Skype announced that version 6.3 is now live for its Windows client. It’s a “maintenance release” which means that you won’t be seeing any major new features added, but the fixes contained therein are sure to make Skype a more stable and friendlier experience:

Despite all of the above fixes, Skype 6.3 does have one little problem. The software can no longer display birthday notifications on Windows. There is no current workaround, but it shouldn’t be too much of a concern. You probably spend a lot of time on Facebook, and it will make sure that you see every birthday notification.

If you don’t have a Skype account yet, you can grab the latest version here. If you do, it should download the update the next time you open the software.

Facebook has begun the U.S. rollout of VoIP calling in their Messenger app, after testing the feature for nearly two weeks in Canada. The VoIP calling in Canada came along with an update to the app that saw all users gain support for voice messaging (which works a lot like Facebook voicemail). Facebook said that the VoIP calling would come to U.S. users if everything went over well, and apparently that’s happened.

Sorry, Android users. It’s currently only a Messenger for iOS thing.

To receive the VoIP calling functionality, simply open up your app. If the feature has been rolled out to you, you should see a “Free Call” button once you tap the “i” icon on the top right of open message threads. You don’t have to download an update.

It is a “free” call, if you are using Wi-Fi. But the Facebook Messenger voice calling with also use cellular data when no Wi-Fi is present, so it will eat up your current data plan a bit.

Free VoIP calling isn’t anything new, but it is pretty big news when it lands on a Facebook app. Of course, the benefits of using Facebook Messenger to make voice calls are that it’s free with Wi-Fi and can be used anytime an internet connection is present – even if you’re experiencing a vortex or terrible cell reception.

This is all part of a push that Facebook is making to better assert itself into the world of mobile communications. Last month, Facebook began allowing users to use Facebook Messanger for Android by simply signing up with a phone number with no Facebook account required. They also unveiled a new app called “Poke,” which allows users to send convert video, photo, or text messages that self-destruct after a given period of time. Now, their Messenger app is a bigger player in the game with voice messaging and voice calling.

[via The Verge]

First up, the new voice messaging. It’s exactly what it sounds like. The new Messenger app now features a big red record button inside the conversation stream. All users have to do is hold down the botton, record their voice message, and let go when they’re done. As of now, voice messages are limited to one minute.

The voice messages will appear directly in the conversation stream, alongside text messages.

Next, Facebook is also testing VoIP calling from the Messenger app – but only in Canada and only for iOS users. Canadian iOS users cannot make voice calls to Android users or U.S. users. Like all of Facebook’s location-specific tests, if it goes over well, you can expect it to roll out to more locations eventually.

The new VoIP calling is free, kind of. It will use up the data on your mobile plan. Canadian iOS users can access the feature by pushing the “i” icon within a conversation.

Count this as another attempt by Facebook to grab some more messaging market share. Last month, Facebook began allowing users to use Facebook Messanger for Android by simply signing up with a phone number – no Facebook account required.

And just a couple of weeks ago, Facebook unveiled their new standalone “Poke” app that takes on Snapchat. It allows users to send self-destructing text, photo, or video messages.

The Messenger updates for iOS and Android are currently rolling out.

[via TechCrunch]

The new law, which came into effect on May 24th, makes the use of VoIP services punishable by hefty fines and up to 15 years in prison. When asked about the new law, the government said that it “is intended to protect national security and protect the national, state-owned telecoms carrier from losing revenue to Skype and similar services.”

The problem with this is that only about 850,000 of the countries 85 million people have access to the internet. The 1% line penetration rate that Ethiopia has is the second worse in Africa behind Sierra Leone.

The other part of the law is that it also authorizes the government to inspect any imports of voice communication equipment and accessories, while also banning inbound shipments without prior permission.

This law is part of a recent crackdown in the last couple of years. The measures the government has gone through include shutting down some internet cafes that offered VoIP, and starting in 2006 they made it mandatory for internet cafes to keep records of the names and addresses of their customers in an effort to clamp down on bloggers and other users critical of the regime.

I feel bad for these people because they now have even less communication with the outside world. Like their country isn’t bad enough as it is.

Ars Technica got the scoop from Immunity Security’s Kostya Kortchinsky who said Microsoft replaced the nodes about two months ago. The old system would use self-described supernodes that consisted of users with enough bandwidth and processing power to transfer data and keep Skype’s VoIP service running.

