In today’s mobile society, it seems people are hardly ever around to answer landline phone calls. But software developed at the University of California, San Diego, lets you take those calls on any Internet-connected device. A system devised by Andrew Kahng and Puneet Sharma enables a PC to digitize a phone call coming in on a landline and forward it via the Internet to a Wi-Fi-enabled cell phone, a PDA, or even another computer, so long as it’s also running the software. Outgoing calls made from the remote device can also be routed back through the landline, allowing a user to, for instance, avoid long-distance charges. Kahng and Sharma plan to commercialize the technology early next year.
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