Techmeme: Next For Facebook And Skype: Calls To Outside Phones (Matt Rosoff/The Business Insider)

4:05 PM ET, July 6, 2011

Top Items:

Call Your Friends Right From Facebook — Over the last year, the messages team has been working to make it easier to have one on one conversations with your friends. In November, we launched the new messages, which brings together your chats, texts, emails and messages all in one place.

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:

Facebook Launches Skype-Powered Video Calling — Confirming our report last week, Facebook has just announced a major new feature that it's launching in tandem with Skype: video calling. — It's a feature that's been rumored for quite a while, and it's one that Facebook is putting a lot of weight behind.

Discussion: AllThingsD, Guardian, Telegraph, mocoNews, The Big Blog, PC Magazine, Macworld, CNET News, WebProNews, Gadget Lab, IntoMobile, The Next Web, Mashable! and NBC Bay Area

Matt Rosoff / The Business Insider:

Next For Facebook And Skype: Calls To Outside Phones — Skype consumer head Neil Stevens confirmed that the next thing planned for the Facebook-Skype partnership is the ability to call from Facebook to any phone in the world. — Stevens said that wherever users see a highlighted phone number on Facebook …

Josh Constine / Inside Facebook:

Facebook Launching Ad Hoc Group Chat, New Chat Design, Skype Video Calling — CEO Mark Zuckerberg today announced that Facebook would be launching several new features, including ad hoc group chat, a new design for its Chat interface, and a Skype integration to allow for video calling.

Discussion: Engadget, The Tech Trade, The Seattle Times and Mashable!

Kim-Mai Cutler / Inside Facebook:
Zuckerberg Confirms That Facebook Has Reached 750 Million Monthly Actives

Discussion: The Next Web and Mashable!

Jason Kincaid / TechCrunch:
Zuckerberg: Online Sharing Is Growing At An Exponential Rate (And Users Are Sharing 4 Billion Things A Day)

Discussion: Search Engine Land and @cdixon

Lorraine Luk / Wall Street Journal:

Apple Preparing For New iPhone in Third Quarter — TAIPEI—Apple Inc. has placed orders for key components used in a next-generation iPhone it is preparing to launch sometime in the third quarter, according to people familiar with the situation. — According to some suppliers of components to Apple …

Sam Oliver / AppleInsider:
WSJ: Apple plans to build 25M thinner, lighter next-gen iPhones this year

Discussion: Appolicious Advisor and GottaBeMobile

Tiernan Ray / Tech Trader Daily:
Sprint iPhone Deal Appears Likely, Says Citadel

Discussion: CNET News, The Tech Trade, 9to5Mac, MacRumors and everythingiCafe

Eric Slivka / MacRumors:
OmniVision's Production Issues Diverting iPhone Image Sensor Orders to Sony?

Discussion: Tech Trader Daily and The Tech Trade

Miyoung Kim / Reuters:

Microsoft wants Samsung to pay smartphone license: report — Microsoft Corp has demanded that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd pay $15 for each smartphone handset it makes based on Google Inc's Android operating system as the software giant has a wide range of patents used in the mobile platform, local media reported on Wednesday.

Christian Zibreg / 9to5Google:
Microsoft seeking royalties from Samsung potentially worth $200 million a year on Galaxy S smartphone alone

Discussion: GigaOM, Digital Trends, Network World and eWeek

Chris Ziegler / This is my next:

Exclusive: redesigned Motorola Droid Bionic looks confirmed in Best Buy leak — “With the ferocious force of Verizon 4G LTE, the Droid Bionic is an all-powerful, unstoppable machine.” Pretty graphic language, isn't it? That's the opening line in this leaked Best Buy Mobile promo material …

Discussion: The Business Insider, Engadget, Droid Life, Gizmodo, IntoMobile, AndroidGuys, GottaBeMobile, MobileCrunch, AndroidSPIN, Android Community, Android Phone Fans, SlashGear, VzBuzz and Fonehome

Jenna Wortham / Gadgetwise:

Is Google's Hangouts Its Killer App? — Last night a chatroom changed my life. — But it wasn't just any chatroom. It was a virtual “hangout,” the group video chat service that is a prominent feature of Google+, Google's new social-networking service that aims to challenge Facebook..

