Voice chat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Voice chat is a modern form of communication used on the Internet. The means of communicating with voice chat is through any of the messengers, mainly Yahoo! Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger or Windows Live Messenger. Voice chat has led to a significant increase in distant communications where two or more people from opposite ends of the world can talk almost free of cost.
Rocket Messenger and AOL were among the first to offer voice chat facilities. They were followed by Paltalk which became a quick hit. Later Yahoo! Messenger became the most dominant voice chat service as it provided unique features. These included individual voice chat with another person, as well as conference call type voice chat facilities categorized in Yahoo! Rooms.
Many video games with online multiplayer allow players to communicate via voice chatting. In 2001, Sony released the Network adapter for their PlayStation 2 video game console, which allowed voice chatting with a headset. In 2002, Microsoft launched the Xbox Live service, which supports voice chatting through a headset bundled with the Xbox 360 premium package and the official starter kit. In 2005, Nintendo launched the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, an online multiplayer service for both the Nintendo DS and for the Wii. In March 2006, Metroid Prime Hunters was released, making it the first game to allow voice chatting through the Nintendo DS's microphone. Also, Nintendo released a Nintendo DS headset for voice chat alongside the release of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl.
[edit] See also
- VoIP or Voice over IP for an overview of all technologies available.
- Ekiga: a stable Linux program and has a beta version available on Windows and it is Free Software in the GNU General Public License sense of the word (webcam support).
- Openwengo with their WengoPhone application that works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and it is Free Software
- Mumble is an open source voice chat for gamers much like Ventrilo or TeamSpeak but with quality similar to Skype; because it's open source, it doesn't have any restrictions or licensing fees.
- Skype whose most recent version works on Windows, but they also maintain Mac OS X, Linux and Pocket PC versions (webcam support on Windows 2000, XP and Vista, not Windows Me and older)
- TeamSpeak is one of the most popular voice chat applications for gamers, currently competing with Ventrilo
- Ventrilo is similar to TeamSpeak in popularity, but the free server isn't nearly as flexible because of the 8 player limit
- Gizmo which uses open standards and runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (can record conversations, has webcam support)
- Yahoo! Voice (webcam support)
- Windows Live Messenger (formerly known as MSN Messenger, has webcam support)
- Google Talk (no webcam)
- Comparison of VoIP software
- List of commercial voice over IP network providers
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