May 2007

One reminder and two notes of interest:

###Contest!

Don't forget about the Skypegear Haiku Contest -- last day for entries is June 12. Write us a haiku about Skype and the gear you use to Skype for the chance to win a Sony VAIO Mouse Talk VN-CX1. Full info here. We've gotten some pretty good entries so far. Keep them coming!

###Netgear!

On the heels of the Netgear news yesterday, American users of Netgear's SPH101 WiFi phone should have a look at the latest firmware update, posted yesterday. It adds the ability to log onto T-Mobile hotspots across the US. Do note that it won't work at T-Mobile hotspots outside the US, and you need to have already established a paid account with T-Mobile before trying it out--you can't sign up from the handset.

###Video!

And finally, remember the Skype coverage on The Lab with Leo we posted recently? Well, last week Skype was featured on another newscast, this time New York City's Fox 5. It's a nice little segment, though be warned it has a bit of that sensationalism that American local news is known for. Like the previous segment, it's especially good for showing to people who like saving money but aren't familiar with Skype yet. The video is online here.

There's always plenty of speculation about new Skype phones on the way, and Jeremy Toeman over on his Live Digitally blog has some nice juicy picture this week of a possible new wifi Skype phone from Netgear, introduced to him by none other than Netgear's CEO, Patrick Lo.

Netgear have a heritage to be proud of with their Skype phones, not least the SPH101 wifi Skype phone and the SPH200D phone, which combines a regular landline with a cordless DECT Skype phone, giving you the best of both worlds. Details are not forthcoming, it's still in beta and hasn't been Skype certified as yet, but this should be a great complement to the Netgear stable of phones. For more details, including an extract of the interview with Patrick Lo, check out the post here.

Continue reading "Netgear tease us with new beta Skype wifi phone..." »

OK so we ran a kind of funny story about two guys (Cindy and Jason) who had Skyped up their car a week or so ago, and made some calls whilst on the move using Skype on a laptop with a webcam back to their mate Jeremy. Pretty cool, I thought, those guys have gone the extra Skype mile.

Step in Bristol-based In-Car PC Ltd., whose website I stumbled upon today, who will, for a fee, completely Skype up your car from top to bottom. As you can see from the shot above, there's no mucking about here: once these boys get to work, your motor will have more TFTs in it than a fully stocked branch of Circuit City.

Continue reading "Skype in your car: part 2 - the fully internet-enabled car!" »

You gotta love Strobist. I stumbled upon this website, and it's the perfect example of what the blogging is all about: taking a very small aspect of the human experience, and refining it through sustained and intelligent commentary.

In this case, the corner of human experience Strobist has taken is camera lighting. Or, more specifically:

At Strobist, our goal is to promote more effective use of small, shoe-mount flashes.

Whilst the connection with Skype is not obvious, as anyone who consistently makes Skype cam to cam calls will testify decent lighting is absolutely key to making this a useful method of communication. So today David at Strobist focused his laser-like attention on how to light a decent camera call properly.

As you can see from the comparison above, with a couple of simple tweaks you can turn yourself from looking like some kind of scary cyber pest into the model of dashing web loveliness simply by ensuring an adequate light supply and making sure you appropriately set the lighting controls on your camera.

I really encourage you yo read the entire post, which is essential reading not only for the perenially vain but for anyone who wants to have a half-decent conversation over their cam with friends or family.

Continue reading "A beginner's guide to improving cam to cam calls on Skype..." »

So we have this tagline on Skypegear, on our front page—

Tell Skypegear how your Skype phone helps you at work, at home or on the move for your chance to win a brand new Skype phone every month...

Well, we haven’t been getting any entries because we haven’t been talking about any contests. At all. So we’d like to gradually change that, and to start we’re going to have a little competition. The prize is the Sony VAIO Mouse Talk VN-CX1 we reviewed a few weeks ago.

Over the next three weeks we want to hear about what Skype gear is doing for you. Is it making you more efficient or saving you time and money? Tell us. But here’s the catch. It has to be in the form of a haiku.

