Skype 4.0 (download) became available for free on Tuesday to Windows users. The free desktop VoIP communicator is a worthy final version that brings some key enhancements with video and audio bandwidth, though it leaves behind some of the extra adornments of version 3.8, the last stable build.

Those who have been following the triple release of betas since the summer won’t see more than a few changes. If 4.0 is new to you, however, the developments are more notable.

Skype concentrates on video size, quality, and performance in this version. From version 3.8 to version 4.0, every design change has been made to draw video and IM to the forefront, and for the most part it works. The video window has expanded and calls are easier to start. The classic two-pane interface has consolidated into one, though you can still split them apart if you prefer.

Skype’s beautifully staged marketing shot shows Skype 4.0′s new videotopia.

(Credit: Skype)

As the culmination of the beta series, Skype 4.0 gets a pumped-up video and a completely new audio engine. Compared with other codecs out there, the new audio engine, named Silk, is touted to give Skype superwide-band audio (which operates like broadband), but uses half the bandwidth. Fewer bandwidth demands gives Skypers with dial-up connections (like a lot of people in India and Brazil) a bigger boost, keeping calls from being dropped or mangled beyond recognition.

I’ll attest to the great call quality during my interview with Skype’s London-based product manager. It was clear and the vocal timbre sounded true. Keep in mind that I dialed in from a newish, memory-loaded Asus computer with full broadband support and a set of top-tier headphones. Quality will still depend on your Internet connection and hardware configuration. Using headphones that support ultra-wideband audio will help.

The video stream was similarly good. Though far from the perfection of TV, I noticed fewer jumps and blips and sound syncing that was very close to real-time. Problems that have beset Skype’s video calls in the past–a frozen or choppy image and packetized audio–were largely absent during test calls. According to Skype, that’s thanks to a new back-end addition that sticks a finger in the air of network conditions. As available bandwidth drops, the bandwidth manager tries to salvage audio first.

What my demo call looked like on a Vista set-up.

In choppy conditions, it helps steady the video, too, by lowering the rate of frames per second and by compressing images more heavily. Your friend on the other end may become blocky and the image delayed, but faces should also break up less than in previous versions.

Other new features include abuse reporting if you receive an invite from an unauthorized Skyper, and a light stub installer that pulls down the rest of the application.

Skype, it seems, has also been pulled into a toolbar partnership. Now when you install it, you’ll see that an optional toolbar that comes bundled with Skype 4.0. The free Browser Highlighter includes the ‘Compare on eBay’ tool for Firefox and Internet Explorer. Considering that eBay owns Skype, it’s not a surprising addition, but one I’ll nonetheless pass on every time.

What’s missing

There are two skins in version 4.0, the default light gray and blue combo called Skype ‘Chrome,’ and the classic hue. Skype hinted at more skin support in later versions coming out this year. There aren’t plans at the moment to support third-party skins, but customization, I’ve been assured, will get more attention.

Along these lines are absent customizations that had not been making beta testers happy. If you’ve been holding your breath for greater IM treatment in this release, or birthday reminders, you might breathe again until the next launch.

Those of you shouting about the cessation of public chats will be glad to know that Skype 4.0 for Windows will support those you already have, but it will keep you from adding new ones. Skype representatives told us they’re still playing around with ideas of how to become more Web-oriented. It could as easily look like a reshaped version of chats as it could go in a different direction.

That brings us to Skypecasts, another source of some users’ lamentations. Skypecasts was pulled last September because it just couldn’t grab the hoped-for attention. A similar(-ish) feature will probably be rolled into whatever public chats becomes in future releases.

For now, Skype has retreated to its bread-and-butter position of providing good, clean voice, video, and text chatting. If worldwide Windows users notice consistently improved audio and video quality, that’s not a bad place to be.

dwonload skype.

Davos town: not the most accessible venue Photo: Reuters

Preparing for the World Economic Forum – aka Davos – is such a stress. Not for me, but for my wonderful colleague Jane who spends weeks fixing, and then re-fixing, meetings so I can get the most out of it.

The beauty of Davos is that one can meet large numbers of the world’s most important/interesting/powerful/egotistical people in the space of four days. Interviews that would otherwise take months to arrange, and hours to travel to, take place in a small Swiss ski resort. It’s a journalist’s dream – and a PA’s nightmare.

