Category: Apps

Free Skype group video calls have now rolled out

| January 19, 2016

This service is being offered for free in order to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the company’s video calls.

Microsoft has now announced that in celebration of the tenth anniversary of its video calling service, it is now offering free Skype group video calls to anyone using mobile devices based on the Windows 10 Mobile platform as well as those from Android, iPhone and iPad.

The company has released an announcement about this free service through a statement from Gurdeep Pall.

Pall, the corporate vice president for the Information Platform & Experience team from Microsoft recently made a blog post about the free Skype offering, saying “To celebrate 10 years of video calling, get ready to welcome group video calling on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 Mobile — everywhere, completely free.” Pall added that “We’ll be rolling out this new feature to our hundreds of millions of mobile users in the coming weeks.”

Aside from the free Skype group video calling, the team from the company has been up to a great deal more.

Free Skype CallsFor instance, the Skype team has also been working on the communications app over the last months and have boosted the number of features available to users. For example, the most recent version now makes it possible for users to “leave a message” in video form for other Skype users whose statuses are offline or not available.

It has also been reported that the service is looking to crack through the language barrier so that friends, family and even businesspeople will be able to communicate with each other, regardless of the languages they speak, using Skype Translator. That feature makes it possible for voice and video calls to be translated into any of seven languages, so far. Moreover, when using the instant messenger version of the service, it is possible to take advantage of translation into any of fifty different languages.

While the Skype Translator feature is still in its preview mode, it has been launched on that level and it is heavily reliant on machine learning. This means that it becomes more accurate the more an individual uses it as it learns that individual’s unique way of speaking. The recommendation when using that service is that headphones be used and that users speak as clearly as they can to ensure the most accurate translations possible. When using the Translator with the free Skype service, a user needs Windows 7 or higher.

Mobile payments have moved into India with leaps and bounds

| January 18, 2016

The massively populated country has proven to be a very promising marketplace for smartphone wallets.

A new forecast has been issued with regards to the use of mobile payments in India and in which it has now been estimated that the considerable growth rate of the use of these transactions in the country may translate to $183 million by 2019.

In only three years, the market will be set to undergo a massive transformation that will lead to significant growth.

The smartphone ecosystem in India has been producing some very exciting movements as these devices catch on and start to cut into the feature phone share in a population that is more than one billion large. As this technology takes off, the online and mobile payments space has also been benefiting with wallet apps being downloaded at a staggering rate. Tech companies have been placing their focus on major economies around the world with release such as Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and Alipay, but India’s offerings have been somewhat limited, so far.

There are about 12 major mobile payments players offering wallet apps within the country.

Mobile Payments Report - IndiaAmong the most popular mobile wallets currently available to smartphone users in India are M-Pesa, Paytm, Oxigen, MobiKwik, Freecharge, Citrus Pay, Airtel Money, mRupee, ItzCash and Zaakpay. Currently, the combined total of their active customer base is estimated to be around just over 125 million people. Paytm currently claims a massive 50 million of that total.

The results of a recent study conducted by RNCOS, a consultancy and research firm, showed that the current mobile wallet marketplace size in India is worth an estimated $53 million. That said, it has also predicted that within the next three years, that figure will skyrocket to $183 million, before the close of 2019.

That represents tremendous growth for mobile payments use, particularly when taking into consideration the fact that 38 percent of transactions in India are still completed with cash. Another 30 percent of the total market is taken up by bill payments and recharge accounts. At the moment, the primary obstacle faced within that marketplace has to do with the stability of the wireless data infrastructure, having their connection drop mid-transaction, while also worrying whether or not this technology is keeping their financial and other sensitive data secure.