Latest Gear Live Videos
Video demonstration of Comcast Skype on Xfinity
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Broadband, Home Entertainment, Videos,
Comcast is working to bring Skype video chat to their set-top boxes through the Xfinity service, and they've put together a video that gives the inside scoop on what it took to build the look and feel for Skype on your television. We've got the video for you above. No pricing or launch date has been announced yet, but we're curious what you'd be willing to pay for something like this from your cable TV provider. Hit us in the comments!
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Comcast Spectrum will bring revamped Xfinity guide, Facebook to your TV
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: HDTV, Home Entertainment,
Comcast is set to show off the next evolution of their Xfinity TV offerings, which they are calling Xfinity Spectrum, tomorrow at NCTA 2011. We've gotta say, Comcast has been long overdue for a revamp, and it's nice to see that the company is looking to step things up in a major way. As you see in the video, things are much more integrated and easier to navigate. You're even able to share things about your viewing habits with Facebook, and of course this is likely the way that Comcast will bring Skype to your television. No word yet on how long it'll take to roll these boxes out, or when it will start, but let's just keep our fingers crossed on that one. Hit the video above for a look at the new hotness.
Comcast to bring Skype video calls to Xfinity
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Home Entertainment, Internet,
Today, Comcast and Skype announced a partnership that will let Comcast customers make and accept wide-screen, high-definition video calls (as well as communicate via instant messages) through their television sets.
Skype on Comcast will let users identify incoming Skype calls via caller ID, accept incoming calls while watching TV, and import friends and colleagues' contacts from Facebook, Outlook, Gmail, and smartphone address books.
The Skype service will be delivered to Comcast customers via a combination of an adapter box, video camera, and a special remote that will let them input text as well as control their televisions. The other party does not need any special equipment beyond what is normally needed to use Skype.
Click to continue reading Comcast to bring Skype video calls to Xfinity
Microsoft will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Corporate News, Microsoft, Software,
Microsoft announced Tuesday that it will acquire VoIP service Skype for $8.5 billion in cash.
Microsoft will purchase the company from investor group Silver Lake, which—along with Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz Ventures, and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP)—acquired a majority stake in Skype in December 2009.
Microsoft said the deal will increase the accessibility of real-time video and voice communications across its products, while expanding Skype's reach. Skype will be available on Microsoft products like Xbox, Kinect, and Windows Phone, and Microsoft will connect Skype users with Lync, Outlook, Xbox Live, and more.
Microsoft said it will continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms.
Click to continue reading Microsoft will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion
Top 10 Gear Live stories of 2010
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple, Smartphones, Editorial, Features, Software,
We've come to the end of another year, and as we wave goodbye to 2010, we figured it was only fitting that we share the most popular stories published on Gear Live in 2010, as determined by our readers (we've also got the top ten most read stories regardless of publish date!) These are the ten stories that were read the most, and when you consider that fact, it's pretty surprising to see what made the list. Let's kick it off with our most read story of the year:
Fring App Brings Skype Video Calling to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi and 3G:
Sure, Skype just formally announced video calling in the Skype 3.0 iOS app, but Fring brought us Skype video calls months ago! The thing is, Skype pulled that feature from Fring with the quickness, but that didn't stop this from being the most read story we published in 2010!
Click to continue reading Top 10 Gear Live stories of 2010
Top 10 most read Gear Live stories of 2010
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Smartphones, Wearables, Features, Internet, Mods / Hacks, Software,
Sure, we've given you a list of our top 10 most read stories of 2010, but we figured we'd go a bit more broad than that. We also thought it would be interesting to give you a look at the top ten most read stories on this site this year, period, regardless of what year they were posted. We must say, we're just as surprised as you are at what did (and didn't) make the list! Click on through to check out the full list!
Click to continue reading Top 10 most read Gear Live stories of 2010
Skype, other VoIP, may be illegal in China
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Internet, Software,
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According to a story in China's major newspaper, People's Daily, it appears that the Chinese government has declared all VoIP solutions not provided by the government's own China Telecom and China Unicorn to be illegal. This would make Skype, the most popular VoIP service, illegal as well. So far, Skype denies that it has been banned, and users in China keep using the service, but if the government were to apply this new rule, this would be a major drawback for Chinese users, and westerners traveling to the country.
Read More 
| People's Daily
Why Skype went down for 24 hours
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Internet, Software,
A week after the biggest Skype outage in recent memory (it lasted around 24 hours,) the company CIO posted an interesting rundown of how and why the failure occurred, giving a glimpse as to how Skype works behind the scenes. On Wednesday, December 22, a Skype server handling offline messaging became overloaded, resulting in delayed messages. Due to a bug, a version of Skype for Windows did not process those delayed messages correctly, which made them crash. This led to around 25% of the total Skype supernodes, the clients directing connections and logins in the Skype network, to crash. Since Skype clients have protections built in so that they do not overload the systems they run on, the large amount of crashed clients being restarted caused a massive load on the network, causing more supernodes to shut down to protect themselves. Almost the whole Skype network was thus brought to a halt. Check out the post to view more details, and how the Skype team brought everything back online.
Read More | Skype
Skype mobile video calls may be coming soon
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Smartphones, Rumors, Wireless / WiFi,
The big rumor this weekend making the rounds is that Skype may be planning to bring video calls to mobile platforms soon. A document was discovered by Engadget showing some help topics like "How do I make video calls with Skype for iPhone?" Also, Skype has been saying it will make some new video related announcements at CES next month. Could this mean Skype users will be able to use their iPhone 4 with something other than FaceTime? So far it's always been a sticky issue to use video on phones because of the high bandwidth requirements. The real question here is, if true, will Skype video calls be Wi-Fi only, or will you be able to make these calls over 3G?
Read More | Engadget
Skype goes down for millions of users
Posted by Patrick Lambert Categories: Corporate News, Internet,
Skype suffered a major outage yesterday where many users, possibly millions, were left without service. It started early in the morning, with people finding that they were unable to login, see their friends list, or place calls. At first, Skype tweeted that they were looking into the issue, but it soon became clear that the problem was affecting a large number of people, for several hours.
Skype put up a blog post in the afternoon to explain what the situation was, and how it was a problem affecting many users that caused the number of supernodes, those systems that are used by the Skype network to connect calls and process logins, to be taken offline. They added that they are working on creating "mega-supernodes" to take over that role and rectify the problem. According to their estimates, voice calls should be functioning within hours, but video calls and group features may be down longer. This may end up being one of the most serious issue that the company has had in the past several years.
Read More | Skype
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