• Viber Launches Desktop Apps For Mac And PC; Allows Video Calls

    // Gradly // blog, Download, Software 1 Response

    Viber Launches Desktop Apps For Mac And PC; Allows Video Calls

    Viber Launches Desktop Apps For Mac And PC; Allows Video Calls

    The popular free messaging and VoIP mobile, Viber, has today released a native desktop apps for both Mac and PC. The desktop apps sync seamlessly with the existing mobile apps on iOS, Android, and other platforms. Viber has also announced video calls, allowing it to offer truly Skype experience alternative.

    Send text messages and make voice and video calls from your PC or Mac. Seamlessly transfer calls between Viber Desktop and your phone.

    Here are some of the features for Viber 3.0 on IOS:

    • You can now send video messages to your friends
    • All new voice engine improves sound quality on both low quality and high quality networks
    • Online status indicator tells you when your friends are connected to Viber. Note: users can receive messages even when not connected!
    • In app banner indicates that you received new messages
    • Automatically download new photos for faster viewing
    • You can now add a caption to the photos and videos you send
    • Easily browse through photos received from specific users or groups
    • Show only groups in messages screen, so you can quickly find a specific group
    • Larger photos and larger photo thumbnails
    • Better looking contact info screen
    • New package of fun stickers
    • Accessibility is now supported
    • Viber is also localized to: Czech, Danish, Greek, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Swedish, Turkish, Korean, Dutch, Thai, Vietnamese, Malay and Indonesian
    • Performance improvements and multiple bug fixes.

    The company has now reached over 200 million users in 193 countries. Download Viber Desktop now at http://www.viber.com/

  • Facebook Announces In-Browser Video Calling Powered By Skype

    // Gradly // blog, Facebook, News, Rants & Raves, Social Networks, Software No Responses

    After teasing an “awesome” announcement at the company for Wednesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the chance to announce the launch of in-browser video calling powered by Skype.

    See The Friends You Message Most
    The new chat design includes a sidebar that lists the people you message most. Now it’s easier to find your friends and start a conversation. The sidebar adjusts with the size of your browser window, and it automatically appears when the window is wide enough.

    Create a Group Chat Instantly
    We’re also launching multi-person chat, which is one of our most requested features. Now when your friends can’t figure out what movie to see, you can just add them to a chat and decide together. To include more friends in your conversation, simply select Add Friends to Chat and just like your other chats, the history of your conversation is available in messages.

    Bring Your Conversations to Life
    Video chat has been around for years now, but it’s still not an everyday activity for most people. Sometimes it’s too difficult to set up, or the friends you want to talk to are on different services.

    So a few months ago, we started working with Skype to bring video calling to Facebook. We built it right into chat, so all your conversations start from the same place. To call your friend, just click the video call button at the top of your chat window.

    Hopefully Facebook plans to bring these new video calling features to its rumored iPad application. You can get video calling enabled by hitting the link below.

    Video calling will be available to everyone over the next few weeks, but if you don’t want to wait, you can get it now.

  • Microsoft and Nokia to Begin Acquisition Talks Next Week

    // Gradly // Acquisition, blog, Featured, Microsoft, News, Nokia, Rants & Raves, Rumors No Responses

    Nokia is set to begin discussing the possibility of an acquisition by Microsoft, according to industry insider Eldar Murtazin. The blogger, who has a proven track record of disseminating accurate intel, says negotiations will begin next week and the results will not immediately be made public. If the two giants do work out a sale, however, it could close before the end of 2011. It seems that the deal of selling Nokia to Microsoft is now on the table. Exactly one week ago Microsoft has acquired the Internet Telephony Skype for $8.5 Billion. Is Nokia coming the next?!

    Today Eldar Murtazin had this quip on his blog:

    Next week Nokia will start the negotiations about the sale of it’s phone unit to Microsoft. For now the results of the negotiations won’t be public, but the deal might close before the end of 2011. Both companies are in a big hurry.

    If this came from any other source, I probably would have dismissed it. But coming from a guy who broke the news about the first Nokia Windows Phone deal, weeks before it happened. I’m starting to wonder if this is really the beginning of the end of Nokia?

    Nokia PR team stepped in on this issue here in comments and on Twitter with a sort of denial:

    We normally don’t comment on rumours as you know, but we have to say that Eldar’s rumours are obviously getting less accurate with every passing moment.

    Eldar Murtazin went on to say:

    While casting some doubts – it actually does not sound like and outright denial. Something along the lines of “We are not in any negotiations about the sale of the company and do not have any plans to enter into one” – would have sounded more convincing. But I’m not sure if even that would help much at this point.

    All it takes, is a look back about how the original story about Nokia Windows phone deal unfolded, and how surprised people at all levels below the very top were. I bet that in January very few people at Nokia were aware that dropping Symbian and Meego, and going Windows Phone 100% was even an option.

  • Microsoft is About to Announce a Partnership Deal with Chinese Search Company Baidu

    // Gradly // blog, Microsoft, Rants & Raves, Rumors No Responses

    According to sources in Chinese press, Microsoft is close to announcing a deal with Chinese search giant Baidu. Both parties will officially sign a strategic agreement at the end of this week, both sides will co-operation in the field of search, but specific details of cooperation is not revealed. Insiders speculated that Microsoft’s Bing (bing) using Baidu PPC services provided. More details roughly translated below:

    In 2006, Microsoft has reached an agreement with Baidu, Microsoft MSN, Live, and other Microsoft partner Web site to start the search service provided by Baidu bid ranking services. It is known that the Beta version of Microsoft’s bing was introduced in June 2009 in China, in China’s market share is still very limited, according to Analysys think tank Enfodesk industry database data display, in the last quarter of 2011 China search engine operators market share, Baidu accounted for 75.8%, Google accounted for 19.2% in China. Total market share to both 95%.

    Since “Google out of China” when an event occurs, Microsoft has been looking for partners in China, to help make Microsoft a major force in one of China Internet search market. Microsoft Senior VP Ya-Qin Zhang said Beijing in Asia mainly focused on Bing Microsoft (Bing) English version of the research and development, and there are relatively few personnel engaged in research and development of the Chinese version of bing.

    Reports also suggest a deal could be announced as early as next week.

    It looks like Baidu is taking over the paid ads on Bing China, and Bing will provide the English language results for Baidu. Bing is a tiny player in China’s search market. Perhaps by striking a partnership with the biggest search engine there, it can gain some traction. The deal could be announced next week.

    Microsoft has recently acquired the Internet communication service Skype for $8.5 billion.