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How Does Microsoft/Skype Deal Impact Windows Phone 7
If you have been following the tech news then you should already be familiar with Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Skype at a whopping $8.5 billion. Now that’s all fine and dandy but for those of you who are still rooting for Windows Phone 7, what does Microsoft’s latest acquisition of Skype mean for you? Perhaps those who use Skype heavily and who rely it on for work might see that Windows Phone 7 with Skype integration as a marriage made in heaven.
The first couple of things that come into mind would be video calls and free VoIP calls. BusinessInsider seems to think so too by saying:
Imagine integrated Skype calls at no extra cost. And this will easily be WP7′s answer to Apple’s FaceTime or Android’s video chat via Google Talk.
Skype is already on millions of computers, making the network instantly larger than anything FaceTime could hope to achieve. (For now, FaceTime is limited to iDevices and Macs.)
Both extremely solid reasons as to how this Skype deal with Microsoft could very well add an additional selling point to Windows Phone 7 devices.
In terms of video calling Apple has been dominating in that department with them using Facetime as a featured selling point which not only allows users to call phone to phone, but phone to Macs and vice versa. However I doubt that this integration will be happening any time soon but it does seem like a definite possibility in the future as Microsoft would be silly not to integrate it into the Windows Phone 7 operating system.
The Fairphone 2 was first unveiled in June earlier this year, where this particular handset carried a modular design while featuring majority of its components that have been sourced from conflict-free mines. It seems that this particular handset that you can purchase with a clear conscience has begun to ship to those who happen to live across Europe.
Fairphone announced in a blog post, “It’s been almost two years in the making, and some of the earliest buyers have been patiently waiting since July to receive their new phones. As community manager, I want to personally welcome the new batch of Fairphone owners to our community.” The initial 1,000 units are tipped to ship this month, before the other pre-orders follow in January 2016.
In terms of hardware specifications, the Fairphone 2 will run on a Snapdragon 801 chipset, has a 5″ 1080p screen with Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 2GB of RAM, an 8MP camera, with Android 5.1 Lollipop in tow. It will be a dual SIM capable handset with a microSD memory card slot and plays nice with 4G LTE networks, retailing for approximately €525 a pop.
It is quite a feeling to have a smartphone getting the latest operating system update up and running, that is for sure. After all, you can never quite tell just what kind of goodies that your handset would receive now, can you? Those who are rocking to a Windows Phone 8.1 device might be looking forward to spending Christmas with a Windows 10 Mobile update but it seems that such hopes will have to be shelved for the moment.
It seems that there will be no Windows 10 update arriving this month as originally speculated, and the time frame itself has been altered, being even more vague in nature – where it has been mentioned to be “early next year”, which could jolly well mean any time, even in April. Looks like patience needs to be had in boatloads here.
It looks like the upcoming flagship model from Xiaomi will feature NFC support, at least based on a document that was released by China UnionPay. Just in case you are scratching your head and wondering who China UnionPay is, they happen to be the only domestic payment gateway supplier and card organization, and hence, to see them offer detailed support concerning the newly released NFC-based payment system points to the very real possibility of the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 5 featuring NFC capability.
After all, the Xiaomi Mi 3 was also mentioned on the list, which so happens to feature NFC, and there is no mention of the Xiaomi Mi 4 which does not come with NFC. Still, such a new payment system would be the ideal tool to see the reintroduction of NFC to the flagship model.