Webware

Updated at 5:10 p.m. PDT with eBay comment.

Joltid, a peer-to-peer software company established by Skype's founders, filed a copyright suit against Skype Wednesday alleging Joltid's technology is being infringed on by Skype users "in the United States at least 100,000 times each day."

Just the latest in an ongoing license dispute between the popular VoIP service and its developers, the lawsuit, filed in Northern California U.S. District Court, seeks an injunction and damages, which Joltid "reasonably believes are amassing at a rate of $75 million daily," according to the suit.

Also listed as defendants are Skype's current owner eBay, as well as investors in a consortium that earlier this month signed a deal with eBay to acquire a 65 percent stake in Skype, with eBay retaining 35 percent.

"Skype has infringed Joltid's copyrights," a company spokesman said in a statement. "Joltid will vigorously enforce its copyrights and other intellectual property rights in all of the technologies it has innovated."

"Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors," eBay spokesman John Pluhowski said in a statement.

The lawsuit has the potential to at least complicate the ongoing sale of Skype. In the past, however, eBay has said it's working on its own software to replace what it gets from Joltid.

In 2006, eBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion, but co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom retained the rights to Skype's key peer-to-peer technology--Global Index Software--via the Joltid company they formed.

Joltid terminated its license for the software after learning that Skype had allegedly acquired unauthorized versions of the source code, made unauthorized modifications, and disclosed the software to third persons, according to the lawsuit.

The two companies have been involved in a separate lawsuit in the U.K. over that license termination, but the case isn't set to go to trial until June 2010. Referring to that suit, eBay's SEC filing regarding the sale of Skype says "consummation of the deal was subject to 'no settlement of the pending litigation with Joltid Limited having been effected without the consent of the Buyer (subject to certain limitations).'"

The other defendants in the suit filed Wednesday are Silver Lake Partners, Index Ventures Management, Michaelangelo Volpi, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. This lawsuit was first reported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal.

Starting Friday, Skype is effectively pulling the plug on its Extras program, which was designed to help third-party developers create add-ons for Skype's VoIP service (Windows | Mac)--like emoticon enhancements, backup services, and music player plug-ins. Unlike Firefox's similar third-party extensions, not enough people were installing Skype Extras, Skype said in both an e-mail and in a blog post to developers.

Developers and users will have some adjustment time, though. Skype won't certify any new submissions, but it won't yank support for existing Extras either, that is, until their certificates expire. You'll still be able to install existing Extras through the Windows desktop client, and you'll still see them featured in the Skype shop. Skype will also continue to maintain its public application programming interface.

Since many Skype Extras are sold to users as premium content, the shutdown also has a financial impact for profiting developers. They'll have two months, until December 11, to continue using Skype Credit. Developers will need to submit a final invoice by January 25; after that Skype will shutter its third-party shop.

Skype's shucking of its Extras service is unconnected to former parent company eBay's auctioning it off to a lucrative bidder. However, under new ownership, we could see even more changes to the well-known VoIP communicator. Stay tuned.

(Credit: Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

Good news for Canadian iPhone owners. On Wednesday, finally crossed the border into Canada, where it is now available for download from the App Store. The well-known voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, app first became available for the Apple smartphone about five months ago, on March 29.

Skype for iPhone handles the basics of its desktop PC-to-PC and PC-to landline calling service. It offers free calls between Skype users over a Wi-Fi connection; Apple won't allow 3G-based data calls.

The app can, however, use 3G and EDGE data connections for non-call-related activities such as signing in and sending Skype instant messages. There are also competitive rates for calling out to a landline or mobile phone. Call forwarding has been implemented, as has Skype Voicemail and Skype-generated texting.

Besides English, Skype is also available in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, and Traditional Chinese.

Related story: Sold! eBay jettisons Skype in $2 billion deal

eBay wants to spin off telephony service Skype into a separate publicly traded company, but something's standing in the way: Skype's founders are threatening to take back some of the technology amid a licensing dispute.

The auction giant's solution, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday: build a new one.

