WiFi Phone Announced 212
igrp writes "Zyxel just announced its Prestige 2000W VoIP Wi-Fi Cordless Phone. It's designed to work with 802.11b networks, implements QoS and IP-to-IP call functionality and uses 128-bit WEP encryption. It also scans for 'available APs in [the] hand set's environment'. War driving just became a whole lot more interesting."
end of wiring (Score:3, Interesting)
Can't buy (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Dont touch those phones! (Score:4, Interesting)
MMmmmmm radiation (Score:5, Interesting)
RF Safe [sartests.com]
"According to Dr. Brown, the real danger is the proximity to the transmitter because the transmitter sends out the waves that could heat up human tissue if close enough to the antenna. "
"Moving from one inch away to only one foot away from the Wi-Fi antenna weakens the signal by a factor of 100. So unless you're hugging the antenna, or leaning against it, you're being exposed to very little radiation."
D'oh... Better have a "hands free" option so that I can place the transmitter next to my genitals instead of near to my head.
Crypto software. (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia 9500 communicator (Score:3, Interesting)
Triple band, edge, GPRS, bluetooth, infrared, wifi, qwerty keyboard,
browser, organiser, telnet, ssh, plays mp3s, 80MB memory, camera, 640x200 colour screen.
A highly desirably toy, though judging by previous communicators there will be a dozen firmware updates and you will need the extended warranty
because they often break.
thank you VoIP gods! (Score:3, Interesting)
NAT (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, but how do you use it at starbucks? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:War driving attention span (Score:3, Interesting)
I dunno, myself and one of my friends have killed many a hours on multiple outings doing it. We always fall into the "Just X more signals"-trap. I guess its better with a friend, as I can see doing it by myself would be rather boring.
Of course, I'm a 'spark' (one who likes to go to fires) so I'm used to the whole cruising around waiting for a call to come over the fire radio.
Re:War driving attention span (Score:5, Interesting)
Not forgetting to mention that when I get bored I can just whip out the lappy and recompile my kernel for fun...
I can only just begin to imagine how much fun and how useful this new device is going to be for me.
Re:end of wiring (Score:3, Interesting)
So far the only solutions that I have seen to provide power to a device, without running wires to it are induction platforms that require that the device being powered be placed "on" the induction platform. This may be OK if you want to use it as a place to drop and charge your Cell phone, MP3 player, PDA, Laptop, whatever else has batteries that need to be charged, but probably isn't going to help with the TV, Refrigerator, or Microwave Oven.
-Rusty
Re:end of wiring (Score:2, Interesting)
good point.
In the end it is always wired. for the WiFi/cell phone/TV/cordless phone the antenna (a wire, usually) feeds more wires, which run to a CPU, that runs a wire to the Analog device (be it speaker/crt/flat panel...)
I get satalite TV, it runs via wire to all the TV's. I got a WiFi Access,point but my PC's are wired eithernet together (Wifi for laptop/pda's).
In my ideal neighborhood, not connected to the Power Grid but solar, I would wire my neighborhood houses together, so I could get some momentary suplemental power, without battery losses from those people, out of town,etc with fully charged batterys, and some special needs juice.
(also dense neighboorhoods, would need more than their rooftops with solar panels, so a central power unit, especially for sunless days...)
but not a nation-wide grid 3* connected, running giga watts over mega volt lines, at least not so large as to have to cover household use also.
re: end of wiring (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds good on first read... (Score:5, Interesting)
o 802.11b network (2 APs, 4 clients)
o Cordless phone
o X10 video camera (for baby monitoring)
o Microwave oven
The X10 camera goes mostly unused nowadays due to interference from the APs. The telephone has some very annoying pops and clicks when the microwave is in use. I'd be hard-pressed to shell out many buckazoids for one of these until I was certain it worked better than my existing phone that's using that spectrum.
Assuming there's enough recovery for corrupted packets when interference is occurring (tried to read the article to get more info, but can't get to the site as usual), I can see where it might work better than my existing phone in the presence of such interference. But I won't be in a big hurry to go buy one just yet.
- Leo
Been doing it for a while (Score:4, Interesting)
Wifive can connect to other wifive users or netmeeting, and if you have an IP-PSTN service, you can place calls to regular phones as well.
Cool though that someone made an actual phone to make the process easier