Skype co-founder reveals service's origins as WiFi-sharing network

Everyone and their mother knows Skype as a call and chat messenger, but it would've been a completely different beast if its founders' original plans came to fruition."The initial idea was to develop a WiFi-sharing network, and then provide various 'telecom-like' services on top of that, such as TV and telephony," explained founding engineer Jaan Tallinn in a Reddit AMA.

Tallin compared the project to Fon, but he and his co-founders hit a wall: they couldn't offer TV services because they were battling copyright lawsuits as developers of P2P file-sharing site Kazaa. The team also had trouble finding a decent VoIP product to attach to the service and wound up concocting their own technology instead. The new VoIP tech, which was supposed to be named Skyper until the team noticed Skyper.net was already taken, eventually became the focus of the service. It's an interesting look at the birth of the chat messenger we know today. Now if only we could figure out if the government has direct access to Skype's logs, we'd be set.

LG shows off a production model 55-inch curved OLED TV, starts shipping soon HD

LG announced in April that it's bringing a 55-inch curved OLED HDTV to market, and it appears that time is almost here. According to the machine translated press release, shipments of the 15 million won ($13,500) display will start in a few days. Plant staff are pictured around one of the first mass produced 55EA9800 TVs, which weigh just 17kg and have a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) frame. We first got our eyes on the screens at CES, with their unusual shape that LG says helps keep all parts of the screen an equal distance from the viewer -- check out a few more pics in the gallery below.

Mobile Miscellany: week of June 3rd, 2013 Mobile

If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought additional peeks at the purported Nokia EOS cameraphone, leaked screenshots of the BlackBerry OS 10.2 update and the arrival of a new budget smartphone from Huawei in the UK. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore all that's happening in the mobile world for this week of June 3rd, 2013.
NOKIA EOS SURFACES AGAIN IN LEAKED PHOTOS



As anticipation mounts for Nokia's Windows Phone successor to the 41-megapixel 808 PureView, additional photos have surfaced of the device in question -- dubbed the Nokia EOS -- courtesy of a hands-on from ViziLeaks. We've already come across shots of the cameraphone's casing, along with a video that shows its mechanical shutter in action, but a multi-angle tour reveals interesting tidbits such as the phone's combo xenon and LED flash setup, support for wireless charging and the ability to play nicely with lanyards. A micro-SIM slot is also visible, which reinforces ViziLeaks'claim that the phone will lack a removable battery. Now that images of the purported Galaxy S 4 Zoom have also surfaced, it certainly puts the additional bulk of Nokia's cameraphone in perspective. [ViziLeaks]

MORE BLACKBERRY OS 10.2 SCREENSHOTS EMERGE



Many BlackBerry users are still waiting for their taste of the OS 10.1 rollout, but a new handful of BlackBerry OS 10.2.0.93 screenshots and a video tour are now on the scene, giving audiences another tease of what's to come. We've previously heard that unicode emojis and level 1 email notifications were on deck in the upcoming revision, but can now see integration with BBM Channels, a refined loading symbol and a look at the multiple alarms feature. They're certainly incremental improvements, but it's always fun to get a sneak peek at what's in store. [N4BB, Kris Simundson (YouTube)]

HUAWEI ASCEND Y300 ARRIVES AT CARPHONE WAREHOUSE



Following the debut of the Ascend Y210 at TalkTalk, Huawei has introduced a new budget smartphone to British consumers with the Ascend Y300 at Carphone Warehouse. The Android 4.1 handset is available now for £69.95 outright, which combines a 4-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display, a dual-core 1GHz Snapdragon S4 and a 5-megapixel camera. A 1,730mAh battery and expandable storage are also in the mix, and while the smartphone isn't likely to turn heads, it's certainly easier on the wallet. [Carphone Warehouse]
OTHER RANDOM TIDBITS
The Samsung Galaxy S III has been announced for arrival at Boost Mobile on June 12th for $399. Upon arrival, it'll be one of the carrier's few LTE smartphones. [BusinessWire]
T-Mobile welcomed the LTE version of the Galaxy S III into its lineup this week, where it can be purchased for $550 outright or $70 with a two-year payment plan of $20 per month. [Android Central]
Google Hangouts was updated to resolve a glitch that'd caused some users to receive multiple notifications for a message. [Google Play]
SoundHound is now available in BlackBerry World for BB10 devices. [N4BB]
Wind Mobile has introduced the Huawei Ascend W1, a Windows Phone 8 device that's available for free on the $40 WINDtab plan and the BlackBerry Q10, which sells for as little as $349 on contract. [MobileSyrup 1, 2]
A smartphone that's said to be the ZTE Mustang for AT&T was outed with a lightly-skinned interface that resembles stock Android. [@evleaks (Twitter)]

The NSA's Boundless Informant: a data mining tool that maps collected intelligence

Leaks, denials and declassifications aside, one thing has been clear recently: the National Security Agency takes in a lot of data -- allegedly collecting call logs, internet records and even Facebook photos from folks all over the world. So, how does the outfit handle all this data? With custom software, of course. According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the NSA sorts through its treasure-trove of intelligence with a tool called Boundless Informant, data mining software that helps the NSA sort out how closely they're monitoring a given part of the world.

According to the documents, Boundless Informant reportedly "allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country." A screenshot found byThe Guardian shows this in action, highlighting over two billion reports in the United States alone. According to the outlet, the screenshot also outs the program's heaviest hitters: in March of 2013, Boundless Informant boasted 14 billion reports from Iran, 13.5 billion from Pakistan and 12.7 billion from Jordan. We've got to hand it to the NSA -- we may not like what it's up to, but at least it's organized.