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Skype is still ahead in terms of total features, like screen sharing, its most recent contribution to the VoIP community. However, the Web chatting experience was good enough on Yahoo Messenger 10 beta in our tests that we might prefer to use it to start a casual video call if the app is already running, rather than fire up Skype. Admittedly, our tests were limited by the callers’ proximity to each other, fast data connections, and strong computing configurations. We’ll need to keep up the calling with a cross-section of international users to get a more accurate litmus. Since the improved video calling only works with other Yahoo Messenger 10 beta users, we may have to wait for further adoption to test these theories.

Want to see more screenshots and feature details? We have plenty in the Yahoo Messenger 10 beta gallery. .

One more complaint: The new Yahoo Messenger 10 beta doesn’t appear to play nicely with all third-party IM clients. We noticed when chatting with a buddy who uses Digsby, that each line we type was replicated in the chat window. Odd, yes, and also irritating over time. But not all users chatting between Yahoo Messenger 10 beta and a different chat client will encounter problems, but if you do, let us know.

It seems as if it were just yesterday that Yahoo’s Messenger team rolled out version 9 (it was a little less than a year ago, in fact.) The upgrade was so dramatic and overdue that it’s a little surprising Yahoo has already tweaked its chat client, now parading Yahoo Messenger 10 beta to testers and curious chatters. We’re glad they did. Even though the changes may not please everyone uniformly, nor should they incite ire. The features build off Yahoo Messenger 9, emphasize social networking, and improved video calling.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

VoIP and PC-to-landline calls aren’t new to Yahoo Messenger, but the icon that calls out video chats is. Most of the major IM clients support voice-over-Internet calls with Webcams. It is Yahoo’s attention to video quality makes this build a closer competitor to Skype for Windows, which is a VoIP client first, enriched by chatting, file sharing, emoticons, and games. Yahoo Messenger (and Windows Live Messenger, and so on, for that matter,) are chat apps at the core that have layered on other P2P features.

Yahoo Messenger 10 beta–screenshots

Proximity notwithstanding, there were some performance issues. The call quality was clear and the videos were as crisp as our hardware allowed. Chatting and file sharing, however, slowed to a crawl as the call progressed. This seems to be the reverse of Skype, in which chatting has, in the past, often transmitted faster than the voice packets. Again, being in the same city, let alone the same country, could at least partly explain the reversal.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

You’ll be able to learn more about the social networking aspects from the photo gallery. This blog will focus on the video features.

This bug reminders us that beta software is often a work-in-progress.

Briefly, some of the other video features include toggling the sound on and off and shifting the position of the Webcam windows on your screen. These convenience tools worked well and gave the application some depth; we also liked being able to transfer files in full screen mode, even though photo transfers were slow.

In addition to both parties needing Yahoo Messenger 10 beta on their Windows computers, there are some basic system requirements. You’ll need Windows XP or better with a 1GHz CPU processor and 512MB of RAM. Your broadband internet will require a minimum of 300Kbps download speed and a minimum of 128Kbps upload (test both here). Then there’s the video card. You’ll need at least 96MB memory. A Webcam is mandatory to output video calls, but not to see a buddy’s video. However, you will receive an alert if you don’t have a Webcam. The final ingredient we’ll mention is that the latest version of Microsoft DirectX must be installed. Yahoo provides a full list of specs and tips in its help topics. Yahoo’s Messenger team provides some common FAQs and video tips here

The ad is as safe as certain critics suggested Vista wasn’t. There’s a girl. And it’s not Lauren, the one who isn’t cool enough to buy a Mac. No, it’s Kylie, the rather younger girl who is frightfully adept at all things digital.

I know there are those who will struggle with the concept of “more” happy after Vista. But they will, equally, be grateful that some happy is on the way.

So the advertising has to start round about September 10, right? And, indeed, here it is, making its debut Thursday in the prime-time premiere to which America is no doubt glued, the CW’s “Vampire Diaries.”

