Skype for Mac 2.8 Beta : Access and Screensharing

Another announcement from the Macworld Conference saw eBay owned Skype announcing their new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version can be downloaded from the official skype download page.

Continuing Skype’s commitment to rolling out new features on both Windows and Mac, the new update will include the following features:

* Skype Access
* Screen Sharing
* Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
* Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats than previous versions
* Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
* Large avatars: 256×256 pixels
* Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests
* Ability to add your own notes to contacts (if you need notes on business contacts etc)

Skype Access

One of the most impressive “new” features is “Skype Access”, a service that lets you go to any of the 100,000 Boingo WiFi hotspots and – using Skype – connect to the Boingo hotspot. When you connect, you pay on a minute by minute basis and the charge (which varies from country to country) is deducted from your Skype credit. There is no hourly or monthly fee for using the Boingo network, It is merely a way in which Skype try and increase their usability across the globe.

Considering that these hotspots will probably be only limited to certain busy areas in major cities, i cant quite see how this will take off – but will be useful to some heavy Skype users.

Screen Sharing

Another cool feature of the 2.8 beta is “screensharing” where you can share your entire screen with another

Skype will soon be releasing their 2.8 beta for Mac OSX

Skype user, this may be useful to demonstrate something, or even to simply show off your latest desktop wallpaper – i will update the benefits of this screen sharing concept in a later post.
System requirements
* Mac computer with G4 800 Mhz processor or faster.
* Mac OS X v10.3.9 Panther or later.
* For higher-resolution video a faster processor (Core 2 Duo) and a broadband connection with at least    384kbps upload speeds.
* 512 MB RAM.
* 40 MB free disk space on your hard drive.
* Microphone and speakers or headset.
* Download drivers for your webcam.
* Internet connection (broadband is best, GPRS is not supported for voice calls, and results may vary on a satellite connection).