Yahoo! takes on Skype

The Yahoo! Internet portal is extending the use of its VoIP capacity built into its Instant Messenger product to take on Skype. The company says that within the next few days it will be debuting a new service 'Phone Out', with cheap call charges from computers to phones, and 'Phone In', a budget priced subscription service for phone callers to call computer users. Using the Phone Out service, calls to the US will cost $0.01 per minute to the US and less than US cents per minute to more than 30 international countries, including Argentina, Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea. Yahoo! will also offer pay-as-you-go credit in $10 and $25 increments. The current SkypeOut rate is 1.2p or €0.017 or US $0.023 per minute for calls to most popular destinations around the world. Yahoo! is not entirely new to the VoIP market. The company has been offering voice services via Yahoo! Instant Messenger product for some years. However, the calls were only between IM users only which remain free. This is the first time that the Internet portal has launched VoIP as a major initiative in its own right and is clearly a stab at both Google's recent Click to Call promotion and VoIP pioneer Skype. Further details of Yahoo!'s VoIP pricing policy are at voice.yahoo.com.

Yahoo answers

Yahoo Inc. unveiled a service Wednesday that allows users to get their questions answered online for free by volunteers. The feature, called Yahoo Answers, gives a human touch to what has typically been the exclusive role of the Web portal's search engine. Users can submit questions on any topic at answers.yahoo.com and wait for others to post responses, sort of like a community reference desk. To flag inaccuracies, individuals can rate the responses based on quality. Ofer Shaked, director of engineering for Yahoo in Sunnyvale, said that the goal is for users to share knowledge, much like they already share photos and opinions within the Web site's Flickr photo-sharing service and Groups areas. Some users may even gain a reputation as experts on certain topics based on their highly rated answers.

Microsoft betas Anti Virus software

Windows OneCare is a comprehensive PC health service that goes beyond security to take an integrated approach to help protect and care for your computer. The Windows OneCare health meter gives you a clear, continuous indication of your computer's overall level of protection and performance. If Windows OneCare detects anything that you can do to improve the health of your computer, the service will automatically show you what action to take and give you a one-click solution. It has an Antivirus and Firewall which helps protect your computer from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, hackers, and other threats. However, Windows OneCare Live doesn't work alongside Symantec, McAfee, or Trend Micro products. OneCare is mostly built on software from a Romanian security firm GeCAD. It uses both signature and heuristic or behavioral approaches. Like Norton it comes with a firewall, offering bi-directional monitoring and blocking and has a monthly update service.