Skype allows its 560 million registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. The SkypeIn service allows users to receive calls on their computers dialed by regular phone subscribers to a local Skype phone number. Skype introduced free video conferencing for the Windows and Mac OS platforms in January 2006. Linux users needed to wait until March 2008 when the service was released as part of Skype 2.0 for Linux. Audio conferences allow up to 25 people to connect at the same time.

An acquisition of Skype would allow Cisco to jump into the mass market of video communications. Skype’s service would complement Cisco’s WebX and Telepresense video conference offering that target business customers. However, the prime networking and communications technology company would start to compete with some of its own customers, including AT&T and Verizon.

If rumors are true, the competition between Skype and Google could heat up. Google just announced the integration of Google Voice with its Gmail service and could be on its way to become a serious contender to VoIP services offered by Skype.

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"In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle's Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement," said Oracle’s spokeswoman Karen Tillman in a statement. Oracle says that Java is now a key asset for Oracle and is seeking an injunction to stop Google from building and distributing the Android OS. The Redwood Shores based company is also claiming monetary damages.

In the end, the uncertainty seeded by the law suit may have the power to shake up the mobile industry for years to come. Google says that about 200,000 Android powered phones are being sold every day.

The Android operating system uses a virtual machine called Dalvik that Google re-compiled and that competes with Java. On its Android developer website, Google says that "Android includes a set of core libraries that provides most of the functionality available in the core libraries of the Java programming language." It continues saying that "Dalvik has been written so that a device can run multiple VMs efficiently."

In a clever move, Sun made the "free java" source code available under the GPLv2 license to gain the support of the open source community. However, the "standard edition" of Java had some exclusion to the GPLv2 license. It stated that only the platform code itself was open source, but not the user code running on it.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. district court in San Francisco.

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"Sony Ericsson is raising the bar for entertainment-rich phones with the launch of the Xperia X10," said Paul Hamnett, senior vice president, Sony Ericsson North America. "With the convergence of our user experience platform and the Android OS, we are bringing consumers a smartphone experience that is not only exciting, but also very refined. Following the successful global launch of the Xperia X10, we are pleased to partner with AT&T to launch this phone in the U.S. market."

The phone runs a customized version of Android 1.6 that relies on "Timescape" and "Mediascape" to integrate social networking and media experiences respectively. The software can automatically recognize connections between contacts, content and media. Face recognition features ID up to five faces in any picture, automatically connecting them with the phonebook application and all other related communications with that person.

A video explaining some of the features of the smartphone is available on YouTube here.

Sony Ericsson confirms on its blog that it plans to offer an upgrade from the current Android version 1.6 to 2.1 in the fourth quarter of 2010.

"Some examples of user benefits that will be included in the UXP upgrade for Xperia X10 in Q4 2010 are:

• Upgrade to Android OS version 2.1;
• HD video recording as per the same execution as Sony Ericsson Vivaz;
• Wireless home connectivity via DLNA;
• Improvements to signature applications Timescape and Mediascape to make them even smarter and richer."

The phone will be sold through AT&T for about $150 with a two-year contract and a data plan.

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Waterloo (ip-192.com): In its battle against Apple's iPhone and smartphones based on Google's Android platform, Research in Motion (RIM) is to release its next generation device. The BlackBerry 9800 is rumored to feature a touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard.

This indicates that the new smartphone will be powered by RIM's OS 6.0 that will offer a home screen similar to the screens found on the iPhone and Android devices. A sneak preview about the new operating system is available here.

As reported earlier here, the new OS 6 will finally contain a web browser application.

While RIM was able to hold on to its healthy market share of 41.7 percent, growth has stalled lately. Both Apple and Google have created devices that are perceived as "cool and fun." Worst, BlackBerry users don’t seem to be loyal to the brand.

According to a recent Nielson survey, only 42 percent of BlackBerry owners said they would buy another smartphone made by RIM. This is in sharp contrast to iPhone users: 89 percent said they buy a new Apple phone when it becomes available, and 71 percent of phones powered by Google's OS said they would buy another Android device. Nielson says that RIM has to convince about 12 million potential BlackBerry deserters in the U.S. to stay loyal.

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The company also said that it has achieved all it set out to do, and that there are no plans to launch another smartphone. T-Mobile, the original US operator, has also unlisted the device from its website and recommends the HTC HD2 and the Motorola CLIQ-Titanium smartphones instead. A recent upgrade to the Android 2.2 operating system enabled a long list of new features on the device, including the ability to turn the Nexus One into a mobile hotspot (ip-192.com reported here).

Google will continue to sell the smartphone in Germany, the UK and France through Vodafone and KT in South Korea. Registered developers can continue to purchase the device from Google. In the near future, the website dedicated to the Nexus One will start to showcase smartphones that run on the Android OS.

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