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Xbox One will arrive with six months of free Skype calls -- if you have an Xbox Live membership
Alongside the kind of high-end features that you'd expect to find on a Microsoft app on a Microsoft console (multitasking, wide-view camera with auto-zoom and pan), the company's gone so far as to give you six full months of calling gratis... alongside your Xbox Live subscription. So, it may not be completely free, but we're hoping this next-gen battle of one-upmanship keeps throwing up freebies.
Imo offers free voice calling for iOS users
The imo instant messenger app has been updated to add voice calls. The app can communicate with your friends on any almost IM network, including Facebook Chat, Google Talk, Skype, MSN, ICQ/AIM and more. With this latest update the app adds high quality voice calls. To place a call, you tap a contact's name, and you are connected. Callers can contact other imo users on iOS or on Android. There's a video tutorial on the web. imo requires a sign up, either through imo, or it can work with one of your existing social network logins. The app works on the iPhone and iPod touch and requires iOS 3.1 or later. There is a separate iPad app but the newest voice feature has not yet been offered for the iPad. imo has a good following and generally positive reviews. This update should add to its popularity.
Gmail's free voice calls will be available through all of 2011, still only in the US
While the rest of the world has yet to taste the sweet elixir of free voice calls from its email supplier, US-based Gmailers are having their fun extended for a whole new year. Back in August, Google made it possible to dial up voice numbers in the US and Canada for free, and now, in the true holiday spirit of keeping users happy and advertising dollars flowing, Google promises to keep that service free through all of 2011. And if it decides to extend it into 2012, we could have free calls until the end of the world.
Project Gizmo makes calls free, sorta
Project Gizmo, the free cross platform VoIP client, has announced that you can now make free calls from Gizmo to landlines and mobile phones in 60 countries (with some limitations, of course). I have long enjoyed Project Gizmo, so this is welcome news, however, free in this case isn't as free as one might think.You can only call landlines and mobile phones of people who have a Project Gizmo account and are 'active users,' so there goes my free calls to my mother ('sorry, Mom, I would have called but Gizmo wouldn't let me!'). This is a ploy to get more people registered for Project Gizmo, and I say more power to them but it strikes me as kind of lame. What think you, oh dear TUAW readers?
Efonica VoIP service supports dial-up too
Fusion Telecommunications of Dubai has just entered the already crowded VoIP market with a beta version of its SIP-powered Efonica service. Registered users can chat amongst one another for free using standard telephones connected to an analog phone adapter or dial POTS lines on the cheap, with calls to the US from other countries costing under two cents a minute. What sets Efonica apart from some of the other services out there is its claimed ability to work even on dial-up connections -- still a rarity these days -- allowing people in areas with low broadband penetration to get in on all the fun offered by Internet telephony. Although the basic version of the service is free, calls to landlines or cellphones and voicemail functionality require signing up for the Efonica Plus option, which will avaiable at the end of the public beta test in about two months.[Via Personal Tech Pipeline]
Free domestic out calls with Skype
Speaking of free stuff, Skype has announced that you can now place free calls from Skype to a mobile or land line. It only lasts until the end of the year and it only covers calls in the US and Canada, but it is still very cool. Couple this with the Universal client and you're set to call people from your MacBook Pro willy nilly for the next few months.Thanks to everyone who sent this in.