* It being a ski resort, Davos is not the easiest place to get to. The flight to Zurich is fine, but then you have a choice – a train journey during which you have to change twice, or a two-and-a-half hour car journey with cartoonish icy mountain road bits thrown in free at the end. I plumped for a car this year, and used the time to start “tweeting” (ie micro-blogging on twitter). With no more than 140 characters to put in your email-cum-blog, it takes a while to get used to.

An innocent attempt to pass on a story about how Lord Levene (chairman of Lloyds of London) was impressed with the Davos hospital – after slipping and whacking his head on a ski – backfired. I ran out of characters and had to split the message in two, giving the impression that I had been pleased that the noble Lord had taken a tumble. I can only hope he dismisses it as a twitter schoolboy error on my part. And quite how interesting “traffic in Davos is bloomin’ awful. Worse than London/Atlanta” is to people, I’m not sure. But there is something quite compelling about it – I can see why Stephen Fry has become an addict.

* Americans have dominated Davos in all the years I have been attending. But they are nowhere to be seen, enabling the Chinese and Russians to flex their muscles. Chinese premier Wen Jiabao was a big hit with the business and media crowd at Wednesday’s private session. Knowledgeable and confident, he hit most of the right notes – including references to his recent re-reading of the work of Adam Smith. Warm applause from an audience including Henry Kravis of private equity house KKR, Sir Martin Sorrell of media conglomerate WPP, BP’s Tony Hayward, and Stephen Green of HSBC.

Davos is all a twitter with Wen and Vlad – Telegraph.

The social networking site is exploring ways to measure and create new services around users’ sentiment.

Facebook may be at it again.

Efforts by the popular social networking site to better leverage the enormous amount of data it has on its users’ interests haven’t always gone over well. But with the privacy flap over its Beacon ad program now in its wake, Facebook may be next studying how to tap users’ information for a new purpose: to make their online experience more in sync with their mood.

Tech blogger Robert Scoble mentioned the plan in a blog post from a discussion he said he had this week with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

According to Scoble, Zuckerberg said Facebook is studying “sentiment” behavior: Based on users’ posts, the site can tell when bad news has hit, like stock prices tumbling.

Facebook did not return requests for comment by press time.

The speculation comes as Facebook continues seeking ways to parlay its staggering traffic into advertising revenue and to develop new business models. Thus far, the site’s success in either has proven limited.

Privacy, security and advertising

It’s unclear how much of this plan — if any of it — will make it into a live feature on the social networking site. It’s also uncertain whether it’s even a good idea, considering some of the problems Facebook has encountered in the past when it’s explored other ways to monetize user data.

Complete Article…

InternetNews Realtime IT News – How Ya Doing? Facebook Wants to Know..

WASHINGTON — There is one addiction President Obama will not have to kick: his BlackBerry.

For more than two months, Mr. Obama has been waging a vigorous battle with his handlers to keep his BlackBerry, which like millions of other Americans he has relied upon for years to stay connected with friends and advisers. (And, of course, to get Chicago White Sox scores.)

He won the fight, aides disclosed Thursday, but the privilege of becoming the nation’s first e-mailing president comes with a specific set of rules.

“The president has a BlackBerry through a compromise that allows him to stay in touch with senior staff and a small group of personal friends,” said Robert Gibbs, his spokesman, “in a way that use will be limited and that the security is enhanced to ensure his ability to communicate.”

First, only a select circle of people will have his address, creating a true hierarchy for who makes the cut and who does not.

Second, anyone placed on the A-list to receive his e-mail address must first receive a briefing from the White House counsel’s office.

Third, messages from the president will be designed so they cannot be forwarded.

The battle over whether the president could keep his BlackBerry has been fueled to a large degree by Mr. Obama himself, who mentioned it again and again. He would not take no for an answer. In an interview this month, he worried aloud, “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

Mr. Obama received his BlackBerry on Tuesday, but officials declined to specify what kind. In a conversation with reporters on Thursday evening, he said, “I don’t think it’s actually up and running yet.”

Obama Keeps His Blackberry in a Hard-Fought E-Victory – NYTimes.com.