Bogdan burst into our office yesterday and asked if we’d got Skype yet.
It’s VoIP telephony, but Jon and I were dismissive, mainly because we thought it was a Windows-only thing. (Bogdan was a Mac user years ago, but strayed from the true path…)
Later, much later, that night I was watching Newsnight, and guess what – they did a whole bit on Skype. So I had a peek at their web site, and was pleased to see that they do their software for Mac OS X, Linux and Pocket PC. It offers free peer-to-peer voice calls to other Skype-users, and cheap (depending on where you are and where you’re calling) calls to real, ordinary telephones.
So, I downloaded Skype for OS X – er, then, who do I call?
I managed to find someone that looked like it might be Bogdan, and called. No answer.
Then half an hour later, I was upstairs – an unfamiliar phone rang! Or rather, my laptop rang. It was Bogdan, a perfectly audible, clear voice call on my iBook over WiFi just using the built-in mic and speakers.
Jon’s resisting Skype though – even though we can’t get iChatAV to do voice calls between us, although that might be due to latency in his rather amazing wireless set-up. Jon prefers to type (Skype does instant messaging too , you know), but it’s got me thinking it might almost be worth getting a Pocket PC to use as a phone…
In other news… Cringely thinks Kerry’s in with a chance. I’d like to think he’s right, but I refuse to misunderstimate Bush’s people’s ability to lie and cheat their way to victory. Four years ago, Gore got more votes than Bush and he still lost.