Skype handles more international calls than AT&T

"Skype has become the world's single largest provider of international calls, surpassing even incumbent telcos like AT&T. Unfortunately for the company, few of these calls generate any revenue, and corporate parent eBay grows impatient.

Skype might not be performing quite as well as parent company eBay would prefer a $2.6 billion acquisition to perform, but that hasn't dampened worldwide enthusiasm for the VoIP service. Skype is so popular, in fact, that new numbers out from TeleGeography suggest that it has become the "largest provider of cross-border voice communications in the world." Take that, AT&T!

Actually, AT&T probably doesn't care, since long distance has lost some of its revenue-generating luster, but the surging popularity of VoIP no doubt keeps future-thinking execs up at nights. Skype's revenues are more modest than the big telcos, despite its usage numbers; at eBay's annual meeting earlier this month, the company said that Skype pulled in $550 million in 2008."

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Don't give Microsoft the remote control - fight against DRM

If you put Microsoft at the center of your home entertainment system, be prepared to hand them the remote control, literally. Microsoft has gone to great lengths to restrict users from saving a television program to their computers, we call this kind of functionality an "antifeature". "A Microsoft spokesperson told CNET News, "...Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed."Don't be fooled into their claims that they are following regulations by the FCC -- the court ruled that the FCC has no power to make such regulations. This is also claimed as a measure just to stop unauthorized file sharing, yet what Microsoft is doing is trying to make sure that they are on every end of the market, from how it is delivered, to how you watch it. As Ars Technica reporter Jacqui Cheng puts it, this is not about Microsoft preventing people from sharing files without permission, "[i]t's about the ability to strictly control how we consume content"[2].

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