Discussion: TechCrunch, Between the Lines Blog, Evolver.fm, Singularity Hub, Googling Google Blog, The Next Web, GMSV, Nicke's shared items … and NBC Bay Area

Susan Decker / Bloomberg:

Apple Escalates Samsung Fight With ITC Case — Apple Inc. (AAPL) filed a U.S. trade complaint that seeks to block imports of Samsung Electronics Co. smartphones and tablet computers, days after asking a federal court to halt sales of the devices. — The complaint submitted yesterday …

Discussion: InfoWorld, IntoMobile, PhoneDog.com, Gizmodo, Phone Scoop and The Next Web

Florian Mueller / FOSS Patents:
Apple's ITC complaint against Samsung: 5 technical and 2 design patents against 6 smartphones and 2 tablets

Discussion: The Next Web

Chris Van Der Westhuizen / The Official Google Blog:

Google Maps 5.7 for Android introduces Transit Navigation (Beta) and more — (Cross-posted on the Google Lat Long Blog and the Google Mobile Blog) — Today we're releasing Google Maps 5.7 for Android. From Bangkok to Baltimore, we've added Transit Navigation (Beta), updated access to directions …

Discussion: The Download Blog, Gizmodo, SlashGear, PhoneArena, Android and Me, The Next Web, IntoMobile, AndroidGuys, MobileBurn.com and Lifehacker

Courtney Boyd Myers / The Next Web:

Official: Spotify announces it's coming to the US — It's official. Hot off the heels of its $100 million funding round, Spotify, Europe's most popular music service, has just announced it's coming to the U.S.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Engadget, The Business Insider, AllThingsD, TechCrunch Europe, Mashable! and Evolver.fm

NielsenWire:

Play Before Work: Games Most Popular Mobile App Category in US — Games continue to be the most popular app category, and according to Nielsen research, 93 percent of app downloaders — those who have downloaded an app within the past 30 days - are willing to pay for the games they play.

Discussion: Computerworld, Ars Technica, TechFlash, Hardware 2.0 Blog, BetaNews, CNET News, IntoMobile, mocoNews, MarketingVox News & Trends, Mobile Marketing Watch, Communications …, BGR, Internet2Go, PhoneArena, GigaOM, WebProNews, FierceMobileContent and AllThingsD

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

On The Eve Of One Facebook Event, The Spartans Prepare For Another — Tomorrow morning at their headquarters in Palo Alto, Facebook is holding an event to show off an “awesome” new product. Our sources tell us that product with be the long-rumored Skype integration within Facebook for full …

Discussion: GigaOM, TUAW, All Facebook, PE Hub Blog, Friending Facebook Blog, VoIP & Gadgets Blog, OurielOhayon, Beth's Blog, MacStories and Softpedia News

Kevin Murphy / The Register:

Google dumps all 11+ million .co.cc sites from its results — Bigger than .org or .uk - but mostly spam and phish — Google has removed over 11 million .co.cc websites from its search engine results pages on the basis that most of them are far too “spammy”.

Discussion: Digital Trends, Dennis Fisher, Digitizor and The Business Insider

Geoffrey A. Fowler / Wall Street Journal:

The Perk Bubble Is Growing as Tech Booms Again — To Woo and Keep Employees, Start-Ups Stress Playthings; a Nap in the Tree House — At the new headquarters of San Francisco startup Airbnb, quirky amenities like an in-house tree house and a “peace room” give the office a “back to the dotcom '90s” feel.

Discussion: The Business Insider, Gawker and Digits

MG Siegler / TechCrunch:

With “Beyond Check-In” Notifications, Foursquare Goes Android-First — Over their history, Foursquare has been an iPhone-first company. The app initially launched on the iPhone back in 2009, and new features have typically rolled out to iPhone first. But with a new feature today …

Discussion: Digital Trends, Foursquare Blog, WebProNews, Android News, Rumours … and MobileBurn.com, Thanks:luizgiannini

Matt Weinberger / Googling Google Blog:

Google, Microsoft, AOL sued over Street View patent — Google, Microsoft, and AOL have found themselves the target of a lawsuit over a Louisiana company's patent on street-level views in online maps. — Details are fairly sparse, according to the original Reuters report.

Discussion: Engadget, Pulse2 and Neowin.net

David M. Ewalt / Metagamer:

What Is Nintendo Planning With The Wii U? Reggie Fils-Aime Explains It All — Reggie Fils-Aime (Image by Getty Images via @daylife) — Reggie Fils-Aime is president and chief operating officer of Nintendo of America, a division of the Japanese video game giant.

Discussion: PC Magazine, I4U News and Electricpig.co.uk

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