The new system, however, does away with this system according to Kortchinsky. The new system contains only about 10,000 supernodes hosted by Microsoft on Linux boxes. That’s a big drop compared to the old system which had about 48,000 supernodes.

The drop doesn’t mean that the new Linux boxes are worse off than the old system. It’s actually better with the new boxes running grsecurity which makes them more impervious to attack. The new boxes also are able to host more with less resources. Kortchinsky told Ars Technica that the old system could only handle about 800 end users per supernode. The new Linux boxes can handle up to 4,100 users as of now, but that could be theoretically upgraded to 100,000 users.

Microsoft provided a statement to Ars Technica that confirms the use of the Linux boxes, but says that the P2P nature of Skype’s VoIP service is still intact:

As part of our ongoing commitment to continually improve the Skype user experience, we developed supernodes which can be located on dedicated servers within secure datacentres. This has not changed the underlying nature of Skype’s peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture, in which supernodes simply allow users to find one another (calls do not pass through supernodes). We believe this approach has immediate performance, scalability and availability benefits for the hundreds of millions of users that make up the Skype community.

All of this is just another argument that Linux really is into everything these days. Linux is really the most secure OS in the world so using it to run servers for Skype is a fantastic decision and one that Microsoft should be lauded for. It does seem kind of weird, however, for Microsoft to be embracing open source technology like this when they themselves are only starting to join the open source bandwagon. I guess anything can happen in a world where Microsoft is in the list of top 20 Linux contributors.

Do you think Microsoft made the right move in moving the Skype VoIP infrastructure to Linux? Or do you think it should have stuck with a more traditional P2P model? Let us know in the comments.

If you’re confused as to why Microsoft would go with somebody else over Skype, don’t be. Skype is proprietary software that isn’t suited for cloud-based apps. Twilio is a cloud-based API that’s going to facilitate the creation of apps over Windows Azure, a cloud-based app building and hosting platform like Google’s App Engine. It would take Microsoft and Skype some time to create a cloud-based API. Why build when you can just partner with a company already in the industry?

The deal has Windows Azure developers being able to take advantage of Twilio’s voice, SMS, VoIP and Phone Number APIs for cloud-based apps. Twilio’s main advantage is that it offers these services with small amounts of code. In fact, Twilio’s claim to fame is that it only takes three lines of code to implement voice calling in an app.

Twilio also has pretty fantastic rates. You don’t pay to use the API, but rather pay for the amount of minutes that people use on your app. It’s as low as one cent inbound and two cents for outbound calls. You can also create your own phone numbers which only cost a measly $1 a month. The service is already pretty popular among a large group of companies according to its customer list.

As TechCrunch points out, however, who uses Windows Azure? Sure, it’s a great service on par with Google’s App Engine, but I never see anybody talking about it except for Microsoft. Where’s all the praise, all the government and corporate endorsements? Will the offer of Twilio be enough to sway developers to start using Azure? Well, the companies are offering 1,000 texts or inbound minutes if you upgrade from a free account.

Will you switch to Windows Azure for Twilio? Or do you prefer another cloud-based Web application platform? Let us know in the comments.

Anastasios ‘Takis’ Kyriakides, President and CEO of netTALK, says:

“Keeping your own number is a pivotal development for netTALK. We consistently find that the number porting feature is a non-negotiable feature that businesses and consumers want, as they are ready to fire their phone company and save money, but didn’t want to lose long-established phone numbers that they’ve invested in advertising among their friends, customers and colleagues. We trademarked ‘Fire Your Phone Company’ for a reason, and we remain committed to making it easier, more affordable and rewarding for consumers to make the switch.”

Copper phone lines are increasingly being replaced by new technology offerings like those from netTALK and other VOIP providers, creating increased competition for the heavily monopolized wireline telecommunications industry. netTALK has undercut Vonage pricing by nearly 50%.

The Pew Research Center reports that online phone calling has taken off as a quarter of American adult Internet users (24%) have placed phone calls online. That amounts to 19% of all American adults. On any given day 5% of Internet users are going online to place VOIP calls.

The netTALK DUO enables free nationwide calls to any phone in Canada and the U.S. from anywhere in the world, as well as low-cost, flat-rate international call plans and a variety of other features, detailed at www.netTALK.com. No computer is necessary to make calls using the netTALK DUO, as it simply plugs directly into a router or modem (or computer).

