Skype, friend of video podcasters and those with people they have to talk to overseas but have no money, is now part of the mighty Microsoft mothership.  The $8.5 billion dollar deal is all cold hard cash.

MS says the plan is to get Skype technology into everything from Xbox to Kinect to Windows Phone, which could be an answer to Apple's Facetime.

If you're a fan of corporate press conferences, here's a link to video of the announcement.

"...it's maintaining a database of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers around your current location, some of which may be located more than one hundred miles away from your iPhone, to help your iPhone rapidly and accurately calculate its location when requested."

Still, that information was not encrypted, and that made people uneasy.  So there's a new iOS update available that:
 
"....reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone, ceases backing up this cache, and deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off."

As an iPhone user, the news of an iOS update isn't exactly the most exciting news because that means dealing with the various hoops you have to jump through using iTunes.  However, that could soon change for some users.  9to5Mac reports Apple is considering over-the-air updates for at least the Verizon iPhone in the future.  They also speculate that could be yet another sign of a cloud-based backup system.



iOS OTA mockup from BlogsDNA