It's official, the Skype saga is finally over, with all parties involved most likely satisfied with the results, though not exactly thrilled. eBay got rid of Skype, allowing it to focus on its other assets, most notably PayPal, the investors got a nice piece of the VoIP service and Skype's founders also got themselves a small but juicy stake in the company. The settlement puts an end to months of legal disputes that could have potentially threatened Skype's future entirely. The deal has been rumored for a while now and most of the details have now been confirmed. As expected, Index Ventures is out of the picture, along with... [read more >>] A bit of a Nordic rivalry is heating up between Sweden and Finland, but a type of rivalry anyone can get behind of. Just a couple of weeks after Finland announced its plans to make broadband connections a legal right, Sweden is following suit with plans of its own. Regardless of whether it's national pride or a real necessity that needs addressing, Sweden is announcing its commitment to providing 90 percent of its population with a 100-megabits-per-second broadband connection by 2020. The plans have been announced by none other than Åsa Torstensson, Sweden's infrastructure minister, who recognized the importance of the Inte... [read more >>] We take it for granted today and it's easy to forget just how new it really is, but the Internet is a very different beast than it was just five years ago. It's now evolving at an amazing pace and soon one third of the world's population will be online. Its beginnings 40 years ago though were a lot more humble.The actual birth date of the Internet isn't exactly set in stone but one date that is largely regarded as the day it all started is October 29, 1969. Back then computers were the size of rooms and mostly relegated to universities, big companies and military use. And 40 years ago researchers at two universities were... [read more >>] An ICANN representative has led reporters to believe that, till the end of the week, the committee might approve the usage of non-Latin characters in standard web addresses. The change, if approved, will not only be the biggest face-lift given to the Internet, but will also be the biggest technical modification done since its birth 40 years ago.On the 29th of October, 2009, three days from now, the Internet will officially be 40 years old, and there are great chances that a revolution of the way we look at it is about to be approved on the same day.This week in Seoul, South Korea, the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbe... [read more >>] From a distance Facebook looks like a very conservative site and the look of the social network seems very much unchanged for years. But take a closer look and you'll notice that the company is constantly tweaking and updating the design and features and now it's getting ready for another homepage redesign. The first details popped up a couple of weeks ago but now we have a much better overview of the upcoming changes including the Top News filter and the Recent Activity view. We got a first glimpse of the changes that were spotted in the wild as the social network was testing them in a limited trial. Facebook confirmed the chan... [read more >>] Online video isn't exactly the most lucrative business yet and it isn't one that's particularly easy to become successful in. YouTube dominates the landscape but even the Google-owned site isn't profitable yet. Still, professional content sites like Hulu proved that online video can generate decent revenue and, considering that music videos make up a huge percentage of YouTube's views, a dedicated music video site sounded like a good idea. Universal Music thought so and joined Sony Music to create Vevo, an upcoming music video site, which has now secured an undisclosed sum in funding from Abu Dhabi Media Company. T... [read more >>] The Netflix $1-million prize has been finally awarded, with the winner, BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos team, officially announced today. This marks the end of the almost three-year-old competition, but Netflix is already working on a new one, which it hopes to spark just as much interest as the the Netflix Prize that managed to attract thousands of teams of scientists, mathematicians and computer engineers. “The Netflix Prize sought to substantially improve the accuracy of predictions about how much someone is going to enjoy a movie based on their movie preferences. On September 21, 2009 we awarded the $1M Grand Prize to team &lsqu... [read more >>] When eBay announced it had sold a majority stake in Skype a few weeks behind, it looked like all its problems were mostly over. This week's developments turned that expectation on its head after Joltid sued Skype for several counts of copyright infringement. Just a few days later, Joost, another company controlled by the two former owners, sued former Joost Chairman and CEO Mike Volpi, who is now employed by Index Ventures, one of the investment companies that bought a stake in Skype. eBay bought Skype for $3.1 billion in 2005 The reasons for the strings of lawsuits go back to Skype's initial sale to eBay, when the auction giant... [read more >>] It was really just a matter of time, considering how fast it was growing, but Facebook has just announced it has officially passed the 300 million monthly active users mark. While predictable, it's no small feat for the social network launched just five years ago. Facebook reached 250 million users just a month and a half ago and has doubled its user base since the beginning of the year. Along with the milestone in user numbers, the social network also revealed an interesting piece of info – it is now cash flow positive meaning that from now on Facebook is actually making money. “As of today, Facebook now serves 300 milli... [read more >>] EBay has announced the sale of its VoIP service Skype to a group of investment companies, confirming the previous speculation. EBay will retain 35 percent of the company, with the other 65 percent being sold for $1.9 billion in cash and a note from the buyer in the principal amount of $125 million. The transaction is led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, which likely bared the grunt of the amount involved. “This is a great deal, unlocking both immediate and long-term value for eBay and tremendous potential for Skype,” John Donahoe, eBay president and CEO, said. “We’ve acted decisively on a deal that del... [read more >>] | 
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