Thanks to a post by Skype’s head of social media, Jennifer Caukin, over at the Skype blog, these numbers concerning daily users and their habits have been presented in a visual format, and the scope of Skype’s user base is quite impressive. First, the infographic in question:

According to Skype’s data, 65 million users log on daily, and of these millions, they use 700,000,000 minutes–daily–on Skype-to-Skype phone calls. Over at the Skype blog, Caukin offers some perspective on just how big 700 million is:

The figure that is most impressive is 700 million minutes of free Skype-to-Skype calls each day. To put it in perspective, 700 million is the equivalent of going around the earth 28,000 times in one day, if each minute represents a mile. Or 17,400 times if each minute is a kilometer.

In order to figure the final total–300 million minutes of Skype video calls–the team took the percentage of Skype-to-Skype calls that are done via video, in this case, 42 percent, and after some quick math, they rounded 284,000,000 to the nearest one hundred millionth, giving us the 300 million total.

Needless to say, with all this data flying around Skype’s network, the company’s infrastructure had better be of the load-bearing kind. With the distinct lack of Skype backlash concerning outages and network issues, there’s not much cause for concern. The next question is, is the Skype infrastructure prepared for the possibility of even more growth?

That’s right. No longer are potential Skype users forced to have a computer device to enjoy the VOIP service. To do so, you must first acquire the FREETALK Connect·Me Home Phone Adapter for Skype, a new add-on component that allows users to convert their handset to a Skype device. The description, which was offered over at the Skype blog by Helen Blackburn, Head of the Partner Product Management team at Skype, says:

The FREETALK Connect·Me Home Phone Adapter is a hassle-free, plug-and-play solution that lets you use your existing handset to make free Skype-to-Skype calls, as well as low-cost calls to landlines and mobile phones worldwide at our extremely low Skype rates.

While you don’t need a computing device to use the new Skype adapter, you do need a broadband Internet connection. Not only are the Skype home phone adapters now available, the post also discusses the launch of the GE Digital Cordless Expandable Telephone with Skype.

Essentially, GE’s phone has the Skype Home Phone adapter built into it, allowing users the same kind of freedom the adapter itself offers. That is, to make Skype-to-Skype calls for free. Other details include:

…connect with Skype contacts for free, make low-cost calls to mobiles and landlines and manage your Skype contacts, all without the need of a PC.

There are also pay plans for those of you who’d like to use the Skype home phone services for extended connections with landlines and mobile devices, just in case you Skype list isn’t all inclusive:

• FREETALK Connect·Me + more than 60 minutes** of complimentary calls to landlines and mobiles via Skype ($39.99)
• FREETALK Connect·Me + 12 months of calls to landlines and mobile phones in the U.S. and Canada and 200 minutes**of calls to international landlines and mobiles ($59.99)
• FREETALK Connect·Me + a 3-month Unlimited*World subscription to the US and Canada plus landlines in 40 other countries ($59.99)

These exist for GE’s cordless phone as well. For more information on this, check out the blog post, which features a video highlighting the benefits of Skype on your home phone.

Is this a “begone, Vonage” move on Skype’s part? Has Skype thrown down the “there can be only one” gauntlet in regards to successful VOIP service? Let us know what you think.

Do you utilize Internet calling services, or VoIP, often? We’d love to know.

The report, specifically, looked at fixed line VoIP services and predicted that it would turn into a $40 billion a year market by 2015. Oliver Johnson, the CEO of Point Topic, told us that this was a “very cautious projection” and that “it could be much higher.”

During 2010, the global growth of VoIP was 12.6 percent. Although this number seems slightly low, Johnson told us that it was promising. He believes the real growth is coming in the next few years, but that the trends that this data illustrates are still important to understand. For example, also in 2010, over 50 percent of telephone traffic in France was over some form of VoIP service.

He credits the growth to technological advances but said that it is causing concern for traditional phone services.

“It’s scaring the bejesus out of the traditional telephone processing… they’re seeing their revenues being cannibalized,” he said.

“It’s not going to be an empty marketplace,” he also pointed out. “Telephones have existed for over 100 years and to actually start to capture some of that market is quite difficult.”

In spite of the positive signs for growth, Johnson said that the VoIP market still faced multiple challenges. While there are technical and mobile challenges, he thinks the biggest challenge will be in regards to regulation.

“The more that the incumbents feel a threat or start to see their revenues challenged, the more interest they will have in persuading lawmakers in putting their case, as forcefully as they have in other instances, I’m sure, from blocking this sort of service,” he explained.

Even though this report focused on fixed line telephone services, Johnson told us that the most growth and revenue would come in Internet telephony services such as Skype.