Skype, the Web telephone company, said on Monday it would allow consumers in the United States and Canada to make free phone calls, a promotional move that marks a new blow to conventional voice calling services.The offer, which extends through the end of 2006, covers calls from computers or a new category of Internet-connected phones running Skype software making calls to traditional landline or mobile phones within the United States and Canada.

Previously, users of Skype, a unit of online auctioneer eBay Inc., were required to pay for calls from their PCs to traditional telephones in both countries. Calls from North America to phones in other countries will incur charges.

Skype already offers free calling to users worldwide who call from computer to computer.

The company is seeking to accelerate usage in the North American market, where adoption of its voice-over-Internet technology has lagged other regions of the globe. Based in Luxembourg, it counts more than 100 million registered users globally, including 6 million in the United States.

Henry Gomez, general manager of Skype North America, said he believes the move would rapidly accelerate adoption of the service. Skype will pick up the interconnection costs of making calls to phone networks owned by other carriers, he said.

“Skype anticipates that completely free calling in the U.S. and Canada will expand Skype’s increasing penetration in North America and solidify Skype’s position as the Internet’s voice communication tool of choice,” Skype said in a statement.

The offer is likely to put price pressure on rival voice-over-Internet phone service Vonage Holdings Corp., which is expected to go public later this month. A spokesman did not return calls seeking comment.

Although Vonage and Skype serve somewhat different markets — with Vonage acting as a full replacement service for traditional phones over Internet lines, and Skype considered by most as a complement to existing service — the free offer could siphon customers away from Vonage.

“In one stroke, Skype simplifies the choice to try Skype,” said Phil Wolff, an editor at Skype Journal, an independent consulting group that publishes an online news site on Skype developments. “This promotion targets Skype’s hardest market: North America.”

The move puts pressure on rival Internet services such as Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc., AOL, Earthlink and Google Inc., which charge small per-minute fees for computer-to-phone services, Wolff said.

Skype, which allows free Web-based calls between members, said the offer to U.S. and Canadian consumers is made feasible by the low cost structure of North American telecom markets relative to other countries, where phone tariffs are higher.

“The structure and efficiency of the telecommunications industry in the U.S. and Canada make it possible for Skype to offer free calls,” Skype said on its Web site.

In October, eBay CEO Meg Whitman signaled that Skype users could eventually expect to make telephone calls for free, with no per-minute charges, as part of a package of services through which carriers make money on advertising or transaction fees.

“In the end, the price that anyone can provide for voice transmission on the ‘Net will trend toward zero,” she said.

The company is betting that by combining electronic markets, online payment systems and Web-based communications, eBay can emerge as a leader in all three businesses.

Gomez said the free phone service promotion will not alter the company’s plans to generate more than $200 million in revenue during 2006, up from roughly $60 million last year. Skype will promote the offer via online advertising, radio spots and ads in selected local cable TV markets, he said.

Japanese web and telecom conglomerate Softbank Corp is working with Apple Computer Inc to develop cellphones with built-in iPod music players, Nikkei reported.

The music-playing phones can download songs from Apple’s iTunes Music Store, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. A spokesperson for Apple in Cupertino, California, was not immediately available for comment.

The report said Apple and Softbank have agreed to co-develop the phone for sale as early as this year.

Carry both brands
The device is expected to carry both the Softbank and Apple brands, the report said, without citing the source of the information. Softbank, which said last month it would buy Vodafone’s Japanese cellphone business, appears to be looking to use the power of Apple’s brand to compete against mobile market leaders NTT DoCoMo and KDDI Corp.

Last year, Apple and handset maker Motorola Inc introduced a music-playing cellphone known as the Rokr that has received disappointing reviews for its design and the limited number of songs that can be stored on the device.

Speculation has mounted that Apple is developing its own cellphone - popularly labeled the iPhone - that will combine the stylish design of its iPod music and video player with cellphone features.

Pundits from blog rumour sites to Wall Street analysts have speculated on the meaning of a string of patent applications filed by Apple Computer that stretch back several years and could indicate its ambition to build its own cellphones.

Touchscreen patent
Also fueling speculation about Apple’s next potential moves is a newly disclosed Apple patent application for a display screen that detects multiple, simultaneous touches or “near touches” to produce separate signals to a device.

Touch-screen technology is widely used in so-called smartphones that have a variety of functions such as phones, e-mail, contact lists, internet access and cameras.

