How does Skype work?

Skype is Danish for a little storytelling sprite that lives in the eaves of houses. When you download a Skype app it comes with its own skypes that live in your device. Skypes are sleepy so the key innovation in the Skype app is keeping the sprites awake; the network doesn’t work unless your app is running.

As you type into the Skype software, a little skype in your machine grabs it and sends it to the skype village in Redmond, Washington, where cheerful skypes dust it off, check it for evil links, and pass it on to the skypes on your friend’s device.

When you call another person using Skype, you’re really relaying what you say through the skypes. The skype on your device hears what you say, and mimics it to the skype on the other device, who repeats it almost exactly the way you said it. This usually works splendidly. Little skypes are great mimics and pride themselves on getting their impression of you just right. Sometimes they goof, or they have to clear their throat or do something else that interferes. So you may have your call interrupted if they have to go to the toilet or something.

Conference calls are trickier than regular Skype calls. Your skype mimics your voice to skypes in the skype village auditorium in Redmond. There, skypes representing all of the callers on the conference call sing each caller’s part. And listeners re-sing what they heard back down the line, so everyone can hear everything that happened in the conference.

Video calls take more out of skypes. When you start a video chat, thirty skypes take pictures of you, one after the other, each taking their photo and wishing it to a skype at the other end of the call. That skype collects the incoming pictures, makes sure they’re in order, then hands them out to thirty nearby skypes to show to the other person, one after the other, just like they were taken on your end of the call.

Q. Are skypes related to smurfs?
A. Perhaps. Skype blue (#12A5F4) is smurfy, and they are small, and most people can’t see them.

Q. How secure is the skype network?
A. The skypes are born gossips, so I wouldn’t count on absolute privacy.

Q. How does Cortana work with Skype?
A. The daemon Cortana is a Skype whisperer. Unleashed, its cold voice echoes among the skypes, spreading rumor, doing odd tasks, ever lurking to unknown ends.

Does that answer your question?