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Microsoft To Can Skype API; Third-Party Products Will Not Work
Mark Gibbs writes "If you've recently fired up Skype you may have noticed a dialog box with a warning appear briefly (at least on OS X) then vanish. If you're fast enough to catch it you'll find that it's warning you that some application you're using that works with Skype will stop working in December, 2013. This applies to all sorts of software supporting headsets, cameras, ... you name it."
Cue sad trombone sound for people who are outraged that MS would take Skype and change it.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Who still uses Skype? There are better alternatives now, and a lot more open, too.
Seems Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot... again. They're really good at this. Ya think they have special guns specifically designed to shoot downwards into feet? Weighted so that you can comfortably hold them as you fire? With special scopes to ensure you fire accurately and ammo custom-tailored for maximum damage to a foot-shapred target at close range?
I wouldn't be surprised. :)
Microsoft started excelling at this lately. The amount of popcorn needed will actually bring about a new boost in agriculture.
There's a reason why Skype caught on in the first place, and Microsoft has just pissed it away. I look forward to using whatever competitors emerge with secure, encrypted VOIP products.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What will we do ? Its not like a few developers can get together and create a voice-over-IP service themselves. Oh ... wait a minute.
Okay. So I get they are cutting support to many webcams and headsets on the desktop and competing platforms like OS X as stated in the article and from Android based on the comments posted here.
Crazy theory here. Could they be trying to focus Skype for use with their Windows Phone to try to give people a compelling reason to switch over to their mobile OS?
Thoughts?
I know it's fashionable to knock Stallman here on Slashdot (including personal attacks about how he dresses), but he has been consistently right over a long period of time about the pitfalls of closed source.
In this case MS is clearly locking out 3rd party apps, and no one really knows why.
It's not just MS. Google does the same thing. Someone pointed out that the typically lifetime of most free Google apps is 4 years. Even when there the apps are not discontinued, the terms of service are often changed. Look at original Gmail vs. Gmail+. Many people, including myself, would not have become dependent on Gmail if they had known what would happen to it.
So when Stallman is being critical, pay attention. He's likely to be right.
Why is Snark Required?
Perhaps Apple will grow some wisdom and open up FaceTime in response as they promised to years ago.
I'm not sure if this is score nothing, score funny, or score insightful. Apple to save the day?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
As previous posters have mentioned, if you open a web browser page to your Gmail account, there is a telephone option. If you have a suitable headset and microphone you can type in a landline phone number. In the USA, calls are free to USA locations.
I use the Gmail phone for every possible call I can make from my desk because local toll and long distance calls are charged on a per-minute basis. The deep advantage of all the internet communication methods is the connection is per packet, not per minute.
I played with the Asterisk scriptable phone and communications engine (also known as a PBX or private branch exchange). I was looking for a fast local and free communications solution for facilitating just-in-time ride sharing. There are little fragments of the solution scattered around.
At the risk of being a little impolite: Except for amateur radio (which is very circumscribed in its usage), the American communications game consists of continually figuring out more and more mutually incompatible and progressively more expensive ways of selling tiny dribbles of two way communication bandwidth for progressively higher and higher prices.
It seems to me that a series of communication solutions could exist. The key is to change the terms of sale of cell phone bandwidth. Present policy, I guess, sells a radio band x geographic area x population to the highest bidder. What the people would benefit from is selling the reciprocal of that relationship: The federal price would go down as the total bytes transmitted increases. The user charge would be an asymptote like function that as usage increases the price approaches the basic cost: (cost is like: price of transmitter electricity + amortized cost of transmitter + monthly fiber optic access + profit) divided by count of users. Dollar sums point to a cell site: $20,000 per month, 5,000 users; $5 per month each.
At present, jaw dropping sums of money have to be bid by huge organizations of national scope to get a communication franchise. With this fixed annual cost, franchise winners have to charge for every byte transmitted. The franchise winners have to charge a spectrum of prices that avoids the perception they are charging "all the market will bear". Remember all that linear programming you studied in college? The bandwidth is chopped into a blather of services that obscure the basic price per byte. How much does Tracfone pay for a three minute call thorugh an ATandT cell tower? That manufacturing cost recovery reality in turn means no anonymous users and no free data transit. Unlike the land line phone, incoming calls are not free in the cellphone business.
Developers have already gotten on top of this. There are about a half dozen excellent cross-platform SIP applications out there. Jitsi, IMHO, blows away Skype. There is also Blink, despite the name it's good, too. These are the top two and are cross-platform. Use either to connect to either, they both work well.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Anyone?
I can't believe that most browsers now support it in all major OSs and mobile devices, but nobody is using it.
WTF?
For instance, if I request a contact info about Osama bin Laden then there are chances that I am Al-Qaeda member and should be checked.
Nah, you're probably just a medium.
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Viber requires my cell phone number as an ID and so allows the 3-letter agencies to discover my real identity. You miss.
Also, their FAQ does not say a word about security. And the last - I see no link to sources.
Skype will now be 'rebranded' and borg-similated as 'BingSkyDriveOpenCloudOfficeShareBlog365RealCommunication for Windows 8.1'
And it will die gasping for air like nearly everything else Microsoft tries to 'innovate'.