The new RTX Telecom [tag]DUALphone[/tag] 3088 is the first cordless telephone for Skype that does not require direct PC connection and lets you choose between normal telephone line and your [tag]Skype[/tag] line.

The $200 (159 euro) DUALphone contains built-in Skype software.

The cordless capability is provided by [tag]DECT[/tag] wireless technology, and the base station connects to the broadband router and the phone line. It features a color display and 10 hours of talk time as well as up to 140 hours in standby mode.

It is one of the best choices I have seen in a long time. Usually, they lack of something, but in this case, everything seems to be perfect.

I have the previous version of DUALphone, the 3055, which also supports both lines at the sime time (your Skype and the normal telephone line), but needs connection to your PC.

If you still want to get the old version, buy it now!

[Source: Yahoo News]

A US energy company, Eneco, has created a thermal chip that transforms heat into electricity. According to the company, the chip could be used as micro-fuel, but its capabilities will not be available until 2010.

In his website, as well as in QJ’s article, Eneco unveils the characteristics of the thermal chip:

• Energy density efficiencies far in excess of all other available technologies.
• Reduced weight and size to fit with the new portable power needs of consumer electronics.
• Semiconductor technology that allows for efficient manufacturing, high reliability, long life, and low maintenance.
• Ability to convert waste heat economically and directly into electric power without moving parts to wear or make noise.
• Readily scaleable from very small to very large applications without losing efficiency or cost effectiveness.

Well, it looks kinda futuristic, doesn’t it? I can’t imagine people sticking that thermal chip into their heads, to later use that heat into their cellphone battery. Who knows? 50 years ago, no one would have imagined that I would be, right now, writing about a minichip.

Sadly, the Eneco website looks sort of horrible. There is very little information and the website is not that of a company that just created the most revolutionary energy chip on Earth.

Do you believe it? Do you feel it?

[Sources: QJ, Eneco]

Robots are no longer sci-fi. Movies like Star Wars, I Robot, and Matrix show us a perspective from future in which humans and robots live together (though sometimes with not very happy endings). Nowadays, robots are a reality. Robots exist, and we are just a step away from talking with them, playing football with them… but also getting replace by them in society.

In a recent Popular Science article, there are the latest robots in industry and several interviews. The funny thing about these articles is not only that I love them, but also that every time I read them, my mind starts to imagine how the world will be in… let’s say… 50 years.

Will Isaac Asimov’s novels come true and we will leave in a society of spaceships, galactic empires, robots and artificial planets? Or maybe we will become primitives, and we will end up living in the trees, like koalas?

I believe in fate. Yes. Me. I am a person of science, of evidence, and definitely a person that doesn’t get fooled by “divine inspiritation”. However, as I said before, I truly believe that there are some things we can’t change. We have free will, yes, but some events escape our own decisitions.

And there, my dear readers, science doesn’t play a very important role.

[Source: PopSci]