With all that’s going on out there, you might not have noticed a bit o’ news wot’s bumped into our lives. And that would be?
Billy at the window is dumping Skype come May.
Now that’s a bit o’ kit I started using back in the day when younger and had a habit of trying anything new relating to ‘puters. Am I right in saying it was
just for messages back then as ‘smart’ phones weren’t a thing.
Time passed, my little nest of vipers ended up over here and liked to keep in touch with her family in a land far, far away. Excuse my memory, but this was costing something
like four pounds a minute until, after a little research I discovered how cheap - four pence a minute? - international calls were using Skype. It’s served us well for many a long year. Yes, I started using it for phone
calls as well.
Wot to do now? With news of the demise of Skype I did an Interweb search on the off-chance there’s some software equivalent to Skype out there now. Result? Ma heed’s spinning with the dizzying
number of bits o’ kit there are out there.
So far, many are disregarded as they require the person called to be running the same bit o’ kit and be online so the search/research continues with, at time of typing,
two I keep going back to. And those would be Yolla and Talk360. But the ‘search’ continues. As, at my age, does spinning head syndrome...
Quote; Steven Spielberg.
“Technology can be our best friend, and technology can also be the biggest party pooper of our lives. It interrupts our own story, interrupts our ability to have a thought or a daydream, to imagine something wonderful, because we're too busy bridging the walk from the cafeteria back to the office on the cell phone.”
6 comments:
My rather extensive family, scattered to the four winds, keeps in touch with WhatsApp video calls - a simple app on a smart phone. We haven't used Skype for a decade.
Cheers Yet Another Chris
Another Chris,
These calls will be to old folk with no Internet, just a phone. I've just run into another I'm checking out - 4p a minute; it says... Tesco International
https://www.tescointernationalcalling.com/#app
The other day my bowls club informed me that they are now using What's app for team sheets and selection. Cue my instant panic! Before I could get in touch with Hon Sec an email (I can do email) arrived informing me that paper sheets and team selection will still be put on the notice board. Apparently there were so many old duffers like me who melted Hon Secs telephone wires complaining. No wonder our glorious leaders want rid of us geriatrics, they'll never get us to go digital. Unless it's two digits.
Andy5759,
When you pause and consider how communicating one with the other has changed during our lifetime, it’s quote amazing is it not? After reading your comment I tried to remember the last time I hand wrote, or received, a hand written letter. No memory of such as it was so very many years ago. Wot’s next to go? Pens and pencils?
Funnily enough I had much the same thought as I wrote the comment. Think of all those hours at school learning how to lay out a letter. Writing your own name and address top right. Dear Sir or Madam, as the case may be. Short paragraphs. Finishing with the appropriate sincerely or faithfully. Oh, and we were told to always use both sides of the paper rather than two sheets. I think young people will struggle to do all that, assuming that they can read, write and spell.
Andy 5759,
Spot on and I feel quietly confident that you, like me, still do as you describe in Email. Sadly, I even get some official Email that starts with Hi.
Don’t you hate that Email you may get, composed on a smartphone, that end with the ‘signature’ Sent from my iPhone or similar... Mentioning Smartphones, why teach the young to read, write and spell? Hay kids, AI has your back - so what could possibly go wrong?
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