A gadget called the Skype USB to RJ11 Adaptor lets you make and receive free Internet VoIP calls using your regular home phone — and your cell phone. The device plugs into your PC’s USB port, and has a place to plug in your home phone. Once you set it up, you can use your home phone to make free calls to anywhere in the world. (Note that this is not a review — all claims are made by the company and have...

Ebay, the online auction powerhouse, and its subsidiary Skype were among 22 firms sued by the company that produces the software that drives popular file-sharing network Morpheus, in relation to the voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology they use to provide phone calls over the Web, the Associated Press reports via The Washington Post. StreamCast Networks fingered the founders of Kazaa, another file-sharing service,...

Skype and Skype watchers have been saying for some time now that a surprising proportion of the low-or-no-cost VoIP service’s customers are using it for business. This is probably truer in Europe and the Far East where phone companies often charge for local calls, and long distance typically costs more than it does in North America. But the idea of using Skype for business is evidently starting to catch on...

Skype has warned of a flaw in its popular VoIP client software that creates a means for hackers to swipe files from their “buddies”. The flaw can be exploited via a malicious constructed Skype URL which initiates the transfer of a single named file to another Skype user. The security bug stems from an error within the parsing of the parameters passed by the URL handler. This flaw creates a means for hackers...

Skype has axed fees on calls to landlines and mobile phones within the US and Canada for consumers in those regions. Users placing a call to a regular telephone number from the Skype application previously were charged a per minute fee. While that fee will now be waived, phone calls to numbers in other regions will still be charged. Those rates are generally lower than those charged by competing telephony providers. Skype...

The market for WiFi-enabled Voice-over-Internet Protocol phones reached US$ 102 million in revenues in 2005, and is expected to double this year to more than US$ 200 million. This is according to a report by technology-oriented research firm Infonetics. The report has likewise provides a detailed breakdown across the types of mobile handsets used. In 2005, about two-thirds of revenue was from single-mode WiFi...

Of course with the big players you’ll generally pay about 5 or 10 dollars more, just for the assurance of having a well-known brand name like AT&T or Vonage ( the current largest VoIP providers in the market). But then more and more companies are spreading its wings, so again, it’s all up to you. However, keep in mind that if a service has less than 100,000 subscribers you might want to think twice before...

Of course with the big players you’ll generally pay about 5 or 10 dollars more, just for the assurance of having a well-known brand name like AT&T or Vonage ( the current largest VoIP providers in the market). But then more and more companies are spreading its wings, so again, it’s all up to you. However, keep in mind that if a service has less than 100,000 subscribers you might want to think twice before...