Skype Adds Free Group Video Calling to Its Modern Windows App

Microsoft on Tuesday has added free group calling feature to its Skype app for modern Windows, also meant for Windows tablets and two-in-one hybrids. The app is supported to Windows 8.1 devices.

With the updated Skype modern Windows app, users will be able to call up to 10 people for free. Earlier the feature was only available to Skype Premium subscribers.

"We've found that most group calls take place between three or four participants. When building the group video calling experience for modern Windows, we optimized so that the three most talkative people - plus yourself - are visible at the same time," said company on its blog.

In April, the company had made Skype's group video calling feature free for users on Windows, Mac, and Xbox One. Since then the Microsoft says it has "seen a fantastic four fold increase" in the user base for this feature.

Similar to Google Hangouts, in a group video call in Skype, the video of a person will show up as they start to speak. Users can also double click on a particular chat person's video to see it in full screen mode. Additionally, Skype users can also resize the video chat window for multitasking.

Last month, Microsoft had also updated Skype for Windows Phone 8.1 devices to add support for Cortana. As Coranta support is limited to US only the feature is also limited as yet. Microsoft will soon extend Cortana support to China and the UK.

The new version 2.19 of the Skype app for Windows Phone 8.1 also adds email, texts and Skype updates to the Action Center. Apart from this, the new version supports 51 languages, up from 19.