Continue reading "Skypegear Contest: Win a Sony VAIO Mouse Talk VN-CX1" »

I had a chat with Ian Robins from VoSKY Technologies this week, and he explained a little bit more about what businesses can get out of using his company's Vosky Exchange PBX-to-Skype gateways.

My immediate thoughts were naturally centred around the cost-savings that rolling out Skype in a controlled way to all of your employees can bring. However, as Ian explains, the benefits run far further than this including opening up a whole new audience of millions of customers, as well as enabling a totally new way of interacting with those customers. Full text of the interview after the break...

Continue reading "Skypegear Interview: Ian Robins explains why your business needs a Skype-to-PBX Gateway" »

The Futiro Luna, along with its two siblings the Terra and the Solo, must be the best looking Skype phones going at the moment. And the good design goes beyond the styling; the full telephone keypad has a pleasant key response, the hands-free feature works excellently, and the call quality is second to none.

So it is really good news (especially for the 12.33% of Skypegear readers who read it on a Mac!) that the Luna has now passed certification for use with a Mac. There's not been too many products Mac certified for Skype yet, and hopefully Futiro's other two phones, the Terra and Solo will soon join it. All we need now is a version in white to sit nicely next to the smooth lines of that G5!

The Luna is a corded USB handset, meaning that you just install the driver for the phone, click to allow it to use Skype, and then plug the handset straight into the USB. To make a Skype call, all you need to do is pick up the phone and press the green button. The little up and down buttons allow you to scroll through all of your contacts.

Skypegear reviewed all three phones back in April - see here for the reviews. The Luna retails at £47.95 / E70 from the Skype Store, or is available direct from Futiro for shipping to other parts of the world.

Continue reading "Sexy Futiro Skype phone certified for Mac use" »

It's been quite a week for Skype gadget competitions, and they're still coming! Gadgetcandy ("Because girls love gadgets too") have got their hands on no less than five shiny Philips cordless Skype phones to give away to their readers.

For those not familiar with Philips' VoIP841, it really is a neat device which doesn't need a PC to run, doubles up as a normal landline phone, and just plugs straight into your router or broadband modem. Skypegear reviewed it a little while ago, and we were impressed with its stylish looks, ease of use and sound quality.

Continue reading "Win one of five Philips VoIP841 phones over at Gadgetcandy.com" »

Big news for US Skypers today--Skype and Wal-Mart have announced a partnership that makes Skype-certified products available at 1,800 Wal-Mart stores across the US starting today. What sorts of gear will Wal-Mart be carrying? There's a pretty wide range:

Continue reading "Skype, Wal-Mart; Wal-mart, Skype." »

I've been a fan of Leo Laporte's for quite a while now--I'm a regular listener to This Week in Tech, the weekly podcast he hosts. So I thought it was pretty cool that Leo talked about Skype on the first episode of his new TV show, The Lab with Leo, and is using Skype on the set to engage with viewers. Check out a clip from the show after the jump.

Continue reading "Skype Tips on The Lab with Leo Laporte" »

In case you missed it, there’s been some interesting news out of Skypeland this week: the introduction of Caller ID for SkypeIn numbers (for some countries) and the release of the final version of Skype 3.2 for Windows. What does this mean for gadget lovers? Read on.

Continue reading "Caller ID & Skype 3.2" »

So I use the DUALPhone 3088 as my regular home phone, and I picked up the handset today and there was a screen telling me new software was available. We've already had a couple of updates from RTX, the Danish makers of the DUALPhone 3088, so I was happy to see that they keep on working to improve their product.

According to this release note, the main improvements in v115 are:

• Some fixes to the phone's ability to reconnect when the signal from the router or basestation is lost
• Improved caller ID performance and phonebook lookup
• Improved audio performance

Continue reading "Another DUALPhone 3088 Firmware update now available: v115" »

OK so another little competition to let you know about, this time over on Skype Journal. Phil Wolff and the team over there have an interesting "what if" discussion going on, centred around the idea of "In-car Skypeing". The idea comes from Jeremy Carbaugh's Flickr photos, showing him on a video call with his pals as they drive along in their car.

