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One thing that I’ve been rather passionate about lately is the idea of video calling or video IM, specifically from my phone. I’m in the United States, which means that the only way I can get this is by using one of AT&T’s branded phones, and paying an additional fee, on top of the unlimited 3G that I already pay for. With that system, I also cannot call a PC, either, and can only call other AT&T branded phones that have the feature. Too many restrictions, that’s what I say.

A few weeks ago, I caught this thread at HowardForums for an app called OctroTalk. It’s essentially a SIP/Jabber application for your phone, and it allows you to connect to other SIP/Jabber networks, such as Gtalk, Nokia Chat, etc. They advertised that it also supported video calling, and I had to see this to believe it.

I’m sure you need to see it to believe it, too, so here’s the video:

As you can see, while it’s not crystal clear, by any means, it most definitely is video calling/IM from my Nokia N95-3 to my laptop, using AT&T’s 3G network (WiFi works, too). You can also use it for IM only, if you wish, or a voice call. There are three clients, one for Windows Mobile, one for Windows-based computers, and finally, the S60 beta client. At this time, you need to submit your IMEI, so that it can be added to the certificate for the application, but hopefully the team at Octro will soon be able to simply offer a completely Symbian Signed S60 client. The fact is, it works, and it’s the first S60 video calling/IM client that I’ve seen on the market.

Once you have the client, you’ll need to create a new Octro.net Jabber account, which you can do directly from the client. Simply set your screen up like this (obviously using your own username and password).

Major props to the team at Octro.

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