TigerDirect News Update for Thursday December 14, 2006
Welcome to the TigerDirect News Update for Thursday, December 14, 2006. In today’s news:
- Skype Starts Billing
- Gartner predicts Vista is last ‘major release’ of Windows
- Jaxtr provides phone-to-phone communication without breaching privacy
- and having a ‘Camel’ at the airport in Turkey may have a whole new meaning
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Skype starts billing
Tuesday Skype, the Internet calling service owned by eBay, said that effective January 1st it would start charging $30 a year for unlimited calls to landline and mobile phones within North America. Those calls had been free since last spring.
The new annual fee for unlimited calling, while still nominal compared with other Internet calling plans, is part of a broader strategy by eBay to expand Skype’s product offerings and revenue.
Vista predicted to be ‘last’ Windows
Gartner Research bared their teeth on Wednesday, predicting that Windows Vista will be the last big release of Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
The era of monolithic deployments of software releases is nearing an end and Microsoft will participate in the trend toward more flexible updates.
Jaxtr allows for private communications from webpages
For Jaxtr’s target audience of young Web users, when they are not spending time chatting with one another on their social network pages, they are probably available on a mobile phone. Jaxtr lets you connect - without your phone number!
Once registered on Jaxtr’s site, a user can embed an interactive phone feature into selected blogs or social network profiles on sites like MySpace.com.
Consumers will be able to click on any Jaxtr link, enter their own phone number, which triggers an instant call to their phone. Answering the phone connects the caller to the Jaxtr user’s own phone. Callers then speak phone to phone.
The private test underway this week will be extended to friends of initial participants later this month. Jaxtr expects to earn revenue from power users, advertising and enhanced calling features, the company said.
and finally, in a bit of “odd” news..
Camel sacrificed over great jobM
Workers at Turkish Airlines celebrated a job well done by sacrificing a camel at Istanbul airport and their boss has now been suspended.
The national carrier said on Wednesday maintenance staff killed the camel at Turkey’s busiest airport after sending a batch of aircraft back to the supplier ahead of schedule. Turkish Airlines has suspended the head of plane maintenance pending an investigation, the company said in a statement.
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