14 DAY TRIAL // Old school telephony still has some time to go, but I don't know really how much. Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, Internet telephony, IP Telephony, Broadband telephony/Phone and Voice over Broadband is the way of the future. All you need is an IP-based network, so you can even use a single network able to carry voice and data, taking advantage of much lower implementation costs compared to voice-only networks.
Skype is a proprietary peer to peer Internet telephony network that competes against existing open VoIP protocols such as SIP, IAX and H.323, founded by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the guys that also founded the controversial file sharing application Kazaa. Headquartered in Luxembourg, the Skype Group was acquired by eBay in October 2005, and has offices in London, Tallinn and Prague.
Yesterday, Skype announced that Skype for Mac 2.5 became available to the public, and is available for download. As usual, you can also download the latest version of this program from Softpedia, here. To run properly, Skype for Mac 2.5 needs Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later and, of course, a decent Internet connection.
"As you know, the beta version of this beautiful piece of software has been available since mid-November. Since then, Skype has worked hard at ironing out the beta wrinkles and is pleased to release a public version into the wild. Skype has even added a nifty little birthday reminder feature, to help you impress your Skype contacts (and secure an invitation to the party)."
Apart from the birthday reminder mentioned by the producer above, this program also enables its users to send SMS messages and hold conferences with up to nine other people. While most services are free, there are also things that you have to pay for when using Skype, but being able to download the program and chat with your friends, as well as to enjoy one on one video chats should be enough for most people.