A new mobile application called Nimbuzz has just launched, and it’s ambitious to say the least. It aims to provide free VoIP calls, conference calls, instant messaging, chat and group chat, and photo and file sharing features, all from one application. Oh, and it works with Skype, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM, Jabber and ICQ instant messaging services, and 23 social networks (including Facebook and MySpace). In other words, it aims to aggregate all your IM clients and social networks in one place on your phone, consolidating your friends into a single list. It works on more than 500 handsets, while the VoIP features work on over 90 handsets (these are Nokia Symbian Series 60 devices, although Windows Mobile phones will support it in June). Other handsets can still make VoIP-style calls, but over the mobile network. Nimbuzz has actually been available in beta for a while, and has already signed up more than 500,000 users, of whom a quarter are active every month. The company says it’s generating more than a million logins a week, with users from 176 countries having signed up. Nimbuzz is also promising some deals with operators and social networks this summer to help its growth.
Tag Archive for 'Skype'
Stuart wrote last night about Skype’s launch of a native Series 60 mobile application, and how it calls a local-rate number to initiate calls. But now the company has announced full details of its plans, and how to get the beta application for your phone.
The beta client works on around 50 handsets from Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola, and it includes chat, group chat, presence, and the ability to receive Skype and SkypeIn calls. In eight countries (including the UK), making Skype-to-Skype and SkypeOut calls is also included.
It’s very much experimental: “These are still the early days for making Skype calls on mobile phones,” says Gareth O’Loughlin, general manager of mobile and hardware devices at Skype.
Continue reading ‘Skype beta includes SkypeIn and SkypeOut - here’s how to get it’
At long last, Skype has launched a native S60 version of it’s VoIP and IM app.
Oddly, the VoIP bit isn’t quite as you might expect. Unlike the purely Internet-based communication of the desktop Skype client, the S60 client calls a local rate number to initiate the call.
So, er, not VoIP at all then?
Quite why this is the case is a bit of a mystery - Fring has been offering native S60 Skype access via the internet for some time now and you have to wonder who is going to plump for the much less featureful official effort when there is a much more mature alternative on offer.
The PSP Phone is still being strongly denied by Sony, but in the meantime how about a Phone PSP?
Sony has used CES to announce that it is bringing the popular VoIP app Skype to its mobile games platform, starting with the next firmware update.
The update will add a Skype icon to the Network menu and will support both SkypeOut and SkypeIn to let you make and receive calls to and from ‘real’ phones in addition to Skype-to-Skype chatting.
Owners of older PSPs will be disappointed to learn that the firmware will only work with PSP-2000 devices (e.g. the PSP Lite) but don’t feel too down if you have a ‘fat’ PSP as Homebrew coders Noobz have released Furikup - a free, open source VoIP app that should work with any SIP-based provider such as SIPGate, providing your PSP has been hacked to play homebrew software.
3’s Skypephone users can now call more friends in more countries for free now it’s expanded its Skypephone service, making it available in Sweden, Denmark and Austria. With the UK, Ireland, Australia, Hong Kong and Italy already covered this means 3 customers can make calls to other Skypephone users across eight countries.
Of course, you can also use your Skyphone to make Skype calls using VoIP to any other Skype user, but at least this time you can both be using your 3G internet phone rather than one person having to be at their computer.
3’s also revealed the top five destination countries its Skyphone users are calling, revealing the types of people who have bought its phone are most likely immigrants calling friends and family back home:
1. UK
2. USA
3. Poland
4. Germany
5. France
This is a slightly geeky story that’s currently only relevant to hacky types, but its implications mean it’s worth reporting. Some iPod Touch owners have discovered that the device’s audio input pins work, which means you can theoretically connect a microphone to it.
Why does this matter? Well, it opens the way for Voice-over-IP (VoIP) applications to be developed for the Touch at some point, allowing people to make calls over its Wi-Fi connection. This, of course, is some way in the future, once Apple has released the software development kit for iPhone and iPod Touch. And even then, it’s likely to be a bit fiddly.
Nevertheless, a voice-enabled iPod Touch could cannibalise some iPhone sales, although not enough to be a bona-fide threat to Apple’s handset. I do wonder why Apple hasn’t developed its own VoIP software for the Touch - or partnered with a big player like Skype. Perhaps that’s yet to come…
(via TUAW)
