Skype introduced a new Facebook app this morning, and before you get your hopes up, it’s not some amazing new way to Skype from the browser plug-in free, or kick off multi-person video chat sessions right from the News Feed. Nope. The app is this goofy, ridiculous creation called “Skype Humoticons” which lets you use your webcam to post pictures of you mimicking Skype emoticons to Facebook. Uh-huh.

Ugh, it’s like they taught the marketing department how to code over there. The app loads up in a big Flash interface over on Facebook, requires that you connect to Facebook via Skype using your desktop software, and then lets you pick either a photo or video to create your “Humoticon.” If you use an existing photo of yourself for you Humoticon, the app basically draws a big, blue circle around your face and then lets you post that photo to your Facebook wall. Why? I have no idea.

Obviously, to actually do anything interesting with the app, you’ll need to use your webcam to make a more animated version. Skype suggests that you snap up to five pictures to make the animated version…because a short video clip would be too hard? Not as funny? Again, no clue.

In addition to posting the “Humoticon” to your Facebook Wall, you can also download  the photo or copy its URL to post in an instant messaging session. And there’s a gallery where you can see those Humoticons made by friends and others, matched up to the emoticon they were mimicking.

Yep, it’s kind of silly and stupid. Hey, that might just make it a great Facebook app after all!

A while ago, people opined that the PS Vita – despite horrible battery life and a dearth of compelling game titles – could become a sort of “gamers iPad,” a tool that ends up being more than just a console. That dream is coming closer to fruition with the announcement of Skype for Vita.

The Vita can now make voice and video calls and you can even receive calls in the background while playing games. Skype credit allows you to call out to landline phones.

While the addition of the Skype app doesn’t make the Vita a fully-fledged cellphone, the app does support Wi-Fi and 3G WLAN calls and essentially makes the device the N-Gage everyone always wanted.

The app will be available for download in the Vita app store tomorrow. It will be free.

FriendCaller, a Skype alternative which, let’s face it, we haven’t heard much from in years, is today launching new web and mobile apps that support up to 7-way group video chats at once. The addition comes on the heels of FriendCaller’s earlier expansion this year into multi-point video and voice conferencing, the company says.

In addition to the seven video participants, the new apps also support 20 participants in a voice-only chat.

For those unfamiliar with FriendCaller, it’s a service from C2Call, a company founded back in 2008. Like Skype, it offers free services for users calling other FriendCaller members, but charges for other things like making calls to external phones, for example.

A couple of years ago, the company was touting a total of 1.4 million subscribers, and today, that number has more than quadrupled to 6.5 million. The application is available for Windows, Mac and Linux web browsers as well as on iOS and Android-based devices. (FriendCaller is available on over 1,000 different Android devices, in fact).

Today, FriendCaller is officially announcing the launch of its mobile chat apps, which feature text/SMS support, Caller ID, support for “real” phone numbers and support for calling over Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G. The company says that it’s able to offer this new service because its algorithms require “extremely low resources” on both the mobile client and cloud server side.

The new app appears as a separate download than the original FriendCaller app in the iTunes App Store, but in the Android Market Google Play store, the new app is the only one listed. It’s also available here online for web users. All three apps support using Facebook to sign up and find friends, although you can also use an email address instead, if you choose.

FriendCaller’s earlier iOS app has a four-star rating, but a few reviews are negative, seemingly due to user confusion as to what’s free and what’s paid. To be clear, in-network calls are always free, but users have to pay for premium features like a “real” phone number, dialing out to external lines, and soon, text messaging (it’s listed as free for a “limited time”).

For users who don’t want to pay for credits, FriendCaller also allows them to watch videos or download apps to earn those credits, via its “offer wall” (a pay-per-download scheme). The app also runs a banner ad to assist in monetization efforts.

[Sorry, but I couldn't line up 7 friends to test the video chat before this news broke. It should be interesting to see how it does.]