This was revealed in a 10-Q regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; eBay is not commenting beyond the filing. You can decide whether "Frankenskype" or "Skypenstein" is a better name for the hypothetical creation.

Here's what has happened: Skype's founders have established a company called Joltid Ltd., which still owns the rights to some of Skype's technology. Joltid has made the accusation that eBay doesn't have the right to do everything it wants with all of Skype's code as a result; eBay is suing Joltid to get that technology back. (Is this like the Silicon Valley equivalent of body-snatching?) But the catch is that the trial isn't scheduled until next June, which could put a big roadblock in the way of eBay's plans for a Skype IPO.

So that's why eBay is working on a total rebuild of Skype's software.

There is, however, this little issue. "The new software will be expensive and might not work," Bloomberg's article summarized. "The company said it might have to shut down Skype if the dispute with the founders isn't resolved."

eBay purchased Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion, but it hasn't proven to be the best fit for the company. Rumors circulated that it was looking to sell Skype, possibly to Google, but then opted to take the company public instead.

Download Skype for Windows | Mac | iPhone | Windows Mobile from CNET Download.com.

Updated on July 2, 2009, at 9:02 a.m. PT with more from Skype regarding push notification for the iPhone/iPod Touch app.

Skype is certainly on a roll this week. Just yesterday it converted the latest beta of its Windows Mobile phone software into a full-fledged release. On Tuesday, the VoIP company did it again for Skype 4.1 for Windows. In addition, Apple green-lighted Skype 1.1 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which you can download now.

Skype 4.1 for Windows

Skype 4.1 beta brought back features like accessibility, birthday reminders, and the capability to send a contact record to another contact. These had been left out when Skype first updated its interface to the 4.0 style, the company citing a wish to get core features out the door before piling on the extras. It's these extras that users nevertheless clamored for. This minor point update also contains a major new feature that was first introduced in Skype 4.1 beta: screen sharing.

The red border indicates your recording field.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

Screen sharing initiates a video call, using the technology to broadcast a recording of your screen--either a portion or the full screen--to one other viewer. Screen sharing has some limitations: you can't simultaneously see a video of your buddy and their desktop, and since only one viewer at a time can peep at your screen, you can't use it as a free replacement for collaborative Web conferencing. It doesn't help that the picture quality is still choppy and fuzzy, in both partial-screen and full-screen view modes.

Make no mistake, though: it's a great feature that we're happy to see added, but we'll be even happier to watch it improve.

In addition to screen sharing, Skype 4.1 lets you feed a contact search from outside address books, including those in Gmail, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Microsoft Outlook, and a host of other players. If you have it installed, the Web toolbar will highlight phone numbers within contact lists so you can call them through Skype.

Skype for iPhone

Skype 1.1 for iPhone and iPod Touch reintroduces the capability to listen to Skype voice mail and to send and receive SMS messages. These features had been available on the desktop version, but were not activated when Skype first came out for iPhone.

There are a few visual tweaks, also, which gloss up the look and feel of a few screens, most notably the dial pad. To top off the changes, this iPhone update pours on multilingual support, making it available in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, and Traditional Chinese.

Skype for iPhone still has far to go if it's to get all of the extra features that round out the Skype experience--games and conference calling are but two. Push notification is another that Skype users are now asking for. Skype told CNET that they wanted to first integrate SMS and voice mail, the two most-requested features. As for push notification, Skype isn't making any commitments at this point, but a representative from the company vaguely stated, "Where we're able to use functionality provided by the iPhone OS to support a rich Skype experience on the iPhone platform, we will endeavor to do so." Still, it's a fair guess that a future version could notify you when someone is calling.

In the future, we're looking forward to what Skype might do with video calls now that the iPhone 3GS has its shiny new video recorder.

Skype shucked the beta tag on Monday to reveal version 3.0 of its VoIP application for Windows Mobile phones. Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile (download CAB) is nearly identical to the beta build that preceded it, but mobile Skype users graduating to it from version 2.5 will notice some major feature additions--notably the capability to transfer files and to send SMS messages.

