Tonight out at the ShowStoppers event at Macworld in San Francisco, Skype announced the new 2.8 Beta for Mac OS X. The new version will apparently be available for download tomorrow, January 6, 2009, from Skype’s website.

Here’s the quick list of what Skype notes is in this release:

• Skype Access
• Screen Sharing
• Improved chat management: ability to sort chats in the drawer and set priorities to chats
• Quick Add: much easier to add people to chats
• Mood message chat: mood message updates from your friends as chat messages
• Large avatars: 256×256 pixels
• Hidden avatars in incoming contact requests
• Ability to add your own notes to contacts

Skype Access is a worldwide, pay-per-minute WiFi hotspot access service provided by Boingo Wireless and enabled by Skype. Skype Access allows Skype users to connect to any of the more than 100,000 Boingo WiFi hotspots worldwide – including airports, hotels, cafes and metropolitan hot zones – with a single click, and to pay per minute only for what they use with Skype Credit.

The price to use Skype Access to connect to a Boingo WiFi hotspot is based on a flat, global rate of $0.19/€0.14 per minute (€0.16/$0.22 incl. VAT), which will vary based on currency. There are no connection fees or monthly charges for Skype Access.

The new screen sharing function in Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac enables you to show others something you are working on or to explain how to do something. Similar to a Skype video call, it works by capturing, encrypting and transferring the content of your screen in real-time to the person you are sharing your screen with. Once there, the content is decrypted and shown to the other person on their screen. If you are using Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, you are also able to share your screen with Skype for Windows and Skype for Linux users, but cannot see theirs (yet).

Tomorrow, I will download the test out Skype 2.8 Beta for Mac, if all goes according to plan at Skype.

written by Daniel Brusilovsky