C2Call has angel funding from Michael Brehm (former executive director of StudiVZ , a European social networking site) and Tapesh Sinha (founder of Acctel Group of companies). In October 2009, High-Tech Gründerfonds became the lead investor for the company. It’s a leading start-up venture capital group backed by six of Germany’s largest industrial groups including BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss. C2Call raised a $2 million Series A in 2010 from Draper Investment Company, High-Tech Gründerfonds and Mr. Klaus Wecken, co-founder of KHK Software AG.

A series of job postings from Microsoft hint at – well, actually they come out and state that – Microsoft intends to bring Skype to the web browser. The posts, which describe positions for software development engineers, mention that the Skype web app would be built (thankfully) using HTML5 and JavaScript, not Microsoft’s own Silverlight or Adobe Flash, for example.

The addition of a web-based version of Skype that works without plug-ins could provide a better user experience than today’s Skype Facebook app currently offers, but it could also extend the browser to anyone with a modern web browser who wanted an alternative to running desktop software.

There are four job listings which have been spotted so far, describing a “Skype for Browsers” project. One describes the project like so:

Team at Skype is looking for passionate, team-oriented and self-motivated developers to help us bring Skype experience on to the Web.

You will have a chance to integrate existing Skype solutions on to the web with the support of the backend services build from the ground up using latest Microsoft technologies.

Result [sic] of your work will be used by hundreds millions of thankful users worldwide. You will work in dynamical environment with the team of true professionals participating in defining, designing, developing, testing and documenting one of the most popular applications of the modern world.

You will closely cooperate with colleagues developing Skype cross platform core library in Tallinn, Estonia, audio/video team in Stockholm, Sweden, User management team in Prague and web plug-in team in Palo Alto, US.

So far, the postings refer to jobs in Prague and London only.

In addition to possibly providing an improved experience for Facebook users, the Skype for Browsers experience would also serve to bring Skype to the Metro version of IE10 on Windows 8, which won’t support plugins.

Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion last spring, finally bringing it to Windows Phone just this February. Skype is also available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, iOS, Android and Symbian, some smart TVs, and more.

h/t: LiveSide

I lean on Skype (and Macs) pretty heavily, so when a fairly substantial update for the VOIP/messaging service goes live, my ears tend to perk up. The new Skype 5.6 update has me especially tickled — it’s now available for folks of the Mac persuasion, and it thankfully packs a handful of bugfixes as well as a slew of new (and arguably overdue) features.

Perhaps most important is the ability to delete part or all of a conversation in one fell swoop. I don’t find myself needing to do this too often aside from when I’m locked in throes of a particularly nasty digital cleaning spree, but I’m sure there are more than a few of you out there sighing with relief right about now.

Textual indiscretions aside, Skype 5.6 also brings with it the ability to auto-update when new versions are released (which the Windows version has been able to do since last September), as well a new full-screen app mode that comes seven months after Apple’s Lion update added support for the feature. Better late than never, as they always say.

Throw in a new dynamic layout for video calls that puts the current speaker at the top of the window and the ability to combat background noise by fiddling with Automatic Gain Control, and that’s a wrap for the 5.6 update. Mac users will probably want to jump on this one, and fortunately they can download the new version of Skype right here.

As one big tech merger gets approved by the EU, another might get kicked back into play. Today, Cisco launched an appeal against the purchase of Skype by Microsoft, a deal that was originally unconditionally approved by the regulators back in October 2011.

The appeal hinges on Cisco’s contention that Microsoft and Skype will limit how users of different video calling systems will be able to speak to each other. Cisco is being joined in its appeal by Messagenet, another video conferencing provider that stands to lose out if a dominant Microsoft/Skype team begin to roll out video calling products using Microsoft’s Lync platform.

According to a source close to Cisco, TechCrunch understands that Cisco put in its complaint at the last possible minute — the deadline for objections is tomorrow, Wednesday.

The source also tells TC that the reason it waited until the last minute was because it was trying to negotiate directly with Microsoft to come to an agreement on common standards.

“Microsoft argued during the commission’s review of Tandberg [which Cisco bought in 2010] that there should be conditions of interoperability,” the source said. “Cisco waited because it has been in ongoing discussions with Microsoft and it could reach business terms without making the appeal. But Microsoft was not ready to sign up.”