Initiate transfers and texts from the buddy list.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

File transferring and SMS are carryover features from desktop Skype and are initiated via relatively small buttons on the mobile interface that you can access from the contact list. Click the dark, round icon to send an SMS using Skype Credit, and select the gray drop-down arrow to select "send file." You can also initiate either from the Menu options.

While transfers and SMS worked well both ways with domestic contacts, we hope Skype adds a caption or note field.

Other features new to Skype 3.0 from Skype 2.5 for Windows Mobile include a wizard to help add new contacts, a tool to help place a call, and a new interface for the status, history, and chat tabs. If you're feeling feisty, you can also block certain users from your search results.

Overall, we found Skype 3.0 for Windows Mobile to work smoothly and retain the feel of the desktop original. It's just a shame the interface buttons and tabs appeared so small on our test device, a Palm Treo Pro--just as they did when we tested the beta version on a much larger-screened Samsung Omnia. That won't deter avid Skype users, who should find in this release gratifying features that allow for two-way file transfers and messaging with both desktop and mobile users.

Read the full release notes for more details about the update.

Improving Outlook is no easy feat given that it's notoriously anti-social when it comes to social networking. The free Outlook plug-in iLook Social and Outlook tries to make Microsoft's ubiquitous e-mail client a bit more sociable by including souped-up searching and filtering, Skype integration, e-mail controls, content and attachment exporting, and Facebook support.

Highlighted in red, the iLook Social and Outlook plug-in gives Outlook users more networking features.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

For a sidebar pane, it's a good list of features with an interface that integrates smoothly into Outlook 2007. Desktop e-mail clients are going to have to adapt to social networking far better than they have to survive, especially if the future of e-mail is Google Wave. Postbox does a decent job of remixing Thunderbird for social networking, but it's still in beta and lacks the calendaring you can get in Thunderbird using the Lightning plug-in. While iLook's features are worthwhile, their execution leaves plenty of room for improvement.

The search and Skype features are the strongest, but could still be better. Boolean searches are not supported, nor are cross-folder queries, and the nature of Outlook requires you to manually create a new search results folder that iLook doesn't address. Basically, that means you've got to figure out where your search results are going to go before you see what they are--it's counter-intuitive.

The Skype support is strong, with decent chat quality, contact list support, and other Skype features. Like any third-party Skype plug-in, though, it requires Skype to be running, and iLook wouldn't load if Skype was running before Outlook loaded. The Facebook support was far less convenient than it should've been to convince users to utilize it in iLook. Attachment exporting worked well, but that was more of an alternate path up the mountain than introducing a whole new geography to Outlook.

Making use of the entire iLook experience, unfortunately, will put you in for a bumpy ride. Although Outlook itself isn't known for its speed, this plug-in definitely slows it down. Switching between its features often causes error messages, and it's hard to tell if or how those errors affect either iLook or Outlook. The features that iLook Social and Outlook provides are smart choices, but the end experience is buggy and needs to be tightened before it can be considered for daily use.

Screensharing comes to Skype

(Credit: Skype)

Skyper users, it seemed, either loved or hated the revamped Skype 4.0 for Windows. With Skype 4.1 beta (download), unveiled Wednesday, Skype hopes to earn a little more love by reinstating some beloved extras and adding one big new feature: screen sharing.

Skype's screensharing feature is a clever addition to the VoIP communications application. In our tests it was engaging, especially when paired with Skype's voice calling and chatting capabilities. The fair screen quality and few seconds of lag time won't bother most casual users, but at this point we wouldn't recommend Skype's new feature for replacing a dedicated screensharing application or service for frequent collaborators. Skype's screensharing is view-only; it is not a remote access tool like CrossLoop, which is geared for providing technical assistance. For demonstration purposes, however, Skype's screensharing is just one more way to connect with faraway contacts.

