[tomsaffell]

Here's a suggested "work-around" (if you can call it that) - it's far from ideal...

In actionscript you can:

  detect whether there are webcams present on the system
  examine the pixels output by the webcam

So you could add some logic along the lines of:

  if (hasWebcam && imageFromWebCamIsAllBlack){
     showMessage([pick your own verbiage] + ' Skype v5')
  }

Not ideal, but maybe better than nothing? Beware - the list of cameras reported to Flash often includes junk (e.g. 'Google Camera Adapter 1', and more on Mac), so you need to filter those from your list. Happy to give HN contributors some pointers on how to do that, for free. My Skype handle is my HN user name with a dot inserted in the obvious place.