Now, whilst the benefits of Skype video calling whilst in the car might not run beyond being able to check whether or not your partner is picking his or her nose at the traffic lights, the idea of a Skype-equipped car really is pretty cool, and not so crazy as wifi becomes more and more ubiquitous and flat-rate mobile data tariffs begin to become the norm.

Continue reading "SkypeDriving Contest over at Skype Journal: Win an SMC Wifi phone and FON Router" »

I've been trying to get my parents on the Skype bandwagon for quite a while now, and while they're willing to give it a try when I'm around to show them what to do, they're reluctant to attempt it when I'm not around (when they should be using it to call me!). Two phone from USRobotics, the USB Internet Phone and Internet Mini Phone, may just change that. The pair have been out for a while and I recently had the chance to check them out. Read on for my review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: A Pair from USRobotics" »

So you set up your company a few years back, invested in a whole PBX infrastructure, state-of-the-art phones, switchboards, basically the whole nine yards. And then, just as you starting depreciating all that expensive kit, along came internet telephony with its cheap calls, low overheads, integration with chat, and general Web 2.0 loveliness. What to do?

Well, VoSky are a company who have already built a reputation allowing home users to use existing kit to make Skype calls. So it is a natural extension for them to use this expertise to put together a Skype PBX gateway which offers exactly the same benefits (plus a whole lot more) to larger companies. Fast forward to yesterday's announcement of a Skype-Vosky co-branded piece of kit available in the UK & Ireland initially which does just this, providing a one-stop Skype shop for any company looking to use Skype.

Continue reading "A VoSky Skype PBX Gateway: the easy way to Skype up your entire company" »

Nothing gets me going like a good firmware update. (Well, when it comes to gadgets anyway…) It’s great when you know developers are still working to improve devices you’ve bought by fixing bugs and adding new features.

With that in mind I’m happy to note that SMC has just posted a new firmware, version 1.0.0.19P1, for its WSKP100 WiFi phone. We reviewed the WSKP100 a while back—it’s especially cool because it works with FON hotspots. Read on to find out what’s fixed and where to get it.

Continue reading "New Firmware for SMC WSKP100 WiFi Phone" »

The first round of WiFi phones built for Skype has been out for a few months now. While they all have the same liberating functionality, each different phone tends to have some distinguishing feature that sets it apart. For example, the SMC WSKP100 WiFi phone can connect with FON hotspots, and the Linksys iPhone WIP320 has a great screen and automatically updates its firmware. I recently had the chance to put the Belkin WiFi Phone for Skype through its paces. What can it do that the other Skype WiFi phones can’t? Read on for my review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: Belkin WiFi Phone for Skype" »

Now, the title of Laptop Magazine is slightly misleading, in that it actually covers a whole range of mobile devices - "mobile solutions for business & life", as their tagline puts it. Bearing this in mind, the thinking behind their latest offer is more obvious: they are offering 10 SMC Wifi phone and Fon Router combo packs to their Canadian and US-based readers and online users. But hurry, as the promotion ends on the 15th May.

Rumour has it there may be a firmware upgrade coming out for SMC's Skype wifi phone soon, so this offer from Laptop Magazine is very well timed! To win one of these bundles, currently selling for $159.99 in the US Skype Store, you just have to answer a simple question:

Where is the craziest place you would set up a WiFi connection and make a Skype or VoIP call?

Continue reading "Be quick to win one of Laptop magazine's Skype bundles..." »

Skypegear recently looked at a pair of corded USB phones from USRobotics. Now I've had the chance to try out USR's cordless offering, the USRobotics Cordless Skype Dual Phone. After a week of playing around with it I can tell you it's a solid, no-frills way to combine Skype and landline calling in a single phone. Read on for my review.

Continue reading "Skypegear Roadtest: USRobotics Cordless Skype Dual Phone" »