TC has reached out to Microsoft for comment and will update this post with its response. Update: In an emailed statement, a spokesperson from Microsoft said it believed the original approval, in which Cisco participated, would stand:

“The European Commission conducted a thorough investigation of the acquisition, in which Cisco actively participated, and approved the deal in a 36-page decision without any conditions.  We’re confident the Commission’s decision will stand up on appeal.”

Marthin DeBeer, the SVP of Cisco’s emerging business group, argues in a blog post that this is not about Cisco trying to quash the merger altogether — Microsoft is also an important partner and customer to Cisco — but to get the EU to put more conditions on it going through, to enforce more interoperability.

“Cisco does not oppose the merger, but believes the European Commission should have placed conditions that would ensure greater standards-based interoperability, to avoid any one company from being able to seek to control the future of video communications,” he writes.

Although a fair number of enterprises use video conferencing services, the technology has not been significantly commercialized for the mass-market, with companies like Skype, Apple, Google and many others offering free services. At issue here is how this may play out as a business in the future: “Microsoft’s plans to integrate Skype exclusively with its Lync Enterprise Communications Platform could lock-in businesses who want to reach Skype’s 700 million account holders to a Microsoft-only platform,” DeBeer argues.

The holidays are drawing ever closer, and with the holidays usually come embarrassing family moments. The folks at Skype, perhaps sensing the potential for capturing some comedic gold around ye old Christmas tree, have updated their Android app with support for picture and video messages.

The functionality works over both WiFi and 3G data connections, so even the most random holiday snafu can be easily sent to your Skype contacts. The update also packs a fix meant for Tegra 2-powered devices that have experienced lower battery life and iffy video quality, so G2x owners will want to get on the ball.

Interestingly, Skype’s Dan Chastney also notes a handful of new devices have been whitelisted for Skype video calling, including the unreleased Motorola DROID4. If that isn’t a big hint that Verizon’s next QWERTY-packing handset will be hitting shelves soon, then I don’t know what is.

If all that talk has got you itching to send some homemade cat videos to your Skype buddies, hit the Android Market to download the update now.

Where will the next billion-dollar startups come from? The tech world and most VCs tend to be parochial, looking at Silicon Valley, maybe New York, and a few other hot markets like China and Brazil. But what about the Old Country?

Yesterday, I was having coffee with Saul Klein, a partner at Index Ventures and co-founder of Seedcamp. He believes that in every major city across Europe, Russia, and Israel, there are “a legion of companies that are capable of achieving billion dollar valuations and in some cases are likely to be able to do close to a billion dollars in revenues over the next 3 to 5 years.”

I asked him to name five while I pointed my iPhone video camera at him, and he was able to give me a much longer laundry list , which I’ve added below (along with some others he sent me afterwards). I’ve indicated which ones are Index investments and where each one was originally founded. Which of these will get into the billion-dollar club? (Note that some of these already are billion-dollar companies. You can click through to their Crunchbase profiles to learn more about each one).

Skype (London, Index)
Playfish (London, Index)
Wonga (London)
ASOS (London, Index)
Mind Candy (London Index)
Net-a-Porter (London, Index)
Betfair (London, Index)
Klarna (Stockholm)
Spotify (Stockholm)
Wix (Tel Aviv)
Conduit (Tel Aviv)
Fon (Madrid, Index)
Privalia (Barcelona, Index)
Criteo (Paris, Index)
Vente-Privee (Paris)
SoundCloud (Berlin, Index)
LogMeIn (Budapest)
AVG Technologies (Prague)
Kaspersky Lab (Moscow)
Ozon (Russia, Index)
Yandex (Moscow)
Mail.ru (Moscow)

Microsoft-owned Skype is releasing a new version of its SkypeKit, which allows Skype calls, instant messaging, video chat and other features to be integrated by developers into consumer electronics. As Skype writes in its announcement today, the company opened up SkypeKit to the public in June to ‘accelerate Skype’s presence in the consumer electronics industry.’ Today, Skype is releasingthe Developer Preview of SkypeKit 4.02, which extends funcionaluty include desktop applications.

