Kiran Upadhyay

Skype has been talking about, and demoing, its new real-time translation software for Skype for a while now, but users will begin getting first-hand experience with the tool as of today. The Skype Translator preview program begins welcoming its first participants into the fold, based on sign-ups to the Translator preview page we told you about in early November. The Skype Translator project offers on-the-fly translation of both spoken and written languages for participants in Skype conversations, making it possible for two people who speak completely different languages to communicate with virtually no barriers to understanding. The preview program starts with support for English and Spanish spoken translation, as well as over 40 languages for real-time text chat. At launch, tis also limited to users of Windows 8.1 software (either desktop or mobile) so Microsoft is playing platform favorites with this early beta program. They’ve also already been testing it out with schools in

Last year, Microsoft announced that its consumer-facing Skype communications service and its enterprise-focused counterpart would begin to interoperate, first with IM and audio, and later expanding to support video. Today, the company says, the video integration is complete. Skype users can now video call contacts on Lync, and vice versa, Microsoft announced this morning. The change follows a series of deeper integrations between the two products, the latter of which will be rebranded “Skype for Business” sometime in 2015. To use the now cross-platform video calling feature, you don’t have to do anything differently from before – you just kick off the call the same way you do today. However, video calling is supported only on an up-to-date Lync 2013 client on Android, iOS or Windows and on Skype for Windows desktop. Skype is now working to expand this integration to more platforms, starting with iOS and Android. Under the hood of this integration, the teams have worked

Skype co-founder Janus Friis is backing a new communications app called Wire, out now for iOS, Android and Mac OS X. The app itself is the reimagining of how a communications tool like Skype should operate had it been built today. Much of that, in Wire’s case, means under-the-hood improvements that users don’t necessarily see, such as advancements in media processing, audio technology, file compression and delivery, and more. Wire pairs this more solid infrastructure with an uncluttered, simple design that will likely be the initial attraction for mainstream users. Skype, of course, is one of the top communication apps in the world, but it’s also running on dated technology. Users still experience issues with call quality, connection problems, synchronization and more. “Skype was launched more than a decade ago. A lot has changed since then – we are all used to free calls and texting, and we have taken to carrying our computers in our pockets,” said Friis in a statement about W