Windows 7 will be breaking down the doors on October 22.

You remember Kylie. She’s the one who has a fish called Dorothy. She’s the one who e-mails a picture of said Dorothy to her family (well, not Dorothy’s family), having color-corrected it using the Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Well, now they’ve given Kylie the big one. Will she carry it off? Or will she falter like a one-armed juggler on “America’s Got Talent”?

Kylie tells us she’s found happy words, lots of them. Yes, they are happy, happy reviews of Windows 7–from such august names as, well, CNET. Kylie makes a slideshow so that we can clearly see just how everyone thinks Windows 7 is the not a blister like Vista. As the same tune that tells you there are very few seconds left in an NBA game–yes, Europe’s “The Final Countdown”–intones with gay abandon, Kylie says: “I’m a PC and more happy is coming.”

I, of course, am happy as long as everyone else is happy. Even if this ad feels splendidly safe rather than, well, ecstatic.

Rumors are also swirling that Netflix will be coming to the iPhone in the coming weeks. If that happens, the iPhone will become an even more attractive handset for those who want multimedia features. And both Motorola and Blockbuster would be facing an even more powerful juggernaut.

After inking a deal with Samsung last month to deliver movies directly to your home, Blockbuster announced on Tuesday that its OnDemand service is also coming to your mobile phone.

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That might be coming through Android-based devices. Motorola has already signed on to deliver Android phones. Blockbuster’s app might become a component in that strategy. But by competing with the iPhone and its many multimedia capabilities, Motorola and Blockbuster will be facing an uphill battle.

Apple’s handset also has iTunes, through which users can download their favorite films or television shows, then watch them on the iPhone while they’re away from home.

Blockbuster OnDemand, to be available on “select” Motorola mobile phones, will provide users with access to “thousands” of films, the company said in a statement. Users of the upcoming application, whose release date is yet to be announced, will also be able to choose films for home delivery or reserve titles for in-store pickup.

The iPhone features a YouTube app, providing users access to just about any video they want.

For its part, Motorola believes that offering Blockbuster movies on its handsets will help it regain some of its appeal. The company once sat atop the mobile-phone industry. Today, it’s a shadow of its former self. And it’s trying desperately to regain some market share.

According to Blockbuster, the Motorola deal is yet another element in its strategy of providing consumers with options to get its movies anywhere, at any time.

The SpringSource acquisition turns this “wisdom” on its head.

Such thinking, among other considerations, led Appcelerator to drop the GPL for Apache, and I believe we’ll see more. We just had a significant demonstration that you can make money with Apache-licensed software. SpringSource was doubling sales every year with Apache, and had a $420 million outcome as a result of both its sales and its community, which may be easier to come by with an Apache license than GPL, at least for commercial open-source projects.

But the big, head-turning deals? GNU General Public License (GPL). Every one of them.

Nearly every other big open-source acquisition, from JBoss ($350 million) to MySQL ($1 billion) to XenSource ($500 million), has involved the GPL. Even Zimbra ($350 million), while not GPL, fits the mold because it used an attribution clause with an MPL license that was designed to accomplish GPL-esque ambitions.

IBM already does this. So, frankly, does Microsoft (though still to a small degree). I think we’ll see a lot more.

It’s telling, for example, that InfoWorld’s attempts to interview Richard Stallman, founder of the GPL, were stymied by his “demand(ing) control of what (InfoWorld) published.” You don’t grow a community with that emphasis on control of the outcome.

The GPL has been prominent for good reason. It’s accepted wisdom in the commercial open-source crowd that it’s difficult to directly monetize Apache-licensed software, and that the GPL, what with its capitalist urge for control, is a better tool for the financially inclined.

Perhaps this is because our notion of “monetizing open source” has expanded, as Eric Barroca astutely argues. The GPL is great for dual-licensing and support-based businesses, but it’s not very adept at incorporating proprietary software in the way that IBM does, for example, or Day Software, as Kevin Cochrane notes.