Developers can integrate Skype into their Windows, Mac and Linux desktop applications via SkypeKit for Desktop, which adds native Skype functionality directly into partner applications or via the Skype Desktop API, which allows developers to extend the functionality of Skype for Windows, Skype for Mac and Skype for Linux.

For the first time, Skype is releasing Video APIs to the new SkypeKit for Desktop. These Video APIs will allow developers to add video calling to desktop apps. For now, Chris Andrews, Senior Business Development Manager at Skype says the the API only supports one-on-one video calling but group chat is on the roadmap.

Andrews says that potential products using the API could focus on specific Skype desktop apps for kids, or seniors. He adds that some partners who are using the Video APIs are focused on distance learning and telemedicine opportunities. For, now, there are no plans for a mobile API, he says.

Skype is also officially announcing its App Directory, which was soft launched in August. Skype has sorted both consumer apps and business apps that have been built of its APIs into groups by genre (call recording, video, desktop sharing etc.), and featured the top downloaded free and paid apps, top rated apps and the newest apps across the board and by genre.

For each app, Skype provides a landing page that gives more information about the application, release date, star rating and comments, features, requirements, screenshots and more. You can choose to download the app, and Skype will take you to the developer’s landing page. Skype users can also search for apps by cost, language, keywords, OS and more.

Andrews says the focus of the app directory is discovery for developers and the company will do more promotion around the app directory and third-party apps in the future.

Microsoft this morning announced that it has closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, a deal that was originally announced back in May.

They even made an infographic to showcase the importance of the deal completion. /sarcasm

Other than that, not much news to report. As previously announced, Skype becomes a new business division within Microsoft, and Skype CEO Tony Bates will assume the title of president of the new unit.

As I wrote back in May:

The $8.5 billion question: did Microsoft overpay for Skype?

Perhaps, perhaps not. Only time will tell. As always with these things, the many tech industry pundits and analysts will look at this deal from all possible angles and then some, and still only a handful will end up being somewhat accurate when we look back in a couple of years.

From a non-financial point of view, the acquisition makes a ton of sense today, though.

Skype digitally connects dozens of millions of people on a daily basis, enabling them to communicate with each other through voice calls, chat messages and video conferencing.

There’s no doubt it’s a big brand on the Web (with both consumer and enterprise appeal, worldwide at that), and is poised to keep mattering in the next decade and beyond.

Skype’s current products will continue to be offered, but over time the service will also be integrated “across an array of Microsoft products”.

Update: from another Microsoft blog post:

In the near future, Skype will be connecting on XBOX Live and VideoKinect for XBOX Live. In addition to skyping with XBOX Live gamers, Skype users with be able connect with Microsoft Lync Enterprise Voice for your school or university. Later this year, Skype and Lync clients will be available on the Windows Phone 7.5 (“Mango.”)

It should be noted that the acquisition still remains under review in a limited number of countries.

Skype’s updated iOS app is turning out to be a bit of a mixed bag. It manages to add a few useful new features, like Bluetooth headset support and in-call video stabilization, but one addition may have some users groaning: in-app advertising.

Now, not everyone will have to deal with Skype’s latest advertising push. The ads only appear to users who have Skype accounts, but don’t have any active Skype credits attached to it. And people who don’t have a subscription calling plan. And people who don’t have a Skype Premium account. Methinks a pattern is emerging here.

Essentially, Skype is only displaying ads to users who don’t pay anything to use the service. The ads themselves aren’t terribly obtrusive, so I imagine most people will be nonplussed by the news, but it’s a clear sign that Skype is trying to get something out of their non-paying users.

After updating, for example, the only ad I’ve seen is for GroupMe, perched right at the top of my contact list. Of course GroupMe was acquired by Skype not too long ago, so it looks like Skype is trying to leverage their own userbase to grow GroupMe’s.

