By Grant Shepherd

SYDNEY: It was revealed at CES that Panasonic and LG formed a partnership with Skype to embed its services in a range of their HD TV panels. Samsung has now also jumped on board with its new LED 7000 and 8000 series televisions.

The partnership with Skype will allow Samsung’s customers to make video and voice calls directly through their TVs. Samsung panels integrated with the new software are expected to ship worldwide in the first half of 2010.

“Our consumers want their televisions to be a ‘one-stop shop’ for entertainment and communication delivered with the highest quality,” said Kevin Kyungshik Lee, vice president of visual display at Samsung Electronics.

“Including Skype on our TVs meets that expectation perfectly. We’re thrilled that Samsung’s consumers can now use our TVs to experience the rich video and voice communication that hundreds of millions of Skype users worldwide enjoy.”

If consumers wish to make voice calls and video calls on the new units, they can purchase a low-profile FREETALK TV camera for Samsung, which is provided by In Store Solutions. This will be available at www.skype.com/store.

“Increasingly Skype users want to communicate away from their computers, particularly when it comes to video calling,” said Jonathan Christensen, general manager of platform at Skype.

“Thanks to Samsung, Skype is helping even more friends and families benefit from the meaningful connections that Skype's video and voice calling provides.”

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