IBM proved long ago that it’s possible to build billion-dollar businesses with Apache. But SpringSource is the first start-up to suggest that Apache isn’t simply a way for big companies to create complements to proprietary cores. Sometimes an Apache core is worth something, too. At least $420 million, by SpringSource’s reckoning.

As the open source market continues marching away from its roots–the lone developer who creates a useful product as a labor of love–appreciation for the idealism that lies at the GPL’s heart is diminishing. Businesses that view open source development as a path to a profitable future rather than as an altruistic mission are increasingly balking at what they view as the license’s excessively restrictive aspects concerning code improvements.

But it’s also a function of open source’s growing importance in the software ecosystem. As more money pours into open source–IDC projects $8.1 billion in open-source revenues by 2013–there will be increasing pressure to make it pay, as InfoWorld recently wrote:

The reason is that customers have never been as religious about open source as the vendors/communities that develop it, a lesson I was taught by a crowd of CTOs in New York and which is highlighted in a recent Enterprise Systems Journal article.

Yes, we’ve seen smaller acquisitions of open-source companies that rely on Apache-style licensing. IBM acquired Gluecode (Geronimo project), SpringSource bought Covalent (Tomcat), Oracle acquired Sleepycat (Sleepycat, BSD license), and there have likely been others that I’m simply not remembering.

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In other words, we’re getting beyond open source as a religious coda, the secret handshake that makes one part of The Club, and instead are focused on building businesses that provide greater transparency and value for customers. I suspect we’ll therefore see more Apache and less GPL going forward, with companies contributing significant parts of their product/business to open source, while delivering the rest via proprietary licensing.

Others and I have made much of VMware’s acquisition of SpringSource for $420 million, but one crucial point has been overlooked: this is the first big acquisition of a company that depends on the Apache license.

PS3 and PSP slump, Wii hammered too

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Today’s stories:

VoiceCentral iPhone developer frustrated with Apple

In the studio we have CNET News reporter and fellow news podcast host Erica Ogg to talk about new rumors that Apple will be making an appearance at next year’s Consumer Electronics Show. Are they true? Tune in to find out.

Dutch court tells The Pirate Bay to scram, or else

Motorola earnings jump despite lower sales

Apple and CES? Don’t bet on it

Researchers attack my iPhone via SMS

We also talk about frustrated iPhone developers with angry customers, Sony and Nintendo’s slumping video game console sales, and a new hack that lets someone take control of your iPhone with nothing more than a text message. Watch those thumbs.

Listen now:

Facebook erroneously sucking in Twitter updates

“It’s good to see you all, looking very good,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called from mission control near Moscow.

“Hello Charlie, yeah, we had a great trip up here and we’re happy to be on board, with good company,” Williams replied.

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté chats with family members back in Moscow after he boarded the International Space Station.

Suraev and Williams are replacing Padalka and Barratt, who plan to return to Earth with Laliberté on October 11. De Winne will take over as European Space Agency first commander in Padalka’s place.

Suraev’s father then congratulated his son on his first spaceflight, saying “all of us here are very happy that so far the mission is very successful…All the best to you, son, please do a good job there.”

They were welcomed aboard by outgoing commander Gennady Padalka, NASA flight engineer Michael Barratt, cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne, Canadian astronaut Robert Thirsk, and NASA astronaut Nicole Stott.

After leak checks, hatches between the two spacecraft were opened at 6:57 a.m., allowing Suraev, Williams and Laliberté, wearing a red clown nose, to float into the space station.

Laliberté, once again putting on his clown nose, told his family he was enjoying the trip and feeling “pretty good, actually. I’m adapting pretty good.” Then he joked, “But I am staying six months, though.”

“Well Jeff, Max and Guy, just want to let you all know we enjoyed a superb launch” on Wednesday, Bolden said. “Your families behaved well, they laughed all the way back from Baikonur to Moscow. You all should rest well and know they’re being taken care of.”