It’s not a huge inconvenience, but one has to wonder if Skype will eventually start displaying ads for products and services other than their own. Maybe some Microsoft-friendly ads are in the pipeline, considering their business relationship. (Update: a Skype representative confirmed that the company would be “selling ads to 3rd party advertisers.”)

To their credit, at least the advertising was bundled with some substantive additions. Bluetooth support is a welcome change, even if it only works with the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 4G, and iPad 2. Also present in the changelog is the ability to send and receive emoticons, and a handful of bug fixes. Compulsive updaters should feel free to take the plunge, but the ad-weary may want to hold off.

If you’re using Skype for iOS on your iPhone or iPod touch, consider yourself warned: a cross-site scripting vulnerability looms in the “Chat Message” window in version 3.0.1 and earlier versions.

The hole allows attackers to execute malicious JavaScript code that runs when a victim views a chat message, enabling theft of information, including a user’s address book (see video below).

Skype says it is aware of the security issue, and had issued the following statement:

“We are working hard to fix this reported issue in our next planned release which we hope to roll out imminently. In the meantime we always recommend people exercise caution in only accepting friend requests from people they know and practice common sense internet security as always.”

The non-patronizing first sentence would have been sufficient, Skype.

AppSec Consulting security researcher Phil Purviance, who also made the video below, writes:

Executing arbitrary Javascript code is one thing, but I found that Skype also improperly defines the URI scheme used by the built-in webkit browser for Skype. Usually you will see the scheme set to something like, “about:blank” or “skype-randomtoken”, but in this case it is actually set to “file://”. This gives an attacker access to the users file system, and an attacker can access any file that the application itself would be able to access.

File system access is partially mitigated by the iOS Application sandbox that Apple has implemented, preventing an attacker from accessing certain sensitive files. However, every iOS application has access to the users AddressBook, and Skype is no exception.

On Twitter, Purviance says he reported the XSS vulnerability to Skype nearly a month ago.

Let’s hope a fix follows shortly now that he’s gotten media attention.

Skype appears to have launched a new app directory in the cloud, allowing users to access all the third-party apps for both consumers and businesses built on top of Skype’s API.

The site is fairly simple in functionality for now, but Skype has sorted both consumer apps and business into groups by genre (call recording, video, desktop sharing etc.), and featured the top downloaded free and paid apps, top rated apps and the newest apps across the board and by genre. For example, Skype recording app VodBurner is the most downloaded app across all categories.

For each app, Skype provides a landing page that gives more information about the application, release date, star rating and comments, features, requirements, screenshots and more. You can choose to download the app, and Skype will take you to the developer’s landing page. Skype users can also search for apps by cost, language, keywords, OS and more.

Ash Valeski, Skype’s head of global web stores, says that the VoIP company is putting a lot of emphasis on its SkypeKit next generation SDK, and wanted to put together a proper distribution channel for developers who are building off the platform. He notes that this is the soft-launch of the directory and many more features will be added in the future. At launch, Skype has 23 apps featured as soft-launch partners.

Valeski says that in the future it would make sense to allow users to purchase apps using Skype Credits and actually integrate an iTunes-like e-commerce platform where Skype is actually selling the apps. Currently, the directory passes visitors to the developer sites for purchase of apps.

As VodBurner CEO and founder Jeremy Hague tells us, giving Skype users the ability to rate apps, comment about apps, is totally new to Skype and will really help app developers get their apps out to the massive Skype community…having a directory makes live easier for us. He says until now there hasn’t really been a great way to publicize third-party apps.

Another helpful feature of the directory is that Skype is ‘surfacing’ the apps within the Skype client. So in the newest version of Skype for Windows, you can access the app directory under Tools. The directory will be added to the Mac client in the future. And developers can also manage their own listings.

It’s good to see Skype providing features like an app directory so third-party developers can showcase their apps that make Skype better. Skype hasn’t had the best history with developers in the past, but this seems to be a step forward. Perhaps the influence of soon-to-be parent company Microsoft is helping steer things in a developer-friendly direction.

