Over the past couple of weeks I have discovered a couple of "changes" that did not show up in the Release Notes for all the recent Skype 3.0 and Skype 3.1 for Windows upgrades.

Conference Calls: a year ago Skype announced that, if you had the then new Intel Core Duo processor, the Skype client would support conference calls with up to 10 participants instead of the originally supported five participant limit. With the release of Skype 3.0 last December the processor restriction has been lifted. However, one would advise using PC's with either Core Duo or other fast (say, >1.5MHz) processors should you wish to host a conference call with more than five participants. For conference calls involving between 10 and 500 participants check out HighSpeedConferencing.com.

Video out of beta: with the release of Skype 3.1 for Windows, video calling is no longer in beta. Check Tools | Options | Video and you will find the word "beta" omitted. We have certainly been experiencing excellent quality Skype video during some demonstrations here at CeBit 2007.

Bottom line: upgrading to Skype 3.1 will ensure you are able to take full advantage of these changes.

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