Last week, I discovered-quite by accident-that the version of iSkoot for the Nokia N95 was sending the entire session in the clear. In short, your Skype credentials, and everything you were using iSkoot for on Skype, was being sent unencrypted from your mobile phone.

For those who don't know, iSkoot provides the ability to use Skype from a mobile handset. IM is supported directly from the handset. Voice calls go over the standard voice network, but are redirected through iSkoot's gateways so you can use your Skype minutes to make those expensive international calls much cheaper.

While this isn't such a big deal on the cellular networks, where it is not as easy for people to see what's being sent, it becomes a problem with dual-mode handsets over WiFi. It's also just the principle of the thing.

I reported this problem on my blog on a Friday night. By Saturday afternoon, with some help from my friends Andy Abramson, Jim Courtney, and Dan York, I had the attention of iSkoot's CEO, whom I sent more details to confirm my findings. By Sunday afternoon, we had a confirmation they see the problem and will fix it. Today, I confirmed their new client was available and did not have the issue.

The update to the iSkoot client should be forced, but if not, go download the latest version for your S60 device. iSkoot clients on other platforms are unaffected.

Crossposted from The Mobile Technology Weblog

cellity Communicator is mobile software that allows you send free text messages and make cheap calls to foreign countries, not everyone is-particularly in the United States. cellity decided the best place to demonstrate the app was at the recent CTIA conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, which included some expanded functionality.

The app will allow you to send an email to a mobile phone without needing to know the recipient's email address as well as encrypted emails. Not quite sure how that will work, but that's what the press release says.

The expanded cellity Communication application is not available yet. It is expected at the end of April 2008.

This post is sponsored by cellity - tune your phone! Becoming a mobile activist need not be expensive with cellity worldCALL, cellity freeSMS, cellity Twitter and cellity groupCALL.

Crossposted from The Mobile Technology Weblog

I remember when I was kid that making a long distance call was a big deal. Why? Because it was expensive. Want an example? Here's an AT&T ad from 1984:



$10 an hour for a weekend or evening state-to-state long distance calling? You mean in-state calls are more expensive? Yes, my friends, that was the case-and still is today on some long distance plans.

How about the ad from 1986 that proclaims 64 cents a minute calling to the UK?



Two decades later, thanks to the Internet and worldwide deregulation in telephony, calls from the United States to the UK-and a lot of other places-are as cheap as calling inside the United States.

Chances are, if you've use a service like Vonage, voip.com, or Skype, you've seen that they provide local telephone numbers nationwide. Ever wonder how they do that?

It boils down to two choices: become a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) or partner with one. Most companies choose the latter route. Level 3, XO, and other CLECs, along with other number wholesalers like Voxbone and DIDX provide numbers worldwide inbound telephone numbers to service providers.

While I've recently covered the Vapps HighSpeed Conferencing service, which takes full advantage of Skype's wideband codecs for fantastic audio quality, Vapps has also updated their High-Definition Conferencing Skype Extra.

This add-on permits Skype users to schedule ad-hoc conference calls, sending automated chat messages. It also permits you to schedule calls of up to 500 participants, either over email, or over Skype. It also appears and operates in Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish and Polish, in addition to English.

The HighSpeed Conferencing service starts at $25 a month per room for up to 10 participants and goes up to $200 a month per room for up to 500 participants. All conference rooms are unlimited usage on toll-access line, some 800 number minutes are provided, overage is charged at a per-minute rate.

The folks at Equals have come up with a neat application for Facebook: The Party Line. It is powered by Voxeo's Prophecy Platform, which provides both VoiceXML and CCXML support. This makes it possible to web-enable telephony and make IP telephony and conferencing easy to do without all the low-level coding work.

Here's a video demonstrating how the application works:



If you're ready to give it a try, add the application to Facebook and set up your own party line!