Skype is the latest mail-order bride to join Microsoft’s stable up in Redmond, Washington. But unlike some of Microsoft’s has-been acquisitions (Danger, I see you!), Skype is an internationally recognisable name. How will they fit into the world of Microsoft?
Last week, it was Google and Facebook who were said to be purchasing Skype. Today, Microsoft has announced that actually? They’re the ones snapping up the VoIP company. The confirmed price is $US8.5 billion; considerably more than what eBay bought Skype for back in 2005.
Yeah, 911 is a joke in your town, so it’s nice to know about family emergencies at home when you’re away. Ooma‘s new notification service helps make that happen that, pinging you remotely when your home phone calls 911.
When Google launched their Voice service a couple of years ago, people made a big deal about what their move into the telecom world meant. In a print-only interview with New Scientist Peter Norvig, Google’s head of research, he said the main reason they launched the service was so they could better learn how to transcribe human voice to text.
JaJah is an app for Android (and soon to be iPhone) that lets users make free phone calls to Facebook friends without punching in their phone number. It’s neat! The people you call don’t even have to have a JaJah account. All you do is select them in the JaJah app and they’ll be pinged through Facebook chat.