Screensharing begins by clicking the "share" drop-down on a contact screen and choosing "Share your screen." Skype then gives you the choice to record the full screen or a region. Pressing the button to initiate the screen share also launches an audio call. You can later resize by clicking and dragging the thick red borders. During a session, a button toggles you between full and partial screen modes. Because screensharing essentially broadcasts a video recording of your screen to your contact, you can't place a video call and share the screen at the same time--you'll choose one or the other.

You can share all or some of your screen.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

It's also worth noting that Skype's screensharing feature, like many others, is unidirectional, view-only, and by invitation, which gives the host control over beginning and ending each session. With one-way viewing, your guest sees only the screen that's bounded by the recorder's borders. Because it's unidirectional, Skypers won't see each others' screens simultaneously.

Skype's screensharing addition begins to offer an inexpensive alternative for international business communications, though right now it works between two users--one host and one guest--at a time. You can switch roles easily and often. We're guessing that the screensharing capability will be expanded in the future to group calls, so a host can share their screen with multiple recipients. (It will be interesting to see if Skype will then follow that enterprise breadcrumb to compete with well-known collaboration and Web meeting software in the future--but right now this is all conjecture.)

Other changes

Skype 4.1 beta also reintroduces birthday reminder alerts and contacts-sharing, which were two features left out of Skype during its upgrade from version 3.8 to 4.0. Birthday reminders are automatic notices you receive on a contact's birthday if they've added this information to their profile. The send-a-contact feature can be found in the Conversation navigation menu under the "Send" option.

Two other notable reinclusions are the ability to import contacts from Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, AOL, and LinkedIn in addition to Skype 4.0's support for Yahoo and Microsoft Outlook products; and a screen reader accessibility tool to help visually impaired people use Skype.

All these additions make Skype's latest a substantial beta update. But since it's in beta, there may be bugs and some stability issues--we experienced a couple crashes ourselves during testing. Frequent Skype users will want to experiment with 4.1 beta. So will those who have lamented the absence of birthday reminders, even if you don't intend to use the screensharing feature.

I have never speed dated.

Although there are many people who wish I had. Mainly those for whom more than five minutes with me was akin to chewing asparagus stalks for three weeks.

So I am delighted to be able to relay to you that an enterprising, if strangely anonymous, woman in Australia has come up with a practical idea that might encourage you to hurry love.

It's called Skyecandy.

The concept, currently in beta testing, is that you allow strangers five minutes of your valuable video time to realize just how much they are missing true amorous conflagration. Or, at least, videoconferencing.

I must admit I am fascinated by this. Skyecandy is frightfully free and it seems to offer a marvelous opportunity to meet someone stimulating without having to buy them a drink. Or dinner. Or flowers. Or the collected works of JK Rowling.

Doesn't this picture make you want to Skyecandy right now?

(Credit: CC KJunstorm/Flickr)

I am told by those who have partaken of dating sites once too often that the greatest disappointment is when you finally meet the person to whom you have sent idyllic e-mails, dedicated lovingly rehearsed phone calls, and perhaps even sent a second-hand rose or two.

They don't look the same as their pictures. They're fatter, older, and hairier. (The men and the women.)

So with Skyecandy you get some sense of whether your potential intended intends to clean up their nasal passages at least once every six months.

Skyecandy seems to believe that women will be particularly attracted to the security (and, perhaps, the stunning free-ness) of the service. Although I'm not so sure how they might feel when the man they have rejected after one five-minute video call happens to be seated in a bar next to them as they twirl their third martini, alone. Relieved, one hopes.

I also wonder whether, during these video calls, you can ask the person at the other end to stand up and twirl around.

This world has become so venal, so carnal, that physical attributes still outweigh all the sensible ones that you know you'll need in order to tolerate someone for more than a night or two.

Perhaps one of you out there could let me know.

You see, if you would like to be one of the guinea piglets who are seeking to have their house blown down by the love of their lives in five eternal minutes, all you have to do is go to Skype Extras.

I want to know how you get on. I want to know if you really can find love through technology without filling in a thousand question survey and without offering yourself up for genetic testing.

I believe in true love, you see. I believe that someone can have you at hello. As long as they can say something more interesting in the following four minutes and 59 seconds, of course.