Skype, the popular conferencing application that lets you conference with others for free, has received an overhaul in version 4.0. A beta version was released yesterday. While in the past the interface has focused on making audio calls as easy as possible, this version shifts that focus to video calls.

Unfortunately, the beta is available for Windows only–Mac versions of Skype tend to lag. I’ll fire up my Windows partition sometime today to give this a try myself, but for now, if you use Windows (2000 or XP listed on the site; not sure about Vista support) download the Skype 4.0 Beta and give it a try.

If you’ve never used Skype before you’ll need to create an account–it’s free and painless. Computer-to-computer calls are free (the person you’re calling must also be a Skype user). You can also call to or from traditional telephone numbers through add-on services.