Apple’s technology would allow users to perform several touch-activated tasks at once, unlike other devices that process only one screen-activated function at a time, according to the application with the US Patent and Trademark Office, which was filed on May 6 2004 and published on Thursday.

Apple spokesperson Steve Dowling declined to comment. “Apple is very secretive,” said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies Inc, a consulting firm in Campbell, California, who cautioned not to read too much into the move.

“Apple is very innovative, and if you’re a company that’s innovative, you may file a patent that you may never use.” But John Ward, a patent attorney and strategist with Greenberg Traurig in Palo Alto, California, said Apple is more selective in its patent filings than other large technology companies.

“They are not a massive application filer,” Ward said. “They certainly are more strategic in what they file on.”

Yahoo today said it plans to roll out a redesigned search advertising platform, which spokeswoman Gaude Paez said will help Yahoo compete with rivals Microsoft and Google.

The platform is the transaction point between Yahoo and its advertisers who buy space next to search results. Yahoo said the new simplified platform will mean advertisements will hit the Web faster than ever before.

The company will also help advertisers by rotating multiple versions of ads and, over time, adjusting the rotation times so that the ones generating the most clicks go up more frequently.

Yahoo promised the new service will automatically help users find the least expensive way to maximize their “Return on Ad Spend” and “Cost Per Acquisition.”

The platform will also track the full value and contribution of every ad campaign by allowing advertisers to see beyond the last click that led to a conversion.

Analysts say the new platform will help Yahoo leverage its millions of registered users by helping advertisers target specific audiences.

That’s the idea, Paez told internetnews.com.

For example, she pointed to Whereonearth, technology Yahoo acquired last October, which will be included in the new platform.

Paez said Whereonearth understands colloquial descriptions of geographic locations, such as “restaurants near Fenway,” thus helping marketers target specific local audiences.

“We decided to move forward with enhancing our geo-targeting capabilities,” Paez said, “because that’s what we heard from advertisers was on the top of their list.”

And that’s why the new platform is a good move for Yahoo, Forrester Analyst Shar Vanboskirk told internetnews.com.

She said that by helping marketers target specific audiences, Yahoo can close its Google gap.

Google dominates in terms of revenue dollars and the sheer number of consumer searches, Vanboskirk said.

“But Google is a little bit behind in terms of its consumer data stores. Yahoo has a lot of information about its users because a consumer on Yahoo uses a myriad of different properties. They store all of that information to get a really deep profile.”

Yahoo’s announcement comes a week after MSN announced adCenter, a competing advertising platform for its own search engine.

Like Yahoo, MSN trumpeted the demographic-targeting capabilities of its new platform.

Previously, Microsoft depended on Yahoo’s Search Marketing for its advertising revenue.

But Paez said the timing of the announcement was meant to coincide with the release of application program interfaces (API), which are building blocks of code for third-party developers.

Though the platform will not be online till the third quarter of this year, Yahoo “needed to give the ecosystem adequate time,” Paez said.

Two partners introducing competing products in consecutive weeks isn’t so strange in an Internet ad industry that grew by 30 percent last year.

So, what’s one more operating system between friends? Linspire is preparing a new Linux-based operating system that uses AJAX as the interface for all of its applications and documents.

The value of ajaxOS is that it is AJAX-aware, so any compatible file will be recognized by AJAX  applications.

Double-clicking on any known file type will launch an AJAX application to edit the document. All of this is available now, except this also means any browser that can support AJAX can also support these applications.

What makes it unique is that Linspire is also offering online storage, called a locker, where files can be saved, so a person can work on their files or play back MP3 files from any device with a browser.

This eliminates the need to take both applications and data on the road.

ajaxOS is being developed by Ajax 13, a subsidiary of Linspire, in San Diego, Calif. Ajax 13 executives think there’s plenty of opportunity out there for ajaxOS.

“Education is a great example, as kids would have access to their own projects and course work as well as a consistent application set in the classroom and at home,” Ajax 13 president Jan Schwartz told Internetnews.com.

“Mobile business people will find a lot of benefit with this, as they no longer have to worry about keeping their local office documents and presentations in sync or the hassle of transferring everything to other devices when they’re on the go,” he added.

Because files are stored remotely, they are safe from crashes and viruses, Ajax 13 argues. Since the applications are Web-based and remote hosted, there’s no added expense and they are always kept up to date.

