.html
-Matt
I think this is good news. I couldn't care less about Skype on the PSP (although better to have the option than not have it), but this means that Sony are on good terms with the team behind Skype and VoIP will eventually be available on the PS3 as well, which is what I have been waiting for since I got the Playstation Eye. It just seems natural, and finally, our video calls to Japan might get through with better quality than now.
This post might have nothing to do with the parent post, but I'm with him concerning Itoh Misaki (I have to say, Ryoko Shinohara rules big time, though).
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.