(Credit:
NASA TV)

A Canadian worth an estimated $2.5 billion, Laliberté is believed to have paid the Russians around $35 million to visit the space station as a tourist.

“You guys enjoy all your time together this week,” Gerstenmaier said. “Take good care of (the) space station.”

“We’ve had a fabulous time up here, the station is in great shape and really well supplied,” Barratt said. “We’re just really impressed that everything has worked so far with a couple of shuttles, the (Japanese) HTV (cargo ship), and everything worked on that thing. It was a beautiful spaceship and we’re really lucky to have such visitations up here and a lot of firsts. So we’re ready to come home, but it’s been a great time.”

With Suraev and Williams closely monitoring the final stages of the automated rendezvous, the small capsule’s docking mechanism engaged its counterpart at the aft port of the Zvezda command module at 4:35 a.m. EDT as the two spacecraft sailed high above northeast Kazakhstan. Hooks and latches then engaged to pull the Soyuz firmly into place.

The Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft carrying cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, NASA flight engineer Jeffrey Williams, and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté maneuvered to a smooth docking with the International Space Station early Friday to close out a two-day orbital chase.

While Bewkes may not see a need to merge with another big media company, he does see the importance of partnering with other players, such as Comcast. Earlier this year, the companies announced that they were testing service that allows Comcast cable subscribers to view online TV shows and movies from several Time Warner cable channels, such as TNT and TBS.

Time Warner knows a thing or two about failed mergers. In 2000, it acquired AOL in a stock deal that was valued at the time at about $160 billion. When the merger was first announced, it was hailed as a major milestone, a historic marriage of online media and print and broadcast media. But only a few years into the merger, it became apparent that the deal was doomed. By 2008, Time Warner had confirmed that it was dumping AOL altogether.

Bewkes, who was being interviewed Friday for The Atlantic’s First Draft of History conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., said big media mergers hardly ever work.

(Credit:
Time Warner)

Bewkes said expanding access to TV shows and movies online will actually grow the audience for its content.

Time Warner is not interested in a bidding war for NBC Universal, according to Jeff Bewkes, CEO of the media conglomerate.

“Some deals work in media, but most have not,” he added. “Over the past 10 to 15 years, there is a very low percentage of deals that have delivered what they would deliver, in terms of return on investment.”

Separately, Bewkes told Bloomberg that the company was not interested in selling its Time Inc. magazine unit.

“With HBO, we learned that putting shows on demand increased viewership,” he said. “So viewership goes up, and viewers get to watch (what) they want, when they want. And they get to select their favorite shows from their favorite channels.”

“There’s no real need or benefit for us to take on the various aspects of NBC,” Bewkes told Reuters in an interview at the conference. “We have a lot of good things, and so we don’t see that as particularly attractive.”

After the interview, which was streamed live online, Bewkes told a Reuters News service reporter why his company isn’t interested in bidding for NBC Universal. Earlier this week, reports surfaced that Comcast, the largest cable operator in the United States, is in talks to buy a controlling stake in the media company, owned by General Electric and Vivendi.

Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner chairman and CEO

Since taking the helm as CEO of Time Warner in 2008, Bewkes has tried to keep Time Warner focused on its core business of creating content. Instead of acquiring new properties and diversifying the business, Bewkes has made cuts. Besides spinning off AOL, he also shed the company of its cable division.

Other changes in the media business that Bewkes predicts includes the end of print magazines and newspapers. Instead, he envisions people using e-readers such as the Amazon.com Kindle to get access to periodicals. He said that soon, many manufacturers will have e-readers on the market and that these devices will be much more affordable for average consumers.

Simplify Photo’s media is view-only for now; though ideally the app would also add your iPhone photos to the network. You can swipe through images in the viewer or can play a slide show. As a perk, you can also save the picture locally to the iPhone. Unfortunately, and unlike the desktop viewer, Simplify Photo doesn’t yet rotate images by 90 degrees. The interface could also use some prettying up.

