Cool Tech Reviews

The International Consumer Electronics Show starts Thursday, but to get ahead of the cloud of press releases some vendors have “launched” early and Skype is no exception. Their big news isn’t with Skype’s base VoIP service, but with the hardware partners they have signed up - Alliances with Creative, D-Link, IPEVO, Kodak, Netgear, Panasonic, and VTech Illustrate Skype Market Leadership.

The emphasis seems to be mostly on integrating Skype with normal phone equipment:

VTech USB7100 Phone – availability of the previously announced VTech USB phone, expandable with up to four handsets and allows users to view their online contacts. It’s dual line for both Skype and regular telephone service and has cordless handsets.

D-Link Skype USB Phone Adapter (DPH-50U) – a Skype phone adapter that enables the use of Skype on a traditional phone.

The D-Link Skype USB phone adapter (DPH-50U) lets users accept both regular telephone and Skype calls from the same phone for added flexibility. When consumers are talking on a traditional telephone line and receive an incoming Skype call, they can easily switch lines to take the Skype call or vice versa, just like a typical call-waiting feature.

Conference calls can also be connected between ordinary telephone lines and Skype. For added convenience, the D-Link Skype USB phone adapter includes a lighted display to indicate whether an incoming call is from a traditional telephone or from a Skype user.

Panasonic – a cordless telephone product that interfaces directly with Skype, allowing users to make and receive Skype calls and traditional calls using the same device

As its initial offering, Panasonic plans to launch a Skype compatible cordless telephone product that will enable select Panasonic cordless telephones to interface directly with Skype. With the new product, consumers will be able to make and receive Skype and traditional calls using the same Panasonic cordless phone.

There are also the more usual Skype phones:

Creative Skype Internet PhonePLUS – a standalone phone that enables anyone to make free Skype calls over the Internet without a PC connection. (That’s all the details so far.)

IPEVO Fly-1 Cordless Handset and Xing Speakerphone – PC and Mac compatible IPEVO Fly-1 cordless Skype USB handset and an IPEVO Xing Skype USB speakerphone.

FLY.1 is a USB cordless handset with a speakerphone that works exclusively with Skype. It is designed to integrate the Skype experience with the operational familiarity of a telephone. The cordless handset offers portability and enables communication using Skype away from the user’s PC or Macintosh through a wireless USB dock.
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The Xing USB speakerphone is the first device from IPEVO designed for business teleconferencing using Skype. The cross-shaped device is designed to sit atop a desk or boardroom table allowing for multi-user participation through four separate speakers. The device is not restricted by a phone jack, allowing for increased mobility and user convenience.

And some items that are hard to categorize:

NETGEAR – a new communications device to be unveiled at CES on Wednesday, January 4th and no details have been revealed.

KODAK Photo Voice – a beta version of the first Skype certified online photo sharing service.

Eastman Kodak Company and Skype™, the global Internet communications company, announce the availability of the latest innovation in digital storytelling ― KODAK Photo Voice ― that combines live voice and online photo sharing. The beta version of KODAK Photo Voice, the first Skype certified online photo sharing experience, is now available as a free download at www.kodakgallery.com/photovoice.

“Today’s families and social networks are scattered around the globe. Staying connected through photo sharing remains an important element in maintaining closer personal relationships,” said Sandra Morris, general manager of Consumer Imaging Services at Kodak. “Traditional social gatherings that once took place around the radio, television or telephone are now happening around the computer, mobile phone or camera. KODAK Photo Voice marks the next step in this evolution.”

KODAK Photo Voice is a brand new way to relive memories, empowering two people to simultaneously view a customized slideshow, and to reminisce and react to each picture. Imagine if Grandma could see pictures from her grandson’s first day at school while he narrates every moment of the experience over Skype. Perhaps an old roommate could share detailed photos and recount stories of his new life in London, as his friend back home in California reacts to each picture.

Sorry, but this last one seems like a solution in search of a problem, but it is free.

