Build 70 is now available. Pick up your computer headset and start calling your dearest friends… for bug hunting! Over 100 bugs were fixed in Build 70, and we’ve introduced MSN voice calls as well. As with Yahoo voice calls, you may notice delays and call lag with MSN calls; we are aware of this issue and will be addressing it once we finish our audio implementations across the board. For now, please ensure that calls are connecting successfully. Enjoy the build!

Build 69 is a bugfix build; auto-update should notify you shortly. We continue to push towards finalization of all remaining required features as we simultaneously fix a handful of bugs here and there. Enjoy your weekends!

As we missed last week’s build, this week we will present not just one, but two new features! Build 68 features a revamped Voice Call backend and frontend, as well as a fully-featured Chat Views system that allows you to use more than bubbles for your chat.

Auto-update should be back on-line this week.  Testers should receive automatic notification soon after the publishing of this post.

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There will be no build today. We are still working on audio/video and will have something to announce next week! We are working extra hard to ensure near-perfect call completion rates whenever possible. The protocols and technology behind AV conferencing have improved quite a bit since our last effort and we’re taking full advantage of new and innovative ways to poke holes through restrictive firewalls, relay media when necessary, etc.

Next week, your job as testers will be to successfully start a conference and let us know if you encounter any problems along the way. The full scope of 3.1’s feature set (emotiblips, time travel, etc) will not be focused on until we are confident that the actual guts of the conferencing code is as perfect as it can be.

Enjoy the weekend, and happy new year!