Eventually, cooperation and well-meaning openness can cost a company. After a long time of allowing third party IM systems to integrate with its IM software, Yahoo is closing the door on third-party IM systems within its network, while at the same time, considering a Trillian-style clone.

Yahoo is mirroring a move by Microsoft to block unauthorized IM clients from using its .NET messenger network. Yahoo has announced that unauthorized clients will no longer have access after Sept. 24th.

The means for closing out the unauthorized users is a mandatory upgrade issued by the web company. Users must install the update before September 24th, or be termed out of the IM system. The company said that most users have already upgraded and that the older legacy versions were the ones being used by unauthorized users.
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Apple was looking to improve on their audio and video by upgrading their iChat client, that is compatible to the AOL instant messaging.

The previous day Apple had released an improved version of the IM client, which included audio and video capabilities that were above the IM networks.Those features were included in instant messaging based on ZeroConf, which was in iChat since it was initially released.The new release was available as a preview that was limited by time and was scheduled to be shipped with OSX10.3″panther.

Connections were by plugging a Firewire video camera so that signaling to others was possible through the iChat buddy list, their form of chatting.It was a requirement that for the conversation to take place, a 56k modem was needed for audio and for video a broadband connection was needed.

Steve Jobs, then the Chief Executive for Apple had pointed out that his aim was to enable other people to experience video conferencing. Also, he said that he hoped to strengthen video chatting by linking it into instant messaging.Again he said that this platform would be most useful at work, in education, and even when communicating with family and friends.
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In spite of the hard-core technical and Internet-centric ethos typically associated with the Linux community, the open-source OS isn’t known for having particularly good instant messaging clients.

That could be changing, however. As Linux is steadily winning favor in the workplace, a crowd of up-and-coming third-party IM clients are growing in popularity — some of which sport features that users of other OSes ought to envy.

Here, then, is a rundown of the most popular IM clients for Linux. Most of these applications are for Gnome or KDE, and typically are supported by the most common Linux distributions.

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America Online has asked the Federal Communications Commission to drop a two-year-old restriction on the media conglomerate’s development of broadband-based video instant messaging and other advanced services.

While signing off on the America Online-Time Warner merger in 2001, the FCC had decided that the combined company could hurt competition by using its vast market share in the proprietary IM space to catapult itself to a monopolistic position in advanced, high-speed, IM-based services — such as videoconferencing.

But on Wednesday, America Online submitted a petition to the FCC asking that it be excused from the restriction on the basis of “materially changed circumstances” since the commission’s January 2001 ruling.
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A new state law in California intends to stop the spread of spam, or unsolicited commercial messages, from the e-mail box to the mobile realm, before it gets to be a problem. But as of now, enforcement of the law will end up on the shoulders of mobile users.

California Governor Gray Davis (D) on Thursday signed legislation that prohibits unwanted and unsolicited text advertisements messages to owners of wireless phones, pagers and personal-digital assistants (PDAs) equipped to receive messages. “Wireless communication is an emerging technology,” Davis said in a statement. “We are acting now to prevent spam text messaging from spinning out of control like spam e-mail has.”

The bill does not provide for any direct fines or penalties against companies that spam mobile users, according to a spokesperson from the office of Assemblymember Tim Leslie (R-Tahoe City), who sponsored the bill. Instead, those people who receive mobile spam will be able to sue the sender to recoup the money spent to receive each unwanted message under an existing state unfair business practices law.

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