Update 1/04: They had some trouble with the demo, but Netgear announced a Skype WiFi phone:

The NETGEAR WiFi phone will make mobile Internet telephony a reality for Skype users. Unlike other devices that must connect with a PC, NETGEAR’s Skype WiFi phone will work wherever a consumer is connected to a wireless Internet access point — be that in a home, office, cafe, open public hotspot, or any open municipal wireless access point being deployed worldwide.
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The NETGEAR phone is pre-loaded with Skype’s software, ready out-of-the-box to use with a wireless network. All a user needs to do after turning on the phone is enter a Skype username and password. The Skype software pulls up the user’s full contact list, displays the connection status on the phone screen, and allows the consumer to connect to any other Skype user for free. The phone will also allow users to connect to non-Skype users with the SkypeOut™ feature. More information on NETGEAR’s Skype WiFi phone, including pricing and availability, is planned for the first quarter of 2006.
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In addition to the Skype Wifi phone, NETGEAR and Skype also announced that the NETGEAR RangeMax Wireless Router (WPN824) with Smart MIMO technology, a 2006 CES Innovations Design and Engineering Award honoree and the industry’s #1 selling MIMO-G product, will be equipped to optimize Skype.

The phone seems similar to the Accton Skype phone and the UTStarcom Vonage phone I’ve mentioned previously.

Stephen Lawson at InfoWorld:

Vonage Holdings Corp.’s VoIP customers will be able to get calls in areas covered by Wi-Fi hotspots after the release Tuesday (Dec. 13 - ed.) of a combination VOIP/Wi-Fi phone. (The Wi-Fi version is 802.11b - ed.)

Subsidiary Vonage Marketing and partner UTStarcom Inc. released the F1000 portable phone handset, which is configured with Vonage’s VOIP service. The F1000, available on Vonage.com, will sell for $79.99 after a $50 instant rebate, Vonage said.

The new phone will allow Vonage customers to detach from broadband wirelines and wander in Wi-Fi hotspots, said Louis Holder, executive vice president of product development for Vonage Holdings Corp.
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Vonage expects that the phones will get the most use with home or work Wi-Fi networks, as well as open Wi-Fi hotspots in places such as college campuses, Holder said. If customers wish, they can assign their home telephone number to the Wi-Fi phone and have the number follow them wherever they take the phone.

Full F1000 info is on the Vonage web site including:

You’ll get a Phone Book with up to 200 entries, Speed Dial codes, an easy-to-access Call Log, as well as multiple Ring Tones to choose from. You can also set Anonymous Call Block to reject any callers without Caller ID, or blacklist specific phone numbers to prevent unwanted calls. You’ll get the same great Vonage pricing with exciting new features.

And note that the $50 rebate requires you to keep the Vonage service for at least 90 days. More annoying, even if you are already a current Vonage subscriber, you have to buy a new subscription with the phone.

Ed Oswald has more at BetaNews including this important caveat if you are planning on roaming away from your home or office:

Initially, the phone will only operate with public networks, meaning hotspots like those in Starbucks or some airports would not be compatible. However, Vonage said that it plans to resolve these issues as soon as possible.

It’s a little more complex than that, but 3rd party hotspots can be problematic. Vonage has exact details here, but they may be less than transparent to the less technically inclined.

Stephen Lawson has the story at InfoWorld:

The Wi-Fi Alliance on Tuesday is set to attack one of the main problems with wireless LAN phones by certifying features to extend battery life.

The industry group that certifies interoperability of Wi-Fi products is adding a label it calls WMM (Wireless Multimedia) Power Save, which identifies products that have reduced the power needed to use multimedia applications over wireless LANs, said Frank Hanzlik, managing director of the alliance.

Using a wireless LAN for VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol), streaming video, and other multimedia applications increases the power consumption of Wi-Fi, which already tends to drain battery power because of ongoing searches for nearby access points, said IDC analyst Abner Germanow. The size and weight requirements of Wi-Fi phones as well as dual-mode cellular and WLAN handsets, plus the need to carry them around all day, make power consumption even more critical.
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Equipment certified for WMM Power Save should extend battery life under multimedia use by between 15 percent and 40 percent, Hanzlik said. On Tuesday, the Wi-Fi Alliance will introduce the certification and also announce the first handful of products that have received the seal, he said. A variety of chip sets, product reference designs, and devices from vendors including Atheros Communications, Broadcom, and Cisco Systems have been certified in the first round, according to the group. There won’t be a WMM Power Save logo on the boxes of certified products, Hanzlik said. Instead, information about each product’s certifications will be available on the Wi-Fi Alliance’s Web page.

More details by following the link and in the Wi-Fi Alliance press release. Frankly, there aren’t any phones on the list yet. More technical details are available at the Wi-Fi Alliance’s WMM web site.