Month: May 2006

We recently covered one of the most successful free VoIP applications, Skype, that has revolutionized the long distance industry. As more and more users connect to through broadband, not only can voice be effectively transmitted with acceptable quality, but now video is also quickly following suite.

PPLive is one of the first applications to test the tepid waters of free, on-demand television over the Internet. The Net, and computing in general, has always depended on these intrepid explorers who push the technical and legal boundaries in order to clear the way for more robust, mainstream applications.

As we approach the summer season, those of us living in the bigger cities of the world are preparing for the arrival of the hot weather tourist crunch. Inevitably with every tourist, there is a camcorder. And with every camcorder taken on vacation, there is a pile of video that ends up sitting in an obscure folder on a computer.

One of the major issues that most people have with digital home movies is that the footage never leaves their computer! Certainly it deserves a wider audience and one of the easiest ways to go from forgotten folder to front row in your living room is to get your movies onto a DVD. This makes it easy to pass it along to friends and family who will appreciate being able to watch it at their leisure.

So get out there and shoot some video! Your audience awaits…

“We live in wonderful times” a wise man once said, and these days are no exception. Communicating with friends, family and business associated from around the world has always been important, but it has certainly not always been cheap. Competition and technological advancements have driven the traditional per-minute charge to acceptable levels, but we must still be mindful of the invisible meter ticking away as Aunt Betty goes over her pie recipe one more time.

That meter is – at least for the time being – broken! This message is for the people who are not one of the – as I glance at my Skype window – 5,158,648 users currently online right this instant. So what are you waiting for? It’s simple, it’s fast and most importantly it’s oh so free!