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CES 2008: Skype Announcing Support for Intel MIDs

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This just came in to my email box – Skype is announcing support for Intel’s MID platform. We’ll scope out there booth for more info

Update: here are some mock pics and more info from Skype, as well as a fact sheet pdf with more details:

Skype on MID At the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, Skype announced its plans to collaborate with Intel Corporation to develop a new mobile Skype™ experience for Mobile Internet Devices (MID) based on Intel low-power processors and chipsets. MIDs are a new category of small, truly mobile consumer devices enabling a PC-like Internet experience, coupled with the capability to communicate with others, enjoy entertainment, and access information on the go.

The collaboration builds on the familiarity and ease of use of Skype software and makes that experience mobile. MID users will be able to make Skype voice and video calls and send instant messages on the move, while harnessing the PC-like performance of Intel’s new ultra-mobile platform. MID devices with WiMAX and WiFi capabilities will enable free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls and cheap SkypeOut™ calls – calls from Skype to landline and mobile phone numbers anywhere in the world at low per-minute rates – to be made on open wireless networks.

Skype on MID “Many of the more than 246 million Skype users around the world are increasingly mobile and want to stay connected on the go,” said Gareth O’Loughlin, Skype’s general manager of mobile and hardware devices. “Making the richer Skype experience available on mobile devices partly hinges on the need for more processing power, which in turn tends to shorten battery life. Intel’s focus on lowering power consumption helps us minimize that conundrum, underscoring our evolution beyond the desktop. And it‘s good news to anyone who has found themselves missing Skype on the road.”

As part of this effort, Skype will enable its software to run on the small, thin and light ultramobile MID devices with touch-screen LCDs, which are powered by Mobile Internet Linux. With the performance offered by Intel’s low-power processors and chipsets, some MID devices will even support mobile video calls over Skype.

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