The initial syncing will take a few minutes. After that, you’ll see a list of shared computers. Tap to see options and tap again to view photos by time line, places (geotagged images show on a Google map), folders, events, albums, and faces, when available. You can also search for a specific photo in a search field.

When you want to listen to music from your computer or your friends’ collections on your iPhone, Simplify Music is one solution. On Wednesday, Simplify Media introduced a similar iPhone application called Simplify Photo that provides the same service for pictures rather than songs.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt/CNET)

After logging in, Simplify Photo for iPhone ($0.99) talks to the Simplify Media application on your desktop (download for Windows | Mac | Ubuntu). So long as you have the newest version installed (2.5), and the photo-sharing element selected (configure in the Options menu), you’ll be able to view the photos in your network. Networked images can include pictures from your multiple computers, and those that friends on your Simplify network have given permission to see.

However, Simplify Photo is functional for existing Simplify Media users looking to view friends’ pictures, or their own, remotely.

This story was updated at 3:58 p.m. PDT with comment from Google.

Already, Google says it is readying a replacement for the Google Voice app that will offer exactly the same features as the rejected app–except that it will take the form of a specialized, iPhone-shaped Web page. For all intents and purposes, it will behave exactly the same as the app would have; you can even install it as an icon on your Home screen.

It’s not clear if simply making Google Voice available as a Web app will change Apple’s mind, but there is precedent. Apple also rejected Google’s Latitude for the iPhone until it was remade as Web app.

In David Pogue’s Friday column regarding the ongoing saga of Apple and Google Voice, he reveals that Google has already found a loophole:

Google Voice is a free application that lets users assign a single number to ring their home, work, and cell phones, and also get voice mail as text transcriptions. There’s speculation that AT&T is behind the decision to block the application since Google Voice allows cheap international calls and free text messages.

A Google spokesperson did not say how close to completion the project might be, but reiterated a previous statement. “We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users, for example by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.”

Even though Apple prevented it from listing Google Voice on the iPhone App Store, Google is planning on retooling the application as a Web-based app, according to The New York Times.

Ostrom and Arjun Sambamoorthy, a research engineer at Viper Lab, also have developed another free tool called VideoJak that can be used to intercept video streams.

“These assessment tools can show you the impact of the vulnerability to your network,” he said.

LAS VEGAS–Showing off technology that James Bond would love, two researchers at Defcon on Friday demonstrated tools that allow people to eavesdrop on video conference calls and intercept surveillance camera video.

Companies can use encryption on the network server to protect against these attacks, but encryption is not enabled by default, Ostrom said.

“I want to ensure customers and clients that someone can’t steal movies off Flyxo,” En2Go’s system, he said.

Intercepting streaming video isn’t new, but UCSniff “makes it easier; it makes it plug and play,” Draper said.

John Draper, aka “Capt. Crunch,” said he is interested in using the UCSniff tool to test the systems at start-up En2Go where he is chief technology officer. En2Go is signing up with companies to deliver high-definition media, including movies and corporate videos, to desktops.

Attackers can replay video from the same stream or inject other video, like pornography, the researchers said.

This could be used to spy on people. For instance, an attacker could listen in on and record confidential conversations between an executive who is on a video conference call with another remote executive, according to Ostrom.

The free UCSniff tool, available in Linux and Windows versions, offers a slick graphical user interface for sniffing video, said Jason Ostrom, director of the Viper Lab at Sipera Systems. The tool basically tricks the voice-over-IP network carrying the video into sending the data packets to the attacker’s computer, he said.

Thieves planning to steal from a museum, for example, could use the tool to change live surveillance video being watched by a museum security guard so that it replayed previous video of the art, giving thieves time to steal art without detection.

An attacker needs to be in the same building as the victims to carry out the man-in-the-middle attacks over the network.