Ajax 13 has no plans to recreate any existing AJAX application if it exists. For example, Google’s Gmail is AJAX based, so that is the e-mail client of choice for ajaxOS.

While ajaxOS runs on a modified version of the Linux-based Linspire operating system, APIs are available so an AJAX developer can interface with the core technology when writing new applications.

Linspire already has some AJAX-based applications, including AjaxWrite, a word processor, and AjaxSketch, a graphics editor.

Linspire expects to release the ajaxOS in the next few weeks.

Apple Computer is not liable for trademark infringement against Apple Corps, the music company owned by the Beatles, a judge in London’s High Court ruled on Monday.Apple Corps, owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono and the estate of George Harrison, argued the computer company has violated a 1991 trademark agreement by moving into the music business through its market-leading iTunes online store.

Apple Computer argued in court hearings in London earlier this year that iTunes was primarily a data transmission service, permitted by the agreement.

The 1991 out-of-court settlement, which included a $26 million payment by Apple Computer, set out areas in which each party would have exclusive use of their respective fruit-shaped logos.

It’s a dream to be part of the world’s premier software technology contest. You get to show you’re good. It’s even a bigger dream to be in the final. You get to show you’re the best.

One Indian team from the Dhirubhai Ambani Indian Institute of Communication and Technology has made it to the worldwide finals of Microsoft’s biggest tech competition, Imagine Cup. And this Indian team will be competing not anywhere else but in India.

It’s only been four years since the Imagine Cup has been instituted and already it has come to India. The worldwide finals 2006 will be held in Agra this August. At stake is $125,000. How did the competition get here so fast?

Microsoft Corp’s long-awaited release of the upgrade to its flagship Windows operating system will likely be delayed again by at least three months, research group Gartner Inc. said on Tuesday.

The research note, released to clients on Monday, said the new Windows Vista operating system is too complex to be able to meet Microsoft’s targeted November release for volume license customers and January launch for retail consumers.

A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company disagreed with the Gartner report and it was still on track to meet its launch dates.

Vista is the first major overhaul of its operating system, which sits on 90 per cent of the world’s computers and accounts for nearly a third of Microsoft’s total revenue, since Microsoft rolled out Windows XP nearly five years ago.

Microsoft originally targeted a 2005 launch for the new Windows, then pushed the release out to 2006 before announcing in March that Vista would again be delayed to improve the product’s quality.

Gartner targets a Windows Vista release in the April-June quarter of 2007, nine to 12 months after Microsoft conducts a second major test, or “beta,” release for Vista during the current quarter.

“Microsoft still wants to get it out as soon as possible, but slipping from January to March is nowhere near as bad as slipping from shipping before the holidays to after the holidays,” a group of Gartner analysts wrote in the report.

Gartner said Windows XP took five months to go from a second test release to the start of production, but the magnitude of technological improvement in Vista is closer to Windows 2000, which took 16 months between the second test and production.

Once production starts, it usually takes between six- to eight-weeks for PC manufacturers to load the operating system onto new computers, Gartner said.

Microsoft shares were down 22 cents at $24.07 in afternoon trading on Nasdaq.

Intel Corp. said on Tuesday it plans to spend $1 billion to promote Internet use and computer training in developing countries, the latest move in the No. 1 chip maker’s effort to break into new markets.The program, which Intel has dubbed “World Ahead,” aims to bring high-speed wireless Internet access to 1 billion people who can’t get online, while training 10 million teachers to use technology in education.

The Santa Clara, California-based company said it would back those goals with $1 billion of spending over five years.

“Decades of providing technology in growing volume and at decreasing costs have driven great gains for developing nations, communities and people worldwide, but there is still much to do,” Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said in a statement.

Otellini is expected to give details of the initiative at a technology conference in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.

The program includes Intel’s ongoing effort to promote cheap PCs that it hopes will find enthusiastic buyers among schools and villages in developing countries where most people cannot afford to buy their own personal computers.

It also extends Intel’s push to popularize a new wireless technology called WiMax, whose fast speed and long range has led many companies and industry groups to think it is ideal for poorer regions.

Intel, which makes the microprocessors that power the vast majority of personal computers around the world, has grappled with slowing growth in PCs as wealthy markets in the United States, Europe and Japan become saturated.