On Sunday we broke the news that Skype was acquiring group messaging service GroupMe. What we didn’t know was the price, and neither company disclosed any of the terms of the deal other than that GroupMe would remain a standalone brand for now, and the team would stay in New York.

A widely spread report said that Skype paid as much as $85 million for the year-old company. We’ve heard this number is a bit high, and includes an earnout or deferred payments. What’s the real price?

Our sources close to the companies say the initial payment for GroupMe is $43 million, and deferred payments (or an earnout) can get the GroupMe shareholders as much as $68 million over four years. The founders will receive another few million dollars as part of their long term employment agreements.

Why the difference? No idea. But I have a high degree of confidence that Skype will pay somewhere between $43 million and $68 million for GroupMe. Which is one heck of a win for the founders and investors, who put $11.5 million into the company.

As an aside, when we add estimated acquisition prices to CrunchBase, we usually put in the higher number instead of a range. I like being optimistic, and we can always edit it downward later if new information becomes available.

Skype will acquire group messaging service GroupMe, a service that was born at a hackathon at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York in 2010. GroupMe was founded by Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci.

The terms of the deal, including price, aren’t being disclosed.

Just a couple of months after TechCrunch Disrupt the company closed a $850,000 round of financing from Betaworks, SV Angel, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures and a number of prominent angels. Early this year the company raised $10.6 million more from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst and previous investors.

GroupMe allows you to create on the fly private phone groups with others, and then send text messages throughout the group and set up free conference calls.

Skype CEO Tony Bates says that he’s been talking to the company for a few months, at about the same time Skype was in negotiations to be acquired by Microsoft.

The Microsoft transaction is still pending.

They’ll keep GroupMe as a standalone brand, Bates says, and look for integration points over time. “The group messaging space in general is one of the most important markets for Skype,” he told me via a Skype video call earlier today. He added: “GroupMe creates a very sticky instant feeling. Like Skype, it is an everyday interactive form of communication. Skype’s goal is to get to 1 billion users. Mobile is the place to do that.”

GroupMe, which has twenty employees, will remain in New York.

Skype just launched a new iOS application that lets users locate Wi-Fi hotspots where they can pay for access using Skype Credit. It currently supports over 1 million hotspots worldwide, including those found in hotels, airports, train stations, convention centers, bars and restaurants.  The advantage of using this app over buying a voucher directly with the hotspot service provider is that you would only pay for the actual minutes you use, explains Skype.

Paying per-minute rates instead of buying a block of time can help travelers save money since sometimes you only need a quick minute of Internet access for a fast email check, status update or tweet, for example. With the new app, that’s easy to do.

Free Wi-Fi at Launch

The Skype Wi-Fi rates start at U.S. $0.06/4p/€0,05 (inclusive of VAT) per minute and there are no limits on the amount of data you can upload or download. And to promote the app’s launch, Skype is offering free Wi-Fi from Saturday August 20th (00:00) to Sunday August 21st (23:59) BST for a max of 60 minutes.

The new app works on all iOS devices, which means iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Previously, this same service was available for laptops running the Skype software.

To use the app, simply sign in with your same Skype username and password then tap “go online” to get connected.

At the end of June 2011, Skype added the ability to make one-to-one video calls over both WiFi and 3G connections to its Android application. However, very few handsets were supported at the time, but now the company has released an update that brings two-way video calling to 17 more smartphones, including the HTC Desire and Desire HD, the Samsung Galaxy S and S II and Sony Ericsson Xperia devices.

As usual, you can download the updated Skype 2.1 for Android app from the Android Market or point your browser to Skype.com/m from your phone.

Once installed, you can have video calls from your Android phone with your Skype contacts on iPhone, Mac, Windows PCs and even a number of TVs.

The full list of supported phones can be found here.

If you’re using a phone that runs Android 2.2 (Froyo) or above, Skype says you should be able to enable video calling in your settings. If you can’t find it, that probably means you’re out of luck.

Besides, if your phone runs Froyo you’ll only be able to use the back camera of the device anyway.

