Regulation in Europe

EC proposals for VoIP emergency dialing. The EC will require Skype to connect 999 calls. Analysys' James Allens comments  "Under the new proposal, if a user can call telephone numbers at all, calls to the emergency services must be possible. This will mean that VoIP services such as Vonage and SkypeOut will need to support such calls, and this will no longer be optional."

is Apple's iPhone exporting the idea of a locked mobile from the US to the UK?

The New Video

UK's Bebo opens up to video entertainment distributors. No charge. Public protocols. Sharable content on personal pages. via The Hollywood Reporter.

Yahoo! Messenger is doing the same thing, with in-chat video. 

Windows is no more! Skype for Linux with video was the last thing foobar needed to remove Microsoft Windows from his dual-boot laptop.

Education

Estonia university teaches via Skype. For those Finns who want to avoid the ferry to Tallina Ülikool. Or for English speakers learning Estonian. via cafebabel.

This is part of a larger trend, Tom Regan reports in CSM. For the United States:

• 1 in 5 higher education students is now taking at least one class online.
• In the fall of 2005, 3.18 million students were taking online courses
• In the fall of 2006, 3.5 million. That's more than twice as many (1.6 million) as in 2002.
• The 9.7 percent annual growth rate for online enrollments from 2005-06 far exceeds the 1.5 percent growth of the overall higher education student population for that period.
• 47 percent of high school students are interested in taking courses online that aren't offered at their schools.

Skype Ecosystem

IPEVO publishes Mac software for its USB Skype phones. Get Mac drivers and apps for the IPEVO Free.1, Free.2, XING, and TRIO.

Skype using On2 Technologies' latest video codecs, now for Skype for Windows 3.6's advanced video calls. On2's TrueMotion VP7 enables an 8-fold increase in video data rate over previous calls.

Fun fact: About 25 percent of all Skype-to-Skype calls involve at least one video participant.

Competition

AOL and Google now peer for Instant Messaging. via Google Operating System.

TUAW reports Microsoft will upgrade Messenger for the Mac to 7.0, part of Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac.

Yahoo! Korea and LG Telecom bring web services to mobiles. Mobile versions of Flickr, News, Mail and Messenger. It's the Messenger that should catch Skype's attention. That and the overall convergence of communication tools. LG is also offering a Cyworld phone.

Trends

The 3 Skypephone seems to be selling out in some UK stores. More inventory to come for this weekend.

Dean Bubley predicts 250 million users of VoIP over 3G by 2012. More data over wireless means more opportunities for Skype and the operators' own versions of Skype.