Tonight I used Skype to interview a summer intern candidate for Aperio.  He was in India.  Worked perfectly; voice quality was excellent, although there was a slight delay.  We spoke for 30 minutes and it cost 5 EUR ($7).  If he had Skype too, it would have cost 0 EUR ($0).  Awesome. 

[Later: Called my Mom who is visiting friends in Holland tonight.  Also with Skype.  Another perfect call.  Cost was .23 EUR ($.40).  Awesome.]

PocketFactory reviews the new Palm LiveDrive.  The 4GB hard drive seems like an inflection point; from now on PDAs will have hard drives, it seems, and it is only a matter of time before there's a Treo which has one, too.  This device is big for a PDA, and it has a big screen.  Too big for me now, I'm too used to my Treo 600, after having had a Handspring Visor for a while.  Here's the most thought-provoking part: "But LifeDrive isn’t just about photos and digital slideshows.  It handles video as well.  A new built-in app called Camera Companion can import video files and images from digital cameras, using the SD card slot."  So we have a 4GB hard drive and it can play movies.  Will this be a videoPod?  We'll see.  I happen to agree with those who think people consume video differently from the way they consume audio ("those people" includes Steve Jobs). 

Gizmodo reports xBox 360 officially supports Media Center.  Not a well kept secret, but the cat is now fully out of the bag; this is a key element of Microsoft's strategy for the future.  I actually think this is how people will consume video.  And I expect a Mac Mini -based home media center from Apple later this year.  Along with an online video store.  Will the Apple and MS machines be compatible.  No.  Will that be a problem?  No. 

Release 1.0: Network TV signs off.  Networked TV logs on.  Yep. 

Matt Haughey comments on the NYTimes new paywall: "The first thought that came into my head after hearing The New York Times will be adding paid subscription walls to their content was that Dave Winer just totally sealed the win on his bet."  The bet in question: in 2007, which will be more authoritative [on the issues of the day], blogs or the NYTimes?  This bet already seems sealed to me :)  [ via Dave Winer ] 

P.S. Glenn Reynolds comments "there's a subscriber born every minute".  Heh.  Indeed.

Wired News: The Beeb shall inherit the Earth.  "America's entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe's biggest broadcasters -- the BBC -- is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it."  [ via Tom Coates ] 

Want to see some awesome photoshopmanship?  Check out the Worth 1000 contest to remix Star Wars cliches.  Wow.  [ via Cory Doctorow ] 

Charles Miller finds Discord in Harmony.  "The best way to start an open source project is with code. Working code."  That's the best way to start any project.  Just do it.  You can't overthink programming, sometimes you just have to start typing stuff, knowing you're going to change it all later.  [ via Jeff Atwood ] 

Want to see something lame?  Check out today's auto-update from Microsoft for Windows XP Professional.  It installed a new version of the Windows Installer.  Only.  No other updates, just a new installer.  Oh, and then it wanted to reboot!   

{ Coincidentally, Jeff Atwood just posted about XP's annoying update nagging: "You get two choices-- Restart Now, or Restart Later".  The solution is to turn off the Automatic Updates service, but yeah, this is annoying... }