Soon, you could be able to watch your favorite shows with a friend — even if they're across the country. Thanks to a “strategic partnership” between Comcast and Skype, the cable company’s subscribers will soon be able to video chat from their TV sets, reports the New York Times.
Comcast said that it would conduct a trial of the new Skype-on-TV service this year and plans to make it widely available to customers sometime in 2012, although the company hasn’t released pricing details. For customers who use Comcast’s phone service, their address books could possibly be moved into the new Skype service, says the NYT, and Comcast could even allow customers to chat and message while watching television.
The cable company will provide Skype-on-TV users with a video camera to hook up to their television sets, but with some televisions already incorporating Skype, the cameras won’t be necessary for everyone. It will also be possible to switch conversations from one screen to another—for instance, from a TV to tablet or smartphone to laptop. Skype, which was recently acquired by Microsoft, that it has other plans in the works to further integrate the video conferencing service into users’ homes.
