As our needs for technology have moved far beyond text or have been integrated into other sites that offer us more capabilities for communicating and socializing, the well-known MSN Messenger that many of us may have started using back in the 90’s as we too would have had a Hotmail email then too, is bidding us ado come March 15. Their well over 100 million users will be transferred over to the more modernized version of messaging, the VOIP service, Skype. As a user of MSN Messenger of today or long ago; if you ever happened to have a login, you may be receiving emails requesting for you to begin shifting…

A June update to the Skype software adds recipients to some of the instant messages you send out through the system. Instead of just sending it out to the person or people selected for the message, it includes other people as well without your knowledge. According to VentureBeat, Skype knows all about it: “We are aware that in rare circumstances IMs between two contacts could be sent to an unintended third contact. We are rolling out a fix for this issue in the next few days and will notify our users to download an updated version of Skype.” Be careful what you say and who you’re saying it about when…

The words “National Domestic Communications Assistance Center” sound harmless enough. It could be a call center for a tech support company. It could be a relay center for the telecom industry or a hub for amplified reach of broadband signals. The name is about as conspicuous and attention-grabbing as “please be quiet” sign at the library. In reality, NDCAC may be the start of the most powerful and potentially dangerous wing of the FBI. As CNET reports, the mandate is broad. With cybercriminal technology greatly outpacing their counterparts, the desperate need to be able to listen in on potential…

Teens can get in trouble with their parents in many different ways. They can break curfew, get bad grades, fight with their siblings, and many more things deemed inappropriate by their parents. What do parents do to punish teens when they act out? It used to be that parents could take away television for a week. Parents then moved on to taking away their teens’ cell phones. While TV is still a popular punishment, there is an even more prevalent method that parents can use– no Facebook. So, how do parents take away Facebook from their teenagers? What if the kid just creates a mock Facebook for the…

This is what social media was designed to do in the first place. Heck, it’s what the internet promised to be able to do all those years ago. It has the right company building it, the right technology supporting, and is coming out at a time when it is not only desired but also needed. Why, then, has Google Hangouts not exploded into a tool that everyone from family members to international corporations use ever day? In a quick survey of friends and business relations, I discovered that only one person out of nearly a hundred acquaintances had used it more than once. Keep in mind that this is a tech-savvy,…

Word on the tubes is that Facebook is about to drop live, in-browser video chat next week. According to Zuck, Facebook will be unveiling an as-of-yet-secret, “awesome” product to the press at the Seattle office on July 6th. And according to those in the know, it’s more than likely Skype-powered in-browser video chat. So now not only can you be bugged in text format at random by friends acquaintances you don’t actually want to speak to, but now you get to look at them, too. Great. In all seriousness, though, this can only be a good thing for both Facebook and Skype. Skype could benefit from a kick in the…

Skype has become a popular app for the iPhone, bringing video calling to millions of mobile users. Now the service appears to be heading to Apple’s iPad very soon. After accidentally leaking a video of the new product, Skype confirmed that it’s preparing an iPad app, but has yet to provide a release date. The leaked video shows a very polished product which looks just about ready for release. The app will benefit from the iPad 2’s large screen size and camera, but it will feature much of the same functionality of mobile and desktop clients. One item that’s missing is file sharing, and that’s…

If the insinuation of this leaked video can be believed, Skype will soon be launching its very own iPad app. According to HotHardware, “If this proves true, avid users of Skype will no longer have to ‘double’ the iPhone version on their iPad to actually use it.” The iPhone app works well on the iPad 2, but it’s not as sharp, nor are the features up to snuff for a tablet. With Facebook rumored to be working on their own iPad app, there may be somewhat of a race going on from the two high-profile omissions from the Apple App Store. …

When Microsoft purchased Skype last month for $8.5 billion, we viewed it as a step forward for both companies in becoming better integrated in business, particularly catering to the trend of less travel and more remote employees and virtual conferences. The biggest challenge was scalability, and those challenges have appeared lately. Today, Skype is not having a full “outage” but many people are not able to connect via Skype. This is not a big deal to the majority of users, but from a business perspective where meetings are often scheduled and must be kept, services such as GoToMeeting still…

Microsoft announced this morning that they are moving forward with plans to buy Skype for $8.5 billion in cash from the investor group led by Silver Lake. The agreement has been approved by the both boards. What does this mean for both companies? For Microsoft, it gives them proven technology that is in a state of growth and that has high revenue potential based upon the direction of the telecommunication industry. For Skype, it’s cash. It isn’t clear whether or not the company needed cash, but it’s unlikely. Over the next few months, we’ll see how it shakes out, but this could be a sign of Microsoft’s…