Skype’s been popping up in headlines recently, mostly because of their “will they/won’t they” iPad app release. While it’s true that Apple’s iOS is a huge priority for companies looking to expand into the mobile space, let’s not forget that Microsoft paid out a cool $8.5 billion to pick up the communication juggernaut this past May. The big question, then, is where is the love for Windows devices?

Skype’s move into Windows Phone 7 seems to have been on the backburner for a while, but if the new positions popping up on Skype Careers are any indication, they may finally be getting a move on.

Everyone knew that Skype would eventually make its way to the market’s #4 mobile OS even before the official acquisition, but the company has remained mum about anything resembling specific detail. The new listings indicate a definite focus on Windows platforms, and Windows Phone 7 in particular — the responsibilities of their Software Engineer position involve being “responsible for building and optimizing the Skype Video Engine solution for Microsoft Windows and Windows Phone platforms.” It’s a development a long time in the making, but it’s sort of gratifying to see Microsoft finally getting some benefit out of a terribly pricey purchase.

Readers fond of connecting the dots may notice that Skype’s “Fall” release window happens to coincide with Microsoft’s (also vague) Mango timeline. With Skype now an official part of Microsoft, it would seem logical to assume that a new Skype app that supports video calling would be released side-by-side with the software update we’ve all been waiting for, but it’s impossible to say for sure at this point. The one thing this announcement just about solidifies is the appearance of front-facing cameras on new WinPho hardware, a welcome addition, if not the most surprising.

Marketing and advertising giant Dentsu has inked a deal (PDF) with Skype to offer display ads in Japan. Under the terms of the agreement, Dentsu will serve as the exclusive display advertising partner for Skype in Japan as of July 2011, at least for advertising campaigns that are not multi-national or multi-regional in nature.

In November 2010, Apple and Dentsu announced a partnership that made the latter responsible for selling iAds in Japan. Dentsu also works with Facebook and OpenX.

Dentsu will start selling Skype’s digital inventory, which will appear in the “Home” tab of Skype for Windows (version 5.1 and above) with immediate effect.

Dentsu and Skype stress that this is only the first phase of their relationship.

According to the two companies, Skype users in Japan spend an average of 2 hours per month on Skype Home. Overall, Skype boasts an average of 170 million monthly users worldwide and roughly 30 million concurrent users at peak times as of March 2011.

Ads on Skype Home are typically larger than a typical banner ad, and expand to twice its original size (and more interactive elements) upon clicking. Under the terms of the deal, the number of advertisers on Skype are limited to one per day.

The interactive ads for Skype’s Windows clients were rolled out in March 2010. Skype has also partnered with Meebo in the US, Ad2One in the UK, and Ströer Interactive in Germany to sell advertising in their respective markets.

Amazingly, Dentsu was originally founded back in 1901 (yes, that would be 110 years ago). It currently has close to 20,000 employees worldwide servicing some 6,000 clients.

The company occasionally invests in American companies through its subsidiary cci; they’ve backed mobile ad network operator JumpTap and online video company Brightcove, for example.

Silly hackers are always trying to ruin the Internet and they have found yet another target in the form of popular VOIP software Skype. According to the sweetest text security report ever, linked from h-online’s recap:

“Skype suffers from a persistent Cross-Site Scripting vulnerability due to a lack
of input validation and output sanitization of the ‘mobile phone’ profile entry.
Other input fields may also be affected.”

I love that—output sanitization. Basically what this means is that an attacker can embed JavaScript in the mobile phone field of his or her profile description. Skype doesn’t filter this field which means this JavaScript can be executed when a contact of the attacker logs in. From there, all kinds of bad things can happen like account access or even system level access. According to Levent Kayan, the current version of Skype is affected (ver. 5.3.0.120 ) and Skype is aware of the issue and should have a patch available next week. Skype is downplaying the issue a bit noting that “the attacker must appear in the victim’s list of frequent contacts” in order to take advantage of the security issue.

What is the moral of the story? Until next week, remember that your mother-in-law overseas (with whom you Skype on a regular basis) can now compromise your system and bring you down! Beware!

[via The H Security]